Previously on There's An Hour Of My Life I'll Never Get Back, last week, with special emphasis on Piper and Raige's early discussion at Not!warts, the Dolt's supposedly newfound uselessness, Raige's hatred of her job, and the final scene.
Currently on And Here Goes Another, the sun rises rapidly above the Golden Gate Bridge through the miracle of time-lapse photography. Meanwhile, in what amounts to nothing more than an odd directorial choice, the various shadows in a vacant waterfront alleyway quickly retreat across the asphalt as that same sun climbs higher into the sky. Unnecessarily arty of them. Though to be honest with you, I did spend all of a minute trying to figure out the significance of the retreating shadows in this establishing shot with regards to this evening's main plot, and then I remembered which show I was watching. Eventually, a young, slim, and somewhat severe brunette totes a hexagonal box and some hideous cap sleeves on her blouse while darting onto the scene, panting as if she's been running for quite some distance. She protectively clutches the box to her chest and caresses it for a moment before a swiftly appearing and off-screen entity lands a mighty kick on the brunette's jaw. Youch. The boot to the head, incidentally, is powerful enough to send the small amulet the brunette had been wearing skittering across the ground; the brunette herself lands heavily on her left side before flipping two or three times from the force of the blow. The box she'd been so carefully clutching also goes flying. The brunette groans, pushing herself up with her hands, as Michelle Hurd leaps into the foreground of the shot. Michelle's found herself a cropped, scoop-necked maroon silk peasant blouse accessorized with black leather bondage gear for this evening's festivities, the better to display her rock-hard abs of death and destruction. "It's 'Nina,'" Michelle purrs at her prey, drawing a stray ringlet away from her face with a well manicured nail, "right?" "You'll never get it -- I won't let you!" Nina vows, still on the ground, as Michelle silently and bemusedly cocks her brow all, "Oh, yeah? Try proving that, you pathetic bitch." "I didn't ask for your permission," Michelle verbalizes smoothly, stalking closer as Nina finally leaps to her feet, a nasty bruise marring her jaw line. "It's only a matter of time," Michelle continues, sliding right up in Nina's battered face, "before I get the box." "Over my dead body!" Nina scowls. Michelle gets an angelic smile on her face and beams, "That's the thing with you guardians!" The smile slips effortlessly into a sneer as she continues, "You're always dying for that damn box!" Good God. Was Michelle Hurd always this good an actress? I barely remember her from L&O: SVU, and I sure as hell didn't watch Skin or Leap Years, but damn. She's quite simply rocking some tedious and otherwise rehashed material, here. I mean, her last line barely makes sense as written -- in that extra-special way lines on this show often fail to make sense as written -- but the character's intent came through clearly despite it all. Unlike the intent of certain others I could mention, Raige.
“ 'Phoebe! Come here!' Phoebe leans in expectantly. SMACK! Ha! 'Ow!' Phoebe giggles, for Raige didn't slap her nearly as hard as I would have, given the same chance. ”
In any event, Nina calmly retorts, "Not always," right before whipping her hands up and blasting Michelle with a shimmering white mojo field that sends Michelle flying backwards through the air towards a chain-link fence. In yet another nice combination of special effects and stunt work, Michelle, at the last instant, overcomes her backwards momentum in mid-air with what resembles a couple of swimming motions before firmly planting her four-inch stiletto heels on the ground. As she rises from her crouch, she draws a three-pronged dagger from her pointy-toed black boot and challenges, "Oh, come on. You can do better than that." She surreptitiously slides a matching dagger from the back of her corset and, spinning, flings the first of the weapons at Nina's head. Nina, twisting, pivots her torso in a dodge while snatching the dagger out of the air. Nice reflexes. Not so nice is the hand-to-hand combat sequence that follows, which begins when Michelle floats all Matrix-y into the air, and which descends into what I'm told is a rip-off of an almost identical fight sequence in the Jennifer Garner bomb, Elektra. The two women hack and slash at each other for a very long time before -- seemingly -- driving the blades into each other's stomachs at the same time. Michelle looks to be in serious pain, while Nina might actually emerge victorious from this somehow. More temporarily overwhelmed at the effort involved in offing a dark demonic force than in agony, she gasps a bit and shoots a deliberate glare over at the hexagonal box, which flares and vanishes from the alleyway. A high-pitched and ominous violin shrills on the soundtrack as the shot cuts over to...
...Raige on one of the sofas the Manor parlor, clutching at her temples in discomfort as Phoebe jiggles in from the kitchen with some sort of homeopathic brew in a coffee cup. Raige downs the mixture as Phoebe -- "psychotically perky," as Raige puts it -- flashes her teeth at the lippy bastard and doofs. The shrill violin seems to return for a moment, leading Raige to rub at her forehead again, but this time the whining sound's more like a drill than anything else. Raige moans about being "miserable" as Phoebe launches into some goofy New-Age babble about Raige's current complaint possibly being "psychosomatic." "I mean," Phoebe explains as Raige cringes, "the inner ear has to do with balance, so maybe you're feeling imbalanced because of the whole [Not!warts] thing." Raige pauses, then near-whispers, "Phoebe! Come here!" Phoebe leans in expectantly. SMACK! Ha! "Ow!" Phoebe giggles, for Raige didn't slap her nearly as hard as I would have, given the same chance. "What was that for?" "Does that seem psychosomatic to you?" Muggy McGowan twitches. Phoebe's all, "Point taken," as the shrieking of the dead-eyed Psycho's orb cloud reaches her ears.
The bemulleted serial killer materializes in the parlor clad in a plush, green-and-black-plaid terrycloth robe, and if there's one thing I absolutely cannot stand, it's overindulged toddlers in overpriced, miniaturized versions of adult clothing. Haaaate. "I thought it was bath time!" Phoebe sings, brightly greeting her murderous elder nephew. "It is!" the Dolt chipperly announces as he bumbles in from the sun porch. He squats at the Psycho's side and babytalks something to the Psycho about Piper's certain disapproval once she learns of the Psycho's latest antics. "What's going on?" Phoebe wonders. "I think the terrible twos have begun," the Dolt confides, and if so, it's about freaking time, because the kid's supposedly almost three years old. Then again, the Psycho long ago made it clear he's -- how shall I put this? -- differently abled, developmentally speaking, so I probably shouldn't be questioning this. "Well," Phoebe replies playfully, "magical boys will be magical boys." "Try explaining that to his magical mommy," the Dolt glums, obviously fearing Piper's wrath. The Dolt natters some more babytalk in the disaffected Psycho's direction, which somehow results in the vile child orbing back upstairs just as that annoying drilling noise assaults Raige's ears once more. Phoebe and Raige explain the sitch to the Dolt, who quickly realizes that "the dentist drill going in and out" of Raige's head "could be [Raige's] Whitelighter powers coming on." "You could be hearing the call from the [ever-useless] Elders," he clarifies, perching on an ottoman. "Before I learned to control my powers," he adds, "it used to drive me nuts." Raige, refusing to believe any of this and more than a little outraged, gapes. "That?" she ices, "Is unacceptable!" Like everyone else on the face of this planet, she wants nothing further to do with the ever-useless Elders, but the Dolt's of the opinion that she has little choice in the matter, as she can't deny her heritage. Or something like that. Point is, Raige won't find out one way or the other without consulting an ever-useless Elder, and as Piper will freak if they allow one in the Manor, the Dolt offers to accompany Raige to Not!warts for a meeting. Raige reluctantly takes his proffered hand and drags him into an orb cloud that vanishes through the ceiling.
Phoebe, thus left alone, pushes herself off the couch just as another supernatural racket invades the room, this one caused by Nina's apparent method of transport, which involves a swarm of bits -- tinted to coordinate with the location they'll eventually occupy on the surface of her body, by the way -- suddenly materializing in the center of the room before coagulating into Nina form. "Who are you?" Phoebe snaps instantly. "Please!" Nina pants. "You have to help me find it before it's too late!" Nina evidently retrieved her amulet from the alleyway floor before swarming over to the Manor, incidentally. Phoebe, not paying nearly as much attention to the tacky jewelry as I am, quite reasonably asks, "Find what?" The camera sweeps towards Nina's panicked face as she gasps, "Pandora's Box!" Phoebe's mildly annoyed reaction shot fills the screen for a moment before disappearing into the opening credits.
“ 'Like you, we're chosen beings -- part of a magical lineage, one in which to every generation, a girl is born meant to guard Pandora's Box.' So, they're Slayers. I can deal with that. Sort of. Not. EVER. GOD, I hate this show. ”
The super-speed opening travelogue whip-saws us through the Bay Area as some aggravating Kate Bush wannabe of an ovary gets nearly ultrasonic with the wailing and such. Shut UP, shrike. We finally land on Prescott Street, where, up in the Manor's nonexistent attic, the presumably now-bathed Psycho does something godless and obscene with a plastic bucket atop a blanket on the floor while his mother abuses the Book of Shadows nearby. "I guess since Excalibur is real, I don't know I'd be surprised Pandora's Box is, as well," Piper sighs wearily as she flips through the Book's pages. Phoebe bounces in from the upper stairs with a mug of something comforting that Nina graciously accepts as Piper wonders, "How did you know to come to us?" "You're the Charmed Ones," Nina duhs, dabbing at the gash on her jaw with a handkerchief. "Everyone in the magical community knows about you." "Yeah," Piper snorts, "that's becoming a problem." "Becoming"? After seven years filled with various dark demonic forces and Stoopid Magikal Kreatures invading your home on a regular basis? Gah. Shut up, Piper. She does zip it, but not because of anything I've said. No, Piper gets real quiet because the Book suddenly vanishes from the stand in a cloud of orbs. It reappears quickly enough in the Psycho's lap, however, so Piper crouches down to her wicked elder child for some entirely ineffectual lecturing. Seriously. Given the child's persistent, glassy, thousand-yard stare, I'd imagine it'd be of as much use as lecturing a certain late resident of Pinellas County, Florida. But what do I know about parenting?
In any event, Piper retrieves the Book and clomps back over to the stand as Phoebe blithers on endlessly about Piper and the Dolt's differing "parenting styles," and if this really is Piper's Issue Of The Week, I can already tell which subplot I'll be ignoring for the rest of the evening. Yawn. Nina, her understandable annoyance creeping through her otherwise patient faade, silently edges over to Piper's side and whispers, "Back to the Box?" Hmmm. I know we know to nothing about Nina, but the forces of good we've encountered on this show have pretty much universally been fawning, mealy-mouthed milquetoasts as far as the Glamorous Ladies are concerned, so might something be not quite right with unusually assertive Nina here? Piper, ignoring me again, snottily supposes, "Lemme guess: A demon took it." "No," Nina bites, "but we better find the guardian before one does." Phoebe dimly repeats the "guardian" bit of Nina's sentence, so Nina launches into a rapid burst of exposition thusly: "Like you, we're chosen beings -- part of a magical lineage, one in which to every generation, a girl is born meant to guard Pandora's Box." So, they're Slayers. I can deal with that. Sort of. Not. EVER. GOD, I hate this show. Actually, since I'm feeling a little charitable with regard to this evening's most prominent guest star, I'll make this show a deal: I'll not question this pathetically belated Buffy rip-off if Michelle Hurd returns to my television screen at once, because the level of interest this episode has managed to drag out of me plunged the instant we returned to the damn Manor during the pre-credits sequence. Ack.
“ Over at UC Sunnydale -- um, I mean 'UC Berkeley' -- a sassy, diminutive blonde motors through a dorm hallway with her BFF, 'Darcy,' and is there a reason I should care about this pedeconference they're having about Darcy's boyfriend? Didn't think so. Goodbye, Darcy. No, goodbye, Darcy. I said GOODBYE, DARCY. Thank you! ”
ANY-way, the problem, as Nina would have it, is that "each girl is trained by the guardian -- instructed carefully about the dangers and powers of the Box -- except the one hasn't been." "I'm not following," Phoebe blurts, like, huge surprise there, you pea-brained nitwit. "When Katya, the demon, attacked me," Nina explains, "the Box, perhaps sensing the danger, disappeared on its own, moving on to its guardian." "And you don't know who that is?" Piper guesses. "No," Nina confirms, taking a moment before admitting, "I guess I wasn't expected to survive." Hmmmmmmmm. This all seems veddy, veddy fishy to me. Phoebe wonders what Katya wants with the Box, like, durrrr. Moron! "To open it and release the world's ills," Nina allows, far more patiently than I ever could, "sorrow, famine, plagues -- all the evil inside." "So what's to keep the new guardian from doing the same," Piper eyebrows, "especially if she doesn't know what's inside the Box?" "Nothing," Nina emphasizes, while shooting Piper a Look Fraught With Significance. Piper's expression goes all, "Oh, shit," while stupid Phoebe purses her overly glossed lips.
Over at UC Sunnydale -- um, I mean "UC Berkeley" -- a sassy, diminutive blonde motors through a dorm hallway with her BFF, "Darcy," and is there a reason I should care about this pedeconference they're having about Darcy's boyfriend? Didn't think so. Goodbye, Darcy. No, goodbye, Darcy. I said GOODBYE, DARCY. Thank you! Finally, Darcy bails to make it to her chemistry lecture on time, and This Tiny Blonde Girl Is Totally Not Buffy Summers At All enters her remarkably spacious single alone. Alone, that is, save for the Wings Of Desire-style supernatural whispering that barges in there with her the instant she spots Pandora's Box on her bed. I'm Telling You, This Chick Is Not Miss Summers Of Sunnydale warily circles around her desk and hesitantly approaches the Box as the whisperings keep drifting in and out, their volume increasing and decreasing in no discernible pattern. I tried to decipher what the voices were saying, but it appears to be random strings of Craptin, so, you know. Screw that. Meanwhile, What Do I Have To Do To Convince You She's Not Buffy? has lifted the Box from atop her comforter and now gingerly unlatches the clasp to ease open the lid a fraction of an inch. The whispering's instantly replaced by a wheezing, anguished howl as a jet of black smoke bursts from the narrow opening. Why Won't You Believe Me When I Tell You She's Not Buffy, Dammit? quickly snaps the lid shut while gagging and choking a bit on the cloud, which soon enough rises above her head to clump into strings of foul wickedness that shoot through the dorm room's vent into the hallway beyond. Fuck You, She's Not Buffy wigs.
Not!warts. Raige seethes with pain as the Dental Drill Of Dreadful Discord (thanks, The Done One!) grinds into her skull. Raige grunts and vanishes from the frame, revealing Elizabeth Dennehy and the Dolt in the background of the shot. Elizabeth excitedly identifies the Dental Drill Of Dreadful Discord as the Whitelighters' "Global Alert," and encourages Raige to view it as a "gift, rather than a problem." Raige, with the Dolt's backing, insists that she doesn't want it. Elizabeth scoffs at the very idea for a bit before adjusting her tone and enthusing, "Becoming a Whitelighter is as natural a part of your unfolding Destiny as becoming a Charmed One." There's much, much more, but as that fucking Dental Drill Of Dreadful Discord refuses to shut the hell up, and as I quite honestly couldn't give a flying rat's ass about Raige at this point in the season, I'll just note that Elizabeth and the Dolt seem to arrive at the same crafty plan simultaneously, and convince Raige to accept just one Whitelightery mission of protection for the afternoon, as helping others helps one's self find "clarity," or some such bullshit. Whatever. And...scene. Well...scene, after Elizabeth and the Dolt smugly wiggle their eyebrows at each other over their supposedly clever deception. Yawn.
“ Katina fondles the Box possessively and speechifies, 'Pandora's Box -- a gift the gods gave to Prometheus [WRONG!], one that contained all of the evils of the world.' Not Buffy gets this hysterical 'Who IS this CRAZY WOMAN in my ROOM?' look on her face as Katina continues, 'Until Pandora unleashed them on unsuspecting people.' ”
Nonexistent Attic. Piper's scrying for the Box's new guardian has thus far proved fruitless, so Nina yanks the amulet from her neck, thinking it might facilitate the process. The off-screen Psycho responds to this by dropping a brightly-colored block onto the center of the map with his orbing telekinesis, and that's it. Between snatching the Book away from his formidable mother and this, it's clear the foul, bitter blackness occupying the cavity in his wee chest where his heart should be has clearly recognized "Nina" as a fellow force of evil, and he's thwarting her clever, conniving machinations to, um, steal her masterful plan for himself. Or something. Just go with it. Damn demon child. In any event, I'm betting right now that Katya's a shape shifter, and that the real Nina's rapidly cooling corpse is currently functioning as rat food back in the pre-credits alleyway. Any takers? Didn't think so. You'd be foolish to bet against me. Though I have to admit, this fake-out and gradual reveal has been masterfully constructed and played. Well, as far as this show's standards go, at any rate. Anyway, Piper howls some bitchery in the Psycho's general direction as Katina grumbles impatiently and Phoebe snatches up the amulet and the crystal to continue the scrying herself. While the babbling continues, the crystal slams down on Berkeley, and do you think it could be a little more specific, maybe? I mean, Berkeley's a pretty big campus, and Fuck You, She's Not Buffy is just a tiny little blonde coed. Katina, deaf to my concerns, immediately strides over to the doorway to head to the university alone. Piper and Phoebe protest mightily, given the supposed results of Katina's last encounter with the demon who's after the Box, so Katina reluctantly agrees to swarm Piper over to the campus with her. Phoebe, meanwhile, is to remain at the Manor to warn the ever-useless Elders of this new threat to world order. And, presumably, to keep an eye on the kids, but that's never actually mentioned. Piper snarls something related to her tedious Issue Of The Week before Katina places her hands on Piper's shoulders and swarms on out of there. Phoebe heaves a put-upon sigh of concern. Shut up, Phoebe.
Berkeley. Over in Fuck You, She's Not Buffy's dorm, Piper suspiciously eyes a couple of despairing students while wondering, "What's going on around here? Something's not right." "She must have opened the Box," Katina breathes. "It's the first wave of sorrow." Piper sucks in air and goggles a bit as Katina continues, "We have to hurry before you become affected, too." Katina crosses to Fuck You, She's Not Buffy's door and gives it the back of her hand to scan the room's contents. After she's confirmed they're in the right place, Katina starts rapping her knuckles insistently on the wood as, within, Fuck You, She's Not Buffy babbles something at Darcy via her cell phone. Not Buffy eventually hangs up on her friend and, grabbing at her bag and jacket, crosses to fling open her door. Needless to say, Not Buffy's more than a little surprised to find Piper and Katina blocking her exit. There follows a surprisingly amusing little scene wherein Piper tries to ease Not Buffy into the admittedly unbelievable reality of the situation while Katina's far more impatient and brusque in delivering the relevant information, much to Piper's barely concealed aggravation. Not Buffy, naturally, thinks they're full of shit, and is ready to push past them when Katina finally snaps, "The Box! Where is it?" Not Buffy gets this puzzled expression on her face and pivots to reveal the Box where she'd left it on her bed. Katina elbows her way into the room and retrieves the thing as Piper eases the door shut behind her. "How did it come to you?" Katina demands, her eyes eerily shifting into Manson Lamp mode. "It was just there!" Not Buffy splutters. Piper snarks something about Greek mythology as Katina fondles the Box possessively and speechifies, "Pandora's Box -- a gift the gods gave to Prometheus [WRONG!], one that contained all of the evils of the world." Not Buffy gets this hysterical "Who IS this CRAZY WOMAN in my ROOM?" look on her face as Katina continues, "Until Pandora unleashed them on unsuspecting people." Katina pauses for a moment; then, with her voice sliding down an octave or two, she adds, "I hope to do the same." Piper's eyes widen. "Ah, crap!" Hee. Katina morphs into Katya, completely freaking Fuck You, She's Not Buffy out as Piper continues, "Oh, yeah. This is not good at all!" As I said, a surprisingly good scene.