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.
Hmmm. That's interesting. Well, okay, it's totally not, but I just noticed that one of Piper's power shots in the Doormat-free sixth season credits is of her spell-assisted appearance in the aforementioned Doormat's prison cell last season. Wonder if that means she'll be getting around on her own more often this season? Oh, who am I kidding? Like I care.
P3. Piper leans against the shuttered nightclub's empty bar, chatting with a supplier on the phone as the camera pans past three dozen product-placed cans of Red Bull to take in yet another random bar manager ambling over from points unknown. Damn. The employee turnover in this place is fierce. Soon-To-Be-Gone P3 Employee No. 388 banters with Piper over her casual reaction to news of a delayed beer delivery, but it's all just to meant to establish Piper's Issue Of The Week, which once again involves the witch in question attempting to "live [her] life without any powers." She shrills the word "normal" once in this episode, and I'm shooting out my TV. In any event, they're soon interrupted by the arrival of Phoebe, who gallops down the stairs to send Never-To-Be-Seen-Again P3 Employee No. 388 back to the unemployment line as Piper sighs, "What's up?" "Nothing!" Phoebe lies. "I just came by to tell my sister that I finally won a Readers' Choice Award." She's lying again, as we'll soon learn, but that's not important right now. What is important is that Piper greets this news with a deadpanned "Congratulations" before leveling a stony "out with it" stare in the general direction of Phoebe's overly glossed lips. "Yeah, maybe there's one more thing," Phoebe caves. Not daring to meet Piper's eyes, Phoebe admits, "Something happened today after we summoned Grams." Piper instantly goes ballistic, shrieking, "Why did you summon Grams?" and we hear the reason again, with Phoebe denying any responsibility and blaming the whole mess on Raige, but you'll have to excuse me for a moment as I must now destroy another television set. Why? Because Piper replies, "What did I say? I don't want any magic. Look, I know my kids can't have a completely normal life, but I've got to give it a shot." GOD, will you SHUT UP ABOUT THIS ALREADY? "Giving it a shot" would involve binding their fucking powers, like, a year ago, you dingbat. AAAUGH! Why will they not drop this bullshit, already? Shut UP, Piper. Shut UP, shut UP, SHUT UP!
Glaah. ANY-way, Phoebe eventually drops the suspiciously Dolt-like demon bomb, and Piper of course howls, "You wait until now to tell me?" before ranting her way out of the frame, leaving Phoebe to trail meekly behind her.
Manor. Piper rages through the front door to slam her purse down on the entrance table while bellowing for the Dolt as Grams emerges from the front parlor to greet her with reassurances of the boys' safety. Seems Raige orbed them over to Not!warts until the Manor Morons get a better handle on the current crisis. Piper doesn't break stride during all of this, screaming once more for the Dolt as she rounds the corner to power up the stairs.
Up on the second floor, Grams, racing along behind her horrid shrew of a granddaughter, broaches a difficult and Doltish subject by too gently asking, "Are you sure you want him down here? I mean, considering he can't tell good from evil anymore -- you know, lost soul and all." Piper, who'd worked her way over to one of the upper windows, spins on her heel to glare. "Oh," Grams apologizes, reading Piper's expression. "Uh, [Raige] filled me in." Piper spits that her sons' safety is the Dolt's first priority as the Dolt himself orbs into the upper hall. He quickly gets the skinny on the current situation from the ladies and vows to head "down there" to find out what's going on. "'Down there'?" Grams repeats with a bit of icy disdain. "As in the Underworld? Hang out there a lot, do you?" The Dolt pisses a tight-assed reply and orbs back out of there before Piper can ramp up her bitch another seventeen notches to scream at the two of them to knock it off with the sniping already. "Far be it from me to meddle," Grams begins, but Piper cuts her off with a curt, "Then don't, because you're already pressing your luck being here in the first place." Off Grams's "Excuse me?" expression, Piper sneers, "Yeah, I know about the Wiccaning!" before heading up another flight of stairs to the nonexistent attic. Once there, Grams attempts to argue her case, but Piper's not having it. The Psycho's Wiccaning failed to protect him from evil, period, so there'll be none of that for Tiny Gay Chris. Flipping determinedly through the Book of Shadows, Piper wretches, "I just need to find out who the hell is after my son." Grams purses her lips helplessly.
Not!warts. Raige, seated at her desk in Snidely's old office, scribbles notes on the research she's conducting. From the depths of his nearby bassinet, the sneaky little tiny gay bitch orbs his blanket into his dead-eyed brother's hands. "I saw that, [Psycho]!" Raige growls. "You give that back to your brother while I find out who's trying to kill you!" Hee. Way to go, Tiny Chris. Way. To. Go! And I'd worry about Raige damaging the Psycho's psyche with that line about tracking down his attempted murderer, were it not already clear the Psycho's brain is already damaged beyond repair. Meanwhile, another infant -- this one in the form of Raige's purportedly attractive research assistant, Ben -- banters something about sibling rivalry and whatnot from his place over by the bookshelf as a stack of parchment magically riffles into Raige's inbox from points unknown. The actor playing Ben was born in 1981. And his name is "Tac." And he bears a striking resemblance to Lurch from The Addams Family. I want to die. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah: The stack of parchment is actually a set of progress reports that poor, harassed, overworked, and sorely underqualified Raige must somehow process before the day is done or something like that, but I totally don't care because at this moment, Tiny Gay Chris is unexpectedly orbing himself to points unknown in yet another successful passive-aggressive attempt to get his wicked older brother in trouble with his aunt. "[Psycho]!" Raige peeves. "Where did you orb your little brother?" The Psycho eyes her all, "Nowhere, you harpy, and if you keep screaming at me for things I didn't do, you're gonna find those tits of yours tied in a knot at the bottom of the goddamned bay."
Manor. Piper, berating Raige via the cordless, howls, "NO, he's not here. Where the HELL is he?" as she marches over to answer the front door. She swings it open to find her wonderfully crafty younger son bouncing around in Daddy Dearest Victor (Jones) Bennett's arms. Victor! Hooray! "I hope this is yours," Daddy Dearest jokes. "I got him," Piper sighs into the phone before hanging up and retrieving her puny sodomite from his grandfather's arms. As she greets Victor with a peck on the cheek, a baffled Daddy Dearest explains, "I stepped up on the porch and all of a sudden, the little guy just flies into my arms." Piper fills him in on what's been going on lately as he follows her into the center parlor, where Grams reclines regally in an overstuffed armchair, the Book of Shadows in her lap. Grams takes one look at him and demands, "What are you doing here?" Heh. "Big hello to you, too," he lobs back affably enough before explaining he'd been invited to the Wiccaning. Piper wordlessly goggles at this latest evidence of her sisters' insolence as Grams expresses her insincere regrets, noting that "Wiccanings are only for magical family members." "That's not what [Raige] says," Victor counters. "[Raige] doesn't know all the rules," Grams sniffs as Piper, growing tenser by the second, butts in to bay something about the Wiccaning taking place over her dead body. "[Raige] seems to think that if she crams enough family members down my throat, I'll give in," Piper rants, "but it's not gonna work, because nothing is working." She goes on to whine about the latest dark demonic force and the Psycho's apparent penchant for orbing Tiny Chris "all over creation for God only knows what reason" until Victor interrupts to opine that the Psycho's apparent Chris-directed hostility is just "boys being boys." There's something more about the "inevitability" of sibling rivalry until Piper rather impatiently dismisses his entire line of reasoning by reminding him that her sons "nearly kill each other in the future." Grams, silent for far too long a time, gets an idea. "There's an easy way to nip this thing in the bud," she notes with a Cheshire grin on her face. Piper, exasperated, sighs, "And what would that be, exactly?"
Nonexistent Attic. Piper paws through a carton of "unfortunate" clothing (cough Phoebe's cough) as her father pulls the "little black book" Grams had been seeking from another box. Grams quickly plucks the thing from his fingers with an airy thanks, leading Victor to smirk, "Don't want me looking up the old boyfriends, huh?" "They were in a much bigger book," Grams deadpans. Piper looks stricken and distressed. Hee. The current volume actually contains spells she once cast on the Ps when they were children. Daddy Dearest is predictably outraged at that bit of information, and he and Grams descend into a nightmare of bickering and recrimination until Piper wedges herself between them, pulls the book from her grandmother's grip, and quickly locates "The Spell To Resolve Sibling Rivalry." Grams instructs Piper to gather her sisters while she herself retrieves the boys, with the plan being to cast the spell before summoning the demon so the Glamorous Ladies might vanquish the latter with the Power of Three. "Great," Piper grumbles. "More magic." "Do you have any other suggestions?" Grams eyebrows. "I have a suggestion," Phoebe replies from off-screen as the scene cuts over to...
...All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me and Slampiece Sparklies and not caring! Turns out the Readers' Choice Award "Ask Phoebe" won was for a Sparklies column. IN YOUR FACE, HAG!
Nonexistent Attic. Raige orbs in from Not!warts with the dead-eyed Psycho to fluster something tedious about her work responsibilities; Daddy Dearest with beaming grin eagerly moves to greet his other grandson. Hmmm. What, I wonder, would be the correct variation on the term "cockblocking" to describe what happens ? For the attempted embrace is indeed ruled incomplete when Grams bodychecks Victor off to the side, the better to lead the Psycho over to Tiny Gay Chris's bassinet for the spell. How rude! And how delightful at the same time! Heh. There follows a bit of dialogue about Piper agreeing to the Wiccaning as a result of the continuous onslaught "of new family members every five minutes" before Grams eyes the kids and asks rhetorically, "Are you two finally ready to get along?" Tiny Gay Chris wiggles around gleefully as the Psycho twiddles his fingers and pouts in barely suppressed wrath and resentment. Grams flips her little black book open to the appropriate page and, being more than a bit smug about the whole thing in that way we love so much, reads the following spell aloud:
Pass your petty jealousies to darkest night:
Let these feuding siblings no longer fight.
Sky-blue clouds of sparkly mojo erupt from the kids to shoot up towards the ceiling, where they sort of commingle and glow above the adults' heads. Victor gazes up with a hint of amazement, but Grams warily eyes the cloud as if something's not quite right. "Shouldn't those stop now?" Raige frowns as an edgy Piper wonders if her grandmother recited the correct spell. The moment Phoebe blunders into the nonexistent room to gripe about Sparklies, the cloud splits in three and dives into the Glamorous Ladies, who immediately regress about twenty-five years each for some reason. Just go with it. It's always so much easier if you just go with it. "[Sparklies] is such a jerkface!" Phoebe shrieks. "You so like him!" Raige teases. "I do not!" Phoebe protests. "Do too!" Piper snots. "Why don't you just marry him?" "Why don't you marry [the Dolt]?" Phoebe childishly counters. "Because I already did, STUPID!" Grams, Victor, and I are horrified. As the bickering increases in volume -- measured both by the number of words spilling from the gals' mouths and by those words' ability to make my ears bleed -- the Psycho darkly eyes his arguing elders. The suspiciously Dolt-like dark demonic force from the pre-credits sequence flashes into the room and silently stalks up to the Psycho from behind. He reaches down to touch the Psycho's head, but the Psycho's force field automatically erupts, knocking the demon backwards into a pile of trunks. "Girls!" Grams shouts. "He's here! Piper, blast him!" The addled granddaughter in question takes one look at the demon, screeches in fright, and flees the attic, followed closely by her sisters. Grams, thinking fast, telekinetically flings a handy athame at the intruder's chest, but again, he flashes out before any damage can be done, leaving the athame to embed itself harmlessly in the wall. "Any more great ideas?" Victor snarks. Grams growls her way into the commercial break.
The Mountain? Bloooooooows. Poor Baron von C.
Manor Foyer. Aftermath. The still-bickering Ps descend the stairs, and I gotta tell you, as wacky Wiccan hijinks go, these are pretty damn stupid, so let's cut to the chase: Ignoring Grams's insistent and repeated orders that no one leave the house until she reverses the spell, Raige issues a spitefully sassy "sayonara" and orbs off to points unknown. Phoebe, meanwhile, clomps her way out through the front door to chase Sparklies down at the Readers' Choice Awards. Piper immediately launches into a juvenile tirade about Grams's "stupid" spells as Victor descends from above with the kids. Grams inhales sharply in disgust and hastily flips through her little black book to recite the following:
Let this girl -- quick as a sneeze --
Stop this snit and quickly freeze.
In a fairly seamless blue-screen effect spoiled only by Jennifer Rhodes and James Read's somewhat off eyelines, Holly Marie Combs freezes in mid-tirade with her hands planted stubbornly on her hips. Grams and Daddy Dearest amusingly snipe at each other until Grams slumps into a chair in the dining room and from there hauls herself through another round of exposition. Long story short, the Ps remember their adult lives but have been otherwise reduced mentally to children as a result of the errant cloud of resentful mojo the spell sucked from the boys. Grams will remain in the Manor to work out a reversal spell while Victor has the Dolt orb the kids to Not!warts for their protection. Daddy Dearest glares for a bit at Grams's back as she passes from the dining room into the kitchen before he bellows "[DOLT]!" up at the ceiling.
Victor's voice ends up echoing through a chamber down in Hell, where we find the Dolt lurking in the shadows behind a harp -- yes, an actual harp -- awaiting the arrival of Charisma Carpenter. No, seriously. They finally broke down and hired one of Whedon's regulars for this show, and thank God they went with the uber-bitchy Cordelia, whom I've always liked, instead of Tubby Nimrod Xander or Irritatingly Twitchy Willow. Pity, though, that Carpenter's given so little to do, as we shall shortly see, and pity too that she chooses to play her role as a sort of Cordelia Lite. By the way, they've squeezed her into a midriff-baring, velvet harem-girl outfit in tones of deep purple, with slave bracelets and whatnot for accessories. She looks pretty damn good, and her boobs are yuge. Even money Alyssa Milano has her fired before November sweeps. In any event, Carpenter, once again playing some sort of seer, taunts the Dolt in a very Cordy-like fashion until the Dolt picks her up by her neck and hurls her across the floor. He demands she reveal who's after the Psycho. By way of response, she directs his attention to a large cast-iron birdbath in the center of the chamber. The bubbling silver liquid therein belches up a CGI representation of the Dolt's monster noggin. "Looks like the only threat to your son is you," Cordy croons before the Dolt hoists her into the air by her throat again, screaming, "That's a lie!" "The pool never lies," Cordy vows. DUN!
Manor. Grams and Piper share a lovely little scene that's beautifully played by the actresses involved, but it has very little to do with this evening's plot. Basically, Piper refuses to help with the reversal spell until Grams gently reminds her of the "witch talk" they had years ago before Grams and Patty bound the girls' powers, and Piper gets teary-eyed recounting everything she's lost over the years, so Grams hugs her a bit and strokes her hair, and it's all very sweet, but let's get back to the action, okay? Thanks. The Dolt orbs in from the Underworld, and both Grams and Victor are more than a bit shocked at his disheveled appearance. Things get snappish when Grams changes her mind about having him orb the kids to Not!warts, with the Dolt insisting that he's fine enough to protect his children, dammit, before grabbing Tiny Gay Chris from Daddy Dearest, latching onto the Psycho's arm with the other hand, and orbing on out of there. Piper throws a pouty little fit about the way they treat her husband before vanishing kitchenwards. Grams heaves a beleaguered sigh and curtly instructs Victor to fetch Phoebe while she herself goes in search of Raige. Daddy Dearest exercises his eyebrows for a bit before we cut over to...
...the "San Francisco Bay Area Reader's [sic] Choice Awards." Unless, of course, only one reader is awarding them, in which case I should remove the [sic]. Phoebe, in full-on Phoebe The Amazing Dipshit mode, swipes a glass of wine from a passing waitress's tray before shooting, "That is so cool -- they didn't even card me!" straight through her nose and over towards a nearby table of horrified media types. Heh. Sparklies arrives, thinks she's drunk, and I so don't care about Nick Lachey, so I'll be skipping through most of this scene, which is unfortunate, because it's one of those rare occasions where Phoebe's stupidity is endlessly amusing, rather than endlessly annoying. Long story short, she scampers to the podium to accept the award herself, but is struck dumb when the late, unlamented May Tuna pops up from the crowd to inquire about the inspiration for the advice dispensed in the winning column. Slampiece Sparklies steps in to save Phoebe's bony derriere, and that's pretty much it, though Milano does elicit a smirk and a few snickers from yours truly when she fawns all over Sparklies afterwards before pulling away from him in childish embarrassment and bounding out of the frame like some dachshund who's overdosed on Ritalin. Scene.
Not!warts, and it's time for spell-addled Raige to make an idiot out of herself as she interrupts one of Lurch's classes to drag him into the hallway so she can hike her tongue down his throat. Grams arrives on the scene to drag Raige back to the Manor. Would-Be-Slampiece Lurch sighs in dreamily smitten ecstasy and collapses against a pillar. Whatever, Lurch. They've already announced that Kerr Smith is going to play Rose McGowan's main love interest this season, so I hope you've made the most of the craft services table during your brief stay here, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. 'Kay?
Not!warts. An unconscious Tiny Gay Chris has finally let that pacifier drop from his mouth, and it now rests on the bassinet mattress beside him in the darkened Not-So-Great Hall. Meanwhile, the Psycho flips around in his product-placed playpen as the Dolt paces anxiously in the gloom across the room. Wait a minute. What the hell time is it? Because it was light, you know, with Phoebe and Raige just...oh, fuck it. The Psycho rouses himself in time for the suspiciously Dolt-like dark demonic force to flash into the room right to the Psycho's playpen. As the Psycho erects his force field, the Dolt himself sporks the mystery guest violently into the wall. The mystery guest quickly rebounds to his feet, and the two assault each other with bolts of electricity that slam into each other at the center of the room, eventually flaring outwards to the point that they demolish a nearby table and a couple of chandeliers. The Dolt's bolts prove a mite bit stronger, though, and the mystery guest flips backwards to the floor in slow motion, losing his mask in the process. When the guest rises once more, he turns, and...it's another Dolt. No, seriously. No. Seriously. I've got to put up with two copies of the fucking loser now. Again. In any event, Dolt II here needs a nickname, and I've been assisted in that area by the forum's lovely and talented DiePhoebeDie, who took one look at the ridiculous fuzzy knit cape-and-cowl combo they've slung Krause into for this bit and came up with "Doltbacca," which works beautifully for me. "Whaaaaat?" the Dolt slurs as Doltbacca eyes him rather calmly. I think Krause is retaining water. Anyway, Grams and Raige scurry in from the hall in time to catch the tail end of the resulting staring contest between the Dolts, after which Doltbacca flashes out. Grams glares and slings a protective arm across Raige's shoulder as the Dolt gapes his way into the commercial break.
Manor sun porch. Phoebe, blowing bubble gum, writes Slampiece Sparklies's name over and over again in a notebook before dialing his number on her cell and hanging up as soon as he answers. Piper enters to make with some more of the wacky hijinks as Victor looks on with a bemused grin on his face until Raige orbs in with Grams and the kids to break up all the "fun." Grams grimly orders the gals to look after the boys while she and Daddy Dearest have a chat in the kitchen.
Once there, Penny hisses for Victor to shut the door so the girls can't eavesdrop on their conversation, the Dolt rather fortuitously orbs in for the confrontation that follows, and I swear to God, Grams must have had a brain tumor for breakfast, because she claims she witnessed the Dolt attack his son when, for one thing, she arrived on the scene long after the supposed attack had taken place, and for another, she clearly saw that there were in fact two Dolts in the Not-So-Great Hall. So, you know, I don't get what the big deal is, here, but I'll go along with it anyway, because it's always so much easier when you just go along with it. Victor, surprisingly enough, defends his one-time son-in-law as the Dolt insists the demon responsible must have been a shape-shifter of some sort. Meanwhile, the sounds of the argument have carried out onto the sun porch, where the glum Glam Gals listen in as Grams reams the Dolt a new one. Back in the kitchen, mention is made of the Dolt's murderous ways, and for an instant, the Dolt thinks Grams is referring to the recent immolation of Stupid Uncle Phil, but she's really just griping about dumb Snidely again.
Grams finally gets to the point of all this when she posits that "some dark alter-ego" of the Dolt's "might be acting on [his] true feelings" -- that "maybe deep down inside," the Dolt "think[s Snidely] was right." "That your son doesn't belong in this world," Grams leads, clearly pained. There's precedent for dark alter egos, of a sort, from way back in the third season, but Grams never specifically mentions The Late Lamented, so it's hard to tell if there's any actual continuity involved here. The Dolt furiously denies all of this before fleeing the room in a cloud of orbs. Grams allows a beat to let everything sink in before announcing a change of plans. As she believes news of the Dolt's latest apparent foray into the Dark Side would devastate "adult Piper," she's going to hold off on the reversal spell for the moment. Victor protests that as Piper's father, he should have a say in the matter. "No," Grams coolly corrects him. "With birthdays and holidays you get a say. With magic and demons, what I say goes." Hee. What a ballbuster. And God love her for it. "Now," Grams finishes frostily, "if you'll excuse me." Daddy Dearest drills holes into her back with the laser-like beams of hatred shooting from his eyes as Grams glides from the room.
Nonexistent Attic. Grams "demon-proofs" the attic with a set of Mystical Crysticals as Victor arrives from downstairs to continue the argument they began in the kitchen. He wants to move ahead with the rivalry reversal, Grams does not. Therefore, he urges her "to bring in a third party, to break the tie." "Third party?" Grams chortles dismissively. "Who'd you have in mind -- their mother?" "Yeah!" Victor blares, leaning forward a bit to get in Grams's face. Grams freezes in disbelief. "Do it!" he orders. "Oh, all right," Grams sings, too overconfident by half, "but she's not going to side with you." She flings a hand into the air to conjure a swirling cloud of glowing golf balls that quickly condenses to deposit a swiftly corporealized Teeth! on the attic carpet. Hello, my dear Teeth! Where have you been for the last two years? And why have you been on a hunger strike for all those many months since last we saw you? Guess we now know where Phoebe got her eating disorders. Patty's of course surprised to find herself in her old home, and even more surprised to find her ex-husband standing before her in the company of her mother. "Wow," Victor smooves, "you look great." Yes, she does. For a woman of forty-five. Unfortunately, Patty took The Swim That Needs No Towel when she was a mere slip of a lass at twenty-six, so she's actually looking pretty goddamned awful if you ask me, Vic. Which you didn't, but whatever. Talk is cheap. Especially mine. "Stop trying to sweet-talk her," Grams growls. Instantly aware from her mother's tone that things are not well in Halliwell Manor, Teeth! rolls her eyes and groans, "What's going on?"
Cordelia's Chamber. Whatever. The Dolt arrives to find out who Doltbacca really is. There's banter, and Cordelia plunges an index finger into her birdbath. Scene.
Meanwhile, back in the nonexistent attic, Penny and Victor are howling at each other with Patty caught in the crossfire. Long story short, Teeth! sides with her live ex-husband against her dead mother. "Fine," Grams pouts. "I can see I'm not needed here." And with that, she vanishes in a magical huff that involves dissolving from the floor up in a bright white flare. Patty sighs as Victor notes Grams "always was a bad loser." "She'll get over it," Teeth! shrugs. The two banter about their relationship, or something, and if we saw them more than once every other year, I might be inclined to care. As it is, I'll just follow them downstairs, where the altered gals immediately fly at their poor dead mother with their shrieking and their shrilling and their pawing and their mewling until Patty recites from memory the following incantation:
Reverse the spell from the Book
And please restore what was took.
Victor shoots her A Look. "I made it up when I was nine," Patty whatevers by way of response. The spell, shabby though it is, works well enough, and the sky-blue mojo exits the Glamorous Ladies to settle once more in the boys. Tiny Gay Chris wails instantly while the dead-eyed Psycho twists his demented little face into a pout. Brat. The gals quickly snap back into their adult selves while Victor confirms for himself that they remember everything that transpired while they were under the influence. The Ps, at Piper's prompting, dart up the stairs to figure out a solution for the current crisis as Patty smiles, "That's our girls." Victor's all, "Well, two of them are. The bastard with a taste for jailbait? Not my doing."
Some time later, Phoebe, Piper, and Raige huddle on the hall floor outside Prue Memorial, waiting for Doltbacca to return, which he eventually does. The ladies leap to confront him, with Piper flipping a no doubt hastily concocted potion at Doltbacca's feet. To the ladies' great consternation, nothing happens; nor are Piper's Hands Of Discontent effective when she unleashes them as her ex-husband's doppelganger bends to lift the Psycho from his crib. Doltbacca flashes out of there, leaving the Glamorous Ladies to confront the final commercial break alone. Piper is visibly panicked. Raige is visibly upset. Phoebe is...not much of anything, really. Vacant hag.
Bridal Boudoir. Aftermath. The three Ps power into the room to fret and jaw and panic and freak until Patty and Victor arrive with some bullshit psychological explanation for the evening's events. Basically, Teeth! has suddenly recalled that Piper experienced "night terrors" after her parents split up for the final time, and she believes Doltbacca is a physical manifestation of similar Psycho-related mental angst. And...we're going with it, because it's always so much easier when we just go with it. One unintentionally funny bit? Raige, incredulous, asks, "You're saying Piper is the cause of your divorce?" Victor mumbles, "It was...other things." Yeah, "other things" like that lippy love child your cuckolding wife pumped out courtesy of her alcoholic Whitelighter, am I right? Anyway, the Dolt conveniently arrives at this point to confirm that the Psycho views his father as "the bad guy," thereby explaining why the Psycho would conjure a remarkably Dolt-like antagonist. As, you know, a way of punishing himself for his parents' split. Or something like that. Does anyone really care? No? Didn't think so. Bottom line? They'll find the Psycho where the Psycho believes his problems began: Barbas's lair, where the Dolt sporked Snidely all those many months ago.
Underworld. A rather kindly Doltbacca assures the Psycho that what's about to transpire will doubtless lead to his parents' reunion. With that, Doltbacca steps aside to allow a sextet of those fanged flesh-eating creatures from the finale to advance upon the evil child. One of them, drooling, gets all up in the Psycho's face until it's sporked into oblivion by the just-arrived Dolt. The Dolt takes out three others as Piper deploys her Hands to dispatch the remaining two. As Doltbacca looks on, the Dolt races to the Psycho's side, and wow. I could not care less about this if I tried. Long story short, Piper and the Dolt vow that the Dolt won't be going anywhere anytime soon. The Psycho, for some reason, buys it, and so does whatever it is the Psycho needs to do to get rid of Doltbacca for good. Like I said: Not caring. The Dolt scoops the wicked brat up in his arms, and the Psycho's socks are just filthy from all that dirt down there in Hell. Piper's going to be bitching about those stains for weeks. By the way, apropos of absolutely nothing, the Psycho also looks like he unleashed a massive load in his pants. Hee.
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Still not caring, but I have to admit, the combined presence of Grams, Victor, and Patty in this episode has clouded my better judgment. As a result, I'm watching this scene play out with an enormous amount of goodwill for the performers, to the point that I almost find Phoebe and Sparklies attractive as a couple. Almost. ["Fired! …Almost." -- Sars] So, the selfish bitch thanks the boyband fucktard for saving her worthless ass the day before and leaves. Nick Lachey spontaneously combusts, ridding us of his obnoxious presence for all eternity.
Or not.
Manor. Patty and her blonde highlights gaze down at the Book of Shadows up in the nonexistent attic as Victor looks on with silent concern for a moment before wondering if she's okay. She assures him she is, but adds that "leaving is always the hardest part." He makes to apologize for sucking her out of Heaven, or wherever, but she shushes him, insisting that she really wanted to be there for Tiny Gay Chris's Wiccaning. Besides, she jokes, if there's a bit of pain involved in leaving, "it's just the price I pay for being dead." Aw. Teeth! They share a moment of, I don't know, longing and regret, I suppose, before they're interrupted by the arrival of all six of the current Manor Morons. Well, five of the current Manor Morons plus the Tiny Gay Log. The gals call out for Grams, who eventually drops her incorporeal snit and arrives to grandly accept everyone's apology. Everyone, that is, save the Dolt, to whom she owes an apology of her own. "I'm sorry I thought you were evil," she carefully enunciates as Patty looks on in shock at what is, for Grams, an evidently unprecedented display of remorse. Grams quickly disabuses her dead daughter of that notion, however, when she amends, "Not that you can blame me." "That's an apology?" the Dolt stutters. "I'd take it, if I were you," Victor advises him with a twinkle in his eye.
Piper passes the Tiny Gay Log to Grams for the ceremony, then steps back to press a light, affectionate finger on the Psycho's forehead. The Psycho stares at her all, "Try that again, shrew, and you'll be eating your own hand." We get what's supposed to be a glamour shot of the actual Tiny Gay Chris, but the infant they've hired for the part looks too much like an obese old man in the throes of early-onset Alzheimer's for any glamour shot to really work. Grams cuddles the Tiny Gay Log as she recites the opening lines of a somewhat familiar spell:
I call forth from space and time
Matriarchs from the Halliwell line --
Mothers, daughters, sisters, friends:
Our family's spirit, without end.
The camera pans backwards and up towards the ceiling to take in all those present as bright points of white light burst in the air above their heads to swirl about the room with comet-like tails, heralding the arrival of the Glamorous Grandladies, who presently materialize in spectral form at Grams's side as we finally fade to black. The production values were better the first time around. Poor Chris. Always getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop, isn't he?
week: A Pirates of the Caribbean rip-off featuring Harve Presnell in the Geoffrey Rush role, plus the return of Kerr Smith to the WB as Raige's latest plaything. Have fun!