"Previously on Charmed"? We'll go with that. You realize this means I'll now be skipping all of the tedious expository dialogue the writers are bound to shoehorn into the episode proper anyway, right? Right. So, previously on The Show That Will Not Rest Until Our Souls Have Been Sucked Dry: Raige's Moustache vowed to prevent the ever-useless Elders from shuttering Not!warts; Phoebe's Tapeworm grew restless as its bony host refused to ingest solid food for the eighth straight month; Elise Rothman, Girl Editor granted Phoebe a sabbatical from All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me just to get the filthy whore to stop having sex in the office; Elise then hired Professional Boyband Fucktard Nick Fucking Lachey to ghost "Ask Phoebe" in the filthy whore's absence; Phoebe decided that screwing Slampiece Sparklies would be her best course of action over the few episodes; Brian Krause unleashed a series of repellent faces while the Dolt sporked Stupid Uncle Phil high atop the Golden Gate Bridge; Brian Krause aged ninety-three years in a single day; Piper's dangly chandelier earrings vowed never to reveal the Dolt's murderous ways because Withholding Vital Information From Each Other Has Always Worked So Well For Them In The Past; and a giant green floating Head assaulted the Dolt by crooning, "We want you! Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha! DUN!"
Currently on Charmed, some mouthbreather with feral forearms -- I'm guessing, here -- flips the latest "Ask Phoebe" column onto a table at an outdoor café. The lead letter's from "Glass Ceiling In Sausalito," who has "an M.B.A. in business" but is still being "judged purely on [her] looks and not [her] brains." Do I need to comment on that? "An M.B.A. in business"? Didn't think so. From off-screen, Phoebe bitches, "That's not me!" as the camera pans up from the paper to take in a frappuccino-sipping Piper, who happens to have the tit-suckling Tiny Gay Log attached to her right breast at the moment. By the way, both the Tiny Log and the breast to which it has been affixed are discreetly hidden away beneath a yellow blanket. In any event, Piper, indicating the column's hideous byline photograph, snarks, "Sure looks like you." Heh. The camera cuts to take in the hideous occasional columnist herself, and good God, woman! What is your problem? Aside from, you know, that tapeworm you've been harboring for the better part of the last year. No, I speak of Phoebe's hat -- a spectacularly awful concoction fashioned from avocado-green burlap encircled with blue denim for a brim and accented with a thin, dark purple ribbon. Who the fuck would wear something like that out of the house? Oh, that's right: this bit of sun-baked trash. Gah. In any event, Phoebe's getting her g-string in a knot over what Slampiece Sparklies has supposedly done to her column. She claims he's dispensing advice as a man would, focusing on fixing the problem at hand rather than "validat[ing] feelings," or some such tiresome bullshit. In fact, just today he had the unmitigated gall to give that nice lady with the M.B.A. in business "step by step [instructions on] how to deal with her boss." The bastard! Piper clearly couldn't give a rat's ass about any of this, but patiently bides her time, since Tiny Gay Chris has yet to finish his lunch. Besides, she'll be needing the toothy shrew to help her lug the kids back to the Manor in about three minutes. Meanwhile, the dead-eyed, stroller-bound Psycho lurks in the background, scanning the unsuspecting passersby for his victim.
Anyway, Phoebe won't shut up about her stupid subplot, prattling endlessly about how Sparklies picks only "fix-it" letters to publish in the column and she's left him three messages in the last twenty-four hours about it but he's ignored every single one of her calls and would you please, please just fuck him already and send him on his way, hag? Because NO ONE CARES. And even more boring, if that is at all possible? Piper's Issue Of The Week, which involves getting the Dolt to spend more time with the kids in order to convince him that "he's loved and needed" and that "life isn't all that bad." I neither love nor need him, and life at this very moment quite frankly sucks. So there. Someone whack me with a tire iron when this is all over to make sure I'm not dead.
Oh, Christ. While all of the above has been transpiring at the Glamorous Ladies' table, a couple of yuppie extras seated far down the sidewalk have been peering through binoculars at the Tiny Gay Log stapled to Piper's right one and making stink-faces about the supposedly scandalous situation to the café's manager. Eventually, the manager strides over and orders the gals to make with the tit-sucking elsewhere, only he does so in the most obnoxiously unctuous tone possible, like of course he would be a complete prick about the whole thing. Of course. And why is that, you ask? Because the Manor Morons Can Do No Wrong, and anyone who disagrees with or crosses them is a Poopy-Brained Doo-Doo Head who is also, in all likelihood, Jiss Jellass. Piper, ever the martyr, immediately prepares to exit, but Phoebe chooses to leap to her feet and bray, "You can't do this!" "Actually," the manager notes, "I can." He directs her attention to one of those "Management Has The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone" signs, and you will never in a million billion gazillion years be able to convince me that this would actually happen in San Francisco so whatever and bite me and why wasn't this show cancelled four years ago? Rrrrgh. Phoebe starts to make a federal case out of it, but Piper presses her lips into a grim little line and hisses, "We're going!" Phoebe splutters and gapes and annoying! while Phoebe's tapeworm inches forward into her mouth to salivate over the untouched cinnamon buns on the café table.
Not!warts Not-So-Great Hall. Raige, wearing white shoes after Labor Day, stands at the center of the room before the trio of velour-robed ever-useless Elders who are to determine the school's fate. Even I, who have seen no more than two episodes of Star Trek: The Generation, recognize the lead Elder as Q. Backing him up are some bald guy who doesn't get any lines, and Lunch Lady God from Joan Of Arcadia, who is even more imposing without the hairnet. Sullenly witnessing the proceedings from a semi-circle of couches in the shadows behind Raige are clots of nose-picking Not!warts Nit!wits. Q notes that Not!warts was "a noble experiment," but adds that he's "afraid it's run its course." Raige, still somewhat unnervingly tan but with no visible Max Factor moustache as of yet, frets -- of course -- about The Children. "Where are they going to go?" she demands. "Where are they going to learn to develop their magic?" Lunch Lady God quite reasonably answers Raige's question with one of her own: "Where did you learn to develop yours?" As Raige babbles something about the Manor and Grams and Teeth! and how not everyone has a support system like she did, a thirty-two-year-old nose-picking extra shoots a spitball that nails Raige in the back of her neck. Were I Raige, this is the point where I would have announced that The Children can rot in hell for all I care and bailed. Actually, I take that back. I would have made that announcement the first time Not!warts was threatened with closure a year ago. God, I hate this show.
Raige, bless her little heart, soldiers on undeterred until the appalled Q cuts her short to argue that, with Snidely no longer around, the safety of the institution and its students can no longer be guaranteed. Meanwhile, another pock-marked, nose-picking thirtysomething in the crowd -- this one with David Cassidy's Partridge Family hair -- telekinetically releases an arrow from a handy bronze statue of Cupid. The arrow zips across the hall to embed itself in a packing crate behind Q's head. Q turns to gaze at the missile with the sort of supreme disdain that has become John DeLancie's stock-in-trade over the years as an increasingly flustered Raige nervously concludes her response: "Like I said, they need some guidance." Some fat turd in the peanut gallery's all, "She can guide me any day!" His douchebag companion, who'd been paging through a book, snickers, "Check it out -- I just cast this awesome spell." No, we don't hear the spell. No, we don't care, either. No, really. You do not care. The douchebag flips the book around to display a color illustration of a blonde and buxom Lady Godiva taking her infamous ride. An odd little black-clad, hunchbacked, toadying sort lurks beneath her on the image's far border. As Raige argues that "these kids are so special," a haze of twinkly, golden lights emerges from Godiva's inked form to hover above the page for a moment before erupting upwards into the air like a cannonball, arcing above Raige's head until it explodes in a cascade of shimmering mojo that presently takes the form of Godiva and her horse. That was pretty cool. I must admit, much as I hate this episode, all of Godiva's magical entrances and exits are well done. Now where was I? Oh, yeah. A wispy trail of black smoke that had also emerged from the image in the book passes overhead unnoticed to disgorge the spectral form of Maury Sterling, for whom I harbor an unreasonable affection. And you can shut up about that unreasonable affection right now. Maury Sterling furtively and shiftily bats at the air in confusion as Godiva glances blankly around the room. The fat turd hauls his rancid ass out of his seat with a lusty "Naked woman! Woo!" and charges towards the Woo! in question, slamming his way straight through Maury Sterling's spectral form as he goes. Maury Sterling looks down at himself, all, "EW!" Meanwhile, other horny lads tumble past a dismayed Raige to crowd the body-stockinged and badly wigged C-list actress on the horse, jostling Raige into Q's side and damn. John DeLancie's about three feet taller than Rose McGowan is. Heh. The badly wigged C-list actress on the horse mutely goggles her way into the opening credits.
Not!warts. Lunch Lady God and her nameless, bald-headed colleague beat back the horny idiots attempting to maul Lady Godiva as the douchebag responsible for the latter's appearance babbles out an apology to Raige for the spell. Raige, lying, assures "Duncan" that she knows he didn't mean to conjure Godiva, and urges him to tell her exactly what happened, and fast. Duncan panics something unhelpful. Raige is stunned and more than a little delighted to learn she's in the presence of Lady Godiva, like, you dim bitch. A naked woman on a horse suddenly appears in the middle of the room at Not!warts, and you didn't recognize her until this little sphincter told you who she was? What the fuck ever. Raige gets over herself long enough to order Douchebag Duncan to send Godiva back. Douchebag Duncan flails that he doesn't know how to do that. Godiva, meanwhile, dismounts off-camera and retreats to a corner of the room, covering herself with a handy piece of fabric. Raige assaults one of Not!warts professors, stripping the woman of her robe while promising to have the thing dry-cleaned as Q looms over her to shove an accusatory finger in her face. "Is that who I think it is?" he steams. "Pretty impressive use of magic, huh?" Raige bright-sides. Q's not having it for all of the anticipated "you don't fuck with history" reasons, but Raige vows that she has the situation well in hand. Q unleashes an exasperated sigh and vanishes from the frame as Raige bolts to Godiva's aid. For some stupid reason, the horny idiots who had been completely ignoring Lunch Lady God decide to pay attention when Raige demands that they disperse. Lunch Lady God should smite each and every one of their worthless asses for such a wanton display of disrespect. Lady Godiva, meanwhile, finally gets in her first lines of the evening, and naturally they're things like "Where am I?" and "What is this place?" delivered in a pitifully bad faux British accent. Also, she's for some reason speaking entirely comprehensible modern English despite the fact she was just sucked forward through time nearly a thousand years from the Coventry of 1040. I hate this show. Raige attempts to calm the addled blonde as she wraps Godiva in the professor's purloined black robe. Spectral Maury Sterling watches this transpire with a puzzled yet somehow menacing expression on his face.
Over in another part of the room, Douchebag Duncan slumps dejectedly into the depths of a sofa as the fat turd joggles into the frame to needle him about the spell, or something. Duncan tells Fat Turd to go blow as Spectral Maury Sterling tiptoes over to unleash some sort of demonic mojo on the Douchebag's ass. "Such intense frustration, pent up," Spectral Maury intones, sounding exactly like the lecherous Duke in Moulin Rouge!. "Let me help you let it out," Maury smirks as he wiggles the fingers of his right hand. The Douchebag's face flares up, and cloudy streams of reddish -- what? Repressed emotion? Fine. We'll go with that: cloudy streams of reddish repressed emotion eddy from the Douchebag's head into Maury's right hand, which begins to glow. The glow quickly suffuses the rest of Maury's spectral form, which becomes a bit more solid once he's processed the stuff. Douchebag Duncan immediately leaps to his feet and flies at Fat Turd, beating him to the ground while whining, "You son of a bitch! Leave me alone! Stop picking on me!" Lunch Lady God rumbles over to threaten, "Break it up!" as a pack of nose-picking thirtysomething extras quickly gathers to cheer and place bets on the winner. Or something like that. A random teacher eventually yanks the Douchebag off Fat Turd to disappear down the hall with him as Spectral Maury watches them go. "Interesting," he eyebrows to himself, turning to scan the others in the room. "I have a very good feeling about this," he adds with more than a bit of sibilance in his pronunciation, and I was totally right -- he's channeling Richard Roxburgh for this, and I can't say I disapprove. Spectral Maury steps close to the camera and grins.
Manor. Phoebe, mid-harangue, shrieks, "I can't believe you of all people are against this!" as she helps Piper shove the enormous double baby carriage into the front hall from the porch outside. "We have to do something," Phoebe continues. Piper, looking like she's had more than enough of Phoebe's shrill bullshit on the way home, rolls her eyes and snorts, "You are not writing a letter to 'Ask Phoebe' about my breast!" As Piper hisses for the Dolt, Phoebe blithers, "You're the one who said I needed a cause." Phoebe apparently intends to co-opt Piper's humiliating experience at the café that afternoon to teach Slampiece Sparklies a lesson, or something. Self-centered bitch. And there's a subplot I'll be ignoring for the evening, starting now. Piper leads the way back through the dining room into the kitchen, hissing for her deadbeat of an ex-husband all the way. Phoebe continues to make the whole situation All About Her as Piper impatiently slams a bagel into the toaster, reminding Phoebe that there's already a law on the books protecting the rights of new mothers to breastfeed in public. Phoebe urges Piper to sue the café, then. Piper tells Phoebe to mind her own fucking business for once in her goddamned motherfucking too-long life. In so many words. "I have other things to worry about," Piper grunts, crossing to the refrigerator to retrieve some cold cuts. "Like work." "Yeah, I don't have to worry about that," Phoebe glums, refusing to shut the fuck up. "I'm on sabbatical. I'm lost." Piper, over it, howls, "For crying out loud, [Dolt]!" She's answered by the shrill racket of an orb cloud, but alas, it's Raige's. Raige materializes with a freaked Godiva and immediately makes to hustle Bookward for a little abuse.
"Hold it!" Piper orders as Phoebe advances to wonder what gives. Raige mugs her way through an explanation of the situation, allowing that her meeting "kinda went long, got a little boring, and the kids? They grew restless." "So they conjured a sex object?" Phoebe caterwauls. "I am not a sex object!" Godiva sniffily protests. "I was riding through town in my natural state to protest my husband's unjust taxes!" Yeah, we'll get to that one in a second, you bint. At this moment, though, Piper's bagel pops up out of the toaster, and I cringe in anticipation of tonight's "What's a zoo?" equivalent from this scantily clad medieval hussy. It doesn't come -- yet -- but Godiva, fascinated by the appliance, edges around the center island to examine it more closely while Piper grits her teeth and, much annoyed, exasperates for the retarded in the audience that Godiva must be sent back to finish her ride, as the repercussions would likely be dire should she not. Raige's Moustache -- hello, my dusky friend -- aggravates that she gets it, and that she's more worried about the likely shuttering of Not!warts. Piper, God love her, peeves that altering the course of history is just a wee bit more important than that stupid fucking magic school. Just then the blender roars to life, and the frisky-fingered Godiva shrieks in fright and hops back a couple of paces. Piper chases the dim, badly bewigged "blonde" back to Raige's side and sighs, "On the other hand, how much history could a naked woman on horseback really affect?" Excellent question, Piper, and I have an answer for you: none. None whatso-fucking-ever, especially when you consider the fact that the whole ride is a tawdry, Church-sponsored myth to begin with. The real Lady Godiva owned Coventry outright. What does this mean? It means that her husband had no way of imposing or collecting taxes himself, and that if Godiva thought the peasants were tithing too much, she could have taken care of it herself without stripping off her clothes. Unless, you know, she was into that sort of thing, but what scant evidence we do have indicates she was not the eleventh-century equivalent of Gypsy Rose Lee. ("Her name's Louise!") So, while the Godiva on the show predictably protests that her non-existent ride was indeed quite important, I'll not be paying any attention to anything she or any of the other idiots might have to say on the matter, because the whole stupid thing is a sexist lie to begin with. So there. Nyaaah! Raige finally exits the room with Godiva in tow as Piper flings her hands in the air and sighs, "See? We have bigger naked breasts to worry about." "[Raige] has her naked breasts to worry about," Phoebe corrects. "I've got yours." Piper, already as sick of this episode as I am, wearily calls out once more for the stupid Dolt before dropping her head in agony and disgust.
Meanwhile, down in Hell, the Dolt's torturing some poor dark demonic force with those bolts of electricity he's been shooting from his hands ever since last year's finale. Oh, wait a minute -- did I say "down in Hell"? I actually meant "over on the Isle Of Dykes," because they're using the same battle chamber set for this scene. Anyway, while the Dolt is thus occupied, the Psycho orbs in behind him with his mother and younger brother. The Dolt picks up on the shrieking racket of his son's orb cloud and, so distracted, releases the dark demonic force from the sporking mojo. The demon face-plants into the dirt behind the Dolt as the latter turns and buhs, "Piper!" Piper's all, "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm late for work, so [the Psycho]'s been fed, [Tiny Gay Chris] has had his early nap, and they're just very excited to see you!" She passes him the diaper bag. "Now's not really a good time," the Dolt protests meekly. "Sometimes, we just have to make the time," Piper retorts, not having it. Hee. They're playing this scene as if it were the bickering of any regular two-career couple over the division of household responsibilities, and that normalcy's incongruity with the setting is shamefully amusing. Unfortunately, the whole thing gets hijacked by the Dolt's Issues, and the two snipe at each other about his stupid supernatural problems for a bit until the crispy demon stirs on the floor. Piper shoots the guy A Look and immediately places her left hand over the Psycho's eyes as the Dolt turns to complete the vanquish. The Psycho, eager for a little gore, impatiently pushes his mother's hand away in time to watch as the demon explodes into a gout of flame. Heh. Creepy little Satanic bastard. "Could you please not do that around the children?" Piper huffs. "You brought them here," the Dolt counters. Piper's all, "Not! Blame the Psycho for that one, Dolt." The dead-eyed psycho child orbed to the Underworld of his own volition, you see. The Dolt blithers that "there's a Scouter Demon in the swamp" that he needs to attend to, but Piper cuts him off with a reminder that if they lose P3, they lose their only source of income, and I'm sorry but WHAT? Phoebe's taking unpaid leave when Piper's got a couple of kids under the age of two to worry about? GOD! I HATE that stupid, selfish, shrewish, bony hag. Anyway, Piper babbles something about burping Tiny Gay Chris before urging the Dolt to orb her clubward. The Dolt sighs, but flicks a hand in her direction anyway. Piper vanishes through the chamber ceiling as the Dolt bumbles awkwardly over his shamefully neglected children. The Psycho stares. Evilly.
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, and if it involves Nick Lachey, I don't care, so let's be quick about this: Phoebe slips her breastfeeding letter, handwritten on garishly bright pink paper, into Slampiece Sparklies's inbox. When Sparklies enters the office, she too-casually suggests he use it for morning's column. He thinks it's too "cause-y." Phoebe...oh, who gives a shit? Scene.
Not!warts. Raige flips through the history book Douchebag Duncan had been perusing, passing entries for Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, and Joan of Arc before finding Godiva's. Godiva, of course, is thrilled to learn she made the cut. That is, until she examines the illustration and spots Maury Sterling's inked image. She quickly exposits that Maury's actually "Lord Dyson," "an evil land baron who feeds on the pain of peasants" and "suppresses them for his own gain." Incidentally, our kind European forum board friends revealed that "Dyson" is a brand of vacuum cleaner in that part of the world, so Maury's going to be Lord Hoover for the rest of the evening. Which is somewhat appropriate, given all the sucking he does in this episode. And you can take that however you want. "[Lord Hoover's] the weasel who convinced my husband to tax [the peasants]," Godiva explains to Raige, and what did I just tell you all about who really had the power to levy taxes in Coventry? So, no. Shut up, Lady Godiva. The two gals chat about courage and virtue and boring! before Raige jestingly orders Godiva to "saddle up!" There's a bit of time-wasting crap about the nature of magic until Godiva obliges by hauling herself onto her long-suffering animal from the wrong side and stripping off her borrowed robe. The women fondly wish each other luck. At long last, Raige recites the following, which she apparently cribbed from the Book of Shadows, from memory:
From lands afar in time and space,
Take her now from this our place.
One that dwells must so remain:
Send her back to her domain.
Nothing happens. "What's wrong?" Godiva wonders. Well, that spell makes absolutely no fucking sense as written, hon, but I don't think that's the problem. "I don't know," Raige puzzles, of course not realizing that Godiva can't return without Lord Hoover. Just then, a crashing sound reaches the room from the hall outside. Raige orders Godiva to remain with the horse, and scampers outside to see what's going on.
General mayhem has erupted throughout Not!warts, with various Nit!wits smacking each other up and hurling vases and such. Raige screams her way over to Q, who'd been assisting an injured coed. "I don't see how conjuring Lady Godiva could have caused all this," Raige splutters. "Unless she wasn't the only thing conjured," Q duhs. Pockmarked David Cassidy telekinetically hurls some random guy across the room. Raige, thinking fast, orbs some boxes over to break the kid's fall. Raige dingbats something about how the melee demonstrates the need for Not!warts, since the imbeciles involved need to learn to control their magic. Q, supremely pissed, rises to his feet to rage, "This is a complete, utter disaster!" Spectral Lord Hoover, sensing an opportunity, slinks over to make with the hand and the cloudy red mojo. Q's, um, sense of repression, or whatever, enters Lord Hoover's hand, and Lord Hoover finally materializes in solid form. "Who the hell are you?" Raige demands. Before she can get an answer, Q wheels on her, spitting, "I've had it with you and your stupid ideas!" And with that, he unleashes a bit of sporking electricity of his own, gouging a bloody gash in Raige's shoulder while knocking her to the floor. Q, snapping out of it, looks shocked as Lord Hoover Renfields his way to the center of the room, all, "Yes! So much repression to feed on!" Stupid Lady Godiva, having disobeyed Raige, edges through the fracas to gape at Lord Hoover as she breathes, "You!" Hoover conjures a Flaming Ball Of Death that he hurls at Godiva's tits. She ducks, but it doesn't much matter as the FBOD dissipates harmlessly in mid-air long before it reaches her. "No matter," Lord Hoover shrugs. "I'll just collect more power, and then I'll be back." Raige hops to Godiva's side as Maury Sterling squiggles into the commercial break.
Manor. Up in the parlor, the Glamorous Ladies jaw away at each other as Piper gingerly dabs at Raige's shoulder wound with a bit of gauze. They can't quite figure out what's going on, naturally, and Phoebe blames Q's assault of Raige on the fact that he wasn't breastfed as a child. Shut the fuck up, Phoebe. All this while, Lady Godiva has been pacing the floor, occasionally trying to capture their attention, but of course failing miserably because the women she's dealing with are nothing if not toxically self-absorbed. So what does Godiva do? Yanks off her robe, off course, exposing the Manor Morons to the complete special wonderfulness of her intimate womanly bits. "It is apparently still the only way I can get anybody to listen to me!" Godiva lisps. "Woman," Piper deadpans, promo-style, "keep your clothes on. This is a family show. Really." Yeah, pull the other one, honey. Godiva wriggles back into her robe as she gets saucy with the exposition, explaining that the Lord Hoover of her time was "smaller and weaker." Piper wonders how Hoover managed to add to his powers just as the doorbell rings. Dimwit Godiva's eyes widen in surprise at the chime, so Raige must explain it away by referring to it as a "newfangled contraption," and no one from the eleventh century would ever be able to make sense of that phrase, so Raige might just as well have been speaking Russian right then, but I don't have time to dwell on it because Phoebe's raced to the window to see who's at the door, and it's Sparklies, and I so totally don't care. "Don't answer it!" Piper snaps. "What if it's about my letter?" Phoebe whines. "Forget the stupid letter!" Piper grits. "What?" Phoebe gripes, heading to the door anyway. "Can everybody have a cause but me?" "YES!" Piper shouts. Hee. But when the bony skank gets lippy like that, you really should deploy the Hands Of Discontent, Piper. You know you want to. And you know we'd all cheer. Piper, unfortunately, chooses to roll her eyes around instead while ordering the others upstairs.
Front door and Sparklies and still not caring. Sparklies knew Phoebe wrote the breastfeeding letter because he recognized her handwriting. God, she's a fucking idiot. Is that it? Yeah, pretty much. !
Non-Existent Attic. As Raige abuses the Book, Godiva, over on Aunt Pearl's sofa with Piper, wonders if "it would be cheating too much if [she] peeked ahead to see what becomes of [her]." Piper's of the opinion that Godiva won't remember much of anything regarding her jaunt to the future, and so passes the Lady the history book. And since none of this is based on historical fact, I refuse to care when Godiva delightedly discovers that her ride was a success. Meanwhile, Raige irritatedly groans that the closest thing to Hoover she could find in the Book was a demon who feeds on anger, but the gals already vanquished him. Piper, reading over Godiva's shoulder, notes that Hoover "mysteriously disappeared the day [Godiva] rode through town." "I doubt that's just a coincidence," Raige guesses, ambling over to join them. Piper finds it "farfetched" that Hoover would disappear "for all eternity" the same day Godiva achieved "liberation for all" by "dropping trou." Raige quickly realizes that Hoover feeds on repression, and that by successfully completing her ride, Godiva "starved" Hoover "into oblivion," and I just cannot believe how fucking stupid this show can get. A demon, who feeds on repression, in the Middle Ages, starving to death? For Christ's sake, were there no convents around?
Oh, and look! This whole show just got that much stupider with the arrival of the Dolt, who orbs into the non-existent attic with the Psycho on one arm and Tiny Gay Chris's carrier in the other! "Please tell me you weren't vanquishing demons with the children," Piper growls, rising to confront her worthless ex-husband, and how does she know that's what he was doing? Whatever. I don't care. "[Tiny Gay Chris] was fussy," the Dolt explains. "It calmed him." He's covering for the Psycho, isn't he? The exuberant Psycho actually dragged Daddy Dolt from vanquish to vanquish all afternoon, and the Dolt's blaming it all on Tiny Gay Chris, because Tiny Gay Chris is far too occupied with his pacifier to speak up for himself, am I right? Stupid Dolt. And after the lies and deception, the Dolt gets all moony over Lady Godiva until Piper orders him Raigeward to dispense with a bit of the tingly touch. Instead of, you know, blowing him up for staring at Godiva's titties. Whatever! The touch barely takes hold before the Dolt breaks the connection in surprise when Piper suggests he head to Whitelighterland to find out what the ever-useless Elders know about Hoover. Raige tugs at the Dolt's sleeve to get him to finish the job as Piper too casually opines, "I think it wouldn't hurt to have a little chat with the Elder to see what they think about...the demon." Tingly touch sufficiently applied, the Dolt pulls away from Raige to buh, "What if they know about..." "I think if they knew," Piper interrupts, "we would know by now." Lady Godiva, not getting it, turns to Raige to whisper, "Are they talking about Lord [Hoover]?" "No," Raige blares with a bit of sassy mugging, "they're talking about something [the Dolt] did that they don't want me to know about." "Just go," Piper eyebrows, so the whipped Dolt of course vanishes through the ceiling. Piper suggests they conduct a little research of their own before Hoover starts sucking on their own repressed emotions.
Too late! Well, sort of. We cut to a street corner on the production's new backlot, and I hate that they no longer do location shooting for this show. The backlot set is too obviously fake, and while Los Angeles was never the perfect substitute for San Francisco, at least most of Los Angeles doesn't look like it's been constructed of hastily-slapped-together plywood-and-stucco flats. Anyway, Lord Hoover jauntily whips around the corner in his bizarre black cloak and knee-high suppressor boots with one of the dumbest lines ever on this show. "So this is 'the land of the free,' eh?" he sneers contemptuously, because, you know, we're all so fucking repressed, but what I want to know is how a demon from the eleventh goddamned century would ever have heard that phrase. Huh? HUH? God, I hate this show. Hoover spots some black-clad biker chick across the street arguing with the tow-truck driver who's currently impounding her Camaro. "Don't hold back," Hoover sneers, reaching in her direction. "Let it out." The cloudy red mojo of repression erupts from the biker chick's face to siphon into Hoover's hand, and she immediately decks the driver right in the teeth. Hoover, meanwhile, chuckles as he absorbs the mojo, and they give poor Maury Sterling another dumb line to deliver: "Such a plethora of repression, it's so hard to choose!" Ow. I feel your pain, Maury. I feel your pain. "Who's ?" Hoover wonders, stalking down the street until he spots a gimp in a cast shaking a newspaper vending box. Hoover sucks Cast Boy's mojo, and Cast Boy immediately starts goes postal on the metal box's ass with his crutch. Heh. Hoover then decides to take his improved Flaming Ball Of Death on a trial run, and so flings one into the front end of the police car that's just come squealing around the corner. The FBOD, by the way, corkscrews through the air, which is a nice touch. The front end of the prowler instantly explodes, sending the hood about twenty feet into the air. Because this show sucks and I hate it, the cop inside quickly emerges from the wreck entirely unscathed. Maury cackles and races off for more sucking of the supernatural kind.
Meanwhile, back with the Dolt's Issues, we head to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge to find the worthless deadbeat in question pacing impatiently as he awaits the arrival of Brian Dennehy's daugher. No, seriously. Brian Dennehy's daughter Elizabeth orbs onto the tower to chat with the Dolt, and I must admit she's working that gold-toned velour better than anybody else has so far on this show. And that's about the only thing of note in this scene. Who the hell decided that the Dolt's crisis of faith would make for compelling television? Because that person needs to be shot in the face. Long story short, Elizabeth Dennehy makes it clear the Elders suspect the Dolt in Stupid Uncle Phil's disappearance, but she also emphasizes that new threat mentioned in last week's episode, and so urges the Dolt to return to the fold. The Dolt gets pissy and such, and brings the interview to a screeching halt by asking if she knows anything about a "repressor demon." She doesn't, of course, and so exits upward after again urging the Dolt to think about what she's said. After she's gone, the Dolt paces a few steps back towards the tower support until the Head reappears behind him to sneer, "You can't trust her. You can't trust any of them anymore." The Head makes to shoot through the Dolt's body but veers off at the last moment to vanish somehow before it cracks its massive cranium on the steel. "Why are you doing this to me?" the Dolt whimpers before stiffening his spine a bit and shouting, "Who are you?" Who cares?
Not!warts. Piper and Raige amble through the deserted Not-So-Great Hall with Raige stupiding, "I can't believe how empty this place is without students," like, what in hell were you expecting, you moron? Piper natters something about saving the school for the sake of the Manor-bound kids as the two enter Snidely's old office, where Godiva awaits them atop of her horse. Phoebe, meanwhile, finishes lighting a set of candles for the spell they're about to cast. Raige frets that they should wait for the Dolt to return with whatever information he's gathered on Lord Hoover, but Piper waves away her concerns. "After we send him back," she airily insists, referring to the demon, "history'll take care of him." "As long as you finish your ride," she adds, nodding in Godiva's direction. "I promise," Godiva vows, "and thank you for giving me a glimpse of what's to come." "Thank you," Phoebe counters, "for showing us you're more than a box of chocolate." Godiva remains silent, but her expression is quite clearly asking, "What's chocolate?" AAAAUAAUAUAUAUAUAAUAGH! Piper tells her to forget about it as Raige and Phoebe snicker and doof. Piper yanks a piece of notebook paper from her pocket and recites the following:
Look to find the evil set free:
Bring this demon before us three.
Lord Hoover bursts into the center of the circle of candles, blasting the immediate area with a light spray of grey dust. Piper deploys the Hands Of Discontent, but they merely knock Hoover back into a chair. "Um, why didn't he explode?" Phoebe panics, like, what was that shit about letting history take care of him if you were going to vanquish him right there in the office? Stupid, stupid show! "Chanting!" Piper snappishly orders, ignoring me, "Chanting!" Raige, idiot that she is, hastily pulls a piece of paper from, where? Her panties? She's wearing a dress with no pockets. Anyway, that spell she recited from memory a couple of scenes ago? She needs to read it now, and I don't know why, but whatever:
From lands afar in time and space,
Take them now from this our place.
Two that dwell so must remain:
Send them back to their domain.
Guess all those plurals really fucked with her head. Hoover dissolves into a spray of black ash as Godiva disappears in a wash of twinkly light. The two separate clouds of mojo stream back into the illustration in the history book, but the instant they're gone, the candles gutter and all of the lights in Not!warts go out. Ooops. "Uh-oh," Raige guhs from the depths of the inky blackness. "That's not good." Yeah, what I said. Piper relights one of the candles as she ignores the obvious by blithely stating, "Well, at least they're gone." Phoebe bums an orb over to All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, leading to more babbling from the three regarding that sabbatical subplot I don't care about. Raige places her hand on her sisters' shoulders and orbs them all out.
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Phoebe offers a breezy thanks before heading through the swinging glass doors to discover that all of the women in the office are now clad in ankle-length grey dresses with concealing grey jackets and matching head scarves. "Looks like everyone took Elise's sexual harassment memo literally," Phoebe guhs as Piper and Raige peer into the room warily over Phoebe's shoulder. Sparklies appears in the door of Phoebe's once and future office to deliver quite badly the following lines: "Phoebe? What are you doing here? And what are you wearing? Who's watching our children? Why aren't you at home with them?" Go stuff yourself, Nick Lachey. Phoebe hoots and yodels as Piper and Raige yank her backward through the doors into the hallway. "What the hell is going on?" Phoebe grunts. A really, really shitty rip-off of A Handmaid's Tale from the looks of things, Feebs. But then, you don't read, do you? Piper, wide-eyed, breathes, "I think I know" as she approaches something hanging on the wall. The camera pans to reveal a black-and-white ad for the "Ask [Sparklies]" column, which features a tagline of "He'll Tell You How To Handle Your Women." Raige plants her fists on her hips and peeves, "I told you we should have waited for [the Dolt]." "Shut up!" Piper yowls as the gals vanish into the commercial break. If only they would, Piper. If only they would.
Shoddily Constructed Paramount Backlot Street That Is So Totally Not In San Francisco, Especially With Those East-Coast-Style Row Homes In The Background, Like, When Did This Show Transfer To Baltimore? "It's not so bad, if you like grey," Phoebe dizzes as the Glamorous Ladies pick their way down the sidewalk. "I don't understand how everything changed so much," Piper gasps. Neither do I, considering how Godiva's ride NEVER REALLY HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE. The gals muddle through their latest dilemma as a family of eight marches past them in single-file, led by the father, with all of the women and girls obediently trailing behind in headscarves. Piper panics briefly about the disposition of the Psycho and Tiny Gay Chris, but Phoebe reasons that, as boys in this really, really shitty rip-off of A Handmaid's Tale, they'll be treated "like royalty." "Hey," Phoebe adds, almost as an afterthought, "why didn't we change?" "Probably because we were at [Not!warts] and protected?" Raige guesses, and I'll go with that, because it makes as much sense as the Lathe-Of-Heaven, there-at-the-moment- of-alteration explanation I already fankwanked in my head. Which is to say, not too much goddamned sense at all. Piper suddenly realizes they're the object of some very unwanted scrutiny by clusters of random passersby, including a clump of sternly disapproving gentlemen who look like they each have an M.B.A. in business, and a group of children being herded around by a meek- and mortified-looking nanny. I think. I actually don't know who any of these people are, nor do I care, because all that matters is that the Glamorous Ladies are attracting too much attention. Raige suggests that they head back to the non-existent attic for a little Book abuse, but selfish, stupid Phoebe refuses to return to the Manor, since the many, many spawn of Sparklies are likely to be running around underfoot. I don't really know where to begin, but I'll start here: if you orb into the attic, no one's going to see you, bitch. Also, where the hell is this Phoebe-married-to-Sparklies bullshit coming from anyway? They just met last week. If she were married to anyone in this altered reality where women are chattel, it would likely be to some loser from high school, not some boyband fucktard from the other side of the goddamned country. Piper -- ignoring my frustration and confusion, as is often her wont -- tosses her hands in the air in mock surrender before noticing a nearby sign that reads, "WOMEN who TALK in PUBLIC will be FLOGGED." "So much for your breastfeeding campaign," she snarks as a Nazi-esque Cop Without A SAG Card trots over on horseback to arrest them.
Jail. "Every peep out of you adds an extra flogging to your sentence," a Nazi-esque Cop With A SAG Card warns them as he slams the cell door shut. He disappears as stupid Phoebe wonders "what flogging is, exactly." Berkeley-educated Raige hasn't a clue. God, I hate this show, and every single stupid fucking person on it. Piper doesn't care about any of this because her tits are about to explode, so they need to haul milk out of there, pronto, before Tiny Gay Chris loses his only apparent source of sustenance. Raige rather fortuitously realizes that if they pull Godiva and Hoover once more from the history book and vanquish Hoover in the present, they'll be able to send Godiva back alone, and everything should correct itself. Piper summons the Dolt, who arrives in a suit and wonders what the fuck the gals are wearing. I've been wondering the same thing for the last six years, Dolt. Piper gives him the skinny on the situation, and then Raige, for some asinine reason, "realizes" that they need Douchebag Duncan to conjure Godiva and Hoover. No, you don't, because you can do it yourself, because the Power of Three is the most superwonderful magic that ever existed, but apparently we have to justify Not!warts's existence with some idiotic and contrived World Where Magic Is Repressed bullshit, so here we go.
The Dolt orbs Raige to a filthy alleyway, and I already saw this scene in "Morality Bites," so let's cut to the chase: Raige and her Moustache and her NIPPLES find Douchebag Duncan hidden amongst the trash and the angst and convince him to help her. !
Not!warts. The Dolt lights some candles as Phoebe notes the absence of Joan of Arc and Catherine the Great in the history book, and I don't even have the strength to make a tasteless joke about Catherine's high horse at this point. Raige orbs in with Douchebag Duncan's spell on a slip of paper, proving to all who were still in doubt that that last scene really was pointless, because they could just as easily have scribbled a few indifferently rhymed couplets themselves. Glaaah. Anyway, the history book still contains an entry for Lady Godiva, so they're good to go. Well, except for one thing: Before they pull Lord Hoover out of the book to vanquish him, they must ensure that they're not possessed of "buried resentments that a hungry demon could feed off of," as Piper puts it. Phoebe's fine as long as Sparklies isn't in the room, and Piper claims she's cool as well, as she tends to inform those present immediately when she's pissed off. Raige, however, admits to lingering resentments over being the youngest sister. "You want to be the oldest sister?" Piper snorts. "Get over it." "Okay, I'm over it!" Raige cheerfully replies before unfolding the Douchebag's spell, which she reads alone:
Where royals once lived, so did she:
Bring forth the naked lady from the eleventh century.
Piper's all, "You needed that stupid little shit for that spell?," only she's quite non-verbal about it. Godiva and Hoover re-erupt from the history book and re-materialize in the center of the room. Instantly, a flare sweeps through the Hall to blast away the cobwebs and debris, restoring the room to its pre-hijinks state. The flare also blasts off that undertaker's suit the Dolt had been sporting, but fortunately, it's only to replace it with the rumpled casual wear he'd had on all night, because a naked Dolt? Would drive me into a homicidal rage. Raige quickly helps Godiva from the horse and into the robe as Hoover begins scanning those present for repressed resentment upon which he can feed. Raige and Phoebe come up empty, but he hits the mother lode -- so to speak -- when he reaches for Piper. The moment Piper's red resentment cloud vanishes into Hoover's hand, she wheels on the Dolt and yells, "Enough with your moping! The Elders screwed you? What about me? I am not going to raise two little boys all on my own because you're too busy feeling sorry for yourself!" And with that, she starts blasting the Dolt repeatedly with her Hands Of Discontent a good six or seven times. Hooray! Meanwhile, Hoover conjures a Flaming Ball Of Death that he hurls at Godiva's head. Raige redirects the thing back towards Hoover with her orbing telekinesis, but the resulting explosion merely knocks him back on his heels for a second. Raige races to deal with the enraged Piper as Phoebe vaults herself into the air to plant a heel in Hoover's chest. The force does propel him into the wall, but the counterforce knocks the stupid Feebs onto her bony derriere, leaving Godiva exposed. Raige manages to get Piper to snap out of it just as Hoover prepares to fry Phoebe's ass. Before Piper releases her already-proven-to-be-ineffectual Hands in his direction, however, Hoover squiggles into the final commercial break, because this show revels in making absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. Feh.
Manor, that evening. "How was I supposed to know I was so repressed?" Piper pffts as she emerges from the kitchen to power through the dining room onto the sun porch with Phoebe and Raige trailing behind her. "I'm a working single mother with two kids -- I barely have enough time to brush my teeth, let alone for self-reflection." The upshot of all this is that, should Hoover appear at the Manor, he might become unstoppable if he manages to feed off of the Dolt's repressed anger. "I'm not going to be able to finish my ride [that I never really took in the first place]," Godiva glums. "No," Hoover predictably answers as he squiggles in with a Flaming Ball Of Death at the ready. "You're not." The Dolt hustles Godiva off the wicker love seat, which splits in half as it absorbs the FBOD's impact. Piper blasts Hoover's shoulder, giving the Manor Morons enough time to regroup in the main hall. Hoover, loping around the corner, flips another FBOD in their direction, but Piper unleashes a Hand, detonating the thing in mid-air and sending a shock wave rippling back through the room that staggers the demon. Raige, at Piper's prompting, vanishes with Godiva in a cloud of orbs that Piper and Phoebe race through on their way up to the attic. The Dolt, trailing behind them, just misses taking another FBOD in the back. Hoover's aim is off a bit, though, and a section of the balustrade dissolves into splinters of wood instead.
Meanwhile, up in the second-floor hallway, Piper and Phoebe pedestrategize and reach the conclusion that the Dolt's repressed anger is so great that should Hoover feed on it, he'll, like, explode, or something. "Okay," the flustered Dolt pants as he reaches the gals, "I am orbing you guys out of here." "Actually," Piper perks, "you're gonna let him feed on you. See ya!" And with that, she and Phoebe scamper into the Bridal Boudoir. Hoover appears, and sigh. Let's just get this over with, shall we? Hoover starts with the sucking, but Brian Krause unleashes some of his stellar acting skills to deliver the following: "You demons have it so easy -- no morality to worry about, no attachments, no one to lose. You kill, and you feel nothing!" With that last word, the repression mojo that had been flowing freely from the Dolt's gigantic and scary gargoyle head bursts violently, overloading Hoover's internal circuits. The shot cuts to a quick overhead as Hoover's body dissolves before cutting back to take in the massive explosion that sends shards of glass and wood shooting through the upper hall as the vanquish destroys a couple of doors.
And the stupidity never ends. Piper and Phoebe emerge to congratulate the Dolt as Raige appears from the non-existent attic above with Godiva. Godiva, overjoyed at learning of Hoover's death, exults, "Finally! I'm free!" and she strips off her robe again, some more. "Yes, you are," Piper snorts as she claps a hand over the gawping Dolt's eyes and pivots him away from the unsightly and embarrassing spectacle. Ugh.
A mercifully brief closing travelogue takes us past the Golden Gate as night melts into day before we take a quick spin around the Transamerica Pyramid that somehow lands us back at Not!warts. They're sending Godiva back for real this time. Or, actually, Douchebag Duncan is, with a little prodding from Raige. The snot-nosed idiot I couldn't give a rat's ass about initially refuses to do so, since he's so over magic and all its attendant miseries. "You can't stop using your magic any more than you can stop breathing, [Douchebag]," Raige lectures. "You don't have a choice -- none of us do [sic]." Yeah, I remember this pep talk from the many times she delivered it to her boyfriend last year. Except for the part where that isn't what she told Buttfuck at all, now is it? Whatever. The pep talk works, Godiva takes off her stupid robe again, Douchebag Duncan pops a woodie, Raige reminds him again of the spell, and he finally recites the following:
A time for everything
And everything in place:
Return what's been moved
Through time and space.
Godiva vanishes, only to return ten seconds in the past, so we have to rerun through this whole scene again with two of her until the Douchebag repeats that spell and sends both of them back, only they return ten seconds in the past, so we have to rerun through this whole scene again with three of her until the Douchebag repeats that spell, only they return ten seconds in the past, and so on, and so forth, until the sun grows ancient and explodes, obliterating us all, because that spell? Is a Power Of Motherfucking Three from the first season. I hate this show.
Of course, that's not what happens. The spell formerly known as a Power of Three works the first time around, and Godiva dissolves into her sparkly spray of twinkly golden mojo to return to the illustration in the history book. Which still includes that image of Hoover. Whatever. Q orbs down at this juncture for some inexplicable reason and long story short, the ever-useless Elders have decided to keep Not!warts open. As if closing it were ever really an option on this show. The thing is, Raige must run the place as Snidely's successor. Q doesn't even wait for Raige's reply before orbing out of there. Q, my friend, you do realize this dizzy bimbo can't even define the word "flogging," don't you? Why are you putting her in charge of a goddamned school?
Oh, shit. Piper hustles across an intersection to arrive at the sidewalk café from the pre-credits sequence. "This better be good," she gripes as she reaches Raige's side. "Yeah," Raige snorts, redirecting Piper's attention further down the street. "It looks like Lady Godiva had quite an impact on our Phoebe's cause." Piper's shock, disgust, outrage, and revulsion at what she sees very nearly matches mine. But not quite. We cut to a shot of various pedestrians gaping in abject horror before cutting again to brief glimpses of what is causing the general distress. A bare foot in a stirrup. A leg. A hip clearly unencumbered by clothing, with the butt cheek partially obscured by the bottom bits of a long, blonde wig. A shot of bareback, horseback, crappily bewigged Phoebe from behind as she guides the nag over to the sidewalk café. And then, finally, a pan up Milano's torso through some terrifyingly bony cleavage to Phoebe's grinning rictus of a face. The café's manager emerges onto the sidewalk to get an earful from the Feebs about how he's living in the eleventh century and he wants women barefoot and pregnant and to stay at home and how breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world and the crowd starts cheering her and there's a mime. Yes, there's a goddamned mime in the midst of the throng, applauding as lustily as anyone else. I hate this show. HATE. "It's a shame that women have to take off their clothes to be heard," Phoebe speechifies. "We shouldn't have to be exploited like this." So why hell are you working for Aaron Spelling? The manager, after far too much of this bullshit, finally caves and removes the sign from the window as Phoebe grins at Piper and Raige before swinging the horse around and riding off down the street with the entire throng trailing behind her and cheering. The breeze catches the bottom of the wig, and it lifts long enough to reveal the bulky flesh-colored diaper Milano wore for this scene. I want to die.
Meanwhile, up in his temporary office at All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, Slampiece Sparklies peers through the window that oh-so-conveniently overlooks the scene of Phoebe's latest triumph in her neverending battle against good taste and better judgment. He grins to himself and darts over to his inbox to retrieve her letter, which, as you'll recall, is bright pink. And is now sitting on the top of the pile. Which he misses entirely because he's a moron and so he paws through the stack of paper for six years until he finally discovers it. Grinning again, he turns to the keyboard, and Professional Boyband Fucktard Nick Fucking Lachey can't even pretend to type. No, seriously. He just clatters at the keyboard like he's Terry Sweeney playing Judy The Time-Life Operator in some ancient Saturday Night Live skit, and you know the result looks like this:
Uedbul duvfibviluv a;uv iubvariluvbla urilu ifvjbv lavblirb vuifblv ifafbvi lalviauebrl iubvla iuf kdnlnca oiovu vioru oasnv aldnk vqou ovj kvna kjdv noia eiouh vedajdvn dkjnb
And the screen finally fades to a black not quite as dark as the foul, bitter hatred I have for this show as I weep and weep and weep.
week: Grams! Daddy Dearest! Teeth!! But you'd never know it from the promos, because they're all about Slampiece Sparklies. Again. Stupid show.