I Give it a Century – Tops

Episode 2.07: Darla. Original Airdate: 11.14.00.

“Lindsey finds himself drawn to Darla as her mental state deteriorates.”
 

Daniel’s Thoughts:

• Angel brooding in his room, drawing. I weirdly like that that is one of his talents. And they keep bringing it back.
• He’s drawing Darla when he senses Wesley lurking.
• Wesley’s worried and it’s because he knows Angel’s starting to get obsessed: littered on the ground are dozens of drawings of Darla.
• What’s interesting here is while it’s revealed on Buffy that Darla was Angel’s sire and that he was the one to kill her in the end, that was really the end of that.  Angel never seemed obsessed with Darla on that season of Buffy.  He just warned Buffy that Darla was dangerous.  He didn’t mourn her demise and I think he rarely spoke of her again (if ever).  There were some flashbacks with Darla that we saw through Spike. But they retconned a lot with Angel’s history - or at least they hadn’t fully planned it out when Darla (or even Spike was first introduced.). Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s brilliant that they brought Darla back & filled out her and Angel’s backstories respectively.  Just an observation that on Buffy, Darla never seemed as important to Angel has she does now.
• Meanwhile, Darla is having a crisis of her own.  She’s destroyed her apartment.  She’s also starting to remember all the horrible things she’s done in her life (death?).  
• She’s also bleeding.  It doesn’t look like she’s slit her wrists on purpose…just a few cuts from breaking glass.  But  it’s gotten to the point where an ex-vampire (or a vampire who’s recently gotten a soul) starts to remember and feel guilty about all the things they’ve done. 
• And we’ve got Darla in History as we see that she lived in 1609.  She’s dying of some kind of venereal disease.
• It’s the Master, Buffy’s first Big Bad – and this is a brilliant move to bring him back for this.   

It's Fruit Punch Mouth!

• His features are the same as they were in the 1990s.  Since animal-like features come with the age of the vampire, it would have been cool to see The Master in a different form.  I mean, how old can he be?  Also, Darla is about 400 years old…how come her features haven’t changed? 
• Meanwhile the Fang Gang are trying to figure out how to find Darla.  Gunn comes up with the only plausible idea – looking into real estate W&H might own. 
• In the ago: Darla introduces Angel to the Master. They don’t see eye to eye.
• It’s interesting that Darla, a 400 year old vamp and The Master, a (probably more than) thousand year vamp…(a millennial?) are both killed relatively easily in season one of Buffy (especially Darla.) 
• Darla chooses Angel over her sire.
• The Master: “I give it a century, tops.”
• It took a while for Darla to break.  And it only took a brief conversation with Angel to do that.
• Apparently Holland Manners knew this would eventually happen but Lindsey did not.
• We flashback to a century later and Drusilla has joined the gang. 
• I love that Dru calls Darla grandmother.
• They bump into William, pre-vamp, a bumbling idiot.
• Cordelia used her “acting skills” to get Darla’s address.  Except I shouldn’t call them acting skills. This here is proof that lying isn’t acting.  To lie is to deceive. When you’re acting, the audience is in on it.  You’re not trying to deceive anyone. That’s why you can be good at one but not the other. [THANK you. - Z, a good actor and a terrible liar]
• Darla’s now getting all philosophical about who and/or what she is.
• While she’s trying to figure it out, she makes out with Lindsey. So that’s fun.
• We find out that that the Romani people who cursed Angel to bring back his soul were massacred by Darla, Dru & Spike.
• And Darla calls Angel. She is so damn broken.
• Lindsey catches her. She begs Lindsey to let her go to Angel.
• Darla tries to knock Lindsey out and she kills the security guard.  Still, Lindsey helps her escape.
• Lindsey’s such a sap.  I don’t understand why the powers that be haven’t already gotten rid of him.  They’ve killed people for less.
• One more flashback: China.  An ensouled Angel finds Darla.  Surprising that she hasn’t come after him. But she doesn’t kill him.  Because she loves him.  And as we all know vampires are capable of loving someone:

• In the ago, - Boxer Rebellion - Angel tries to be bad again, but he can’t. And this is also where Spike killed his first slayer.
• Darla, in the ago, tells Angel that he only kills evildoers.  Like Dexter!
• She wants him to prove himself by killing a baby.
• In the present, Angel saves Darla from the men who have been ordered to kill him.
• But we find out the entire thing was a ruse. The security guard we thought was killed – is still alive.  Holland Manners set this all up so that Darla will get close to Angel again.  I think he’s still under the theory that orgasms=perfect happiness.
• Cordelia rightfully corrects Darla as she calls him Angelus. “Around here we call him Angel.  Just Angel.” I love how protective she is.
• Darla wants Angel to turn her back into a vamp.
• Julie Benz is giving this all she can – she’s amazing – and…I wish she had a better acting partner.
• “Favor? You think it was a favor?  You damned me.” -Angel
• In the ago, Angel can’t kill a baby which disgusts Darla.  He even runs and takes the baby with him, saving it.
• It’s juxtaposed with Darla running from the Hyperion.

Zelda’s Thoughts:

• I’m excited! I hope this episode is as good as I remember it being.
• Aw I love that they keep this consistent thing, that Angel is good at the pencil sketches.
• But whooooooooom is he drawing? (spoiler: it’s Darla)
• Wes is checking up to see if Angel’s okay, as he’s camped out in his room drawing … and that’s because the floor is covered with discarded drawings of Darla because *sing-song* somebody’s obsessssssssssssed.
• Darla, meanwhile, is camped out in her trashed apartment, every reflective surface smashed, and I guess that’s her soul finally making itself known, like Angel warned her it would.
• Darla asks if Lindsey has someone special, but we know he’s nursing a crush on Darla. But she’s still fixated on Angel, on how he’s no longer Angelus, she’s no longer the Darla she was. And she’s decided that now they’re “soulmates,” as she laughs quietly – and not too sanely – to herself.
• Flashback time! Darla human, the first time, dying in 1609. A dying prostitute, with a slightly English accent, okay sure, but HEY GUESS WHO’S VISITING HER, IT’S THE MASTER.
• I do like this touch quite a bit, this remembering that he is who made her (although actually this may be the moment we find that out for canon sure). Fruit punch mouth and all.
• “God never did anything for you, but I will.” Nice mirroring of what she said to Angel (“God doesn’t want you, but I still do.”)
• And back to the present, Angel wants to mount yet another Darla hunt and everyone else is like hey this is a dumb plan.
• A: “We investigate things. That’s what we’re good at.” // C: “That’s what we suck at.” She’s … not wrong.
• But hey, reminder that Gunn is actually effing smart and suggests that if they look into housing owned by W&H they might find her. Angel’s input: “She’d want something with a view … Darla always loved something with a view.”
• Flashback time, this time to 1760 (seven years after Angelus was sired, according to my quick internet search), to Darla bringing Angelus to meet Dad the Master.
• So I don’t think I clocked how long the Master was trapped under Sunnydale, but I had assumed it was longer than Angel had been a vampire. But here is he, not trapped. (again, internet tells me he got trapped in 1937)
• Anyway, Angelus with his shite Irish accent has very little respect for any of the Master’s plans or aesthetics. The Master thinks they should live below ground, but Angelus wants to live above ground, give Darla her view, her fancy clothes and niceties.
• The Master keeps smacking Angelus, and he’s ignoring him, just telling Darla they should leave together, go off to Naples. A: “Tell the truth, whose face do you wanna look at for eternity? His or mine?” // M: “Idiot. I made her.” But oop, off she goes with Angelus. Master’s gonna get empty lair syndrome. Time to make Luke?
• “It won’t last. I give it a century – tops.”
• Hah, funny retcon by the writers: Angel finds out the name Darla wasn’t in common usage until a century after she was born, and credits the Master with naming her. Like Angelus, she got a new name when she changed from human to vampire. I don’t mind it much, but it is more evidence for what Daniel talks about above, that they clearly had no idea/plan for the history of Darla, giving her too contemporary a name for how old she is.
• Wes points out what should be obvious: that they brought Darla back to keep Angel focused and yet distracted, so he won’t pay attention to what the other (evil) hand is doing. Big ol’ yup. And Angel acknowledges: “It’s working.”
• Holland chastises Lindsey for bringing Darla to the office, then realizes “She’s cracking up … she’s way ahead of schedule.” Annnnnnd Lindsey is pissssssed. It’s clear he wasn’t let in on the full plan with Darla. (spoiler: even by the end of the episode he’s still not in on it)
• Hey now we’re in the past again with Darla, Angelus, and Drusilla, and man Darla does not enjoy Dru – either the weird talk, or her referring to Darla as grandmother 

• ALSO HEY LOOK IT’S SPIKE BUT NOT YET SPIKE.
• A beautiful beautiful beginning of the crossover flashback event with Buffy episode “Fool for Love,” as a brokenhearted William knocks into them and tearily yells “Watch where you’re going,” and Dru looks after him, intrigued.
• It’s not a great sign when literally half of everyone on this team’s job is protecting Angel from himself. Cordy’s figured out where Darla is, and Wes stops Angel from running off, saying he’ll do recon with Gunn (and Cordelia has to remind him it’s the middle of the day and the apartment is in Sun Valley).
• Darla!In!History!: she doesn’t remember her human name. “I was Darla for so long, then I wasn’t … I wasn’t anything. I just stopped. He killed me. I was dead.”
• “What did you bring back, Lindsey? What am I? Did you bring back that girl whose name I can’t remember? Or did you bring back something else? The other thing …” This reminds me a bit of when Spike will later struggle with his soul, speaking of it as a separate presence from his fractured mind.
• And Darla finally calls L’s crush out, asking “Why haven’t you kissed me?” He says he wasn’t sure if she wanted him to, and she asks why that matters, and ugh consent can we just.
• Anyway, they kiss and it’s actually quite sweet, for some evil-ish folk.
• Welp, she bit Lindsey on the neck.
• She really is cracking up. “I can feel this body dying … it’s a cancer, this soul.”
• Ah right, we don’t know yet that she actually is dying.
• Flashback, this time to 1898, to Darla bargaining with the Romani tribe to remove Angelus’s soul, to restore him to his evil glory.
• Dru, meanwhile “He shall be very cross if he finds we had a lovely mass slaughter without him.”
• Darla tries to leverage the man’s family in the wagon against Angelus’s soul … and then Spike emerges from the wagon and burps, having already slaughtered the family. So much for that bargaining chip.
• Dru: “They cry out for mercy.” // Darla: “Show none.”
• Present day Darla calls Angel on the phone. “I don’t remember anything. It’s a great big nothing. Could it be there’s no hell?” // “There is a hell. A few of them. I’ve been to one.”
• Angel can apparently hear Darla’s heartbeat through the phone and … nope. Shenanigans on that. There’s no enhanced vampire hearing that can override the limits of phone tech.
• And now we’re in China in 1900 and it’s the Boxer Rebellion! Which means Spike’s off killing a Slayer. Angel, dirty and disheveled, finds Darla. She holds a knife to his throat. “You reek of vermin. Is that what you’ve been living off of?” And Angel asks her to kill him. Or take him back. “You and me, together, Darla … I miss the view.”
  
• Mercifully, his accent is finally (if inexplicably) gone. Maybe his soul was like “there ain't room for the both of us in this dumb vampire” and kicked it out.
• Lindsey’s doing his waffle dance again, asking Angel to help him get Darla away from W&H control. And knowing the future, we know that in fact Holland Manners & Co were counting on this, knowing Lindsey’s weakness.
• Wow, here Angel is in fucking China and he finds the one white family. Did they … did they just not try to hire any Chinese actors? I guess they’re supposed to be missionaries but come the fuck on. Even when the show gives itself an opportunity to cast more non-white actors, it … doesn’t. Did they think the only way we would care about his sparing innocents – especially the baby later – is if they were white? This is full on racist garbage.
• A nice detail, just because in Spike’s flashbacks to this moment on Buffy, we don’t clock Angel had his soul already. It adds a new angle to his reaction to Spike’s murder of the Slayer. Angel, grim, “I guess that makes you one of us.”
• Dru, smelling fear in the alley behind Angel, is smelling the family with a baby he’s trying to protect from the vamps.
• And now we have the slo-mo hero walk, this time clocking how Darla watches Angel.
• Flashback!Darla confronts Angel, pointing out that the only men he’s killed have been murderers and rapists, scoundrels. She found the family he tried to protect, killed the parents, and brought the infant for him to finally prove himself to her: either kill the ultimate innocent, or leave her.
• Lindsey sees the security guard he was told was dead, alive and shaking hands with Holland Manners, and realizes he’s been lied to. And now we wonder – about what else.
• “We had to make you believe it, Lindsey.” // “Why?” // “Because she has to believe it. Because Angel has to. The crisis needed to be real.”
• “What do you expect him to do?” // “What he will do. What he must do. Save her soul.”
• Darla: “I’m so lucky to have someone who understands. Who knows. That’s something you never had, is it.”
• Darla asks him, small and vulnerable: “You’ll make the pain stop, won’t you?” Angel thinks she means grappling with her soul. But she wants him to turn her. She’s weeping, asking him to stop her beating heart. But Angel sees the gift that it is, to be human again. You know … that thing he had and threw away in S1?
• And in both flashback and present, Angel tells Darla he can’t give her what she wants: “I can’t seem to be what I’m not.” He won’t turn her; and in the past, he wouldn’t kill a baby. And in both times, she rejects him. “You disgust me.” / “Don’t look for me again.”
• Fuck. That was a good episode, y’all. As a show (and as a protag) I still like Buffy better, but damn when this show is good, it’s good.

 

Favorite Lines:

Daniel: “Around here, we call him Angel. Just Angel.” – Cordelia
Zelda: Darla: “I don’t remember anything. It’s a great big nothing. Could it be there’s no hell?” // Angel: “There is a hell. A few of them. I’ve been to one.”

 

Arc/Continuity:

Recurring: Angel’s A+ drawing skills, Lindsey McDonald, Holland Manners, Darla, Drusilla, Spike, Angel’s “Irish” “accent”
Buffy Crossover: The Master, Drusilla, Spike, Romani Man
Cordelia’s Alias: Darla’s sister
 

Angel! In! History!

There are a few hells. Angel’s been to one of them.

It took Angel a century of soul-having but soul-not-wanting to start his redemption arc. During the Boxer Rebellion (when Spike murdered his first Slayer), Angel was souled but trying to get Darla back. It didn’t work out.

 

Darla! In! History!

In 1609 Darla was a sex worker dying in the Virginia colony, and was turned by the Master.

After siring Angelus, she brought him to meet the Master in 1760, but then left the Master’s Order of Aurelius to go on Angelus adventures. 

In 1880 London the group picked up Spike. 

In 1898 she tried to bargain with the Romani tribe to remove Angelus's soul.

In 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion she tried to reconcile with Angel, but ultimately rejected him. 

We don’t know when she returned to serve the Master, but it was sometime after this.

Stats:

Cordelia’s Hair – half up, hanging straight

Dead Humans – 0
Dead Undeads – 0
Dead Flashbacks – 6 (+ Romani caravan, presumed many in China)
Dead Lawyers – 0
Cordelia Has a Vision – 0
Wesley Prat-falls – 0
Lawyered Ex Machina – 0
Evil Reveal – 0
Unevil Reveal – 0
Shenanigans Called – 1
Apocalypse Called – 0
Prophecy Called – 0

Delusions of Angel

Episode 2.06: Guise Will Be Guise. Original Airdate: 11.07.00.

“Angel meets with a swami to end his obsession with Darla. Meanwhile, Wesley assumes Angel’s identity and plays bodyguard to a businessman’s daughter.”

 

Zelda’s Thoughts:

• The episode starts with Wes stumbling, struggling to open a file cabinet drawer, and spilling the contents everywhere. Because we have to have an arc.
• Aw, throwback to when Wesley was a rogue demon hunter … and then he takes a prat-fall on the spilled files.
• Whee, Angel and Gunn breaking into W&H through the basement. And Wes and Cordy crash their elevator to stop Angel from being a dumdum.
• AHAHAHAHA I love Gunn reacting to Angel’s shitty shitty plan: “What? That’s the plan? Walking real quick was the plan?” We still haven’t gotten to my favorite line about Angel’s bad planning skills, but I appreciate this character consistency/mocking thereof.
• Also the security guard’s stick has a retractable stake. Fancy.
• Aww they took Gunn to Caritas! He’s part of the gang.
• “Once more with less feeling,” says Lorne and it’s like he knows what my started Buffy episode was.
• Angel’s all twitchy and acting like an addict.
• Gunn’s worried Angel will have to sing, but Lorne lets us all off the hook and sends Angel to T’ish Magev to fix his brain. “He’ll shock your chakras, filet your soul, whatever you need.”
• Cordelia imitating Angel: “Oh no, I can’t do anything fun tonight. I have to count my past sins, then alphabetize them. Oh by the way, I’m thinking of snapping on Friday.” I fucking love it. The more this show mocks Angel, the more I dig it.
• Gasp! A heavy shows up waving a gun and threatening Cordelia. Wes overhears, then steps into action: hero shot, big flowy coat, a hint of bluster. Time to pretend to be Angel.
• Hah, I forgot this entire episode is basically T’ish Magev calling Angel out, starting with a vampire driving a flashy convertible in Los Angeles. And wearing all black.
• Angel claims the all black means he doesn’t have to worry about matching, which is incorrect. Some blacks are reddish, some bluish, especially under tinted lights, and you can tell when you’re mismatching them.
• HAH. Wes: *begins to enter the house* // Heavy: I invite you in. // Wes: *immediately ducks backwards, then enters again* 

Also, is he coming in from direct sunlight?

• This is a great episode for Alexis Denisof, so much fun for him.
• Eeep he has to drink a cup of blood as part of the subterfuge. *trying not to vomit* “Dear god that’s … nummy.”
• Anyway he’s asking him to protect his daughter.
• “There are two yous,” the T’ish Magev says over a shot of Wes!Angel. We see you, show.
• Anyway now he’s calling Angel out on his hair gel. 

• Wes sees his reflection in a mirror, freaks out, backs away, and knocks over a truly creepy clown-doll art. Well done.
• Wes, trying to be Angel to two random thugs: “Don’t worry, I don’t kill humans … unless I’m angry.” Props for his improv skills, but I’m still surprised people are buying his act. He’s got so many tells. If anyone here had good observation skills, he’d have been found out immediately.
• Anyway, T’ish is fighty-fighting with Angel and psychoanalyzing him and GASP he’s on the phone to someone, letting we the viewers know that he killed the real T’ish and is just here to keep Angel distracted, which is when the mysterious guy he’s on the phone with wonders who the hell is the English guy. Also, I’m sad because Lorne was like “Ramone is the best” and we find out Ramone is how they knew to set this whole thing up.
• Wow, for once it’s not W&H behind the subterfuge.
• Virginia: “I keep waiting for my life to start,” and it’s very strong Rapunzel vibes! 

• Two hooded guards try to take Virginia and Wes … trounces them! Good job, Wes!
• Oop, T’fake tells Angel to go hook up with someone else to help him get over Darla, and I guess the jig is up.
• But before that, time for Wes and Virginia to hook up!
• Cordy shows up to try to spring Wes, but it’s too late.
• “Oh no, not the sun! For I am a vampire! Oh, it burns!” Ooooooops.
• Anyway, Virginia’s rightly pissed because Wes was lying to her and they slept together.
• Also gasp! Turns out Bryce wanted a bodyguard for Virginia to keep her alive only until the sacrifice planned for his 50^th birthday and are there any good father figures in the Whedonverse?
• Angel, confused: “Were you in Virginia?” // “That’s beside the point.” #sexjoke [And because I am 11, this is my favorite line. - D]
• Luckily Angel is back in time to tell us that Bryce doesn’t worship a god but a demon, and Wes accesses his Watcher Brain for Yeska knowledge, and figures out the plan.
• Wes, still showing his better-than-Angel leadership skills, makes a plan, then backtracks before Angel and says he probably knows best. Angel adopts Wes’s plan because, again, Angel is bad at plans.
• Wow, all the party guests are just watching this shit happen, as Virginia is chained to the altar.
• Man, all the evils are human this episode, I guess we won’t be killing anyone.
• Anyway, it turns out none of this would have worked anyway, because Virginia is “impure,” and how nice, we’d gone too long without obsessing about a woman’s “purity” and sexuality as somehow reflective of her character.
• Aw, Virginia and Wes are still dating! That’s cute. Cordelia’s grumpy: “Reflective glory? That’s my thing.”

 

Daniel’s Thoughts:

• Hyperion with Wesley.  He does a bunch of physical comedy before some guy comes in.
• The guy wants to talk to Angel because he needs someone who is tough.
• Wesley tries to be tough but pratfalls and the guy leaves.
• Cordelia comes downstairs with some urgency.
• Meanwhile at Wolfram & Hart, Angel & Gunn are sneaking in through a grate in the basement.
• Wes & Cordelia have also snuck in, but instead of coming through the sewers, they disguise themselves as lawyers.
• Cordy warns Angel that W&H have vampire detectors.
• Sure enough a security guard with a baton-stake (cool!) tries to dust Angel, but Angel stabs him in the foot.

Oops

• Caritas.  It’s Gunn’s first time here.  Some guys are singing ‘I Got You Babe’.
• Wait, so they went to W&H but…just left after?
• Luckily, we don’t see Angel sing this time.  Lorne’s just giving him a reading. 
• Cordelia is also relieved that Angel doesn’t have to sing.
• Cabin in the woods! (in...Ohai)
• The swami is not what Angel expected.  Like could they not hire an Indian actor?  They hired a white actor for…the joke? 
• Meanwhile another mob looking guy threatens Cordelia if she doesn’t produce Angel.
• Enter, Wesley pretending to be Angel.  This will go well.
• Ugh, and this swami guy …they’re having a conversation about Angel’s car & clothing.  What is he a stylist? His publicist? What is happening?
• Wesley as Angel is introduced by Mr. Bryce who needs protection. 
• He offers Wesley blood…and oh man, there could be so many excuses to not drink it.  Wesley isn’t smooth. We know this.  So much not smooth that he dumps the rest of the blood in a…clear vase…
• Bryce wants WesGel…AngLey? to protect his daughter.  
• I get it.  This is a “fun” episode.
• Virginia is the spoiled rich daughter.   Oh, I remember her.  She’s recurring.  I’m sure she’ll have more depth later – but first impressions have to be stereotypical. 
• Cordelia calls Gunn for help.
• Some thugs try to take Virginia but Wesley reveals himself to be Angel and the thugs get spooked off really easily despite Wes’s obvious stammering and weirdness.
• Angel continues his own journey and the wise old white man continues to try to therapize him I guess.  It’s kinda boring.
• Ohhhhhhh.  EVIL REVEAL.  Turns out this guy is not the real swami & he’s in league with the mob guys.
• More guys trying to take Virginia.  This time Wesley actually shows off his fighting skills and kicks their asses.
• Now this guy is trying to coach Angel to go out and neg some girl to heal his heart.  And this…is when Angel starts getting suspicious.  Interesting that this happens only after we realize the evil reveal.
• Virginia and Wes get closer.  This is the part of the episode where the rich girl lets us all know that she has it tough too!  I’m sure a TikTokker has done this bit.
• This one is close. Follow @RachelWenitsky on Twitter. She's hilarious
• Virginia and Wes kiss.  
• Ok, I’m calling shenanigans. Virginia knows about the curse.  They’ve obviously done their research on Angel – they have tons of magical books and histories – and yet…they haven’t seen a picture of him?  Also, where was that original mob guy from the beginning who actually met Wesley and his pratfalliness. 
• Angel also tells the “guru” about the curse. He sorta explains it’s not always about sex – but ‘true happiness’, a distinction a lot of people don't seem to get.
• And Wesley has sex with Virginia under false pretenses.
• Gunn goes to find Angel but gets wacked in the head.  The guy, stays in the sunlight but Angel gets creative using a fishing pole.  It’s actually pretty cool make-up effect.

• Anyway the jig is up.  Everyone knows now that Wesley isn’t Angel so now he and Cordelia are trapped.
• Wait, he just....lets them go?
• Ah right.  The sacrifice. I remember this.
• “Were you in Virginia?” “That’s besides the point.”  Oh dude.
• With Angel back, they put everything together.  Angel is more concerned about his coat.
• I love when Angel’s vanity comes through.
• Virginia is at the big party and of course has no idea she’s about to be sacrificed.  Kinda like that time Doyle went to that bachelor party.
• The crew arrive in a v-formation like they always seem to do.  But this time,  Wesley is in front 
• OMG the demon looks like a demon from The Evil Dead. 

"I'll swallow your soul!"

• LOL, Angel offended being called a eunuch. 
• This whole spell was under the impression that Virginia was a virgin.  I mean…I’m getting this strange feeling like…she was named Virginia….for that express purpose. [Gross. - literally all of us]
• But Virginia is not…and has not been…a virgin since she was 16.
•  

 

Favorite Lines:

Zelda: “Oh no, I can’t do anything fun tonight. I have to count my past sins, then alphabetize them. Oh by the way, I’m thinking of snapping on Friday.” – Cordelia

Daniel: “Were you in Virginia?” “That’s besides the point.”  - Angel/Wesley

 

Arc/Continuity:

First Appearance: Virginia Bryce

Recurring: Lorne

Generally Known TV Face: Brigid Brannagh, Todd Susman, Saul Stein, Michael Yama, Patrick Kilpatrick

Generally Known Face: Art LaFleur

Lorne’s Nicknames: Angelito

Cordelia’s Alias: Lawyer, “Angel”

Wesley’s Alias: Angel

 

Caritas Song List

“I Got You, Babe”

 

Stats:

Cordelia’s Hair – blown straight, parted down the middle (clipped up when in Lawyer mode); bewildering low ponytail with half her hair loose

Dead Humans – 0

Dead Undeads – 0

Dead Flashbacks – 0

Dead Lawyers – 0

Cordelia Has a Vision – 0

Wesley Prat-falls – 2

Lawyered Ex Machina – 0

Evil Reveal – 2 (T’ish Magev isn’t T’ish Magev; Bryce wants to sacrifice his daughter, not just keep her safe)

Unevil Reveal – 0

Shenanigans Called – 1

Apocalypse Called – 0

Prophecy Called – 0

Between the Clowns and the Big Talking Hot Dog

Episode 2.05: Dear Boy. Original Airdate: 10.24.00.

“Darla tries to drive Angel over the edge in hopes of getting him to embrace his dark side.”

 

Daniel’s Thoughts:

• The Hyperion is really looking nice.  I can’t imagine Cordelia cleans that lobby every day.
• Angel is really super tired.  No one knows why.  We do.
• Cordy vision: Red hoods, big green monster.
• Angel makes a quip and no one laughs.  I hate when that happens.
• He falls asleep briefly and Victorian era Darla sits on his lap kissing him.  It’s weird.
• “We’re gonna need some muscle.  Call Gunn.”  GUNN IS MORE THAN JUST MUSCLE.
• “My Uncle Theo always said never buy a dull plow and never get in the middle of a religious war.” [And never get involved in a land war in Asia.  And never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! - Vizzini]

• Cordelia: “Well at least they’re not killing each other and not--” Big Green thing: “Intruders!”  Oh, Cordy.
• Gunn kills the big green thing which reminds me more of a Doctor Who alien than a demon.

Moisturize me?

• Angel continues to whale on some guy without any awareness of what’s around him.
• Again with the random fair in the middle of an LA sidestreet park thingy.   This time, at night. Finally, Angel sees Darla while awake.
• Oh! Guest starring Elisabeth Rohm.  Is this her last episode? (snark.)
• Ooh, and we get some of Angel’s past.  Angel with the long hair and the bad accent.
• Ahh, this is the story of what Angel and Darla did to Drusilla.
• They talk about her.  Dru is still human.  They’re attracted to her because she has “the sight” which we know from Buffy.
• In the present, Angel loses Darla in the crowd…but he’s getting closer to understanding what’s going on.
• Meanwhile, Wes and Cordelia are interviewing a new client who claims his wife gets abducted by aliens.
• Cordy & Wes are incredulous to this – but if there are demons, why not aliens?
• But it quickly becomes clear that his wife is cheating on him.
• “Do you think my wife’s cheating on me?” “Probably.” – Angel says without any context.
• And Angel sniffs Cordelia’s hair and is really weird.
• Cordelia, “I like Buffy as much as the next-“  Do you, though?
• Is this  Lindsey’s first episode back?  He’s got a prosthetic hand now.  He and Darla flirt, I guess.  I think that’s just their personalities?
• Hey Detective Kate. Some guy, some fellow cop, exposits where she’s been and what she’s been up to.  Apparently she’s been transferred.  And she finds out, Angel has too, in a way.  He also reminds the audience that Kate likes to investigate the strange and unusual.  And he seems really…angry about it.
• Meanwhile, Cordy undercovers as a waitress at the hotel the wife is cheating at. Wes is so not subtle taking pictures. Angel hides in a plant.
• But Angel is tired of this and doesn’t want to do it so he exposes themselves thusly losing money for the team.
• And Darla is in the hotel!   Wes & Cordelia have never met her so they don’t recognize her.  And she’s human.  She fakes a name and a husband and cries out for help.  She obviously didn’t run into him by accident so I don’t know what the point of this is.  Is it just to continue to play with him?
• Oh no, we hear Angel sing karaoke badly again – at least he apologizes for it? That’s actually kinda hilarious.
• And we get to see  Lorne, so that’s good
• Cordy gets an address for “DeEtta” (Darla) and Angel does what he does best: stalk.
• Inside, it’s clear that it’s a ruse.  Darla’s “husband” is an actor and talks about his art…and it’s so lame.  They really like making fun of actors on this show.
• There’s also a guard inside, hiding from the windows.
• Gunn finds out that Angel can turn back into Angelus and he’s not too happy about it.
• Gunn “ If he gets back up to his old tricks, how bad can it get?”
• The show answers by providing us with another flashback.
• Angel has killed all of Dru’s family.  Darla’s disappointed that he hasn’t killed Dru yet.  Angel’s plans for Dru are worse.  He wants to turn Dru and make her torment permanent.  So Angelus is a barrel of laughs.
• Darla’s security guard is a vamp who kills the actor husband.  She calls 911 pinning it on Angel.  The cops come immediately, of course.
• Angel escapes to the attic and ends up on the roof.
• And Darla meets Detective Kate and what is with Kate’s hair??

• Darla sob stories about how awful Angel is which fuels Kate’s already really bad hatred of him.
• And Angel kidnaps Darla in the coolest way. He just drops down from a tree and scoops her up.
• Kate: You guys want to help us out here or go down with the boss? Cordy and Wes defiantly cross their arms and it’s awesome.
• And of course Kate singles out the one black guy in the room and asks if he has any priors.
• Angel never doubts for a minute that she’s Darla which is amazing because she’s a pretty good actress.  (Both Darla and Julie Benz).  She doesn’t give a hint of deception - it’s great how Julie Benz is playing this.
• Darla finally caves when Angel goes all vamp and bites into her neck. “There’s my boy.”
• Wesley and Cordy have finally come around about Darla because they found a picture of her.
• Darla has a soul now but that doesn’t mean she’s good.  She still wants Angel to lose his soul.
• “You took me places, showed me things - but you never made me happy.”  Oof. Truth bomb.
• Darla thinks she can turn him by having sex with him like Buffy did. 
• Kate has this incredibly flawed logic that innocent people wouldn’t get killed if Angel and his team didn’t get involved in this fight. 
• Darla leaves.  Angel Broods.   Like he can just sit in a chair for hours, can’t he?
• “There’s going to be trouble.”  Wesley, meet show.

 

Zelda’s Thoughts:

• Angel, still sleepy and out of it. Cordelia: “Ah, you must be all worn out from sleeping for the last three days.”
• Cordelia and Wesley, bicker bicker bicker. At least he’s not insulting her intelligence.
• Uh oh, Angel is now hallucinating Darla while officially awake. Or at the least, he’s dreaming of Darla without IRL Darla there to facilitate it.
• How does Angel just know so much about the former convent. I guess it’s convenient. And that is where he tracked Dru down when he finally turned her, so it’s actually setting up our flashbacks, fine I’ll allow it.
• Nice, Gunn uses his fancy hubcap axe to kill this rando thrall demon. While Angel spends all his energy punching a thralled human.
• Cordy: “He’s off his game.” // Gunn: “Since when is it a game.” For real.
• Oh hey the fun’s begun! Angel, walking through some promenade, sees Darla in red (of course). HOW COULD IT BE. I do like this chess move. Now that his dream state is currently thoroughly fucked with, and it’s impacting his work, let’s throw Is-She-a-Hallucination-or-Real into the field.
• Of course we know the truth, but be prepared for some gaslighting of our grumpfaced vamp.
• Oh no a flashback and a wig. A bad accent can’t be far behind.
• And there it is.
• Flashback Darla’s picked out Flashback Angelus’s next target … FLASHBACK DRUSILLA.

• Aw man, the one time Juliet Landau gets to play pre-insane on either show. I mean, she doesn’t look steady but that’s because she’s already got visions. Poor thing.
• Anyway back in the flashpresent they’ve got a new client who claims his wife gets abducted by aliens “on a regular basis” and dude she’s cheating on you, time to cut and run.
• Angel strides in, distracted. “Do you think my wife’s cheating on me?” // “Probably.”
• Jesus fuck Angel is sniffing Cordelia’s hair and nuzzling her why why stop.

• Angel says he’s out of it “because of her,” and they assume it’s Buffy, but nope. At least he’s finally coming clean.
• But like why would dreaming about Darla make him want to sniff and nuzzle Cordelia? I assume they smell nothing alike. I hate it. I super hate it.
• Lindsey’s hair is sooooo 90s boyband, especially with the center part. How would W&H be okay with this look? (don’t get me wrong, Christian Kane is a cutie, but it’s a surprising hairstyle for a supposedly slick city lawyer)
• Darla: “Everyone betrays you. That’s not what eats at you in the long winter’s night.” // Lindsey: “Yeah? What does?”// Darla: “Missed opportunities.”
• Oh hey Detective Kate is still around. She’s apparently in the “Siberia” department, no longer downtown. Aw she’s full Mulder with a bigger grudge.
• Wow, the whole team’s a-spying on the “abducted” wife, taking pictures, recording audio, and Cordelia’s in a weird wenchy waitress costume.

• Angel sabotages the surveillance, and then gasp Darla is just there, and he confronts her.
• She’s doing a great job acting confused and scared – and then she runs to meet her “husband” Stephen, and stares at him from the sunlight. Gasp!
• I know Cordy never met Darla, but Wes should know what she looks like, shouldn’t he? I guess they were carefully making sure he didn’t get a good look at her face.
• Angel, after just WOW struggling through that Wang Chung song, abruptly flips off the karaoke machine and says “I’m very sorry” and it may be his finest moment.
• I wonder why Lorne’s not being more helpful. With his powers, he should know just telling Angel to back off this path won’t actually deter him.
• And off Angel goes to DeEtta Kramer’s house, where she’s having dinner with wow the guy playing Stephen is So Invested in his ROLE. Talking about the Actor’s Studio and puppet theater of the absurd.
• We also see that there’s a bodyguard of some sort standing guard.
• Oops, this is the first Gunn is learning that sometimes Angel turns evil. They really should have looped him in on that earlier.
• “Imagine Bonnie and Clyde if they had 150 years to get it right.”
• Gunn asks how bad it can get if Angelus comes back, and we transition to the convent Angelus shredded, and poor Drusilla’s lost her mind, muttering to herself.
• Dang, Angelus and Darla are basically having sex in Drusilla’s lap. That’s pretty fucked.
• Aaaaand, back to the present, Darla calls 911 on Angel breaking into the house and then the bodyguard is a vaaaaaaaamp and he kills Stephen, and once she’s done panicking, Angel breaks in.
• Lindsey, listening over Darla’s bug, smirks and says “Woman should have her own series.” Dude’s got a point.
• It’s kinda fun that Darla’s pulled a trick like this twice on Angel: she framed him for assaulting Joyce so Buffy would turn on him, and now she’s framed him for murdering Stephen, and to quote Angelus to Buffy, “And you fall for it every single time!”
• And hey now Kate’s there on the case. I guess it’s lucky she’s no longer working the downtown beat, so she can visit  suburbia?
• Although … what is up with Kate’s hair.
• Darla’s fabricating a stalking history of Angel following her.
• The small satisfied smile on Kate’s face when she hears Angel vamped out: fucking cold. This is what she’s been waiting for: a valid reason for her hatred of him. She can congratulate herself that she always knew he was evil.
• Whoop, Darla’s standing there and suddenly whoomp she’s pulled up out of frame. I’m having flashbacks to the giant ape puppet in the King Kong musical.
• Kate storms the Hyperion looking for Angel.
• Ugh, Kate’s being suspicious of Gunn and you can pretend to remove context and say it’s just because he’s a new face, but wow is it also textbook fucking profiling of the Black guy and I fucking hate it. “Any priors?” “I forget.” Gunn, too tired and used to this behavior from cops.
• Ah, this is why we had that random battle earlier. To give us a cool column-y set for the big confrontation with Darla.
• Angel, drifting much closer to Angelus than I think any of us are comfortable with, stalks Darla through the space, then vamps out and bites her.
• And Darla finally breaks character, “there’s my boy,” and woop they’re making out.
• Luckily Gunn finds the flaw in Kate’s argument: Angel couldn’t have broken into DeEtta’s house unless the real owners were dead, on account of vampire. And then Wes shows Kate a daguerreotype of Darla and we’re finally on … well, not the same page, but I think we’re all in the same chapter.
• Except Darla already thinks she knows how this book ends.
• “What’s the big plan, get me so screwed up I go bad again?”
• Angel warns her, she has a soul now, and eventually her memories will start to chew her up.
• Darla’s not interested in that; she wants to give him his moment of happiness, make Angelus truly return.
• “But you never made me happy.”
• “We were together 150 years. We shared everything. You’re saying … never?”
• “Buffy wasn’t happiness. She was just new.” Angel’s rewriting the chapter and stealing the narrative back from her. She looks lost and scared, covering it with bitter cynicism.
• She insists he had this darkness in her before she ever turned him, which is an interesting point. We’ve seen Liam and he was kind of a tool and he had a soul. Angel is somehow separate from both Liam and Angelus. Except that he is drifting closer to the nihilism of Angelus right now.
• “You’re gonna feel it, you know. What you did. That man you got killed?” // “Please. He was an actor.” Hey!
• Angel grabs her by the throat. She holds a crucifix to his chest. As he burns, she reminds him “You see, no matter how good a boy you are, God doesn’t want you. But I still do.” And she runs into the sunlight, where he cannot follow.
• He … he really shouldn’t have let her go. Like … that was a good exit line but that’s no excuse for shoddy PI work.

 

Favorite Lines:

Daniel: “Right, Guilt. Who loves guilt, like you love guilt?” - Cordelia

Zelda: “You see, no matter how good a boy you are, God doesn’t want you. But I still do.” – Darla

 

Arc/Continuity:

First Appearance: Drusilla

Recurring: Detective Kate Lockley, Lindsey McDonald, Lorne, Darla, Angel’s “Irish” “accent”

Generally Known TV Face: Stewart Skelton, Cheryl White, Rich Hutchman

Buffy Crossover: Drusilla

Whedonverse Hat Trick: Stewart Skelton (Harold Jeakins on Angel, Chief Wellins on S.H.I.E.L.D.), Derek Anthony (second role on Angel)

Darla’s Alias: DeEtta Kramer

 

Angel! In! History!

Angel is 247. He was with Darla for 150 years. And he has a thing for convents.

Darla picked out Drusilla for Angelus. He murdered her entire family, pursued her to a convent, murdered everyone there, and then had sex with Darla in her lap. She didn’t take it well.

He staked Darla 3.5 years ago.

 

Caritas Song List

“Everybody Have Fun Tonight”

 

Stats:

Cordelia’s Hair – low ponytail or fully down, choppy waves; high ponytail, loose curls; messy bun with loose tendrils

Dead Humans – 1

Dead Undeads – 1

Dead Flashbacks – 2 + Drusilla’s entire family + a convent full of nuns

Dead Lawyers – 0

Cordelia Has a Vision – 1

Wesley Prat-falls – 0

Lawyered Ex Machina – 0

Evil Reveal – 0

Unevil Reveal – 0

Shenanigans Called – 0

Apocalypse Called – 0

Prophecy Called – 0