Congratulations to Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. Just because. And now, back to the WB's regularly scheduled wretchedness:
Fade up on the interior of a purportedly tony nursery school, where a passel of rugrats in a variety of colors and shapes wastes precious oxygen. The camera pans past as two of the rats entertain each other on a sit-and-spin, two more make like they're playing basketball, and yet another finger-paints. The camera finally lands on the loneliest little Psycho, plopped down by himself in a corner, flipping around a set of dangerous-looking plastic dishes while staring dully at the other children in the room. The shot cuts over to Piper, who gazes anxiously at her older son while Kathie Lee Gifford's younger and less pleasant sister burbles, "All I'm saying is, you're way behind with [the littlest Psycho] -- you really should have applied before this." Piper, incidentally, sports a loose-fitting denim jacket accented with a long, Dr. Who-ish knit scarf that trails down the front of her body to end well below her waist to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, two hundred and nineteen weeks pregnant. Doing her best to appear congenial and of course failing miserably, Piper mutters something about the Psycho being barely a year old. "So?" Scaggie Lee snorts. "I had my little Jake signed up for Mommy And Me when I was still pregnant with him!" "You can do that?" Piper eyebrows, like, I know you've been terribly busy with the incessant bitching these past few years, doll, but you might have picked up a fricking newspaper every now and then. Overindulged, over-entitled white women have been pre-registering their goddamned test-tube embryos at elite nursery schools for more than a decade, and every Style section in the country prints a feature on the "trend" at least once a year. Get on the stick, hon.
In any event, Scaggie confirms that you can, indeed, do that and adds, "I'm surprised they let you sign up this late, because everybody wants to get in here because it gets you into Aldeberry Pre-School, which gets you into blah wah nightmare yuppie mother hag-cakes." The conversation eventually grinds to an uncomfortable halt. In the awkward silence that follows, Scaggie shoots an evaluative side-eye at the tiny sociopath, who's fondling a heavy plastic cup as if preparing to embed it in another rugrat's forehead. "Doesn't have any siblings, does he?" Scaggie guesses. "Uh, no," Piper admits. "How did you know?" "Because he doesn't play well with others," comes the instant and rude response. "It's common in only children -- all the more reason to start developing his social skills early." Scaggie drops her voice almost to a whisper and adds conspiratorially, "First thing pre-schools look for, you know." Piper clenches and pivots away from this horrid woman just as Phoebe and Raige creep through the nursery's front door. Delighted to be presented with an opportunity to escape the tedious bitch at her side, Piper perks, "Excuse me!" and barrels over to her sisters.
Piper greets them with something along the lines of, "Glad you could make it." Phoebe assures her that they'd do "anything for [their] little nephew" before wondering what, exactly, it is that they're doing for him at the moment. "Showing family support -- they look for that, especially when the father's not around a lot," Piper replies. "The Dolt's around all the time," Phoebe reminds her as Raige yanks out her cell phone and spins to huddle over the keypad. "He is for [The Psycho]," Piper counters. "He won't be for the school." She eyes Raige with the phone and blurts, "What are you doing? Put that thing down." "I'm trying to get a hold of [Buttfuck]," Raige exasperates. "I'm afraid he's off on some magical freak-out, or something." You're sleeping with him, dumbass. If you're so concerned about his oft-cited mysterious and annoying problems with magic, why don't you roll over, poke him in the side, and ask him about it? Stupid show. "Maybe he just needs a little time alone," Phoebe offers. Raige gets all Issue Of The Week on our collective ass when she splutters, "It just makes me question whether or not I can even save an innocent when I can't even save my boyfriend." She considers what she's just admitted, then offers an apologetic "No offense" to the Feebs. "Don't worry about it," Phoebe waves. "I'm over it." I should hope you're over it, dingbat. You vanquished that particular piece of tail over a year ago. Oh, wait. Sorry. She's talking about Chronic. Whom she neither needed nor tried to save from anything but who, apparently, is out of the picture for good. And thank the merciful Lord in Heaven for that. Christ, what a fucking tool that loser was.
But that's not important right now. What is important is that the above exchange allows Phoebe to segue into her Issue Of The Week, which involves her "biological clock" and the "echoing" noises it's making deep within vast empty spaces of her head. Piper, who'd been too patiently abiding all of this nonsense, asks, "Neurotic people? Yeah, can we get back to my neurosis? The one where I'm a rotten mother who's raising an anti-social child?" The Glamorous Ladies turn to examine the littlest Psycho, who hasn't moved since last we saw him. Piper blathers something about how she and Phoebe had each other growing up, but the Psycho's entirely alone. Because God forbid she ever invite Tongue Boy over for some quality time in the product-placed playpen, because that would involve bringing back Sweet Seth and his magnificent cheekbones, and everyone knows I can't ever get what I want out of this stupid show. Also, it would involve resurrecting Continuity from the dead, and the Manor simply hasn't room enough for another zombie-like literary convention, what with the constantly half-crocked Contrivance loafing around the parlor in his gravy-stained boxer shorts all the damn time. In any event, Raige, who's gone back to ringing Buttfuck, pauses long enough to dispute Piper's nonsense about only children being anti-social. "But you didn't know you had powers," Piper argues, "so it was safe for you to have friends -- your mother didn't have to worry about you orbing out during a play-date." "Piper," Phoebe gently chides, "don't you think you're overreacting a little?" She's always overreacting, Phoebe. Where the hell have you been? Don't answer that, because I already know the answer, and as said answer involves you getting your bony ass laid in Hong Kong, I'd rather move on to other things. And look at that -- no sooner have I typed those words than The Cleansing Burst Of Synchronicity arrives in the nursery to boot the littlest Psycho into an orb cloud that presently dissipates, leaving behind a messy pile of plastic dishware where the dead-eyed sociopath had been. The Glamorous Ladies gape.
Manor. The littlest Psycho stands alone in the front hall, staring up the staircase as something off-screen materializes noisily. The angle shifts just in time for us to watch as a heavy door rays into the wall above the stairwell landing, and ow! My eyes! Some dipshit production designer decided to repaint the entire foyer a vile canary yellow. I liked the rose-toned walls, people. Must even the sets now piss me off? God, I hate this show. ANY-way, the camera cuts back to the Psycho as Raige orbs in to him with Phoebe and Piper. Piper immediately howls, "You cannot keep doing this, sweetie!" as Phoebe bends to gather him up in her arms, and you've got to give the unnatural brat credit for this -- he never takes his eyes off whatever is actually holding his attention on the landing. Raige follows his gaze and directs her sisters' attention towards the new door in the wall. As the gals warily step towards the foot of the stairs, Phoebe wails, "Oh, this is not good." You're right, Phoebe. This episode is awful. And it's about to get a hell of a lot worse.
A male voice on the far side of the new door cries out, "Help!" Phoebe quickly pushes the Psycho into Raige's arms. Raige orbs up through the ceiling just as a panicky, bespectacled, bald nebbish in black academic robes flings wide the door to pant, "Thank God you're home!" Piper and Phoebe bug their eyes out in his general direction. The clattering of ghostly hooves hits the soundtrack, cuing the nebbish to spin on his heel and shriek as a rapidly materializing, saber-wielding Headless Horseman glows into view behind him. The Horseman swings his blade around, and, as it will during each beheading this evening, the camera cuts away at the last possible second for a round of agog reaction shots from the witnesses present, in this case Piper and the Feebs. The shot cuts back to record the nebbish's body dropping out of the frame as the Horseman dematerializes and the door slams shut of its own accord. "What the hell was that?" Piper gasps. She's clearly not as familiar with her American folklore as little Saury here. And she's supposed to be the smart one. Pity. In any event, the nebbish's head, resting on a lower stair with its glasses askew, confirms that the apparition was, indeed, the legendary killer of a guy that was a teacher for his head that they sewed on for him when he went to the hospital so he could get married to a beautiful lady and then live happily ever after. Piper rolls her eyes while Phoebe yodels her way into the opening credits.
The Opening Travelogue features a high-strung testicle who insists I have a taste for danger. Cram it sideways, dink. The Travelogue, by the way, includes an overhead shot of Lombard Street, which, believe it or not, is a first for this show. What took them so long, you ask? Who the hell cares at this point? That's all I'm saying. Over in the Manor's main hall, Piper whisks a vase off the entrance table so Phoebe might delicately place the nebbish's head on the embroidered runner. "You're very kind," the nebbish offers. Piper looks like she wants to crack the vase open on the nebbish's skull, and I, for one, don't blame her. "How are you still talking?" Phoebe stammers. "Fortunately, the rest of me is still at Magic School," the head explains. Piper's eyebrows loft heavenwards as she hoots, "I'm sorry -- Magic School?" "Yes!" comes the chipper reply. "As I was saying, as long as my body remains on-grounds, I can't, well, you know, die. All part of the magic, thankfully." "Like the doorway in the middle of my stairway," Piper sneers. Heady Bizarre apologizes, claiming he didn't know where else to put it. The portal is "the only way in or out of the school," and Heady Bizarre needs to escort them back to the campus posthaste, before the Horseman strikes again. I suppose I should comment on the headless effects here, but you know what? They're ripping off those fucking Harry Potter movies again with this Not!warts bullshit; therefore, this episode blows, this show sucks, and I want to die. Suffice to say, while the effects are well executed for a series of this caliber, I've a sneaking suspicion the effects team is just showing off. I also get the feeling an obscene amount of cash was thrown at tonight's festivities just because the people in charge had the money to burn, and for that, the entire production staff can drop fucking dead.
Piper grumbles as Raige orbs into the hallway with the Dolt. Raige spots Heady Bizarre on the table and makes stupid noises as she and the Dolt wander around into Heady's line of vision. Heady greets the Dolt warmly, expositing that "Gideon" sent him to the Manor to enlist the aid of the morons within. Piper, who's been pressing the vase against her stomach this entire time to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, two hundred and thirty-four months pregnant, grunts, "All the people with legs, follow me." She leads the Manor Morons down the hall for a processing summit, snidely noting that "this is what's keeping [the Psycho] from developing social skills." "And me from helping [Buttfuck]," Raige adds. "And me from helping...me," Phoebe finishes lamely. Self-centered goat. The Dolt scoffs. "I'm talking about our lives," Piper shrews. "We can't just drop what we're doing every time somebody's head comes rolling down the stairs." Yes, you can, you harpy, because it's your fucking job. God! The Dolt yammers, "This isn't supposed to happen. [Not!warts] is supposed to be protected from evil -- it's the only way Gideon can teach magic to the generation. [Our Psycho's] generation." Piper opines that the littlest Psycho is far more interested in learning establishments of the mortal sort. "Are you sure?" the Dolt snorts. "[Raige] said he orbed back in front of the door. He was drawn to it." Piper shoots Raige a withering glare. Raige mugs by way of reply. Phoebe reminds them all that they can't leave Heady Bizarre on the foyer table as if he were a centerpiece. Piper growls some more, but she agrees to accompany them all back to Not!warts. However, the littlest Psycho must remain in the Manor. The Dolt immediately volunteers Big Gay Chris for babysitting duty. "After everything he's done?" Piper yowls in disagreement. "I don't think so!" "He was just trying to protect [the Psycho]," shrugs the Dolt. "Oh, please," Raige eyerolls, like, since when does she hate the big gay one? Oh, right: Since that episode I've already forgotten about, despite its glorious inclusion of a naked Mexican. The Dolt insists Big Chris deserves another chance. The gals glance at each other uneasily, but knock it off with the bitching for the moment to deal with the Heady at hand.
Phoebe's the first through the portal, warily easing it open and sliding on through. For some reason, she's ditched the long, loose-fitting cable-knit cardigan she'd been sporting up to this point and edges through the door in an eye-searing royal-blue halter featuring a garish ruffle that diagonally bisects the front from her left Fun Bag to her waist. Piper follows, clutching a bag full of Heady Bizarre in front of her body to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, two hundred and thirty-seven months pregnant. Raige and the Dolt bring up the rear. The foursome tiptoes around Heady's sprawled remains on the floor. Piper pauses to open the bag and ask if he "can breathe all right in there." Piper? He no longer has lungs. Shut. UP. By the way, this is not my first encounter with Head-In-A-Bag Hijinks. I suppose it's my payback for busting on karma last week, right? Sigh. The Manor Morons gaze down a long and seemingly endless corridor with something approaching wonder as Heady explains that no one knows how far said corridor runs. The Dolt reveals that this Gideon fool they've been nattering about is one of the ever-useless Elders, and had once functioned as the Dolt's "mentor." "He actually fought for us to get married," he informs Piper, who rightly wonders why she never heard of the guy before now. Because the writers just pulled him out of their collective ass last week, silly.
Suddenly, a grey wolf flares into the hallway and patters along towards the Feebs, its nails clicking on the tile. Phoebe wheels around at the sound and gasps, "I don't wanna freak anybody out, but there is a wolf following us!" The other three turn, but see nothing. "Not everyone sees the same things here," Heady Bizarre explains. "Only what they're meant to see." The better to abandon all pretense of logic and reason for the remainder of the episode, I presume. A door further down the corridor creaks open, and a scrawny chick floats through it. No, like, she literally floats through it. The bulimic glides across the floor to enter another door as Heady mumbles, "Eleventh-Grade Levitation. She's late." To misquote newtocharmed on the boards, "Yo, Head In A Bag? How did you know the levitating girl was levitating? You're in a bag. You can't see through a bag. Shut the fuck up, stupid head." See? We all hate this show. Heady urges the Manor Morons to hurry along, so they drift down the corridor, pass through a cross-fade, and wind up in front of a set of doors that, after a moment, open of their own accord to allow them entry into Not!warts's Not-So-Great Room. Various teenaged types in prep school uniforms wander around as a disembodied British voice addresses the four arrivals. "[Dolt]!" perks the voice. "Thanks for coming, though I do wish it was under better circumstances." The Manor Morons dart their eyes around the Not-So-Great Room, confused, as the voice continues, "And the Charmed Ones! Lovely to see you again, though you probably don't remember meeting me -- you were just little girls." Disembodied British Voice? Yeah, over here. Unless Teeth! and Grams lied about hiding Raige from the ever-useless Elders and all who serve them, you've never met the redhead before. What does that mean you can do now? Hmm? That's right: Shut. THE FUCK. UP! The Glamorous Ladies, nearly as annoyed as I am at this moment, turn to the Dolt for an explanation. The Dolt retrieves Heady Bizarre from Piper and crosses to place him on a table as he carefully intones, "Gideon? I believe your invisibility shield is still up." With an amiable flourish, this Gideon person materializes with apologies for being so "distracted" by the recent Horseman-related events at Not!warts. Gideon's British and has a goatee. What does this mean, class? Very good! He's secretly evil, and must be destroyed! Oh, don't look at me like that. You know it's true.
In any event, Gideon lavishes Heady Bizarre with what I'm sure is meant to be heart-felt concern until Phoebe, irritated, howls, "Would somebody please tell me what's going on here?" Gideon snarks something stupid about Phoebe being hot-headed "just like [her] Grams" before getting to the point: Recent events began "innocently enough" as a series of pranks, including "setting the rats loose from the Pied Piper" and "turning the north dorm into a gingerbread house." Oy. There is no limit to the depths to which this series will sink, is there? "Then," Gideon reveals, "someone cast a spell that brought forth the darkness -- days became nights, nights became terror, and the Headless Horseman has roamed the campus ever since, targeting teachers." Heady interrupts the narrative to suggest Gideon "orb [him] over with the other heads." Gideon wiggles his fingers around, and Heady vanishes. I'd add, "hopefully, never to be seen again," but I already know the actor's scheduled to appear in the sixteenth episode. So, you know -- dammit.
The Glam Gals and Gideon quickly get frisky with the exposition. Raige muses that someone unleashed the Horseman in an effort to bring down Not!warts. Gideon confirms this. "What better way for evil to gain an upper hand than to thwart the generation?" he ponders rhetorically. Piper supposes the solution is as simple as identifying the source of the spell and reversing the magic. Gideon notes that it's not as easy as all that -- none of the students possesses that level of power, so an external force must have corrupted one of the kids, and is now forcing said kid to perform its bidding. "So, you find the student, you find the evil," Raige concludes. "True," Gideon replies, "except that you'll find so much more than that here. The answers you each seek can be found within these grounds -- you merely have to be open to them." He then rather presumptuously starts handing out assignments. Raige gets the worst of the deal, as she must teach one of the upper-level classes. This will somehow lead her to the student responsible for the current crisis, while also solving her stupid Issue Of The Week. Piper, meanwhile, is off to the Not!warts nursery for a tour, and Phoebe's supposed to follow the wolf around for some reason or another. "The deeper you look, the more you will discover," Gideon finishes, "and the better chance you will have of saving all this." With that, Gideon turns and dematerializes by morphing into an inky black smear that quickly fades from view. The gals exchange a round of "The fuck?" glances as the Dolt furrows his massive brow.
A short time later, we discover Raige in black academic robes, whining about her assignment. The woman who accompanies her to her new classroom clearly could not care less, basically tells her to suck it the fuck up, and pushes her through the door. Raige blunders into the room to find it teeming with sullen WB-brand teenagers -- you know, the kind who aren't that much younger than herself. One of them is suspended against his will in mid-air, arms and legs flailing, as the other "adolescents" point and laugh. Raige slams the door behind her, so the kids immediately knock it off with the taunting and scramble for their seats. The airborne bit of jailbait, who's got some serious blue eyes beneath a thick head of tousled dark-brown hair, plummets to the floor as the force that had been suspending him abruptly cuts off. Raige rushes to the jailbait's side and offers to help, but he gets all surly and blows her off. Another annoyance with attitude snarks something about telepathy not being all that, and jailbait shoots him a foul look, and the annoyance's doppelganger chooses this moment to amble through the door, so the annoyance shape-shifts into his true thuggish self, and there's a bunch of asinine kids-fucking-with-the-substitute bullshit, and Lord, but this scene is tedious, so I'll cut to what's really important: This is Welcome Back, Kotter with magic. No, seriously. You've got the black guy, the nerd, the thug, the supposedly desirable jailbait who's actually old enough to drink, and a bunch of extras who never get any lines. Well, unless Debralee Scott decides to grace this episode with her presence, of course, but we know the chances of that happening are slim to nil, so let's keep this moving, shall we? Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington, the above-mentioned doppelgangered annoyance, has no perceptible powers whatsoever, and isn't it just like this show to keep a brother down? Ask Darryl if you don't believe me. However, the others include Arnold "Conjurer" Horshack, who mojos an apple into the palm of Raige's hand; Juan "Shape-Shifter" Epstein, who refers to Raige with not one shred of irony as "teach" and must therefore die; and Vinnie "Telepath" Barbarino, who clearly hates everyone around him. Got all that? Good. Epstein warns Raige to "watch [her] pretty little neck," Raige glares, and Mini-Barbarino makes me feel all tingly inside. Don't look at me like that. He's a hell of a lot prettier than John Travolta ever was, and I'm only human, so you need to leave me the hell alone.
Meanwhile, the Feebs eases down another part of the endless Not!warts corridor, calling out, "Here, wolfie wolfie wolfie!" Shithead. After far too much of this, the wolf finally appears and growls at her. She blithers some babytalk at the thing, so the animal turns to flee, padding quickly away from her down the hall and disappearing around a corner. Phoebe follows the creature into a chamber, where the door, of course, shuts of its own accord. She finds the wolf standing by an open fire at the far end of the room, which for some reason resembles the interior of an adobe hut. Not that I've ever, you know, actually seen the interior of an adobe hut, but I've suffered through enough Westerns to know what the entertainment industry thinks they look like. Sure enough, the wolf flares white and morphs into the form of a young woman who's clearly meant to be of Native American descent.
Sidebar: Those of us who perused the spoilers for this episode before it aired know that this young woman was assigned the name "Enola" in the script. However, those of you who actually watched this evening's presentation know that her real name is never once mentioned during the course of the hour, so bear with me while I establish my reasoning for the awful nickname you're about to read: I went to high school in Enola, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvanians in general are fond of noting that New Jersey is the armpit of America. We unfortunates who spent four long, tedious, wasted years at East Pennsboro decided that if New Jersey were indeed the armpit of this great land of ours, then Enola must be its crotch.
Phoebe instantly accuses America's Crotch of shape-shifting into the Headless Horseman. "I'm a shaman, not a shape-shifter," America's Crotch sniffs, adding, "The wolf is merely a projection of your quest -- a symbol." Phoebe's not buying it, and remains on the far side of the chamber, squinting suspiciously as America's Crotch sits cross-legged on the floor. "Do you really think I lured you out here just to kill you?" America's Crotch demands. No, but hope springs eternal. America's Crotch reveals why Gideon sent the Feebs her way: "You have the power of premonition, but it's unreliable. I can help you see your future more clearly, but only if you're willing to take the risk." Phoebe eyeballs America's Crotch some more.
And finally, we join Piper and the Dolt over in the nursery, where a bunch of stoopid magikal rugratz are playing stoopid magikal gamez. I'll not elaborate. Piper eyes the room with distaste, claiming that the assembled magikal ratz are "freaks" before once again stating, "I just want [the Psycho] to have a normal upbringing -- at least as normal as possible. Is that too much to ask for?" OH MY GOD YES! For fuck's sake, would you shut the fuck up about the normal-life shit already? It's been five and a half fucking years! I'll tell you what, shrike: Here's five bucks -- GO OUT AND BUY YOURSELF A NEW FUCKING CHARACTER POINT ALREADY!
Anyway.
NO! GOD! SHUT! UP! SHUT! UP! SHUT! UP!
Long story short, Piper and the Dolt meet the pre-school teacher and chat for a bit about how easy it is to turn wee stoopid magikal kreatures evil before Not!warts's alarm system goes off. We cut to the Not-So-Great Room, where students scramble for cover as Piper, the Dolt, Gideon, and Raige storm in to find out what's going on. Gideon shouts a warning for Raige to watch out for herself now that's she's on the payroll, or something, as the Horseman materializes behind Piper. She spins around just in time for him to whack off her head, which splats against the floor and rolls halfway across the flagstones. The Horseman then flares out. Piper's head rolls its eyes and mutters, "Great. Just great," before vanishing into the commercial break.
This is the episode that never ends, right?
Manor sun porch. Raige scrunches up her face in empathic squickiness as the Dolt places Piper's head atop the cabinet and gently spins it around so it faces the room. So, Holly Marie Combs had to spend how many hours attempting to act from the depths of a piece of furniture just to disguise the fact that she is, by now, two hundred and eighty-eight weeks pregnant? That had to suck. Not as much as this miserable excuse for an episode, of course, but still. "On the plus side," Raige dimly offers, "this is a great way for [the Psycho] to get out and socialize." "If I had legs," Piper's Head grits, "I would kick you." A processing summit follows, during which Piper suggests that they find the kid responsible for the current mess and vanquish him. "I keep getting this feeling it's one of the kids in my class," Raige admits. "Why?" murmurs the Dolt. Because they're all snotty, surly, back-talking delinquents? Just a guess. Dolt. Raige's explanation is far kinder than mine, in that she reasons they're the most powerful kids in the school. Therefore, they're also the most likely suspects. She proposes bringing them all to the Manor, as they won't be able to conjure the Horseman once they're off Not!warts grounds. The Dolt finds this an excellent idea, especially now that the Glamorous Ladies are now themselves targets. "Uh oh," mutters Piper's Head. "Phoebe." The Dolt offers to fetch her, but Piper's Head immediately shoots him down, as she doesn't want the Psycho to end up with two worthless parents. So whom does she suggest for this dangerous mission? My husband, of course. Wench.
And finally, after one entire godforsaken episode and twenty-four minutes of this one, pretty, pretty Big Gay Chris finally returns to my television screen. He's up in the Prue Halliwell Memorial Bimbo Boudoir Of Paisley Tit Slings And Other Fashion Atrocities, currently occupied by my psychotic, power-mad brother-in-law. He's also unshaven, and the dusting of stubble does wonders for his look. Sigh. A tense Big Gay Chris paces nervously in the background as a dark demonic type in a cowl performs a scan on the littlest Psycho. Raige and the Dolt burst into the room unannounced, completely surprising the guys, but the dark demonic type manages to squiggle out before being vanquished. "What the hell is going on here?" the Dolt demands, racing over to the crib to check on the sociopath. Raige gets her dander up as well. Big Gay Chris splutters out an explanation that really isn't one until the Dolt grits his teeth and orders Chris out of the Manor. Did I say "the Dolt grits his teeth"? I'm sorry, I meant "Brian Krause somehow manages to peel his lips back to their respective jawlines, terrorizing countless unsuspecting millions in the viewing audience with a visage so horrific that, well into the middle of the week, emergency rooms nationwide were still coping with the gory aftereffects of the manic wave of involuntary self-blindings that followed." Chris, God love him, whatevers and orbs out through the ceiling. The Dolt orders Raige to fetch the Feebs before he orbs his dead-eyed brat up to Whitelighterland for its protection.
Lair Of America's Crotch. We learn that America's Crotch is actually a student at Not!warts, which is ludicrous, because America's Crotch clearly has a few years on La Milano, and yes, it's that obvious, but this show sucks, so whatever. America's Crotch insists she's been hiding not from the Horseman, but rather from someone at Not!warts who's attempting to "invade" her powers in order to use them for himself. Which should be a big fucking clue as to the naughty boy's identity. Hint: It's not Washington, Epstein, or Horshack. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" Phoebe wonders. "You're an empath," America's Crotch duhs. "You tell me." Phoebe's Fucking Backup Band kicks in, but she can't get a read. "It's because you're conflicted," America's Crotch claims. "Questioning your very future. It's affecting your powers." And how does America's Crotch know all of this? Phoebe's wolf projection, which America's Crotch interprets thusly: "The wolf is a pack animal, but constantly searching for something she craves but cannot find. Seeing it means you're searching, too." Whatever, Crotch Girl. She reaches for a ladle, scoops some sort of liquid from a pot bubbling near the open-pit fire, and passes this to Phoebe. "Drink this," she instructs. "Take the Vision Quest. There you will find the answer we both seek." Oooh! Oooh! I know what the answer is! Phoebe's a hot-blooded gambler, hungry for heaven -- she's on the zoom with a shout to the top, but she's got no more words for the lunatic fringe. She's thinking, "I'll fall in love again," because she knows that not only the young can change. She's crazy for you. Am I right? Huh? Am I?
Christ, I hated that movie.
Phoebe hesitates, so America's Crotch obnoxiously imitates Phoebe's biological clock ticking. Phoebe inhales sharply and accepts the ladle to gulp down the mix. As she swallows, the screen squiggles and flares into a negative image before Phoebe finds herself descending the Manor stairs in slow motion. The doorway to the sun porch is flooded with a golden light that obscures whatever's beyond it. Phoebe starts towards it, but one of last week's bondage queens squiggles into the hallway to hurl a Flaming Ball Of Death at her head. Phoebe ducks and the queen charges, so Phoebe latches onto his leather vest and tosses him onto the dining room table, where he vanquishes a glass vase with his back before simply disappearing. Another bondage queen wraps his arms around her from behind, so she flips him towards the wall. This clone vanishes in mid-air. Phoebe, gasping, scopes out the main floor for more intruders before taking a few more steps towards the sun porch. Another bondage queen, who'd been clinging to the ceiling like Spider-Man, drops to the floor behind her, slicing at her shoulder with a knife while he's still on his way down. As Crappy Linda Fiorentino Movie Feebs drops the carpet in the Manor, Real-Life Feebs snipers to the dirt in The Lair Of America's Crotch. A thin, bloody gash now decorates her shoulder. "You didn't tell me I could get hurt," she pouts. "You didn't ask," smirks the Crotch. The two chat about what we just saw, with the Crotch insisting that Phoebe must make it through the sun porch doorway to learn her true future. Raige orbs in at this moment to fill Phoebe in on the situation at home, and also to suggest Phoebe flee the school grounds before she loses her head as well. Phoebe glances at America's Crotch before admitting she'd like to remain where she is for now. "Gideon put me on this path for a reason," she explains, "and I believe that there are answers here. You know where to find me if you need me." "Okay," Raige allows with a somewhat puzzled expression. "But remember that she's a suspect, too," she adds, cocking her head towards the Crotch. Raige orbs out as the Crotch offers Phoebe another shot of the potion.
Manor. Piper's Head hears Raige arrive with the sullen teens and makes hooting noises. The sullen teens ooh and aah about seeing the Manor interior, which Horshack describes as "just like the text." Oh yeah? I bet the text doesn't mention that assy canary yellow paint they smeared all over the foyer walls, now does it? Washington says something stupid. Shut up, Boom Boom. Epstein harasses Mini-Barbarino. Yawn. Raige eventually herds them all onto the sun porch, where Epstein cracks unwise about Piper's "good part[s]" not being present at the moment. An annoying scene follows wherein Raige urges the student responsible to come clean, and the Sweathogs hurl accusations at each other. I ignore them all in favor of waiting for my husband to appear, which he eventually does, gesturing silently towards Raige from the kitchen. Piper's Head rolls its eyes a lot and mugs, because that's all Holly Marie Combs can do while she's stuck in a piece of furniture designed to disguise the fact that she is, by now, three hundred and nine weeks pregnant.
Raige clomps into the kitchen with, "What the hell are you doing here?" "I need your help," Big Gay Chris pleads. Raige gets snotty and loud and dismissive before spinning on her heel to head back onto the sun porch. "Just hear me out," Chris begs, lunging for her arm. "I'm running out of time." "What's that supposed to mean?" Raige spits. "Exactly that," he replies. "Don't you see? That's the only reason I went to the demon. He can scan for evil and maybe figure out who's gonna turn [the Psycho]." "You're not making any sense," Raige claims, and she's got a point. Out with it already, Chris! "I need you to trust me," he implores, "and I need you to get Piper and the Dolt to trust me too."
Before Raige can answer, general mayhem erupts on the sun porch, and Piper's Head shrieks frantically for its sister. Raige and Chris race into the dining room in time to catch sullen teens scattering throughout the main floor as the Horseman chases after them with his sword. He takes aim at Raige, but Chris yanks her downwards at the last possible moment. The Horseman's sword ends up gouging a chunk from the wall before he wheels his horse around and charges out into the garden through the sun porch's glass doors. Everyone regroups on the as Piper's Head calls for a "head count." "No jokes," she adds. Don't worry. Piper's Head shoots Big Gay Chris a foul look and demands he explain his presence in the Manor. "I'm just trying to help," he replies as Gideon enters the stairwell through the portal, wondering what the hell is going on. Raige and Big Gay Chris bring him up to speed, and Gideon announces that Raige must find a way to stop the Horseman immediately, as "people on the outside" aren't protected the way the staff and students are in the school. "They'll die," Gideon warns. Raige determines that they'll need the Feebs, so Chris volunteers to retrieve her from The Lair Of America's Crotch. "You can't wait for her," Gideon insists as Chris disappears up the stairs. "You have to go after the Horseman now." Raige buhs that she can't do it alone. Gideon's not having it. "Don't let your concerns about [Buttfuck] make you question yourself," he instructs. "You can do this. I'll help you." Raige adopts an expression of determination and takes Gideon's proffered hand. The two orb out.
Meanwhile, Epstein's doing something stupid on the sun porch. Piper's Head threatens to turn him into a toad.
Oh, hello, Dark, Forbidding Alleyway Of Doom. A frantic yupster rounds the corner, followed closely by some white-boy gangbanger who fires off, like, eighteen shots at the guy and misses him completely. Whatever. The yupster drops his satchel and flees. The gangbanger makes to ransack the satchel just as the Horseman appears at the far end of the alleyway and charges in the gangbanger's direction. Raige and Gideon orb in just in time to see the gangbanger get whacked. Gideon shoots his hand out to conjure the Not!warts portal in the middle of the alleyway, and the Horseman charges right through it. Horseman and portal then promptly disappear. "At least we got him back," Raige shrugs. "Not soon enough," Gideon intones. "The death of an innocent means the death of Magic School." I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Pity. Raige glums her way into the commercial break. Shut up, Raige.
Manor. Aftermath. Raige and Gideon casually amble through the front door rather than orbing in, because they're morons and this show sucks and I hate it and want to die. Raige attempts to talk Gideon out of shutting down the school, noting that "the police" had evidence the gangbanger was a killer, like, they hung around long enough for the long arm of the law to arrive? What the hell did these two tell the cops? My head's going to explode if I think about that one for too long, so we'll be moving on. Gideon reminds Raige that when he established the school, he vowed that the magic it contained "would never harm a soul." The gangbanger, regardless of his rap sheet, still counts as one of those souls not to be harmed, so, you know, no more Not!warts. They're interrupted by the sound of a toad chirping on the sun porch. They turn to see the sullen teens gazing down on the transformed Epstein, croaking on the floor. "Piper?" Raige calls. "You okay?" "Hunky-dory," Piper's Head snorts. Raige drags Gideon elsewhere as Piper's Head eyes the room and challenges, "Anybody else wanna try me?" The sullen teens as a group take one giant step backwards.
Kitchen. Raige summons the Dolt to tag-team Gideon with a pep talk about protecting the future generations of magic, and wow. I could not care less about any of this if I tried. Long story short, Raige's spunk and determination convince Gideon to allow the gals to finish their mission. Blow me.
Sun porch. The Eptoad goes poof and morphs back into Epstein, who rises slowly from the floor as Piper's Head threatens him with further bodily harm should he continue to be a pain in her non-existent ass. Suddenly, every single one of the sullen teens freezes. "Who did that?" Piper's Unaffected Head wonders before spotting someone approaching from across the room. "Where did you come from?" she demands as a hand reaches into the frame and yanks her off the top of the cabinet. Raige, Gideon, and the Dolt, hearing Piper's Head's howls of protest, charge onto the sun porch, but Piper's Head is nowhere to be found. Gideon claims none of the students are powerful enough to freeze their classmates, and besides, they're all present and all frozen. Raige narrows her eyes to slits and announces, "One of them's faking it."
Lair Of America's Crotch. Phoebe drops to the dirt once again, apparently having been savaged by another bondage queen in her vision. "Enough already!" she yowls. "Every journey requires a sacrifice," the Crotch insists. "My whole life is about sacrifice!" Phoebe claims. "If that's all my future holds, then I don't want to see it!" The Crotch passes Phoebe another shot of the potion, along with some bullshit instructions to want the vision more than anything, or something like that. Phoebe gulps it down, and we're pitched back into her premonition. It unfolds in much the same way as before, but this time, Phoebe just ignores the bondage queens as they materialize and attempt to attack her. The Flaming Ball Of Death passes right through her head, and the queen responsible simply flares out of existence when he tries to tackle her. Same with the other two, as Phoebe focuses her attention on the glowing sun porch doorway.
Phoebe eventually passes through the portal to discover two boys -- a blond about ten and a brunet about eight -- goofing around with various toys on the sun porch. The blond kid's rather affectlessly futzing with a hand-held video game, so we know it's the Psycho. The brunet, incidentally, last played Little Gay David on Six Feet Under, so we all know where this is going, too, and I'm not talking about the hundreds of psychotherapy sessions the poor kid's going to need when he finally grows up. Piper enters in a flowing blouse with an enormous teddy bear hugged tightly against her waist, because Holly Marie Combs is, by now, three hundred and twenty-one weeks pregnant. Piper orders the Psycho to "let [his] little brother play with the game, too." Raige enters, still wearing her black academic robe, and asks Piper if she'd mind taking Phoebe to her doctor's appointment, as Raige has papers to grade. "The doctor?" Phoebe guhs. "We need to make sure our little niece is doing okay," Piper airily replies as she brushes past Phoebe to the hall. Phoebe hikes up her hideous ruffly halter top to reveal last season's infamous pregnancy pad stapled to her stomach. The younger of Piper's sons bleats, "Ohnt Phoebe? We need your help." Phoebe, still clutching the pregnancy pad, gapes. The shot cuts back to Little Gay Chris before squiggling and dissolving into Big Gay Chris back in The Lair Of America's Crotch, where he repeats, "We need your help." Phoebe, stunned, widens her eyes, perhaps in realization, as Big Chris rises from his crouch to wonder if she's okay. "I-I-I think so," she stammers, before turning to the Crotch and wondering, "Am I?" Phoebe and the Crotch babble some transcendental bullshit at each other before Phoebe heads back to the Manor with my husband.
Manor. Phoebe and Big Gay Chris tumble through the Not!warts portal to get the skinny on Piper's disappearance. One amusing moment occurs right after Raige reveals Piper's Head has been kidnapped: In unison, Phoebe and Big Chris howl, "What?" in the exact same disbelieving tone of voice while simultaneously tilting their heads to opposite sides and squinting. A lot more subtle than the relentless hammering of the plot point mallet in the scene. Gideon admits he can't sense which of the sullen teens might be responsible, so the newly empowered Feebs ambles onto the sun porch to unleash her Fucking Backup Band on the poor kids' heads. She senses pain, "a lot of anger," and an overwhelming desire for revenge. She approaches Horshack, but her Fucking Backup Band quickly determines he's not to blame. The Fucking Backup Band does, however, zero in on Mini-Barbarino, who rolls his eyes and breaks his fake freeze to sneer, "Well, look who's solved the case!" General expressions of shock and dismay from the adults before Mini-Barbarino flares out. The Dolt instantly realizes they'd been interacting with Mini-Barbarino's astral projection. Gideon protests that Mini-Barbarino's a simple telepath, but Phoebe and Raige babble that he's using that telepathy to "tap into other people's powers." "He's at school, with Piper," Raige realizes. "But why?" Chris asks. "What does he want with her?"
Cut to the Not!warts Not-So-Great Room, where I assume we'll learn the answer to my husband's question. Phoebe and Raige amble in, completely ignoring the possibility that Mini-Barbarino might conjure the Horseman behind them. And look at that -- here comes the Horseman now. What are the odds? The two nimrods make no attempt to duck or otherwise avoid the blade, you know, like maybe orbing the fuck out of there? God, I hate this show. Piper's Head, set upon a large table, cringes as Phoebe and Raige lose theirs. Their heads, not their tables. Whatever. Isn't this over yet? The fresh heads roll around on the floor as the Horseman dematerializes and Piper offers a simple, "Mmm-hmm." Mini-Barbarino wanders into the frame to claim, "You made me do this. I didn't have a choice." "So, now what are you guys gonna do?" Piper smirks. Why, watch some more commercials, of course. Because this is the episode that never ends.
Not!warts. Cue the punny sniping. "So," Piper's Head begins, "whose bright idea was this, anyway?" "We were trying to save you," Phoebe's Head grits. "Good job on that one," Piper's Head sniffs. "And who went and got her head stolen?" Phoebe's Head counters. "While you were off contemplating your navel," Piper's Head jibes before adding pointedly, "while you still had one." "We are not getting anywhere arguing," Raige's Head interjects. "We're not getting anywhere because we don't have any bodies," Piper's Head peeves. The ladies eventually cut the crap long enough for Phoebe's Head to reveal that Mini-Barbarino wasn't feeling any particular animosity towards the gals when he summoned the Horseman to relieve them of their bodies. He simply wanted them out of the way so get revenge on Not!warts and Gideon.
Meanwhile, Gideon's beating himself up about Mini-Barbarino, but I don't care about his stupid problems, so let's skip ahead to the bit where Mini-BarbaRaige bursts through the Not!warts portal to order the Dolt to boost the sullen teens out of the Manor, pronto. Gideon, sensing Mini-BarbaRaige's sincere urgency, or something, repeats the order, so The Dolt turns, gestures with both arms, and orbs up through the ceiling to Whitelighterland with the frozen sullen teens as a group. No sooner than they're gone does Mini-BarbaRaige morph into Mini-Barbarino, who immediately hurls Gideon into the parlor with some purloined telekinesis.
Back in the Not-So-Great Room, the gals' heads silently summon the Horseman. Once he appears, they recite the following in unison:
Power of Three unite
To end this grisly fright:
Reverse the roles
And make us whole.
The Horseman explodes into a cloud of fire and black shards as the gals' heads vanish from their various perches on the table. Phoebe and Raige slowly push themselves into sitting positions where their bodies fell earlier, and Phoebe immediately starts feeling herself up. No, seriously. "You want me to get you a room?" Raige snorts. A restored Piper enters from wherever they've been hiding her body, and the three Ps head back to the Manor.
Manor. Wow. Boring! Mini-Barbarino has Gideon pinned to the floor with a dagger he's telekinetically pressing against Gideon's throat. Mini-Barbarino rants and raves about his miserable existence, and I totally don't care because I just met the kid a half an hour ago and I know I'll never see him again. Can we get back to Big Gay Chris? Please? Oh, fine. The Glamorous Ladies arrive in time to talk Mini-Barbarino down. Gideon realizes he's "been more invisible than [he] realized over the years." Mini-Barbarino looks guilty and remorseful. Raige tries to look sage, but her hair's working against her. Scene.
The Closing Travelogue eventually bumps us over to P3, where the usual crowd of dot-bomb yuppies waves their arms in the air like they don't care while Ziggy Marley belts out a particularly incomprehensible set of lyrics involving some joy he encountered in a town called Sorrow, where he met the Painless Tear -- who, freed, expressed emotions that egos fear. Yeah. Smoke another bowl, dude. Elsewhere, the gals perch on a set of stools behind the bar to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, three hundred and thirty-four weeks pregnant. Piper confirms that Ziggy was meant to play the club earlier but had to reschedule, and that's as pointless a bit of trivia as I've ever seen incorporated into a shooting script. Lessons Of The Week follow, and they're as wretched and tiresome as the episode itself. Raige finally realizes she'll be able to convince Buttfuck to bind his powers. Piper's decided to fret less about raising the Psycho as an only child and more about separating him from his family by shipping him off to a boarding school. Phoebe smugly hints at the future she saw for the Manor Morons without giving away any of the details. So that would mean that Raige learned how to be a controlling bitch, Piper learned how to stifle her eldest child by keeping a hypervigilant eye on him at all times, and Phoebe learned how to be a smug, self-centered hag. Wait a minute. They knew that already! So this episode was totally pointless! Hooray! Not.
Just then, Phoebe spots Big Gay Chris as he enters the nightclub and squeezes through the crowd on his way to the pathetic hovel they've knocked together for him in the office. Phoebe excuses herself to follow him. Big Gay Chris plods into the office with a wearily worried expression on his face and Phoebe hot on his heels. He's wearing a dark green t-shirt under a brown corduroy jacket with a downturned sheepskin collar, and my, but he's fetching when he's depressed. "Hey," Phoebe begins. Big Chris heys back before wondering, "So, did you come here to kick me out?" "No," Phoebe admits. "I came here to ask you a question." "What?" Big Chris too casually shrugs. "I need you to be honest with me," Phoebe states, approaching him carefully. "No games, no running away -- just the truth." Chris, cornered, and desperately needing someone he can trust, responds with a fretful gaze and a simple, "Okay." Phoebe inhales, then drops the bomb: "Are you [the Psycho's] little brother?" Chris sighs heavily and averts his eyes, then looks back to the Feebs and offers, "If I can get Piper and the Dolt back together in time." Phoebe sets her jaw as Chris drops his head a bit, and we fade to black.
week, Charmed riffs shamelessly on I Dream Of Jeannie, with a blonde, bewigged Feebs taking bottle duties while Big Gay Chris stands in for Larry Hagman. I must be completely insane, because it looks like it just might not suck. Help me. Please?