Episode Report Card Demian: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dolt, Be Not Proud
By Demian | Season 8 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.26.2005
No "Previously" segment on this, Brian Krause's last episode, due to network-mandated budget cuts and certain retarded bimbos I could mention but won't (except for the part where I just did, as I will continue to do throughout the recap), as we fade up on an aerial shot of the Golden Gate's deck with the distant city shimmering in the summer sun until we cut to an overhead of a cable car, before finally cross-fading to the Dolt getting all moist over a "straight six four-speed tranny." No, he's not talking about one of San Francisco's more colorful residents, because we're actually at an antique car lot, and the straight six four-speed tranny belongs to a massive pale-green-and-chrome 1940s-era pickup truck. "Just like the one my grandpa gave me sixty years ago!" the Dolt enthuses. Piper's all, "Inside voice, [Dolt] -- you're barely thirty," and Brian Krause is barely thirty the way I'm barely thirty, which is to say not barely thirty at fucking all, but hey, it's his last episode ever, so maybe I should be nice to the guy. Not. The lot's owner ambles over to toss his sales pitch around a little bit more and, long story short, the wrinkly Dolt convinces the wife that the truck's well worth $9500 of the money they don't have because the club's supposedly on its last legs again and Raige still isn't contributing the Manor's general fund because she's a directionless spastic and Phoebe's minutes away from getting fired because she's been missing work while trying to get knocked up for the last two and half months. This goddamned show. The Dolt plants a sloppy wet one on the wife and heads off with the salesman to start the necessary paperwork. Piper watches him go with a smile that quickly, um, dies, actually, when she swivels her head around to find The Famous Original Angel Of Death standing in the middle of the street, staring at her. Piper's eyes widen and her nostrils flare as a passing car plows straight through Death's spectral body. We get a close-up of his face as he eyes her mildly enough before the camera cuts back over to Piper, who quietly freaks herself right into the opening credits.
Manor. Up in The Prue Halliwell Memorial Bimbo Boudoir Of Paisley Tit Slings And Other Fashion Atrocities, currently occupied by Raige, the lady of the boudoir leaps to her feet and yowls, "What? You saw The Angel Of Death, and you're only telling me this now?" "Well," Piper too-casually shrugs from her perch on the bed, "I didn't want to worry you." Raige works herself into a tizzy, ranting, "The only person that sees him is the person he's coming after," and shut up, Raige. Not a single one of Death's intended targets on this show has ever seen him before they've died. Go ahead, honey, and read the recaps. I dare you to find one person -- one -- who was still non-magically breathing when Death appeared to cart them away. Christ, I hate this show. The two ladies blather needlessly about Death's last visit to the Manor before Piper rather stupidly supposes, "Maybe I just thought I saw him," because she's now the flighty one in the family, I guess, and given to random hallucinations of honest-to-God magical entities. Actually, while her own explanation for the supposed hallucination carries with it a large amount of character continuity, it's not much better than mine. "Maybe I'm doing what I usually do around this point in my life," she explains to a befuddled Raige. "We're demon-light, the boys are happy and healthy, [the Dolt] and I are doing fine, so maybe I'm doing what I always do when everything is going well in my life: I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." She actually started to babble a bit towards the end of that line, sounding, to Raige at least, like a paranoid lunatic. Raige immediately moves to cancel her lunch date with the lovely Ivan Sergei, but Piper shrieks something about Raige not using Piper's "neurosis to justify [her] own" and insists Raige keep her appointment. "You're gonna go," Piper states, rising from the bed, "and if I see Death, I'll call ya." "Fine!" Raige snits. "But if he gets you, I am never talking to you again!" Wah. Wah. Waaaaaah. Piper smirks in amusement as Raige pulls an intentionally exaggerated stink-face and vanishes from the frame.
Meanwhile, over at Not!warts, they've tossed the two women I hate the most together for a scene that's actually important to this evening's plot because somebody on this godawful show's staff evidently wants me dead. I suppose, though, that I should note all four of the primary female characters tonight are wearing black: Raige's dress, Piper's loose top, Phoebe's denim jacket, and The Retarded Bimbo's current demonic slutwear. On this series, that counts as subtlety. In any event, The Retard paces the floor in the center of the Library while Phoebe hides behind a table, and the two whisper at each other about some demon who remains unspecified throughout this bit, but who actually abducted The Retard's stupid sister that nobody cares about all those many years ago. Just then, Phoebe's cell phone rings, and they recycle a joke from last season about killer reception and whatnot before Phoebe answers to find Piper on the other end. After much dithering on Piper's part, she finally admits to Phoebe that she had a Death spotting earlier in the day, and warns Phoebe not to take on any dark demonic sorts until they can figure out what's going on. Too late, for "Reinhardt" is now flaming into the outer hall, all Manson Lamps and bald head and embarrassing facial hair and bizarre tattoos. At least he doesn't have a British accent. Thank heaven for small favors. The Retard lisps her way through the ensuing confrontation, so I'll be skipping ahead to the point where Reinhardt starts kicking her stupid, oddly proportioned ass around the room.