Cheaper

Previously on Charmed, everything that happened last week. And the week before.

Currently on Charmed, the camera quickly fades up on the Manor exterior before darting inside to the foyer. Phoebe and Raige enter via the dining room beyond, with the former quietly caffeinating as the latter clomps around in mid-rant. The oft-abused marble-topped entrance table is gone from the main hall, but in its place rests a circle of ivory candles, so it would seem that some wacky Wiccan hijinks are already afoot. Also already afoot is the dead-eyed and deceptively listless Psycho, who wields what appears to be a child-sized golf putter. I've no doubt that, the second this scene is over, this putter will end up embedded in the brain of the hapless off-camera production assistant at whom the Psycho is currently glaring. In any event, Raige, continuing a bitchfest that began way back in the kitchen, shrikes, "I have things to do too, you know." Phoebe wordlessly totters in her heels through the circle of candles to deposit her mug on a side table; Raige bends to light the wicks, a hand on her cleavage to prevent her tits from popping out of her top. "I've got all these parents on my back," she continues, "and my freshman potions class? I ordered five hundred dried toads, and what did I get?" Raige straightens up to answer herself with a mugging snort: "Five hundred wet ones." Hey, you asked for it, honey. You could have just kept your lippy yap shut and let the ever-useless Elders close down that wretched and worthless Harry Potter knockoff, but no. You had to go on and on and on endlessly about Heritage and Tradition and The Children, and so you know what you're going to do now? That's right: You're going to fucking deal with it. And you're going to shut up while you're at it, too.

Whatever. "Look, [Raige]," Phoebe replies, "it's just really hard for me to get on board with this when Piper, the actual mother, is totally against doing a Wiccaning." "That's what Grams is here for," Raige snaps back. "To convince her." She steps over to her half-sister's side and directs her attention to the sociopath below. "Look at [the Psycho]," Raige instructs. "He didn't have a Wiccaning until he was six months old, and he almost turned evil!" "Almost"? Try again, Raige. "Do you want a repeat of that?" she demands, ignoring me in favor of nodding in Tiny Gay Chris's direction. The wee sodomite in turn squirms obediently on cue in his bassinet. Phoebe smiles fondly at him as she allows, "Of course I don't," so Raige proceeds to botch a totally easy spell when she incorrectly recites the following from her evidently faulty memory:

Hear me now -- hear my cry,
Spirit from the Other Side:
Cross now the great divide.

You missed a line, dimwit. No matter, though, for a swirling cloud of glowing golf balls compliantly materializes in the center of the circle to deposit the spectral form of Grams -- hooray! -- who was evidently sucked down to earth from the middle of a Heavenly kaffeeklatsch. With her back to Phoebe and Raige, Grams dishes, "You mean she's still lying about her age?" Hee. What do we do? We love the Grams, that's what we do. Jennifer Rhodes makes even the shittiest of shitty episodes worthwhile simply by virtue of her presence. Grams lets out a nasty little cackle that cuts short when she realizes she's now gossiping with the dining room table. She spins around and sighs, "Not now, girls. I'm busy." "You're dead," Raige puckers with a quizzical frown on her face. "Doesn't mean I can't have a life," Grams blithely shrugs. She tosses her hands in the air and decides to stay for a bit, and as she passes out of the circle to embrace the Feebs, a brief flare of whitish mojo passes across her body as she corporealizes. In typical Grams fashion, she's loaded down with lots of chunky gold jewelry (with shoes to match, natch), and sports a chic, diaphanous, mint-green dressing jacket with Asian-influenced red and white embroidery over a cunning and flowy burnt-orange chiffon pants set. She looks great. Phoebe and Raige? Not so much. While Raige's unnerving and unnatural tan has faded considerably -- taking with it my dusky friend, Raige's Moustache -- she's once again decided to use Liza Minnelli as her sartorial guide for this evening's festivities, clad as she is in a pair of flared, low-slung black pants beneath a buttoned black vest and not much of anything else at all. Phoebe, meanwhile, sports two different patterns of plaid and, judging by her hair, seems once again to have passed out on the parlor sofa without having first ensured that the Psycho lacked access to pruning shears. Ew.

Anyway, Grams wonders what brings her to the Manor this time, so Raige fills her in on the whole Wiccaning II: Electric Boogaloo thing. Of course, this new, oblivious version of Grams those crack-addled hacks in the writing room have been trying to shove down our throats since the fifth season has no idea Piper expelled another of the Dolt's spawn, nor is she aware that the late, lamented Big Gay Chris and his current tiny counterpart were one and the same person. Whatever. So great is my affection for Jennifer Rhodes that I'm just going to ignore this miserable lapse in character continuity in favor of smirking delightedly at her as Grams makes cooing noises and flutters to retrieve Tiny Gay Chris from his bassinet. For some reason, we get yet another in a continuing series of Psycho glamour shots this evening. There are a lot of these tonight, and they quickly become tiresome because they're focusing on a vacant and freakish two-year-old who seems to have been working a Vicodin addiction from the womb. Whatever. When Grams learns that Piper would sooner chew glass than hold a Wiccaning for the tiny sodomite, she instantly snorts, "Nonsense! You can't deny this child his ancestral blessings -- it's a witch's compass for good! Who knows what terrible evils could befall him otherwise?" Uh, actually, we do, Grams. And apparently, those particular evils befell him despite the Wiccaning you conducted for him the first time around, so you might not want to employ that particular line of reasoning when you confront Piper about it, okay?

As the ladies chatter about Piper's intransigence, a small cloud of orbs yanks Tiny Gay Chris's overworked pacifier from his mouth and deposits it in the Psycho's wicked mitts. "[Psycho]!" Grams chides with an imposing scowl. "Don't pick on your little brother like that! Now give it back." The pacifier immediately transfers back into Tiny Chris's mouth as the slack-jawed Psycho dully gapes at his great-grandmother. I was going to say that Grams can scare the crap out of even this, the littlest serial killer in the world, but someone on the forum boards posited the amusing notion that Tiny Gay Chris actually orbed the pacifier into his brother's hands himself, just to be passive-aggressive and pissy about their whole doomed brotherly relationship, and I have to admit I'm liking that revisionist interpretation a whole hell of a lot more than the tedious "Psycho Is Jealous" garbage presented in this episode. Heh. Tiny Gay Chris. What a bitch. In any event, we get yet another glamour shot of the Psycho before he pouts a bit and orbs upwards. "What was all that about?" Grams wonders, cocking her head in the orb cloud's direction. Phoebe and Raige immediately spout excuses for the foul sociopath's behavior. You're only encouraging him, you morons. "Well, he's just gonna have to get over it," Grams sniffs. Heh. "He's two," Phoebe reminds her. Grams lifts her eyebrows a bit, all, "You're right, you're right," as she passes Tiny Chris to her granddaughter and heads upstairs to "apologize." "Still think this was a good idea?" Phoebe snips. Raige pulls a Jenna Bush and sticks her tongue out by way of response. Classy!

Up in The Prue Halliwell Memorial Bimbo Boudoir Of Paisley Tit Slings And Other Fashion Atrocities, formerly occupied by either Phoebe or Raige, currently occupied by the Psycho, Grams breezes in from the hall in time to pull herself short with a gasp of shock when she finds a black-masked and -hooded gentleman looming over the Psycho. The Psycho, by the way, has erected his shimmery blue force field, and no, I don't know how he managed to get it back after Snidely destroyed the thing in last year's season finale, nor do I care at this point. "Girls!" Grams bellows as the masked figure spins to emit suspiciously Dolt-like bolts of electricity from his right hand. When the bolts slam into Grams, Jennifer Rhodes's stunt double flies backwards to smash into the wall several feet down the hallway before collapsing to the floor, and oops! The low-angle shot of Grams's collapse reveals that they haven't quite finished transferring the sets into the new production studios -- there's a billowing white sheet stretched across the top of the set where the ceiling should be. Phoebe, somehow instantly in the upper hall -- with Tiny Gay Chris nowhere in sight, mind you, like, way to abandon your charge, hag -- bounds to Grams's aid as Raige scampers into Prue Memorial to hurl a set of shelves at the intruder with her orbing telekinesis. The masked gentleman flashes out before the shelves make contact, leaving the dismantled bits of wood to crash into the wall opposite. The Psycho goes red-faced with the caterwauling and whatnot as Raige turns to ensure Grams is okay. "Looks like I didn't get here a minute too soon," Grams purrs from the carpet as Raige heaves a sigh that bounces her boobs straight into the opening credits.