Masochism 1o1- P3Nathan's Season 8 Rewatch

[Deleted]

Say goodbye to P3, for this is the last time we'll see it.  Since they had no money for new sets, they had to tear P3 down to make room for Phoebe's pointless loft. 

I can't blame Kaley for bursting into tears during this episode when she saw that horrible costume.  Thankfully, she went on to bigger and better things after this debacle was over.

We meet today’s villain at Notwarts. Klea, from The Brotherhood of the Thorn, apparently grew tired of all her male teammates getting their a$$es killed. So she went solo to do some man hating. Okay so no, this isn’t really Klea… Jennifer Tung is playing a much stupider character for us this time round. Her name is Zira and she’s a sorceress working for the latest black-wearing demonic nobody. She’s sick of working for him and thinks women should rule; by which she means she should rule, of course.

Jennifer Tung could have played Klea again, because we never saw what happened to her at the end of the Brotherhood episode.  Of course, that would mean that the later seasons writers had some sense of continuity.   But we know that ship sailed long ago.

Paige is trying to help some kid named Speed, but Henry shows up and arrests him. Yay, Henry. Finally, something good out of this season.

Yeah, this was Henry's first episode.  He was the only thing good about it.

Billie turns up at college for her mid-term exam with only 20 minutes left. She calls her professor a pig for having the audacity to not give an A+ to someone who didn’t bother to show up and then the belt’s mojo kicks in and starts a riot between the men and women.

It's a wonder she didn't get expelled for this. 

[Deleted]

Jennifer Tung could have played Klea again, because we never saw what happened to her at the end of the Brotherhood episode.  Of course, that would mean that the later seasons writers had some sense of continuity.   But we know that ship sailed long ago.

Yeah it's a shame actually, I thought Klea was much cooler, I wouldn't have minded knowing what became of her. I daresay she'd make quick work of Zira any day.

It's a wonder she didn't get expelled for this. 

I know, usually your name has to begin with a 'P' if you want to get away without any consequences or accountability in life. Strange.

[Deleted]

I thought Klea was much cooler, I wouldn't have minded knowing what became of her. I daresay she'd make quick work of Zira any day.

I wonder if anyone pointed out to Kern that he was using the same actor as before.  One could wonder why Klea lost most of her intelligence and changed her name.

[Chrisaholic]

I don't know this whole episode about Yin and Yang, and that women and men should balance each other out. However, it doesn't seem to work for the sisters, especially Piper. Just look at her relationship with Leo over the years and how poorly it was executed sometimes. Anyway, the new "sport" for Phoebe seems to be: get pregnant with whatever man! Yikes! Clearly, a repeat of S6 in her development. Not fun!! At least there's one man who's finally introduced to Paige: Henry Mitchell. I so love them together!!

[Melinda Halliwell]

Dec 23, 2015 12:40:34 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

I wonder if anyone pointed out to Kern that he was using the same actor as before.  One could wonder why Klea lost most of her intelligence and changed her name.

I wondered that myself actually but then some actors played more than one character in the past anyway like Aviva's aunt who played Elise and Brian Thompson who was Cronus and one of the Horseman so Jennifer playing Klea and then another person a few years later didn't surprise me really.

[Darkhorse Christian]

Dec 23, 2015 16:02:28 GMT -5 Melinda Halliwell said:

Dec 23, 2015 12:40:34 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

I wonder if anyone pointed out to Kern that he was using the same actor as before.  One could wonder why Klea lost most of her intelligence and changed her name.

I wondered that myself actually but then some actors played more than one character in the past anyway like Aviva's aunt who played Elise and Brian Thompson who was Cronus and one of the Horseman so Jennifer playing Klea and then another person a few years later didn't surprise me really.

Jackie is her first name and Elise is her middle name, the Source and the Seer cloned the Horsemen from Titans, and Zira is Klea's overzealous twin sister. That's my story with those.

P.S. Kat, I don't know how often you look at your PMs, but there's something in there you might wanna see…

[Deleted]

Jackie is her first name and Elise is her middle name

Could be twin sisters

[West]

I have been away for the past month, since my last surviving grandparent passed away, and It wasn't the right time to come online here.

But today I felt like coming on for a little bit and I'm so pleased to see reviews, and they have continued.

Kern is from Mars, Billie is from Venus, I so love this. That made me laugh out loud. Very true.

I forgot P3 was last seen in Battle of the Hexes. I always thought the last time it was shown was in The Jung and the Restless. I'm glad though, I wished Piper's restaurant took off in season 8, although personally I wished it started as far back as season 2 than starting a club. But thats a whole different debate we all discussed on here ages ago.

[Deleted]

Dec 27, 2015 8:33:24 GMT -5 West said:

I forgot P3 was last seen in Battle of the Hexes. I always thought the last time it was shown was in The Jung and the Restless. I'm glad though, I wished Piper's restaurant took off in season 8, although personally I wished it started as far back as season 2 than starting a club. But thats a whole different debate we all discussed on here ages ago.

One of the few positives to come out of the Great Budget Nuke of 2005 was that they could no longer afford all of those promotional musical guests, so P3 lost a lot of its reason for existence in Season 8.  They still managed to snag Liz Phair for "Battle of the Hexes," but that was it.

[Deleted]

So, Stupidity is Contagious!
AKA- Hulkus Pocus

Piper and Paige arrive at Notwarts. They’re after something called a Krycheck Demon, which has apparently been on a rampage; attacking gnomes and leprechauns. Woohoo, already I’m on Team Krycheck. Murphy has sent them after this demon and he wants them to bring it back alive. Said Krycheck turns up and Paige’s potion proves ineffective, but Piper manages to knock it out with several shots of explosive mojo. They’re perplexed, because it actually looks rather monstrous and Krychecks are supposed to just be the usual black wearing extras we've grown ever so bored of. Speaking of which, a bunch of those show up, so Piper and Paige orb away, leaving the unconscious beast behind.


I’d b!tch about the crappy music that’s playing as we’re shown the usual shots of San Francisco. But since the DVD version had to replace the theme song, I don’t know if this music was what originally aired.


Piper and Leo are getting ready for a ski trip. Glad to hear you’re not too adverse to the cold Leo! What do I mean? Oh nothing, you keep packing...ahem.


Phoebe announces that she has cancelled all of her dates and is taking a hiatus from men. Tell me, when this first aired, did anyone actually believe that for even a nanosecond?


Back at Notwarts, the Krycheck morphs back into his standard black wearing extra form. However, soon after, he spontaneously combusts. That might have been cool if demons weren’t combusting all over the place on this show already.


Billie smacks one of the other Krycheck demons around and asks him to ask around about Christy.


Henry turns up at the manor and gives Paige a baby to watch called Ramón. His mother has just been sent to jail and Henry needs Paige to watch him while he tries to find the father; otherwise he will be put into the system. Henry charmingly, but forcefully, gets Paige to take him. I’m quickly remembering why I loved these two. The chemistry is just so natural between them.



Piper and Phoebe go to see Murphy. They want more information on the demon. Murphy isn’t singing like a canary, so Piper tells Phoebe to go and get a premonition from him. Phoebe refuses.

PIPER: Phoebe, go get a premonition off him, see if he's lying.
PHOEBE: No, I can't.
PIPER: What do you mean, you can't? Just go touch him.
PHOEBE: Seriously, I can't. I don't really believe in them anymore.
PIPER: Ugh! (Turns to Phoebe) What do you mean?
PHOEBE: Well, they haven't really worked well for me lately, so why should I listen to them?
PIPER: That's not true.
PHOEBE: Oh, really? Do I look pregnant to you?
AGENT MURPHY: Ladies! Did you g—
PIPER: Hold it. (To Phoebe) I realize why you feel this way, and I understand, but you can't give up on your gift.
PHOEBE: My gift gave up on me.

You know what? I wish she never had the damn power. She should never have been given them back by the stupid floaty heads! F****** petulant brat! Just another reason I wish Phoebe had been thrown through the wall. Give Paige premonitions instead from season 4 onward; then maybe we would’ve avoided this nightmare. When did all this start again? Season 6! We’ve had this crap for like two damn years now.



(Sigh) Alright, moving on. Billie returns to the Manor and Paige has a spat with her because she wanted her to babysit.

PAIGE: I expect you to be available when we need you! That is the whole point of us teaching you!
BILLIE: Well, I'm not a doctor, okay, I can't be available 24/7!
PAIGE: Yes, actually, you can, because you weren't around, I'm stuck taking care of this baby now!

Paige, firstly, let’s not pretend you’re rushed off your feet, okay? Secondly, when have you ever taught her? Thirdly, she offered to help you with the demons...not to be your damn maid and nanny! So take it down a notch.



Oh joy, Phoebe and Piper are home. Phoebe has decided that she wants to be single and childless... but not really, because she’s just sulking that it hasn’t happened exactly when she wanted. Come to think of it; what’s the point of a premonition about marriage and babies anyway? I mean, premonitions have always been to change the course of things that are already set in motion; in order to avoid danger or save someone. At least that’s what they used to be anyway. So if Phoebe is given a vision of something good, then that course of time or destiny or whatever is already set in motion prior to the vision, right? So how does the premonition help at all? Surely her knowing it could only disrupt things. Am I over thinking this? Urgh, maybe... let’s continue.


Oh I forgot to mention... after Billie and Paige had their spat, they were attacked by another Hulkcheck. This was the one Billie smacked around earlier. Said demon scratches Billie before Paige orbs him back to Notwarts.


Back at Notwarts, second demon goes poof and we find out that the latest black wearing, demonic, nobody wants to harness whatever power is making these demons hulk out. Y’know, without the exploding bit at the end, preferably.
Today’s demon is called Margoyle... which makes me think of Mogwai; so that’s what I’ll call him. He has no Gremlin like qualities, but frankly he seems to lack in any qualities at all, so that’s what I’m going with.


We learn that Henry was a foster child growing up; hence how much he cares about what happens to Ramon. Henry’s experience wasn’t a good one. Paige sneaks a photo of Ramon’s father away with her. Paige looks good this episode by the way. They all do actually. Think I said in an earlier post that the hair and the clothes were perhaps the only things to improve in season 8.


Billie has hulked out and is flinging Phoebe around. Weeeeheeeee. Piper blasts Billie and knocks her out- it’s a lot more effective than it was earlier, so the strength of her power is consistent as always.


Elder Cheapus turns up to tell Piper about a virus. It’s spreading across the magical community and the more powerful you are, the quicker you’ll go boom boom.


Paige has found Ramon’s father.


Piper and Paige threaten Murphy for info. The orbing effect continues to be awful. You know when VHS tapes were faulty and it went all wobbly and fuzzy? Make that blue and you’ve got orbing.


We find out the origin of the virus. The government found an injured demon and performed experiments on it; injecting it with human blood in the hope of creating demonically empowered soldiers. The demon escaped and spread the virus. This would actually be a pretty decent story if not for the stupidity of the hulks.


One patient was injected with the virus, but was immune. So if they find him, they may be able to make an antidote.


Back at the Manor, Phoebe is tending to Billie who believes she’s dying. It’s actually a rather sad and decently acted scene... but then they go and ruin it by having Billie change the subject back to Phoebe and her freakin’ baby visions. Because even people on the brink of death know that Phoebe’s personal life is the most important thing in the universe! Piss off writers- way to kill a scene that might have actually had some emotional weight!


Urgh and here is where I lose my sh!t. Paige and Piper return with the patient's hospital bracelet. They are running out of time and Piper makes this clear to Phoebe, offering her the bracelet, they need to find this guy NOW!
So.... does Phoebe get the hell over herself and conjure a premonition of the patient? Don't be freakin' insane!!! No, instead, Phoebe wants to infect herself and her sisters with the virus to enhance their powers. Yep; she won’t stop her sulking and try to get a premonition, but she’ll infect herself and her family with a life threatening virus. A virus that has been established to kill you quicker, the more powerful you are.
Piper and Paige do not ram the hospital bracelet down her throat screaming “Listen you obnoxious little b!tch, you WILL get a premonition even if we need to choke you to death with this damn thing to do it!!!” Instead, they go along with it. (SIGH)



They infect themselves. Billie begins to convulse, as the demons did before exploding, so Piper freezes her. At first I thought “good witches don’t freeze”, but then I did recall occasions where witches were freezable if they were infected or possessed by non-witch forces.


Let the stupidity commence. The sisters morph into their hulk forms. Their hulk forms being that of horribly dubbed, wildly gesticulating, stunt doubles. They snarl and shove each other. It’s terrible. They scry for patient X and the crystal spins rapidly, because that’s supposed to mean that their magic is stronger I guess. I’ll ignore that the scrying seems to take twice as long... I’m still not sure why they needed to get infected to scry for him anyway. Whatever, nearly over.


They arrive at patient X’s work. He’s a janitor. Mogwai’s demons turn up too; one of them is hulked. The non-hulked demons are pushed to death (no really, they just fall and die) and Piper rips out the hulked demon’s heart. Her explosions by the way, despite supposedly being enhanced by hulk mojo, are the most ineffective they’ve been this episode.



Mogwai shimmers in, gets a blood sample and shimmers out. He asks what they want and then we have this horribly dubbed “dialogue”... which is either hideous or hilarious; perhaps both.

PAIGE: We want you to save magic.
PIPER: And us.
PHOEBE: Eh *Snarl*

Laugh or cry, it’s up to you.



Billie is fine and dandy now.

According to Piper, Murphy has said that they are too difficult to work with, so we won’t be seeing him again. We know the actual reason is that his contract was up and the writers were too damn lazy to write him out properly.


Henry gives Ramon back to his dad and it’s really sweet because it’s clear that Henry got a bit attached. Paige and Henry flirt. Aww.
You know what? If they really wanted a spin off from season 8; how about Paige and Henry solving mysteries? I’d watch that.


Phoebe gets a premonition. So the tribunal obviously haven’t been watching her behaviour this episode. She projects six years into the future... because she can suddenly do that again now. Although unlike last time, when she was projected into her future body, this time she can talk to her future self; the one with the very long hair. There’s really not much to say about this, other than that I’m so sick of seeing this damn vision. Very Long Haired Phoebe reassures Not So Long Haired Phoebe that she will have kids. So um, yeah, nothing’s progressed at all really.
Oh, I almost forgot... this is the last premonition she has in the show. I’m taking that as a blessing.


Next up- The network gives Leo the cold shoulder. Get it? Cold shoulder? Ahem.

[Deleted]

We find out the origin of the virus. The government found an injured demon and performed experiments on it; injecting it with human blood in the hope of creating demonically empowered soldiers.

It looks like they plundered an old X-Files script for this one.

The name of the demon was the Krycek demon.  Was is named for this X-Files character by any chance? 

[Chrisaholic]

My only word here: ouch!! All people reminded me of Hulk, naturally. And also what Tim had pointed out. Strongly reminder of "The X Files" here. I didn't notice this.

And cool hint for the next episode with the cold shoulder!

[Deleted]

May the Frost Be With You...
(Yoda Voice): "Back for the Finale He Will Be"

AKA- Vaya Con Leos



Leo is out buying a car with Piper. He says it’s just like the one his grandfather got him. Piper isn’t impressed with the vehicle, but Leo is very excited and she seems to be in an unusually nice mood. Leo happy? Piper being generous? You know that can’t be good. That’s right up there with locusts and rain of fire! Right on cue, Death appears in the middle of the street, staring. Piper looks worried as we’re thrown into the final opening credit sequence to feature Brian until the finale.

Piper tells Paige about Death and they make reference to “Styx Feet Under”. They manage to do this without contradicting what happened in said episode; so good for them. Paige wants to cancel her lunch date upon hearing this news; but Piper won’t let her. Glad to see Paige prioritizing better than her older sister... actually, I’m being a bit harsh there; Phoebe is honestly fine this episode.

Billie is at Notwarts waiting for a demon who she hopes has info about Christy. Phoebe waits with her; hiding behind a desk should Billie need backup. The demon shows up and it is the one from Billie’s flashbacks in the Halloween episode. I’ll call him Child Catcher. Before Billie can get any real information out of him, another demon shows up, knocks Child Catcher out with a tranquilizer gun and shimmers out with him. Billie is not best pleased.

Paige and Henry’s date. They get along really well and have a great time, but then Henry wants to split the bill. Of course this ruins everything, so Paige storms off. We couldn’t possibly have a Charmed romance without some stupid, forced, non-issue to cause some pointless drama. However I do think the writers more or less get it out of their system in this episode... I think. I mean they have issues on occasion; but this is the kinda crap I expect from Phoebe and Lesley or Dex.

Piper summons Death. He tells her that he’s taking Leo and that he came early because he wanted to warn Piper and give them time to prepare. Aww, Death’s a decent guy... especially considering what pains in the a$$ these witches have been for him over the years.

Piper casts a stupidity spell, because this episode is going far too well for season eight’s standards. In an attempt to hide Leo from Death, Piper makes every man in the world look like Leo. Hmm, well my money would be on the Leo that’s hanging around the Manor; but that’s just me.

Phoebe is wearing a really lovely, blue, sparkly top.

We’re in The Fortress of Solitude, where Child Catcher is being held in some sort of invisible, energy chamber. He is surrounded by his captor’s “trophies”; which are several beings frozen in their very own ice blocks.
Since Darth Vader froze Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back, I wanted to call the freezer demon something along those lines. He’s nowhere near cool enough (if you pardon), or memorable enough to be called Darth Vader... so I’ll settle for Darth Failure. His official name is Burke by the way... Burke.
Anyway, Darth Failure doesn’t want Child Catcher spilling the beans on Christy and claims that there are far more powerful forces at work here. I’ll comment a little more on that later. Darth Failure freezes Child Catcher.

Piper tells Leo everything. He’s understandably freaking out and doesn’t know what to say to his boys. Piper promises that they’ll fix it, but can’t keep it together long enough to convince anyone of that. It’s a very sad and well acted scene; especially by Holly. Despite how little I’ve cared for these two for the last few seasons; I can’t deny, this is pretty emotional.

Death returns and we have a stupid bit where like five guys show up at the house to do various jobs and they all look like Leo. Henry arrives to talk to Paige about her storming off, but Paige is weirded out by the fact that he looks like her brother in law. I’m just going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the spell is only visible to magical beings... seeing as the world isn’t freaking out that all men suddenly look the same.

Leo (the real one) sits in the back of a taxi waiting for Wyatt at pre-school. Death arrives and Leo makes the mistake of reacting to him, which of course means he’s the one Death is after. Leo attempts to get out of the car, but another vehicle crashes right into the door. It’s pretty violent actually.

Piper and Paige arrive at the hospital. Paige attempts to convince Piper that it might not be so bad and notes that her spell wore off... which I would’ve taken as a bad sign, but okay. Piper slams down the receptionist’s phone (let’s hope that was nothing dire) and insists they tell her what is happening with Leo. He needs surgery and it could be fatal. Piper freezes the room, despite time clearly being of the essence here, but Paige basically tells her that she needs to get a grip.

Leo is in very bad shape, but just about conscious. Here we have another very strong and emotional scene between these two. You know... sorry Leo fans, but I think this would’ve been so much better had he actually died. Honestly, I think the only thing wrong with this is the contrived way in which they weasel out of it.

Paige thinks someone magical may be after Leo (besides Death that is), so she decides to get a hold of the driver who ran into Leo.

Back at the Fortress of Solitude. The camera gives us far too good a look at Darth Failure’s “trophies” and it’s really clear that what he actually has encased in ice is a bunch of mannequins. Billie is about to be turned into one of Darth Failure’s popsickles, but Phoebe turns up and shoots him with his own tranquilizer gun.

Death tells Piper that there is a reason for all this and suggests she talk to someone who has a better understanding of the grand design.

Piper has summoned an Elder and an Avatar. Don’t think we’ve seen either of them before. I’m not going to waste time giving them names, because all they do is tell Piper to talk to someone who actually has the authority to tell her. It’s all very foreboding and dramatic, but I’m not sure why they spent the budget hiring these two when they could’ve just had Death tell Piper this.

Paige asks Henry for help. He’s not about to drop everything he’s doing for her after she stormed off and refused to explain, so she does. Henry mercifully shuts this whole thing down rather quickly and gets the driver for Paige. I like Henry’s jacket. Paige kidnaps the driver and hits him with a truth potion. He’s supposed to be funny, but he’s not... we establish that he knows nothing.

Phoebe and Billie are threatening Darth Failure with a taste of his own frost bite, just as Phoebe is swept away by a summoning spell. It’s a shame they only think to do this when she’s actually helping someone... could’ve dragged her a$$ away from man hunting to save innocents with that.



They summon the Angel of Destiny. Not the one from 4x22. This one is portrayed by Denise Dowse and she has far less patience for their self-important crap, so she’s alright by me. The Denise of Destiny does a glowy eyed vision thing similar to The Seer in season 4 and tells the sisters what the deal is.

DENISE OF DESTINY: There's one more battle on the horizon for you three. One unlike you've ever faced before, one you won't see coming, and one you may not survive.
PIPER: What does that have to do with Leo?
DENISE OF DESTINY: The loss, the pain will motivate you, all of you to fight, without which you will have no chance to prevail.
PHOEBE: Won't you please try to let us find a way to do this without Leo dying?
DENISE OF DESTINY: What exactly do you have in mind?

So what are we supposed to take from that exactly? That if not for one of their nearest and dearest being killed, they’d just let the world burn? Gotta say, I’m not buying this anyway. If Leo died, Piper would give up again. That’s what she does. In fact, I reckon they all would. Anyway... as for what Phoebe has in mind, we all know what that is.



Billie is still questioning Darth Failure.

BILLIE: My sister, is she alive or not!

Well, they’re putting up a big fuss if the only information is that she’s long dead Billie.



The sisters turn up with Denise to make a deal with Darth Failure. They give him freedom from them if he freezes Leo.

Denise summons Leo and has fixed him up in the process. They say their goodbyes and their “I love you”s. It’s kinda killed by the actual freezing bit, but otherwise it’s rather well done.

Darth Failure is killed by an unseen magical force and Child Catcher’s ice block is also destroyed. In the commentary, Kern actually admits that he had no idea what the bigger evil was at this point. Didn’t need to know that Brad. But hey, no rush, we’re only like half way through the season and nobody would expect you to have an actual plan or anything silly like that!

Paige cries in Henry’s arms. Phoebe takes care of Wyatt and Chris. Piper weeps beside the car.




Well, it certainly had its issues and I still think it could’ve been better if Leo had actually died... but overall, that was probably the best episode of the season so far. That might not be saying much; but simply because it had some good acting and some emotional weight, I found that much more watchable than any of the previous episodes. Plus Phoebe wasn’t winding me up.


NEXT UP- Ah well, so much for being positive. Billie gets the power to pull anything out of her a$$, just as her parents come to visit. *Sigh*

[Esmeralda]

First, P3Nathan, many apologies for not having done this sooner. Although I’ve been reading and enjoying all of your reviews, I just haven’t time to respond the way I’ve wanted to. Working for a wholesale florist is very simply CRAZY around the holidays. But the holidays are over, the Valentine’s Day rush hasn’t started yet and I have the day off and one of the things I promised myself I’d do is reply to your reviews.

I hope you enjoy my responses even half as much as I’ve enjoyed your reviews.

Nov 16, 2015 12:39:08 GMT -5 @p3nathan said:

That Is One Desperate Housewife
Aka- Desperate Housewitches (Urgh)

Urgh is right, I can’t believe I haven’t replied to a review since NOVEMBER! I truly thought I had but then November is when we start getting crazy at work, leading into the holidays.

Leo teaches Billie, so at least someone is. He’s teaching her about Notwarts while she plays with nunchucks

Billie: Come on, you could be teaching me tic-tac-toe, she wouldn't care. She's happy you're getting me off her back for the day.

So Billie is totally aware of this and the fact that Leo doesn’t even try to deny it is telling.

This particularly means something to me since I just saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens and read the latest of your S8 reviews, the one for Vayo con Leos, last night. That episode reminded me *so* much of Han being frozen in carbonite that episodes like this just makes me sicker. If the writers knew this is what they had in mind for Leo, the one who had given up immortality and his powers for love of Piper, how could Piper have treated him so horribly, like her own little errand boy rather than giving him the love and respect he deserved as her husband and the father of her sons? It’s why her mourning his loss in VCL just made me roll my eyes and want to shoot some writers and a certain executive producer…

Peter Woodard in the guest star credits. Damn it.

One of Charmed’s worst mistakes ever…

Since the events of last episode, Piper has conjured a new identity; this one much closer to her age and appearance.

Which makes a lot more sense. Also, she’s no longer blonde… Still not sure why the blonde played Piper and not Phoebe...

Paige suddenly has an issue with Dex, because apparently he’s a player. (Sigh) Guys, we’ve done this with Cole, then we did it with Richard and I cared about both of them a hell of a lot more than I care about this loser. If Paige has an issue with Dex, it ought to be the fact that he’s a walking shell void of any emotion or personality.

LOL! Like most of the slampieces in S8, Henry the only exception to that rule.

Wyatt’s pre-school. We meet the uber-mom. Mandy is her name and passive-aggression is her game. All the mothers are expected to make costumes and Mandy isn’t shy about making Piper feel inadequate about her efforts. Anyway, it turns out Mandy is possessed.

Did anyone else wish that she wasn’t; that she was simply a creep?

Paige has resorted to online dating, because apparently she’s just too swamped to meet guys any other way.

So, she’s as desperate as Phoebe.

Yes, really.

*sigh* Whatever happened to our strong, independent Paige? Oh, yeah. She met the Haliwells…

She meets a guy at a cafe and ditches him within less than a minute because he’s boring. I’d say that it’d be good to see Paige or Phoebe given a taste of their own medicine, but then if that ever happened, I’m sure the guy would be played as the ultimate evil and they’d be the poor, mistreated victims... but the other way round is fine.

*roll eyes* Naturally…

Oh also Paige sees Dex with a woman.

*shocked, full of sarcasm* Oh, NO! Tell me it ain’t so!

Piper wants to conjure a costume for Wyatt, because magic is the best thing since sliced bread when it’s for her.

Of course. Using magic for personal gain is a BIG NO NO! Unless it’s Piper using it…

The demon possessing Mandy, who I’ll call Enid, is quite a bit scarier than they usually bother with these days.

Surprise, surprise. I still wish it had just been Mandy the mom-who’s-better-at-being-a-mom-than-Piper-who-is-crappy-at-it.

Enid wants to bring back The Source and raise Wyatt with him, making the perfect demon family. Okay then...

So what happened with Cole thought was going to happen with him and Phoebe and the Phoetus. Anyone else wish we’d gotten this as an explanation as to why Wyatt was evil in the future instead of Elder-gone-mad?

Enid goes back into Mandy and changes the kid’s costumes last minute. Two other moms come over to take jabs at Piper and there’s no sign of them being under any sort of influence, so screw these b!tches. Piper just sits and takes it... why does she never use her hideous shrew mode for people who might actually deserve it?

ROFL! Simple – then she wouldn’t be poor, poor pitiful Piper!

Billie teleports herself and Leo to Notwarts which is overrun by demons.

Translation: No more money for new sets…

Leo: They’re demons. You know, hurt, maim, kill?”
Billie: A lot of monosyllables got it.

Heh.

Hehehe!

Billie didn’t bring the teleporting potion with her (stupid), so they’re going to have to get by the demons to the books.

So how can they possibly get past all of those demons???

It just so happens, by total coincidence of the wackiest kind, that nunchucks are hanging on the wall.

*roll eyes*

So Billie telekinetically smacks two demons round the dead with them and takes their outfits. Or rather, takes what’s meant to be their outfits, since there’s no way these would fit as well as they end up doing.

ROFL, so you noticed that, huh?

Paige glamours into Dex’s ex and completely embarrasses herself. I’m surprised she has time to do this given how swamped Paige is... because y’know she just never stops.

Hehehehe!!

Anyway, the woman playing Sylvia does an excellent job at mimicking Paige and her twitchiness.

Easily the best part of this stupid episode!

The Source is back. Or rather Peter Woodard is back. There were two Sources since him and it was implied that there were Sources before him, so really there’s no reason for this guy to be back. Either it should have been Debbi Morgan with or without her Phoetus, or just some dark essence. But no, we have old half-faced Peter and he gets through half the scenery within his first two lines.

ROFL! Oh, wouldn’t Debbi Morgan giving birth to the Phoetus been SOOOO much better?

Paige: How’d you do it last time?

See this is what I mean when I mentioned it last episode. Sub plots from season 2, they remember! Major story arcs from season 4, total blur! The hell?

I read somewhere that that was supposed to be Billie’s line, which would’ve made perfect sense.. But just like how they should’ve done some fixing when “Witchstock” became Penny’s episode rather than Patty’s, they should’ve done the same thing here.

So, in what has to be one of the most pathetic anticlimaxes of the series... Piper blows up Enid and Peter goes bye bye. So they brought back one of their first big bads and he’s gotten rid of before he can so much as form a fireball. What was the damn point!!!?

Getting to have that picture of the three of them looking around the corner that they could use in the credits? Probably also the reason why Billie wasn’t with them?

Paige: Yeah, well, that's the funny thing about here. Nobody really stays dead for long.
Unless your names are Prue or Andy that is.

*sigh* Amen.

Wyatt’s school play

With the cutie-pie Simmons boys stealing the show while the twin girls playing Chris look bored. . And this is supposed to be showing us what a wonderful mother Piper is…*roll eyes*

Mandy looks traumatized and it seems like we’re supposed to be happy about that all “serves you right”... though I don’t know why since she was possessed for the whole episode.

That never stopped Charmed before!

Next up- Agent Murphy arrives with his considerable influence to get the writers out of that corner.

Hehehe! You are so right about that…

[Deleted]

Piper isn’t impressed with the vehicle, but Leo is very excited and she seems to be in an unusually nice mood. Leo happy? Piper being generous?

Who are these people and what have they done with the real Piper and Leo?

Darth Failure

Piper has summoned an Elder and an Avatar. Don’t think we’ve seen either of them before.

Given the lack of budget, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just two actors from a local community theatre.

So what are we supposed to take from that exactly? That if not for one of their nearest and dearest being killed, they’d just let the world burn? Gotta say, I’m not buying this anyway. If Leo died, Piper would give up again. That’s what she does. In fact, I reckon they all would. Anyway... as for what Phoebe has in mind, we all know what that is.

It was a horrible explanation.  Brian had to leave, but surely they could have come up with a better reason why.

Denise summons Leo and has fixed him up in the process. They say their goodbyes and their “I love you”s. It’s kinda killed by the actual freezing bit, but otherwise it’s rather well done.

Too bad George Lucas beat them to this by about twenty-five years.

Well, it certainly had its issues and I still think it could’ve been better if Leo had actually died... but overall, that was probably the best episode of the season so far. That might not be saying much; but simply because it had some good acting and some emotional weight, I found that much more watchable than any of the previous episodes.

Yeah, it seemed they were actually trying this time.  Too bad it's back to the same old sh*t the next episode.

[Esmeralda]

Sorry – got caught up with some Real Life stuff – but still determined to get caught up!

Nov 20, 2015 12:14:50 GMT -5 @p3nathan said:

Oh...Great... They’re Alive
AKA- Rewitched

Hehehehe! As always, I love your titles!

We open with Paige and Billie in the attic. Apparently three innocents have been killed in the last three weeks, near the hospital. Paige wants Billie to ID the demon and strongly insists that she do nothing more- so much so that she takes away all her potions. So when Billie inevitably sees an innocent being murdered, she’s just supposed to chill and eat some pop corn? Yup sounds about right.

Well, of course. That’s what Piper would do, and Piper’s the one who taught Paige who taught Billie.

But I must admit I’m shocked. I didn’t remember anything about innocents from S8. So Paige still remembered what they were, and not just her new charges? SHOCK!

And here we have said innocent. He rushes down an alley when some guy in a suit begs for someone to help his non-existent wife. As soon as the innocent runs  into the alley, the guy in the suit summons a swarm of what look like glowing red moths.

Billie arrives just in time and can’t help but save this guy; what with her being a half decent human and all.

Hehehehe! Which is why so many fans hated her – she made the Charmed Ones look *so* selfish and self-centered.

She gets a closer look at one of the red glowy things and upon closer inspection; they’re tiny flying monkeys.

Holy Wizard of Oz, Batman!

Billie vanquishes a few, but the majority of the swarm gets away and Billie gets the innocent to the hospital.

Something the Charmed Ones would never do – they’re too busy battling demons and protecting the Twice Blessed Brat.

Little does Billie know

DUN DUN DUN!

that Agent Murphy is watching. DUN DUN.

Hehehehe! Took the words right out of your mouth!

Only not, because how many times have we been down this road at this point?

And that’s when I started howling during this review. After all, in the alternate-universe spin-off, not being exposed is so much more important than saving innocents.

Back at the Manor, Piper has organised a speed dating night at P3 and she wants Paige to take part. Paige is very reluctant because she thinks they’ll all be desperate... and you’re one to talk Paige!

ROFL!! And that’s when I laughed even harder because again it’s so very true.

Piper guilts Paige into it with this line-

Piper: What, do you wanna be homeless? Because that's what's gonna happen if we lose our only source of income.

She said this before in season 7 and once again I find myself screaming “Phoebe’s column?!?!” You spend enough time boring me to tears with it, you could at least remember it after!

Or is PhoeME not contributing to the family income? And if necessary, couldn’t Paige go back to social work? It really was all about Piper just as much as it was all about Phoebe. Poor Paige. And unfortunately I can so see Kern making Prue be just like Piper if she was still alive….*sigh*

Phoebe arrives to tell us that she's ovulating. Oh goody, just as I put this episode on, I thought "Oooh I wonder if Phoebe will be ovulating this episode", so it's nice of them to address that for me! So anyway, she’s off to claim Dex’s seed as her own. *Shudder*

And fans wonder why I think she was only interested in finding the guy who could provide the seed that would produce Ladybug and never cared much about love…if Kern and Alyssa thought this was what the power of love was all about… *shudder*

Billie is back. Phoebe is spying on her and sees the cut on her arm. She immediately taddles to Paige. What a snitch.

Especially when she should be congratulating Billie for doing something she should be doing – saving innocents rather than worrying about conceiving Ladybug.

So it turns out we have two demons this episode. There’s the guy from earlier, who I’m going to call Monotone; because he seriously makes Dex look like a glowing beacon of personality.

ROFL!!!! You come up with the BEST nicknames! I wish the Charmed Ones and Leo weren’t the stars – I’d LOVE to know what you would’ve called them!

Then there’s a crazy professor type who I’ll call Igor. Turns out Igor is lord of the flying monkeys... or imps actually.

Hehehehe. So the male version of the Wicked Witch of the West, huh?

Murphy visits the Manor and asks Billie about the Halliwell sisters.

That’s the Halliwell sisters and their Matthews half-sister. Unlike Charmed, let’s get this right. *roll eyes at Charmed*

Phoebe: He must have known you were connected somehow. Otherwise he wouldn't be following you, right?

Hmm, yes he must have somehow known that she was connected. The girl who is constantly at Halliwell Manor with the sisters’ three “cousins” who just so happen to have all the same jobs. Wonder how he figured that out.

Because he has more active brain cells than the Charmed Ones do??

Anyway, the sisters are happy to let the innocents die, no surprise there. Paige and Piper are particularly horrid about it.

And fans wonder why I hate them so much during that last season…

Phoebe isn’t great either but she at least says to Billie:

Phoebe: It’s okay sweetie, it’s not your fault.

To which I respond: Too f’ing right it’s not her fault!!!

No, it’s the Charmed Ones’ fault for making her do what they should be doing!

But this bit is. Billie tries to find something to solve the problem in the BOS, but as is often the case with this show, she gets totally side tracked by Phoebe’s love life. She finds a spell “to make a lover’s dream come true” which assaults Phoebe and Dex with some golden sparkles and then they run off together... with any luck they’re going to throw themselves into the ocean, but that's probably too much to hope for.

Hmm…maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the title for the alternate-universe spin-off isn’t “The Perils of Poor, Poor Pitiful Piper”. Maybe it truly is “PhoeME and Her Fantasy Men” because it really is all about Phoebe and her search for sex, pardon me, love. So Alyssa was right and Phoebe really is the true star of the show after all. Funny, thinking of my Phoebs back in S1-2 just makes me hate PhoeME more.

Piper shows us what a super fun boss she is before letting in the speed daters. Some poindexter enters and gives Paige the eye. This is such trash.

Amen, and you are such a hero for actually watching it and doing these reviews for us. Much more of a hero than she ever is!

So Phoebe and Dex are married now, because he only has one episode left (hooray) so they need to get this whole thing moving as quickly as possible.

So Phoebe’s premonition about Dex marrying her actually came true?? I’d totally forgotten that.

The spell wears off as they enter the Manor and they’re both freaked. Phoebe hoots and yaps the way she often does as we establish that neither of them have any memory of what went on under the spell’s influence.

Hehehehe! Shouldn’t she be happy that she finally has what she’s wanted since her visionquest (And I actually *liked* that thing when it happened! Silly, silly me!) – a guy who can bone her to her heart’s content until she finally conceives Ladybug?

Speed dating at P3. Honestly, the less said about this, the better. All you need to know is, Paige meets a half decent guy called Wit (who looks like half her age by the way, but hey ho)

Hehehehe! Well, Paige has turned so infantile since running into the Halliwells, her robbing the cradle makes a lot of sense.

A reporter approaches Piper because he wants to do an article about how she made speed dating cool. Oh give me strength.

PIPER (pardon me, her cousin…) MADE SPEED DATING COOL? Oh, God. And I didn’t think the show could sink any deeper. Oh, silly me!

Piper’s new identity is called Jamie by the way.

So we get to find out right about the time she gets to be Piper again. Don’t you truly feel sorry for the actors stuck with playing those roles?

Piper and Phoebe yell at Billie until Phoebe considers the possibility that maybe this was how it was all “meant” to happen. I’ll gripe more about this in a moment, but first let me address this stupid line-

Phoebe: Billie if we get exposed, we may never be able to help an innocent again!

Oh. Okay, thank you Phoebe. It all makes perfect sense now. You HAVE to stand back and let innocent people be slaughtered, because otherwise you won’t be able to save all the innocents that you have no intention of saving in the future! Now I understand.

ROFLMFAO!!! There’s the best explanation for what happened to innocents in the alternate universe that I’ve ever heard. As I said – in the spin-off, the worst sin is exposure. You can steal, you can murder, you can stand aside while others are murdered, but exposure so you can no longer stand aside while others are murdered is the absolute worst thing that can you can do. As you put it earlier, give me strength! There’s the hugest reason for doing a reboot rather than a spin-off or a continuation that I’ve ever read! Can you imagine if the S1 Charmed Ones time-travelled to Season 8 and saw these three what their reaction would be??? I wish they could’ve so when the Angel of Destiny made his offer at the end of Season 4, they could’ve said “NO, THANKS!”

Meanwhile, a nurse is killed by the flying monkeys.

Another innocent down. I still can’t believe that Kern actually remembered about them!

So yeah, anyway, Phoebe is totally going to go through with this, putting it under the “everything happens for a reason” banner. I bet that idiot Dex thinks his free will actually means something, pfft!
Dex’s instinct is to get in annulled, but Phoebe talks him out of it.

Of course. Can’t lose her little errand boy, since we know what his main errand would be…making sure Phoebe conceives Ladybug!

Dex: Even though you have no idea how we got married?
Phoebe: I kinda feel like that parts irrelevant.

Erm, no Phoebe, it’s really not irrelevant. Not when you're lying; when you know full well what happened and are well aware of the fact that he was under magical influence. That is nowhere near the ballpark of irrelevant! I was about to write how baffled I am that the writers think this is fine, but then I remembered “Prince Charmed” so I guess this is nothing by comparison.

Most definitely true.

Meanwhile, Paige can’t have sex with Wit because he calls her Jo and can’t see the real her. Compare that to Phoebe, who is willing to build an entire future with someone based on lie after lie after lie. Heck, even an insufferable shadow of a human like Dex deserves better than that!

Amen. I wish when she showed that she was really Phoebe, he would’ve told her that now for sure he wants it annulled, since it’s Julie he’s in love with, not Phoebe.

Speaking of, I forget. Is Phoebe doing all of this as Phoebe or as Julie? Because it it’s as Julie then it’s definitely a whole lot worse than what Paige did.

We’re back with the demons. Monotone’s actual name is Antosis... Think I caught that on a camping trip once; nasty stuff.

Hehehehehe!!! I hope you keep calling him Monotone – it fits him better.

Phoebe and Paige wallow in front of the fire. I’ll give Phoebe her due, she does admit that Billie is right, but then she spoils it with this-

Phoebe: Thanks to Billie, we're gonna have to come up with a plan pretty soon. She made me feel pretty guilty about not helping her with this demon.

Oh you poor, poor dear. There she was, so wrapped up in thinking about those innocents being shredded to pieces that she didn’t take enough time to soothe your guilty conscience. Bad Billie, very bad! Know your priorities girl!

And now I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes! How could Kern possibly think that anyone would still like Phoebe by the time this episode was over???

Murphy talks to Piper. He doesn’t want to bust them, just to work with them. So Brody 2.0 then? Although he does give us this bit of dialogue which I kinda want to applaud him for.

Murphy: Of course, like everything else, there are good things and bad things. But if you're not doing anything to stop this, then, as far as I'm concerned, you're on the wrong side. And I don't know how you could live with yourselves.

Wow, go Murphy! So glad the writers will actually let the sisters hear it without the sugar coating.

SHALL I ABSOLUTELY DIE OF SHOCK??? But do the writers let the sisters learn from that?? And do they actually work with Murphy to help get rid of Obama bin Laden and other such baddies?? Oh, that’s right. They can only battle demons in San Francisco… *roll eyes*

After saving another innocent, Billie is followed to the Manor by the demons. Billie vanquishes Igor and his flying monkeys with a potion. It’s quick, but it’s actually a pretty cool vanquish, with the imps exploding around him like fireworks before Igor himself goes up in sparks. Then the sisters arrive to kill Monotone with the power of three, that one's pretty standard.

So Billie’s vanquish is better than the sisters’. Cool.

They reverse the identity spell, not happy with how it’s working out. Goodbye crappy mirror green screen.

If only they’d done that with all the crappy special effects in Season 8…

Urgh then there’s this. The sisters march slow motion into Homeland Security. Everyone is really shocked to see them and it’s all just painful “look at how cool and amazing and famous the sisters are!” stuff that makes me hack.

So does that mean that *all* of Homeland Security know that the sisters are witches? Doesn’t that count as the ultimate no-no, exposure?

They meet with Murphy. They offer to help him with cases if he covers for them. So Murphy tells everyone that the sisters were witnesses to a crime that endangered national security and they had to fake their deaths to smoke out the perpetrators. Fine, whatever, you’ve written yourselves out of that corner; let’s just move on from this mess please.

And that makes your teaser at the end of the previous episode finally make sense. But again I ask, do the Charmed Ones (can’t call them sisters when one is a half and can’t call them Halliwells when one is a Matthews…) ever actually help him?

(Sigh) No such luck. Phoebe visits Dex’s apartment. Phoebe glamours into Julie right in front of him. Dex says nothing and faints. Yeah, that wasn’t funny when Jason did it and it aint funny now.

Amen. And Phoebe, doesn’t that count as exposure??? Doesn’t anyone wish that when Phoebe did that to Jason, he would’ve splashed it across the front of the Bay Mirror? Then we wouldn’t have had to go through the mess known as S6-8.

Piper and Paige reveal themselves to a huge crowd at P3. They’re cheering, taking photos, the works. I have no idea why people care so much, but there you go. Now all three of the sisters are super famous. Oh joy.

Exactly what we never needed, but exactly what Producer Combs would want for her character…

Next up- We learn more about Billie’s past and say “bye, see you never” to the ever exciting Dex Lawson.

Lucky, lucky Dex. Since it’s not the end of the season yet, not-so-lucky you, but lucky us because we get to read more reviews!

[Esmeralda]

Dec 14, 2015 11:43:24 GMT -5 @p3nathan said:

Billie the Spin-off Slayer: Season One, Episode One.
A.k.a- Kill Billie vol.1

Hehehehehe!!! So will Kill Billie, Vol 2 be Billie the Spin-off Slayer, Season Two, Episode One or Season Two, Episode Two?  If only it was the next episode...we'd almost be done with this mess and be able to get back to Season One.

It’s Halloween in Charmed world. This is the first Halloween episode since season 3. I’m sure this will be just as good as “All Halliwell’s Eve”… he said sarcastically with a grimace on his face.

Is there any better way of comparing early Charmed with latter Charmed than comparing Sheryl J Anderson’s “All Halliwell’s Eve” which I watch every Halloween and Alejandro Pose’s “Kill Billie, Vol 2”…

We’re in the kitchen with Piper and Paige. Apparently Oprah has called wanting to do a special on lady spies and a producer wants to make a movie out of the sisters’ amazing and well thought out story! Oh for crying out loud, stop trying to make them celebrities, it’s just stupid!

Obviously that’s what The WB thinks will convince viewers that they’re actually worth watching this season and/or what Producers Combs and Milano wanted for their characters…

With the media storm going on, Piper mentions Prue’s death. Again guys, reminding me of season 3 really isn’t doing you any favors.

They really think doing such things is going to make us like this horrible season??? Silly, silly them.

Billie has been tracking a demon. So of course Piper and Paige b!tch at her again for doing the exact thing she promised to do! Frankly, it’s good of her to hold up her end of the deal at least; since the sisters have taught her squat so far!

Piper has turned some of the reporters into rats… because once again, magic is the best thing since sliced bread when it suits her. As with Phoebe and Spencer Ricks in season 6, there are no consequences to this whatsoever, not that that’s a surprise.

Nope, none whatsoever… *shakes head* Anything that’s “funny” is perfectly AOK and in S8, this actually counts as their idea of funny…Sorry, Alejandro Pose, you are *so* striking out – not that giving you a one-foot bat helps any…

Piper then sends Leo back out to buy some more candy because he bought the wrong kind. I only mention this because A) She’s a cow and B) This is the stirring of more super fun marital drama.

Leading to her feeling sorry for herself when she loses the man she supposedly loves but treats as her own little errand boy. Heaven help me!

Paige tries to tell Phoebe about everything that’s going on, but Phoebe only cares about Dex. I’d b!tch about that far more if it wasn’t Dex’s last episode, which it is. CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES, COME ON!!! Lalalala.

More tears in the eyes from laughter as I join in the dance! Now if it was only PHOEBE’s and PIPER’s last episode I’d *really* be celebrating! Is there really *anything* worth watching after this episode that doesn’t concern Paige or little Wyatt? I didn’t think so. Has there been anything this whole season worth watching that doesn’t concern Paige or little Wyatt? I didn’t think so. And we fans were so happy about getting an eighth season…*sigh*

One of the reporters stalking the sisters works at The Bay Mirror. Apparently one of his sources got killed when he was working on a story about the mafia. Paige plans on exploiting this in order to get rid of him. And I suppose getting rid of this one reporter will also get rid of all the other reporters, because… tomato.

Hehehehe!

Phoebe thinks she might be pregnant and she’s sad about that because Dex might not want to be with her anymore. Funny, I would’ve thought this was the ideal way it could work out for her.

Me, too. If she’s pregnant, why does she still need him?

We meet today’s demon. He wears a lame half-mask. I’ll call him Phantom. Billie sees him and starts having flashbacks. We see a shadow doing a Dracula-esque cape flare, a pumpkin and we hear a scream.

Hey, that could’ve actually been cool to watch. Was it?

Dex’s place. Since last episode, they apparently got their marriage annulled as Dex had originally suggested. Dex is pretty polite and patient about all of this; far more so than Phoebe deserves; which is often the case with her men. However, Dex has had enough when the reporters show up at his door.

Which shows he’s not totally brain-dead…

Phoebe whines at Piper about all of this. She oversimplifies the issue completely and makes it all about Dex not being able to accept the fact that she’s a witch. Couldn’t be that she’s a liar who didn’t give a fig about starting a marriage orchestrated by magic and deceit.

Oh, no, of course not. Little Miss Itsnevermyfault (as one of my friends calls her) hasn’t changed one single bit.

Phoebe: “I just don't understand why I can't be with a guy who accepts me for who I am.”

Oh I swear, I just... GAAAH! Phoebe, he had his stupid fainting spell, sure, but now he's had a bit of time, he really doesn’t seem too freaked out by the whole witch thing. Granted, that would perhaps require exhibiting emotion beyond his capabilities, but still, maybe that’s not the issue here!!!

Well, just wait until the Elders send you a guy who already knows you’re a witch…and wait until you see how your half-sister (who is *so* lucky not to have grown up with you) handles dating a mortal and see if *maybe* you’ll see the light. WHOOPS! I forgot to whom I’m pretending to speak – Little Miss Itsnevermyfault.

Piper suggests that she write him a letter in Ask Phoebe. Ah, her wonderful column is the answer to all life’s problems.

*sigh* If only we had such a thing in real life…

Billie casts a spell on herself to erase painful memories. I’ll be needing that immediately after 8x22.

Omigod, you keep coming up with better and better and better lines! THAT might be my favorite as of now. I *do* hope you decide to have her cast that spell on me, too!

Billie goes after Phantom again, but as soon as she sees his claws, the flashbacks come back. Well that memory spell was useless!

ROFL! Looks like I don’t want you to share that spell after all…

Dex got Phoebe’s message (of course) and he apologises to her. Yes, HE apologises to HER. Never been so close to kicking my own TV. Phoebe feels oh so very sorry for herself. “Every time I fall for a guy, this seems to happen.” One guy, Phoebe. There was a grand total of one guy who left you after finding out you were a witch. ONE!

Sigh. Anyway, she reveals the wedding spell to Dex and blames Billie for it. Um yeah, she did cast it Phoebe, but you decided to go with it and continue the lie, so shut up.

And once again Little Miss Itsnevermyfault comes shining through…

Speaking of Billie, she tries the useless memory spell again.

Hanging around the Halliwells is having the same sort of effect on Billie as it did on Paige – her intelligence ratio keeps going down…

Then we have some more malicious magic which is totally cool apparently. Paige terrorises the reporter by orbing into his room in the middle of the night, making herself look like the ghost of his dead informant, strapping him to the bed, gagging him and then screaming right in his face. One positive thing I will say about this horrible scene is that the ghost is very well done… in fact despite the minute budget, I might even say this was one of the best ghost effects they did.

Wow. Just wow!

Billie goes after Phantom yet again. She dodges an energy ball with a slow mo Matrix stunt then proceeds to pound him with potion after potion. It appears as if Phantom is vanquished, but he instantly reforms at Notwarts.

Looks like once again you nailed it with the name Phantom… Either that or Billie didn’t mix the potion properly…the Charmed Ones are doing *such* a great job training her…

Paige’s plan hasn’t worked and has in fact made the reporter even worse. Y’know, I’m kinda routing for him if I’m honest.

Hehehehe! Me, too!

Phoebe: Sometimes I just wonder if it wouldn't be better to just let the truth out. I mean why not? It couldn't get any worse.

It couldn’t get any worse??? Um, I know you pissed off during, but remember that time Piper was shot and Prue ended up dead you stupid little snot? Or how about that time you getting caught got Darryl put on death row? It’s obvious she’s only coming out with this crap because she’s pouting over Dex and that just makes me wish even more that she’d been thrown through that damn wall!

AMEN!!!! Except then it would probably be Paige or even Prue saying all of this…would you really want that?

Leo comes in with a bloody face. Apparently a reporter shoved a camera in Wyatt’s face and Leo got in a fight with him. Piper has the nerve to get up on a high horse and this leads to more bickering between the two.

*sigh* The writers *knew* they were going to freeze Leo due to the budget…why make it so we don’t believe that these two were *ever* truly in love so we can be upset when that happens rather than be happy for Leo?

Elder Cheapus meets Paige up on the bridge and tells her to just act normal. A mammoth task for the twitchiest witch, if ever a twitchy witch there was.

ROFLMFAO!!!!! AMEN!!!!! Those tears in my eyes from laughing too hard are *so* back…These episodes are so *not* the ones where I enjoyed Paige! That’s not until she runs into Henry…

Phoebe’s test was a false positive. Aww, baloney. I was so routing for her.

Me, too. Maybe she would’ve shut up or died in childbirth…

Paige gives the reporters a tour of the Manor. She takes them into the attic and she hasn’t hidden the giant freakin magic book in the middle of the room, so just stands in front of it. Good grief, you guys so deserve to be exposed.

And that’s a HUGE Amen!

Phantom attacks Billie at her dorm room, but Paige orbs her out. I’ve noticed that Billie doesn’t often use her telekinesis in a fight. I thought the same when she went after The DORE and Black<3; they were bashing her around and she just took it… send them flying already!

I warned you that hanging around the Halliwells (and a Matthews) is dangerous to your intelligence…

Now we get the full story of Christy. She was kidnapped by a demon...

which, unlike when Cole was infected by the powers of the Source, makes her not responsible for what she does…making her the Ultimate Innocent…HOW I wish the story could’ve been played out like that – a little of my respect for the Charmed Ones might have returned rather than being even more trashed.

oh okay, not that long a story then. Phantom shimmers in and grabs Billie, taking her to Notwarts.

What happens next is particularly stupid, even by this show’s standards.

LOL! Alejandro Pose, you *so* failed as a Charmed writer! If only they could’ve brought back the ones from the earlier seasons!

Billie tells Phantom that she got him confused with someone else named “Aaaaah” and when Phantom says “Aaaah?” she throws the potion in his mouth. We’ve had some really stupid demons on this show, but damn!

And Phantom believes her??? Does Alejandro Pose not know how to write intelligent characters?

Oh by the way, Phantom’s actual name is The Dogan. Not just Dogan; THE Dogan. No idea what a Dogan is supposed to be, not that it really matters.

Nope. Phantom fits him better.

Okay, last bit of Phoebe and Dex.

HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION!!!! Now if only it was the last bit of Phoebe…

They reach the conclusion that it all just happened too fast. They agree to take it slow so that they can figure out how they feel about each other without the magic. Not sure why they’re saying any of this since they have no intention of having Dex return after this episode, but whatever. Pointless Phoebe filler relationship number 598, complete.

Hehehehe. And that’s why they’re saying what they are. We have to try to make Phoebe look good and make Dex looks like he truly loves and ill miss Phoebe, right??

Baby Chris is dressed as a wizard. That’s cute.

Best part of the episode, no doubt.

Billie is sad about Christy.

When I first started feeling sorry for her. Silly me!

Next up (in like half an hour or so)- Sam is back to rehash Paige’s daddy issues. But don’t think you’re only getting one rehashed plot, oh no… Piper and Leo are going back to couple’s counselling. Yippee.

*sigh* A repeat of my least-favorite parts of later-season S5 (Stalker Cole is my least-favorite part of early S5), even over the Disney creatures.

Oh, joy. But since that also means another one of your reviews - oh, *real* joy!

[Esmeralda]

Dec 14, 2015 12:30:07 GMT -5 @p3nathan said:

The Lost Point of this Show
A.k.a- The Lost Picture Show

Oh, man, your titles just get better and better. I can’t help wondering if you might not enjoy doing S1 as much as these because you probably won’t come up with titles like these.

Billie has spent all night furiously scrying for Christy, because since she remembered about it last episode, she’s been on a mission. This is distressing for Paige, as this has nothing to do with her or her sisters, so she insists that Billie avoid obsessing and ensures her that they will find Christy. Pfft, yeah, I’m sure you three will get right on that... Christy should be out in time for her 70th birthday if she’s lucky.

Or is that if BILLIE’s lucky…Christy would be much better off staying right where she is…

We meet some photographer guy who I’ll call Kodak. Not much to say about him; he has the standard amount of charisma that you’d expect from a season 8 demon- i.e: not much. He has a big photo collage with lots of people’s shocked and confused faces. Kodak zaps one of the faces out of the collage and attempts to kill him with a fireball. The twenty something; apparently called JD; escapes by doing some sort of BS knock out neck pinch.

Holy Mr. Spock, Batman!

Urgh, I hate the twangy instrumental piece they’ve used for the credits. Gotta love that skip button.

Since I love country music, I can’t agree. Although the tone of “How Soon Now” made sense for Charmed, the lyrics never did.

Piper and Leo are sniping at each other yet again. Oh joy.

Why can’t he grow some balls, take his sons and walk out on his shrew of a wife? Oh, yeah, we need him to go time-travelling with her so they can live sappily ever after. After scenes like this, we’re *really* supposed to believe that???

Paige is going to try and get her social services job back, because she suddenly remembered it. Don’t get excited, we’re really just killing time with her until they introduce Henry.

*sigh* Why couldn’t they have introduced him in Season Seven rather than Brody? Oh, yeah. Because by now we’d hate Henry like we hate all of the main characters.

Phoebe wants to adopt now and talks some more about her eggs and her sperm hunt. She’s over Dex then huh?

Of course. Halliwells always forget about their guy the episode after they’re gone unless their name is Andy. After all, we know the only thing guys are good for…boning the Charmed Ones, right? And one bone is the same as the next… *roll eyes*

Paige: How did I wind up the only sane one here?

Honestly Paige? I think you only wound up that way because the writers don’t even care about you enough to assassinate your character.

BINGO!!! And we have ourselves a winner…

After seeing Piper and Leo fight some more, Paige suggests that Leo consider marriage counselling again. Shut up Paige, just let them kill each other, do us all a favour!

AMEN!!!

Sam orbs in all “Sam? Don’t you mean dad?” Um dude, you met her once and she hasn’t seen you since... so yeah she means Sam and hey, maybe call first?

AMEN!!! Her true mom and dad are dead, and I sure don’t mean Patty! Why she’d call her Mom the first time she gets to see her but not call him Dad I’ll truly never understand.

So we have all the old daddy issues rehashed, along with Sam demanding that Paige embrace being a whitelighter, which is pretty damn rich given his past. That’s a theme of this episode by the way, Paige is dead set against being a whitelighter again. Fine by me, she sucks at it.

Hehehehehe! That’s because she *isn’t* one – she’s still alive and hasn’t earned her wings yet!

Piper and Leo go to their magical marriage counsellor. Apparently he’s a soothsayer and a gardener. I didn’t know what a soothsayer was, so I looked it up and from what I read, it’s basically a variation of an oracle.

Yup. Now why exactly would they go to a magical marriage counsellor? Because the human one didn’t work out very well?

Sam is annoyed about getting stuck in traffic because Paige insisted on driving... because now she is apparently against orbing all of a sudden. Whatever.

In this case it would be for personal gain. I kinda like her doing that…

Murphy helps Paige and Sam out.

Murphy is still around? I thought we were done with him now that the alternate identities have gone bye-bye…

Kodak sneaks into JD’s room and is about to finish the job, but Murphy gets rid of him with some ineffective bullets.

Way to go, Murphy! You’ve done more to save an innocent than the Charmed Ones have in four years!

JD is from 1955.

And he accepts everything without a blink of an eye… *sigh*

The soothsayer yacks on about flowers and sh!t.

So did marriage counsellors sue Chamed for this character assassination?

Piper walks away after getting a text, but not before the soothsayer can switch their bodies, so that they can walk a mile in each other’s shoes... again. They look at each other and let out an embarrassing “comedic” scream.

*roll eyes* This really is Season Five all over again. I’m surprised Stalker Cole doesn’t show up. Lucky Julian McMahon now being part of Nip Tuck so he could tell Kern to take an extremely long walk off a VERY short pier!

Phoebe is at the donor agency and has vetoed about 50 donors, because she doesn’t feel that they can give her the exact little girl she wants. The woman who I assume runs the agency has had it with her idiot ways and politely tells Phoebe to p!ss off with her self-involved a$$, so that she can help families who want children but for whatever reason can’t have them.

And Phoebe gets the message? Hallelujah! No, wait…she doesn’t???

As much as I hate this body swap thing, I will say that Brian does a pretty good Piper impression. All he really needs to do is be as loud and obnoxious as possible, but still, he does it well.

JD does several “person from the past scared by modern appliances” clichés like we’ve seen far too many times on this show and he runs away.

They really do think if they do the same things they did in the early seasons that we’ll like it as much as we did those early seasons, don’t they?

Okay, so we find out the demon’s deal. JD’s dad has just died and that’s why Kodak had no use for JD anymore... because Kodak feeds on the pain of his victims’ nearest and dearest. I’m not sure why that requires the victims being kept alive, but whatever.

Sam gets snapped by Kodak.

Especially with how much Sam cares about Paige and Paige cares about him, that just makes *so* much sense!

Phoebe gives a pep talk to Piper and Leo.

Phoebe: You guys have forgotten how great you are together. Everybody wants what you have.

Pah! Speak for yourself Phoebe. I’d sooner date the Slime Demon from the hippy episode than be in that marriage!

AMEN!!!!

Paige goes after Kodak. She’s all tough for a moment and pins him with a tripod, but then gets slapped down very easily.

JD wants to save Sam, so he runs head first into Kodak’s fireball. Well that was stupid.

Yeah. Now why couldn’t a stupid person like Paige have been the one to do it? Oh, yeah. She would only do that for her real dad…

Billie is upset about JD’s death, but Phoebe gives her the “everything happens for a reason” shtick. This doesn’t seem to be much comfort for Billie since she... well, she’s not Phoebe or Piper.

ROFL!!!

Urgh, this is so stupid. Paige calls out “dad” and that frees Sam and brings him to the attic... not only that, but it frees everyone else in the collage. Why? Who knows?

And so now Sam, Patty and Paige make the perfect family. Fourever Charmed, the main writer of the virtual series Charmed: Reset Reality always thought so. Maybe this is how she came up with that theory…

Kodak shows up all angry. He hurls a fireball, but Piper reflects it with her explosion power, because freezing it would’ve made too much sense.

Or be too expensive! Is this the first time she could reflect it with that power? Isn’t that stealing too much from Paige’s power?

Paige snaps Kodak and he goes bye bye. The vanquishes/defeats this season are really anticlimactic.

*sigh*

Sam and Paige meet on the bridge. They apologise to each other, issues resolved again, yada yada.

*roll eyes*

Billie sits at JD’s grave and we hear an orby sound implying that he is now a whitelighter... despite not saving or really helping a single person. But hey, who isn’t a whitelighter these days?

Prue? Andy?

Next up- More sexism, more forced gender issues, more horrendous costume atrocities.

Oh, more joy!

[Esmeralda]

Dec 22, 2015 20:23:24 GMT -5 @p3nathan said:

Kern is from Mars, Billie is from Venus
A.k.a- Battle of the Hexes

Billie?? Not Phoebe??? Hehehehehehe!

Before we begin tearing into the latest train wreck of an episode that season 8 has to offer, I'd like to wish everyone on the boards a very merry festive season and a happy new year.

You, too, P3Nathan. After everything you went through in 2015, you deserve a fantastic 2016.

Piper: I've been helping Homeland Security. That even sounds ridiculous to me.

Try watching it Piper. Just try freakin’ watching it!

Amen. But she actually has?? What’s she been doing?

Leo is going to play golf (yes, he plays golf now) with some guy called Smiddy. Smiddy supposedly has music connections, so Piper wants Leo to let Smiddy win in order to try and get a band out of him for P3… which is apparently struggling (again) despite the ridiculous number of people there last time we saw, taking pictures of our super famous “heroines”.

Hehehehehehe! Even P3 has had its character assassinated in this season!

And Leo now playing golf??? Oh, how far has he fallen! It hurts. It simply hurts.

Paige is going to meet a new charge and hopes he’s cute, because despite professional beginning with the letter p, we couldn’t possibly label any of the sisters with it.

OOOO!!! VERY good one!

Murphy has called, he wants the sisters’ help. Naturally they b!tch about it, despite this being the first thing he’s asked of them, after holding up his end of the deal and then some.

Um…but what about all those times Piper helped Homeland Security that we never saw??? *roll eyes*

Phoebe: You are not dumping this in my lap, missy. I am very busy too. I have dates, lots and lots of dates.

If not for the much better hair and clothing; I could be watching season 6 all over again. Just shows how much character development we get in these later seasons.

*sigh* Amen.

Piper: “Are you trying to get pregnant again?”

I enjoy that line, simply because Piper has the most mockingly wicked smirk on her face as she asks her desperate loser of a sister the question. See Piper, I’d forgive you for so much more if you’d just use that spiteful streak of yours to rip into your pathetic sister a little more often.

ROFLMFAO!!!!!!! Best line of this episode so far! Oh, do I have a belated Christmas present for you, P3Nathan, once I finish these replies!! Check your PMs…

We meet today’s villain at Notwarts. Klea, from The Brotherhood of the Thorn, apparently grew tired of all her male teammates getting their a$$es killed. So she went solo to do some man hating. Okay so no, this isn’t really Klea… Jennifer Tung is playing a much stupider character for us this time round.

AH! So that’s why she looked familiar. They so do like reusing the same actor, don’t they? Must be the cheapest ones left on The WB lot.

Her name is Zira and she’s a sorceress working for the latest black-wearing demonic nobody. She’s sick of working for him and thinks women should rule; by which she means she should rule, of course.

Naturally. Are you sure her name isn’t Hillary? Who, by the way, I might end up voting for just because I don’t like any of the Republican candidates…Trump is the best thing that ever happened to the Democrats. Okay, off my political soapbox and back to Charmed…

Then we go to Billie’s college for a lecture on yin-yang and the battle of the sexes. What course is she taking again?

Same ones Phoebe took, I would guess…

Anyway, a disinterested Billie very rudely pops her gum at the professor and then goes into a “stupid men” rant. Billie, it seems, will be playing a sexist idiot for next 30 minutes or so to serve the plot. Oh also, she has a couple of belching tools sat in front of her in order to aid her generalisations. I just pity the professor stuck having to teach this bunch of a$$holes. Billie gets a call and walks out. Can’t imagine why we never see her graduation!

She’s been hanging around Phoebe much too much…

P3. Piper can’t get a band or whatever, because Smiddy is a sexist pig or something. Urgh, I’m already sick of this forced plot. Wasn’t that blasted Godiva episode enough? Oh wait, I’m forgetting- tis the season to be rehashed.

ROFL!!! Why does it sound like someone should rewrite that entire carol to fit S8???

Anyway, Smiddy thinks that Piper is irrational. I know right? Who’d ever believe such a thing?

Piper Halliwell, *irrational*? Now how could he even *think* such a thing??? *roll eyes*

This is what I don’t get. The writers obviously know how bad these characters are. So why don’t they do anything to fix them???

Paige is trying to help some kid named Speed, but Henry shows up and arrests him. Yay, Henry. Finally, something good out of this season.

Amen! He and little Wyatt are the only things that makes this season even a tiny bit watchable. I always think, now this is how Prue should’ve handled Andy or how Piper should’ve handled Dan and how Andy and Dan might have reacted…just think of the series we might have had had they…

Billie is helping Phoebe go through Murphy’s cold cases and items related to those cases. So this is the emergency she walked out of class for? Billie is still ranting.

Can you truly blame her???

Billie: I’ve just had one too many lame dates lately.

That definitely sounds like a Phoebe line. Makes me wonder if Kern had written this early; before the leads refused to wear any more costumes and then he just gave all the appropriate lines to the new, young star.

It really does make you wonder…while tossing all the lines that make sense for Billie (How did you vanquish him the first time?) at the Charmed Ones.

So, we know how this goes. Billie puts on a stupid looking belt and is transformed into Wonder Witch. The costume is more or less like what they had the sisters in for “Witches in Tights”, minus the mask. They’ve made her hair look awful. Apparently this costume originally included a cape, but Kaley refused to wear it. Billie walks down the street mortified and if she wasn’t being such a d!ck this episode, I’d feel sympathy for her. I do however feel sympathy for Kaley, who apparently burst into tears upon seeing what they were putting her in.

Poor Kaley, I really do feel sorry for her not having the seniority to be able to tell Kern about that very long walk off the very short pier…

Phoebe: Piper takes the car, Paige orbs. Does anyone stop and think that Phoebe can't orb? No, of course not. Why? Because it's all about them.

It’s true Phoebe, some people are just so selfish. Selfish people are the worst. I hate people like that. Always me, me, me. Good job you're above such things! Also, why are you walking Billie down the street when you could have just called a taxi to pick you up at Homeland Security?

Because then she wouldn’t be able to gripe...And with all the money you make being this big celebrity, you haven’t bought yourself a car or got yourself a limo with a sexy driver, why???

Zira’s apprentice learns of the belt, but he can’t pronounce Gaea. That’s what it is, The Golden Belt of Gaea. Not sure what the Greek goddess of earth needed a superhero making belt for, but whatever. They want to use Billie to fulfil Zira’s goal. Zira can’t wear the belt herself, because it’ll vanquish anything evil that tries to put it on.

Omilord, who comes up with this crap?

Paige goes to see Henry just as Speed is released. Henry just seems to think Paige is weird. Hehe.

Hehehe. Gotta love the guy!

Urgh, Piper is screeching at Leo about what happened with Smiddy.

Leo. PLEASE! Be a man, grow some balls, take your sons and get the hell out of Dodge! NOW!

So, as well as making her act like an angry nut job, the belt gives Billie the following powers: Super speed, lightning bolts, sensing women in danger and turning men invisible. Don’t really get the point of that last one. I could understand taking their voices away or something like that, but if your goal is to annihilate all the men-folk, I’m not sure how making them invisible would do you any good. Anyway, Billie accidentally makes Leo invisible and we get some unfunny invisible stuff.

And, naturally, there’s your reason why. Poor Leo. He could’ve actually been really truly dead right now!

Billie speeds away to help a woman being terrorised by Zira’s boss and his minions in order to lure her. Billie vanquishes the minions, but only wounds his shoulder.

Billie turns up at college for her mid-term exam with only 20 minutes left. She calls her professor a pig for having the audacity to not give an A+ to someone who didn’t bother to show up and then the belt’s mojo kicks in and starts a riot between the men and women. Check out the extras in this riot scene, because some of the acting is truly hilarious. Zira takes Billie away from the madness.

Now where the hell are the Cleaners when we really truly need them?

Piper suddenly cares about men being wiped out when she realises she has two sons. Good catch there Columbo! She sends Leo to play some more golf.

*sigh* Just like with the Avatars. Who cares how it affects everyone else, just how it affects Piper. *sigh*

Zira tells Billie her intentions. She just wants world peace… y’know, after she’s done with all the genocide.

Are you *sure* she was really part of the Brotherhood of the Thorn and not the Avatars??? Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting. We’re in the Year of the Rehash.

Piper and Phoebe summon Billie and try to trap her with the crystal cage. Billie literally whales the cage away and exclaims that “there’s no wrath like a woman scorned” before speeding out. You’d think naming an episode after that saying; they’d be able to quote it correctly! Oh who am I kidding? No you wouldn’t.

Hehehehe!! You are *so* right about that!

Billie is starting to feel fatigued by the belt’s power after destroying all of Zira’s male superiors and her apprentice.

*sigh*

Leo is invisible and finds the “Get the Stupid Belt off the Teenage Witch” spell in one of the books. He tackles Billie to the ground. Paige orbs the book and recites the spell, freeing Billie. Paige then orbs the belt around Zira’s waist and the belt blows Zira up. Also the belt explodes with her, which seems kinda stupid, but at least they won’t be bringing it back I guess.

And that’s the best part of that episode…well, not counting the introduction of Henry, of course.

Speaking of…

Paige’s charge Speed is exonerated and Henry frees him. Henry calls Paige to tell her and their love story begins. Aww.

Aww is so right!

P3. Piper, Phoebe and Billie all look very nice, I must say. Liz Phair sings us out with a rather pretty song while Billie checks out a guy at the bar. Aww, there’s hope for men yet.

Without any help from the Cleaners, rats anyway. And what exactly happened to change Billie’s mind???

Next up- A virus that causes terribly dubbed dialogue spreads across the magical community; but Phoebe’s self-involvement proves to be the true threat to everyone’s safety.

Hehehehe! That has to be one of my favorite “Next up” ‘s.

[Esmeralda]

Dec 23, 2015 9:38:34 GMT -5 @p3nathan said:

Jennifer Tung could have played Klea again, because we never saw what happened to her at the end of the Brotherhood episode.  Of course, that would mean that the later seasons writers had some sense of continuity.   But we know that ship sailed long ago.

Yeah it's a shame actually, I thought Klea was much cooler, I wouldn't have minded knowing what became of her. I daresay she'd make quick work of Zira any day.

Oh, wouldn't that have been FUN???

It's a wonder she didn't get expelled for this. 

I know, usually your name has to begin with a 'P' if you want to get away without any consequences or accountability in life. Strange.[/quote]Well, since she's a sorta-Halliwell now (just like Paige...) what goes for them goes for her.

I *still* want to know why the Cleaners didn't do anything in this episode...