Charmed S02 E03 – Sperm Doodle

Previously: The girls got back at their neighbor who left poop on their sidewalk and had to be taught a lesson.
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The Painted World

Stephanie: We open at Buckland where Prue is appraising a tacky painting of a gothic castle. She points out that the composition is unusual but it’s really not. It’s just a castle sitting in the middle of the canvas and it’s definitely a photograph that’s been shopped to look painted. The painting belongs to a super nervous woman. She wants to sell it as soon as possible and she doesn’t care how much money they get for it. Her behavior leads me to believe that this is an Evil Painting. The scene ends on an ominous zoom in shot of the painting, so definitely evil.

Phoebe and Piper talk on the phone about how Phoebe crashed Prue’s car into a pole. It looks like Piper is prepping stuff for Wanna-Bronze. I can’t wait. Anyway, Phoebe doesn’t want to tell Prue about the car damage since she has a plan to pay her back. She’s sent in her resume for a job at an “interactive network on the internet” and they want to meet with her. Piper thinks she should come clean to Prue but Phoebe is all, “Naw, I’m totally gonna get this high tech job even though all I do is sit around the house annoying you guys.”

Marines: “It’s fine. The internet is easy!”

Steph: Phoebe’s excitement is cut short when she sees all the other people who’ve applied for the job. She has to take an aptitude test and everyone there is way smarter than her because they’ve gone to Stanford and Harvard. To drive the hard job point even further, one guy is like, “HTML is easy, AMIRITE?” and it’s hilarious how ridiculous and dated this is. Phoebe tosses her aptitude test and leaves.

Back at Buckland, Prue notices a light glowing in one of the painting’s castle windows. She has a closer look with a magnifying glass and sees a small man moving around. I wish I was watching Harry Potter.

Mari: OH ME TOO. It’s like a tradition that once a post we remember something else we’d rather be watching.

Steph: For now we’ll have to settle for GIF watching.

I AM THE SAHN.

At the Halliwell Manor, 3 hours of establishing shots later (WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?), Prue tells Piper about the Painting Man. Piper is hardly paying attention because she’s busy fretting over Wanna-Bronze’s many code violations.

Phoebe comes in with the Book of Shadows which, of course, has no useful information about people in paintings. Piper drops hints about Phoebe’s job aptitude test and Phoebe tries sneak out of the kitchen, but Prue stops her to ask for her car keys. Phoebe admits that she crashed the car. Even though Prue is surprisingly cool about it, Phoebe goes off about how she’s the younger sister that always messes up. She says she’s going to pay for the car damage and Prue’s cab to Buckland before rushing out. Prue continues to be concerned about the Painting Man, but Piper doesn’t think it’s a big deal because nothing bad ever happens when they come across magical items, right?

Piper heads out to have a chat about Wanna-Bronze with next door hottie Dan and his floppity hair. She needs him to go over the violations since he works in construction. Ginny-Jenny runs out so that we all remember she’s around for no reason. (M: I have that moment of remembering every time I see the credits…) Dan agrees to help Piper if she’ll help Jenny write a paper about reproduction. There’s a lot of flirting going on and I’m kind of confused because I thought Dan was being set up as a love interest for Phoebe, but I guess Piper has to overcompensate with lots of boyfriend’s since Phoebe’s always calling her a sexless loser.

Mari: It’s Phoebe’s job to always salivate over the guys Piper eventually lands. Phoebe is useless.

Steph: Buckland. Prue is in her office with the Evil Painting’s owner. She tells her that there’s something strange about it and Painting Owner is all, “YOU’VE SEEN HIM TOO?” She explains that first you see the man and then… YOU SEE THE MAN AGAIN. And then you go insane. She wants to get rid of the painting as soon as possible before she goes crazy like the rest of her family. So why doesn’t she destroy it instead of peddling it off to some unsuspecting person? (M: EVIL. The real question is, “why doesn’t Prue pick up on this?”)

Phoebe sits on her bed with the book of shadows and writes a spell out on a piece of paper. She hides the book under her blanket when Piper comes in to have a chat about the $1200 she’ll need to get Prue’s car fixed. Phoebe has another freakout about how stupid she is. Piper tells her not to do anything she wouldn’t do and leaves. Phoebe announces to nobody that she’s going to cast a smart spell. She finishes writing the spell and recites it while holding the paper against her head. Guess she didn’t learn anything about personal gain from that fiery death she died the other day.

Mari: Apparently her way around this is to say, “and no personal gain!” I hate this show. I mean, if it’s that easy, they definitely did say, “this is not for personal gain,” before they flung poo last episode, so why didn’t it work then? WHY? WHY? WHY?

Steph: Because the magic can sense when they really really really mean it. Or this show doesn’t make any sense. Take your pick.

Phoebe grabs a nearby dictionary and holds her hands over it to absorb all the wordy knowledge. Her vocabulary is great, but I don’t think she’s going to get anything about HTML from there.

Buckland. A co-worker brings Prue an X-ray of the evil painting, which reveals some latin words that were hidden on the canvas. The props department has opted to go with a cheesy font for this rather than more authentic looking hand lettered calligraphy. No one on this show is trying. Prue can understand latin, but she still thinks it’s a good idea to read the words aloud. The light in the painting glows again and she sees “help” written on the window. She reads the latin once again and gets sucked into the painting. No one is surprised except for her. Maybe all of the P’s should use the smart spell.

It’s obvious what just happened, but Prue is confused about where she is. She immediately gets attacked by some fireballs. Painting Man (Malcolm) appears and explains that she’s in the painting now. He’s irritated that Prue is in there with him instead of getting him out. They rush over to a bookshelf while Prue telekiknocks fireballs aside. Malcolm’s taken aback by Prue’s magical abilities even though he currently resides inside of an ugly painting. They escape the fireroom via bookshelf secret door.

Halliwell Manor. Phoebe sits at the kitchen table being all intelligent while wearing overalls with a tube top. Oh my god. What is happening?

Mari: Just proven: reading the dictionary does not improve your sense of style.

Steph: If they were going for smart people don’t know how to dress, it worked. 

Piper’s concerned that there’s no sign of Prue at home or at her office. She worries that Prue may have been right about the Evil Painting. Phoebe uses her magic smartness to explain the unlikeliness of Prue being in danger, but the spell clearly didn’t make her smart enough to understand that they live in a magical world and they’re in dangerous situations ALL. THE. TIME.

Anyway, Phoebe concludes that there’s less than a 3.3% chance that Prue is in any danger. Piper is all, “what the hell?” and asks if Phoebe’s been dipping into the BoS. Phoebe’s like, “no,” and Piper’s like, “oh, okay cool,” and that’s the end of that. Phoebe reminds Piper that she has to meet up with Dan and then accuses her of having a crush on him. How many boyfriends will Piper need to live up the very high man-standards that Phoebe doesn’t apply to her own life? Piper chooses to head to Buckland to check on Prue instead, while Phoebe will go meet up with Dan.

Painted Castle. Malcolm tries to keep Prue away from him because he hates witches. Prue promises that she’s a good witch who is trying to save him. Prue goes over to him to inspect his injured head by putting her dirty fingers all over the wound. Malcolm explains that he hates witches because his ex-girlfriend, Nell, was a witch and she’s the one who made the cursed painting. When they broke up, she gave it to him and he got trapped inside. Prue says that he must have really pissed her off and he responds that that would explain why he hasn’t aged after being trapped for 70 years and why there are fireballs. Does it really, though?

Mari: Prue asks how he saw the secret Latin words and he’s all, “SAME AS YOU!” That “same as you” is by x-ray. No questions as to why homeboy was x-raying gift paintings in 1929. Prue just accepts this.

Steph: Wanna-Bronze. We get an exterior shot of the club and the logo on the awning is some kind of diamond with P^3 on it. It’s beautiful. I love it. (M: Is this real?) (S: No.) Phoebe in a construction hat sans overalls and Dan do some inspecting. Dan asks where Piper is and Phoebe says she couldn’t make it and gives him a reassuring pat on the back. Dan responds with an “oh” and a big smile. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.

Piper shows up at Buckland and looks for signs of Prue. She looks everywhere but at the painting and grabs the latin print and reads it out loud. Good grief. She’s interrupted by Prue’s co-worker and possible potential love interest (IT COULD BE ANYONE). He’s there to pick up the painting but Piper freezes him.

Painted Castle. Prue and Malcolm zig zag across the fireball room while Prue explains her excellent plan. She wants to write her name on the window to warn her sisters and keep them from getting sucked into the painting too. Is it just me or does Malcolm look exactly like Leo? Anyway, Prue is going to deflect fireballs while Malcolm does the writing, but before they can do anything, Piper grabs the painting and they start shaking around all over the place. Piper rushes out of the office and bumps into everyone causing lots of fiery chaos for Prue and Malcolm. They hide under a table for protection and Malcolm gives her love-eyes. He says he never thought a woman would be the one to rescue him and Prue is like, “fuck you.” Or maybe that was just me.

Phoebe’s back at the Halliwell manor confirming her aptitude test submission. Piper comes in with the painting and tells her that Prue wasn’t at the office, but she did find the painting and the painting X-ray. Phoebe ignores all of this so that she can answer a bunch of questions on Win Ben Stein’s Money. Don’t ask me why I remember this show. Piper catches on and accuses her of casting a spell. This show has zero focus. One minute they’re fretting about their missing sister and the next minute they’re talking about the smart spell or how hot Dan looked.

Mari: And it’s all so stupid. Why would super smart Phoebe, who is trying to hide her smart spell, pause to answer questions from Win Ben Stein’s Money? WHY?

Steph: Maybe if we ask why enough answers will start to happen. 

Phoebe confesses that she cast a smart spell to pass her aptitude test. Piper says that there will be consequences for using her powers for personal gain (M: yeah right…), but Phoebe says it’s not for personal gain because of how she added that into the spell. That’s how selflessness works in Phoebe-land. They argue a bit about smartness before Phoebe huffs off. Piper stops her to ask about the meaning of the X-ray Latin. She reads it out loud and gets sucked into the painting.

Piper appears in the painting screaming and running from fireballs. Prue magics the fire away and Piper runs over while freezing fire and making very strange wailing noises. They hide inside the bookshelf room and Malcolm is once again disappointed with his rescue party.

Piper freaks out a bit because she doesn’t want to be stuck inside of a painting forever, but then she realizes that they have a super smart sister on the outside who might be able to help them. She says they need to hurry up and write Nell’s name on the window before Phoebe’s smart spell runs out.

Phoebe magically page-flips through the BoS and Jenny rings the doorbell. God, why? (M: That’s an important question around here.)

Inside the painting, Prue and Piper are still fending off fireballs and attempting to get closer to the window. Piper rushes forward and a bunch of blades spring out of the walls and trap her between them. She squeals out “blades!” and it’s the first time I genuinely laughed at something. That was cute. Good job, show.

Prue magics the blades open and Piper quickly writes Nell on the window and rushes out before the blades come out again. Prue magics a fireball toward the window so that the name glows.

Phoebe and Jenny talk about her reproduction paper. Phoebe’s surprised that Dan asked Piper to help because Piper only has 15 boyfriends, so she doesn’t know anything about sex. (M: A+) The window on the painting begins to glow and Phoebe shoos Jenny out of the room so that she can investigate. Jenny comes back in and Phoebe grabs her paper, scribbles something on it and pushes her out of the house. Jenny looks at the paper and sees that Phoebe has left her a nice little sperm doodle.

Across the street, Painting Owner watches the Halliwell Manor from her car and puts on glasses all suspicious-like.

Phoebe chants over the BoS “Nell, Nell, find me Nell.” The pages flip around and Phoebe congratulates herself on her intelligence, but that spell sounded pretty dumb to me. The book finally has some useful information for us because the episode is almost over: Nell trapped a warlock in the painting with a hidden spell that only he could see with his X-ray vision. She also finds the words to release people from the painting but can’t figure out how to get the spell to them without getting trapped too until Kit the cat saunters in all, “hey I’ll do it.”

Mari: …why would she get trapped too if she had the words to get released? Sounds like someone just doesn’t want to go to ugly painting land.

Steph: Painted Castle. Malcolm volunteers to keep watch by the bookshelf for any response from Phoebe. When he’s gone, Prue says it’s very strange that anyone would go through so much trouble just to trap an ex in a painting. She also thinks it’s strange how Malcolm has been able to get his message on the window without powers, especially since their useless awesome powers were almost not enough. I’m not sure how the power of X-ray vision would help him out there, but I bet we’ll find out and it’ll be stupid.

Kit pops into the painting and the 2Ps rush over, but it’s too late, Malcolm has her. He starts to read the spell in a demonic voice and then teleports around all over the room and talks like a newsie. He completes the spell and disappears. Piper decides she’s never going to talk to Prue again.

Malcolm mists his way out of the painting. He tells Phoebe that she’s very smart for figuring out that he’s a warlock but not really ‘cause she just read it in the Book of Shadows. Also, he’s walking at her sideways and squinting his eyes like an evil warlock would. How could she not guess? Turns out, Painting Owner is his Warlock Lover who’s been trying to find a way to get him out. Phoebe puts a stop to his villain gloating by kicking him in the head and doing gymnastics all over his face. Bronze, check. Buffy stand-in, check. Phoebe’s now a black belt because she read a martial arts manual. She kicks him some more and the editing is suuuuuper awkward. Malcolm gets his final gloat in about how Phoebe’s spell will wear off before she can get her sisters out and disappears with the cat collar spell.

Malcolm teleports outside to reunite with Warlock Lover. They decide to go back into the house to steal the Charmed powers and also give the P’s a chance to kill them. (M: Considerate.)

Piper has changed her mind and she’s talking to Prue again. They talk about how amazing Phoebe’s really simple plan was.

They agree to buy her shoes and a matching bag once they’re out.

Mari: WHY DOES THIS SHOW KEEP TRYING TO CONVINCE US PHOEBE ISN’T USELESS?

Steph: I don’t know, but it’s not working. Especially since her plan was not even brilliant. At all. 

Meanwhile, Phoebe tries to get information from the BoS again by waving her hands around but nothing happens because the smart spell has worn off. She finds the pages on Nell again but she can’t read the Latin pages anymore. She should totally be able to find the spell again though, because she remembers the first two words.

Malcolm appears again and politely lets Warlock Lover in through the front door. Warlock Lover uses her lighter finger to set the painting on fire. Luckily, Phoebe remembers the spell to get inside the painting and sends all three of them back in.

Mari: Wait, wait, wait, wait. She can’t remember the three words she wrote down five minutes ago, but she does remember the more words she heard Piper yell 20 minutes ago? LOL WHUT?

Steph: RIGHT? What is this show even doing?

Phoebe’s stolen the collar back from Malcolm and Piper freezes the warlocks. They use the spell to get out while the warlocks burn in terrible fire effects.

Back at the Halliwell Manor, Prue extinguishes the fire and says that she didn’t want to kill the warlocks, just trap them in a painting full of fireballs. I’m really confused by the continued insistence that they don’t kill people. They spent the entirety of last season killing demons and warlocks. This is not a new thing.

Piper asks how Phoebe was able to get the collar back from Malcolm and she explains that she used her street smarts to pickpocket him. They all smile at each other stupidly as we fade over to P^3 where Piper is looking over the very expensive estimate of what it’ll cost to make the club not suck. Dan says that those were Phoebe’s ultra smart suggestions, but he’ll do it for less.

Dan goes over to Phoebe to tell her that he’d prefer Jenny use her own smarts to complete her work and hands her back the sperm doodle before leaving. I don’t know if they’re supposed to be flirting or what the point of any of this is. Phoebe feels all inspired thanks to the smart spell so she’s considering going back to college. I guess we might have some Phoebe goes to school episodes to look forward to if this show attempts continuity. Piper comes over and tells Phoebe to open the present they got her and it’s the shoes and bag. Phoebe thanks Piper by doing this:

Well, that’s one way to show gratitude.

 

Next time on Charmed: Piper’s club is struggling and there is a musical guest in S02 E04 – The Devil’s Music.