Previously: Another Whitelighter in town, briefly.
—
Wrestling with Demons
Marines: Dearest readers: what the EFF did I just watch?
Stephanie: Do you watch the the full episode before recapping, or was this episode so bonkers you circled back around to make this comment? Either way, I’m excited.
Mari: 95% of the time, I recap as I’m watching. With old shows that are (or occasionally are) stupid, like Charmed and Doctor Who, I can watch in one shot and then come back later and recap from transcripts. I did that here because we hadn’t reapped an episode in a while and I kind of just had to down the episode like a shot.
Proceed with caution.
We start at the police station. Daryl places a cup of coffee in front of a man named Mr. Chang. Daryl is trying to tell Mr. Chang that he’s in grave danger because someone has been attacking people who appear in the Metro section of the newspaper. For some reason, the police trying to protect him from murder makes Mr. Chang V ANGRY.
Steph: Mr. Chang’s acting has got to be some of the worst we’ve seen on the show so far. I’m convinced these extras are just randos picked up from the street willing to work for nothing but the joy of being on a TV show.
Mari: I’m pretty sure nothing else makes sense.
Outside the interrogation room, the 3P’s wait by Daryl’s desk, casually speaking loudly about demons and witchy things. Prue wonders what they’ll do if Daryl can’t convince Mr. Chang to lay low. Phoebe says they’ll just follow Mr. Chang around, wait for a demon to attack, and kick his ass. Piper is surprised at Phoebe’s enthusiasm. Phoebe says being enthusiastically witchy is the best way to put Cole behind her. Her sisters find this suspicious, but probably only because Phoebe is a lying liar who lies.
Daryl and Mr. Chang leave the room, and Mr. Chang takes off. The girls ask how it went, and are shocked to hear Daryl is just gonna let the man go. Their only choice now is to… split up to follow him? SPLIT UP TO FOLLOW ONE PERSON. Wouldn’t… they all… just end up… in exactly the same places…?
OF COURSE SHE DID.
Mari: I AM THE SAHN.
Manor. Daryl and Phoebe sit at the table while Piper waters dead plants. Apparently that’s a thing she does when she’s stressed, which they are just telling us is a thing three seasons in. I’d promise to watch out for this in future episodes to see if it’s ever mentioned again but lol. No.
Steph: If Piper is always stressed and this is a thing that she does when she’s stressed, then why is the plant dead, hmmmm??? Or did she overwater this particular one with her stress gardening?
Mari: Again: lol.
Daryl tells Piper not to be nervous because Mr. Chang is now in protective custody. Piper is actually more jittery about the whole “my boyfriend is a demon” thing, because it hits a nerve with all of them, except maybe her because she’s dating Leo who is not a demon. Phoebe calls her out for babbling, which is also a nervous tick, and truly a Piper characteristic we’ve gotten to know. Prue comes in and asks what Piper’s babbling about. Piper laments not being able to freeze them.
Prue shows them all a yearbook. It looks like a yearbook, but then Phoebe seems to deduce that the guy pictured, Tom Peters, was captain of the football team. Do colleges have yearbooks? (S: I’ve only ever seen them in tv shows where people go the library to investigate people who attended the school in the past.) Daryl remembers Tom because he blew out his knee three weeks into his rookie year. He was captain of the team, three weeks into his rookie year? Sorry, I’ll never finish if I keep pausing at all of this ridiculousness. We’re not even close to the wrestling in hell yet.
Steph: Oh my god, is that a thing that’s actually going to happen?
Mari: SORRY, SPOILERS. It was the trauma seeping out.
Anyway, Daryl keeps telling us that there were rumors that Tom got into gambling after his injury and then he just disappeared. This whole time, Prue has been angrily yelling for Leo. She stomps off to the kitchen and the others are left to assume that the three-week captain of the football team was a bigger deal to Prue than they knew. They follow her to the kitchen and Piper asks Prue if she’s sure they should pursue this. Prue snits that it was Phoebe’s premonition.
Leo finally tinkles in. Prue demands to know what took him so long, and he vagues about a situation. And then decides it wise to announce to God and all these people that he lost Piper’s engagement ring, which also belonged to their dead mom. Prue reminds them all that they have business at hand. She asks if it is possible to turn a human into a demon. Leo knows of rumors of demons striking Faustian deals with humans and joining training academies that destroys their humanity. Once a recruit graduates, they have to kill an innocent to become a full-fledged demon. These are some very detailed “rumors,” Leo.
Phoebe figures it must be academy graduation time, which explains the killing spree. Prue is gun-ho about saving Tom before he turns completely. She’s off to track down Tom’s mom and tells her sisters to try and come up with a spell for finding Tom. I’m never sure why “coming up with a spell” is a task when it usually consists of coming up with a couplet willy nilly, but okay.
Ron Perlman is in this episode. Ron Perlman sits at a desk while a young guy apologizes for not being able to pay back a debt. Ron Perlman has no sympathy. He waves his hand and an elevator appears. Perlman pushes Sorry Man in the elevator and it takes him down to hell, I guess. (S: To wrestle?) (M: Wait for it.) Tom is next up in Ron’s office. Ron is not happy about Tom’s failure, since he’s promised the Source five full demon graduates by the next night. Tom explains about the witches. Ron is like WITCHES? but then is like no big, we’ll just find you a new innocent. He does so by giving Tom today’s Metro section because I DON’T KNOW WHY Ron Perlman prefers this way of picking people to kill.
Back at the manor, Leo tries to encourage Phoebe to stop lying to her sisters about Cole. Phoebe would rather just kick a lot of bad guy butt as penance. And keep lying.
Phoebe brings the Book of Shadows out to the living room where Piper is, still watering plants. Phoebe hasn’t found anything about finding demons. Piper is very OH WELL! about this, because while she was recently just so stressed about this demon thing she couldn’t stop watering plants, she’s now very casual about it because a bigger worry has presented itself: a missing ring! GO AWAY, MURDERERS. PIPER’S BUSY.
Steph: Yup, Piper’s still my least fave.
Mari: Phoebe goes up to her room and very dramatically pulls a wooden box from beneath her bed. Inside, there is a folded up piece of paper with a spell written on it for finding lost things. I’m not sure if we are supposed to remember this thing, but I’m letting context clues and Phoebe’s constipated face inform me: this was for Cole. Piper comes in and asks what’s up, and suddenly, Phoebe just confesses that this is a lost and found spell she wrote for Cole because she didn’t actually kill him. Phoebe is very insistent that he’s definitely not ever coming back. For sure. Definitely not next episode or something. Piper is pretty calmly angry that Phoebe lied and tells her she’s going to have to also fess up to Prue.
Prue is speaking with Tom’s Mom. Tom Mom has nothing but good things to say about her son who definitely wasn’t involved in gambling and who will definitely come back home to her. She also names drops Ron Perlman and Prue looks pensive.
And again at the Manor, Phoebe lights a candle and she and Piper say the lost and found spell just as Prue walks in.
Oh, REAL RICH COMING FROM YOU, PHOEBE.
The sisters head to the porch to find a newspaper that was apparently magically delivered, thanks to that spell Phoebe cast. All of the pictures in the paper are missing, save for the one of Tom’s next target. The girls rush off to find her.
We cut there. Next Victim just finished giving a speech. Tom arrives and chucks a fireball at her, but Piper manages to freeze everything. And then Prue telekenisis the fireball into someone’s car and pops their tire so sorry to that innocent. Prue says they need to get Tom back to the Manor. We of course cut away again, so they don’t have to address the logistics of three girls getting one frozen guy into their car in broad daylight.
Steph: Every one in SF seems oblivious to magic and demons, so maybe Prue can just float him the whole way back and no one will notice.
Mari: In the attic, Tom is tied to a chair, struggling to get free, so Piper freezes him. Prue looks through the Book of Shadows. Piper thinks is a good time for a certain conversation, but the phone rings and Prue finds the demon training academy in the Book, so that’s waylaid again. Also, Leo says the academy was just a rumor but also now it’s in the BoS, so. (S: You have one job, Leo.) The Book says that if Tom is fully demonic, he’ll have a brand on his arm consisting of 6 chevrons. Piper checks and he’s only got 5. Prue says they still have time. Phoebe says she’s learned from her saving demons mistakes and they should just vanquish the guy. I wonder if they could, considering they just said he wasn’t really a demon. LOL. Just kidding, I don’t actually wonder and of course they could because what are rules?
Tom unfreezes and Prue tries to appeal to him on the basis of their history. Tom throws a fireball at her. The doorbell rings and Prue tells her sisters to go find out what all the commotion downstairs is. She isn’t afraid to stay alone with Tom.
Phoebe opens the door and it’s Daryl. A white dog runs inside and Piper yells at Rasputin for jumping on the couch and then realizes that this is their grandma’s dog Rasputin who has been lost for 7 years. (S: Why is Piper so pissed that this dog is back? He is cute.) Piper next answers the phone and it’s an old friend of Prue’s. She opens a drawer to get a pencil and a million pop out. Amongst them is Piper’s lost ring? Phoebe runs in to see what’s going on and her hair is brown again because she “lost” her brown hair in the kitchen sink with hair dye…? Phoebe wonders what this means for her virginity and dear god. Before any of us have to dwell there, the laundry room overflows with lost socks.
Prue is having a heart to heart with Tom, showing him his old yearbook photo and telling him he’s a good person a bunch of times. Tom’s says nuh-uh. Before she leaves, Prue loosen’s Tom’s ties with her powers. Downstairs, Prue sees that the house is a mess. Daryl wonders if this spell gone wrong might mean that the demons they’ve vanquished here might come back. Piper, still on her single-minded mission, says like Balthazor? Prue, on her single-minded mission, asks Daryl if he brought Tom’s file over. As she looks it over, they hear the door close. Prue explains that she let Tom escape so they could follow him. Hey, maybe they’ll split up and end up in different places again!
Steph: Are we just going to ignore the creepy, whispering wind that passes through the house before Daryl leaves? Okay.
Mari: The 3P’s end up at Ron Perlman’s office and watch Tom walk inside. They go in after, with really no plan, but the office is empty.
Underground, Tom tells Ron that he hasn’t killed his innocent yet, but he can deliver three witches. Ron doesn’t want witches and also is very grossed out by the humanity he smells on Tom. It seems Tom needs some kind of refresher course. Lights turn on and we now see a wrestling ring. Two demons take Tom away.
Back in the office, Prue asks Phoebe if she can rewrite her lost and found spell to help them find where Tom went. She does so easily because why not spell writing lolol and the elevator appears. Back in this strange demon academy with wrestling included, Sorry Man and a wrestler IMDB tells me is named Slammer are in the ring. Sorry Man gets beat up. The 3P’s walk out of the elevator and have more of an OH NO reaction when I think a WTF one is really what’s called for. The match ends with Slammer pinning Sorry Man to the mat, the mat opening up into a crater to hell, and Sorry Man falls into the flames.
Yep. Wrestled to hell.
Steph: Honestly, the crater to hell effect is so bad, it took me a minute to understand what was happening. I thought the ring was burning up, and was relieved that they would no longer be able to use it. No such luck.
Mari: Tom’s next in the ring. Prue wants to go save him, Piper doesn’t like it, and Phoebe is being hypocritical. Prue wins the argument, though, basically saying that risking their lives for innocents is what they do. Prue calls out to Ron Perlman. All the demons head toward them, but Piper freezes them all. It doesn’t work on Ron Perlman, though, for reasons that are unexplained beyond BECAUSE I’M BAD.
Steph: Oh shit, did you see his arm covered in chevrons, though? How could they possibly go up against that?
Mari: Leo tinkles into a room at the police station, much to Daryl’s dismay. He’s worried because he can’t sense the girls anywhere. Daryl passes the information on Ron Perlman, and Leo tinkles out.
Ron Perlman says it’s too late for Tom. Prue says it isn’t. Tom says he’s sticking to the deal he’s made. Piper freezes Tom and says he definitely can’t kill an innocent now. Ron Perlman threatens to kill Piper, but she says that’ll just keep him frozen forever. Phoebe, the idiot, asks Piper if that’s true, in front of the demon they are trying to trick. Prue offers up a deal: if they win a wrestling match, everyone goes free. If they lose a wrestling match, Ron Perlman gets Tom and 3 witches.
The girls confer. Piper has to stay outside and keep all the bad guys frozen. For REASONS their powers don’t work on the wrestlers, even though it worked on the other demons, even though it didn’t work on Ron Perlman, so they are going to have to rely on their god-given wrestling skills, or whatever. Before they get to wrestling, Phoebe decides this would be a great time to confess that Cole is alive and she’s been lying this whole time about vanquishing him. Prue says if Phoebe was hoping they would die in the ring and she wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout of that confession, she’s got another thing coming.
Speaking of the ring, Ron Perlman has decided to even out the odds and bring out two more wrestlers: Booker T. and Mega Man. Like what kind of deal inspired this episode or WORSE: WHO THOUGHT OF THIS EPISODE FIRST AND THEN GOT WRESTLERS INVOLVED?
Steph: Whatever the reasons for this episode are, there are way too many super buff men in tiny pants for my liking.
Mari: What follows is a full on wrestling match, complete with Prue’s vaguely acquired ninja moves. Piper is trying to hype them up, but then Ron Perlman stabs her in the back. Everyone gets unfrozen. Ron tells Tom they are going to go visit his mom, and they leave Prue and Phoebe looking in bad shape in the ring. Hell starts to open beneath them, but Prue kicks out of it and helps Phoebe up. They turn things around and get the wrestlers on the mat long enough for hell to open up and for them to fall into it. The remaining demons run away and the sisters drag Piper to the elevator.
Leo is already in Ron’s office. He quickly gets to work healing Piper and tells them how he found Ron Perlman in the first place. Plus, TBTB(c) think the way to vanquish Ron is to get one of his own to turn against him. Prue forms a quick plan involving Daryl to get Tom Mom to the manor to lead Tom and Ron to them. Leo tells them to go while he finishes healing Piper in the show’s longest heal ever.
Phoebe wants to talk about the Cole thing, trying to compare it to the Tom thing. Prue isn’t haven’t it, on the grounds that she hasn’t been lying for months and Tom started off good, not trying to kill them.
Piper is fully healed and when she wakes up, the first thing she tells Leo is that she found her mom’s ring.
Steph: Typical Piper, worrying about her wedding and relationships even when she’s on the brink of death.
Mari: Daryl gets Tom Mom and brings her to the Manor, which is now full of spooky noises and eerie indoor wind. Phoebe explains that they are lost souls and they need to reverse her spell soon. Tom and Ron arrive. Tom throws a fireball at his mom, but Daryl pushes her out of the way. Prue tells Tom to remember his humanity.
Steph: What the fuck is happening? The lost souls thing is so out of place with everything else going on. It’s like the writers had two half assed ideas for separate episodes and put them all together in one nonsensical mish-mash.
Mari: Plus, WRESTLING.
And Phoebe gives us this moral: I guess some guys are worth saving after all. Not anything about the good in people or humanity or persistence or making mistakes or making shady deals with Ron Perlman. SOME GUYS ARE WORTH SAVING.
Later, Piper and Leo are dressed up to go on a date and Piper is showing off their mom’s ring. Prue says Tom is home and Leo adds that he got Rasputin back to the family he was living with. Piper and Leo head off to dinner.
Alone, Phoebe admits that Prue was right about Tom and she was wrong about Cole. She apologizes. Prue says an apology doesn’t fix things. Phoebe says she did it for love, but Prue says the thing that bothers her is the lie that endangered her sisters. Phoebe asks where they go from here and Prue says she doesn’t know.
Where do you go after a wrestling in hell episode, friends?
Next time on Charmed: Prue gets tricked into a marriage in S03 E13 – Bride and Gloom.
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.