Previously onCharmed, The Change occurred, but the Best Demon Ever had "planted a seed" of discord; Brody toyed with an unusually evocative snow globe; Uniqua sporked Brody, but not before he unleashed the last deadly vial of tendrilly Avatar doom, which killed her in return; and Raige was oddly okay with her bulging boyfriend's violent death. Meanwhile, the Dolt got a new temporary nickname, and was oddly perturbed. About Raige's attitude, I mean, not the new temporary nickname.
Currently on Charmed, we fade up on an overhead shot of a four-way intersection, through which cars glide in a seemingly flawless and perfectly choreographed flow, their drivers apparently no longer needing the guidance of stoplights. Pity, then, about the scene waiting to unfold that contradicts what this opening shot implies. Maybe I'll just ignore the screw-up when the time comes. After all, this is the best of all possible worlds, isn't it? Even though I still hate Phoebe. Bitch. The shot cuts to take in two lines of school kids high-fiving each other as the lines pass through a crosswalk to opposite sides of the street. Over at a nearby bus stop, three mildly smiling extras page through magazines as I'm Not Candy ambles through the background of the frame, followed by No Name and Dolta. I'm Not Candy and No Name blather a bit about the universal lightening of humanity's mood wrought by The Change as the three men continue down the sidewalk, and we get another supposed example of this when eight or nine passersby stoop to gather up the bagful of oranges a woman's spilled on the pavement opposite. I'm Not Candy reminds Dolta that "conflict" is "the one thing [Utopia] cannot abide." Dolta, by the way, looks like a complete jackass, as he's decided to imitate his new best buds' fashion sense by turning up the collar of his overcoat and buttoning the thing all the way up to his neck, turning it into a very long Nehru jacket. Moron. In any event, Dolta's still disturbed by the Glamorous Ladies' collectively listless reaction to Brody's death, and so harbors some lingering doubts regarding this brave new world. I'm Not Candy and No Name too jovially brush off Dolta's concerns, but I'm Not Candy does encourage Dolta to return to the Manor to confirm that the Ps are "better off" now. "It's all good, [Dolta]," I'm Not Candy soothes with that creepy-ass grin of his spreading across his face. "It's all...genuine." "Once you're satisfied," No Name chimes in, "it is important you return to us." "Why?" Dolta buhs. "The Collective has been drained of power," No Name reminds him. "The sooner you're reassured -- satisfied," I'm Not Candy continues, "the sooner you can join us and help us maintain all of this. We have much work to do, [Dolta]." "What kind of work?" Dolta suspiciously side-eyes. I'm Not Candy takes the briefest of ominous pauses before freshening his "smile" and answering, "You'll see." "When you're ready," I'm Not Candy concludes, "you'll sense where to find us." And with that, I'm Not Candy and No Name part to let Dolta shuffle past them down the sidewalk and out of the frame.
As Dolta vanishes, the sounds of a heated argument reach I'm Not Candy and No Name from across the street. Some mouthy Angry White Male is loudly disputing a traffic ticket he's about to receive from a cop as his much put-upon wife whines for him to calm down and get back in the car. Angry White Male's complaint? "The light was yellow." So, you know, if they're still using traffic lights, I have no idea what was up with that bit of automotive choreography at the top of the hour. The automotive choreography was sort of cool, though, so the stupid crack monkeys should have had this tool, I don't know, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, or something. God, I hate this show. Angry White Male gets audibly mouthier as works himself into a lather, demanding the cop's name and badge number and whatnot. The cop, incidentally, remains preternaturally calm throughout, rather than beating the lippy bastard to a bloody pulp with his nightstick, as I would be wont to do were I in a similar situation. I'm Not Candy shoots a troubled glance at No Name before the two refocus their attention on the Angry White Male, who promptly disappears. As in, he dematerializes completely from the street. You know, like a vanquish, only without the smoke and the sparks and the flame and the ungodly caterwauling and all. A sharp musical cue involving a brief blare of discordant horns hits the soundtrack as I'm Not Candy and No Name descend a set of stairs into the opening credits.
Opening travelogue, with testicle. And time-lapse photography of places that are not San Francisco, strangely enough. "This is your life, and today is all you got now," the testicle croons as the sun sets over the ocean to rise again over the Golden Gate Bridge, "and today is all you'll ever have. Are you who you want to be?" What business is it of yours, asshole? Go to hell. After they recycle that clip of pigeons flapping in slow motion past the Palace of Fine Arts, there's a brief montage of San Francisco in the early hours of the morning before we cut all the way over to Grand Central Station in New York City to begin a Koyaanisqatsi-esque sequence of shots covering the morning rush across North America, which includes sped-up bits of a light-rail station in Los Angeles and a Metro station in Washington before the camera shoots back over to San Francisco to super-speed through the streets, eventually cross-fading over to Prescott Street. Up in the Manor kitchen, Phoebe and Piper perform a human version of the earlier automotive choreography around the center island, with Phoebe mixing what seems to be quiche filling while Piper stirs a batter of some sort. As Phoebe crosses to dump the filling into a pie crust, she finds her way blocked by Dolta's suddenly appearing orb cloud. "Hey!" she snots. "You're breaking the flow!" Conflict! Dust her ass, Dolta. Please dust her worthless hag ass. Now! He doesn't listen to me. He never does. Sigh. Piper casually wonders where Dolta's been all this time. He admits he's been hanging with the other Avatars, "making sure everything went all right." "Why wouldn't it be?" Piper asks, mildly enough. "You tell me," Dolta non-answers. "How you guys doing?" Phoebe babbles something about how abso-frigging-lutely fan-tastic! she feels, but that's not important. What is important is that, even though we just watched her pour the entire bowl of quiche guts into the pie crust, Alyssa Milano now lifts an entirely empty crust from the counter and shoves the damn, stupid thing into the oven. Gah. HATE.
Anyway, the ladies tag-team-blather approvingly about the brave new world for a bit until Piper reveals they're throwing a party in honor of their new existence, much to Dolta's surprise. He thought they'd want to ensure that everything was working properly before beginning the celebrations. While the gals admit they've yet to witness The Change's effects on "the real world," they nonetheless enthusiastically agree that The Change "works better than expected," so what's the big deal? "Besides," Phoebe adds, "we have a lot of catching up to do, especially with our friends." What friends? You women haven't hung out with people you weren't fucking at the time in the last seven years. Get over yourself, Phoebe. And shut up while you're at it. "I'm not sure I remember how to socialize with normal people," Piper frets, and there's that word. That word I loathe. And why wouldn't you remember how to socialize, Piper? You are a local nightclub impresario, after all.
Sorry! Sorry, I have to take a moment. That "local nightclub impresario" bullshit still cracks me up. Hee.
Ahem. "You'll be fine," Phoebe assures her sister before anviliciously adding, "especially since there won't be any demons attacking." "They're still out there," Dolta warns. "Yeah, but they won't be attacking!" Phoebe grins. "They're all on the run," she elaborates, before exhorting Dolta to relax already and simply enjoy everything. Dolta smiles a bit a this before switching the topic over to Raige and her reaction to Brody's sporking. Just how is the lippy little bastard feeling? "Better," Piper notes, but adds that Raige will likely need a little more time to process through it all. "Kyle meant a lot to her," Phoebe agrees. "But," Piper observes in a refrain that will become terribly, gratingly, aggravatingly familiar this evening, "it does help her to know that he's gone on to a better place." Phoebe eventually spills that Raige is over at Straight Estates, picking up the last of her things. A bit breathlessly, she adds that she herself intends to head over to All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me to see how the mortal types have adapted to The Change. With that, she whips off her apron and whisks out of the room as Dolta announces he intends to check on Raige. And out he goes on his cloud of orbs. "Don't be late!" Piper cries as Dolta vanishes upwards. She then rather placidly draws a pinch of sugar from a bowl on the counter and sprinkles it into the batter. The camera zooms in for an extreme close up on the crystals as they cascade through the frame before cross-fading over to...
...an equally extreme close up of the flecks of white dancing around in Dead Bulging Brody's unusually evocative snow globe. The camera pulls back to reveal that a somewhat misty-eyed Raige is holding the thing in the apartment's living room, lost in thought as Dolta orbs in behind her. She's got her hair pulled up into an asinine top-knot, by the way, which I HATE. Conflict! Dust her ass, Dolta. Please dust her tasteless, talent-free ass now! Prick ignores me again. "How you holding up?" he inquires. "Good, considering!" she bubbles with a luminescent smile on her face. "Though I'm not really sure what to do with all of his stuff," she adds as she sets the unusually evocative snow globe on the table. Dolta reminds her that "it's not really [her] responsibility." Raige brightly counters that, as Brody was an orphan and everything, it actually sort of is. "It's just so...odd that he's gone," she adds. "I really miss him." "Good!" Dolta pipes, a little too eagerly. "I mean, that's normal," he hastily elaborates. "You don't want to go around just having it all glossed over, you know?" "No," Raige agrees, "but still, I am happy for him. I mean, he is in a better place." And that's it: I'm reviving the Pee-wee's PlayhouseSecret Phrase Screamfest for this recap. Every time somebody mentions "a better place" during this episode, you are to shriek at your computer screen. Yes, you are guaranteed to be hoarse by the end of the evening, but remember -- this is the best of all possible worlds, so you'd better suck up and deal with it, bitches. In any event, Dolta wrinkles his mighty brow in dismay at Raige's empty platitude and drops his eyes to the floor as she natters something about Brody wanting her "to enjoy this new world." "He died trying to stop it," Dolta reminds her, puzzled. Rose McGowan completely gargles her line, but it's more nonsense about being happy anyway, or some such bullshit. Raige then halts the conversation by cheerily announcing that she's returning to the Manor to prepare for the party and, latching onto the box she'd been packing, she orbs up through the ceiling.
Once she's gone, Dolta, clearly disturbed by her attitude, picks his way across the floor to retrieve Dead Bulging Brody's unusually evocative snow globe from the table, and he hoists it into the air to stare at the World Trade Center towers. And no, I'm not endowing them with a significance that this show hasn't already and won't for the rest of the evening. Example? Right now. As the shot remains tightly focused on the snow globe in Dolta's hand, the sound of Zankou blazing into the apartment hits the soundtrack, and the World Trade Center towers glow orange in the flaming light accompanying his off-screen entrance. The effect is certainly subtle -- especially considering the way this show normally beats its audience over the head with such things -- and if you're going to devote an entire story arc to the fact that evil is necessary for good to exist in the world, evoking September 11th seems virtually mandatory at this point, but still. It makes me tense. They're overreaching just a wee bit, don't you think? And I can just imagine all of this ending up in some future documentary on the influence of September 11th in American popular culture, and that makes me very sad, indeed. Because this show should be forgotten the instant the WB finally cancels its wretched ass.
Whew. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. As the Trade Center towers glow in the reflected light of Zankou's flaming entrance, Dolta jerks his head around just in time to catch the tail end of Zankou's materialization over in the apartment's kitchenette. Goddamn, he's hot. Dolta disagrees with me, apparently, for he immediately greets Zankou with a blast of sporking electricity from his left hand. Zankou slams heavily against a door at the far end of the apartment for a moment, but quickly recovers to stalk up to Dolta while crooning, "You've been weakened, Avatar, by the death of one of your own." Zankou thrusts out a hand, and Dolta instantly flies backwards through the air to smash into the apartment's front wall. Once he slides to the floor, he stares up at the demon with rapidly increasing panic spreading across his face. "We both have the same problem, you and I," Zankou continues, smoothly sidling up to Dolta, who's inched himself up the wall to his feet. "Neither of us trust this new world," Zankou elaborates, latching onto the lapels of Dolta's coat. Dolta's expression of panic has by now passed into one of goggle-eyed terror. Hee. Pussy. Zankou pushes his face into Dolta's own before adding, "We're both going to have to do something about it." And with that, Zankou blazes out of the apartment with Dolta in tow, headed for points unknown. I swear to God, this episode got fifteen times better the second Oded Fehr appeared on screen.
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Elise Rothman, Girl Editor greets Phoebe, wondering why the latter is in the office on her day off. Phoebe admits she just dropped by to see how things are going. "They aren't!" Elise grins. "And that's a good thing," she adds. "Have you seen today's paper?" she continues, flapping a copy of the latest edition around in the air. "Thinnest. One. Ever! There's no crime to speak of, no corruption, no scandal. Thank God the obits are up, otherwise we'd just have a one-sheet!" And that, my friends, is most definitely a DUN! The two women banter about how wonderful the world seems and whatnot before discussing the topic of Phoebe's column. Phoebe says she'll have to work on it from home, and asks Elise to tell "Oliver" she'll email the copy to him by six that evening. At the mention of Oliver's name, Elise's eyes widen a bit. "Oliver," she repeats in a lightly mournful tone. "That's the only bad thing that happened today." "Well," she quickly amends, "not bad for him of course, just for us." Seems Elise got a call from his family about an hour ago, and he's "gone." "My God," Phoebe breathes sympathetically. "He was such a troubled young man," Elise speechifies. "I really hoped he could turn things around." Phoebe somewhat glumly agrees with the sentiment. "Well," Elise burbles, brightening the mood while gifting the contemplative Feebs with an amiable pat on the arm, "at least we can take heart that he's in a much better place now!" AAAAAAUAUUAAAAGH! I was serious about the shrieking, people. "Yeah," Phoebe agrees absently as Elise bustles out of the frame. "I guess so," she finishes, some part of her clearly realizing that something's very, very wrong.
Zankou and Dolta, carrying torches, wander through a chamber littered with ancient Egyptian debris including, apparently, a discarded mummy. Had I ever seen The Mummy, this is the point where I'd make some snide remark about Oded Fehr's role in said film. However, I have not and never will see The Mummy, and besides, when this scene first unreeled last Sunday night, I was too busy struggling through the state of shock into which this setting had hurled me. "Oh, my God!" I gasped. "They're actually going to explain the Avatars' Egyptian backstory? Now? After I ranted about the fact that we'd never hear anything about it ever? Typewriting crack monkeys suck ass!" And, long story short, that's exactly what they do. Um. The explaining of backstory thing, not the sucking of ass. Just so we're clear. Zankou leads a wary Dolta over to a wall filled with hieroglyphs and hots his way through the following bit of exposition: "Thousands of years ago," the Avatars remade the world from their base in Egypt, "but they never told people of the ultimate cost." At this last, the camera lands on a rendering of Anubis escorting some poor soul to the other side. "There's a price to pay for Utopia," Zankou cautions Dolta as the two contemplate the image, "a price that you suspect, but don't yet know about." The Egyptians did know about it, however, "and they rose up against the Avatars and stopped them the first time -- for good reason." Zankou goes on to note that Brody also figured out what was really going on, and "sacrificed everything" to weaken the Avatars so Zankou could draw Dolta away from The Collective and lay a little archaeological science on his massive ass. "Brody was crazy," Dolta seethes. Shout-out? "Brody was right!" Zankou cries. "You know deep down that there is something very wrong with this world, [Dolta], something you never foresaw in your myopic zeal to try to make it all better." And that's the second episode in a row in which a character has correctly used "myopic" in a sentence. What do you want to bet both Cameron Litvack and Henry Alonso Myers blew that word on a high school vocab test ten years ago and have been desperately trying to rid themselves of the associated shame ever since? "People have no free will anymore," Zankou explains. "At least not completely. The Avatars now dictate their destinies, and you let it happen!" This is all, of course, A Very Bad Thing Indeed, but I'm certain Zankou will find some way to make it all better. Because he's hot. Zankou finally urges Dolta to figure out for himself what's really going on and, once Dolta's done that, to return to help Zankou undo The Change. Dolta defiantly tosses his torch aside and angrily orbs out of the tomb with his undies in a tremendous wad. Once Captain Angry Pants is gone, Zankou stalks over to the hieroglyph wall to, um, snag some fabulous wardrobe ideas for the costume party he's going to throw down in Hell once this is all over. Or something like that.
Avatar Central. Dolta orbs onto a raised platform in front of a rough-hewn "wall" of "rock," and I've a sneaking suspicion they just slid a couple of new flats onto the P3 set for these scenes. I'm Not Candy and No Name stand in a circle with ten other Avatars around a bulky, gigantic, round, space-age plinth that features a wavering bit of ectoplasm hovering above its center. It's all terribly futuristic in that tacky, Space: 1999 sort of way, but I'm too busy pondering the significance of the fact that there are now thirteen Avatars in total to bust on the set. "What is this place?" Dolta asks. "This is where we maintain Utopia!" I'm Not Candy beams. At I'm Not Candy's prompting, Dolta descends a set of stairs to join the others around the altar thingy, and it becomes clear they're observing snippets of life on earth through that wavery gunk at its center. "What are they doing?" Dolta wonders. "Monitoring for conflict," No Name duhs. He's kinder about it than I am, but still. Duuuuuh. The image at the center of the altar switches to a middle-aged woman yelling something at someone out of our view. The camera slides up from this to take in a female Avatar, who exchanges a somewhat annoyed Look Fraught With Significance with two of her colleagues. One of them vigorously shakes his head by way of response, but it's not clear if he's decided the woman in the image poses no real threat, or if he'd rather not toast her ass with Dolta in the room. Meanwhile, I'm Not Candy's launched himself into a long explanation of what The Change has actually wrought on humanity. It involves an alteration of "belief systems" that allows the planet's population both to stop expecting evil to pop up here and there on occasion and to shake off any dark demonic force who would attempt to influence them into performing "evil acts." I'm Not Candy further explains that some people, unfortunately, have been "damaged" beyond repair, and it is these individuals The Collective is searching for at the moment. On cue, the image of a violent fistfight enters the wavery gunk, and, as the other Avatars eye each other, the image expands to fill the screen. Basically, two guys are whaling on each other in an alleyway that's either in Chinatown or in China itself. After a bit of this, both men vanish in a wisp of grey smoke. The passersby who had stumbled across the fight stare at the space the combatants had occupied for a moment before blithely continuing on their respective ways. As the image of the scene shrinks back into the gunk, Dolta cries, "Wait! You killed them!" "We removed them," No Name corrects. Potayto, potahto, No Name. "The one for the many?" No Name prompts, ignoring me. "We have an obligation to maintain the world we've created," I'm Not Candy adds. "We can't let anything threaten it," he emphasizes, "and we won't." Under any other circumstance, this utterance, too, would rate a DUN!, but because it involves the Dolt, it quite naturally becomes a D'OH! Dolta's deeply disturbed eyes dart around for a bit before vanishing into the commercial break.
Manor. Phoebe returns from the office to discover that her pack mule of a sister's concocted an elaborate spread for their little party, and God, these women bore me. I think they've actually bored me since the early part of the fourth season, but the far more intriguing presences of first the Colethazor and then Big Gay Chris masked my nagging sense of tedium. Anyway, of the endless babbling that follows, only the following bits are of any interest or importance: Piper frets a bit about Dolta's whereabouts, and when Phoebe suggests he had some "Avatar stuff" to take care of, Piper sighs, "I hope the Avatars don't keep him as busy as the [ever-useless] Elders did." "I don't think he'd put up with that, Piper," Phoebe smiles, "and you know it. He created this better world so that you guys could be together again. As a family." Piper, mollified by this notion, nonetheless retorts, "Still. I worry." "And to cooking, that's the other thing you do best," Phoebe teases. Raige enters at this point from upstairs, and there's more of that "he's gone to a better place" stuff from her -- AUAAUAAAAAUAAUAGH! -- regarding Brody, prompting Phoebe to relate the sad, sordid tale of Oliver The Troubled Copy Boy. Piper assures her sister that it all must be for the best, "otherwise it wouldn't have happened." Phoebe's clearly not quite buying it, but goes along with Piper's sentiment for the moment. Piper then cheerily sends Phoebe upstairs to dress the kids for the party while she and Raige head into the kitchen for some last-minute prep work. The screen flares white, and we're...
...back in the Egyptian tomb, where Zankou paces his hot self back and forth on the cracked floor in the glow of the torchlight. Irritating Max Perlich squiggles into the chamber, despite the fact that he previously exploded from place to place like the Celerity Demons, and that's just another reason to hate and ignore him. He's also dropped his New York accent in favor of something more Central European, and that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and why won't somebody off this stupid fucker already? GOD! And look at that. While I was so busily ranting, Irritating Max has squiggled out just as the shrieking racket of the Dolt's orb cloud reaches our ears. I sure as hell hope Irritating Max Perlich didn't have anything important to say. "Welcome back, partner!" Zankou grins, turning to greet the new arrival. Hee. "We're not partners," Dolta ices. "Then what are you doing here?" Zankou shrugs affably. He's got a major jones for you, Zankou. Everybody does. You little devil. Okay, so I'm kidding with that. Sort of. Dolta actually admits that he's not terribly certain of the answer to Zankou's question, allowing the demon to argue once more against the Avatars' brave new world in a manner so twinkly and seductive that it's far more entertaining than it has any right to be, given that it's basically a rehash of everything he's said before. "Ah, but there's the rub," he finally smirks when Dolta insists that he's none too fond of the idea assisting the forces of Hell. "Which world is worse -- which is the greater evil? Mine, or theirs?" "Well, I know taking Destiny out of people's hands is not right no matter what," Dolta concedes. However, he takes pains to stress, "If we succeed, we'll still be enemies, and I can make you a promise it will only be a matter of time before good defeats evil." Aw. The wimpy little pantywaist is getting all up in Zankou's face! Isn't he precious? "We'll have to see about that, won't we?" Zankou grins slyly. "Now," he continues with his voice filled with bemused condescension, "if we're finished with the macho posturing, let's get to work." With that, he brushes dismissively past Dolta to approach the hieroglyph wall. Hee. Zankou fucking rules. Zankou cautions Dolta that even if he deciphers the ancient text, they'll still need the Glamorous Ladies help to recreate the Egyptians' deadly vials of tendrilly Avatar doom. Dolta claims the Ps will never act against the Avatars. "Not if they discover the catch," Zankou retorts. "Not if they learn the Avatars alone decide who lives and who dies." To that end, Dolta must "get them to see what the Avatars don't want them to see." "Even," Zankou emphasizes, "if it takes you shocking them with another terrible loss." The boys squint at each other for a long moment before the screen flares white again and we head...
...back to the Manor, where Phoebe's babytalking something inane at the dead-eyed, mulleted Psycho and his hideously disfigured tiny gay brother. Seriously. It's like the show's casting agent scoured all of Southern California for the absolute ugliest infant she could find to play Tiny Gay Chris, just to piss me off. Anyway, Dolta orbs in on the middle of all of this, and we know he's made something of a break from his new bestest friends because he's unbuttoned his coat and turned down the collar. I guess that means he can go back to being the Dolt. Hooray! I kept typing "the Dolt" anyway, and it was beginning to annoy. Anyway, the Dolt speed-talks his way through some dire warnings about what the Avatars are really up to, in the process so thoroughly unnerving to the Feebs that the latter finds herself in something of a frantic panic. The Dolt eventually flips on the baby monitor and, in a nicely done effects shot, drags her over her protests into an orb cloud that vanishes through the ceiling.
Straight Estates. The instant they've materialized, the Dolt stoops to retrieve the unusually evocative snow globe from where he'd dropped it in the earlier scene. "I need you to get a vision," he explains, fiddling with it. "I need you to see what really happened to Agent Brody." "I know what happened," Phoebe argues. "He's moved on to a better place!" AAAUAUAAAAAUAUAGH! "Maybe so," the Dolt allows, "but it doesn't change the fact that somebody killed him." With that, he pushes the snow globe into Phoebe's hands. She is, of course, instantly flung into a sepia-toned premonition of Brody's death, in all of it's painful, Uniqua-induced glory. "Oh my God," Phoebe breathes once she's snapped out of it. "She killed him." "The Avatars don't want you to know that," the Dolt confirms. "They don't want you to know why people just suddenly disappear." "Why are you doing this?" Phoebe sighs, pained. "Because it's the truth!" he shoots back. "They changed you so you couldn't feel the true pain of death. They want it to seem like it's a good thing so the time it happens you don't even question it." "No!" she whispers. "Yes," he counters, "and it's going to happen again, as soon as they decide someone in the world is causing too much conflict." Phoebe protests that she can't return to the old way of doing things, and shouts the Dolt down when he attempts to argue further with her. "We made the world a better place, and we're going to live in it!" she insists. "Do you understand?" The Dolt silently eyes her as the image shrinks into...
...the wavery gunk in Avatar Central. The camera pans back as No Name shoots I'm Not Candy a look. "We just need to give him more time to understand," I'm Not Candy blurts. "We're running out of time," No Name counters. "If he turns them, then everything could be lost. I think it's time we faced the facts." I'm Not Candy growls in frustration.
Manor. Party scene I will not be recapping, because it's full of perky nobodies we've never seen before and shall never see again stuffing their faces while Piper and Raige bore me to tears with their incessant babbling. Phoebe and the Dolt eventually enter the scene from the floor above and, as Phoebe scuttles off in search of a stiff cocktail, Piper hurries over to wonder what gives with the Dolt. "What's wrong?" she demands. "It's complicated," he evades. As she natters on about his workload and as he continues not to give her a straight answer, Zankou surreptitiously blazes onto the sun porch and catches the Dolt's eye. A trio of Zankou's henchdemons presently squiggles in to him as various party guests obliviously wander through the parlor in front of them all. Zankou finally nods at the Dolt and blazes out of there. Once he's gone, the Dolt grabs his still-blathering wife by her arms and whispers, "Forgive me, Piper. If there was another way to do this, I would." "What are you talking about?" she shrills. "I have to fix a mistake," he breathes before adding, "I love you." With that, he shoves her out of the way and screams, "Everyone get down!" He then unleashes a massive bolt of sporking electricity from both hands that shoots through the parlor towards the henchdemons on the sun porch. The three dive out of the way, so the Dolt just ends up taking out a wicker chair. There's some hooting and hollering from the assembled guests while they dive for cover as Piper charges over to shield her kids from what's going on. Oh, Piper. Why bother? You know the Psycho likes to watch. The henchdemons hurl a few Flaming Balls Of Death that deliberately go wide before the Dolt unleashes another spray of electricity that instantly takes out the two lesser dark demonic forces, leaving Irritating Max Perlich by his lonesome on the sun porch. Irritating Max makes a big show of confronting the Dolt on his own, but the Dolt just nails his annoying ass up against the wall with another flood of sporks and finally, at long last, Irritating Max Perlich howls and wails and explodes into a million tiny points of light. Good fucking riddance. The Dolt whips his head around to ensure that his wife, kids, and sisters-in-law are safe as the shot cuts up to Avatar Central, where a disconcerted I'm Not Candy drops his guard to shoot a worried look at No Name. Back on earth, the Dolt, knowing he's about to disappear, urgently instructs Phoebe, "Don't let them make you forget why I'm doing this. It's supposed to hurt -- go to the Book, remember all the losses. Then go to Zankou." As Phoebe phreaks, a mournful Dolt vanishes in a grey haze. The instant he's gone, the partygoers resume what they'd been doing as if nothing had happened, with the notable exception of Phoebe. With the Avatars' grip on her partially broken, she remains cowering behind the couch as Raige easily ambles over to Piper, wondering if the latter's okay. "I guess so," Piper replies, a bit out of it as she passes the hideous genetic mishap masquerading as Tiny Gay Chris to Raige. "I'm really sorry about [the Dolt]," Raige mugs as she slings the frightful excuse for a human infant over her shoulder. "Me too," Piper absently agrees before snapping back into Utopia mode and announcing, "but at least he's gone on to a better place." AAUAUAAUAAAAAAAGH! Phoebe, still crouched behind the sofa, takes this in with a look of horror on her face before disappearing into the commercial break.
Manor. Party aftermath. As Raige sees the few remaining guests to the door, an agitated Phoebe and an unnaturally serene Piper process through recent events. As Tiny Gay Chris and the Psycho begin to howl in the background, Piper spacily zones, "What [the Dolt] did, he did for his family, and for that I will always love him." Piper sails into the kitchen with a pile of dirty dishes as Phoebe jiggles jumpily after her. "It's really impressive you can stay calm after such a shock," Phoebe leads. Piper babbles something irrelevant about demons as Raige clomps into the room to whine that she can't get the kids to stop crying. "They're so upset!" she groans, all frazzled and put-upon. Shut up, Raige. Piper babbles something else irrelevant about demons, so Phoebe demands, "Do you really think that's why they're crying?" "Well, what else would it be?" Raige guhs. She wasn't talking to you, Raige. Shut up some more. Piper floats past Phoebe to wrangle her children in the parlor as Phoebe sighs in frustration. Raige crosses to natter something about how, while the Dolt's disappearance is a huge deal in its own way, the gals will never forget what he did for them. Did Phoebe ask for your opinion on the matter? Shut up forever, Raige. Phoebe, caught somewhere between the Avatars' control of her thought processes and the person she was before The Change, flashes back on to the Dolt's final warning. "Never forget," she repeats vaguely to herself before excusing herself for a little Book abuse.
Up in the nonexistent attic, Phoebe strides into the room, then falters once she spots the Book on its stand. "Come on, Phoebe," she whispers to herself, steeling her spine and slowly crossing the rest of the way from the door. She gingerly places her hands on the Book and is immediately hurled into another premonition, and I was not expecting what follows at all. It's a rapid-fire Montage Of Death, and because it's both tightly edited and features, for the most part, characters and scenes I don't hate, it's shockingly effective. We watch first as Andy's slammed backwards into that china cabinet in the parlor, and the instant his body smashes the glass, we hear Grams emit a sharp cry of pain as we cut to her staggering against the wall at the top of the attic stairs. Grams gasps and clutches at her chest in agony before tumbling all the way down to the second floor, and as her head cracks against the floorboards, the screen suddenly fills with Gonzo, plugged full of holes and bleeding from his mouth. As flashback Phoebe wails in reaction to this, her cries echo into those of the doctor fruitlessly charging paddles while Piper flatlines in the best death scene this show's ever filmed. There follows an out-of-place and unnecessarily jarring shot of Prue's mausoleum nameplate before we hit Piper and Phoebe collapsing in grief at Prue's funeral. As Piper falls apart in her husband's arms, poor Big Gay Chris dies in his father's and slowly fades away before the premonition ends with Cole's first vanquish. As he screams, "No!" Phoebe finally snaps out of it. "My God," she breathes as she opens her eyes, and it's obvious the Avatars have at last lost their power over her. And much as I can't stand the character, and much as I dislike the fact that this means Phoebe will once again save the day, this was the sort of solid exploitation of her powers to advance the story that we haven't seen in years on this damn show, and it was made all the more effective by choosing, for the most part, the least magical and therefore most human and harrowing of the death scenes from the past six and a half years. And I'm over-talking it all. It was just a good, effective, affecting montage, and a nice little continuity reward for those of us who have endured this series for so long.
And if I never have to dredge up that many links for a single paragraph again, I'll be a happy, happy Demian. ["Thank you for not making a happy, happy Sars do it. Good show." -- Sars]
Down in the center parlor, Raige annoys everyone on the planet while the Psycho gets red in the face with the screaming and the crying and such. Phoebe bounces through the room briefly from above, then storms into the kitchen to confront Piper. "The Avatars didn't tell us everything up front," she blurts. "Pain, grief, mourning -- these are all things we're supposed to feel when we lose someone we love, like [the Dolt]." "He's moved on to a better place," Piper frosts by way of response -- AAAUAUAAAAAAAAGH! -- "and if you don't mind, I'd rather not dwell on such a painful memory." "Listen to me!" Phoebe cries, in an attempt to smack Piper out of it verbally. "[The Dolt] is dead! The Avatars killed him!" "What's gotten into you?" Piper puzzles, still not getting it. "This is what [the Dolt] was trying to show us," Phoebe argues. "[The Dolt] allowed the Avatars to kill him so that we could understand what's going on here." Piper's placid expression begins to crack and her face falls a bit, but she pushes Phoebe's argument aside anyway and turns to exit the room. "Listen to your boys!" Phoebe urges, chasing after her. "That's pain, and that's real." Piper, increasingly addled, flutters around near the doorway and begs Phoebe to stop. "How can you not see this?" Phoebe demands. "The only reason you're okay with this," she continues, referring to Utopia, "is because you wanted to be with [the Dolt], and now they've taken him away?" And Holly Marie Combs gets in the best bit of acting she's done in about a year as Piper's eyes suddenly, unexpectedly become nearly crazed with an overwhelming, walloping grief. Her face crumples as she shakes her head repeatedly and clutches at her temples before pressing her hands against her ears in a failed attempt to block out both Phoebe's words and her children's wails. Finally regaining her voice as her eyes flood with tears, she half-whispers, half-hisses, "But why?" "Why would they do that?" she splutters, her voice hitching with sobs. "Because [the Dolt] caused conflict," Phoebe softly replies, "and this is the only way they could keep Utopia going." Piper gasps, and a cold fury begins to break into her expression. Goddamn, this show is so much better when they stop phoning it in.
Straight Estates. Raige orbs into the living room with Phoebe and Piper for her own reprogramming at Phoebe's hands, but because Rose McGowan isn't nearly as good an actress as Holly Marie Combs, I'll be skimming through it. Phoebe, employing Brody's unusually evocative snow globe for effect, forces Raige to confront her true feelings about the bulging one's death -- in her very arms and at the hands of an Avatar, mind you -- and there are tears and there is lamentation and there is wah. "What do we do now?" Raige chokes out once Phoebe's managed to break her free from the Avatars' spell. "What [the Dolt] said," Phoebe grimly replies. "We're gonna find ourselves a demon."
Up in Avatar Central, I'm Not Candy and No Name gaze upon this unsettling development via their wavering gunk, and grimace at each other. And you guys are not dusting the Glamorous Ladies' asses right about now because? Wait! Don't tell me! You're morons, right?
Cobwebby Egyptian Tomb Of Avatar Death. Zankou wipes some of those cobwebs from the Anubis mural as a henchdemon who is neither interesting nor attractive wanders into the chamber to ask Zankou...something. I totally don't care. Except for the bit where Oded Fehr whips his right hand back to conjure a Flaming Ball Of Death, because he looks totally hot doing so. Long story short, the uninteresting and unattractive henchdemon goes kaboom when a suddenly appearing and off-screen Piper unleashes her mighty Hands of Discontent, and that's all you need to know about him. Zankou himself goes flying ass over end when Piper redirects her Hands at his back, but he recovers quickly enough to grin up at the Glamorous Ladies from the floor as they stride into the tomb to make quippy remarks. There's a lingering shot of the Ps with rather determined expressions on their faces before we drop into the final commercial break.
Back from the break, Zankou's positively delighted that the gals arrived when they did. Hee. The gals, meanwhile, are shocked and appalled to learn that both Brody and the Dolt colluded with Zankou to stop the Avatars. After some more of the twinkly Zankou banter, he retreats to a far corner of the tomb to allow a private processing summit amongst the women. The ladies debate the relative merits of allying themselves with a dark demonic force sent from the flaming maw of Hell for a bit before the Ps decide that the only way to avenge the deaths of Brody, the Dolt, and the hundreds of thousands of other unfortunates slaughtered by the Avatars is to broker a deal with Zankou. Turning to face him once more, Phoebe demands, "So what's the plan?" "The plan," Zankou croons, "is for you to make a very special potion." I just got all tingly when he said that. Woof.
Avatar Central. No Name, in a desperate and futile search for the sisters, is telekinetically flipping through a sequence of earth scenes just like Tom Cruise did in Minority Report. Well, I suppose that, technically, Tom Cruise was using extra-special Spielbergian magic gloves to flip through his CGI vignettes, but you know what I mean. "I don't understand!" No Name frets as I'm Not Candy approaches. "I just had them!" "They'll have to surface sooner or later," I'm Not Candy replies. "Got that right," the suddenly appearing Piper blares from the platform above, where she's just arrived with Phoebe, Raige, and Zankou. A posse of Avatars immediately charge the arrivals, but Piper and Zankou easily flip them across the hall with some explosive and telekinetic mojo of their own. As other Avatars hustle to take their fallen comrades' place, Raige wards them off by flashing a deadly vial of freshly concocted tendrilly Avatar doom. "What is the meaning of this?" I'm Not Candy demands. "I don't think we have to explain any of this," Piper snots back. "We're not the ones going around killing people." Well, not today, they aren't. "We only did what was necessary to maintain Utopia," No Name pleads. Raige snorts something about the "loophole" the Avatars neglected to mention. I'm Not Candy lies that it was never their intention to deceive the Halliwells; the Avatars simply gave them the world they always wanted. Besides, I'm Not Candy notes, far fewer people by far will die in their Utopia than would be slaughtered under the old "chaos" of good and evil. Phoebe calmly shoots back that, under the old system, people at least knew what they were dying for. Piper adds that, given the choice between "chaos" and Utopia, "We'll take our free will back any day." "Hear, hear," Zankou smirks. I'm Not Candy approaches to blather some more, but dude. Really. You lost. Give it up already.
Eventually, he does, and promises to use what remains of The Collective's power to "rewind time back before Utopia began." Phoebe cautiously confirms for her little group that this will result in the restoration of the Dolt. Upon receiving that confirmation, Raige excitedly asks about the Bulge. Alas, Brody must remain dead. Yes, their explanation for why he must remain dead makes absolutely no goddamned sense whatsoever, but the character long overstayed his welcome, so I'm not going to quibble. The bottom line is, the Avatars can reverse Utopia or they can revive the bulging one, but they cannot do both. Zankou, visibly uncertain of Raige's reaction to this news, eyes her uneasily as she stares down I'm Not Candy for a long moment. Finally, Raige whips her arm back to fling the vial at I'm Not Candy's head. Phoebe snatches at her wrist, however, and after a tense, teary moment, Raige drops her arm to her side. Phoebe picks her way down a couple of the platform's stairs and quietly demands, "Put the world back." I'm Not Candy silently agrees, then offers, "I'm sorry this didn't work out. For your sakes as well as ours." "Touching," Zankou snarks. "I'm gonna miss you guys." Snerk.
I'm Not Candy tosses the demon a stink-eye before turning to join the other Avatars in their circle. He lifts his palms, and that golden glowy mojo stream from last week shoots into the air from the center of the altar. The camera cranes up above Piper, Phoebe, Raige, and Zankou as they tilt their heads back to gaze up at the stream as it floods into the night sky. The stream bursts outwards, and the shot cuts to take in central San Francisco as the horizon-spanning curtain sweeps westward, reversing its course through Tokyo, Moscow, London, and New York before rushing through San Francisco once more. By the way, as it blew through London, the hands on the face of Big Ben began spinning backwards. Once the curtain passes San Francisco, the shot cuts again to last week's vignettes of people groggily coming awake. This time, however, none of them are terribly perky at all. In fact, they're all downright rude. And as the rude is as annoying as the perky was before it, I'll ignore all of the screaming arguments that erupt to note that Piper and Phoebe have silently appeared on one of the city's streets to smile fondly at the mayhem. As they amble off down the sidewalk, Piper remarks, "Wow. I never thought I'd be so excited to hear the sounds of people arguing." "Tell me about it," Phoebe agrees. "It's good to be back." They glance across the street and spot hot Zankou hotly hotting his hot hot on the walk opposite. He acknowledges them with a supremely sardonic flourish of his hand just before a city bus speeds by, blocking the ladies' view. By the time the bus passes out of the frame, Zankou's vanished. Phoebe smiles a bit to herself as Piper warily eyes the section of sidewalk where Zankou'd been standing. The camera cranes up from them to take in various strident passersby from above before cross-fading into tonight's brief closing travelogue.
Back at the Manor, Piper's delighted to find the Dolt tending to the children on the sun porch, and rushes into his arms for a hug. There's a brief explanation of why they both remember recent events despite the reversal of time -- he because he was never affected by the Avatars' spell, she because she broke it -- and the upshot of the subsequent conversation is this: The ever-useless Elders are going to be pissed. Piper doesn't care -- she's happy he's alive again, and only wants never to lose him again. Which, you know, either means he's going to go missing again in the damn episode, or he'll divorce her ass for the fifth time by the end of February sweeps. They gaze fondly at the sullen, dead-eyed, bemulleted Psycho and the mutant wad of mangled whale blubber masquerading as their younger, prettier son for a long moment before the shot cross-fades over to...
...Straight Estates. Raige gazes solemnly at the artifacts of Brody's life before crossing to retrieve the unusually evocative snow globe from a desk near the front windows. She raises it up into the light and shakes it gently as she whispers, "Bye." "Hello, [Raige]," Brody smooves from the kitchenette. Oh, bloody hell. I knew about this from spoilers, but I'd entirely forgotten about it by the time this scene rolled around. The ever-useless Elders, to reward for him for sacrificing his life in the battle against the Avatars, have made Brody a Whitelighter. To his credit, he seems to believe he's unworthy of the honor given the "mess" he made of his life, but considering some the many, many losers, whiners, bitches, and Dolts the stupid Elders have promoted into the position in the past, I'm sure he'll fit right in. "You didn't make a mess out of it," Raige fondly assures him as she reaches up to stroke his cheek. "Got a little crazy there at the end," he smiles. Again: Shout-out? "A little," Raige allows, tearing up, "but you did save the world." "Hence the reward," he shrugs, modestly averting his eyes. He then goes on about Destiny and whatnot, which gives a weeping Raige an opening to wonder if it really is their Destiny "to lose each other." "Who says we're not gonna meet again?" he softly retorts before drawing her close to kiss her forehead. I do, you tool, because you're contract is up on this show, and this is your last goddamned episode. We will never you again, do you hear me? NEVER!
Ahem. Before he orbs out for good, Brody entrusts his unusually evocative snow globe to Raige's care, and as she crosses to lift it into the light one more time, we finally fade to black.
week's the Super Bowl, so the WB's burning off some crap reruns of Summerland instead of airing a new episode. TNT, however, is having a Charmed mini-marathon, so if you quite simply cannot let a Sunday pass without inviting these dimwits into your home, surf on up to catch "Something Wicca This Way Comes," "That '70s Episode," "Love's A Witch," "The Power Of Three Blondes," "Lucky Charmed," "Prince Charmed," "Secrets And Guys," "She's A Man, Baby, A Man!," and "Centennial Charmed," starting at 2 PM Eastern. See you back here on February 13th, when slumming pretty boy Billy Zane roars into town with a motorcycle and a really crappy wig. No, I am not kidding with that. Have fun!