I Dream Of Phoebe

Fade up on Phoebe blundering through the swinging glass doors of All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. "Any calls?" she asks her Non-Mary Cherry assistant. Non-Mary rattles off a list of messages from various loser-type advice-seekers before adding, "Oh, and your nephew called." "Chris?" Phoebe blurts instantly, snatching the sheaf of memo sheets from Non-Mary, who's all, "Uh, no, dumbass, [the Psycho]." "Actually," Non-Mary adds after a bit of thought, "I think Piper did the dialing for him." Yeah, guess again, honey. It's far more likely the demented Psycho assumed telepathic control of some hapless Pacific Bell operator's brain and forced the poor woman to connect him with the newspaper just so he could fuck with your head. What? You know anything could happen with that little dead-eyed nightmare of a freak. In any event, Non-Mary squints quizzically at Phoebe and wonders, "You have another nephew?" "No!" Phoebe too hastily replies, before stammering her way through the lousy cover of, "Butbutmaybe someday I will, you know?" while goofily and awkwardly backing herself into her office with a bright, fake smile on her face. Non-Mary, presumably well used to such asinine behavior from the boss by now, looks on mildly enough, but you just know she's mentally filing this latest transgression away for later addition to her very own Rage Diary.

Once inside, Phoebe jumps a bit in surprise when Big Gay Chris pops up by the office's sofa. "I need your help," he opens as Phoebe scrambles to shut the door. "I have been calling for you all week," Phoebe seethes in response. "Didn't you hear me?" "First couple of days? Yeah," Big Chris shrugs. "Then I put you on mute." Hee. Would that it were that easy for the rest of us, Chris. Phoebe guhs in a minor fit of outrage at this revelation as she crosses behind her desk and begins to remove her jacket. Big Chris repeats, "I need your NIPPLES." Ooops. Sorry. I got distracted for a moment, because the Fun Bags evidently determined that the lighting levels were a bit low in this scene, and decided to switch on their high beams for better illumination. Chris actually repeats his request for assistance, but Phoebe's not going to let the conversation continue until after she's chided him for "drop[ping] that bombshell" on her and then disappearing for a week. "You expect me to keep this secret," she gripes with much flapping of agitated hands, "and I don't even know why I'm keeping this secret." Chris gets a wee bit tedious when he whips out his standard response to such questions, which is, of course, "No one can find out Piper and the Dolt are my parents! It could mess with the whole future!" Phoebe plonks herself down in her chair and shoots back, "If you didn't want anyone to know, I don't know why you told me." "You busted me!" Chris exclaims. No, Chris, darling, she didn't bust you. You were anxious and tired and alone and desperate to confide in someone, and you even considered telling Raige about the whole thing first, but the be-NIPPLED dimwit here conveniently happened to have that peyote-induced premonition involving you and your murderous older brother last week, so there you go. You're still pretty, though, so I'll let it slide. Once you cut your goddamned hair. Didn't I tell you to do something about that months ago? Sigh.

Anyway, Big Chris claims that he's happy she found out about it, because he's been so focused on protecting the littlest Psycho, he almost forgot that "this month is [his] conception date." "Oracles, fortunetellers, soothsayers -- they all say the same thing," Chris explains. "If Mom and Dad don't screw this month, I'm screwed." Phoebe and the audience simultaneously go, "EW!" Several on the boards have complained about the crude manner in which Big Gay Chris revealed that nugget of information, yet I figure, if Piper had dropped dead and the Dolt bolted when Chris was a mere tot, it sort of makes sense for him to be so blunt about things. However, to be honest with you, I don't really care one way or the other. At least this storyline is finally moving along towards some sort of conclusion. In any event, Phoebe shakes off her icks to admit, "I'm just trying to get used to you being my nephew." She pauses as a horrifying thought leaps into her head. "I never hit on you, did I?" she asks warily. "What?" Chris yelps, skeeved. "No!" Liar. "Can we focus, here?" he peeves. "Mom and Dad need to have sex -- now who's gonna tell them, you or me?" "Nobody's gonna tell them, because we're not gonna reopen those old wounds!" Phoebe insists. Big Gay Chris heaves a big gay sigh and lopes over to the office sofa, where he perches thoughtfully on the arm for a moment before asking, "So how do we get them back together?" "'We'?" Phoebe hoots. "There is no 'we' here -- you're the one who split them up!" She squints with a sudden realization and adds, "Why did you split them up?" "[The Dolt] had to become an [ever-useless] Elder," Big Chris wearily replies. "It was the only way I could become your Whitelighter and protect [my hateful brother] from becoming evil." "Unbelievable!" Phoebe snorts. "You can't just pop in from the future and mess with people's lives because your big brother picked on you!" Snerk. "He picked on theworld, Phoebe!" Chris howls, leaping to his feet. "I'm. Not. Finished!" Phoebe announces disdainfully. Chris rolls his eyes and paces the floor as Phoebe rants, "Your parents were happy until you broke them up, and now you want my help because you didn't think this all the way through?" Okay, Feebs, you've got a point about Chris bumbling his way through some half-assed plan ever since he arrived on the scene, but claiming that his parents were blissful before the split? I realize you spend far more of your time focusing on yourself than on those around you, but you were living in the same house as the shrew Piper had become by the end of last season, weren't you? Perhaps we need to rethink our definition of "happy," huh?

Chris, snotty: "Feel better?" Phoebe, still angry: "Yes!" Chris, softer: "Will you help me?" Phoebe, flustered, with loyalties torn: "No." Chris looks helpless and alone, so Phoebe melts to admit, "Oh, I don't know," while sighing and covering her face with her hands. "If I'm not conceived in the couple of weeks," Chris patiently reiterates as he carefully approaches her desk, "I'll disappear forever." He plucks a reader letter from her inbox and wags it accusingly in front of her face. "You're willing to help complete strangers," he notes. "How about family?" Oh, bad argument, Chris. You're talking to the former Queen Of All Evil here, the woman who once announced she was fucking off to Hong Kong with Chronic in the middle of a demonic attack that threatened her own grandmother's immortal soul. Even her ridiculous advice column only serves to stoke her already over-inflamed ego. Phoebe helps Phoebe, Chris, and don't you ever forget it.

The Manor Morons bang their heads together and realize they must somehow reverse the magic by tricking Jinny into wishing Phoenie free. Piper waddles out of the room to phone Raige while Phoenie natters something dumb about "the element of surprise" and its importance in their current endeavor. "Are you sure?" Big Chris grits. "Because we could always take our time with this plan -- you know, keep Piper around a little longer?" "Yes, Master!" Phoenie instantly replies. "I'm glad you agree," Chris smirks. "A-a-actually, I don't agree," Phoenie stammers, "but I can'tI can'thow am I supposed to take charge and take commands all at the same time?" The Dolt blithers something about Phoenie not needing to, as the other ever-useless Elders have agreed to banish Big Gay Chris back to 2026, and the Dolt intends to send him there right now. "You don't know what you're doing, [Dolt]," Phoenie breathes as Big Gay Chris gets loud. The boys bicker, with Big Chris finally exploding with, "This isn't about me being a bad Whitelighter -- it's about you feeling like I've let you down somehow, so whatever issues you might have with me? I wish you would just get over it already!" Phoenie involuntarily presses her palms together, nods her head, and blinks, then gazes down at her rebellious arms as if they belonged to some other idiot in the Manor. You know, they really should have included the I Dream Of Jeannie "Bwiiinnng!" noise here. Hell, it wouldn't have been any worse than the Fucking Backup Band, am I right? In any event, Phoenie's mojo smacks the Dolt square in his face, and he twists around a bit as Big Chris tentatively intones, "[Dolt]?" The instantly affable and quite possibly baked Dolt's all, "Guh! Of course I forgive you, man!" All teeth and surfer-boy attitude, he adds, "You don't have to yell -- all you had to do is ask." Chris is flabbergasted. Phoenie, thankfully, is mute. Then, and with much wild gesticulation, Stoned Dolt adds that Chris needn't worry about "the whole going-back-to-the-future thing," as Stoned Dolt'll fix it with the ever-useless Elders. Stoned Dolt giggles and says, "C'mon, give me a hug!" before wrapping his arms around Big Chris in a manly embrace. Big Chris, perhaps having stumbled across the same disturbing fan-written Dolt Porn I found last week on the internet, looks like he's about to vomit. Phoenie sucks in her cheeks, puckers her lips, and bugs out her eyes. Perhaps she came across that godawful crap, too.

Castle Montanague. Raige is on her cell with Piper, getting the skinny on recent events. She's back in her emerald-green blouse, by the way, and no, I have no idea how she managed to morph from that fabulous gown back into her regular clothing again. Also? I don't care. Raige tells Piper she'd like to return to the Manor immediately, but she's gathered Montanagues past and present in the Castle's parlor for a magical intervention. Present are Buttfuck's spectral dead father, along with Benvolio, an actress who is not Marjorie Lovett, and a couple of other ghosts and humans. Long, boring story short, Buttfuck ambles through the door, guesses what's going on, shrieks, and flears on out of there. Raige pouts. Yawn.

Open Sesame. Saba toasts a few uppity henchnomads with a couple of Flaming Balls Of Death, instantly gaining the eternal devotion of those who remain. She orders Cholo to keep digging for Zanbar while she embarks on "a witch hunt" with a handful of his "best fighters."

Manor, that evening. Up in the attic, the Dolt tears a sheet of yellow legal paper from the pad upon which he'd been scribbling and balls it up in frustration as Big Gay Chris lopes in from the stairwell with the garish genie bottle, searching for the Mystical Crysticals. "What are you doing?" he wonders, crossing to the table, and believe it or not, HE FINALLY CUT HIS GODDAMNED HAIR. For those of you who don't follow the spoilers, I suppose I should explain why this bizarre rupture in the fabric of continuity has not resulted in a brain-destroying aneurysm for yours truly: This scene wasn't in the original script, and apparently was filmed after the cast returned from the December hiatus, during which Drew Fuller evidently sheared off about three inches of his lanky coif. Why am I not screaming? Well, for one thing, the scene's endearing to the point that I'm on the verge of referring to the Dolt by his real name, and for another, CHRIS FINALLY CUT HIS GODDAMNED HAIR. Anyway, the Dolt's rather cutely frustrated, because he's been trying to compose a written apology to Big Gay Chris but can't get the wording right. Big Chris beams, assuring his father that the gesture's not necessary, but you can tell he's so happy about the whole thing that he's about to burst from joy. "But after everything I've put you through," the Dolt protests, "I feel like I owe it to you." "Honestly?" Big Chris admits. "A letter's not going to mean a hell of a lot to me -- I got plenty of them growing up." "Sorry?" the Dolt asks, befuddled and a tad upset. "Uh, from my father," Chris dodges. "He wasn't around much." "That's awful," pouts the Dolt with immense amounts of Whitelightery sympathy. Hee. "You want to talk about it?" he offers, sliding out a chair for Big Chris. "No!" Chris exclaims, urging the Dolt to focus on Piper instead. The Dolt is far more concerned about Chris, who seems to have been unusually stressed out lately. "I'm concerned about you two," Chris replies. "You need to get back together already. Any chance that's gonna happen?" The Dolt shakes his head sadly and says, "I don't think so, but thanks for caring, man." "We've both moved on," he continues as he rises to amble over to fetch the Crysticals, "and nothing short of a miracle could make that happen." Chris heaves a weary sigh and gazes at the garish bottle in his hand, a cunning plan forming in his freshly-shorn head. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, sweetpea, but you really could stand to go a little bit shorter, you know what I mean?

Sun porch. Piper works on a spell while Phoenie annoys the living crap out of her. "Do I need to call Chris to shut you up?" Piper peeves. Oh, yes! Please do! "You wouldn't!" Phoenie gasps, clutching her pearls. "Keep pushing me" Piper warns. Heh. Raige glumly orbs in with news of Buttfuck's failed intervzzzzzzzzz. Huh? Whoops. Drifted off for a moment there. "I am so sorry!" Phoebe cries. Raige gets an eyeful of the Phoenie and bursts into derisory giggles. "I'm trying to be sympathetic, and you're laughing at me?" Phoenie incredulously sings. Well, of course she is, dipshit. Look at yourself. Raige explains that she perhaps simply needed a laugh after the ordeal she just endured. "It's okay," Phoenie shrugs kindly enough. "Is there anything I can do?" "Yeah," Raige nods, "but don't you need to go help Major Nelson?" Raige and Piper dissolve into snorting blasts of laughter while Phoenie pouts, before the gals pull themselves together to address the Jinny at hand. Raige confirms that Buttfuck's spectral father is "waiting in limbo" for their call, their plan of course being that after they capture Jinny, Buttfuck's dead dad will possess her body and force her to wish Phoenie free. Just then, the boys enter from above, snickering over some private joke. Stoned Dolt presents Piper with the Crysticals while Raige smirks that the guys seem unusually chummy as of late. Stoned Dolt announces that he's finally decided to "let bygones be bygones" as Piper shoots her ex-husband a suspicious side-eye. Phoenie gulps and announces she has a confession to make. Big Gay Chris, whose hair is back to its , assy incarnation, wiggles the garish bottle in the air and cuts her off with, "After we talk in the kitchen." "But" Phoenie begins. Big Chris orders her back into the bottle, however, and Phoebe resentfully dissolves into that powder-blue whirlwind that quickly vanishes. "Now that was cool," Chris grins, pointing to the bottle. You bet your ass it was, doll. Can Phoebe remain a genie for the remainder of the show's run, so the other characters might banish her to the depths of the garish shampoo bottle whenever she annoys? Please? Huh? No? Well, shit. "If you'll excuse me," Chris airily announces as he skips kitchenwards, "I'm gonna have a little one-on-one with the help." "What's he hiding now?" Piper eyebrows as the doorbell rings. Raige heads off to answer it as Stoned Dolt grins and approaches Piper with, "You know, Chris is a hell of a guy. You two really should give him a chance." Piper squints.

Out in the hall, Raige opens the front door to find Buttfuck on the front porch. He's there to apologize, and conjures a bouquet of red roses. Raige gapes.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Phoenie's reemerged from the bottle to howl, "You wanna make them do what?" "Hey," Big Chris reasons, "we finally got Dad in a good mood, and Mom? She's all sexed up for the fireman. This is the perfect time to hit them with the whammy." Phoenie flatly refuses to make Piper and the Dolt "sleep together." "We're gonna do this my way, mister," she sasses. "Master," Chris pointedly corrects before pronouncing, "I wish for Piper and [the Dolt] to sleep together tonight." Phoenie splutters in futile protest for a moment before making with the involuntary nod-and-blink schtick. The sound of bodies collapsing to the floor almost instantly arrives in the kitchen from the sun porch. D'oh!

Phoenie and Big Gay Chris return to the sun porch to find Piper and the Dolt unconscious on the floor, the cast-iron table's top artfully obscuring Piper's body from the chest down to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, three hundred and ninety-seven weeks pregnant. "Oh, no," Chris groans, oddly subdued. "You tricked me." "You made me wish for them to sleep together," Phoenie shrugs, "and they're sleeping together." Chris, supremely annoyed, orders Phoenie back into the bottle.

Over at the front door, Raige has just broken up with zzzzzzzzzzzz. Ow! Sorry. Lapsed into a coma there, and ended up smacking my forehead against the coffee table. Pardon me for a moment while I fetch a washcloth to stanch the bleeding. Yes, Kern will be getting the bill for the stitches. No, I won't head to the emergency room until after I've finished the recap. Goddamn, but that man is a pain in the ass. I'll be right back.

Okay, bleeding's stopped. For now. Where was I? Oh, that's right: Whatever.

The fight at the door is interrupted when sounds of a Big Gay Chris smackdown erupt from the sun porch. One of Saba's new minions lifts Chris by the collar of his jacket and the waistband of his jeans and slams him headfirst into the cabinet. Oh, ow. It looks like his neck caught on the upper corner of the thing. Yikes. Chris snipers to the floor, dazed, as the minion unsheathes his scimitar and the garish bottle containing Phoenie skitters across the floor to slide beneath a plant stand. Chris staggers woozily to his feet, ordering the just-arrived Raige to find the bottle. The minion charges, but Chris parries with a floor lamp. They tussle. Raige races towards the plant stand, only to be blocked by another scimitar-wielding minion, who takes a whack at her. Raige orbs out at the last second, reappearing on the far side of the porch. She summons the scimitar with her orbing telekinesis and guts the minion the moment it materializes in her hand. The minion howls and wails and, well, you know. Hell. Chris continues with the mighty tussling as Saba herself squiggles onto the sun porch. She lunges for the bottle as Buttfuck slips silently into the doorway to flip her across the room with a telekinetic flick of his wrist. Raige plunges her scimitar into the remaining minion's back, then turns her attention to Saba. Employing a bit more of her orbing telekinesis, she arranges the Mystical Crysticals in a circle at Jinny's feet, where they glow to form an invisible cage that flares only when Jinny attempts to break through the barrier. I guess they finally realized how crappy those cage effects really are, huh? Chris straightens up by Raige's side as she eyes Saba and whispers, "Where's the bottle?" The two turn to find Buttfuck staring hungrily at the object in question, which now rests in his hands. He wiggles his wonky eyebrows and flears into the commercial break. DUN!

Manor sun porch. Saba meditates as the doorbell rings.

Front hall. Big Gay Chris opens the door to find Hilton Cooties befouling the front porch. Chris gets amusingly snotty and attempts to slam the door in the guy's face. Hilton Cooties insists on seeing Piper, however, so Chris steps aside to invite him in, a shit-eating grin plastered all over Chris's face the entire time. As the two reach the parlor door, Chris telekinetically slumps Piper's head against the Dolt's chest and slings the Dolt's arm around her shoulders. Big Chris smirks, slides a faux-affable hand around his mother's would-be paramour's back, and too innocently wonders, "You want me to tell them you stopped by?" Hilton Cooties bails, never to be seen again.

Sun porch. That crappy "flying" carpet undulates into the room through the crack at the bottom of the doors and attacks the Crysticals' force field. The force field almost instantly shatters, but the carpet's destroyed in the process. Pity. Saba smirks in triumph and picks her way across the carpet's cindered remains.

Hall. Chris slams the door all, "Smell ya later, Cooties!" before ambling back into the parlor, where, to his shock and dismay, he discovers Saba lurking over his parents with a Flaming Ball Of Death. "Take me to the bottle," she demands. Pretty, pretty Big Gay Chris gasps.

Castle Montanague. As Raige slowly regains consciousness, Buttfuck assists her to her feet, spouting profuse apologies. "I'll make it up to you!" he promises, wheeling on Phoenie. "No!" Raige shouts. "No more wishes!" "It's not for me," Buttfuck claims, and goes on to prove that statement by wishing Phoenie free. Phoenie's immediately obscured by the powder-blue whirlwind, which blanches white as it engulfs Buttfuck. Phoebe reappears in her normal clothing. Buttfuck reappears in a disappointingly sedate black outfit that would not be out of place on Hamid Karzai. Dude. The women are forced into skimpy harem pants in eye-searing tones of lavender and teal, but Buttfuck's spared even a mildly embarrassing Akbar-and-Jeff-style fez? What the fuck ever. This show can blow me. Big Gay Chris orbs in with the FBOD-wielding Saba, and only because I happened to pause the tape at the moment they materialized did I notice the following production error: They've placed a small key light off-camera on the actors' right side to imitate the illumination caused by the FBOD hovering above Saba's outstretched palm. Unfortunately, Drew Fuller's standing between the key light and the FBOD, so the right side of both actors' faces are bathed in a flickering, yellowish glow when, really, the right side of Chris's face should be in shadow. Oh, well. They're both gorgeous, so let's not quibble, shall we? Saba hurls the FBOD at the Castle trio, who drop as one to the floor, leaving the FBOD to explode harmlessly elsewhere in the entrance hall. Saba then latches onto Chris's t-shirt and sends him flying through the air into a door. Man, Chris is getting the crap kicked out of him tonight. Saba strides across the room to snatch up the bottle from its place on the table, and bellows, "Genie, I wish the Charmed Ones dead." Raige and Phoebe shoot "we are so screwed" looks at each other as Buttfuck involuntarily presses his hands together and nods his head. He forgot to blink. No matter, for Phoebe and Raige instantly fall to the ground as Chris screams, "No!" He scampers over to their lifeless forms as Saba orders Buttfuck into the bottle. He glares at her, but obeys. "My condolences," Saba sneers before squiggling into the final commercial break.

Big Gay Chris babbles something about it not being Raige and Phoebe's "time" as their bodies glow and emitectoplasm? I have no idea. Spectral Raige and Phoebe congeal several feet above the floor as the makeup assistant squirts glycerin into Drew Fuller's eyes so he can look all pretty and moist as Big Chris weeps, "I'm sorry, I'm sor-- so sorry! This is all my fault!" Spectral Phoebe and Spectral Raige gaze mutely down upon him as he gasps, "She was gonna kill Muh-muh-mom and Dad!" Aw.

Speaking of whom: Back at the Manor, Piper's sleeping body glows and emits a white cloud of goo that congeals into Spectral Piper high above the parlor sofa. Spectral Piper is, of course, filmed from the waist up to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, four hundred and sixteen weeks pregnant. Spectral Piper makes "The hell?" noises before calling for the Dolt to wake up. He doesn't, but he does shift a bit so his hand moves over her body's heart, where it proceeds to glow with the Whitelighter tingly touch. Spectral Piper promptly dissolves into the cloud of goo and rejoins her body.

As the Dolt unconsciously pulls Piper back from the brink, Spectral Raige and Spectral Feebs stop glowing and sink to the floor. They're still transparent, but, as Spectral Phoebe puts it, they're "not moving on." "Why aren't we moving on?" Raige wonders. "Who cares?" Chris breathes happily, glycerin still glistening in his eyes. "You're still here." "Got any unfinished business?" Raige asks the Feebs, before busting her chops for keeping Chris's secret from her. Chris tells them to can it, because they can now reverse the magic that got them all into this mess in the first place. Either SpRaige or SPhoebe can invade Saba's body, order Buttfuck free, and trap Saba in the garish bottle forever. SPhoebe wonders if they should check on Piper first. Chris duhs that if Piper were dead, he would have vanished, so SpRaige wonders how they're supposed to find the demon they're looking for. Chris reminds them both that, as ghosts, they "can haunt anybody [they] want." "Just concentrate," he instructs, "and it should wisp you right to her." SpRaige and SPhoebe think real hard for a second, then flare and disappear through the ceiling. Big Gay Chris orbs hastily after them.

Oh, hello, blissful special-effects sequence I need not recap! Out in the desert, Saba wishes for the restoration of the lost city of Zanbar. Buttfuck, hidden in the bottle, silently complies, and CGI'd minarets and palaces emerge from the dirt. "Finders, keepers!" Saba grins wickedly. From behind, sassy SpRaige calls out, "I wouldn't unpack just yet if I were you." Saba, Cholo, and a couple of henchnomads spin around to confront the three arrivals. SPhoebe snarls something and dives into Saba's chest. The force of SPhoebe's entry jostles Saba to the point where she drops the bottle of Buttfuck. Cholo charges with upraised scimitar, but Big Gay Chris telekinetically flips him into a wall. The henchnomads step up to take Cholo's place, but SPhoebe, who by now has assumed control of Saba's body, torches them both with Flaming Balls Of Death. Chris finishes off Cholo with a sword before rejoining SpRaige to watch as SPhinny, in Phoebe's voice, wishes Buttfuck free. SPhoebe emerges from Saba just as Buttfuck's white whirlwind engulfs her. "No!" Saba wails as she's sucked back into the bottle, only to be replaced by Buttfuck in his street clothes. That wasodd. Why wouldwouldn't he haveshe should beoh, fuck it. We're almost done. Buttfuck immediately wishes the Charmed Ones alive again. Saba, from the bottle's depths, sneers, but acquiesces with the nod-and-blink schtick. SpRaige and SPhoebe morph into ectoplasmic goo and disappear. Chris steps over to Buttfuck's side and, indicating the off-screen Zanbar, asks if Buttfuck could get rid of it before Chris assumes control of the bottle. "No problem," Buttfuck assures him.

The camera pans over the digitally inserted desert city before fading into the Closing Travelogue, which is also, mercifully, sans Ovary. Eventually, we return to Castle Montanague, where Buttfuck claims to have sucked down a power-stripping potion of his own design. Raige breaks up with him anyway. Her excuse? It wouldn't be fair of her to continue as a Charmed One in his presence when he no longer has his powers. No, seriously. She butts into his family's affairs uninvited, proceeds to order him to deny who he is, demands he rid himself of his birthright as a witch, and then, when he finishes doing everything she'd asked, dumps him. If I gave a rat's ass about Buttfuck, I'd hate her right about now. As it is, he can fuck off to TNT to film another miniseries about smack addicts. Fare thee well, Slampiece Buttfuck. We hardly knew ye. Not that we ever really wanted to, but still. I'm just trying to be polite.

Manor. As the much-abused grandfather clock chimes midnight, Chris paces fretfully in the parlor, wondering why his parents aren't waking up. Phoebe suggests he relax. "Relax?" he babbles. "Did you just tell me to relax? 'Cause I am about to disappear. Vanish forever. Cease to exist." "Ohmigod," she eyerolls, "you are so dramatic." Phoebe should have just called Big Gay Chris a drama queen and been done with it. Piper and the Dolt grunt and mutter and writhe awake in each other's arms. "You okay?" Phoebe asks. Piper and the Dolt pause for a moment, realize they're in a compromising position, and promptly freak, immediately breaking apart with Piper scooting to one end of the couch while the addle-headed Dolt leaps uncomfortably to his feet. Phoebe grins. Heh. Phoebe and Big Gay Chris fill the others in on recent events, and Chris passes Jinny's bottle to his father so the latter "can take care of [it]." "Do you still forgive me?" Chris adds, hopefully. "Of course," the Dolt shrugs, clueless. At least he has some sort of excuse for said cluelessness this time. Phoebe then blunderingly wonders why neither she nor Raige nor Piper moved on, thereby informing Piper of the fact that she almost died while she was asleep. "So that wasn't a dream I had?" Piper puzzles. She recaps the Manor events from four scenes ago, like, thanks, sweetheart, but they've already been covered. Addressing the Dolt, she realizes, "You wouldn't let me move on!" Chris figures out that the Dolt thereby saved Phoebe and Raige as well. As the wish involved death for all of the Charmed Ones, Piper's quick resurrection prevented Phoebe and Raige from crossing over. Oh, just go with it. There are forty seconds left in the episode, and I don't have the energy at this point to bitch. "That was really sweet of you!" Piper offers. The Dolt grins sheepishly and tells her not to worry about it. "You, uh, wanna go with me to get [The Psycho]?" he asks. "Sure," Piper nods, rising to take his hand. The two dematerialize as Chris jumps up to blurt, "What about" As his parents vanish, he forlornly finishes, "me?" Say it with me: Awwww! "I wouldn't give up," Phoebe offers with an inscrutable expression on her face. "There may be hope for you yet." The camera slowly pans backwards from the two as we fade to black.

week: Dolt Sex. But it's okay! After all, it results in Big Gay Chris. Not to mention the much-anticipated end of Block That Fetus! -- and not a moment too soon, as far as I'm concerned. Let's face it: Holly Marie Combs's kid is, by now, about three months away from applying for an AARP membership. Have fun!