Previously on This Awful Show That Will Not Die, the last two episodes, with a heavy emphasis on both Drake's dorky/suave wooing of the Feebs and the Dolt's fear of recycling.
Currently on This Wretched Abomination That Improbably Lives On, we fade up on some hazy, panoramic views of the city center, before cutting over to what is clearly meant to be an alleyway near the waterfront. Raige orbs in amid the garbage and debris with Piper, looks around briefly, and puckers, "Weren't we here before?" "I mean," she continues, picking her way across the asphalt, "doesn't that mattress look strangely familiar?" "Probably because we saw one just like it in the last alley," Piper grunts, "and the 150 before that." Because this is, of course, the 150th installment of this hideous miscarriage of entertainment, and we all know how they like to get all self-referential during anniversary episodes. So much so that "150" would be the trigger for tonight's Pee-wee's Playhouse Secret Phrase Screamfest, were a certain four-letter word not abused far more often this evening. Just wait. "Now where is this paragon of good we're supposed to protect?" Piper wonders, glancing about while continuing to stroll along with her lippy bastard of a half-sister. Raige snaps something about Piper slowing down, allowing Piper an opening to grumble about returning to the Manor before the Dolt is "sentenced" by his fellow ever-useless Elders. "Don't worry!" Raige twitches. "When the [ever-useless] Elders hand down their punishment, you're gonna know!" "Well, this waiting thing sucks," Piper bitches. "I mean, [the Dolt] was an Avatar for less time than it's taking them to make up their minds." Raige stops short at this and spins to face Piper, assuring the latter rather impatiently that it's extremely unlikely she'll "lose [the Dolt] again." Which, of course, means the stupid Dolt's going to go missing in, say, the five minutes, but that's not really the issue. No, the real issue is, as always, the Feebs, because everything -- even an episode supposedly devoted to the Dolt's ultimate fate in light of his role in the recent Avatar debacle -- is All About Her. Raige blunderingly segues into a tedious expository ramble regarding Phoebe's "man" disappearing tonight. "She didn't tell me she had a thing for Drake!" Piper exclaims. Raige admits Phoebe didn't actually cop to certain fond emotions herself, but as Drake is "cute" and "funny" and "smart" and "destined to leave," it makes him a perfect candidate for Phoebe's affections, given her sordid dating history. And no, neither Chronic nor Sparklies were cute or funny or smart -- God knows neither was that last, most certainly -- but this is a ferociously long and boring episode, and I really need to keep things moving, so let's head on into the paragraph, shall we?
Ah. Much better. Referencing the Feeble One, Raige wonders, "How many times does a girl have to get hurt before she wakes up?" During this, a redheaded do-gooding hippie type has wandered blurrily into the far corner of the frame behind Raige. "So you think she's..." Piper begins before catching sight of the new arrival over Raige's shoulder. "The innocent," Piper concludes, clearly eyeing The Paragon Of Good. Raige, misinterpreting completely, denies this vehemently and starts ranting about Phoebe's own liability for her crappy love life -- word -- until Piper snatches at her sister's arm and yanks her around while hissing, "I meant 'behind you, the innocent.'" The Paragon bubbles over with a bright smile and a friendly "Hey!" before plucking a couple of sheets from the stack of paper she totes in her arms and offering, "If you women ever need a hot meal and a place to crash..." "Okay, hi," Raige snottily interrupts while waving a hand around in front of her face. "I'm wearing lip gloss. Do I look homeless?" No, that's not it, Raige. This woman saw the way you were dressed and figured you for a whore. The Paragon gets this mortified look on her face as Muggy McGowan vigorously rolls her eyes around in their sockets while making a series of "Um, DUH!" grimaces in The Paragon's general direction. Shut up, Muggy. Piper snickers and tosses out a freeze that grinds The Paragon to a halt just as some smoking hot demon with elaborate tribal tattoos running down one side of his body squiggles into the alleyway behind the innocent. Piper barely blinks before switching over to the mighty Hands of Discontent, and the demonic hottie instantly explodes into gouts of flame and a spray of tiny black bits. Damn. I hate it when they dust the cute demons so quickly.
"I think," Piper explains, casually returning to their interrupted conversation as if nothing had happened, and hee, "Phoebe's just been unlucky in love lately." "Lately"? Did your brain slide out of your ear too, Piper? Rrrrgh. And by the way, that's the four-letter word I was talking about earlier. You know, the L word. Alas, unlike the last time I revived the Pee-wee's Playhouse Secret Phrase Screamfest for a recap, I'll not be able to transcribe its every appearance in this episode, as this particular word pops up so many goddamned times in the dialogue this evening, the recap would end up being a thirty-seven-page repeating string of "[Blah blah blah] LOVE" followed by "AAAAAUAAUAAAGH!" I don't have time for that bullshit, so you're on your own with this one. Amusingly enough, several on the boards, having read the spoiler script, tried to play a drinking game with that word when this originally aired, only to discover they'd passed out by the end of the first act. Heh. Though I can't say for certain if that was from intoxication or boredom. In any event, Raige snides something sarcastic as the sounds of more demonic squiggling hit the soundtrack. Raige and Piper, startled, whip around to find three more of tonight's "Thorn Demons" loitering menacingly at the far end of the alleyway. They have unique versions of their fallen comrade's tribal tattoos snaking across their faces and arms, but what's really important is that the two guys are even hotter than the one Piper just smoked. Woof. Piper, instantly panicked, whirls around to shove the still-frozen innocent to the ground as one of the hot demons conjures a Flaming Ball Of Death, which he hurls in the gals' direction. The shot cuts to a low angle from the demons' end of the alleyway, and we watch as the FBOD zips over The Paragon's head to slam harmlessly into the brick wall behind her as Piper and Raige scamper behind a Dumpster. Raige spots a length of pipe in said Dumpster and, annoyingly enough, sends it streaking through the air with her orbing telekinesis by crying, "Um. Ugly, metal...thing!" Raige. You graduated from Berkeley. Call it a fucking pipe, you moron. The pipe shrieks towards the two male Thorn Demons -- who are rather conveniently lined up in a row -- and, in what I must admit is a pretty decent combination of effects and stunt work, proceeds to impale both of the hotties before the force of its impact tosses them backwards towards a door, in which the sharpened end of the thing embeds itself. The hot demons hang there for a moment before bursting into flame in impalement order and vanishing towards The Waste Land. The pipe, thus freed of their weight, boings up and down a bit before the shot cuts over to the female demon, who blows a massive stream of thorns through her lips from her puffed cheeks in the Glamorous Ladies' direction. Piper immediately unleashes the Hands, and the last demon explodes even as she continues to spit her spiky missiles at the Ps. "Ahhhh!" Piper winces as one of those missiles plows into the fleshy heel of her left hand. Raige flutters and winces and plucks the dart from Piper's palm as Piper herself tightly rages, "Did we know that the female spits THORNS?" Raige wrinkles her nose uneasily before the shot cuts over to...
...the Manor, where Raige orbs the slightly injured Piper onto the sun porch. "We really need to have [the Dolt] look at this," Raige urges, examining the damage to Piper's hand. "It's fine," Piper shrugs as she crosses into the main hall, just in time to catch the Dolt himself wandering onto the stairwell landing, clad in his hideous gold velour Elder robes. "Why are you wearing those?" Piper eyebrows warily. "The [ever-useless] Elders made their decision," the Dolt murmurs. "I have to go." Piper, predictably enough, gets shrill, babbling something about the kids being at Not!warts and the Dolt not being able to say goodbye and wah, until the Dolt descends the remaining stairs to assure her that he'll be back soon enough. Piper's not having it, though, and the Dolt's forced to remind her, "You're the one who said the [ever-useless] Elders couldn't yank me away, remember?" "That was before I had all this time to stress out about it," Piper retorts. The Dolt counters that, at the very least, they'll now know one way or the other what his punishment will bzzzzzzzzzz. Seriously, you nattering nitwits. Enough with the damn chatter and get to the action already. We know you're worried, and we know you've been worried for quite some time. Shut up about it, already. And still they keep talking! Bastards. Finally -- finally -- Piper and the Dolt exchange kisses and "I love yous" before the Dolt orbs up towards the ceiling. "Good luck!" Raige calls after him. As some low, ominously mournful strings and horns thrum away on the soundtrack, Piper gazes at the space her husband had been occupying before dropping her eyes into the opening credits.
No opening travelogue, really, as the camera pretty much leaps over a hill to circle one of the Golden Gate Bridge's towers, upon which three tiny white-clad figures can been seen standing high above the traffic. Heh. They've never pulled that before, and I'm ashamed I've never noticed. By the way, Julian McMahon's name was the first to appear in the guest scroll at the bottom of the screen. So much for the big surprise. Which they've been relentlessly promoting for the last three months, but whatever. The shot cuts down to the top of the bridge, and we learn that the ever-useless Elders have sent down Elizabeth Dennehy and Elder Q for this little confab with the Dolt. Elizabeth Dennehy admits that "the Council" was unable to reach a decision on the Dolt's fate. "So," the Dolt wonders, "I'm not gonna be punished?" "We didn't say that, you dumbass," Elder Q sniffs, though the "dumbass" bit is, of course, merely implied in his tone. His fabulous, fabulous tone. Elizabeth and Elder Q then tag-team their way through the following explanation of "the Council's" decision: While everyone understands how Gideon's hateful fifteen-episode storyline virtually forced the Dolt to join the Avatars, they cannot simply excuse the Dolt's betrayal of his colleagues. "The Council has come to realize," Elizabeth continues alone, "that the central problem is your effort to balance two distinctly different worlds -- yours with us, and yours with Piper." "So the only solution," Elder Q adds, "is to find out which world you truly belong in once and for all." The Dolt's completely befuddled. Go figure. Long story short, the ever-useless Elders have devised a "test" for the Dolt which should reveal which path he will take henceforward. The Dolt will be stripped of both his powers and his memory and set down in a location far, far from San Francisco. If he finds his way back to Piper, he will be allowed to live out his days with her as a mortal with no further interference from the ever-useless Elders. If he cannot, it will be assumed that his destiny is Up There, and he will never see his family again. We all know how this is going to end, right? PiPeR+LeO=2getha4EVAH!!!!1!!11! So, why the fuck did they waste an hour of airtime on something with so obvious a foregone conclusion? There is no tension whatsoever in this episode. None at all. Yaaaaaaawn.
God, I hate this show.
In any event, the Dolt gets shirty, and threatens to "fall from grace" should the ever-useless Elders rob him of his family. Elder Q, clutching his pearls, gasps, "No Elder has ever done that before!" No, but Nicolas Cage did do it in City Of Angels, so this posturing by the Dolt also has an entirely predictable outcome, and snore. Though if Piper slams face-first into a truck on her bike, I might get a little irritated. Depending upon how shrewish she's being at the moment, of course. Elizabeth Dennehy vows the Elders will stick strictly to the terms of the deal as outlined above, and expect the Dolt to do the same. Remember that bit. The Dolt's all, "Okay, fine, whatever, but I'm going to say goodbye to the wife first." "No," Elder Q corrects, stalking up to the Dolt with a peevish expression on his face, "the test begins now!" And with that, Elder Q shoves the Dolt backwards into an orb cloud that rapidly expands to fill the screen, and soon cross-fades to become...
...a cloud of dust kicked up by a passing semi that dissipates to reveal an even more befuddled and flannel-clad Dolt, standing on the center line of some rural highway lined with desiccated clumps of sagebrush. The camera slowly pans backwards, and we can see from the handy and pot-shot highway marker behind the Dolt's scarily gargantuan gargoyle head that he's actually been dropped down upon Texas State Route 69. No, I will not be making a joke about that, because the very thought of the Dolt in conjunction with that number and all of its juvenile implications is enough to make me spew blood. Through my eyes. A twangy, Stand-like steel guitar chord hits the soundtrack as the stupid Dolt bumbles around in the middle of the road. The driver of a speeding pickup truck headed directly for the Dolt's massive ass blasts his horn a few desperate times before wrenching his steering wheel to the left. The truck veers and skids up the opposite embankment before flipping over a couple of times, coming to rest on its side. The Dolt instinctively races over to drag the somewhat injured driver from the wreck through the window, and as they lurch a few feet away, the truck -- of course -- explodes behind them. How very Smallville of them. And by that I mean "stupid." The driver -- who, incidentally, portrayed one of The Pretty's many, many victims in the indie true crime flick Vampire Clan -- collapses to the dirt, clutching at the right side of his chest. The Dolt eyes him for a moment before squinting back at the flames improbably erupting from the pickup's cab, and it's time for a flashback! Yep, the addled Dolt, supposedly stripped of his memory, for some asinine reason recalls a snippet of the various explosions on Guadalcanal from "Saving Private Dolt." No, it doesn't make any sense, but this episode is so boring and useless, it's not even worth bitching about. Back in the present, the Dolt snaps into medic mode, ordering the truck's driver to bite down on a handy and dirt-encrusted stick while the Dolt forces the guy's dislocated shoulder back into its socket. He then tends to the gash on the driver's thigh as the driver laughs, "Finally got lucky for once, almost running over a doctor." And that would mean he...makes a habit of almost running people over on rural highways? What? Fuck it. I hate this show. Spotting the Dolt's confused expression, the driver asks, "You are a doctor, right?" "I don't know," the Dolt mumbles. DUN! That was this evening's DUN! moment, wasn't it? Even though we were expecting him to say something along those lines for a good five or six minutes now? Fuck it. It's a DUN! now.
"Whaddya mean you don't know?" Phoebe blares, right before the shot cuts back to the Manor, where she's just returned from an Alpine picnic with Drake, and I hate call-and-response scene transitions, and shut up, Phoebe. Raige explains that the Dolt left for a meeting with the Elders hours ago, and they haven't heard from him since. "How long does it take to hand down a sentence?" Phoebe shrews, stripping off her mittens. "Well, in defense of the Elders," Drake offers mildly enough, "when you live for an eternity, time does get a little skewed." Point to Drake. The charismatic dork. "Yeah, well, we're human, so this is torture," Piper snips while nervously arranging roses in a vase at the dining room table. "This is ridiculous," Phoebe insists before bellowing Elder-directed demands at the ceiling. Despite the fact that Piper and Raige's earlier Elder-directed demands went unanswered, Elizabeth Dennehy orbs into the center parlor at Phoebe's order nearly at once, and I want to believe it's because the Elders themselves find her so annoying that they'll violate their own rules just to get her to shut the fuck up, but you know that's not the case. Sigh. The instant Elizabeth's heels hit the carpet, she launches into an explanation of what happened to the Dolt. Piper, predictably, is outraged. Elizabeth, maintaining her composure during Piper's blistering tirade, urges Piper to "find comfort" in the fact that the Dolt was neither killed nor recycled. Piper starts wagging her index finger around in the air all, "Oh NO, she di'in't!" as she storms around the dining room table to get all up in Elizabeth Dennehy's grill for the smackdown. "I'm sorry," she seethes, "but you just lobotomized the love of my life, and you want me to take comfort in what? You've got a lot of nerve, lady. Now, I don't want to see you again, or any of your kind ever again. We're done with all of you -- now, please!" And here she pauses in her fury for emphasis as Elizabeth Dennehy wrinkles her brow slightly in concern. "GO," Piper demands. "Don't give up hope," Elizabeth soothes. "You really need to stop talking right now," Piper ices. "Now please get out of my house." Elizabeth Dennehy eyes Piper warily for a moment before complying. Nice work there from both actresses, particularly Holly Marie Combs, but I have to say this again: The stakes are nonexistent tonight, because we all know how this is going to end. There's no urgency. There's no drama. And I can't even get all riled up about it, because it's just...meh. Stupid show.
Anyway, Piper clomps into the center parlor and collapses onto the sofa with her head in her hands as Phoebe tries and fails to deliver one of her absolutely stirring pep talks, falteringly insisting they'll find the Dolt one way or the other before she, too, gives up and perches dejectedly on the sofa's arm. Raige rages something about her sisters' apparent abdication of their responsibilities to the Dolt, or whatever, leading Phoebe to sigh that perhaps they should just face facts. "Perhaps we're not meant to find love," she explains as Drake frowns at her in the background. "Think about it," she continues over Raige's objections. "How many Halliwell women have actually been able to hold onto their men?" I can think of two right off the bat -- those two being Past Piper and Past Phoebe -- so fuck off and die, you idiot. Sure, one of those guys was a dark demonic force sent from the flaming maw of General Hospital, but beggars can't be choosers, now can they? Shut up again, Phoebe. "Might as well be nuns," Piper supposes, before adding as an afterthought, "with better outfits." She's kidding with that, right? She's kidding with that, RIGHT?
Drake, having had enough of the gloom and doom, flings his gloves to the floor with a flourish -- geddit? -- and steps forward to issue a pep talk of his own, and Mr. Zane? You are quite valiantly attempting to inject a little zing into this dismally boring episode, but it's a losing battle, my friend, even for you. After proclaiming Piper and the Dolt's love affair to be "epic, like Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, and Brad and Jennifer" -- all of which, Piper snorts, were "tragedies" -- he whisks Phoebe off the sofa's arm into a dipping embrace while blathering something about...I don't know, which for some reason kick-starts the gals' collective interest in actually solving the problem at hand. Drake and the revitalized Phoebe will head to the nonexistent attic to abuse the Book of Shadows while Raige performs research of her own at Not!warts. Meanwhile, Piper's to contact Detective Doormat and persuade him to issue a missing persons report immediately. As her sisters and Drake vanish from the room, Piper eases herself to her feet, then unexpectedly staggers backwards a bit. She passes a hand across her forehead before glancing down at the wound left by the demonic thorn. Uh oh. Not. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
More Stand-like twanging hits the soundtrack as the shot cuts back over to the middle of Nowhere, Texas, where The Only Bar In This One-Street Hick Burg sports a prominent Coors sign, so you know all of the town's residents are archconservative, homophobic shitheads -- a fact seemingly confirmed when the camera ducks into the sheriff's office, which features a massive portrait of Shrub on the far wall. You know, the one from his first term where he's grinning like a deranged and sadistic monkey cokehead. The pot-bellied sheriff has just finished taking the amnesiac Dolt's fingerprints and passes them to his deputy so they can be entered into the national database. The sheriff and the Dolt chat for a bit, with the sheriff attempting to jostle the Dolt's memory, but it's of no use. The Dolt remains entirely clueless about his past until someone slams the office door behind him. Startled, he spins with his hands automatically flung out to crispify the door-slammer with massive sprays of sporking electricity. Of course, this doesn't happen, but he does flash back to the Underworld torture scene in "The Bare Witch Project" for the briefest of moments. A bit terrified, he shoots back into the present to gape and goggle at the overall-clad, gimme-cap-wearing, slack-jawed, door-slamming yokel he'd have fried if he still had his powers. The sheriff affably notes that the Dolt's bound to be a bit "jumpy" given everything he's likely to have been through, and offers to escort the Dolt over to "Nadine's" for something to eat while his deputy searches for the Dolt's prints online. The Dolt hesitates, but eventually agrees.
Back in the nonexistent attic, Phoebe's fruitlessly scrying for her missing brother-in-law over a map of the world. "We'll never find him," she despairs. "Not scrying, anyway," she continues, dropping the crystal onto the table and pivoting her head to address Drake, seated at her side. "And I don't think we're gonna make it to the Taj Mahal by sunset," she adds. You see, they've planned out a series of globe-hopping jaunts for Drake's last day on earzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Seriously. BORING. About the only thing that matters in the conversation that follows -- a conversation liberally sprinkled with that four-letter word I am starting to HATE -- is that Drake's happy enough to die that evening as long as he completes one last mission. What last mission, you ask? Why, to ensure Phoebe does not give up on That Foul Four-Letter Word. Why is this important? Because Cole's involved, as we shall eventually learn. However, Drake of course neglects to mention Cole's role. Just keep it in mind for later. If you haven't plunged into a coma by that point. Anyway, Raige orbs into the nonexistent room from Not!warts to announce, "It looks as if the [ever-useless] Elders have had an original thought for once, because there's no precedent for what they've done to [the Dolt]." Heh. That was kind of a funny line, wasn't it? Pity it had to be delivered by Muggy McGowan over there. Phoebe admits that her scrying's been in vain, so Raige steps up to the table to try it herself, the idea being that her Whitelightery half might "connect" with something remaining in the Dolt, despite the fact that they KNOW he's been stripped of his powers, and I HATE this show, and I want to die.
Down in the main hall, Piper's pleading with Detective Doormat via the cordless to do something about the Dolt's disappearance. The Doormat counsels patience, because the only fingerprints he has for the Dolt date from World War II -- and how the fuck did he get his hands on those? -- and the Dolt's photograph from that time doesn't match his current appearance. "He's too young," the Doormat whispers apologetically. Okay, it's so very nice of you guys to try to explain that the forty-five-year-old Dolt actually did look like a nineteen-year-old back in 1944, but for one thing, he didn't, as he photograph in that Marine Corps Hall Of Fame so clearly indicated back in the relevant episode, and for another, the context in which you tried to make this ridiculous claim makes no fucking sense. The Doormat can easily issue the Dolt's old photo with the explanation that it's more than a few years out of date, but still bears enough of a resemblance for identification purposes. Unless, of course, the Doormat is a complete and utter idiot not worthy of his badge. Which is always a possibility. Actually, it's a probability. HATE. ANY-way, Piper slams down the phone in frustration, then hyperventilates and flutters around the main floor for a bit, and it's clear the effects of the demonic thorn are starting to take their toll on her. She moves to the stairs to seek help from her sisters, but stumbles and falls on the first step. The shot cuts to a point-of-view from the landing as Piper pushes herself onto her feet and into the frame from below. She climbs a few steps before she notices the ominous background music, and, turning, is mildly dismayed to discover her body lying where it fell at the foot of the stairs. "Oh, no!" she sings, not sounding too terribly concerned about it all. "Am I dead again?" Okay, that was sort of amusing. But only because the rest of this episode is so fucking dull. Quite unexpectedly, a very familiar voice calls out, "No!" from the far parlor. Piper lifts her eyes to find a smartly tailored Cole leaning casually against the doorframe. Piper gapes as Cole smirks, "Well, not yet, anyway," and I'd make with the "Damn, he still looks good" type of comments at this point, but that would be pointless, because I know how good he still looks, because I've been watching the far-superior and deliriously entertaining Nip/Tuck on F/X for the last two goddamn years. Pity about his hair, though. I'm under the impression they did something drastic to it for the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, and it's still growing out. Either that, or McMahon's encroaching male pattern baldness has finally necessitated plugs, because it's all wild and overgelled up top. A couple of artfully photographed reaction shots ensue before both Piper and Cole disappear into the commercial break.
"I don't know which is worse," Piper sneers when we return, as she picks her way past her body to confront her former brother-in-law. "The fact that I'm dying," she continues, "or that apparently I'm gonna be spending my last dying moments with you." "I'd say that's what you should be worried about," Cole twinkles before smirking and teasing, "You're not looking so hot." Heh. He goes on to claim he's there to offer the help she requested right before she collapsed. Piper's about to get into it with him when Phoebe's hooting and hollering flood the room as she and Raige discover Piper's body at the foot of the stairs. Spectral, or whatever, Piper attempts to get their attention, but Cole informs her they can neither hear nor see her. Piper orders him to cram it sideways and attempts to knock over a lamp, but her arm simply whiffs through the base. "Nice try," Cole grins. "Shut up!" Piper snarls. Snerk. These two are very, very good together, and thus are eliciting giggles from me that other fools I could mention -- Phoebe -- would never manage to get with the material. Meanwhile, Drake's snapped his fingers to flash Piper's body from the floor into his arms, and he deposits her unconscious form on the center parlor's sofa as he explains the Thorn Demon's poison is slow, but fatal. The camera on the living gets all wobbly and off-kilter and quick-cutting as they run through their options. Meanwhile, Piper and Cole's reaction shots remain steady, which is a nice little touch. Drake babbles some bullshit about Piper dying because she's lost her faith in love. Piper's as annoyed with this assertion as I am, but Cole's silently sidled up to her to whisper, "Pay attention. He might be on to something." "Oh, what would you know?" Piper sneers. Hee. Drake bounds back up the stairs to abuse the Book for a cure as Phoebe and Raige cross towards the front door to, um, offer Cole an excuse to eye Phoebe as she passes and croon, "Oh, what beauty! She doth teach the torches to burn bright." Gag. Almost as if she heard Cole's entirely unwarranted compliment, Phoebe stops short and jiggles back into the center parlor to glare in the invisible Cole's direction. "What?" Raige bites. "Nothing," Phoebe shrugs, and the two continue on their way.
"Since when do you quote Shakespeare?" Piper pisses as she powers past Cole into the front parlor. He snarks something unintelligible in return before she demands, "What are you, exactly? Ghost? Demon? Poltergeist? Nightmare?" "None of the above," he lobs back, with a friendly enough smile on his face. "We're caught in a cosmic void," he explains as he advances upon her, "between life and death." Oh, GOD. Whatever. Yet another suddenly appearing and never-to-be-seen-again parallel plane of existence. Shut up, Cole. The two acidly banter back and forth, and it's moderately entertaining mainly because of the chemistry between the two actors, and there's a nice little bit where Piper storms away from him only to have him silently and swiftly reappear in front of her on another part of the floor, but it's all so ultimately pointless, because Cole reveals that he's there merely to ensure Piper does not give up on That Foul, Fiendish Four-Letter Word, and I am never going to make it through this dreary, dreadful, tedious, boring episode alive, am I?
Middle Of Nowhere, Texas: Diner Division. The Dolt scarfs down some blueberry pie, like, you might want to watch your caloric intake, there, porky, as Crazy Chloe Lewis arrives from the early seasons of ER in the guise of the diner's primary waitress to offer some homespun, cornpone words of wisdom to the amnesiac. Joy. When the Dolt wipes at his mouth with a paper napkin, Crazy Chloe spots the ring of white skin on the Dolt's finger where his wedding band used to be. They puzzle over this for a bit before the Dolt flashes back to the bathroom proposal from the third-season premiere, and here's a continuity error for you: They've inserted a shot of Brian Krause's hands sliding what I'm thinking is Holly Marie Combs's real-life engagement ring onto her finger, and that never happened in the original episode, partly because Holly Marie Combs didn't have that massive rock at the time, but mainly because Piper, as you'll recall, stormed from the room, outraged that the stupid Dolt would be so insensitive as to propose to her in the can, for Christ's sake. Crazy Chloe makes some inappropriate and annoying remarks to the effect that the amnesiac's condition is likely the result of his now ex-wife's learning of an affair and braining him with some "cast iron." Rude! The Dolt, of course, strenuously denies this before swiveling on his stool to gaze at some teenagers canoodling in a booth and OW with the skillets and the bowling balls and the anvils and the soap-opera couple making out on the TV screen above the diner's counter and I GET IT, but still: BORING!
"Well!" Raige sarcastically brights over at Trudeau Memorial, formerly Andy's House Of Beef, formerly The Loneliest Precinct House In The World as she hangs up on someone with whom she'd been discussing the Dolt's disappearance. "A hundred and fifty police stations down," she continues, "and only a bajillion to go!" And given this episode's excruciatingly torpid pace, I bet we're going to listen to you calling each and every one of them. Ugh. Phoebe, who's donned a jacket that looks like it crawled out of Jacqueline Susann's Pucci-clad and decaying derriere just so it could maul the Fun Bags, mumbles something encouraging, which leads to endless babbling over Elizabeth Dennehy's earlier exhortation regarding hope and not giving up on same until the Doormat ambles over with some more missing persons reports. However, nothing really happens until a uniformed cop appears with news of the Texan pickup truck's crash that morning and "John Doe's" role in saving the driver's life. Raige and the Doormat exchange a significant look.
Middle Of Nowhere, Texas: Diner Division. The Dolt emerges onto the porch to scan his surroundings, which we get a look at via a Dolt P.O.V. of the diner's dirt parking lot. The camera pans past an egregious couple necking by their car, before landing on a semi whose driver's side door is emblazoned with a Bridge-bearing logo for the "California Golden Gate Produce Company." Emerging from the cab? None other than the duplicitous Elder Q, who's there to make with a little unsanctioned interference in the stupid Dolt's stupid Destiny quest. The Dolt approaches Elder Q to ask if he's going to San Francisco. Elder Q instantly offers the Dolt a ride. No, not like that. Ew. I just...no. Gross. The Dolt hops in, and Elder Q steers the rig out onto the highway. As it chugs off into the distance, the camera pans down to one of those handmade directional signs of the sort they had at the 4077th, which notes that the Bay Area's 1750 miles from their current location. London, incidentally, is 4604 miles in the other direction, and Honolulu clocks in at 3716 miles distant. Let the triangulation of their current position begin. God knows that little exercise is going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than this fucking episode.
Back in the nonexistent attic, Billy Zane engages in a bit of supposedly whimsical and entertaining business with the Book of Shadows that is actually neither, before landing on the Dolt's "Tips For Future Whitelighters" entry. Now, you know I like to be thorough and transcribe these things, but the Dolt's handwriting is so hopelessly crabbed that the page is practically illegible, so fuck it. And...scene.
"Stubbornness is definitely a family trait," Cole muses from the depths of an armchair in the parlor below as he lifts a framed photograph of the Feebs from a nearby table, despite the fact that Piper couldn't knock over that damned lamp earlier, so I have no idea how he's able to pick up the picture, and this show sucks, and I want to die, but whatever, because this episode is BORING! Phoebe, by the way, looks like fifteen different kinds of ass in the portrait, mainly because her hair's pulled up into -- and I am not kidding with this -- a pair of Mickey Mouse ears on either side of her head. Oh, Phoebe. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah: Cole's made that observation because Piper's apparently made multiple attempts to exit the Manor's ground floor through various walls, windows, and doors, despite the fact that all those attempts have ended as her current one does, with the supernatural whatever controlling this plane of existence hurling her back into the room. As her body's not officially dead yet, she's not really a ghost, you see, and so must remain in close proximity to her physical form. Just go with it. Please. There follows an endless scene revolving around That Foul, Fiendish, Repulsive Four-Letter Word that's barely salvaged by the rampant McMahon and Combs chemistry. I'll not be transcribing it. I will, however, share with you all a comment made by the lovely and talented Couch Baron, with whom I was chatting online while this episode aired:
Couch Baron: God, this episode sucks. What is this Sensei Cole bullshit?
Indeed. Oh, and look at that! Another commercial break. Hooray!
Middle Of Nowhere, Texas: Diner Division. Phoebe and Raige enter with Piper's wedding photo in hand and immediately accost Crazy Chloe, who confirms that the Dolt was there and left about an hour ago, headed west in "a big rig." Raige dials Detective Doormat to get the state police involved as Phoebe basically commandeers Crazy Chloe's truck. Rude! Then again, Crazy Chloe fucking deserves it. Do you remember what she did to her poor kid? Strung-out bitch.
Cut to Phoebe and Raige improbably speeding down the highway in Crazy Chloe's dilapidated truck, which seems to be held together with nothing more than duct tape. They burble at each other for a moment before we cut again to the Dolt and Elder Q, who are sharing some bullshit philosophical discussion in the semi's cab. For some reason, the dashboard is lined with stuffed chickens. No, I don't get it, either. Unless it's some sort of subtle Dolt slam. Heh. Long story short, the duplicitous and faux-affable Elder Q leads the still amnesiac and generally clueless Dolt to choose the [ever-useless] Elders over his family. D'oh!
Manor. Parlor. Long-winded scene between Piper and Cole that basically results in the following: He confesses he's actually there to prevent Phoebe from giving up on That Foul, Fiendish, Repulsive Four-Letter Word That I Hate while accepting full blame for his role in Phoebe's current emotional whatever, and NOBODY CARES, Cole. He also almost convinces Piper that, by allowing her body to die, she'll send some sort of psychic shock wave that will jolt the Dolt out of his Elder-induced amnesia. At the last minute, however, Piper angrily rejects his proposal, insisting both that she'll not abandon her sons and that her sisters will figure out a way to snap the Dolt out of his funk themselves. Piper. Really. Dumb and Dumber coming up with a better plan of action than the Colethazor? Get a grip, woman. Also: !
Back in the semi, the Dolt decides to join Elder Q "up north" just as Phoebe and Raige speed up behind them in Crazy Chloe's dilapidated truck, despite having left the middle of Nowhere, Texas, more than an hour after Elder Q did. Yeah. That could happen. Never. Raige flings open the semi's passenger door, and she and Phoebe greet the Dolt with broad smiles that die the instant they realize who's driving the rig. "What are you doing here?" Phoebe disdainfully spits at Elder Q. "And what have you done to [the Dolt]?" "We let Destiny run its course," Elder Q lies with a smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face before clapping a paw on the Dolt's arm and orbing away with him. I should be, at the very least, moderately annoyed with Elder Q for violating the terms of his fellow Elder's arrangement with the Dolt, shouldn't I? And yet I can't bring myself to care. In the least. Though in fairness to Elder Q, they should have had a scene, no matter how brief, wherein Elder Q learns of Elizabeth Dennehy's visit to counsel the Manor Morons and, realizing it was she who actually violated the terms of the agreement first, decides to interfere in his own fashion. But again: BORING! In any event, Phoebe and Raige's subsequent vacant expressions get smacked up by the final commercial break.
Manor. Raige orbs in from Texas with Phoebe and Drake, who'd apparently snapped to their sides the moment he realized Piper's physical form had become all sweaty and gross-looking. The hair, though, is fabulous. The three blither about their seemingly nonexistent options as Piper listens in from the far parlor with Cole. When it becomes clear the Dolt chose the Elders over her, she gets more than a little misty-eyed as Cole urges her to follow through with his plan of action which, he promises her, will save her entire family. Having little other choice, Piper dissolves into a spray of twinkling white lights that drifts across the room to reinfuse her body with its soul. Once so rejoined, Piper heaves a shuddering gasp and deliriously calls for her husband. Phoebe, for some asinine reason, instantly realizes what's going on and orders Raige to orb her to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Raige is supremely skeptical, but complies. Once they're gone, Drake takes a moment -- and it's not clear if he's acknowledging Cole's presence, suddenly stumbling across a cunning plan of his own, or both -- before darting out of the frame as sweaty Piper groans and mutters and wheezes. "You can do it, Piper," Cole breathes.
Bridge. Oh, crap. I hate this scene. Raige orbs in atop the tower with the Feebs, who immediately bellows for Elder Q and the Dolt. Stupidly enough, Elder Q promptly orbs in with the Dolt in question. Uh. Buh? I thought the Dolt would never again have contact with them once he chose the other side? Stupid, stupid show. There follows an endless argument wherein Elder Q confesses that he unduly influenced the Dolt's decision because, as he puts it, "some things are too important to be left to chance." The Dolt? "Too important"? Yank on the other one for a while, Q. And since you failed to stick to the original agreement, the Dolt's under no compunction to keep his up end of the bargain, right? Whatever. Like any of this matters. Phoebe, justifiably outraged for the first time in a very long while, screams and rants and raves and such as the Dolt's placid, amnesiac facade slowly begins to crack. Meanwhile, I'm wondering why the winds at the top of that Bridge aren't blowing Phoebe's malnourished ass halfway across the Pacific Ocean. Back at the Manor, sweaty Piper snaps into full consciousness just long enough to shout the Dolt's name before dying. The Dolt apparently hears this, and, as promised by Cole, it's enough of a shock to rip him out of his amnesia. Of course it is. As Phoebe, Raige, and Elder Q wonder what the fuck he thinks he's doing, the Dolt silently and deliberately paces over to the tower's edge, and hello, crappy City Of Angels rip-off! The Dolt spreads his arms wide and dives face-first towards the road deck far, far below. With his Birkenstocks the last thing to leave the tower. And ooops! I'm sorry. Did I say "face-first"? I meant "beer-gut-first," because that's apparently what's dragging him down towards the deck, as we learn when the shot of him falling cuts to a mortifyingly unflattering side view. Doesn't help that they've evidently positioned an industrial fan beneath Krause for this shot, and the resulting upwards sweep of the gold-toned velour only emphasizes the size of his stomach. Ew. Also: Hee! Poor Brian Krause. He really should sue.
Anyway, about halfway down, the gold-toned velour morphs into street clothes, and the Dolt finally slams onto the bridge's pedestrian walkway, where he -- get this -- not only hits stomach-first, but also bounces back into the air after landing. Ah, the beer gut. It is so springy. And the obvious luxurious padding it provides also explains how the Dolt escaped from that fall with all of his internal organs intact. Raige and Phoebe orb instantly to his side and roll him over onto his back. Elder Q follows, just as we see that the smack against the pavement did leave the Dolt with a couple of nasty abrasions on the left side of his face. Long story short, Elder Q concedes the loss and, noting that the Dolt's "fall from grace" has left him permanently mortal, urges the three to return to the Manor quickly.
Which they do, as we note in the shot which features Raige orbing onto the sun porch with the Dolt and the Feebs as Drake, in the foreground, gazes thoughtfully at what we're meant to believe is Piper's corpse. Those with sharp hearing, however, will note the distinctive shimmery sound of the special Whitelighter tingly touch when the shriek of Raige's orb cloud cuts out, so not so much of a surprise when Drake attempts to fake everybody out by sadly noting, "You're too late," before rising to add, "[The dead-eyed, bemulleted Psycho] already healed her!" Drake, of course, learned of the Psycho's healing ability through the Dolt's handwritten entry in the Book of Shadows, and he smiles, "Looks like you've got a second-generation Whitelighter on your hands," like, shut it, Drake. Raige is a second-generation Whitelighter, and she can't heal. Big Gay Chris was a second-generation Whitelighter, and neither could he. What. The fuck. Ever. Everybody schmoops at each other; and it's endless; and then Piper and the Dolt and the Psycho cling to each other in a grasping, near-desperate familial hug; and somewhere, poor, abused, and neglected Tiny Gay Chris descends further into his crippling self-esteem issues; and I want to die. And then it's over.
The closing travelogue, like the opening one, isn't really, as the camera simply sweeps from the Golden Gate to take in the last of the sunset over the ocean as Drake pretty much voice-overs, "Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore / so do our minutes hasten to their end." The camera's cut over to Not!warts by the time he finishes the quote, and Phoebe wistfully admits, "I'm gonna miss Shakespeare." Only because you can't read, you dim hag. Drake, however, doesn't know this, and presents her with a leatherbound copy of the Complete Works so she'll have something to remember him by. You see, it's "pumpkin time," as he puts it, and as the agreed-upon hour of his death is at hand, we have to sit through another endlessly talky scene wherein Phoebe thanks him for reaffirming her faith in That Foul, Fiendish, Repulsive Four-Letter Word That I Hate So Much I Want To KILL, just at the moment she had been ready to give up on it for good. She wonders about his impeccable timing, but he deflects that line of questioning by twinkling, "What's magic without a little mystery?" There's more, but the upshot is, after a little macking, he rises to leave the room, and his final words to her are, "Think about me when you dance." I'd either gag at the cheesiness of that line or foolishly allow myself a small smile at it, but I fell asleep a half an hour ago and so must do neither. Drake theatrically slides out into the hallway, telekinetically shutting the doors behind him, as Phoebe whispers, more to herself than him, "I'll miss you."
Drake ambles down the hallway for a bit before Cole's disembodied voice smirks, "You did good." Cole himself materializes in a slow-moving cloud of grey specks as Drake turns to acknowledge him. "So did you," Drake offers, and gasp! It turns out Cole was behind it all -- Drake's original deal with Sebastian Roché, Drake's infiltration of the Manor's brood through the Not!warts teaching job, and tonight's initial attack by the Thorn Demons. He also presumably knew of the Elder's decision regarding the Dolt as soon as it was reached, as he had to time that attack to coincide with the Dolt's disappearance. Do not question any of it, because there are still -- still -- two more minutes of this crap left to recap, and I'm tired. I will say this, though: Given the way the character's always been presented on this show, he's certainly capable of pulling all of that off. We'll just have to assume that garbage about the heretofore unheard-of parallel-plane Limbo was a big, fat lie he concocted in order to convince Piper to go along with his plan. Again in character, so I can't really complain. And I'm rambling, so let's cut to the chase. As the clock strikes midnight, Drake collapses to the marble floor under the watchful gaze of Cole. Shortly enough, Drake's semitransparent soul sits up from his corpse, and he turns to watch his still partially demonic body disintegrate and vanish. Or something like that. And I'm just going to ignore the fact that Drake has a soul even though Charisma Carpenter didn't because again: Two more minutes. They exchange goodbyes that for some reason include much mention of the Feebs before Drake's soul dissolves into a white mist that heads up into the afterlife. Cole takes a pensive moment before turning to disappear into another slow-moving cloud of grey specks. Have fun in Miami, Cole! I hope the Carver didn't cut you too bad. Oh, and tell Kimber I said hi. I love that crazy bitch.
Manor, the following morning. Up in the Bridal Boudoir, Piper rouses herself while the Dolt, perched on a sofa at the window and sporting some ugly-ass scabs on his face, watches the sun rise. Heh. The magical, mulleted, now-healing Psycho obviously has Daddy Issues. Piper calls out to her husband, and the Dolt admits he's been sitting there for a while, overwhelmed with the knowledge that he's finally powerless, and that they can at last live the normal life they've always wanted. Well, except for the ongoing demonic attacks, the insanely hideous fashions Phoebe and Raige insist upon inflicting on the world, and that dead-eyed and superpowerful Psycho of an elder son they've been saddled with, but other than that? I suppose. As the kids begin to wail in the background, Piper and the Dolt move in for a clinch, and this extra-special, extra-dreary, overlong, and brutally stoopid 150th episode ends with the Dolt suggesting pancakes and eggs for breakfast. No, seriously. No. Seriously. CANCEL THIS. NOW.
week? Beats the crap out of me. To quote the eminent Baron once again, "Okay, that was a promo? Because...with the nothing happening? It didn't seem like a promo." Yep. That's our Charmed! From the spoilers, however, I can tell you that week's plot involves Piper and the Dolt finding themselves trapped in a dollhouse while that darling demonic hottie, Zankou, attempts to wrest control of the Nexus from the Glamorous Ladies. Sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than what I just recapped. Have fun!