Previously: Faith came to LA, tried to kill Angel, tortured Wesley, and then had an emotional breakdown, made all the more feelsy by the dramatic rain.
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Sanctuary
Sweeney: The episode begins more or less right after the last, as it’s a two-parter. Angel is returning to the Brooding Basement with a very beat up Faith. He gives her a towel and puts her to bed. She says nothing until he starts to walk away. She says his name and we see her beating him up, but it was just in her head. He asks her what she wants. “Nothing,” she says. Roll electric cellos.
Lorraine: Dude, if she has those murdery scenes playing in her head all the time, it’s a wonder she doesn’t kill more people.
K: A+.
Sweeney: Indeed. The following morning, an even more beat up looking Cordelia is poking around the office. Badly bruised Wesley enters and apologizes to Cordelia, then realizes that Faith is still there. Cordy’s (understandably) pissed that she’s not only there but he gave her his bed.
K: I’m pretty sure that Team Fang should now be referred to as Team Walking Wounded.
Sweeney: Probably, yes.
Angel is poking through the doughnut box, clearly for Faith, and Wesley is (again, understandably) pissed. Something about having been tortured by someone the previous evening makes you not want to give them pastries for breakfast. Go figure. Wesley doesn’t understand why Faith isn’t bound and gagged. Angel soapboxes that they’re not in the business of giving up on people and Wesley gets straight murderfaced telling Angel not to dare take the moral high ground with him after what Faith did. Angel tries to insist that she wants to change, but Wesley says she’ll go back to the murdering as soon as she’s let loose, and leaves.
Angel says he’ll come around and Cordelia’s all, “LOL, yeah, I guess you’d know all about how people take a while to deal with being sadistically tortured!” During all of this, Cordelia gets him to sign checks for her to take a paid vacation because she doesn’t intend to stick around with a homicidal slayer in the basement. Fair.
Lor: I don’t need much excuse for a vacation but killer in the basement and recent elbow to the eye are high on the list of good excuses.
K: Truth. Although based on how business is going, I’d be paranoid that those cheques would bounce.
Sweeney: A secondary concern in this situation.
The police are investigating Bus Stop Stranger Danger’s apartment. One meat head looking detective is all annoyed that Kate is there, all up on what he thought would be his case, probably getting her cooties all over it. There was a lot of speculation about how Angel got into this apartment and I think someone mentioned death as an option, so I should note that the cops verify that Bus Stop Stranger Danger is alive and in the hospital, so the Angel-stopped-by-there-for-the-remote-invite theory wins the day. Bus Stop Stranger Danger identified Faith, who is obviously all sorts of wanted by LAPD.
Meat Head Detective asks why Kate is on the scene for a case that wasn’t assigned to her. He says everyone knows she’s “gone all Scully,” showing up at cases where there’s a presumed mythical thing going on; there are rumors that Faith has supernatural powers. Kate ignores his question and points out that Scully is the skeptic and Mulder is the believer. I have never seen The X-Files even though I know from Kirsti that it’s highly snarkable. Regardless, I love moments like this. Random Nerd Knowledge FTW!
K: Kate is FAR more of a Scully than she is a Mulder. So I’m siding with random meathead detective, even though Kate believes in monsters.
Sweeney: Anyway, she tells him that the problem is that she already believes, which, uh, I guess Angel didn’t clue her in on the super secret thing. Or is Angel just generally not as into the super secret thing? I guess we already know that LA has a powerful pro-demon law firm, so I guess we’re kind of setting it up for LA to be a lot less hush hush about its demon population than Sunnydale.
Lor: Aw man. I’m gonna miss PCP.
K: And gas leaks. Don’t forget the gas leaks.
Sweeney: Down in the Brooding Basement, Faith is standing creepily in the kitchen, holding a giant knife when Angel brings the doughnuts down, and she’s again being eerily silent. He asks for the knife and she hesitates, but acquiesces. When he says she should be resting, she says she’s been asleep for eight months.
Seizure Cut to Wolfram & Hart where Lilah is telling Lindsay that Faith is “rooming with the mark.” Lindsay is worried about the way the senior partners will react and wants to know how they can fix it. Pan around to a very badly beat up (winning the episode so far, in fact, for visible bodily damage) Lee who slurs through one side of his mouth that they should kill her.
I’m really loving this episode so far. This moment in Faith’s arc really had to be played out on Angel. We saw her turn bad as a foil for Buffy, the generally good Slayer. Right now, the episode is not letting us forget that Faith has done some really evil shit and that everyone advocating punishment for her has a very legitimate claim. However, Angel coming to her defense, when he gave no fucks about saving her at the beginning of the last episode, is also very appropriate. I know Kirsti hated how fast paced the last episode was, but I actually enjoyed that, because there was a lot to cover. Faith isn’t a series regular (to the best of my knowledge) and the really interesting stuff that they’re doing with this character has to happen quite quickly. I’m not saying it hasn’t been contrivancetastic, but I’m a fan, so far. She says a quarter of the way into the episode. We’ll see if I eat my words. I promise not to delete them if I do.
Lor: +1 to everything you said. I don’t think the road to redemption for Faith could’ve been faithfully portrayed on the show where Buffy is our heroine. And anyways, Angel is much darker and well suited for this storyline.
K: Agreed. I still kind of hate how they went from torture-tastic to “Help me to help myself, Angel” in the space of five minutes though.
Sweeney: I touch on that a bit more later when they show that more directly, but yes. A small price to pay, though.
Speaking of Faith’s long history of evil, she’s sitting in Angel’s room, having flashbacks of her first murder, and Buffy’s voice telling her that she killed a man. She starts packing her bags and Angel stops her, assuring her that running won’t lead anywhere good.
K: All I could think of when she started packing her bags was that it’s interesting that Faith and Buffy have the same reaction to “Oh God what did I do can’t process emotions” stuff, and the solution is to run.
Sweeney: Good point. It’s a nice touch.
She doesn’t get why he’s helping her, because apparently she missed the memo that big epic redemption stories are kind of his deal. He tells her she’s free to go and she starts to, but when he asks her how she enjoyed the murderer life, she punches him in the face and then asks him to help her. That’s usually not the way I’d recommend asking for assistance, but whatever. The fact that Faith’s murdering-and-torturing rap looks saintly beside his probably helps him shake off a blow to the jaw.
At some random bar, Wesley is throwing darts at a dart board that he’s probably pretending is Faith’s face. He gets up and goes to grab the darts when we see one whiz by his face. He turns around and it seems the three members of the Watcher’s Council’s Hilariously Inept Task Force have finally made it to Los Angeles. Ruh-roh.
After a Not Commercial Break, we learn that the lead member of the Hilariously Inept Task Force is way bad because he’s a smoker. Which is majorly annoying because California was already banning that shit inside bars and restaurants back in 2000. He’s a smoker and he disobeyed a sign, so he’s totes evil.
Lor: Wesley’s “bitch, there is a SIGN” face is fantastic.
Sweeney: Anyway, they give Wesley shit about how he ended up in LA because the Council wasn’t willing to pay for his flight home. (K: And I cringe repeatedly because they have English characters complaining about “flying coach.” NOPE. NOT A THING OUTSIDE AMERICA. ECONOMY, BITCHES.) Way Bad dude says that the Council will take him back if he’ll hand them Faith. Wesley won’t do it and wants to know why they won’t just do it themselves, and when they awkwardly look away and drink their beers, he realizes it’s because “Faith” (not that he realizes this part, but it was Buffy!Faith) kicked their asses.
Down in the Brooding Basement, Actual Faith is wondering how this whole redemption gig works. Angel then gives a speech that summarizes his whole character history. People might not be ready for the new you just because you’re ready to change. All the good deeds never erase the bad ones, etc., etc. Also, she’ll probz be haunted for the rest of her life.
K: WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! Angel sure knows how to cheer a girl up.
Lor: Seriously. At this point, why not just go back to dancing while punching people in the face? If I’m gonna be haunted for forever, I want to be dancing.
Sweeney: Faith repeats the question, because she actually wanted to know how the microwave worked so she could make popcorn. Womp. Thanks for the side of hopelessness, though! She tells Angel to tell Cordelia she’ll pay her back, but Angel says the popcorn was Wesley’s and Faith awkwards that maybe they just shouldn’t mention it. Angel says that apologizing might be a good thing, if she can. Faith isn’t sure they make greeting cards for people you’ve recently sadistically tortured.
Angel says that the more important question isn’t the how with the sorry, but the if — is she actually sorry? Faith doesn’t think she can take it, since it’s painful and Angel’s all, “Well, no shit! You did evil things, literally yesterday! Feeling shit is an indicator that you might not be entirely hopeless!” All of this does feel a little quick, but I am mostly willing to forgive it because, again, I appreciate what they’re doing and I can’t see a way for them to pace it out, really. This does feature some unusually good acting for the usually one-note Eliza Dushku.
Lor: Agreed. Also, it helps that we’ve seen hints of her humanity peaking out in each of her episodes, dating back to when she first killed the guy. And we kind of knew from the end of Who Are You? that she was well on her way to total breakdown. This was the last nail in the coffin and something had to be.
Sweeney: Faith then rambles about Buffy and how B tried to be her friend and Faith screwed her and literally screwed her boyfriend. Angel gets really uncomfortable and Faith’s all, “No, the new one.” You know, the one Angel doesn’t know about. Womp! She does actually say she’s sorry, and he recovers to say that she can say it. Then he walks away, mumbling, “Good,” to himself, partly to Faith and also to assure himself that he’s happy for Buffy.
K: AWKWARD TURTLE.
Sweeney: The trifecta of Evil L lawyers at Wolfram & Hart are explaining their Faith situation to an unseen person in the room. Eventually we pan around and it’s a really crazy pants demon with four eyes that growls as he eats in a very aggressive, dog-like manner. So, like, not something you want after you.
Lor: Or to take on a lunch date. Embarrassing, am I right?
Sweeney: Speaking of things Faith probably doesn’t want after her, the Hilariously Inept Task Force is giving Wesley a syringe containing a sedative powerful enough to take down a man twice his size, or, you know, a slayer. They are assuring Wesley that they mean to take her alive, which we all know to be false even if Wesley doesn’t, because The Council, they claim, believes she can be reformed. Wesley agrees to help them only on the condition that no harm is to come to the vampire. They bicker about it a bit, but eventually agree. Actually, Wesley’s speech about how Angel is reformed and Wesley has done more good in his few episodes with him than he ever did with The Council, is kind of important in this episode about Faith’s hope for redemption.
Speaking of, she’s in the Brooding Basement watching TV and eating Wesley’s popcorn when weird camera zooms and slithering noises tell us the Four Eyed Demon is now in the basement. Angel appears from the shower to ask if everything’s all right. “It was touch-and-go for those four minutes you left me alone, but somehow I got through it.” Eliza Dushku may only have one note, but she plays it well.
K: Truth.
Sweeney: Unfortunately, the TV then features a news bulletin calling for Faith to be turned in. She freaks a little bit, what with them using a photo of her when she had that tragic coma makeup and stringy hair. Nobody wants to be immortalized like that!
Lor: They don’t even get her sweet, leather Bad Girl ensemble in the picture. Rude.
Sweeney: Just the worst.
Then we get Kate speaking at a press conference, so that Angel can see and we can tie her into this episode. Yes, contrivance. I can’t justify it as anything but. Whatever.
As Angel is trying to calm her down, Four Eyed Demon drops from the ceiling and fighting ensues. Angel is knocked aside when he tries to help. Faith manages to get a knife in it and kill it. She looks down and sees both her hand and the knife covered in blood and starts to freak. Angel sits her down and gives her a hug, just in time for the totally awkward arrival of Buffy. I knew she was on this episode, but I forgot about it, so this actually caught me off guard. It shouldn’t have, really, because nobody would be more bothered by this moment than her.
After dramatic stares and a Not Commercial Break, Angel gets up and they have an awkward exchange in which Buffy reveals that she came down because she heard that Faith tried to kill him and she was worried. She’s not sure “a severe cuddle session” was the appropriate punishment for attempted murder. Faith finally gets up and starts to apologize, but Buffy cuts her off, saying that she’ll beat her to death if she does. “Go ahead,” Faith responds.
Lor: Nice connection there, though to me this isn’t quite Riley level black and white. I believe Buffy believes in the gray, but that one time some girl stole your body and fucked your boyfriend and then went off to kill the great love of your life? That’s probably gonna put her firmly in the “black” corner. Especially since B didn’t see her Life Changing Breakdown in the Rain.
Sweeney: Agreed. This is less about black and white than it is about vengeance for Buffy, which is a whole other deal. Plus, she came down expecting to not only exact that vengeance, but do it nobly rescuing Angel only to find that he (1) didn’t want her help -and- (2) has a very conflicting agenda for Faith. It’s not about good and evil, so much has how incredibly personal this all is for Buffy.
Angel jumps in and tells Faith to go upstairs. He grabs Buffy to stop her, so she punches him in the face, and then he punches her back and they have a dramatic, “Y U DO THAT?” stare-off. Angel says he’s sorry and Buffy just clutches her jaw, horrified that Angel just hit her to protect Faith.
Faith is upstairs, alone, when Wesley arrives. It’s meant to be ominous, but the fact that we cut away before any real interaction suggests to me that Wesley’s willing to trust Angel’s judgment on this one.
Back at Wolfram & Hart, our trifecta of evil L lawyers are discussing their series of failed assassinations. “This is getting ridiculous. The first assassin kills the second assassin, sent to kill the first assassin, who didn’t assassinate anyone until we hired the second assassin to assassinate her.” LOL. Lindsay says that the problem is that they’re lawyers and they need to move the fight to their own turf.
Lor: Oh no, shit’s about to get real evil! #badlawyerjoke
Sweeney: Down in the Brooding Basement, Angel and Buffy are bickering about Faith and the fact that he hit her. The writers gave Angel a line to try to quell Angel-hit-his-ex-girlfriend rage: “Not to go all schoolyard on you, but you hit me first. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re a little stronger than I am.” Buffy is, of course, more upset that he did it for Faith than the actual hitting. Also that she thinks Angel’s getting played.
Buffy adds that he can’t possibly know what Faith did to her, and gets defensive when Angel retorts that Buffy can’t possibly know what Faith is going through. “But of course, you do. I’m sorry, I can’t be in your little club. I’ve never murdered anybody.”
K: Uh, BURN.
Sweeney: Buffy is swinging low with her quips in this episode.
Angel hears footsteps and it’s Wesley and Faith. Wesley explains that the Hilariously Inept Task Force will be arriving in three minutes expecting Faith drugged and Angel gone, so they should get gone. Didn’t Buffy!Faith disarm these guys while in handcuffs, inside a barred truck, without weapons? We have two slayers and a vampire. They can’t handle this? No, insists Buffy, because of reasons, since she knows that those guys are killers. I guess I’ll buy that she has no wish to re-encounter the men who tried to kill her. Still feels inconsistent.
During the explanation, Faith slips out and Angel says she probably went to the roof, which the Suddenly No Longer Hilariously Inept Task Force (I promise not to acronym that) probably has covered. Wesley suggests having Buffy protect Faith which, LOL, nope. He also tells Angel that he did this for him, not her, because he trusts him more than three gun-toting maniacs. Deep.
Lor: Also a sentiment sadly lacking on greeting cards.
Sweeney: Down at the police station, Lindsay is enlisting Kate’s help. She’s not having it, what with Wolfram & Hart being no major friend of law enforcement. Lindsay smartly plays to her mistrust of Angel, and the recent death-by-vampire of her father, before revealing that Faith is with Angel.
K: And no one questions why the smarmy lawyer would know that. It’s not like the police require PROOF or anything…
Sweeney: LOL. That’s reserved for police departments that actually do their jobs.
Up on the roof of Brooding HQ, Buffy and Faith have it out. Faith suggests Buffy throw her off the roof again, and says that there’s nothing she can do to make it better. Buffy lets out some of her hard earned rage, adding that Faith treated her life like something to play with, taking everything she could. Faith, Buffy says, is the only person who ever made her feel like a victim. Faith crazies about how things are like for people who never know control, where everything is just constant chaos, which, to be sure, was very clearly presented as a big part of Faith’s pre-Buffy back story. Not that this justifies or excuses anything.
Lor: Definitely no excuse, but the “oh wow. You felt like a victim ONCE in your life” thing seems to get to Buffy because she shuts that shit down quick.
Sweeney: As Faith is asking Buffy what to do to make it right, Way Bad from the Task Force appears on the roof and starts firing. Buffy jumps on Faith to protect her. Down in the basement, Wesley and Angel hear those shots just as another Task Force guy comes downstairs and starts firing at them. On the roof, Faith and Buffy’s attempt to make a break for it is interrupted by the arrival of a helicopter, containing the third guy.
Buffy tells Faith to stay down so she can go after the man on the roof, assuming that the guy in the helicopter won’t shoot her. She fights and knocks Way Bad’s gun away. Down in the basement, Wesley makes a similar sacrifice, going after their attacker so that Angel can get to the roof. As Angel runs, Wesley manages to throw the powerful tranquilizer into the guy’s neck. He has the cutest, “Aww, yeeaaah, I did it,” face.
Up on the roof, Buffy and Way Bad are now fighting sans weapons, so she knocks him out pretty quickly. Angel then appears and SUPER JUMPS to the helicopter. IDEK how they expect us to buy that. “But, look, he ran up something, to assist the SUPER JUMP! Totally legit?” No, show. Not legit. Angel pulls the third gunman out the door, and then vamps out to make the pilot put the helicopter down.
K: I have so many problems with this. SO. VERY. MANY. PROBLEMS.
Lor: Like physics problems, mostly.
Sweeney: A+
Buffy calls out to Faith, who doesn’t respond. Kate and the police arrive, telling Angel he has one shot to tell them where Faith is. When he doesn’t, she orders him arrested for aiding and abetting a wanted felon.
Wesley and Buffy drive Angel’s car to police headquarters just as Kate is assuring Angel that his cell will have a great view of the sunrise. Buffy is confused by the fact that Kate knows and Kate’s all, “Who is this girl and why is she here?” Just as Buffy tries to insist that Angel not take the fall for Faith, we see Faith sitting in a chair across the station, talking to another cop. She stands up and says she’d like to make a confession.
Later, Buffy and Angel are standing in the station, finally having a calmer talk about the whole Faith situation. Buffy is upset that Angel didn’t tell her, and comes across as pretty selfish in this scene. It wasn’t quite OOC — I definitely bought this as Buffy, because she can be quite selfish at times, but this scene never would have been written this way if it were on BtVS rather than AtS. Angel goes on to say that them staying apart was her idea, which, I mean, maybe it was most recently her idea, but… Not to go all schoolyard on you, Angel, but it was your idea first.
Lor: Fourteen MF thirty. Also, it was most recently her idea after you magic wiped her memories and stuff. Not fair.
Sweeney: Anyway, Buffy is still bratting about the fact that Angel didn’t want to let her have her vengeance. After a pause, she starts talking about Riley, deliberately to hurt him. She adds that the relationship is new because unlike Angel, she trusts Riley. Ouch. Angel angrily reminds her that while it’s great that she moved on, he doesn’t get that option. Then he yells at her to go home, which she does.
Wesley walks up as Angel hits a wall to vent his frustration. Wesley asks if he’s all right. “For a taciturn shadowy guy, I’ve got a big mouth.” LOL. K. He wants to go after her, but he won’t. Wesley says he did the right thing — not yelling at Buffy, the other thing. Angel says that Faith did it, not him.
Roll credits.
Yeah, I’m standing by all of that earlier stuff. The episode was definitely fast and loose with the sense-making, but much like today’s Buffy, the payoff was worth it. This was one of my favorite episodes of the whole season. I’m really excited to see future Faith stuff, especially on Buffy, where I now get to have this brand new appreciation. I think that’s the best part of this side-by-side thing, for me, at least, is that being new to AtS means I get to see some things on BtVS differently now.
K: I’m just sad we have to wait so long to get to the future Faith stuff.
Lor: SPOILERS.
Sweeney: I mean, the episode ends with her in jail. It’s a pretty safe bet that she’ll be there a while.
Next time on Angel: Something about an amateur vampire hunter and gangs in South Central. IDK. Let’s find out together on S01 E20 – War Zone.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
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