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
...Hell. D'oh! Pretty cool effect there, by the way. In any event, Brody for some reason does not recognize his surroundings for what they are and wonders, "Are you an Elder?" as Zankou saunters on over to the alcove in which Brody's arrived. Zankou takes a moment to smirk at the stupidity of the question before carefully enunciating, "Hardly." Brody quietly freaks. Zankou grins, savoring Brody's distress before vanishing into the opening credits.
Dogface spawned on 7th Heaven? What rough beast, indeed.
Hello, seemingly endless opening travelogue! Oh, how I've missed you this season. As the suave yet raspy Seal wails, "Bring it on!" repeatedly -- geddit? -- the camera spins around the bridges and the bay just long enough for me to wonder if people of San Francisco are going to remember, after The Change, why there's an enormous prison plonked down in the middle of the harbor. Which then makes me wonder what will become of the world's prison population during The Change, and somebody had better slap me out of such ruminations, because, I can assure you, we'll never find out, for the crack monkeys have likely once again failed to think through the central conceit of the episode, and, well, that way madness lies. Anyhoo, at the close of the travelogue, the camera rips back through the early morning low-lying fog to whisk us back down to Hell as Seal's voice goes all echoey, and we find the boys much as we left them before the hideous image of Beverley Mitchell expelling wretched foulness from her uterus in an elevator was seared onto our retinas. "You said something about a vanquishing potion?" Zankou smoothly leads, advancing upon Secretly INSANE Brody, who uneasily backs himself away from the approaching demon by stumbling around the large, open-pit fire at the center of the chamber. "How'd you know about that?" Brody gulps. "We intercepted your little cry for help!" Max Perlich pipes up from the demonic peanut gallery on the far side of the room, and sweet Jesus, why was his annoying ass not vanquished in the last episode? With any luck, I'll be able to ignore him much as I did last week, lest his presence on my TV screen fill my heart with black, murderous rage. Zankou, God love him, shoots a Death Glare at Irritating Max Perlich, shutting the latter up for the moment. Brody nervously confirms that he is indeed in possession of a potion that harms the Avatars alone. Zankou, visibly pleased with the news, affably suggests that they "have a lot in common." "We both wish to stop what they're trying to do," he elaborates. "We both desire to keep things as they are, yes?" Brody sort of nods in agreement. "In order to do that," Zankou continues, "we're going to have to work together." He spreads his arms wide and, addressing the assembled dark demonic forces as much as he is Brody, notes that, with the Charmed Ones' help, the Avatars are "decimating" the forces of Hell. This displeases Zankou, for all of the obvious reasons. "I'm not helping you hurt the sisters," Brody immediately insists. Irritating Max Perlich Renfields something about not wanting to off the gals just yet. Zankou bores holes through him with his eyes and, ambling over to wrap a paw around Irritating Max Perlich's bald head, ices, "Remind me why I tolerate you again?" "Because you're running low on demons?" Irritating Max guesses. Screw the current labor shortage in Hell, Zankou, and off the annoying fucker anyway.
Sadly, I find yet another of my perfectly reasonable suggestions ignored as Brody, finally grasping what's really going on here, splutters out that he couldn't possibly offer Zankou the assistance the latter seeks because, you know, they're all demons. "Yes," Zankou confirms in a booming voice, "yes, we are." "Which makes us -- for better or worse -- fundamental to the grand design," he continues as he circles an increasingly uneasy Brody, and I'm going to transcribe his entire little speech here, because it rather succinctly zeroes in on the central problem with the Avatars' plans for the planet: "It keeps things in balance. Gives the necessary contrast to all that you covet -- to all that is good -- and therein lies our mutual problem. You see, without the one, there can't be the other. Without evil, there can be no good." Trite, yes, but I'm sure some pathetic ten-year-old's mind was just blown somewhere in North America, and that's really all that matters, isn't it? ["Keep in mind that the basic binary nature of this concept was beyond the ken of Buffy's writing team in the seventh season." -- Sars] Brody cautiously concedes that he agrees with Zankou, then wonders how Zankou proposes to stop the Avatars. Zankou understands that Brody's Destructive Egyptian Vial Of Tendrilly Avatar Doom, by killing one Avatar, should weaken the others to the point where the forces of Hell might eliminate them all. "The problem is," he admits, "the Avatars have insulated themselves now. Only the sisters can get to them." To that end, Zankou will have Brody do, um, something to the Glamorous Ladies at some point later in the episode. Zankou, while clearly having thought the whole thing through rather thoroughly, actually chooses to reveal his plan in bits and pieces throughout the evening, and I'm torn between finding it annoying and finding it shockingly intriguing and well-crafted storytelling for this show, as well as a sign of the character's intelligence. I mean, how many demons in the past have offered up vast, entire mission statements at the beginning of the episode, often before the credits have rolled? "Yes! We shall lure the Charmed Ones into the open by exploiting a mermaid/their Whitelighter/a muse/Piper's sons/skanky, underaged, and taste-free Dishwalla groupies, and once we have vanquished the Halliwells, we shall rule the world! Mua ha ha ha ha ha!" And then those demons get whacked by the second commercial break. Taking the entire hour for a demonic plot to play out is almost unheard of on this show.