THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING DEAD
NOTE: This season takes place after the fourth. Piper is not pregnant and Cole doesn't return, not for now. This is the season premiere.
/Int. Manor Kitchen. Piper, Paige and Leo are taking breakfast. Phoebe enters.
PHOEBE: Hi, everyone!
PIPER: Hi, Pheebs. How did you sleep?
PHOEBE: Don't ask me. It was one of the worst nights in my life.
LEO: Why?
PAIGE: Oh! It's this terrible cold. (Sneezes) I simply don't know how I get it.
PIPER: Well, I hope you feel well enough for today's memorial.
PAIGE: Oh, no! Is it today, Piper?
PIPER: Paige! It has been on the fridge calendar for almost two weeks.
LEO: Memorial? What memorial?
PIPER: You see? I'm starting to ask why I bothered myself by doing this memorial to Grams. I think I'll just wait for other five years and so there will be ten years from her death, but by then I doubt that this will matter more to you than now. I'm very surprised that nobody of you helped me.
PAIGE: I'm sorry, Piper. It's just. Well, don't offend, but I don't see the point of making a memorial to a person I never knew.
PIPER: Oh, please Paige! She's your grandmother!
LEO: I could have helped. If I knew you were planning a memorial. Why didn't you tell me?
PIPER: Leo, I told you! And I told Paige, and Phoebe! I even color this day in the calendar in a yellowy, phosphorescent way!
PAIGE: I said I'm sorry Piper.
PIPER: Being sorry isn't enough, Paige! We're talking about Grams! And five years since she died!
PHOEBE: I'll be there, sweetie. You know that. I'm not going to work today, though.
PAIGE: What!? The super-counselor witch isn't going to work today? What happened to you?
PHOEBE: I know I acted as a work addicted recently, but I simply don't feel well, Paige. And I want to feel well enough today for the memorial.
LEO (hears the Elders calling): Well, I've gotta go. Bye. (Kisses Piper)
PIPER: Don't forget, honey. It's at seven thirty in St. Peter's Chapel.
LEO: I'll be there, Piper. Don't worry. (Orbs out)
PIPER: I hope so. I really do. (Looks at some plants in the window) Oh! I almost forget.
*Goes to the cupboard and gets a flask with a pink liquid inside. Pour some of it in the plants.*
PAIGE: Hey! What is that for?
PIPER: It's some come-to-life potion.
PAIGE: That's so personal gain, Piper. If someone dies there's nothing we can do about it, even with plants. And you know that.
PIPER: They're not dying; they just don't want to grow. And they're for Grams. She loved petunias. (Puts the potion again in the cupboard)
PHOEBE: Hey, girls! Do you know where I left my medicine?
PIPER: Yeah, it's in the left cupboard.
PHOEBE: Thanks.
*Phoebe goes to the right cupboard, takes Piper's come-to-life-potion, gets a spoon, pours some potion in it, and drinks it. Then she puts the potion again in the cupboard*
Ext. St. Peter's Chapel
Int. St. Peter's Chapel. Approximately twenty five persons are hearing Gram's mass. Piper, Phoebe, Paige and Leo are in the front row. Phoebe has a Gram's photo.
WOMAN (reading the Bible): And the Lord blessed all of what the peasant brought, making him glorious. Amen.
EVERYBODY: Amen.
PRIEST: Now let's proceed to the honorariums. Please, ladies.
*The three sisters get up and go to the altar.
PIPER (whispering): Phoebe, you will speak first.
*Phoebe doesn't react*
PIPER: Phoebe! The photograph!
PHOEBE: Oh! Yeah, yeah. Sorry. (Turns to the listeners) Hi, everybody! Well, as you know, we're here to… (Shuts up, sneezes in the photo.)
*Suddenly, a white ray of light gets out of Phoebe, and a blue ray of light gets into her*
PAIGE: Phoebe, are you all right?
PHOEBE: I'm not Phoebe, my darling.
PIPER: Grams?
*Phoebe suits*
PAIGE: Oh, my God!
*OPENING CREDITS*
/Int. Night, Manor, Living room.
Phoebe (Grams), Piper, Leo, and Paige are talking.
PIPER: How this can happen?
PHOEBE: I don't know, my darlings, I don't know. But aren't you glad to see me?
PAIGE: Miss Halliwell, we're not seeing you.
PHOEBE: Please call me Grams. And what do you mean by that?
PAIGE: That you're in our sister's body.
PHOEBE: Yeah, I know. So?
PAIGE: So? Doesn't that should mean that Phoebe is in your dead body?
PIPER: Oh, my God! It's true! Phoebe should be dead.
LEO: Is there a way we can contact her?
PHOEBE: You know it, Leo. And you, too, my darlings. The same way you used to contact me.
PAIGE: You suggest we summon Phoebe?
PHOEBE: Exactly.
*Everyone gets into the attic. Piper starts to burn some candles. Paige draws a circle in the floor with some chalk.
PIPER: Hear these words, hear my cry. Spirit of the other side, come to me, I summon the. Cross now the great device.
*Grams/Phoebe's spirit appears in the center of the circle.*
PAIGE: Phoebe?
GRAMS: I'm afraid so. What happened to me?
LEO: You switched souls with your dead grandma.
GRAMS: I know what happened, Leo. I was just being sarcastic.
LEO: Sorry.
PIPER: I don't know, sweetie. But we'll find a spell, or potion, or something to get you back.
GRAMS: No.
PIPER: What?
GRAMS: I said no, Piper. I'm not coming back. At least not soon. Here is the paradise, literally. I'm with Mom, and with Prue. I'm even with Andy.
PIPER: Prue? You're with Prue?
GRAMS: Yes! I don't want to return. And there's no sickness here, either. You don't know how good it feels not feeling bad.
*Phoebe sneezes*
PHOEBE: Tell it to me.
GRAMS: Oh! Hi, Grams.
PHOEBE: Sweetie, you need to come back. It's not right to the living ones to know the afterlife.
GRAMS: But I'm not a living one. Not anymore. If you excuse me, I've a lot of things to talk with my mother and my sister. (Disappears)
PIPER: I don't understand.
PAIGE: Well, I do.
PIPER: What? Paige, you can't be talking seriously.
PAIGE: I am, Piper. Just think about it. She's with our mom, and sister, for unlimited time, and without consequences.
PHOEBE: Yes, I understand, my darling, I understand. But it's not only wrong that the living ones know how the afterlife is. It's dangerous.
LEO: What do you mean?
PHOEBE: If a living one spends more time than necessary there, and I remark the word necessary, they are forced to turn him or her into a dead one.
PAIGE: But Phoebe is dead.
PHOEBE: No! She's not. (Sneezes) Our souls are what pass to the afterlife, not our bodies. And Phoebe's soul is still alive.
PIPER: Yeah, I understand. But what we can do?
PHOEBE: What did she do?
PIPER: I don't know; she was at your memorial…
PHOEBE: The one I thank infinitely.
PIPER: Thanks. She was there, holding your photo, then she sneezed in it, and suddenly it was you.
PHOEBE: It should be that.
PAIGE: What?
PHOEBE: The sneeze.
PAIGE: The sneeze? Phoebe has magical sneezes?
PHOEBE: Not necessarily. What she was taking for medicine?
*Piper goes to the kitchen. The others follow her. She opens the left cupboard and takes out the medicine.*
PIPER: This is strange. The bottle is almost full. I thought she finished it this morning.
PAIGE: That was because you she drank your come-to-life potion. (She has the empty flask)
PIPER: Oh, no!
PAIGE: I told, you. Personal gain.
LEO: Come-to-life potion? What was it?
PIPER: Well, my petunias were dying, and…
PHOEBE: I don't care about the petunias, Piper. What did you used in that potion?
PIPER: Well, some gingerbread root, thyme extract, and a sort of herbal cigarette.
PHOEBE: OK. That's easy. We'll work together in it. Paige, Leo: go summon Phoebe and keep her busy until we arrive. Go it?
PAIGE: Got it. Let's go, Leo. (Goes with Leo to the attic)
/Int.: Manor, attic. Leo and Paige are talking with desperate and angry Grams. Phoebe and Piper enter with a flask.
PIPER: Here we are. Have, Grams. Drink the potion. (Gives the flask to Phoebe, who drinks it). Do you have Phoebe's photo?
PHOEBE: Got it.
GRAMS: What do you think you are doing?
PIPER: Bringing you back.
GRAMS: I said I don't want to go back. You don't understand. I should go.
LEO: Piper, quick!
PIPER: I can't force Grams to sneeze!
PAIGE: Oh! It's so easy. (Takes a feather from a sweater in a table, puts it in front of Phoebe's face. She sneezes in Phoebe's photo. The blue ray of light gets out of Phoebe and the white one out of Grams. The white one returns with Phoebe, and so the blue one.)
PAIGE: Are you you again, Phoebe?
PHOEBE: Yes, for my misery (sneezes).
GRAMS: I'm sorry, honey. But you must wait until you die to come here.
PHOEBE: I understand, Grams. Just send good-bye greetings to Prue and Mom.
GRAMS: I will, my darling, I will. And good-bye Paige, Piper. My darlings. Or I have to say, my sisters? (Paige and Piper smile. Grams disappear).
*Piper and Paige look at Phoebe*
PHOEBE: What?
PAIGE: How is it?
PHOEBE: What? What are you talking about?
PAIGE: The afterlife. Is it as people think it is?
PHOEBE: You just hear Grams, Paige. You must wait until you die to know how it is.
PIPER: Not even a clue? A small, tiny, microscopic clue?
PHOEBE: Well, let's just say it's a little bit…ghostly.
PAIGE: It's obviously ghostly, Phoebe! Everyone there is dead!
PIPER: And how's Prue? Is she fine? What did she say to you?
PHOEBE: I think she thought I was Grams.
PAIGE: Phoebe, you were Grams.
PHOEBE: Yeah, I know. And I'm glad I'm not anymore, somehow. You don't even imagine what it's like to be her up there.
PIPER: What? What are you talking about?
PHOEBE: I think I already said too much. (Goes out of the attic. Piper, Paige and Leo follow her.)
THE END.
IN THE NEXT EPISODE: The sisters battle the son of an old enemy, who had created a witch and gave her Paige's and Piper's powers. Now the Charmed Ones must create someone that can fight that artificial person.