FEATS OF CLAY

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THE PLOT

Cairo, Egypt.  Three men steal an ancient urn.  Palmer and Wesley tell Clay to take it to San Francisco.  When they took it, they unleashed the Guardian of the Urn, whose spider brooch becomes real and kills Wesley, punishing him for his greed.

San Francisco, 3 days later.  Clay is Phoebe's ex-boyfriend, and he has the urn, which he wants her to get Prue to auction for him.

Piper finds herself repeatedly freezing Quake to cover up one of the bartenders, Doug, who keeps dropping things when he sees his former girlfriend Shelley, who is a waitress at the restaurant.

Prue finds herself under pressure from Claire Pryce, who has been assigned by the bank to see if Buckland's is worth salvaging after Rex and Hannah's disappearance.  They need to move $1.2 million of inventory at the following day's auction.

Phoebe and Clay take the urn to Prue, who needs to run some background checks on it.  Palmer shows up outside and stops Phoebe and Clay, asking about the urn, which he sees very eager to sell.

Later, Palmer is at the airport, where he asks about the crate containing Wesley's body.  The guardian symbol from the urn is on the side, but Palmer unknowingly releases it when he touches the crate.

Prue tells Piper that she has a bad feeling about Clay.  Piper reminds her that she said the same thing about Jeremy, which turned out to be true.  Prue suggests that her sister finds a different solution to the Doug and Shelley situation than continually freezing things.

Prue receives the appraisal about the urn - it's worth a fortune, but it's also stolen.  Claire tells her that it's hardly surprising that the auction house is going bust.

At the auction, Prue switches the cards with the lot numbers on and takes the urn back to her office, where Palmer is waiting for her.  He tells her that it's cursed, and she uses her power to move it, 'proving' the curse.

Exhausting by continually freezing Doug, Piper casts a spell, doubling the recipe for good measure.  Unfortunately, she finds that Doug has turned into something out of Cocktail, and isn't interested in Shelley at all now.

Prue barges into Phoebe's room and finds her sister in bed with Clay.  After he's left, she hands her the report on the urn, explaining about the curse and how the Guardian feeds off the greed of those who steal it.  Later, Clay denies any knowledge of the curse to Phoebe.

The Guardian appears in Palmer's hotel room, and kills him using a scorpion.  The investigating officer turns out to be Andy Trudeau, and he's not at all surprised to find Prue's business card on Palmer's body.

Clay tells Phoebe that he's going to turn himself into the police, but she doesn't believe him.  He wants her to help but she has a premonition of him facing a giant cobra in Prue's office.

The Guardian materialises in Prue's office.  Phoebe throws Clay out while Prue uses her power against the Guardian, which doesn't seem to be affected too much.

There's nothing in the Book of Shadows about the Guardian, but maybe if Clay does something selfless it will even the score.

They find that Doug has vanished, but Phoebe's premonition leads them back to Bucklands, where the Guardian is waiting for him.  He knows that he must be punished, and the cobra materialises before him as the three girls burst in.  The snake strikes at Phoebe, but Clay puts his arm up to defend it.  His selfless act causes the snake to vanish, along with the Guardian; the urn returns to it's usual place in Cairo.

Back at Quake, Piper freezes Doug again before Prue intervenes and drops the engagement ring he's been carrying around.  When the room unfreezes Shelley picks it up; she only broke up with him because she was fed up waiting for him to propose.

NOTES

Sean Moran who plays the Customs Officer was the Stage Manager in the Buffy episode Nightmares.

THE POWER OF THREE

Prue switches the cards with the lot numbers on during the auction.  She then moves the urn twice to convince Palmer that it really is cursed.  Her attempt at using her power on the Guardian of the urn is less than successful. 

Piper freezes Quake to prevent Doug dropping everything three times.

Phoebe sees a premonition of her kissing Clay and then one of the snake preparing to strike at him. 

COMMENTS

Egyptology could provide an interesting basis for an episode, even a Charmed one, so it's disappointing to see it dissolve into running about between Buckland's and the Manor.  The Guardian isn't particularly threatening or interesting, and Clay and Palmer aren't up to much either.

The subplots are also fairly uninteresting.  As with Dream Sorcerer, we're introduced to more Quake staff, but as usual, Doug and Shelley are unlikely to appear again, so most viewers probably aren't bothered about them.  Couldn't we have some minor recurring characters for a change?

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