Previously on Charmed, last week.
Currently on Charmed, the camera fades up on the sunnily lit kitchen table, covered with newspaper upon which lie the guts of the pumpkin Piper's busily and quite violently carving into a jack-o'-lantern. Believe it or not, this is only the second Halloween-themed episode this show's aired in eight years. I don't think I'm spoiling anything at this point when I note that the last one, even with the horror that was Cole's Peter Frampton wig, was much, much better. In any event, one of the pieces of newsprint conveniently happens to be the front page of that morning's All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, which is emblazoned with the headline "What's The Big Secret?" above a blurry black and white photograph of the gals from last week's slow-motion strut through the Homeland Security department's San Francisco bureau. "Dang!" Muggy McGowan exclaims after she's entered from the dining room beyond, placed her hands on her hips, widened her eyes, and tugged the corners of her overly rouged lips into a hideous grimace. "What'd that pumpkin ever do to you?" "Nothing!" Piper barks back at her by way of response. "I'm venting!" Before Raige can question Piper on this, the cordless starts bleating on the center island. Raige crosses to answer, but Piper snaps at her lippy bastard of a half-sister to let the thing drop into voicemail. "Oprah's people," you see, have been calling the Manor incessantly, attempting to browbeat the morons therein into appearing on a special La Winfrey's preparing on "lady spies." I can tell you from firsthand experience that La Winfrey's people can be quite persistent, and Piper might possibly be taking her life in her own hands by refusing to return their calls. Pretend you didn't hear that from me, though. Oprah Winfrey scares me more than the dead-eyed Psycho does.
Anyway, Piper's not interested in the offer, nor is she interested in the one from some movie producer who's been trying to buy the rights to the gals' story for a feature film. The Retarded Bimbo lopes into the room at this point to annoy Piper, Raige, and the general audience with her egregious stupidity, lisping line deliveries, and maggot neck. (By the way, no thanks to payndz on the forum boards for pointing said maggot neck out to me. You're banned, dude. Yeesh.) Piper and Raige, however, have the option of ignoring The Retard, an option they enthusiastically embrace to blather around the bleach blonde black hole of suck about the ongoing media scrum resulting from Agent Murphy's press conference. Piper, mindful of what happened the last time the media intruded on their lives, name-checks The Late Lamented while Raige attempts to assure Piper that everything will blow over once the reporters besieging the Manor finally realize there's no real story to be had. Piper's not having that, though, so Raige promises to deal with the reporter problem herself. That should work out well for everyone involved. Not. Idiot.
The Retarded Bimbo chooses this moment to reinsert herself in the conversation by shrieking something about the dark demonic force she'd been "tracking." Seems he's been slaughtering his fellow Hell-sent brethren in order to absorb their powers, and how The Retard would be aware of that detail is beyond my ability to comprehend, so it's fortunate her entire storyline has nothing to do with the main Issues Of The Week and I can skip over every single one of her scenes from now until the end of the hour. Yes, I realize her name appears in the episode title, which would normally indicate that her subplot is the evening's most important, but trust me: It's not. At all. Useless waste of air. At some point during all of this, the doorbell rings. "Trick-or-treaters?" Raige eyebrows. "A day early?" Piper snorts. The ladies rise from the table, and the thing we see is Piper edging warily towards the front door. The instant she's opened it, she's beset by the mob of reporters on the front porch, particularly Seth Parra, the online research guru of All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, who opens by shoving a tape recorder into Piper's face and reciting his paper's front-page headline. Piper, showing remarkable amounts of restraint by not blowing this nosy and tedious fucker up, pushes the door shut in the guy's face before gritting through clenched teeth, "We're screwed." She gnaws on her lower lip for a moment before vanishing into the opening credits.
Fade up on the Manor façade. Up in the dining room, Piper sits in front of a mountain of candy she's rather anally separating into bowls by type. Something about avoiding inadvertent allergic reactions amongst the aggravating brats set to receive the stuff the following evening. Don't ask. Raige bounces into the main hall from above to announce she's figured out a way "to get the press off of [their] broomsticks." Before she can reveal the specifics, however, she shrieks and dances around a bit at the sight of three suspiciously clean-looking rats darting along the wainscoting. The stench of the wacky Wiccan hijinks that permeates the dining room at this moment is so great, even a twitchy dimwit like Raige can pick up on it, and so she demands, "Where did they come from?" "The San Francisco Chronicle," Piper too casually enumerates, "the Daily News, and the Enquirer," and I find myself wondering what the Chronicle ever did to Brad Kern to get itself thrown in with the latter two tabloids. We know he prides himself on his vindictiveness, after all. In any event, off Raige's horrified expression, Piper shrugs, "I found them nosing around the garbage." "So you turned them into rodents?" Raige cries. "Well, I could have blown them up!" Piper counters. Raige eventually drops the matter to perch on one of the chairs and fill Piper in on the details of her cunning plan: Phoebe's to convince Seth that the Manor Morons' lives are deathly dull. That shouldn't be too difficult. Even for an imbecile like Phoebe. Once Seth realizes there's no story to be found, he'll "hopefully go away and take all of the lemming reporters with him." Because the Chronicle, the Daily News, and the Enquirer all take their cues from some hack at All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Brilliant plan, Raige. The idiot makes some tiresome remark about being "the Pied Piper of Prescott Street" before ordering Piper to restore the reporter rats to their natural forms. "You're no fun," Piper growls, but she does rise from the table to comply. She shoos the vermin through the sun porch and into the side garden before flipping a green potion vial after them. The rats flash back into their human selves -- off-screen, of course, because of this show's drastically reduced effects budget -- before the camera catches their visible confusion. Piper shrilly berates them for trespassing.
As Piper turns to reenter the dining room, the frantic Dolt pushes himself through the mob at the front door to enter the foyer with a brown paper grocery sack and a panicked expression on his face. Why no one in the house calls the police to have the reporters removed from the property is beyond me. Hell, why no one from the neighborhood association's bitched up one side of City Hall and down the other about the media's incursion onto Prescott Street is beyond me. At the very least, you'd think the redoubtable Mrs. Noble, who actually had Phoebe shot in the tits over a parking space, would have been all over this whole goddamned thing days ago. Whatever. I'm so over it at this point. In any event, the Dolt splutters something outraged about the reporters as a blithe Raige, on her way out the door, assures him she has the problem well in hand. Once she's disappeared into the scrum, the Dolt joins Piper in the dining room to mope that the wretched bitches at The Psycho's Preschool Of The Damned are treating the Dolt like a leper because they all think he's married to a spy, which makes as little sense as the continued presence of a hundred and eighty-seven reporters blocking the Manor's front door, so we'll move on to the point where Piper shrews at him for buying candy corn, which, she asserts, "no one likes." Point to the shrew. That shit is disgusting, Dolt. ["True, but I can still eat it by the pound. Mmm, candy corn." -- Sars] He ignores me to moan that the store had sold out of every other option. Piper instantly orders him "somewhere else" to get more. "More?" the Dolt pouts. "We have twelve bags! That's more than we gave out all last year!" Considering the fact that at this time last year you were all far too busy jumping into Bizarro World while the Snidelys were trying to off The Psychos -- not to mention Big Gay Chris getting stabbed while Piper nearly bled to death giving birth to his tiny gay self -- I'm surprised any of you had time to worry about Halloween at all, Dolt, but maybe that's just me being far too aware of when things are actually supposed to be happening on this dreadful piece of garbage. After all, the events of last season's finale were to have taken place the day after Tiny Gay Chris's aborted first birthday party, which means we should be in late December at this point, but whatever, because this show sucks, and I want to die.
ANYWAY, Piper shrills something about ensuring that her kids have a normal Halloween if it's the last thing she does, which leads the Dolt to protest that the kids are less than three years old, which means they won't remember it anyway. "You know what?" Piper shoots back. "I will." Hmmm. Don't I remember Piper arguing the Dolt's point when they cancelled poor, neglected, and doomed Tiny Gay Chris's party in the wake of the Timbie's vengeful return from beyond the grave? Yeah. I do remember that. Shut the fuck up, Piper. She ignores me. They always ignore me. Piper shrews some more at her Dolt of a husband, just so we can set up their ridiculous fight later in the episode, and the long-suffering Dolt slouches out of the frame.
"Piper is freaking out!" Raige insists over in Phoebe's office at All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Phoebe, who's staring bleakly out the window, mumbles something in response that Raige barely acknowledges in favor of babbling on and on about exposure and whatnot until Phoebe cuts through all of that crap to wonder if Vex Pexter has called the Manor. Phoebe hasn't spoken to the guy since she revealed her bitchcraft to him, you see, and she's getting worried she'll never hear from him again. And since this is Jason Lewis's last contracted episode, she's very nearly right. It also means I can ignore this subplot, too. Wow. Raige's better be awesome, otherwise I'll have absolutely nothing to write about tonight. In any event, Raige fills Phoebe in on her brilliant plan to get the reporters off the Manor Morons' collective back. Phoebe's eyebrow shoots into the air when Raige mentions Seth's name, and she assures The Lippy Spastic that Seth won't back away from this story so easily. Seems he once wrote a mafia exposé for "the Times" -- and I'm just going to guess we're talking Los Angeles, here -- in the process outing one of his sources, a hooker named Carol Flowers who was subsequently whacked. The death continues to haunt him, apparently, and it's also some sort of asinine motivation for him to hound the Glamorous Ladies until he finds out what's really going on. Yeah, I don't get it, either. Well, aside from realizing that it's just plain lazy writing on the typewriting crackmonkeys' part to push so clichéd a backstory onto the Seth character. Just note that Raige thinks "the haunting could be good for [the Manor Morons]" and leave it at that. Phoebe -- still oddly preoccupied, and seemingly about Seth, from Raige's perspective, at least -- begs off until Raige finally demands to know what's really going on. Turns out Phoebe's Issue Of The Week has absolutely nothing to do with her colleague at the paper. "I'm pregnant," Phoebe eventually admits. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe Seth is involved in all of this. Raige, gobsmacked at this news, collapses onto the sofa in Phoebe's office and asks, "[Vex]?" "No," Phoebe wearily replies, "some guy I met at the gas station," and to be honest with you, it wasn't until Phoebe dropped the forlorn act and peevishly added, "Yes, of course [Vex]!" that I realized she wasn't kidding. For Phoebe is a brazen hussy. Seems the Feebs whizzed up a stick that morning and got a positive result, though given how stupid everyone on this show is, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she misread the damn thing. Raige, however, instantly accepts the news as gospel, and offers her trampy hag of a half-sister a sympathetic smile while inappropriately joking, "Well, the hits just keep on coming!"
"And so do demons," tonight's dark demonic force sent from the flaming maw of Hell replies in one of those call-and-response transitions I enjoy so much. "But instead of fighting them," he continues, "I plan on leading them." He's speaking from the depths of the Not!warts library, and because he doesn't get an actual name for another half an hour, and because they've saddled this pathetic actor with a Phantom Of The Opera half-mask and cape for this evening's festivities, I'll be calling him The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot until told otherwise. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because I think the character's actual name is Calgon. Oh, what? Don't look at me like that. We're well into the eighth year of this, people. You knew they were going to have to start naming these losers after over-the-counter spa treatments sooner or later. This is the show that christened one of its Big Bads for a chicken shack, after all. I wouldn't put anything past these jackholes at this point. Anyway, long story short, tonight's Nefarious Demonic Plot For World Domination involves The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot sporking other demons in order to suck up their varied powers until he's amassed enough to assume control of the Underworld, which is in desperate need of a new leader now that the Charmed Ones have emerged from hiding. And because we've seen this plot point play out at least forty-three times since the fourth season, it's safe to say The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot is going to fail miserably long before the end of the hour, right? And...that's pretty much all anyone needs to know about all this, I suppose. Well, except perhaps for the fact that The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot's primary henchdemon is an Aberzombie frathead clad in a cheap black sweatshirt with a matching choker around his neck. No, I'm not kidding with that. Lousy show, with its lousy budget for this lousy season.
Eh, whatev. As The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot blathers on and on in the library, the camera cuts over to The Retarded Bimbo, who's redonned her purloined demonic togs from two weeks ago for another jaunt over to Not!warts. "Who are you?" a guard demands as she wiggles her oddly proportioned body down the outer hall past Snidely's old office. "Shhh!" she lisps. "I don't want them to hear." "Hear what?" the lamebrain guard wonders. "This!" hisses The Retard as she clamps a hand over the guy's mouth and shoves an athame into his stomach. The veil of flame that erupts to engulf his body actually scorches The Retard's hand, which is something I don't think we've ever seen before. Not that we ever did need to see it, but just so you know. The Retard winces in pain for a moment before retrieving three vanquishing vials from...the pocket of her painted-on black pants? The hell? Whatever. She approaches the open library doors just in time to overhear The Phantom sneer something dismissive about his victim. The Phantom does emphasize his point with a snapping flourish of his cape, though, and this simple action is enough to hurl The Retard into some sort of brief acid flashback: A black, Nosferatu-like shadow suddenly unfolds on the wall of a little girl's bedroom as the bedroom's French doors slam open. A gust of wind extinguishes the candle in a nearby jack-o'-lantern. The little girl's screams zap us back to The Retard's vacant, slackjawed expression, and The Retard's apparently so unsettled by the experience that she accidentally drops the vials to the hallway floor. Their subsequent clatter catches the attention of The Phantom and his minion, who hit the hallway just in time to hear The Retard's footsteps echo away in the distance, and wow. The Phantom's actually wearing nothing more ominous under that cape of his than a black turtleneck. And now that I'm getting a good look at the cape itself, in fact, it's become clear that the show's costuming budget was completely vaporized this season. It's as if they dyed a tablecloth and stapled a couple of strands of ribbon onto two of the corners so this loser could tie it around his neck. Eeesh. Anyway, The Phantom spots the vials on the floor and stretches out a hand -- a hand that's wearing the exact same rubberized claw fingers we last saw on Big Gay Chris when he fell under The Spider Woman's influence and kicked some massive Dolt ass. The Phantom flicks a little telekinetic mojo at the bottles, and they zip into his palm. Yawn.
Vex Pexter's Physically Impossible Garret, and they've finally slung Jason Lewis into a beater. What the hell took them so long? His shoulders should have gotten their own line in tonight's guest scroll. God knows I'm paying more attention to them than I am to the scene that follows: Phoebe arrives and, during the subsequent conversation, reveals that their ridiculous marriage has been annulled. The two also, shockingly enough, make passing reference to the lottery incident from the beginning of the first season. Vex finally wonders why she stopped by, and Phoebe, heaving a tremendous and shakily nervous sigh, suggests they head outside for some fresh air while she explains the reason for her visit.
Not happening. Seth Parra, along with a teeming horde of reporters, has taken the elevator up to the hallway outside Vex's physically impossible garret, and he peppers the couple with inappropriate questions about their relationship the second they emerge through the door. Vex quietly locks himself in his garret while Phoebe splutters and gapes.
Manor Kitchen. Piper dumps something into the bubbling pot on the stove and, after the expected sparks and smoke dissipate, siphons more of what I'm assuming is her green rat potion into a vial while Phoebe blathers on endlessly about her relationship issues that no one cares about because this is Jason Lewis's last contracted episode. Pity, really, because the two actresses really play this scene well with each other, but seriously. No one cares about the guy who's permanently off the show in another forty-five minutes, right? The upshot of the entire worthless scene is that Piper suggests Phoebe contact Vex through Phoebe's dimwitted advice column, as that seems to be Phoebe's only option at the moment. Or something. I'm seriously not paying attention at all to any of this crap, so it's rather a good thing that The Retarded Bimbo arrives at this point to put a stop to it. And those are pretty much guaranteed to be the only kind words I have for The Retard tonight. Not to mention her maggoty neck. Ew.
The Retard lies about what happened at Not!warts and exits towards the stairs. Piper and Phoebe, instantly suspicious, trail along after her, wondering what gives. The Retard dodges their questions for a bit but eventually sighs and perches on the stairwell's lower landing to admit that she just froze up and accidentally left the vanquishes she had with her at Not!warts, all because The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot tossed her into a bizarre déjà vu for some reason. She insists she's fine, but Piper and the Feebs clearly have their doubts, especially when The Retard zones out yet again when she catches sight of one of the Manor's jack-o'-lanterns at the far end of the center parlor. Piper sends The Retard upstairs to take care of the latter's singed hand, and doesn't even wait until The Retard's made it to the second floor to voice her reservations regarding The Retard's competence. Phoebe just as loudly admits they might be making a huge mistake in relying on The Retard before the two gossipy Ps retreat into the kitchen. God knows I'm no fan of The Retard, ladies, but still. Rude! The Retard has the good grace to look mortified before continuing her hike up the stairs. She eventually ends up in the nonexistent attic and hustles over to the Book of Shadows for a little abuse. The Retard flips quickly to a page entitled "To Erase Painful Memories" and, after muttering, "Here goes nothing!" to herself, reads the following spell aloud:
After this cruel memory is seen and said,
Erase these thoughts from my heart and my head.
The Retard glows as the spell takes effect right before it hurls her into a replay of the flashback we saw earlier. Once she snaps out of it, The Retard lisps, "Time to go kick ssssome assssss!" and darts out of the frame into the first commercial break. I hope she trips and breaks her maggot neck on the stairs.
P3. Raige leads Seth Parra into the darkened nightclub and lies that he needs to back off, pronto, because the gals are still working on a case for the government. Seth calls her on her bullshit, but Raige won't let it drop, warning him that should he continue with his line of inquiry, innocent people might be hurt. "Not my responsibility," he callously shrugs. "Like Carol Flowers wasn't your responsibility?" Raige snots. He shoots her a "bitch, please" look that Raige smacks right off of his face by magically transforming herself for the briefest of moments into the pallid, reanimated corpse of the presumably long-dead hooker in question. That was actually a fairly well done effects shot. Seth's clearly rattled, but regains his composure long enough to mutter, "Screw you," before spinning around to race up the club's stairs two at a time. "You know we're never gonna talk!" Raige calls out, but he's already gone.
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Phoebe, taking Piper's earlier advice, has her long-suffering non-Mary Cherry assistant halt production on the evening edition so she can alter her column to include a thinly veiled message to Vex that nobody cares about because he's gone after this episode. The scene also involves a massive amount of ass-kissing from Phoebe's assistant, so we'll be skipping ahead to the point where Seth arrives from his confrontation with Raige to accuse Phoebe of having some sort of role in what just happened. "Just so you know," he vows, "all you and your sisters just did was make things worse for you." Seth storms out of the frame as Phoebe sucks in lungfuls of air, attempting to process the news. After a moment, Phoebe regally commands her assistant to "get one of [her] sisters on the phone." Phoebe's assistant does not reply, "Dial the number yourself, you lazy hag!" because Phoebe's pathetic assistant is even more of a doormat than Darryl was, apparently. Scene.
Manor. The Dolt, aggressively sucking on a lollipop, carelessly and haphazardly dumps about fifteen bags of candy onto the dining room table before loping towards the stairs, hitting the lower landing just as The Retarded Bimbo comes flying down from above by sliding on the banister. And...that's about it, really. The Dolt's all pouty because Piper's treating him like a slave, or something, but I totally don't care about that, and The Retard's overly enthusiastic about going after The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot because she's filled with some sort of false overconfidence due to the spell. Whatever! Scene.
We get a brief nighttime shot of the city before heading into a dank and forbidding alleyway littered with trash, and by "trash" I do indeed mean "The Retarded Bimbo." "Marco!" The Retard calls out. When she receives no response, she snots, "You're supposed to say, 'Polo.'" Not funny, Retard. Shut up. The Retard ambles through the alleyway, yelling that "Dogon" might as well uncloak himself, because she knows he's there. The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot and his frathead henchdude eventually comply. Long story short, after some menacing threats on The Phantom's part and some aggravatingly lispy ones on The Retard's, the henchdude shouts, "Kill her!" "Not yet," The Phantom insists, raising his Chris Of The Spider Woman claw into the air. This of course whips The Retard into another goddamned flashback that involves a Freddy Krueger glove slicing through the upper mattress on the blonde girl's bunk bed before a black-clad figure flies out of the bedroom's banging French doors. By the time The Retard snaps out of it, The Phantom's flipped some more telekinetic mojo at the vanquishing vials she'd held in her hand, and they've zipped through the air into his fist. "You seem to have a little trouble holding onto these," The Phantom teases, wiggling the vials around while the henchdude smirks in the blurry background of the shot. The Retard freaks and scampers towards the alleyway's exit, but is forced face-first into the asphalt when The Phantom hurls a Flaming Ball Of Death she must dive to avoid. The Retard tosses one more frightened look at the demon before scrambling out of the frame. The Phantom and his henchdude sneer at each other before recloaking themselves by vanishing into the commercial break. After four whole minutes of actual show since the last one. Way to go, WB.
All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me. Phoebe, pensive. Vex, apologetic. Me, not caring. Basically, they break up for good. I think. Oh, come on. You know it has to happen sooner or later tonight, and I'd much rather it be sooner. Vex does, however, make an excellent point when he calls Phoebe on all of her elevator-premonition-related crap thus far this season. Unfortunately, I can't explain to you what that point is, because I keep falling asleep during this scene. BORING!
Nonexistent Attic. The Retarded Bimbo rushes in to re-recite that "Painful Memories" spell from earlier, but pulls herself up short when she finds Raige at the Book's stand, performing a little abuse of her own. The Retard lies and lies and lies until Raige has finally left the room, then hastens to the Book. Once she finishes rereading the appropriate verse -- and by the way, she's misread the second part of the spell twice in a row now by omitting the second "my," because Kaley Cuoco apparently can't remember her lines even when they're printed in two-inch-tall letters on a massive sheet of parchment one foot from her face -- she glows and is again thrown into her flashback, which is a little more detailed this time: We can now see that the black-clad figure has a little brunette in his arms. The Retard gasps and flips her hair around.
The camera cuts to a darkened bedroom, where a rather masculine-looking alarm clock reads 11:52. The shot cuts once to take in a half-empty bottle of liquor, then again to show us a cluttered desk and a crowded bookshelf, and already this scene feels like it belongs in an entirely different episode. The camera eventually shows us Seth sprawled atop his bed asleep as Raige arrives on a cloud of orbs to fuck with the poor guy's head. She glances around the room for a second, then downs a vial of some unidentified substance. Bright white rays erupt from her body, and when the screen clears, we see that she's glamoured herself into the spectral form of Seth's dead hooker. I'd wonder why the hell she needed a goddamned potion for that when glamouring is one of her base powers as a Whitelighter, but the effects in this scene are decent for the first time this season, so I'm not going to quibble about the minor details. Dead Hooker Raige eyes Seth's sleeping form for a moment before spinning around and screaming, "Windows!" Her orbing telekinesis sends said windows crashing shut in their sashes. Seth snaps awake at the sudden noise and flips around to gape at Dead Hooker Raige in abject terror. As she rises into the air, Seth starts to bellow for help, but Dead Hooker Raige orbs a wadded-up sock into the guy's mouth. She telekinetically orbs a couple of belts from the dresser to the bed, lashing the now-mute Seth to his headboard. Dead Hooker Raige then launches herself into a screamy, echoing tirade against Seth and his complete lack of journalistic ethics, and I've got to hand it to Laura Milby, because she's clearly having a hell of a time playing up the campy, B-movie horror aspect of this haunting scene. Dead Hooker Raige finishes up her rant with the following warning: "If you ever hurt anybody again, I'll be back for yoooooou!" On that last word, the spectrally rotting Mafia prostitute flies headlong into the camera. At the last instant, her features distort horribly, with her eyes darkening black and bulging to expand across the top half of her face while her mouth turns into a gaping, fanged maw. It really is very well done. Pity we had to sit through all of that useless garbage with Phoebe, Vex, and The Retarded Bimbo to get to it, and pity that it's pretty much the highlight of the entire evening. Yep, it's all downhill from here, gang.
Starting with the very godawful bit, in fact. Back at the Manor, The Retarded Bimbo hits the main stairwell's lower landing and then, for no reason whatsoever, vaults herself into a slow-motion backflip over the banister to land in the foyer below. Asshole. She vanishes through the front door to head back over to...
...that earlier alleyway, where The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot is pushing a terrified-looking blonde thing out of her flip-flops and up a brick wall with his Chris Of The Spider Woman claw, and this makes absolutely no fucking sense at all. No, I'm not talking about someone wearing flip-flops in San Francisco in October, though that's asinine in and of itself. I'm actually referring to what happens after the blonde morphs into demonic form. The demon The Phantom has by the neck vows, "I'll see you in The Waste Land!" before glowing purple and simply vanishing into The Phantom's Chris Of The Spider Woman claw, and no you won't, you jackass, because first of all...oh fuck it. There are only so many times in one season that I can rant about a particular continuity fuck up -- the number of said times being one -- and I covered The Waste Land two episodes ago. Long story short, The Retarded Bimbo arrives to annoy every single living thing on the planet with her lisping and her attitude and her maggoty neck and sweet Jesus, I want to die, but first I suppose I have to tell you that she hurls one of the vanquishing vials at The Phantom, who telekinetically slings it over into his henchdude's chest. Sayonara, henchdude. The Phantom then whips another Flaming Ball Of Death, but The Retard pulls an annoying, Matrix-y dodge to avoid the thing before pitching vial after vial at The Phantom's torso. The last bottle to shatter seems to finish him off, and a triumphant Retard simpers out of the alleyway.
Not!warts Library, and D'OH! The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot's simply made a tactical retreat, you see. "I've got a score to settle!" he seethes, after flambéing one of his remaining henchdemons and sending the other two fleeing from the room. That might be true, but first you have to vanish into another commercial break, doll.
Manor parlor, the following morning, and Phoebe's unfettered Fun Bags are vibrating lewdly beneath a grey-toned tube top and I certainly can't take anymore of that, and Raige is no goddamned help at all when she squeezes past the reporters who are still in a gangbang on the front porch even though they should have been arrested for trespassing yesterday, and what the hell have these two women been babbling at each other about for the last five minutes? Oh, yeah: Raige's little stunt last night in Seth's bedroom has had quite the unintended effect of leading him to ramp up his printed speculations and accusations, as evidenced by that morning's headline in All The News That's Fit To Fuck Me, which he would have written last night before he left the office to head back to his cluttered bachelor flat to suck down half a bottle of whiskey and pass out in his cold and lonely bed, so SHUT UP, SHOW. In other news, Vexzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The Dolt enters during all of this with an angry red bruise on his face and stomps off into the kitchen to yell at Piper. Raige, meanwhile, decides to "call in the big guns," and orbs out through the ceiling. Phoebe gazes sadly into her coffee cup before the shot cuts back into the kitchen, where the Dolt's just admitted he got all manly at The Preschool Of The Damned and punched out a photographer who'd pushed his camera into The Psycho's face. Piper, flabbergasted, icily wonders what he thought he would accomplish through such action. "I was trying to protect our son!" he cries, and Dolt, really. If anyone needed protection in that situation, it was the foolish photographer who dared assault that dead-eyed serial killer you've been harboring in your home for the last two years. The Dolt gets all pouty again and starts spouting some garbage about being powerless, like, it was your choice, honey, so zip it. Piper hasn't a clue what's gotten into him and says as much, so the Dolt stomps out of the room in a huffy snit. "Don't you walk away from me!" Piper shrews, storming after him. "Watch me," the off-screen Dolt grumbles. Heh.
High atop the Golden Gate Bridge, Raige bellows at the sky until the ever-useless Elder who threatened Daddy Dearest's life in the season premiere orbs in for a chat. Basically, Raige demands that he and his ever-useless brethren do whatever they can to get the Glamorous Ladies out of their current mess. He politely and patiently refuses -- not because the Elders have cut themselves off from the Manor Morons, as one might expect, but because, he argues, "the answers to [their] problems are not magical." "Everyone's after an amazing story, aren't they?" he prompts. "An extraordinary one? Just show them how ordinary you are. They'll go away." This counsel obviously leads Raige to stumble across a cunning plan, but she remains silent regarding its details for now.
Meanwhile, back at the Manor, Piper and the Dolt have retired to the Bridal Boudoir to piss and moan at each other. The Dolt's bruise from all of thirty seconds ago has gone missing for this scene, and as a result, all interest I might have had in what they're screaming at each other has left as well. This stupid show. Long, long bitchfest short, the Dolt's suddenly annoyed with the fact that he's turned into Mr. Mom while Piper's been off running the nightclub, and I have no idea where any of this is coming from, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that they're getting rid of Brian Krause after ten episodes this season and so must transform his character into a churlish lout so we won't miss him that much once he's gone. Or something like that. Hey, they pulled that crap with every other male character they've eliminated from the show, so why not him as well? Okay, so maybe they didn't do it to Andy, and Big Gay Chris managed to escape with his dignity intact, but Jack and Dan from the second season? Cole? Chronic The Hedgehog, Slampiece Buttfuck, and Secretly INSANE Brody? Yes. To all of them. And we mustn't forget the wildly out-of-character stupidification of Hot Zankou that preceded his exit. God, I hate this show.
And while I've been carrying on about the departed gentleman callers, the scene's abruptly shifted to the foyer, where Raige is allowing all of the reporters from the front porch into the Manor proper for a tour. You see, upon receiving the ever-useless Elder's advice atop the bridge, she decided her best course of action would be to show the media how dull the sisters' mortal lives actually are, and I have to admit it's a brilliant plan if only because I've been made painfully aware over the last six years just how dreadfully boring these tedious women are when left to their own devices. After exchanging a few non-witty remarks with Seth, Raige heads into the main hall to announce, "The house was built in 1898 -- we're actually the third generation to own it," and Raige, you ignorant slut. The present Manor was built in 1906 and had been occupied by Grams Of Grams, Pre-Piper, Grams, and TEETH! before you and your idiot half-sisters came along to destroy the very reason for its existence in the first place. Gaaaaaah. A visibly distraught Phoebe emerges from the kitchen at this point, so Raige excuses herself from the impromptu tour for a moment to learn that Phoebe's retaken the EPT and learned the first result was apparently a false positive, which seemingly each and every single woman on the forum boards (but really only the lovely and talented Summer16) has noted is an impossibility, because home pregnancy tests are designed in such a way as to allow for false negatives only, so once again, SHUT UP, SHOW, and I can't believe the typewriting crackmonkeys actually get paid -- and paid well, mind you -- to write this shit. God!
ANY-way, where was I? Oh, yeah: Raige returns to her tour, and the scene cuts back up to the Bridal Boudoir, where Piper eventually howls at her husband, "What would you like me to do about the fact that your life SUCKS?!" just as Raige flings open the door to achieve the maximum possible embarrassment for the bickering marrieds therein. After a few tart words with her half-sister, Raige stupidly leads her group up to the nonexistent attic without first ensuring the Book of Shadows has been stowed away. Fool. She blocks it from view with her body, however, as she points out the various bits of junk in the nonexistent room. Seth finally throws in the towel and, muttering, "Let's go -- there's no story here," at long last exits with the other journos for good. Once they've left, Raige fixes her attention on the open Book, notes the spell The Retard had apparently cast upon herself, and races into the upper stairwell while growling a few choice words to herself.
Down in the upper hall, Raige skitters over to Piper and the Dolt, who'd been lounging around watching the departing media types shuffle past. "[Retard's] in trouble!" Raige pants. "Again."
I'll say. Over in The Retarded Bimbo's dorm room, The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot has just heaved the room's maggoty-necked occupant through a desk. He howls about how he's come too far to let some bimbo simp ruin everything for him, before pitching a fit when Raige quite unexpectedly orbs into the room to latch onto the somewhat injured Retard and orb right back out with her. The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot KHAAAAANs his way into the commercial break.
Nonexistent Attic. Aftermath. Raige brews something nasty in the potions pot as Phoebe dabs at the gouge beneath The Retard's eye with a wet cloth. Meanwhile, Piper's pacing the floor, fretting once more about exposure and whatnot. Long story short, the Glamorous Gals and the audience at long last learn what The Retard's annoying flashbacks are really about, and I've been through this Overcoming Childhood Trauma To Become A Fully Functioning Member Of Magikal Society storyline way too many times to give a shit about this now. And if I didn't give a rat's ass about The Retard, I care even less about her abducted older sister, who's the real focus of The Retard's tale of woe. You see, one Halloween night long, long ago, a black-eyed and goateed demon with tribal tattoos scarring his face came flying into the bedroom the little blonde Retard shared with her older brunette sister and, after tearing through the sister's bunk with his Freddy Krueger glove, flew right back out with the brunette in his arms. Back in the present, The Retard wails that her parents refused to believe her when she told them what happened, and insisted her older sister had been kidnapped by some entirely random and very human weirdo. That's some excellent parenting skills, there. Just as The Retard finishes her story, The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot smears into the nonexistent room and snatches at her throat with his Chris Of The Spider Woman claw. "Move and she dies," he threatens. So what does Piper do? Move, of course. I don't know whether to laugh because she obviously wants to be rid of this bleached blonde annoyance for good, or to cry because everyone on this show is so miserably stupid. In any event, Piper quickly presses the just-completed vanquish Raige had been working on into The Retard's hand right before The Phantom smears away with her. "What now?" Raige gapes. "We trust her," Phoebe replies, because Phoebe wants her dead as much as Piper does, apparently.
Not!warts. The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot smears into the library and pitches The Retarded Bimbo across the marble floor. After making with the threats and sneering at each other and such, The Retard at long last flings the vial into The Phantom's mouth (don't ask) where it shatters (don't ask) to send him blazing on his merry way down to The Waste Land. Without his mask, which spins around in the air for a bit before falling to the floor. What. EVER. The simpering Retard tosses her hair right into...
...the Closing Travelogue, which eventually escorts us over to Vex Pexter's physically impossible garret, and GOODBYE, VEX. No, seriously. JUST GO. Phoebe arrives and admits she thought she was pregnant for all of five minutes, and the two decide "to take things slow." Which will translate into Phoebe tossing off a throwaway line week about Vex moving to Seattle. Joy. Is it over? Oh, thank God.
Back at the Manor, Raige and Piper answer the ringing doorbell to find a passel of demanding brats on the front porch, and for the first time this episode, not one of them has a press pass. Piper and Raige faux-marvel over the ankle-biters' costumes for a bit before Raige allows the little monsters to take as much candy as they want. Piper, by the way, is wearing The Psycho's mouse ears from two weeks ago with accompanying eyeliner whiskers around the blackened tip of her nose, while Raige sports a furry halo above her head with a bright red spot of rouge on each cheek. Easily swiping the award for best costume, however, is New And Supposedly Improved Tiny Gay Chris, who's swimming in a star-spangled, midnight blue velvet wizard outfit with matching conical cap. Tiny Gay Chris only gets more adorable when Piper, returning to the parlor after dispatching with the foul little beasts on the front porch, removes his cap to reveal he's got a chronic case of Static Hair. Awwwwww. I still much prefer the big gay version, though. Anyway, Piper and Raige collapse onto the sofa to process through the various Issues Of The Week, and it's all so terribly boring, what with Piper's ridiculous and suddenly appearing marital difficulties and Raige's idiotic solution to the reporter problem that nevertheless worked, but most especially with The Retarded Bimbo's sister issues. Yawn. And why aren't we fading to black already? They're not really going to end the episode with The Retard in question, are they?
Damn their black hearts. Over in her dorm room, The Retarded Bimbo, face still marred from her earlier run-in with The Phantom Of The Crappy Subplot, gazes silently at a framed photo of herself with her sister in happier times, and I so do not care about either of them. I will note, however, that Kaley Cuoco looks far better with her hair pulled back from her face, though with the excessive eye makeup she's sporting in this scene, she bears an eerie resemblance to the dear departed Adriana from The Sopranos. I'm not entirely certain, but I'm pretty sure that's not much of a compliment. As the camera pulls away from The Retard's troubled face, we finally fade to black.
week, Piper and the Dolt switch bodies and scream at each other. It looked fairly amusing the first time I saw the promo, but upon subsequent reairings, I noticed that Krause-As-Piper-In-The-Dolt was pulling the same sort of swishy fey thing he yanked from his ass back when he was Krause-As-SlutEssence-In-The-Dolt during "Coyote Piper," and if that's the case, I'm going to have to kick him until he's dead. But you all be sure to have fun, okay?