Like this season's previous time travel episode, I'm not sure The Good, the Bad and the Cursed has enough actual story to last a whole hour, the writers seemingly creating the idea of setting an episode in the Spaghetti Western era of the 1870's and then forming the rest of the script. However, it's another fun episode, made even more interesting through pairing together Prue and Cole, two characters who have an interesting dynamic even before they've truly met each other. It was probably helped by the fact that Shannen and Julian were a real-life couple during filming, but the two of them have a ton of sexual chemistry. It'd be hard for Julian McMahon to not have chemistry with somebody, but the sparks he has with Shannen are particularly memorable.
The story itself was only decent. There was little originality to the Western scenes, most of the ideas cribbed from every Clint Eastwood movie ever. There's the stand-off in the middle of the saloon, the stand-off in the center of the town, the bar snitches, the racial tension, the stallions. And Prue even learns to pull off some neat gun play. It's all pretty silly, but mostly entertaining. I'm not sure the idea of Phoebe experiencing Bo's pain was elaborated on as much as it could have been. But maybe Shannen just wanted to force Alyssa to roll around in pain all episode. Heh.
Elsewhere, Victor is truly becoming part of the family. He's going to lunch with his daughters, bonding with Leo, trying to gain back his position as the Halliwell patriarch. It was interesting to depict his resentment towards Leo after he discovered he was a whitelighter, but I wished they had explored it a little more. His daughter is marrying the same 'type' that his own wife cheated with, that's gotta hurt somewhat.
Great direction by Shannen, and some memorable interplay between Cole and Prue. But the rest of the episode is pretty routine. Considering the pedigree of Charmed time-travel hours, it's a little underwhelming. C+
Credits
Guest stars James Read (Victor Bennett); Michael Greyeyes (Bo Lightfeather); Kimberly Norris (Isabel Lightfeather); Ed Lauter (Sutter)
Writers Monica Breen, Alison Schapker Director Shannen Doherty
No comments:
Post a Comment