Episode Report Card Demian: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Something Better Change
By Demian | Season 7 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.22.2005
Closer to the waterfront, Piper and Raige amble through an alleyway littered with an unusual number of sleeping people. As Piper gradually realizes that she and Raige are not quite right in the head, Uniqua unexpectedly flares into the alleyway. Piper instantly deploys the Hands, sending Uniqua skidding halfway down the asphalt on her ass. Heh. Uniqua quickly rises to smooth her hair and brush off her coat as Piper apologizes as profusely as she can. Which, being Piper, isn't very. Raige wonders what gives, so Uniqua informs them that she and the other Avatars are worried about Brody. They can't sense what, exactly, is wrong with him, but they do know he didn't fall asleep with the rest of the planet. Uniqua reveals they believe Zankou is behind it all. "Dammit," Raige grunts. "I knew I shouldn't have left him alone." She orbs out immediately, leaving Piper alone in the alleyway with the Avatar. "Hey!" Piper shouts at the sky. "You can't leave me here!" While Piper's thus occupied, Uniqua flicks her hand around in a terribly suspicious manner. A demonic henchhottie of Zankou's squiggles in at the far end of the alleyway and nods briefly at his morphed boss before glaring at Piper. "Demon!" Zaniqua hisses. Piper, painfully slow on the uptake, goes, "Whuh?" and dumbly glances around before chasing after the henchhottie as he disappears on foot around a corner. The moment she's gone, Zaniqua smirks and morphs up into Zankou. That was actually a pretty decent fake-out. Can you believe it?
Straight Estates. Raige orbs directly into the living room and calls out for Brody, who emerges from the bedroom to greet her. Raige quickly tries to orb him over to the Manor, but Brody, reciting his Zankou-provided lines, lies that he faces no demonic threat at that moment. Rather, it was Uniqua herself who intervened and prevented him from falling asleep. Raige gets a panicky look in her eyes and calls Uniqua's name. The Avatar in question promptly flares into the room, and a tense standoff ensues when she realizes with alarm that Brody's still awake. While Raige tries and fails to figure out what the hell is going on, Brody clenches his jaw and smashes the paranoia crystal on the floorboards. The instant the thing shatters in a small spray of sparks, Raige flares red and gasps, "What was that?" "I wanted to make sure you were back to normal before I..." Brody breathes as Uniqua eyes him with growing alarm. "Before what?" Raige demands. Brody slides the deadly vial of tendrilly doom from his pocket and prepares to hurl it at Uniqua. Uniqua, eyes bulging, gets the snap on him and flings out her right hand, releasing a massive spray of sporking electricity into his chest. Brody flips backwards through the air to smash into the kitchenette counter as the vial crashes to the floor. The tendrilly doom instantly surges upwards and floods Uniqua's nose and mouth. Lines of foul poison shoot through her face beneath her skin as she drops to the floor, apparently dead before she lands. Raige races to Brody's side and eases him onto his back as he coughs and gasps. Tears form in Raige's eyes as her quivering lips vanish into the final commercial break.
Straight Estates. Aftermath. "Please don't hate me," Brody whispers. "I don't hate you," Raige whimpers as the tears start flowing from her eyes, "of course I don't hate you." "I didn't want it to end like this," Brody barely manages to gasp. Raige, whose tears are rather inelegantly gathering at the tip of her nose before dropping off onto Brody's shirt and thus bear an unsightly resemblance to dripping snot, vows to call for help. Brody nixes this idea, as the Avatars -- specifically Dolta -- are now incredibly vulnerable. "Why did you do this?" Raige weeps, and I must admit, Rose McGowan's doing more to sell this scene than she has for any other since last season's finale. Were her more recent performances not so annoying, I might be buying it. "To stop them," Brody replies as he reaches to stroke her hair. Desperate, Raige calls out for Dolta. She's answered by I'm Not Candy and No Name, who flare into the room above the corpse of their fallen comrade. "He can't hear you," I'm Not Candy frosts. "He's been...affected by what's happened. We all have." "Can't you just rewind time?" Raige demands through tears and red-rimmed eyes. "Just go back and fix it?" I'm Not Candy claims the Avatars have "come too far to go back now." Um. Too far in the last thirty seconds? The hell? Why didn't he just say they no longer had the power necessary to pull another reversal? Feh. I never liked him anyway, and he's probably going to be dead by this time next week, so whatever. Shame they couldn't get Tony Todd for this story arc. "But he's dying!" Raige mewls, clutching at Brody as No Name kneels to gently close Uniqua's vacantly staring eyes. "Yes," I'm Not Candy growls at her, "and he's weakened the Collective -- risked losing all we've worked to create." So, no sympathy for the bulge there, I suppose. I'm Not Candy and No Name babble at each other about consolidating power in order to prevent Zankou from screwing up The Change. Raige finally gets loud, spitting something about her dying boyfriend. "The needs of the one," I'm Not Candy carefully enunciates, "must be sacrificed for the good of the many." I think the ever-useless Elders used this argument on Dolta a while back, and it works as well on Raige as it did on him. "I did not sign up for this experiment so you could play God!" she seethes, rising to challenge him as No Name glances uneasily in her direction. "You fix this!" she cries. "Right now!" "He's dead," No Name murmurs, and do you want to know how much I like this episode? I didn't even cheer when he said that. Well, not for long. Raige's face falls, and she rejoins rapidly cooling Brody on the floor, whimpering, "Please don't go," as she touches his face. I'm Not Candy and No Name hold a quick processing summit at the far end of the apartment, realizing that news of Brody's death at Uniqua's hand will likely turn Piper and Phoebe against the Avatars as well. They turn to gaze at Raige, their eyes glowing yellow as they do so. Raige, still weeping, falls unconscious in dead Brody's cold embrace. Gah! Can you imagine waking up next to a corpse like that? I don't care if you are waking into Utopia. Years of therapy, people. I'm Not Candy and No Name smile, and the effect is somewhat chilling.
Nonexistent Attic. Phoebe's NIPPLES are babbling something about her suddenly vanished sense of paranoia as Dolta eyes them uneasily. Seriously. I paused the tape right after she sits down on Aunt Pearl's sofa, and Brian Krause is staring right at her high beams. Hee. Dolta notes that while Phoebe might be fine, he's suddenly feeling a whole lot weaker. As Phoebe suggests he sit down, she's whacked with the Utopia mojo, and collapses against the arm of the sofa. Dolta frantically shakes her in a futile attempt to rouse her, then realizes that Piper's likely in danger as well. Off his increasingly frantic expression, the shot cuts over to...