Fade up on the title of this evening's episode as it blazes onto the screen, the two Ws smashing together in a fiery explosion that morphs into the words themselves as an athame flares out through the roiling red smoke in the background to settle in the center. "Welcome back to Witch Wars," an announcer voice-overs as various stills of tonight's action (and, honestly, the action of three weeks ago) scroll past. "Tonight, on a very special episode," he continues, "you'll see the Game Masters themselves take on not just any witches, but the legendary Charmed Ones." That athame wipes from left to right to reveal a demonic television studio set, upon which the announcer presently squiggles. He looks like one of the more attractive, younger mobsters on The Sopranos who always end up getting whacked after a couple of episodes, because someone apparently decided Michael Imperioli would represent the pinnacle of regularly scheduled male beauty on that show. And that someone should be shot. ["Or given a raise, because it's totally working on me. Hey, you've got your Chris, I've got mine." -- Sars] In any event, our host adds, "It'll be winner takes all," as he steps towards the camera and addresses the audience directly. "And we will take all -- their lives, their powers, and last but not least, their progeny." I'm sure I'd be worried about that particular threat were this gentleman in the opening credits, but he's not, so whatever. The screen fades to black for a moment until the phrase "12 hours earlier" flames into view for a bit in Gothic script; then we cross-fade to Piper toddling into the Not!warts library with Big Gay Chris at her side and joining her sisters at the table for a "family meeting." Snidely's sleeve dominates the foreground of the shot. Shit.
The Dolt's absence from this meeting is due to the fact that "he's on the witch killer trail," as Snidely explains, and that really should be "witch killer's trail," as the existing version makes it sound as if the Dolt's some sort of mystical and zenlike witch-killer apprentice. Stupid Snidely. Snidely snits that the gals should follow the Dolt on said trail instead of loafing around Not!warts, polluting the air with their incessant babbling. Phoebe snots something back at him about having larger issues to deal with, namely that whole who's-gonna-turn-the-Psycho-evil thing they've been fretting about since Big Gay Chris dropped that particular bomb a few months back. To that end, Phoebe, who's wearing a small purple flower in her "hair" (mood: whorishly self-centered, like you had to ask), has been doing a little research, and has reached the conclusion that the nefarious baddie they seek might not necessarily be demonic in origin. Snidely scowls at her, unnoticed by the Manor Morons. The "statistics" Phoebe references in her little spiel here have told her that "fifty percent of violent crimes are perpetrated by someone the victim knew [sic]," and as I don't have time to research that suspicious-sounding figure myself, let's just go ahead and assume it's incorrect, and that the writing staff is blowing crack out of its collective ass once again, okay? Snidely, who's scorching his own bushy eyebrows with the all that ferocious glaring and such, scoffs at the idea that a "mortal" might be involved. Phoebe persists, revealing that the crime reporter at All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me is of the opinion that "it's usually someone you least expect." Piper gets tense as Snidely gets even more insistently dismissive. "This theory," he says, crossing to the table, "might make some sense in the lives of normal people, but you are not normal people." Were that coming from anyone else, I'd applaud, for our gals are so stupid they need to be reminded of that fact every goddamned week. Unfortunately, it's coming from the too-smug Snidely, and so I am forced to tell him to shove it. Damn you, Snidely! Damn you to Hell!
Snidely peevishly reminds them of the "Underworld of demons who want [them] dead," and takes this opportunity to segue back to that witch killer the Dolt's been after. Big Gay Chris, who'd been silently following the argument up to now, jumps up to defend Phoebe's point of view. This naturally irks Snidely no end, and he rants something about all the witches who have been slaughtered lately before demanding, "How is that not your only priority?" "Because we're running out of time," Chris reveals with his typically impeccable sense of capital-D Drama. At Piper's prompting, he elaborates, "I should have told you sooner -- what happens to [my dead-eyed sociopath of an older brother] happens before I'm born." "What?" Raige bites with appropriate amounts of disbelief as Piper's eyes widen and Phoebe hoots and yodels. Snidely, ever the crafty one, uses this revelation to push the gals into the search for the witch killer, but Phoebe has other plans. Raige and Big Gay Chris are to assist the Dolt on this whole witch killer thing while she herself pursues her own theory. Piper's to remain at Not!warts, because Holly Marie Combs's water is about to break, and cannot therefore be trusted with any of the likely action sequences during the ridiculousness that is certain to follow. Also, she's not to worry, as Phoebe's in complete control of the sitch. Piper collapses into an immediate and well-justified panic attack. Oh, not really, but you know she's going to control-freak her way through most of this episode because of all this, right? Right. Phoebe trundles determinedly down the hallway as Snidely twiddles his moustache and exits the frame.
Cut to a crystal ball being lovingly buffed by Head On A Nerd. Snidely storms into his office and telekinetically flings shut the door behind him. "Something wrong?" Head On A Nerd asks, for Head On A Nerd is nothing if not perceptive. "Yes," Snidely grimly confirms. "I think they're about to figure us out." Snidely flares his hateful nostrils around until said hateful nostrils are overwhelmed by the opening credits.
Okay, that feminine hygiene ad where the chick shoves a tampon into the hole in the bottom of the rowboat to stop a leak? So very, very wrong. All I can think of whenever I see it is the opening shower scene in Carrie where Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, and Edie McClurg are screaming, "Plug it UP! Plug it UP! Plug it UP!" while a bleeding and terrified Sissy Spacek cowers, screaming, on the tile floor. I don't think that the association they hoped viewers would make when they came up with this idea for the spot, you know what I mean?
“ Raige shoots Big Chris a look of death and snots that she's glad someone finally agrees with her. Hey, back off my husband, bitch. And might I remind you that said someone who agrees with you just happens to be named 'the Dolt'? ”
A brief and ovary-free opening travelogue whisks us over to the Manor where, up in the nonexistent attic, Raige tortures a dark demonic sort by activating a flaring set of Mystical Crysticals arranged around his prone form on the carpet, the better to zap him with bolts of sporking electricity. Big Gay Chris winces in empathic pain before wondering, "You're sure he's a demon, right?" There's an Abu Ghraib joke buried somewhere in all of this, and were I tasteless enough to find it, I'd share it with you. Raige mugs for a moment in response to her overly cautious nephew before activating the Crysticals once more and demanding, "Tell us everything you know about the witches who were murdered!" The demon feigns ignorance, but quickly changes his tune the moment Raige sporks him once again. "Oh!" he splutters. "The witches! Well, the one last night, she put on a great show. She shot fire from her hands, and-and-and she put up a great fight!" Raige wrinkles her nose at the stench of the presumed bullshit streaming from this guy's mouth, and snatches up a handy potion vial to fling it into his head as the shot cuts to another overhead of the action. The demon's body, surprisingly enough, does not erupt instantly into a veil of fire as he howls and wails and blazes his merry way down to Hell. Rather, it sort of dissolves from his head down to his toes in a series of sparkling yellow lights as a column of black smoke billows from the carpet to dissipate upwards into the camera lens. That was different. And kind of cool, too. I have to admit, the effects on this show have just been getting better and better as the series drags on. Pity the scripts suck so much. Big Gay Chris, annoyed, leaps to his feet to yelp, "What did you do that for? He was just starting to talk!" "He was lying!" Raige insists. "There was no witch murdered last night, and" Presumably, she was going to finish that sentence with "good witches don't shoot fire from their hands," but she's interrupted by the noisy racket heralding her former brother-in-law's entrance on a cloud of orbs. "A witch was killed last night!" the Dolt pants as he crosses to Raige's side. Big Gay Chris's smirky "Now what was that about the lying?" reaction shot is priceless. Raige and Big Gay Chris stoop to gather the Mystical Crysticals from the carpet as they fill the Dolt in on recent events. Raige believes that a demon acting alone is quite simply incapable of killing so many women in so short a period of time. Rather, she thinks someone might be hiring demonic hit men to carry out the murders. The Dolt predictably leaps to the conclusion that someone's attempting to organize the Underworld, again, some more. Raige shoots Big Chris a look of death and snots that she's glad someone finally agrees with her. Hey, back off my husband, bitch. And might I remind you that said someone who agrees with you just happens to be named "the Dolt"? Whatever. Raige also chooses this moment to remind the world that Phoebe lacks her active powers, so Raige intends to drop off a handful of offensive potions at Phoebe's place of employment. "What should we do?" Chris asks. "Pray that she doesn't get attacked," Raige snorts before sailing out of the nonexistent room.
“ 'She was pretty obnoxious,' Chris agrees. 'Was'? ”
Before we get to see anything interesting, though, the camera pans over to Not!warts, where Piper, incredulous, is howling, "You stabbed her?" "Oh, you would have, too," Raige counters. "She was pretty obnoxious," Chris agrees. "Was"? Raige, apparently, has decided to become a 1960s flight attendant in the break between scenes, if that hideous green sleeveless mini-dress she's sporting is anything to go by. I suppose the fact that she's pouring glasses of celebratory champagne during all of this isn't helping matters any, either. The Dolt enters with the mulleted, dead-eyed psychopath as Piper asks, "So we're one hundred percent sure these were the demons we were looking for?" Chris nods silently as Phoebe proposes the following toast: "To our nephew -- may he always be safe." Way to ignore my husband there, bitch. The ladies clink glasses as Big Gay Chris breathes, "I just can't believe it's over." "You saved the future," the Dolt smiles as the shot cuts over to Snidely's study, where he's watching the celebration through his crystal ball.
Head On A Nerd paces anxiously nearby as Snidely languidly snaps off the image to note, "They're off our trail." Snidely goes on at boring length regarding his plot against the Psycho's life, which Head On A Nerd endures until he reaches some sort of personal breaking point. "What if Phoebe's right?" he demands, turning to confront Snidely. "What if [Mangy Jesus] wasn't turned by a demon? What if, in trying to eliminate a threat, we are actually creating a monster? At such a tender age, to be betrayed by those who have sworn to protect you? What if that's what turns him?" Snidely leaps to his feet to jabber something insane and obsessive about the threat Mangy Jesus represents to humanity, or something, until Head On A Bag signs his own death warrant by announcing his intention to reveal Snidely's plot to the Manor Morons himself. He makes to exit the study, but Snidely catches him in some sort of telekinetic choking mojo that keeps Head On A Nerd rooted to the spot. Snidely quietly advances on the nerd, apologizes for what he's about to do, and blows Head On A Nerd to smithereens. Snidely drops his head a bit sadly as we finally fade to black.
week, it's the much-anticipated double-episode season finale, during which, apparently, tragic fashion choices abound. Just wait 'til you get a load of Bizarro Dolt. Oy.