There Are Not Evil Evil Things?

Episode 1.15: The Prodigal. Original Airdate: 2.22.20

“Angel seeks to solve a mystery involving Kate’s father after a normally peaceful demon attacks a delivery man on the subway.”

Daniel’s Thoughts:

• We start in ye olden times: 1753.  Ireland.
• Oh no.  Angel’s gonna have a terrible accent.
• Trick!  We think lurky Angel is sticking to the shadows because he can’t go into the sun, being a vampire at all.  BUT he’s not yet!  He’s just a drunk!
•  And we meet his dad and someone named Anna – I think she’s their servant.
• There’s a subway in LA? 
• Hey, It’s Kate! She’s here from the beginning instead of just being at the end of an episode.
• Ooh, Julie Benz is guest starring in this episode!
• Stuff happens with Kate and honestly it’s kinda repetitive and boring me so bring on Darla.
• Yay! It’s Darla! 
• “Tell me something you don’t know that I don’t know.” – Cordelia
• The demon in the old ancient book is wearing the same exact thing as she was in the subway station, rags around the head, included.
• “There are not evil evil things?”  Angel: DUH.
• I understand there always needs to be time in supernatural shows/movies for non-supernatural characters to adjust to the idea that there are supernatural things – but for some reason, the way Kate is handling it annoys me.  I’ve always been appreciative the way Oz found out: “No, that actually makes a lot of sense.”  You’re on a supernatural show.  Get over it.
• Oh no.  The guy who pulled the emergency break is having some dealings with Kate’s dad.  Rut roh.
• Oh man, his accent keeps slipping into American.  I really wish they just made him a colonial or something.  Or Spanish? Can David do a Spanish accent?
• And here we see how Darla sired Angel. With breast blood.

• “It’s not a Mexican name, is it? Angel?” Yikes. “Is he married?” “No.” “West Hollywood?”   Wow.  Kate’s dad is racist and homophobic in one breath.  What a guy. I sure hope he doesn't get killed by a vampire later.
• Oh wow...Wesley is doing an autopsy? Kinda?  He has parts of the demon.  Where’s the rest?
• Oh hey, Cordelia is in a really bad blond wig.  Ah, she was tailing a subject.  The train/delivery guy
• Suited guy – could be a Wolfram or Hart?
• Funeral. The tombstone says he’s 26.  Really? David is about 31 in this episode so I guess it’s not that far off.
• Angel crawls out of his grave. 
• Angel’s first kill is someone who works in a cemetery.
• Demons are all attacking.  They look like Night of the living dead.  They’re all wearing the same homeless clothes.   But hey, at least the security alarm is now working.
• So Angel got his name from his sister (me too!).  Different…circumstances, of course… 
• It’s also strange that Angel continues to go by this nickname after he gets his soul back – considering the way he got it.  I guess it sorta makes sense – Angel is a self-punishing brooder.
• Lots of death in this episode.  Now, Kate’s dad.  *shrug*  Another homophobic, racist, sexist, terrible father.  Am I supposed to be sad?
•  Kate the vampire slayer!
• “My father was human.”  Your father was an evil non-evil thing.

Zelda’s Thoughts:

• Oh look, it’s Angel! In! Flashback!
• Oh no, oh no it’s Liam and His Irish “Accent.”
• Oh right, this is the fakeout where he’s hiding in the shade and you think he’s a vamp predatoring on the servant, but naw he’s just hungover and still very human.
• Hi Angel’s dad.
• “Everyone gets corrupted” says Liam. I think we’ve found our motif.
• And then we flashforward from one Angel wiping blood from his lip to another Angel wiping blood from his lip, but present Angel fighty fights.
• It’s Kate! Hi Kate!
• Oop and the demon Angel was fighting suddenly seems to have a heart attack and die.
• Kate, acting like she’s already on whatever cop show she left Angel for, with her quipping over a dead body, “I guess I can forget about reading him his rights.” Law & Order? Was it a Law & Order or a CSI? [Law & Order: CSI Unit- NCIS]
• Oh right, Kate hasn’t gone full Mulder yet and is mad at Angel every time something demony is afoot. At least we didn’t call her last ep til after the demon was expelled from the kid?
• Oh look, Kate’s shitty father is here. Aw man, and Kate is so desperate for approval that “You look like you’re doing okay” is high praise I guess.
• Y’alll, Elizabeth Rohm has the prettiest eyes.

• But Kate has firmly shut the door on anything even resembling friendship with Angel.
• Ah, here we see that Darla spotted Liam brawling in a tavern in advance of her siring him. She really did choose that idiot lummox to live through the centuries with her.
• (Also! Darla! Darla! Darla is here!)
• The drawing of the Kwaini demon is as sketchy as that Blue Circle delivery dude’s vague description.

"Average height, average weight, average build."

• But anyway Wes is here to tell us that Kwaini aren’t violent or feral. So why was this happening? We have our mystery of the week!
• “Ever since she ran me through with a 2x4, things have been different.” If I had a nickel …
• Ah right, Blue Circle had to be important or they wouldn’t have given him lines. He’s a mule for … something ... and he’s collecting it from Kate’s Shitty Shitty Father.
• Wow, we see that he actually cares a tiny bit about Kate—when Angel says he’s a friend of hers, he asks, with a small tremor in his voice, if she’s been hurt.
• Aw dang, he was at the crime scene to abscond with some evidence.
• Heh, are we supposed to believe Liam cared about his mom and sister? Sure, whatever. He’s claiming he’s a dutiful son to his father—in wow, a bad accent—as if he’s not frequently drunk and brawling, and I just … there’s so little character consistency even in flashback.
• I do like the one moment of his father saying, surprised and hurt, “I was never in your way, boy.”
• Get it, guys? This is about fathers and children and insuperable barriers of understanding and disappointing each other and also some archival footage from “Becoming” from Buffy and wow I kind of forgot they smashed Angel’s face onto Darla’s boobs when he’s turned this was a teen show.
• “That ain’t a Mexican name, is it? Angel?” In case we considered liking Kate’s Shitty Father briefly, we have a racism.
• Ugh, Kate’s Shitty Father is having lunch with Kate and she thinks it’s because he’s looking out for her and taking an interest in her life, but it’s actually him getting info on Angel, since he knows Angel is onto him and HE IS JUST THE WORST.
• SHENANIGANS! Why did Wesley call it a vivisection? Those are done on live creatures. This here’s a dissection.
• Anyway, Wes has found out the Kwaini demon was high on Macbeth-influenced demon drugs. PCP/eye of newt.
• Wow the badly cut bangs on Cordy’s blond bob wig disguise. It looks like she got a quarantine haircut!

I cut them myself!

• Kate’s Shitty Father is part of a larger distribution of evil … something … are these two suit randos from W&H? Are we meant to assume that?
• Oh nah the suits are working for a big beefy demon bro. “Someone get me an adrenal gland!” Again, if I had a nickel …
• And flashback to Liam’s funeral.
• At least Darla’s flashback wig is a stunner.
• Vampires don’t breathe … except when every exhale from Angelus and Darla is visible because I guess it was cold the night they filmed.

That's not nighttime fog between them. That's the two of them being bad
at social distancing.

• Darla says he can take anyone in the village. Angelus replies that he’d rather take the village. A nice reminder of just how monstrous he was.
• We also have the running motif of Cordy trying to set up a functional security system for the office, and how it keeps failing, and I assume we’re also working in metaphor land with Kate and her emotional walls, and probably also something to do with Liam/Angelus and his father, and how he slaughters his whole family.
• Oh hey. That means DB played three “different” characters this episode: Liam, Angelus, Angel.
• Oops, the security system is alerting them to the DEMON ATTACK. Angel distracts them with that good good demon drug … I guess.
• So I feel like Angel told us once that the first thing he did was slaughter his family, but this flashback makes it clear that he rained havoc on the town before coming home, getting invited in by his sister, and then, you know, slaughter.
• So I guess what we’re supposed to take from the Kate’s Shitty Father plot is that he did all this to leave her a nest egg when he dies. Ugh, whatever, he’s still awful.
• Oh the two suits are vamps. And Angel has to just stand there, stuck outside the door, as they kill Kate’s Shitty Father. A bit of an emotional callback to Giles watching Cordelia die in “The Wish”?
• Ugh, poor Kate, though. She just falls apart.
• They’re giving good weight to Kate’s grief, even if it’s for such a shit of a father. He was all she had.
• Hot damn, Kate staked a vamp. Good for her.
• Big ol fighty time.
• “I know that what happened with your father –” // “My father was human. And you don’t know anything about that.” Hey, anyone remember the time in Angel S5 when Wes has his showdown with his father and literally everyone is awful and tonedeaf and Angel’s like “hey I totally killed my dad once, it’s no big,” and like.
• Darla taunts Angelus that his victory over his father took only a few moments, but he will always hang over him, never granting his approval. Angelus asks if the slaughter of his family is the work of love. I guess this is when Angelus decided his love language was destroying everyone who matters to the object of his fixation? Thinking of his future grooming of Drusilla, and the way he drew portraits of Joyce sleeping to taunt Buffy.
• Oh man, my memory is shot. I thought this was the episode that had the big Kate rock bottom moment. Still to come, I guess.

Favorite Lines:

Daniel: “What we once were informs all that we have become. The same love will infect our hearts – even if they no longer beat.  Simple death won’t change that.” -Darla

Zelda: “Ever since she ran me through with a 2x4, things have been different” – Angel

Arc/Continuity:

First Appearance: Darla

Recurring: Detective Kate Lockley, Trevor “Kate’s Shitty Father” Lockley, Angel's Irish accent

Future Famous Person: Christina Hendricks
Generally Known TV Face: Julie Benz, J. Kenneth Campbell

Buffy Crossover: Darla

Whedonverse Hat Trick: Julie Benz (Darla. She’s Darla, y’all), Bob Fimiani (first of two roles on Angel, Elder Gommen on Firefly, Mr. Ward on Buffy), Christina Hendricks (Bar Maid on Angel, Saffron/Bridget/Yolanda (spoilers?) on Firefly), Mark Ginther (first of two roles on Angel, Horned Demon on Buffy), John Patrick Clerkin (Black Robed Priest on Angel, Man on Buffy).

Angel! In! History!

We see more of Angelus’s origin story, how he turned from Liam to Angelus.

Stats:

Cordelia’s Hair – parted in the middle, loose ringlets; also a blond bob wig, a la Pretty Woman

Dead Humans – 1

Dead Undeads – 7

Dead Flashbacks – 5 (+ a village}

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