Previously: Piper and Leo were gone for a while, I guess.
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Magic Hour
Marines: Piper is waiting in a salon, watching two women under hair dryers flip through bridal magazines. She looks down at the table where there is a pile of magazines there too. She picks one up, frustratedly puts it down, and decides to walk out on her hair appointment? Like, did she change her mind about her dirty hair? Was she just sitting there to spy on women reading bridal magazines? I don’t really know.
Piper gets into a elevator and two women walk in and excitedly show off their engagement rings.
Piper gets home and a bride and groom in a “just married” car roll past her.
I guess we understand by now that whatever magical problem of the episode is going to be overshadowed by Piper’s forced relationship drama of the episode: a wedding.
Mari: And it’s Charmed, so that is a plausible plot point.
Inside the Manor, Phoebe is making paper glasses to uses to watch the eclipse. She’s making like 87 of them so I wonder if she’s going to sell them on Etsy or something? Anyway, while she does this, she’s telling Prue that she’s definitely going to get picked for maid of honor. Prue is like “nuh uh.” No one cares.
Steph: I do! I’ve been waiting months to see this unfold. JK, I forgot this engagement even happened.
Mari: Piper walks inside and the girls rush to ask her to settle something and Piper says that’s fine as long as it gets her minds off weddings ha ha ha ha! But no, really, they just want to know who the maid of honor is. Piper pouts that she can’t have anyone invited to her wedding, or music or a band, so what makes them think she can have a maid of honor? That’s kind of a stupid question because if her sisters are going to be there….
Anyway, they take this pity party to the couch as Piper laments her insta-wedding. Prue tries to make her feel better by saying that while Piper might not get her dream wedding, she is getting her dream guy. Gag me.
Speak of the vomit induction, Leo tinkles in. Phoebe happily yells out, “Leo!” but he shushes her. He grabs a seat and explains that The Powers That Be (Contriving) are demanding an answer. Either Piper and Leo break up or the girls get a new white lighter. They need to either give an answer by tomorrow night or pull off their secret wedding, which will give them super special unbreakable binding magic at the same time. Leo and Piper are kind of like, “oh yeah, the catch is that if we get caught trying to pull off a secret wedding, TPTB(c) will probably kills us.”
Details.
Leo says they have to be super stealth about their secret wedding, which means referring to it as “the w word.” Also, forgetting that they’ve spent 3 minutes of episode already talking about nothing but weddings. Prue asks if Phoebe found anything in the Book of Shadows for hiding secret weddings (???) but no luck, obviously. Phoebe’s more worried about the part where TPTB(c) will unleash unspeakable wrath. She wants to know if this applies to bridesmaids as well because bodies aren’t meant for breaking. I appreciate her sense of self-preservation. Piper mopes that hearts weren’t meant for breaking either.
Steph: It would be super great if we found out TPTB(c) are doing all of this just because they’re sick of the P’s stupid romances. They’re just like us.
Mari: This is all interrupted by Kit (the cat) who is yowling. The girls check outside and Kit is yowling at an owl that is on the doorstep. Phoebe yells at Kit to leave the owl alone and calls her a bad kitty. Then the owl turns into a naked man (for real) and Prue says, “good kitty.” Because naked man.
It’s nighttime now at the manor and apparently it took them a while to invite the naked guy in and give him a towel. I totally believe the girls just kept him naked for a while and made bad puns while staring at him. Anyway, the girls try to quickly suss out the situation because they’ve got a YOU KNOW WHAT to plan. Naked Owl Guy seems surprised that the girls didn’t freak out at his owl trick. Also, he’s not entirely clear about WTF is going on here, so we mostly gather that his boss cursed him, he wants revenge and he has 12 hours before he’s an owl again.
Piper points Naked Owl Guy (who I’m not going to stop calling Naked Owl Guy) in the direction of some of Leo’s clothes, and the girls huddle. Piper is all for ignoring this guy and planning their SHH IT’S A SECRET. Prue and Phoebe think maybe they should help the innocent. And when they turn around, they see Naked Owl Guy has run away anyway. Piper’s like cool! RUTABAGA PLANNING TIME. Phoebe is stupid so she’s not picking up on all these super secret code words.
The girls decide to divide and conquer. Prue is heading up to the attic for Book of Shadows and scrying (with an owl feather Kit helpfully brings over) and Piper is going to work on WHAT? WHAT WEDDING? Prue suggests Phoebe help Piper, but Phoebe is hesitant. Mostly because she wants her sister to be the only one to die should this go badly.
Bookstore. Apparently the first step when planning a secret RUTABAGA is to go buy a bunch of books on eloping you’ll have no time to read and TPTB(c) can probably see you buying. Piper and Phoebe are in line. Phoebe is holding two children’s books, including The Giving Tree. I have no idea why.
Steph: I was so baffled by her books that I had to rewind to see if I missed something. Being confused and then rewinding only to find out it’s just the show not making any sense is a thing that happens a lot.
Mari: I was recently trying to convince one of our recappers to join Charmed and this is basically what I told her about the recapping experience. I don’t think it was a good sales pitch.
While they’re in line Julian McMaCole (S: Perfect name.) walks up to them and Phoebe gets all giddy and awkwardly flirty. I’m not recapping it more than that, though Piper’s eyerolls are pretty in line with my feelings. She’s also the bitch that makes us suffer through her relationship drama pretty much every episode so I don’t think she has room to eyeroll.
Mari: I feel like Phoebe is the worst character, though Piper is being used in the absolute worst way. If that makes sense. It probably doesn’t. EVERYTHING IS THE WORST.
Piper and Phoebe get up to pay and McMaCole spies all the wedding material. He asks who the lucky sister is and Piper starts to say, “me!” but fixes it to Mi…mi. Their cousin Mimi. As they are doing all this chatting, McMaCole waves a hand and all the books inside their bags disappear. EVEN THE GIVING TREE? AND AFTER THEY PAID FOR IT? RUDE. This guy is a demon.
Steph: Kill anyone you like, but we draw the line at messing with other people’s books, Cole.
Mari: After Piper and Phoebe leave, McMaCole pulls the eloping books out of his own bag, so I guess he just transferred them to properly spy on them? Or because he too wants to know the secrets to keeping your wedding hush-hush.
Bad People Office. A Bad Underling tells a Bad Boss that his insider trading information paid off. Bad Boss signs a paper with magic fire so we know he’s bad, in case the darkened office and black suit didn’t immediately tip us off. Bad Boss is not totally satisfied, though, because he keeps hearing owl screeching that sounds like longing. He (presumably Naked Owl Guy) longs for some girl just the way that Bad Boss does. Bad Boss tried to use this magic so he wouldn’t be longing for this girl, but it hasn’t worked. He still wants the girl.
Bad Boss [BB] dismisses Bad Underling with a wave of his hand (and the underling literally goes up in a puff of smoke…). Naked Owl Guy [NOG] comes running out of the shadows and puts a knife to Bad Boss’s heart. There’s lots of banter to prolong Bad Boss’s life and give him the opportunity to remind NOG that his curse will only last longer should Bad Boss die.
BB waves his hand again and a different underling appears, this one with a crossbow. (S: I think it’s the same guy, but to be fair, all of these people are very forgettable.) (M: Whoops. I’m gonna just pretend he’s a different guy so I don’t have to edit.) There is still enough banter that we are told that the only way the owl curse can be broken is if Mystery Dream Girl gives herself to BB and then NOG escapes. BB yells at Crossbow Underling to find and kill Naked Owl Guy or at least start killing every owl he finds.
Halliwell Manor. Piper and Phoebe are back and fill Prue in on their stupid waste of time at the book store. Prue hasn’t found anything either. Piper flips through the Book of Shadows for 10 seconds and announces that she’s found something. About the innocent they are protecting? Of course not! About her THING AHEM. There is a ceremony like a wedding. She finds a nearby chalk board and writes the name of the ceremony: hand fasting. Phoebe’s like, “oh yeah. That.” Piper is like UH, why didn’t you tell me about it and Phoebe comes up with a lot of different excuses. It basically boils down to the fact that Phoebe doesn’t want to get hurt over Piper’s stupid wedding. Phoebe calls Piper selfish and Piper’s like, “DUH. IT’S MY LIFE.” Plus, I guess she really loves Leo or something.
Piper shuts the Book of Shadows and the owl feather flies away. Phoebe picks up the feather and has a premonition. It’s Naked Owl Guy being attacked by a wolf.
We cut to a woods. Apparently, the girls have been checking out random woods. Get better powers, Phoebe. They finally see Naked Owl Guy and the wolf shows up. Naked Owl Guy calls the wolf off and it’s clear that they are friends, not foes. The wolf and Naked Owl Guy run off together into a cabin.
The sun rises in record time and as it does, the wolf turns into a naked woman: Mystery Dream Girl. (Elizabeth Harnois, familiar looking maybe because of CSI?) One second later, Naked Owl turns back into an owl. Romantic tragedy.
Mystery Dream Girl [MDG] goes running from the cabin and the 3Ps chase her. They try to convince her to let them help so that Naked Owl Guy won’t keep going after Bad Boss. MDG is like, “um, I don’t even know you weirdos,” which is fair. Unfortunately for her, the 3Ps say they are the only ones who can help. Naked Owl Guy swoops in between them as a warning because Crossbow Underling has found them.
Phoebe pushes MDG out of the way. Piper freezes an arrow. Prue sends Crossbow Underling flying. He runs away. Phoebe asks MDG if she trusts them yet because if there is an obvious line opportunity, and the writers of Charmed don’t take it, a puppy dies in the world (probably).
Manor. Prue takes MDG to go get some food. Phoebe takes another break to tell Piper that all her decisions are wrong, basically. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I love my sisters a lot and if they asked me for advice, I’d give it to them. If they didn’t ask me for advice, I might try to offer some insight a little more delicately? And if I were fundamentally opposed to something they were doing, like, I don’t have to be a part of it? Maybe I just hate Phoebe. I DON’T KNOW.
Steph: I just don’t understand how you can hate Phoebe when Piper is clearly the worst with her non-stop complaining and making everything about herself. We can probably both agree that Prue is too boring to hate, though.
Mari: Definitely too boring to hate.
Anyway, Piper says that unless she has Prue’s and Phoebe’s approval, she won’t get secret married.
In the kitchen, Mystery Dream Girl is being sad because apparently turning into animals every day has strained her relationship. MDG says that she wonders and Piper is on hand to cut her off and make this about her: she wonders if love isn’t supposed to conquer all. Prue says she’s tired of magic meddling in love. It happened to her, it’s happening to Piper and it’s happening to MDG. Prue says if love won’t conquer, they will. They’ve got half an episode to do the damn thing. They need MDG’s help, though. MDG weirdly turns around and walks out of the kitchen. Okay, Rudy Huxtable.
Bad HQ. Crossbow Underling comes back with a dead owl, but he’s dumb, because clearly this isn’t Naked Owl Guy as it’s an owl and not a guy. Bad Boss sets him on fire and calls up a new underling. This guy looks really familiar. IMDB tells me he was once in an episode of Buffy, but I’m thinking that his hair is just giving me Kevin from the Backstreet Boys vibes.
Steph: Identical right down to the facial hair.
Mari: Glad that was accurate ’cause it bothered me for one whole second.
Then, we get a stupid, try-hard transition from Bad Boss’s computer screen to the Manor. I have no idea why that just happened. Charmed never cares about it’s transitions or it does, and it’s another thing I instantly forgot. You never know with Charmed-nesia.
It turns out MDG was just walking outside so she could exposit her wah-wah backstory while standing next to her owl-lover. (S: The owl squawks over the dialogue the entire time. It’s hilarious.) MDG took a job at Bad HQ, Bad Boss made his moves, MDG turned him down, he decided to curse her until there’s a night within a day.
….
THE ECLIPSE? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?
DAMMIT. I HATE YOU, SHOW.
Steph: Hey, give them some credit with that clever foreshadowing they did with the glasses at the beginning of the episode. No, okay, it’s still stupid.
Mari: MDG blames herself for putting Naked Owl Guy through this, but Piper and Prue lie about some lovely things NOG said about how strong MDG is. She buys it.
Phoebe is in the attic flipping through the Book of Shadows too quickly to be doing anything useful. She’s talking out loud as she does and suddenly the BoS opens up to the Handfasting page. She’s like, “um, no” because this is not what she was asking for. Gram’s voice is suddenly a thing and it says that Phoebe asked for an answer. Grams materializes and she has brought with her 5 minutes of advice that is about 5 minutes too long. Basically, magic doesn’t keep a girl warm at night and if Piper found true love she should go for it.
Steph: Hold up. Has Grams shown up for a chat and some advice like this before? Because Phoebe is like, “‘sup Grams” as if this is a thing she does all the time.
Mari: Casual ghost grandma.
Downstairs, Backstreet Underling is attacking the girls. Piper gets her hands pinned down but Prue manages to telekinesis him across the room. Piper wonders why she isn’t dead and Backstreet Underling says he’s here for the owl. MDG comes running and Backstreet points his crossbow at her. Naked Owl Guy swoops in and gets shot in the dumbest slow motion sequence. Remember how many feelings you had over Hedwig? Like 0 of those feelings are present here.
Steph: I mean, I thought Hedwig was cute and I also think this owl is cute, so there’s that at least.
Mari: Prue finishes off Backstreet Underling. MDG cries over Naked Owl Guy and it looks about this dumb:
Steph: This is my favorite thing that ever happened.
Mari: After a not!break, MDG is cuddling her owl in a blanket with that stupid arrow coming out of it and HOW CAN I TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY? (S: It’s incredible.) She cries and cries and Prue reminds Piper that they kind of know a guy. Piper says she couldn’t possible call Leo right now, which is also stupid. I’ve said stupid a lot. She gives in, though, and wishes for a dolt and Leo appears. (I’m sure that’s what happens.)
Leo says that TPTB(c) filled him in on the bad guys. The talk of vanquishing caught their ears, not the sudden interest in rutabagas. Leo tries to heal Naked Owl Guy, but it turns out he can’t heal animals and NOG technically is until sunset.
The doorbell rings and Phoebe runs to get it. It’s McMaCole! He’s come under the pretense of retuning the books so I guess he didn’t steal The Giving Tree, which makes him marginally less evil. (S: This was the true conflict of the episode. Glad they cleared it up for us.) He plays being all awkward for whatever reason. Phoebe won’t let him in (since some of their furniture was recently vanquished) and instead hands over his books right at the front door. Leo asks if everything is okay and shows up behind Phoebe. She introduces the two dudes. They shake hands and Leo leaves a little whitelighter goo on Cole’s hand. Since things only continue to get more awkward, Phoebe says goodbye.
Cole wipes his hand clean and yells at his shadow to report this. The shadow floats away and heads into a grate. This was all very ballsy of Cole to do so obviously and loudly outside of the Manor. Lucky for him, the P’s are idiots.
Hey, is it love chat time again? IT IS. Piper asks MDG if she ever wondered if it wasn’t meant to be with her owl. If it was too great a risk. MDG scoffs and says that if love isn’t worth taking a risk for, what is? Of course, Leo overheard Piper and he runs out, upset. No word on why he runs and doesn’t tinkle, BUT OKAY.
Piper chases after him (obviously what he wanted) and tells him he can’t come into minute 35 after like 30 minutes of love chats in this episode and assume he knows everything. That’s true but since he’s assuming you are having doubts and you are, like this argument is invalid. They keep talking about their doubts and worries up until Phoebe interrupts to tell them that they should go for it and she holds up a sign…?
WTF. Is it more official on a chalkboard?
Steph: The powers don’t know how to read, remember?
Mari: Ah, yes. I was confused by their super secret keeping ability.
Anyway, Phoebe just repeats everything Gram said.
Inside, MDG is still crying over her owl. She asks Naked Owl Guy to forgiver her and runs out.
Outside, Phoebe notices the eclipse and after a bit of that’s it! confusion with Piper and Leo, manages to tell them that the eclipse will break the curse because Bad Boss built in that easy out clause for them.
Inside again, Naked Owl Guy is now both a guy and naked again, and magically has a bandage on his wound? Leo heals him as he tells the girl that MDG has gone to Bad Boss. She didn’t know about the eclipse easy out clause and she didn’t want to see NOG die. If she gives herself over to Bad Boss and seals it with a kiss, the curse will be broken.
Bad HQ. Mystery Dream Girl turns herself in. There is a lot of banter, which of course means they don’t kiss right away and put this episode out of its misery.
The 3Ps and Naked Owl Guy also arrive at Bad HQ. Piper freezes all the workers, but on the way in to find Bad Boss, she gets a warm and fuzzy feeling, which she kind of makes look like gas. Phoebe is like, “THE TIME IS RIGHT!” Apparently, the eclipse means that TPTB(c) can’t look down to see them…? How powerful are these people really? (S: Uuuh.. Maybe they live on the sun?) Unfortunately, they don’t have time to save MDG and run home for an eclipse ceremony. Piper decides to do the right thing and save MDG.
The 3Ps bust in on Bad Boss, who was still going for the longest lean in for a kiss ever. (S: I was seriously recoiling as he approached her with his mouth open.) Bad Boss says he isn’t afraid of witches, but Prue asks how he feels about true love. Naked Owl Guy walks in. It’s a miracle! NOG also goes in for way too slow a kiss, considering the circumstances. Bad Boss has time to say, “if I can’t have her, no one can!” and conjure a crossbow. Piper freezes the whole scene. Phoebe asks if anyone has a vanquishing something, but Prue doesn’t want to get rid of him just yet. Instead she telekineses the crossbow away and Piper unfreezes them. Naked Owl Guy and Mystery Dream Girl kiss, and FOR STUPID REASONS, this vanquishes Bad Boss.
Phoebe turns to Piper and says she’s got a solution to the maid of honor thing. Piper asks about the lack of a high priestess for the hand fasting. Phoebe’s got it covered.
Back at the manor, Grams is present because apparently a ghost priestess counts. Phoebe and Prue are both maids of honor. As Piper comes downstairs, I was originally annoyed by the idea of having to watch 3 minutes of wedding. Then, though, my Good At TV alarm bells went off and now I’m terrified at the prospect of this wedding not happening and us having to put up with more of this tortured relationship.
Steph: I’m so confused by this whole ordeal. Could they not have done this same exact thing at a court house instead of buying a ton of books and wondering how to get a fucking high priestess?
Mari: Yes. Alas.
Piper and Leo smile at each other and then Leo looks constipated and then he has a weird little seizure and he’s forcefully tinkled out. Piper breaks down. Her sisters hug her and Grams hovers awkwardly nearby.
Hell. The Triad thank Cole for his tip on the wedding. He promises to keep working to destroy the P’s, with Phoebe as his way in. Also, he’s doing some acting with his face and I don’t know what it means. He’s either… twitchly evil, slightly conflicted or suddenly distracted by the Triad’s sweet-ass silky robes. I just don’t know.
Steph: All of the above.
Next time on Charmed: Cole tries to steal the Book of Shadows in S03 E03 – Once Upon a Time.
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.
I'm a miniature adult who still gets offered the kid's coloring menu at restaurants. I like to pretend I'm an illustrator, but mostly I spend my time complaining about TV on Twitter. My life dream is to have my consciousness placed into an android body so that I'll have more time to watch/read things.