Previously: The Halliwell sisters discovered they have magic powers and destroyed their first warlock by holding hands.
—
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Lorraine: We start at Quake. The name of the restaurant is stylized on a piece of reinforced concrete that is cracked down the middle. GET IT?
Phoebe finds Piper at the bar. As per usual (or based on 2 episodes…) Piper is freaking out. Seems the chef that hired her promptly quit and left her to run things alone. This is clearly not the restaurant Piper auditioned at in the pilot, so perhaps she had to do a full rebrand too. Phew! She must be exhausted. Not too exhausted to notice that Phoebe is wearing her dress, though. I have sisters too. I can spot my dress on one of them from an admirable distance away.
Some lady named Brittany comes to the bar to have her hand tattoo noticed by Phoebe, who thought it was illegal to get hand tattoos. A highly scientific analysis of Wikipedia has lead me to believe that’s false statement. No matter, Brittany got hers done in Tahiti. She’s really at the bar to pay, by the way. Noticing her hand tattoo was a bonus. She takes off because she has to “jam.” I think in 1998 that means “leave.”
Phoebe gets a premonition about the man across the bar with the intensely square jaw offering to buy her a drink. She tells Piper, who freaks out because they all agreed not to use their powers. Then she says they can’t control their powers. So, basically they all agreed not to use the things they have no control of. GREAT JOB, LADIES. Boxy Head Man does indeed offer to buy Phoebe a drink.
Outside, Brittany gets into her car to find someone is already in the back seat. She screams. That’s what she gets for disregarding fake laws and getting a hand tattoo.
Elsewhere, Prue gets dressed and tries to sneak out of Andy’s room. He stirs when his alarm goes off at 5-god-forsaken-45-am. Prue glares at the alarm clock and it flies out the window. She’s able to complete the hit and run before Andy’s full awake.
I AM THE SAAAAHN.
Halliwell Manor. Piper is watching a cheesy documentary about the Salem Witch trials on TV. Prue walks in and lightly picks fun at her until Piper mentions that Andy called.
Police Station. Andy is looking at a picture of Britney in which her hand tattoo is prominently displayed. The detectives tell her boyfriend to go home and wait to see if she shows up, then exposit some about how this is the 4th missing person and they couldn’t possible be disappearing into thin air.
Piper is parked outside of a church and is spotted by the pastor. He thought she was showing up later with the leftover food from her restaurant. She is, she was just parked there, thinking about that documentary she saw. She asks him if it’s true that witches would burn upon entering the church. The pastor is all, “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t test it. OKAY SEE YOU LATER.” After a moment, Piper decides to brave it. She reaches for the door handle and thunder cracks and the bells in the tower go off. Piper jumps and rushes back to her car.
Buckland Auction House. Prue’s late for an interview. While on the elevator, she gets a call from Andy and they talk about her leaving after sex, but it’s really awkward because, you know, elevator full of people. Prue gets tired of waiting to get to the 12th floor and she uses her powers to move the elevator all the way up, no stops. A man on the elevator calls her lucky and says she’s truly charmed, which isn’t obvious at all.
Qua ke. Phoebe recognizes a man at the bar as some fancy shmancy photographer. She interrupts him to squee, and he calls her beautiful, and insists that the red head he’s with is not his girlfriend. Pissed Off Red Head leaves. Phoebe tries to awkward out of there, but Le’dick Photographer stops her and says he’s in town for a Porsche photo shoot he’d love her to be a part of. He writes an address on a napkin and hands it to her. Phoebe walk away and into Piper. When Phe turns to look back at the bar, Le’dick is gone.
Auction House. We learn Prue didn’t even apply to this job. The boss just liked her work at the museum and contacted her. A Snooty Assistant ushers Prue inside an office and she comes face to face with that dude from the elevator who heard her talk about her sex life. Awk.
Warehouse. Pissed Off Red Head [PORH] is tied to one of those illuminated tables photographers use. She begs Le’dick to let her go, but a demon comes out of the shadows and corrects her: his name is Javna. He ejaculates some Bad Special Effects from his eyes into PORH’s eyes. She gets insta-old as Javna morphs back into Le’dick. He looks at himself in a mirror and laughs evilly.
Bad First Impressions Auction House. Prue says she always gets what she wants. Boss Dude says it’s too bad she said in the elevator she was totally wrong for the job. Prue calls that a private conversation and he replies, “hardly.” She stands, pissed, reminding him that he called her and not the other way around. It’s totally unfair that he would judge her for a private conversation she had in an elevator full of people on her way to a job interview. Probably because she looks like she’s going to deck him in the face, Boss Man ends up apologizing to Prue. He’s new to this role, having just taken over for his father. He appreciates Prue’s skills but wants the person he hires to want to be there. Piper changes her tune and tells him that she’s definitely right for the job.
Snap, Crackle, Pop Church. Phoebe and Piper are there with a food donation. They are talking about Prue’s sex life again and I hope this isn’t a habit. Piper is being a little judgey about sex on a first date, telling Phoebe they need to be careful in and out of bed. The Pastor from earlier comes over to greet the girls and Phoebe takes off to go buy some gum. (IDK.)
Now alone, Pastor looks at Piper expectantly. She caves and says she’s got this friend who thinks she may be a witch. The Pastor quotes a Bible verse that basically says witches should die.
At a newsstand, an elder couple is next to Phoebe, picking numbers for a lottery ticket. If they don’t win, they’ll lose their house. Phoebe touches a blank ticket and gets a flash of the winning numbers. She tells them to the couple and buys a ticket herself. When Phoebe gets back to Piper, she’s beaming, as I would be if I knew I was going to suddenly come into millions. I’m always on the verge of calling Phoebe’s power the lamest, but I think this just changed my mind. As the girls drive away, we see an old lady in line to get food. She’s got an identifying angel tattoo on her hand.
Mulder Morris is teasing Scully Andy about his theories concerning the abductions. Andy spots Prue across the street, entering Qua ke, and abandons the investigation to follow her. Inside, Phoebe is flirting with Le’dick. Prue notices she’s wearing Armani, and she can’t just let that slide. No-ho-ho-ho. She goes over to berate her sister in front of a stranger for buying a dress. Phoebe excuses herself and Le’dick looks down at his hand, which is turning demon-y.
In the kitchen, Phoebe admits that she played the lottery. Prue gets on her for using her powers, but won’t admit that she’s been using them too. Piper is trying to shoo them out of the kitchen. Andy walks in, and he bumps into a cook.
Le’dick spots Detective Morris and leaves Qua ke in a hurry. Morris makes his way to the kitchen and luckily, time unfreezes as soon as he walks in. Andy is surprised to see Morris there, and doesn’t know what happened to the last 10 minutes of his life, but he allows himself to be shuffled out. Piper snarls, “I hate being a witch.” It’s episode 2, girl. Calm down.
Halliwell Manor. Phoebe finds Piper looking through the Book of Shadows. Holly Marie Combs proves that she’s the acting heavyweight on this TV show as she has all these feelings about the uncertainty of being witches now. How do they know they are good? Her voice breaks as she says she just wants to be normal again.
Phoebe assures her sister that if she was given this gift, it’s so she can protect the innocent. Pep talk all done, Phoebe has to go to her photo shoot.
Andy and Prue have dinner and it’s awkward. He wants to start over, slow it down, and not blow their second chance. Prue gets a call from the auction house wanting her to come in for a second interview. She asks Andy to give her some time to think about their relationship.
Piper is outside of the church again, trying to convince herself that she has nothing to be afraid of.
As Piper’s walking away from the church, she spots Old Lady Britney, and identifies her thanks to that hand tattoo! Fake illegal or not, I’m pretty sure this episode just convinced me to get one! Just in case, you know?
Auction House. Boss Dude tests Prue’s skills by asking her to identify some pieces. Snooty Assistant “accidentally” bumps into a ladder and knocks over a paint can. Prue puts up her hands protectively and telekinesis-es the paint away from her. It splashes onto Snooty Assistant’s shoes. Boss Dude gets panicky, probably because his place of employment is a giant OSHA violation or because he’s keeping works of art in an active renovation zone. He hires Prue on the spot. She leaves and Boss Dude asks Snooty Assistant what she thought. “Either she’s the luckiest woman in the world, or she’s a witch.” Ruh-roh!
Prue gets home and Piper explains to her that the old lady in their house is actually Britney.
Phoebe gets to the warehouse, but she has a premonition when she touches the door. She hightails it back to her van, but it’s too late. Le’dick grabs her.
Halliwell Manor. Piper knows she read something in the Book of Shadows about Javna. His MO jives with what happened to Britney. They know how to defeat Javna, but not who he is. Downstairs, Old Britney sees Le’dick’s address pinned to the fridge. She shows them the napkin to Pier and Prue and says, “Javna.”
Meanwhile, the detectives review ATM footage and see one of the victims leaving with Le’dick.
Warehouse. Phoebe is tied up. Javna starts to ejaculate from his eyes, but the remaining Halliwell sisters arrive. Prue throws Javna around with her mind, and he redirects his youth sucking on her. Piper unties Phoebe. Prue grabs Javna’s mirror sending his bad special effects right back to him, slowing him down long enough for the sister to say the vanquishing spell. It works, and Javna’s dust blows away on an indoor gust of wind. At Halliwell Manor, Britney turns back to normal.
The police arrive just as the girls are exiting the warehouse. They make up a lame story about Phoebe having car troubles before her photo shoot. Andy turns on the van easily and gives them MMMHMMM. OKAY. eyes.
Qua ke. The girls give us a little episode wrap-up in which Piper is happy she’s a good witch, Prue admits she likes her powers and Phoebe says she has to be more careful. They watch the drawing for the winning lotto numbers on TV, and Phoebe picked the right ones, but the ink on her ticket disappears. Prue says they can’t use their powers for personal gain.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Phoebe is definitely back to having the suckiest power.
Next time: Negligent Papa Halliwell teams up with some demons to thoroughly mess with his kids in Charmed S01 E03 – Thank You for Not Morphing.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
