Oh, this is just silly. From the hotel's tackily decorated ballroom stage, Chronic addresses a group of champagne-swilling business types, delivering ceaseless yuppie boilerplate regarding emerging markets and bilateral trade and whatnot until the high-pitched whine of microphone feedback heralds the arrival -- at long last -- of Mata Whori. The throng of business types magically parts as the camera tracks through the resulting human aisle to land on the Feebs, who strikes a pose as she's struck by a spotlight. No, the lighting fixture in question does not drop from the ceiling to splatter her addled brains on the carpet. Would that it had. Mata Whori basks in the extremely unlikely glow of her very own key light for a moment before working the gentlemen in the crowd, stripping off scarves and winding them around the gentlemen's necks as she Norma Desmonds her way up to Chronic on the stage. "What are you doing?" he hisses. "You turned on me," Mata Whori croons as she swivels around him. "You rejected me, and I'd say you'd live to regret it, but you won't." The overexcited press corps fires off shots of the ludicrously garbed tramp as Chronic insists, "This isn't a game!" He whips off his jacket and wraps it around her nearly naked torso. Phoebe pushes herself out of his embrace and takes a step towards the crowd. With a grand flourish, she announces, "Curses on this merger!" and tosses a scarf above the assembled throng's heads, beaming at the resulting scrum amongst the business types to snatch the thing out of the air. Champagne bottles explode of their own accord. The escargot, frog's legs, and squab artfully arranged on various platters suddenly flare white and revert to actual snails, frogs, and pigeons. As is their wont, the frogs hop to the floor while the pigeons head to the ceiling. Meanwhile, the snails and I roll our eye stalks around and light a round of cigarettes. Kidding. Despite what you may have heard, there are no tentacles protruding from my forehead.

Mayhem erupts as the business types, doused in champagne, proceed to slip on the now-underfoot amphibians. Chronic grabs for Phoebe's arm, but she pushes him backwards with such force that he loses his balance and crashes to the floor. "Are you trying to ruin me?" he yowls above the roar of the ballroom. "That's just the hors d'oeuvre," Mata Whori promises. "Wait until you see the entrée -- it's to die for." Oy. Mata Whori lunges for Chronic's neck with both hands outstretched, but suddenly freezes along with everything else in the room. We're gifted with an entirely unnecessary close-up of Chronic's frozen face before the camera cuts to Piper's hands. The camera pans around and up to take in her "oh, shit" expression before it tracks along with her in one long shot as she squeezes through the frozen throng, ducking beneath arms and skirting various remarkably still extras as she makes her way to the stage. It's actually a pretty cool sequence, especially because the last time they attempted a scene like this with a crowd so large, several of the extras fucked up and broke the freeze. Anyway, once Piper's reached the stage, she summons the thoroughly whipped Dolt, who orbs in immediately. "Whoa," he offers, glancing around the room. "Wh-why is Phoebe frozen?" he stutters. "That's not Phoebe," Piper duhs. "Long story. Let's get out of here." Piper and the Dolt latch onto The Whoresicle and orb up through the ceiling. The instant Piper dematerializes, her freeze breaks, and the general mayhem resumes. Chronic slowly rises to his feet, making "the hell?" noises once he realizes Phoebe's vanished. He gapes at the frenzy in the hall before glancing over at an ice sculpture of the Eiffel Tower, which has decided to end it all by leaping from its perch on the buffet table to smash itself into a thousand glittering pieces at the rocky bottom of the commercial break.