Previously on Charmed, the Glamorous Idiots officially became the Glamoured Glamorous Idiots so Piper and Phoebe could go shopping, and wacky hijinks involving mirrors and Los Angeles Amazons and heroin-addicted Dutch serial killers and flat-chested variations on the Amanda Peet theme ensued; The Lippy Spastic met The Retarded Bimbo; Vex Pexter looked very sad indeed at Phoebe's phaux memorial service; Vex Pexter looked very vapid indeed when he met Phoebe's glamoured self in the elevator at All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me; Elise Rothman, Girl Editor looked very stupid indeed when she consulted Vex Pexter for staffing advice and so hired Phoebe's glamoured self to take over the advice column; and Phoebe and her beaver-pelted forearms soon resumed their reign of terror over the Bay Area's newspaper-reading public.
Currently on Charmed, the rumors of poor, neglected Tiny Gay Chris's untimely evisceration at the hands of his older, bemulleted, dead-eyed, and evil brother seem to be confirmed when we fade up on the interior of The Patricia Campbell Hearst Commemorative Child-Care Nook, which has been turned back into a closet. Oh, Chris. They really do hate you on this show, don't they? The tiny gay corpse's wretched excuse for a mother is currently having a fashion crisis -- rather selfishly, given the fact that her psychotic elder son has finally managed to dispense with her adorable younger one. The cause of said selfish fashion crisis eventually makes itself clear through the seemingly endless babbling dialogue Piper shares with her bumbling Dolt of a husband and her lippy spastic of a half-sister: Piper, at Daddy Dearest Victor (Jones) Bennett's prompting, has scheduled an interview with "a corporate head-hunter." This should work out well for everyone involved. Never. Bright side? Since she's only doing this as a favor for her father, I can ignore what promises to be an excruciatingly lengthy, awkward, and ultimately pointless scene between Piper and the recruiter.
Piper, for whatever reason, continues to stall, mentioning in passing her as-yet-unresolved Issue Of Last Week -- the one that involved her unease with sitting on her lazy ass while dark demonic forces sent from the flaming maw of Hell continue to plague mankind -- before the Dolt and The Lippy Spastic testily assure her that they, in addition to The Retarded Bimbo who's "studying" up in the nonexistent attic, have everything well in hand. Piper blinks and, twitching her upper lip like Samantha onBewitched, spins to examine her glamoured self in the Bridal Boudoir's full-length antique mirror. "I just wish I didn't feel like such a fraud," she sighs, and you might feel like less of a fraud if you were able to synch up your overdubbing with your glamoured self's lip movements, honey, but that could just be me being a little too picky, here. "All you have to do," Raige advises while crossing to Piper's side, "is remember the you that's on the inside, okay?" "Besides," she continues as the shot cuts to the reflection so we might learn to our utter shock and confusion that Rose McGowan, of all people, is far better at the overdubbing thing than anyone else in the cast, "who's going to figure it out, Jenny?" The Spritely Tinkle Of Impending Wacky Wiccan Hijinks glissades across the soundtrack as the camera bounces outdoors to take in the Manor's sun-drenched façade before zipping across the city...
...and all the way down The Five to Los Angeles to land near that loading dock on the Paramount backlot last seen when Piper got shirty with Death after Rotten Scott Farkus finally managed to off that Army chaplain last season. Well, you know, that's where this scene was shot, but we're still supposed to be in San Francisco. Whatever. Anyway, some plainclothes cop holds a gun on the precise twin of Piper's glamoured self, and D'OH! The twin, her hands in the air, spits something in French, but the cop's not having it, sneering, "Save it, Maya. I know you understand me." "You're under arrest for murder," he continues as he cautiously approaches her. Maya slits her eyes at him for the briefest of moments before going all ninja warrior princess on his ass, kicking the automatic out of his hands before dropping him with a stylish pump to the head. Maya crouches to retrieve the weapon from the asphalt, then rises to roll her eyes at his unconscious back and pout a lackluster, "Damn you," before sauntering straight into the opening credits.
It's an Opening Travelogue! Hooray! With a marble-mouthed alterna-testicle! Boo! Doesn't Liz Phair have a new album coming out? Why didn't they use her? Not that I'm terribly fond of Liz Phair, mind you. It's just that she always ends up seeming to have such lovely diction when compared to the usual sorts of no-talent louts they pull for these things. Besides, you know Brad Kern still wants to fuck her. We linger on various out-of-date landmarks for a while as the travelogue testicle wails out something utterly unintelligible before finally heading over to the Manor, where an explosion from somewhere within rocks the house for a couple of seconds. Well, actually, it just knocks the camera from side to side for a bit because actually rocking the house around is far beyond this failing show's rapidly dwindling budget. We dart inside and up to the nonexistent attic to find The Lippy Spastic tottering into the room from the upper stairs on her too-high heels, wildly windmilling her arms through a sparse cloud of smoke as she darts across the carpet to help The Retarded Bimbo to the latter's feet. "That was awesome!" The Retarded Bimbo enthuses. "'Awesome'?" Raige spits, hands planted firmly on her hips so they don't inadvertently flap aimlessly through the air. "How was that awesome? You almost blew the house up!" The Retarded Bimbo pffts at this, leading Raige to rage, "You were just supposed to be reading!" "That's all I was doing!" howls The Retarded Bimbo, the pitch of her voice nearing the ultrasonic, leading my upstairs neighbor's dogs to start baying right back at her by way of response. Ow. "Well, then what happened?" Raige demands, crossing to hoist the Book of Shadows's stand from where it fell to the floor. Raige pauses for a moment, lost in thought, before she realizes, "You read a spell out loud, didn't you?" Well, duh, Raige. I named her "The Retarded Bimbo" for a reason. Of course she reads out loud to herself. And I'm betting the spell she accidentally recited -- with much of the uhhhhh-ing and the duhrrrrrr-ing and the drooling -- went a little like this:
Hear my call, hear my cry,
Spirit from the other side.
Come to me, I summon thee:
Cross now the Great Divide
And knock the living shit out of that stupid cameraman who's standing out on the sidewalk.
What? It could happen. Anyway, Raige insists The Retarded Bimbo clean up the mess she made of the attic, leading The Retard to snit, "Can't you just cast a spell and make it pick itself up?" "That would be something called Personal Gain," The Lippy Spastic snaps back, "which is something we don't do." Except on all of those many, many occasions when Personal Gain is exactly what youdodo, right, moron? God, I hate this show. Raige also argues that the less magic used in the Manor, the better their chances of remaining under the demonic radar, if you will. "Oh, okay, yah," The Retard snides, "three chicks living under the same roof. Hello! How dumb can they be?" Pretty fucking dumb, Retard, as anyone who's watched this crap from the beginning could easily tell you. Almost as dumb as you, in fact. The Spastic babbles out some tedious lecture about respecting The Craft, or something, that The Retard completely ignores. The bags under The Lippy Spastic's eyes grow increasingly agitated as the disembodied voice of Phoebe groans, "Hey, don't look at me. You're her Whitelighter."
The camera cuts to Phoebe's office at All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, where the knockered nitwit in question sits at her desk applying lip liner with the help of a compact mirror, the better to expose the ineptitude with overdubbing that Alyssa Milano shares with nearly all of her fellow cast members. Anyway, long story short, Phoebe cuts short the call when Vex Pexter arrives in the outer office for a chat, and Vex Pexter, after much belabored flirting, invites her to his art show. Well, his "art" show. Lord, but that was a pitiful scene last week, wasn't it? And yet I'm certain I'll carry with me to my grave his "I was flying over Africa, looking out the window and painfully aware of the struggles below me and yet I was up in the clouds feeling peace" justification for that assy piece of trash he showed The Cooter Tat, won't I? This stupid show. I swear to God. In any event, Phoebe accepts the invitation by placing an over-familiar hand on his shoulder, hurling herself into a full-color premonition in the process: Vex Pexter's tawdry little "art" show is completely destroyed in a minor earthquake. Hooray! That premonition was almost as satisfying as the various premonitions detailing Gonzo The Chinless Wonder's violent death. Phoebe dates the biggest losers, doesn't she? Including Vex here, who responds to Phoebe's typical bout of orgasmic gasping and shuddering while receiving a vision of the future by rather limply wondering, "What happened?" "The earth moved," Phoebe quips. Oh, my God! Was that a shout-out? I think that was a shout-out! Aw. They really do pay attention to these recaps! Thanks, guys. But I'm still giving this episode a D.
Hello, Excruciatingly Lengthy, Awkward, And Ultimately Pointless Scene Between Piper And The Recruiter That I Do Not Have To Recap! Shame, really, because Holly Marie Combs plays Piper's hesitance and indecisiveness about her new life quite well here, but the whole thing's just a set-up for the character's impending Maya-related crisis, so whatever. Said crisis, incidentally, is precipitated when the recruiter, post-interview, forwards Piper's glamoured identity's online resume -- complete with a digital photograph of "Jenny Bennett" taken right there in the office -- for a "pro-forma" background check. The cunning cinematographer has conspired with the idiots in the properties department to photograph the recruiter's computer screen just blurrily enough so we can't make out the specifics of Jenny's recently concocted past, but it is clear that the idiots in the properties department got the Manor's address wrong. Oh, and Jenny received her MA from "The Culinary School Of Newark." Hee. ["There is actually a Newark Culinary School in Newark, DE. Yes, I Googled it. Shut up." -- Sars] Anyway, the recruiter sends the information off through a miserable and unnecessary effects sequence that I've chosen to ignore -- aside from mentioning that it's worse, even, than any of that trippy Webverse crap from Hackers -- until said information finally arrives on a monitor at a place called "Background Security, Inc." Some hoagie-snorting dweeb with greasy hair and a polyester tie taps a few commands into the keyboard, and some Whatever Technology scans a database for Jenny's facial features. What? Don't look at me like that. That's what's happening. No, I don't know who came up with this crap. Leave me alone. The Whatever Technology quickly identifies a match, because this is television, where even massive databases of digitized fingerprints soon shoot out the specs on likely suspects in seconds, and that match is just as quickly revealed to be "Maya Holmes," the jujitsu expert and alleged murderess from the pre-credits sequence. D'oh! Um. Again! The hoagie-snorting dweeb snatches up his handset, punches a few numbers into the keypad, and barks, "We've got a problem!"
"Actually, it was no problem at all," Piper perks into her own cell as the shot cuts to her casually ambling down the street. She's chatting with the Dolt, of course, who at this moment is hosting a play date at the Manor for a passel of rugrats and their mothers. Piper rather darkly warns the Dolt to watch out for "Eve," one of the mothers involved. The Dolt assures her he can handle everything on his own, thank you very much, and hangs up to return to the festivities on the sun porch. The dead-eyed and murderous Psycho, incidentally, has so cowed his fellow 'rats with his murderous glares that each 'rat wears a rigid expression of unalloyed terror on his or her face. I'm betting the Psycho broadcast a telepathic replay of Tiny Gay Chris's gory death at the Psycho's own hands to get them all to shut up. Evil child. In any event, the Dolt joins the ethnically diverse mothers on the wicker furniture at the far end of the room and, long story short, Eve is a total slut who hits on him. No, seriously. She's such a tramp that she tries to get into the pants of the Dolt's glamoured self, which, as I've noted before, resembles nothing so much as a deranged, heroin-addicted Dutch serial killer. And her quest to get him out of his clothes is helped immeasurably by her own apparent child, who dashes across the sun porch floor at this very moment to fling his bowl of rapidly melting ice cream onto the Dolt's shirt, and oh, my God, that's disgusting. It's vanilla, and it's drippy, and it's viscous, and it lands with a loud, wet "SPLAT!" on the Dolt's chest, and, well...yeah. Do the math. Gross. Eve apologizes profusely and, pulling an Edie Britt, caresses the Dolt's thigh while ineffectually rubbing a napkin all over the mess on his torso as sensuously as she can. The other mothers exchange knowing and -- given their presumed knowledge of Eve's current marital status (it's "married," in case you didn't get what I was hinting at) -- oddly amused glances as the Dolt stammers and splutters and...scene.
Elsewhere, three thousand uniformed police officers swarm a city sidewalk as the plainclothes detective from the top of the hour barks a few commands into his radio. Nearby, the Glamoured Glamorous Idiots enjoy an al fresco lunch. Well, they enjoy an al fresco lunch until Phoebe too casually mentions the earthquake from her premonition, at which point Piper begins to freak rather amusingly while Phoebe, oblivious and selfish hag that she is, continues to babble on about Vex. The Lippy Spastic, meanwhile, remains useless and twitchy throughout. Finally, the plainclothes cop and several hundred of his fellow officers surround the little café table, and he calls out, "Maya Holmes! This is the police!" No shit, Sherlock. "Stand up and put your hands on your head!" he orders. Mugs McGowan furrows her brow, squints her eyes, crinkles up her nose, and curls her upper lip into a befuddled sneer as she guhs, "I think they're talking to you." Piper darts her eyes around in confusion for a bit before warily lifting her arms into the air and vanishing into the commercial break.
A police station that is not Trudeau Memorial, formerly Andy's House Of Beef, formerly The Loneliest Precinct House In The World and is in fact "Columbia" "University" from last season's Little-Bulging-Brody-related jaunt into the past. Aftermath. Phoebe and Raige fret in an interview room, where they're presently joined by a shackled and orange-jumpsuit-begarbed Piper, who enters with a police escort. Despite her charge's being under arrest for murder, the police escort uncuffs Piper and leaves the latter alone in the room with Phoebe and Raige, because every single person on this show -- down to and including the extras -- is an idiot. ["Not to mention the fact that she's already in the orange jumpsuit, which means they've processed her arrest, for murder, which is at least two inches of paperwork, plus they've arraigned her and she's entered the correctional system, and she's allowed visitors. In a…precinct house. Where, if she's wearing prison garb, she would not still be. Not, writers." -- Sars] The gals blunder their way through a processing summit, during which Piper wonders if the others have called the suspiciously missing Detective Doormat. Well, "suspiciously missing" if you weren't aware of the fact that Dorian Gregory was unceremoniously fired from the show when the WB slashed the budget as a precondition for renewal. And the excuse they've come up with for his absence? La Famille Doormat has relocated to "the East Coast." I suppose we should just be happy they remembered he ever existed and leave it at that. Poor Doormat. To better days! Oh, right. There were never any better days as far as you were concerned. How's "Good riddance!" sound to you?
In any event, the Manor Morons bang their empty heads together for a while until Piper supposes she must have snagged the inspiration for her glamoured self from one of her sisters' magazines. Phoebe heads off to All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me to research this Maya Holmes person; Raige is to return to the Manor to rifle through the Halliwell periodical collection in search of same. The idea is that once they've found the appropriate image and gathered a bit of background information, they'll be able to scry for the real Maya and swap her for Piper via Raige's orbing telekinesis. Just go with it. After a bit of unfunny twitchery from Mugs regarding a documentary she once saw on prison life, Phoebe and Raige exit, leaving Piper alone to grit her teeth and shake her head around in despair before she's...
...escorted back to her cell, and: D'oh! Again! Some more! For the switch to work, you see, Piper needed to remain in a cell of her own. Unfortunately, while she was gone, the cops saddled her with a bleach-blonde white-trash bull dyke of a cellmate. "Um," Piper whispers through the bars at her jailer, "I thought I was going to be alone." "Now you've got company," the jailer rather amusingly whispers back at her before adding, "Play nice." Piper and her cellmate exchange a few uncomfortable words before Piper clunks her weary head against the bars and sighs, "[Dolt]!"
Cue the Dolt, who's standing at the kitchen sink back in the Manor in a white beater while Slutty Eva rinses the ice cream from his befouled shirt. Slutty Eva then attempts to strip off that white beater, and I can see the waistband of his Banana Republic boxer shorts, and then I can see his actual, honest-to-God nipple, and now I am blind. Blind! I mean, yeah, Aaron Spelling's Nighttime Soap Opera Weight Nazis have obviously whipped Brian Krause back into shape over the summer hiatus -- like, there's a massive lapse in continuity for you, by the way, because this scene is supposed to be taking place a mere three weeks after last season's finale -- and so I'm spared the sight of the Dolt's previously springy beer gut, but people. Really. IT'S BRIAN KRAUSE'S NIPPLE FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. And there's the other one! AUUAAUAUAUUUUAUUAUUAUUUUAAAAAGH! ANY-way, as I am now temporarily blinded, I'll be recapping the rest of this sequence based on sounds alone. Thank God I can touch-type. ["zO vam'y, sp yjod [arasgrajf mhit be a ;ottje ,ess-dfdi5." -- DstdZ] From what I can hear, Raige arrives to drag her errant brother-in-law from the kitchen and into the center parlor, where she hastily and bitchily fills the Dolt in on the current situation. After ordering him to get Slutty Eve out of the Manor, pronto, Raige turns her attention to the stack of magazines in her lap. She quickly spots Maya at the center of a fashion spread in a recent edition of No.magazine. Raige gapes.
Up in the nonexistent attic, The Retarded Bimbo, bored, leafs through the Book Of Shadows while grinding her retard cooties into the upholstery of poor Aunt Pearl's much-abused sofa. They'll want to boil that after she's finally left the house. Raige powers purposefully through the nonexistent room and begins flinging ingredients into the copper potions pot atop the center table. The Retard leaps to her feet to annoy, but Raige shouts her down with a babbled non-explanation of what's going on before dropping the magazine photo of Maya into the pot, which emits the expected amount of sparks and smoke. Raige gingerly plucks the photo from the pot with a pair of tongs and vanishes to scry for the allegedly murderous fashion model.
There's an unfunny bit back in Piper's cell before the guard arrives to escort the alleged murderer to another unsupervised visit in the interrogation room. Idiot. Piper finds herself alone in the room with a gentleman of a certain age and quickly determines through the gentleman's hostile demeanor that he's not there to help. In the rather well-played scene between the two that follows, Piper, through a series of deceptively vague but carefully leading questions and statements, learns the following: Maya had been involved with this gentleman, whom we'll eventually learn is an assistant district attorney named Walter Nance. She threw him over for a photographer several years his junior, which so enraged Nance that he either had the photographer killed or killed the photographer himself -- that part's not terribly clear at the moment. What is clear is that Nance has age issues, which will become important later in the episode so, you know, write it down. Or something. Ahem. In any event, Nance framed Maya for the murder and now intends to prosecute the case, which...no. No. His boss would never allow it and, failing that, the judge would never allow it and, failing that, the appellate court would throw out any guilty verdict that arose from the trial because of the glaring conflict of interest on the prosecution's part, so shut the fuck up, Charmed. Sigh. And this scene was going so well. Anyway, Piper, smart cookie that she is when the typewriting crackmonkeys remember to write her that way, successfully bluffs herself through a threat to expose Nance despite the fact that she hasn't a shred of evidence against him, and promises, "I'll see you in court." Nance takes a long, menacing moment before leaning in and vowing, "It won't get that far, Maya." With that, he stalks silently from the room. Holly Marie Combs lets an expression of wary and somewhat disbelieving disgust flicker across her face before the shot cuts over to...
...All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, and this is going to make my head hurt. Phoebe -- dancing very close to that Amazing Dipshit territory I find bizarrely amusing but never quite managing to edge herself over that line -- assaults two of her coworkers with strident and scatter-brained demands for information on both Maya Holmes and earthquakes. In fact, she pretty much assumes Elise's editorial prerogative by ordering one of her colleagues to whip up an entire feature article on earthquake preparedness for that evening's edition, despite both the fact that it's got to be at least two o'clock in the afternoon at this point and the fact that he's got a newborn at home, apparently. Bitch. Hag. Stupid bitch-hag. Whatever. I'll be giving that asinine earthquake subplot exactly the amount of attention it deserves from this point forward -- which is to say, of course, none at all -- and get back to the Caged portion of this evening's festivities. The other guy's come up with some dish on Maya from the paper's archives -- dish, I must note, that Stupid Bitch-Hag Phoebe could have come up with on her own had she ever learned to use the search function on her fucking computer -- and the only additional detail we learn is that Maya's boyfriend was found shot in their shared apartment two weeks after she moved in with him. Before babbling her way back into her office, Phoebe rudely natters out a few more orders that her coworkers greet with a pair of raised eyebrows of the "That mouthy, bubblebrained bizznatch did not just tell me what to do, did she?" variety.
The Capri Motel. Well, that's what it says on the sign, at any rate. Inside, Raige orbs into one of the rooms with The Retarded Bimbo, warning the latter to be careful. "Oh, come on," The Retard gripes. "How dangerous can a model be?" The answer arrives in the form of the bathroom door swinging violently into The Retard's slackjawed face. Hooray! Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Play. Pause. Rewind. Slow-forward. Maya bursts from the bathroom to make with some of the chop-socky kicks in Raige's general direction before she darts over to the bureau to snatch up the automatic she swiped from the plainclothes cop at the beginning of the episode. Raige, still incapable of orbing a motherfucking gun, instead chooses to slam a lamp into Maya's head with her orbing telekinesis. The Retard and The Spastic exchange stupid words before darting out of the frame and into the commercial break.
The Slammer. More unfunny stupidity between Piper and her bleach-blonde white-trash bull dyke of a cellmate until Piper finally tires of it all, freezes the white-trash bull dyke, and knocks said white-trash bull dyke silly with her lunch tray. As the dazed white-trash bull dyke writhes and moans on the cement floor, Raige yanks Piper from the cell into a Manor-bound orb cloud, replacing her via yet another orb cloud with the real Maya, who's been blindfolded by the gals for the magical journey into prison. Maya rips off the blindfold and freaks. ["Probably because she was orbed into jail and got an orange jumpsuit, whereas Piper was orbed out and did not get civilian clothes. Fucking show." -- Sars]
Manor. Piper coagulates in the main hall and immediately demands to know what's going on. "We switched you out with the real Maya Holmes," Raige duhs. "Oh, well, that's great!" Piper sings before biting out, "But she's innocent." D'oh! Again! Some more! For the third time in thirty-five minutes, and I'm really missing the DUN! that happens once and only once per episode! Wow, this show is bad! And now that I'm off on this tangent, I've completely lost my place!
Oh, yeah! Nance's penthouse apartment! And this is a pointless scene, isn't it? Basically, the ever-so-vain Nance rages at one of his toadies about offing Maya before she gets the drop on him, then eases himself into a grey -- grey! Like, how very eighties of him. Even more eighties of him than those faux Warhol silk-screen portraits of himself all over the walls -- leather armchair so his personal plastic surgeon might inject him with many, many needles of Botox. Yawn.
Back at the Manor, the gals plus the Dolt and The Retarded Bimbo hold a processing summit in the front parlor. Piper manages to convince them all of Nance's guilt, leading The Retard to perk, "Well, can't we just vanquish him?" "We don't usually vanquish humans," Piper ices. Well, you don't, Piper. Raige and Phoebe, however? You two can just shut it with the stunned glares of appalled horror you just shot The Retard, you convict-slaughtering simps. In any event, Raige gets rid of The Retard by sending her nonexistent atticwards for more "research," and Piper convinces her sisters to swap her back with Maya so the Manor Morons might learn what information, exactly, Maya has on her ex-sugar daddy. Well, Raige will learn that information by herself, apparently, because her selfish, self-absorbed hag of a dimwitted half-sister decides this is the perfect moment to harass Vex Pexter in his physically impossible garret. You know, because of that impending natural disaster I've chosen to ignore. Phoebe sucks. Phoebe also vanishes at this precise moment, so I fortunately won't have to deal with her ongoing stupidity for another scene or so. Raige also takes her leave to ensure that The Retard's not fucking anything up in the nonexistent attic just as the doorbell rings. And despite looking exactly like an allegedly murderous fashion model, pack mule Piper rises to answer. Everyone -- everyone -- on this show is a raging moron.
At the door? Some redneck named -- of course -- Carl, who's apparently married to Slutty Eve. Despite never having seen the Dolt's glamoured form before in his life, and despite the fact that God alone knows how he found out about the shirt-rinsing incident during the rugrats' play date, Redneck Carl immediately shoves past Piper to punch Glamour Dolt in the face. What the fuck ever. Piper, thinking fast, tosses out a hasty freeze. There follows an embarrassingly amusing bit wherein the Dolt doltily admits to the wife that he might maybe perhaps have led Slutty Eve on a little bit earlier in the day due to his glamoured self's lack of a wedding band, followed by Piper insisting he resume his position in front of Redneck Carl's fist to accept his just and rightful punishment. Krause in particular elicits a snort from yours truly when he goofily settles into place in front of Redneck Carl and winces in anticipation of the smackdown. Oh, leave me alone. In any event, Piper flicks out an unfreeze, and Redneck Carl promptly flattens the Dolt with a well-placed sock in the jaw. I'd glory in that spectacular example of Dolt abuse, but after a mere two weeks of the new season, I've discovered I much prefer spectacular examples of Retard abuse, and so this is leaving me a bit cold. Sad, I know. Also, I'm far too distracted by the fact that this little bit when combined with something that happens in about three scenes serves to demonstrate what I suppose I'll call The Sixth Law Of Molecular Manipulation On Charmed: Freezing an object in motion does not destroy that object's forward momentum, except when it does. You'll see what I mean in a minute or two. And no, I have no idea what The First Five Laws Of Molecular Manipulation On Charmed are. I just pulled a number out of my ass. Shut up. Piper hustles the now oddly subdued Redneck Carl out the front door and then, turning to smirk at her still-flattened Dolt of a husband, snickers her way into the commercial break.
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Up in the physically impossible garret, Phoebe and Vex Pexter natter about shit I so totally do not care about. Phoebe's wearing ankle-length culottes, by the way. Ankle-length culottes. Dumbass. Is this scene over yet? It is? Oh, thank God.
Over near "Columbia" "University," currently masquerading as a police station that is not Trudeau Memorial, formerly Andy's House Of Beef, formerly The Loneliest Precinct House In The World, Piper and Raige huddle in the Grand Cherokee across the street, waiting for The Retarded Bimbo to return from her reconnaissance mission to determine if it's safe to swap Piper for Maya. The Retard eventually arrives with news that Maya's been released into Nance's custody, and no, and never, and how stupid does this show think we are, and has this stupid show been cancelled yet, and if this stupid show hasn't been cancelled yet, WHY HAS THIS STUPID SHOW NOT BEEN CANCELLED YET, and scene.
Lair Of The ADA. Long story short, Maya's a spineless wimp who quickly finds herself hurtling forty-five stories down towards the filthy and unforgiving asphalt of a Dank And Forbidding Alleyway Of Defenestrated Doom from Nance's terraced apartment above. Basically, they bickered for a bit and then he pitched her over the railing, intending to have the death ruled a suicide once they scrape what little is left of her off the pavement. Unfortunately for him, Raige has discreetly orbed into an alcove with Piper during all of this, and the two quickly orb to the alleyway below, where they arrive just in time for Piper to freeze Spineless Maya about nine feet above the ground. Raige telekinetically orbs a suspiciously clean and convenient mattress from a Dumpster to the pavement beneath the plummeting fashion model, and Piper releases the freeze. Remember what I said earlier about the freeze not destroying an object's forward momentum, except when it does? Here's an example of the latter, for Maya does not in fact explode like some bloody meat sack upon hitting the suspiciously clean and convenient mattress, as one would expect her to do after dropping from so great a height. Maybe she's special. Regardless, The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya also does not greet Glamour Piper with, "Who the hell are you and why do you look exactly like me?" because this show blows, and I want to die. Piper and Raige help The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya to her feet, and the shot cuts over to...
...the Manor's nighttime façade, and I had completely forgotten about the worthless scene that follows. Well, almost worthless scene. Basically, The Retarded Bimbo and The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya share one of those "Yes! Witches really do exist!" conversations we've heard at least three hundred and forty-seven times over the last seven years, before The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya provides The Retard with some information the latter can actually use. "Walter can't stand the fact that he's getting older," The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya explains. "He's, like, paranoid about it." The Retard's jaw goes a little less slack. Just a tiny bit, but it's noticeable. "He does everything he can to pretend it's not happening," The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya continues dismissively, "lifts, Botox, implants -- he even has a manicurist come over every night to keep his nails neat and trim. Like that does any good." The Retard silently arrives at a cunning plan, because she's so smart.
Meanwhile, up in the nonexistent attic, the Glamoured Glamorous Idiots muddle through a few options until The Retarded Bimbo bursts into the nonexistent room to share with them the brilliantly cunning plan that she totally arrived at all on her own down there in the kitchen, because she's so hella smart. The Glamoured Glams ignore her. Heh. The Retard finally captures their attention with another near-ultrasonic shriek and, after name-checking that pawn shop guy The Late Lamented dealt with all those many years ago, The Retard proposes they find inspiration for their current mission in Barbas, The Demon Of Fear Who Was Supposed To Appear Only Once Every Thirteen Hundred Years, Was Vanquished, Then Came Back, Was Vanquished Again, Then Came Back Again, Was Vanquished Again, I Think, And Maybe Came Back One More Time After That To Annoy And Get Vanquished Again, And Even Then Never Really Went Away, As This Exchange Proves. God, I hate Barbas. In any event, The Retard suggests they pretend to be the ghost of The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya and terrorize Nance into a confession by "prey[ing] on Nance's deepest fear." The Manor Morons shoot confused looks at each other, but it's The Retarded Bimbo's vacuous simper that escorts us into the final commercial break.
Lair Of The ADA. The Retarded Bimbo has managed somehow to convince Nance's regular manicurist both to take the night off and to lend The Retard her uniform and kit, apparently, for here The Retard is in the ADA's lair, filing away at one of his fingernails. Funnily enough, I find Kaley Cuoco completely believable as a manicurist. And by that I mean Kaley Cuoco should stop what she's calling acting immediately, get a job in a salon, and never darken our television screens with her vile presence again. Anyway, long story short, The Retard nastily baits Nance about his age before distracting him by zapping him with a glamour that makes it seem as if his hands have aged forty years in less than a second. Well, actually, that's what it's supposed to seem like. What we actually see is Davis Gaines howling in horror as the ninety-year-old extra they hired for this sequence pokes his hands up from his hiding place beneath the bottom of the frame and waves them around in front of the camera. This is an effects shot of first-season levels of badness, people. Anyway, this distraction provides The Retard with just enough time to glamour into Amazing Non-Exploding Maya form, and she taunts at Nance some more before telekinetically flinging him into a nearby full-length mirror. Nance rises to his feet and screams again when he catches sight of his reflection, which is that of that poor, ninety-year-old extra they hired for this sequence. Or maybe it's Aaron Spelling. Just think "repellently wizened" and you'll be fine. In any event, Retard Maya is soon joined by Raige Maya and Phoebe Maya, though Béatrice Rosen makes no attempt to differentiate between the three, and the taunting continues until Nance escapes from his lair onto his terrace. The gals plus The Retard deglam for a second before one of them glams back up and saunters on out to the terrace to push Nance over the edge.
Down in the Dank And Forbidding Alleyway Of Defenestrated Doom, Piper, who'd been standing there waiting for this precise moment, freezes Nance about six feet above the ground. She then unfreezes his head and threatens him with a gory, exploding-bloody-meat-sack type of death should he not recite a full confession into the small recorder she now pulls from her jacket pocket. Nance doesn't answer, but you know he's about to sing like a bird.
Cross-fade to an absolutely glorious, time-wasting closing travelogue of the city at night. Back at the Manor, Piper and the Dolt cuddle on the sofa in the center parlor as Raige arrives from the floor above with news of Nance's arrest and The Amazing Non-Exploding Maya's subsequent exoneration. San Francisco must have one hell of an efficient court system, is all I can say. Piper moans a bit about having to pick out another glamour for herself, but the bright side is, this time she can ensure that her backstory includes a current marriage to Glamour Dolt, which she should have ensured the first goddamned time around, but whatever. And that's about it, really. Odd that this episode's running time was so short, and odder still that Phoebe wasn't present for the Weekly Summation, but I suppose the drastically tightened budget can explain the first, and Evil Brad Kern's entire It's A Whole New Show! approach to this season can explain the second. Still, it's a little disconcerting.
Oh, fine. I'm trying to ignore the hatefully pointless last scene, but if you insist I address it, I'm going to be as brief about it as I possibly can: Phoebe arrives at Vex Pexter's physically impossible garret, where his "art" show is already in progress, and a mild earthquake hits, destroying all of Vex's ugly "sculpture," and Phoebe has A Moment, and then it's over! Closing credits! Yay!
week: Catfight! Have fun!