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, "But…but…maybe 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.
Innyway, Phoebe eyes the envelope in Chris's hand for a second before pulling it from his fingers. She's about to launch into some sort of retort to his last remark when she's flung into a black-and-white premonition: A dark-haired, modestly dressed beauty cowers in the corner of a cave filled with rickety-looking scaffolding. "No, please!" she begs in heavily accented English. A dark demonic type who's nearly as attractive as she is cackles gleefully before launching a dart of deadly orange mojo at her head. The dark-haired beauty drops to the floor in a dodge as the demon boy snickers. The beauty lifts her head to eye him with a mixture of panic and dread as Phoebe snaps out of it.
"What'd you see?" Chris asks. "A woman being attacked," she replies. "Where?" Chris wonders. Phoebe stares at him, all, "This is the last goddamned thing I need today," as The Sinister Oboe Of Wacky Arabian Stereotypes escorts us on over to, well, New Mexico, from the looks of things. No, seriously -- they've slotted some stock footage of a long-abandoned mud-walled Navajo fortress into this sequence for the establishing shot. Whatever. Phoebe and Big Gay Chris warily enter the cave from Phoebe's premonition, which Chris places "in a desert in the Middle East." "Are you sure your scrying wasn't off?" he asks as they glance around the chamber. "Maybe Jinny is an archeologist," Phoebe offers. "Yeah," Chris snots, "why would an archeologist in the Middle East send a letter to an advice columnist in San Francisco?" Note to Curtis Kheel: Having a character with a reputation for general snarkiness comment on the stupidity of a plot point does not excuse that plot point's stupidity. Got it? Good. Moving on. "She said she was with a controlling man?" Phoebe lamely offers with a wince, knowing how idiotic it all sounds. "You're missing my point," Chris duhs as he plants himself in front of a jury-rigged bit of scaffolding by the wall. "What if this is a trap?"
The two happen to notice a slight depression in the cave floor at this point. Big Chris bends to examine some freshly unearthed bones just as a scimitar flies through the space his lanky mane had been occupying to embed itself in the wood. Phoebe, mouth agape, spins on her heel to find two Fauxrabic-spewing nomad types blocking the cave's entrance. One of the arrivals unsheathes another scimitar, so Phoebe hastily yanks a couple of suspiciously convenient potion vials from her jacket pocket and hurls them in the intruders' direction. Both nomads instantly erupt, spraying the chamber with demonic shards. "You think anyone heard them?" Chris murmurs as a yellowish demonic dart nails him in the shoulder. He snipers to the dirt in agony as Phoebe wheels around again to spot a…oh, Christ, but this is a lousy effects shot. The rather attractive demon from her premonition comes "flying" through the cave's entrance on an undulating Persian carpet. Problem is, they've screwed up the scale of the digital insert relative to the static shot of the entranceway, so the rather attractive demon looks like a midget. God, I hate this show. Big Chris battles the pain in his shoulder to flip some telekinetic mojo at another grid of scaffolding, which tumbles to the floor in front of the crappy digital insert, halting the crappy digital insert's progression through the chamber. Demon Boy, who sort of looks like Chris Carmack's older, unfortunately goateed brother, rears back on his "flying" carpet, dropping a garishly-decorated shampoo bottle to the ground in the process. He howls and sneers as Phoebe whips another potion vial at him. The vial falls short and explodes harmlessly beneath the carpet, but Demon Boy's had enough and throws the thing into reverse so his crappy digital insert can flee the room.
Phoebe races to Chris's side to check on his injury. Big Chris insists he'll be fine, so Phoebe crosses to retrieve the discarded shampoo bottle. She unwisely bats at the surface to knock free some dirt and, despite having dealt with a similar situation in the past, has the gall to appear surprised when a sassy pink whirlwind erupts from the bottle's mouth to coagulate in the form of the dark-haired beauty from her premonition. This would be Jinny the Genie, and as you'd suspect, she's been kitted out in a ludicrous purple satin Arabian Nights harem-pants-and-halter get-up with matching headdress and scarf. Thing is, Saba Homayoon's so gorgeous, she actually pulls it all off. "Tank you for rrrespondink to my letterrr!" Saba perks in appropriately breathy and wackily accented tones. "Wait," Phoebe buhs. "Are you Jinny?" "At yourrr serrrvice, Master!" comes the expected response. Phoebe and Big Gay Chris mug like madmen for a moment before shimmying into the opening credits.
The fog-bound Opening Travelogue's underscored by a strange instrumental piece that might best be categorized as "ambient Yemeni acid-house techno-funk." Yes, it's bizarre, but bright side? No Ovary. Over at the Manor, Big Gay Chris slouches on the sun porch's wicker love seat as the Dolt applies the special Whitelighter tingly touch to the unsightly hole in his long-sleeved grey t-shirt. Saba tiptoes around the Feebs, purring, "I could heal him, Masterrr. Yourrr warrrriorrr needs his streng-t! My last masterrr will be comink back for me!" Okay, I'm already tired of typing like that, so just assume Saba's employing her appropriately wacky genie accent until told otherwise. "I think he's got it under control," Phoebe mutters, indicating the Dolt. "Good idea," Saba nods a bit obsequiously. "Save your wishes." "Did you get a good look at the demon?" the Dolt asks, and the body language coming off the two boys on the love seat is pretty amusing. The Dolt's hovering a little too close to Big Chris, taking up three-fourths of the love seat's available space in the process, and poor Chris is scrunched up all the way against his end of the thing as if desperately attempting to avoid any unnecessary contact with the loser at his side. Hee. Phoebe confirms that she does, indeed, know what the demon in question looks like, and notes that she intends to head up to the attic to abuse the Book of Shadows as soon as they're finished with the mini processing summit on the sun porch. She's also summoned Raige back to the Manor, so Raige "can keep an eye on Jinny." Big Chris, who's been rotating his now-healed shoulder around to work out the stiffness, offers the Dolt a thank you. The rude Dolt simply grimaces by way of response. Dick. "There is no need to guard me," Saba informs the Feebs. "Even if I were not bound to serve you, I would do it anyway for sparing me from Bosc." Wait. Phoebe spared her from a rabid pack of dark demonic pears? Oh, sorry. That should be "Bosk," as in Chris Carmack's unfortunately goateed older brother, whom Saba claims "was cruel, even for a demon," and she should know, as her bottle has been passed around from demonic sort to demonic sort "for centuries." "That is why I got my message to Phoebe," Saba adds, a tad too confidently. "I knew if she had my bottle, she would wish me free." The Feebs is all, "Uh-uh. No wishes. If that jackhole French Stewart taught me anything, it's that squinty-eyed, rubber-faced, overrated hack closet cases should never be allowed careers in entertainment." Or maybe Phoebe simply calls genies "tricksters" and leaves it at that.
The Dolt jumps up from the love seat to announce that he has to get back "up there," and wonders if Phoebe can handle the current sitch without Piper. And just where is Piper? Why, on a date with Greg The Hilton-Screwing Fireman, of course. Big Gay Chris freaks. "Greg the fireman?" he spits. "You mean, the one she's insanely sexually attracted to?" Oh, gross. I don't need to know that Piper has a sex life, okay? Any kind of sex life -- even if it's just in her head. I mean, ew, you know? Big Chris whips his head around to confront his worthless father. "Doesn't that bother you?" he shrills. The Dolt snippily vows that if it makes Piper happy, he's fine with it. Big Chris natters something about the "forbidden love thing" his parents had going for them back in the day, but the Dolt's not having it at all, and goes so far to admit that he's petitioned the other ever-useless Elders to send Big Chris back to the future. "Are you serious?" Phoebe splutters. "Even though Chris's intentions are good," the Dolt argues, "his methods have put us all at risk, so he's going back." "You mean you're abandoning me again," Chris whispers mopily. The Dolt dicks something by way of response and orbs out through the ceiling. Asswipe. The instant he's gone, Chris charges over to Phoebe, insisting, "I have to stop him!" Phoebe tells him to cool his jets -- she'll have a chat with the Dolt, and everything will be fine. Chris is all, "No, moron, not my dad -- Greg the fireman! He's about to sleep with my mom!" Chris dissolves into a cloud of orbs that begins to rise as Phoebe stupidly calls out, "I wish you wouldn't do that!" Saba promptly presses her palms together, nods her head, and blinks. Big Chris reforms on the sun porch with, "What just happened?" "Your wish is my command, Master," Saba reminds the Feebs with much pointing of servile index fingers.
Off-screen, Raige barges through the front door with, "All right! Where's the genie?" Phoebe skedaddles to intercept her in the front parlor, Saba trailing closely behind. Raige, who's rather fetchingly clad in a long-sleeved, emerald-green, loose-fitting top with an asymmetrical neckline, enters the parlor to enthuse, "You landed one!" "She's a genie," Phoebe deadpans, "not a trout." Saba gets frisky with the exposition, reminding Phoebe she has two wishes left and suggesting she reserve one of them for Bosk. She claims that Phoebe can't defeat the demon without use of genie magic, as Bosk has that assy special effect that makes him look like a midget, as well as a gang of "forty thieves." "Thirty-eight," Phoebe corrects. "I vanquished two." Raige smirks that it's just like a demon to wish for a "crew" and a "nice ride," and wonders what his third wish will be. Just then, two large, diamond encrusted earrings flare into existence on Raige's lobes. "Did you do that?" Phoebe hisses at Saba. "No, but they are lovely!" Saba dreamily grins before rather politely inquiring as to the identity of Raige's personal "conjurer." It's Slampiece Buttfuck, of course, and according to Raige, he's been "showering [her] with gifts all week" ever since she tried and failed to convince him to bind his powers. You know, because of his mysterious and annoying problems with magic. Whatever. I can already tell there's a big, fat subplot I'll be ignoring this evening. Phoebe rolls her eyes and gets back to more important matters, repeating Raige's question regarding Bosk's third wish. "Zanbar!" Saba whispers in tones of exaggerated dread and dark portent. Phoebe and Raige are typically clueless, so Saba proceeds to describe Zanbar as "a lost city" that, "before it was swallowed by the desert," functioned as "the seat of power for an evil empire." And I have finally figured out who Saba sounds like: Edith Diaz as Rosa, Jacqueline Bisset's cracked Mexican cook in Scenes From The Class Struggle In Beverly Hills. It's probably why I -- irrationally, I'll admit -- like her so much. Rent the movie, if you can find it. It's screechingly funny, especially when Diaz tops off the brunch scene by going all mystical Aztec on Susan Saiger's unsuspecting ass. I'm giggling just thinking about it.
Anyway, Big Gay Chris pouts his way into the room to snot, "Will you do something, please? I can't orb!" just as Buttfuck conjures a rather expensive-looking diamond bracelet onto Raige's wrist. Big Chris stares at the thing all, "Damn. Demian never gets me any nice presents, and I'm fucking married to him." To which I reply, "You ain't getting shit until you CUT YOUR GODDAMNED HAIR." Phoebe, distracted from tonight's important issue by all the shiny trinkets adorning her half-sister, suggests Raige have the other Montanagues speak with the errant Buttfuck. Raige impatiently reminds the Feebs that most of Buttfuck's relatives are dead. Saba, of all people, cuts through the Buttfuck crap (would that be "santorum"? Okay, sorry. That was uncalled for) to urge the Glamorous Ladies to focus on Bosk and the dread lost city of Zanbar. The camera tracks slowly in towards her face as she warns, "Bosk has been using his thieves to search for its former site. If he finds it and wishes it back, there will be no stopping him." She turns to Phoebe and adds, "That is why you must wish me free, Master. If I am not a genie, it will solve both your problems and mine -- I beg you." Big Chris chooses this moment to get loud about his missing orbs as Raige flares, smears, and refocuses in a totally fabulous black bias-cut evening gown. I'll say this for Buttfuck: He's got better taste than Eilish. Then again, that's not much of a compliment, now is it? Phoebe's teeny little brain threatens to overheat from the swirl of hijinks around her, so she orders Raige off to Castle Montanague to deal with Buttfuck before spinning around and promising to help Chris get his parents back together. "But it has to be on my terms," she warns. "Agreed?" Big Gay Chris nods his head, so Phoebe orders him to fetch Piper, as they could use her help in dealing with the demon. There's an amusing pause wherein the dimwit, clearly forgetting that she wished Chris's orbs away mere seconds ago, stares at him all, "Well? Why aren't you leaving?" Chris just returns the stare all, "Moron? No orbs, remember?" Phoebe finally snaps to and tells Saba, "I wish that he could orb." Saba genies, and Big Chris instantly disappears upwards. Phoebe orders Saba to follow her to the attic for some Book abuse. "Yes, Master!" Saba replies. "Phoebe!" Phoebe corrects, vanishing into the hallway. "Yes, Master Phoebe!" Saba amends, jiggling along after her. Why in hell is this amusing me so much? My sad little mind. It's totally gone, isn't it?
Meanwhile, Piper macks with Hilton Cooties on the sofa in his bachelor pad as Big Gay Chris orbs into the apartment building's hall. Piper's framed within the shot so that we can see only her head and shoulders, to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, three hundred and sixty-two weeks pregnant. In any event, Chris immediately pounds loudly on the door, all the while screaming his mother's name. Piper breaks the liplock with Hilton Cooties, rolls her eyes, tells Cooties to ignore the ruckus, and shoves her tongue back in his mouth. Chris, nothing if not persistent, carries on with the banging until Piper hauls her bloated, yet artfully concealed, belly off the sofa to waddle over towards the door. She flings it open to sing, "Go. AWAY!" "We have an emergency!" Chris insists. Hilton Cooties ambles over with, "Is there a problem here?" "Many problems, many levels," Chris deadpans, and Christ, he's right about that one. Also: Hee. "Excuse me?" Cooties snorts. "Who are you again?" "I'm a friend of her husband's," Chris lies. Piper practically chokes on her tongue. Snerk. "Ex-husband," she emphasizes, before adding, "And he's not really that great a friend." Poor Big Gay Chris looks wounded. Aw. Piper assures Hilton Cooties she can handle Chris on her own, so Hilton Cooties pecks her on the lips and disappears back into his apartment. Chris looks plenty skeeved. Piper pushes him backwards into the hallway, slams the door shut behind her, and hisses, "What is this big emergency? Can't it wait an hour…or two?" "There's a demon on the loose," Chris impatiently snits, ticking off each point on his fingers, "a genie run amok, and it took me two wishes to get here!" "You can't make wishes with genies!" Piper howls. "See?" Chris immediately demands. "We need you! Come on!" With that, he snatches her hand and tries to drag Piper far away from the erstwhile Hilton fiancé who wants to fuck his mom. "No!" Piper shrieks, batting at his arm. "I am not going to leave him high and dry again, so your demon can wait five minutes." Chris looks like he's going to lose it.
And odd, expensive, and entirely unnecessary digitally animated shot follows of a vast black beetle scuttling across the desert sands before we join Bosk in his underground lair. Stripping off his black leather jacket, he shouts, "Open sesame!" A portal materializes in the rock face to reveal another chamber deeper within the cave. Bosk, now clad in a form-fitting long-sleeved black turtleneck and a pair of tight khakis that are, alas, pleated, storms into the interior chamber to confront a gentleman assigned the moniker of "Head Thief," and I really wish they wouldn't leave themselves so open to cheap fellatio jokes. Oh, where to begin? I'll start by ignoring the obvious blowjob reference in favor of noting that Joey Naber's IMDb biography also credits him as "Cholo Number One" in some 1991 made-for-TV flick called Seeds Of Tragedy. As "Cholo" has far fewer letters than "Head Thief," I now have a nickname. Also, I suppose I should mention that every available bit of floor within the interior chamber is stacked with crates and chests jammed full of gold and bejeweled baubles and purportedly expensive tapestries and such. In any event, Bosk snarls that his genie was stolen because the guns he hired from Cholo were vanquished. "But they were two of my best swordsmen!" Cholo protests. Bosk reminds him that swordplay is no match for potions suspiciously appearing from Phoebe's too-tight pants, and fumes, "What the hell are witches doing way out here?" Cholo smiles and crosses to a velvet-lined box, within which lies "The Eye Of Aghbar" -- an amulet that will protect Bosk from the Glamorous Ladies' magic. Bosk is way stoked. He orders Cholo and his men to continue the search for Zanbar while he heads off to fry a little Charmed ass.
Castle Montanague. Raige, still in her fabulous slinky black gown, wiggles through the main floor, calling out Buttfuck's name. Buttfuck pulls a flare-and-smear combination out of his, well, butt, really, to startle her by materializing suddenly at her side. This is not one of his inherent powers, by the way. Buttfuck's actually been on a potion-mixing tear, and while I didn't know you could brew potions that conjured up sparkly diamond trinkets and fabulous bias-cut evening gowns and whatnot, I'll not be wasting too much brain power on it, because this subplot? Is boring. And pointless. You want proof? Try this: Raige unleashes what has by now become her standard rant about Buttfuck's mysterious and annoying problems with magic, to which he rather reasonably replies, "That's why I'm doing this -- to prove that I can handle it! I'm not turning into a dark beast, right?" "But that's not the point," Raige gently retorts. What is the point, you ask? Beats the shit out of me. They've never explained it before and they sure as hell don't explain it tonight, and as this is Balthazar Getty's last scheduled appearance on the show, I say, "What the fuck ever." Buttfuck, having had more than enough of this crap himself, brushes past Raige to exit, leaving her down in the depths on the ninetieth floor. Or, you know, in the middle of Castle Montanague's secret potions chamber. She's looking glamorous enough for her very own Cole Porter number, though, which was actually my point. Oh, shut up. At least I have one.
Manor attic. Saba leafs through the Book, waxing nostalgic over her past masters as she finds familiar demon after familiar demon inked onto the Book's pages. Phoebe, meanwhile, brews something nasty at the table in the center of the room. "You sure got around," she absently notes. Making conversation more than anything else, she wonders, "How did so many demons get a hold of you, anyway?" Saba launches into her tale of misery and woe, admitting that she was bought or stolen so many times over the years, she's lost track. Phoebe sighs a bit regretfully and pauses from her task to apologize. "I'm sorry I can't set you free, but wishing is just too risky right now." Saba allows her face to fall a bit. Big Gay Chris orbs into the middle of all this with Piper, who's donned a grey crocheted poncho to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, three hundred and eighty-four weeks pregnant. "Okay, let's go!" she zings. "[Hilton Cooties] is not going to wait forever!" "Well, then you should dump him," Big Chris snorts. Piper arches an instantly outraged brow as Phoebe attempts to placate her with, "He's just being overprotective." Piper whatevers and turns her attention to Phoebe's guest. "I suppose you're the genie?" she prompts. "Jinny," Saba confirms. "Jinny the genie," Phoebe adds with a doofy half-giggle. Piper, supremely unamused, acidly acknowledges the ridiculous character name with a sniffy, "Of course." Big Gay Chris ignores the icy meet-and-greet to cross to the Book of Shadows and consult the entry on Bosk. Wow. I don't know if any of you knew this, but Stan Lee was one of the Glamorous Grandladies back in the day, apparently, because Demon Boy's little watercolored portrait makes him look like a better-dressed version of Peter Parker. In any event, Bosk is defined as a "sinister demon who attacks by shooting light darts at his victims." According to the Book, Bosk "can be vanquished with the following ingredients: Mandrake, dark roasted wattleseed, dwarf silkweed," and something illegible because Big Chris's big finger is blocking my view. Saba's joined him, by the way, and they'd make a fine couple if it weren't for the fact that he likes guys and she's secretly evil. Ooops. Spoiler!
Piper -- realizing how simple the vanquish will be, and horny to boot -- bails to schedule a late-afternoon booty call with Hilton Cooties after ordering Phoebe to put Saba back in her bottle. "No offense," she offers before sailing out the door, "but we've been burned before." Phoebe apologetically restates Piper's request, and Saba dematerializes in a whirlwind of pink smoke to vanish down the garish bottle's neck. "I feel so bad," Phoebe glums. "As well you should," Big Chris chides, in tones indicating that he's well aware he's addressing someone with the mental capacity of a particularly slow four-year-old. "If we don't do something soon," he continues, "I could end up half-fireman." "I'm running out of time, here," he adds, crossing from the Book's stand to his aunt, "so whaddya say we use that genie to make Mom and Dad…you know." "That's vile," Phoebe squints, disgusted. "And against the rules," she adds. "I would think that you wouldn't want to be conceived that way." "Better than not being conceived at all," he counters with an annoyed shrug. Phoebe rolls her eyes and reminds him she agreed to help, but only on her terms.
In the meantime, she's finished the vanquish, which she squeezes into a vial with a turkey baster, and the turkey baster appearing so close to all this discussion about Big Chris's conception takes me to a foul place involving the Dolt, a stack of skin magazines, and a sperm bank, so thank God a crappy digital insert crashes through the attic's bay window at this moment, because otherwise I might have done something drastic involving wire hangers and my carotid artery. Bosk's "flying" carpet clips Big Gay Chris, who smacks into the Book's stand before crashing to the floor. Phoebe wings the vial at Bosk's chest, but the amulet flares red and demolishes the thing. "Not this time, witch," he sneers before launching a demonic dart at her head. Phoebe ducks behind the table, frantically eyes Saba's garish bottle with something approaching panic, and blurts, "Jinny, I wish you free!" The pink whirlwind instantly erupts from the bottle's mouth to deposit a non-genied Saba atop the attic carpet, and whoops! Her ludicrous Scheherazade outfit's been replaced by something black, slimming, and decidedly demonic, and she steps forward to sneer in unaccented English, "Well, it's about time." "Who's the master now, bitch?" she snots, conjuring a Flaming Ball Of Death which she promptly embeds in Bosks's chest. Okay, she didn't actually say the "bitch" bit, but I have to admit, between The O.C. and The Chappelle Show, I've been unwittingly appending that particular word to just about every sentence that's flown out of my mouth over the last few months. It's made for some very awkward social situations, I can assure you. Anyway, Bosk howls and wails and blazes his merry way down to Hell just as Piper arrives on the scene to gape. Phoebe, incidentally, is nowhere to be seen. Saba lunges for the garish bottle still resting on the potions table, so Piper shouts a warning to her younger son on the floor. Chris flips a little telekinetic mojo at the thing, and it zips across the room into his hand. Piper deploys a couple of her own Hands in Saba's direction, but Saba dodges the resulting explosion by flinging herself onto the "flying" carpet, which plows out of the room through the shattered window. Piper goggles some more as Chris pulls himself from the floor with, "Where's Phoebe?" "Here!" comes the tinny response. "In here!" Big Gay Chris raises the bottle to his quizzical eye to find Phoebe pulling a Barbara Eden in the padded depths of the thing, complete with a three-foot-high braided blonde wig and yards of teal chiffon. "Hello," she grins goofily before being swallowed by the commercial break.
Fade up on Phoenie in her plush bottle surroundings as Piper's voice howls, "Would you come out of there, please?" "I can't!" Phoenie wails. "I don't know how -- try commanding me!" The camera angle switches so we get a Phoenie POV of Piper's enormous brown eye peering down the bottle's neck. "Oooo-kay," Piper's Eye begins before growing annoyed and adding, "Get the hell out of there!" "Not you," Phoenie sighs before adding hesitantly, "My…master." Piper's Eye rolls itself around and makes way for The Eye Of Big Gay Chris, and my, but this is a pretty sight, what with the green and the long lashes and the dangerous brow. Woof. "You mean me?" inquires The Eye Of Big Gay Chris. "Well, yeah," Phoenie explains. "You did pick up the bottle, didn't you?" "All right," offers The Eye Of Big Gay Chris, sounding bemused. "Get out of the bottle -- I command you." Phoenie crosses her arms, flares white, and bursts into a powder-blue whirlwind that presently deposits her on the attic floor. Piper takes one look at Phoenie's belly-baring velour-and-chiffon outfit and bursts into gales of snide, mocking laughter. "You look ridiculous!" Piper giggles. "How am I supposed to get back to [Hilton Cooties] now, with all this?" "Is that all you care about?" Phoenie whines. "Look at me -- I am trapped in pantaloons!" She clomps over to the nearby full-length mirror and gasps in dismay, "And why do I always get stuck with the wig?" "Trust me," Piper eye-rolls, still amused, "you don't." You know, I tried to find appropriate links for those last two lines of dialogue, but these women have sported so many goddamned falls and weaves and polyester nightmares on their heads over the last six seasons, I wouldn't know where to begin.
Anyway, Piper immediately calls for the Dolt, leading not-so-smooth Big Chris to observe none-too-slyly, "Have you ever noticed that the Dolt is the first person you call in your time of need?" Piper grants her younger son nothing more than a frosty glare as the Dolt orbs into the attic behind him. "Uh oh," mumbles the Dolt upon catching sight of Phoenie. "I still can't believe you made a wish," Piper sighs. "I thought she was an innocent!" Phoenie protests. "How was I supposed to know I was going to unleash a demon?" "Says so right here," the Dolt duhs, hoisting the garish bottle from the table to read the Fauxrabic inscription scrolled around the thing's base. Backwards. That's right -- the stupid Dolt twirls the thing in his fingers so that the script flows from left to right. Asshole. In any event, the backwards text reveals that Jinny was cursed into the bottle for not agreeing to marry some "ancient sorcerer" from ages past. Excuse me? She gets her ass slung into a bottle for all eternity because she told some chauvinistic dicksmack to take a hike, and we're supposed to be rooting against her? What the fuck ever. God, I hate this show. Anyway, the backwards Fauxrabic inscription goes on to note that whoever freed Jinny would have to switch places with her. "Missed a big one here, bud," the Dolt dicks, passing the bottle to Big Gay Chris. "It's not his fault," Phoenie insists, "it's [mine]." Piper wonders why Phoebe's Fucking Backup Band didn't alert her to Jinny's true motives. Phoenie growls that Jinny tricked not only the Fucking Backup Band, but the Book as well.
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't…I can't…how 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!
Sun porch. Aftermath. Raige and Saba snipe at each other. "When I form my empire," Saba promises, "the first thing I'm gonna do is rid the world of witches." "Oh yeah?" Raige snaps back. "When you're back in your bottle, the first thing I'm gonna do is put you in the microwave!" Raige spins on her heel to flounce off as Saba calmly raises her palms into the air to…I don't know. Meditate, I guess.
Back in the parlor, Big Gay Chris has arranged his slumbering parents in each other's arms on one of the overstuffed sofas, and fondly spreads a blanket over Piper's sleeping form to disguise the fact that Holly Marie Combs is, by now, four hundred and three weeks pregnant. "What's wrong with them?" Raige asks as she clomps into the room. "It's a long story," Chris sighs. "Give me the Cliffs Notes version," Raige suggests. "C'mon, Chris -- you and [the Dolt] and Phoebe have all been acting weird since before the demon attacked! What's going on?" Chris shakes his head as he rises to his feet, and reluctantly admits, "I made a little wish." "What?" Raige bites. "Okay…two little wishes," he amends. "What did you wish for?" Raige grunts, pressing her palms against her presumably aching head. "For the Dolt to forgive me," Chris shrugs, "which, by the way, was an accident." "And?" Raige leads. "For Piper and the Dolt to sleep together?" Raige makes a tremendous stink-face and, horrified, squeals, "You are sick! What is wrong with you? That is disgusting! You are some creepy registered sex offender from the future! Oh, my God, you're so gross!" Hee. Chris, who'd been babbling denials beneath her little tirade, finally yelps, "I'm Piper and [the Dolt's] son!" Raige, stunned, shuts up as Chris continues, "They're my parents. I came back to save my family." Raige, mind thoroughly blown, retreats to the relative sanity of an armchair as Big Chris drops the whole conception bomb on her head. "This has been such a long day," she sighs. Chris kneels at her side and offers to orb over to Castle Montanague to fetch Phoenie. "You can't," Raige insists, insisting that Buttfuck's "crazy right now." "Who else knows about this?" she wonders. "Just Phoebe," Chris assures her. Raige orders him to keep an eye on the demon while she brews up a power-stripping potion for her boyfriend. She rises to head into the kitchen, but pauses when she reaches the hallway to glance over her shoulder at Big Gay Chris gazing protectively at his sleeping parents. Raige allows herself a slight, affectionate smile before disappearing.
Castle Montanague. Phoenie, in full Phoebe The Amazing Dipshit mode, hoots and yodels as she propels herself against the bottle's interior walls in an attempt to knock it on its side. The bottle teeters on its table as Buttfuck ransacks the Castle's potions room for a particular manuscript. Phoenie eventually succeeds in toppling the bottle and materializes to greet Buttfuck with, "Thank God! I thought a demon got me. Why didn't you let me out?" Buttfuck distractedly mutters that he's "not ready for [her] yet" as Phoenie realizes that she's in "the black magic vault." Oh, whatever. Will this subplot never end? Not anytime soon, apparently, for the two blither at each other until Buttfuck finds what he'd been searching for -- a book of carefully worded wishes for use with genies, because, as we've seen, things can go horribly awry if one's not particular about these things. He intends to win Raige's affections by having Phoenie cast a spell on her. Raige orbs into the doorway at this moment to spit, "How come you didn't tell me Chris was my nephew?" "Yeah, maybe we could talk about that later," Phoenie babbles from the far side of Buttfuck's back, "because you're boyfriend's about to go woo-woo!" This last bit is accompanied by a sing-song tone and appropriate finger gestures. Heh. Raige flips the power-stripping potion at Buttfuck's head, but he counters with a wrist-flick that sends Raige and that potion vial sliding across the entrance hall's marble floor. Raige slams her head into an ornamental pillar, and grunts. Phoenie phreaks and darts over to her sister, while Buttfuck makes me long for death's sweet embrace so I don't have to deal with his asinine storyline anymore.
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 emit…ectoplasm? 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 was…odd. Why would…wouldn't he have…she should be…oh, 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!