But will she take her shirt off?
Updated 2003-11-01 16:00:00
We don't have time for opening teasers, people! We've got all this exposition to chow down, and scenes of Eliza Dushku running, and montage recaps to stick in. Forget trying to hook people in immediately; just roll the opening credits!
Uch. This band singing in the opening credits wishes it was Evanescence. That's rather sad. Anyway, the credits feature Eliza running around and looking pensive. Nothing particularly gripping or eye-catching. The faux-punk ovary sings, "Can somebody help me?" at the end as Eliza affixes us with her own version of Blue Steel. It's like the opening of Smallville, but with "girl power."
We open in a church in 1993. It's a funeral. Daddy, two darling daughters, and a dutiful son stare into a coffin at Dead Mom. They all turn away and sit down in the front pew, except for the younger daughter, who just stands there. Suddenly a whispery female voice out of nowhere says, "Tru?" The little girl says, "Yes?" because her name is Tru. Tru's dead mom is whispering stuff into her head. Dead Mom tells her, "It's okay, Tru." Tru responds, "Okay Mommy," kisses the stiff on the forehead, and returns to the pew while the priest hurls the first anvil our way by opening his eulogy by blathering on about how Mommy died "before her time." Tru sits down next to her sister and tells her that Mom forgave her, which she didn't, but I guess there's really no point in being overly analytical about what whispered voices coming out of dead people are saying. She says that idiotic line to telegraph to us that Tru will feel guilty forever for not "saving" Mom, even though Tru was practically a fetus still when Mom died.
The sister, of course, doesn't think much of Tru's brief, supernatural conversation, and says, "You have a vivid imagination, but Mom was murdered in front of you. What part of that is okay?" Man, not four graphs in and I've already decided that I have to put a poll at the end of the recap to vote for the worst, most awkwardly delivered line of exposition. I'm going to talk like a bad television character at our next TWoP gathering. I'll walk up to Sars and say, "You realize that you helped create and operate a web site, don't you?" Then I'll turn to Pamie and ask, "Do you remember that book you wrote?" The priest reminds us again that MOM DIED BEFORE HER TIME. Sis whispers that he's "full of crap." Wuh? I guess Mom couldn't die soon enough for Sis. Tru whispers to Sis that she wishes that she could go back in time to change things. No, she really says that. Because everything so far has been so subtle that we don't get that little Tru is sad and guilty because her MOM DIED BEFORE HER TIME. So many layers on this show already. Sis whispers that Tru can't go back as The Tinkly Piano of MOM DIED BEFORE HER TIME plays us out of the scene.