Previously on Charmed: Whatever.
Darryl, who's been corporealized during the commercial break, skids face-first across the sandy floor of Stumpy the Dolt's bamboo octagon. The Valkyrie who shoved him flings a shield and a broadsword into the cage, then sprinkles some sparkly lavender mojo on the door. Over in the lowest row of the peanut gallery, Raige and Tin Tin spout words of encouragement while Piper eyes them with something approximating suspicion. Or maybe it's boredom. Who can tell at this point? Stumpy the Dolt enters the ring, and despite his stupid Greek helmet, you can tell he's as shocked and appalled by Phoebe's hair as the rest of us are. Or maybe he's just surprised to see the old folks from home on the Isle Of Dykes. It could go either way. "Okay," Raige too-loudly whispers to the Feebs, "I know how we're going to save [Stumpy], but how are we gonna save Morris?" "I have no idea," Tin Tin confesses. "That's why they call it 'winging it.'" Piper leans forward to ask, "What are you two talking about?" Phoebe brightly lies, "Nothing!" which elicits a sullen glare from Bride Of Strap-On. Meanwhile, Stumpy and Darryl have been warily circling each other. "What are you waiting for?" screams Bride Of Vaughn. "Attack!" Darryl obediently slams his broadsword against the Dolt's head with enough force to dislodge the stupid Greek helmet and send Stumpy spinning into the bars. Piper catches sight of his face and bleats, "[Dolt]?" Phoebe's Fucking Backup Band kicks in, alerting her to the fact that Piper's "pain" "is back again." "Do something!" she hisses at Raige. Raige thinks fast and catches Darryl's eye. "Kill him!" she perks. Yes! Kill the Dolt! Kill the Dolt! Whee!
Doesn't happen. Stumpy and Darryl kick and hack at each other for a bit before angrily tussling to the ground and rolling around in the sand. The Dolt manages to straddle poor Darryl -- yes, it's every bit as disgusting as it sounds -- and hisses, "Take the fall!" Darryl's all, "The hell?" so the Dolt head-butts him. Darryl decides he's over this whole bullshit scenario and drops his baby 'fro into the dirt. Stumpy leaps to his feet and makes with the triumphant and manly fist-pumping. Get over yourself, you simpering little pantywaist. The Brides Of Vaughn, Strap-On, and Riley are visibly displeased, so Raige launches into a hastily improvised apology for wasting their time "with such a weak warrior," and wonders if Vaughn would like her to "get rid of him" by banishing his spirit to the afterlife. Vaughn whatevers and rises to take her leave with Strap-On and Riley. As the other Valkyries in attendance file out of the chamber, Piper hustles over to the bamboo cage, gets all up in Stumpy's grill, and howls, "You left me, didn't you?" The Dolt responds by allowing a vapid, slack-jawed expression to cover his mug. At Tin Tin's prompting, Raige flings a vial of something or other at the cage's door, which emits a brief burst of smoke before swinging open. Stumpy collects Darryl from the sand and races out of the cave. Piper follows him with her eyes, her fury growing with each passing second.
“ Big Gay Chris has a teeny little scar on the bottom of his chin. Then again, I already knew that, because I married him in Toronto last June, and husbands tend to know about each other's teeny little scars long before the wedding. Sigh. ”
Isle Of Dykes. Strap-On motors on up to Vaughn, Riley, and Piper with some alarming Stooge news. The warriors have "turned off their locators" -- something they've been instructed to do only during "the final battle between good and evil" -- and have slaughtered "civilians" in San Francisco. Piper immediately offers her city-smarts to help track down the Stooges, and we head into the break with Strap-On shooting Our Dear Piper a scorching, distrustful side-eye. Strap-On. Darling. What's your damn problem? Lighten up already!
Manor. The Dolt applies the tingly touch to Darryl's scratched-up face, which presently heals. Darryl informs the others of The Three Stooges' presence in the city. The gang decides to split up, both to search for The Stooges and to figure out another way to get Piper off Dyke Island. To these ends, Darryl heads back to Trudeau Memorial, Phoebe exits for the paper, and the Dolt orbs out with Chris, bound for parts unknown. Oh, yeah -- almost forgot: Raige bolts to return Oscar The Raige-Humping Bulldog to his rightful owners. So nice to see she has her priorities in order.
Isle Of Dykes. Oh, God, this scene is dumb. And pointless. So dumb and pointless, in fact, that I completely forgot about it the second it ended, and am thus now surprised to find it unreeling once more upon my television screen. Long story short, the Dolt drags Big Gay Chris into the cave, learns from some random (albeit attractive) warrior-type that Piper and the Brides already left for San Francisco, and shoves Chris into the bamboo pen for a swordfight. You can see why I retained no memory of it. By the way, Krause pronounces "Freyja" as "Frayzhuh," which makes him sound like my dad talking about Kelsey Grammer. There's a single moment of significance during this entire sequence: The Dolt pins Big Gay Chris to the sand and presses the tip of the broadsword against his neck. Big Gay Chris splutters, "You can't kill me! I'm a Whitelighter!" to which the Dolt retorts, "Oh, yeah? Then why are you sweating?" Because he's your son, asshole. Get off him already. Jesus. Also, Big Gay Chris has a teeny little scar on the bottom of his chin. Then again, I already knew that, because I married him in Toronto last June, and husbands tend to know about each other's teeny little scars long before the wedding. Sigh.
San Francisco City Proper, Truck-Jacking Gone Horribly Awry Division. Cops snap evidence photos and string crime scene tape as Piper and the Brides emerge from a crappy green digital overlay set discreetly off to one side. Piper offers to scry for The Stooges, so Bride Of Vaughn summons a bloody dagger from one truck-jacking corpse's chest. Just then, some bald biker jackass with a handlebar mustache and filthy clothes ambles out of a nearby watering hole to deploy the Warrior Princess cracks I started making an hour and a half ago -- to wit: "What, is there a Xena convention in town or something?" Shut it, moron. Vaughn orders him to his knees. "I got a better idea," he leers. "How about you get on your knees instead?" Yes, gentle reader, training a runty little bulldog to hump Rose McGowan's leg wasn't enough for Brad Kern; nor were the numerous scenes of scantily-clad Amazons stroking each other while sweaty men wrestled in a nearby ring of bamboo. He went that extra mile for us and inserted an explicit blowjob reference into this episode. And that's why we love him so much. Right?
Scumbag.
“ Yes, they did it on the floor. WITH FIFTY PEOPLE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR. Whatever! Fast-forward. Fast-forward. Fast-forward. ”
Meanwhile, The Three Stooges gut an entire chop shop of auto mechanics. The Dykes On Bikes tool in, dismount, and order The Stooges back to Valhalla. "What do you think?" Curly asks. "I think the enemy wears many masks," gravelly-voiced Moe replies. The Stooges raise their swords and charge straight into the commercial break.
And we're back. Raige and her leg-humping bulldog wander down the sidewalk. Raige has her temp agency boss on the phone, and she'syou know what? Fuck it. This is an absolutely pointless and insulting subplot, made all the worse by the crappy special effects that pop up when the leg-humping bulldog starts talking to her. (Seriously, it's like Baby Bob here, people.) Long story short, once Raige accepts that she received her dog-walking assignment to serve somehow the greater good, Oscar The Raige-Humping Bulldog reveals he's actually a human who's been cursed by an evil witch. Raige wings the following spell:
I call upon the Halliwells,
I call our powers to undo this spell:
Make right again, that we must --
Reverse the curse that made this mutt.
And Oscar morphs into Joe Millionaire. That's it. Well, that and this horribly embarrassing admission: I think Evan Marriott's kind of hot. Shut up.
EW. Back at The Mirror, Chronic and the Feebs emerge from behind his desk. They're sweaty, rumpled, and half-naked. Yes, they did it on the floor. WITH FIFTY PEOPLE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR. Whatever! Fast-forward. Fast-forward. Fast-forward. Oh, hello, Raige. You're here to drag Phoebe off to find Piper? How lovely! Yes, let's go!
Chop Shop. Piper and the Brides engage The Three Stooges in hand-to-hand combat. This fight goes on for a good four minutes, and half of that time is devoted to excruciatingly dull slow-motion shots. Really, guys, if you don't have enough material for a double episode, don't make a double episode. Squeeze it into one hour, for God's sake. Anyway. Eventually, Raige orbs in with Phoebe. The two note Piper's improved fighting skills with delight, until Piper decides to use those skills on them. Phoebe shouts for Raige to recite the reversal spell, which reads as follows:
Spell was cast,
Now make it pass:
Remove it now,
Don't ask me how.
“ 'If I can channel Piper's feelings, why can't I channel her powers, and then use them against her?' Everyone thinks this is a good idea, instead of realizing that Phoebe's a sociopathic attention whore and needs to be packed off to an asylum. ”
You were up all night hashing out this situation, and that's the best you could do? Raige, honey. You're not even trying anymore. Piper agrees, and smacks Raige against a chain-link storage area with a bit of Valkyriean telekinesis, so offensive is the tawdry verse. Phoebe, panicked, babbles some new-age crap about owning your emotions, so Piper spins around and plants a hefty boot in the Fun Bags. Hooray! Phoebe joins Raige on the concrete just as Darryl squeals up in a squad car. He shouts, "Police! Drop your weapons!" and trains his service revolver on the Brides plus Curly and Moe. Crafty Larry, lurking on the other side of the room, flings a dagger end-over-end at Darryl's baby 'fro. Piper instinctively tosses out a freeze. Darryl s-l-o-w-l-y turns around and goes cross-eyed staring at the frozen dagger's tip hovering inches away from the bridge of his nose. Heh. This halt in the action allows Vaughn enough time to open a crappy green overlay in the middle of the garage. The instantly sheepish Stooges meekly pass through it, followed by the Brides. The last, Strap-On, urges Piper to hurry. See how she trusts Piper now? Aw. Not. After a pensive beat, Piper jogs through the portal and into the final commercial break.
Manor sun porch. Phoebe and Raige confer with the Dolt and Big Gay Chris, who have just returned from an audience with the ever-useless Elders. Just how useless are those Elders this evening? They believe that a demon banished the Dolt to Valhalla, and they're fairly certain there might maybe be a fifty-fifty chance Phoebe's new power could possibly be of use in saving Piper, but only if it's used correctly, which they don't know how to do. Tools. Fortunately, my pretty pretty husband is there to set things right. "Isn't there a spell in the Book that allows somebody to feel what you feel?" he asks. "Which in this case," he adds, turning to Phoebe, "would be Piper feeling what you're feeling Piper should be feeling." Pause. "Did that make any sense?" "Frighteningly, it did," Raige admits, then wonders, "What about that spell I used last year on Cole? I could reword it for Piper." Chris reminds them that it won't be easy to get close enough for the spell to work. Phoebe glumly agrees, then stumbles upon a brilliant plan. "Our powers are emotion-based," she reasons. "If I can channel Piper's feelings, why can't I channel her powers, and then use them against her?" Everyone thinks this is a good idea, instead of realizing that Phoebe's a sociopathic attention whore and needs to be packed off to an asylum.
Isle Of Dykes. Raige orbs into some azaleas with the Feebs, and the two emerge onto the path directly behind Piper. Piper immediately slams Raige to the ground with some VTK. "Why does she always pick on me first?" Raige pouts, and quite honestly, that's a damn good question. Piper and Phoebe are always kicking Raige's ass on this show. Just one more reason for you to quit, Rose. As if the stupid leprechauns, the assy nymrods, the fucking unicorn, and that goddamned leg-humping bulldog weren't enough. Oh, and then there's Phoebe's brand-new Fucking Backup Band. That would get me to break a contract, crippling financial penalties be damned. The Backup Band is getting quite a workout in this scene, what with all the channeling of emotions that's required for Phoebe to swipe Piper's VTK so she can knock Piper to the ground over and over and over again. Once Piper finally seems down for the count, Raige whips out a slip of paper and recites the following:
“ After a bit of the 'He's getting so big!' nonsense from the Dolt, they place Tiny Chris in his playpen, and proceed to scar him for life by ending their marriage right in front of him. No, seriously. ”
Open Piper's heart to reveal
That part which only Phoebe feels.
Send it back from whence it came,
But don't protect her from the pain.
A spray of twinkly red lights erupts from the Fun Bags, barrels down the island path, and nails Piper in the chest. She grunts from the impact, then rises to stand stock-still in something approximating shock as various Valkyries arrive to witness the end of the scene. "Did they hurt you?" asks Bride Of Vaughn. "No," Piper admits. "They helped me." She takes a few hesitant, measured steps towards the Brides and her sisters, then quickens her pace after she makes a silent decision. "I know what you do here -- I understand its purpose -- so you can trust that your secret is safe," she assures Vaughn before shifting her focus to Phoebe and Raige. "But I think it's time for me to go home." Smiles all around. Shut up, Phoebe.
The Bay Mirror, that evening. Phoebe phones Chronic from the exterior hallway. Relationship chatter. Whatever. These people need to die. Chronic's going back to Hong Kong for a bit, and would very much like to stick it into Phoebe one more time before he leaves. Phoebe begs off, because her new powers are making her crazy. Of course, she doesn't actually say this to him, but that's the gist of it. Scene.
Manor. Big Gay Chris is on his knees in the parlor, sweeping up the sad, shattered remains of his mother's Mysterious Curio Cabinet Of Tacky Marital Memorabilia. Raige enters in a backless, strapless, short, tight purple dress. Nice color on her, actually, but those red pumps have got to go. She offers to help Chris tidy up in the morning, but he insists he do it himself as penance for fighting with the Dolt. Phoebe enters, and true to form, she's all, "My boss, my new power, my job, my life, my horny men, my boobs, me, me, me, me, me. ME!" Raige tolerates this for about three seconds, then bails to hook up with Joe Millionaire. Of course, she doesn't explain that Oscar's now human, so Phoebe and Big Gay Chris think Raige is fucking a dog.
Bridal Boudoir. Piper dandles Tiny Gay Chris on her knee. The Dolt raps on the door, wondering if he's allowed to enter. Piper lets him in and passes Tiny Chris to his worthless deadbeat of a father. After a bit of the "He's getting so big!" nonsense from the Dolt, they place Tiny Chris in his playpen, and proceed to scar him for life by ending their marriage right in front of him. No, seriously. Piper basically tells the Dolt to shove off, mainly because she's sick and tired of him running off to do his job all the time, but also because she's realized -- finally -- that she can't be married to "an angel" and still have that normal life she's been bitching about since day one. The Dolt agrees it's for the best, pats Tiny Gay Chris on his head, and orbs up to Whitelighterland. The camera lingers on Piper's uncertain face, then tracks back through the room and out the mullioned window, craning upwards a bit to isolate Piper in the single pane of clear glass before fading to black.
Well. That blew.
week, Tiny Gay Chris unleashes a fire-breathing dragon upon the people of San Francisco. As if Michael Savage weren't bad enough. See you there!