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