Angel S03 E05 – Weird adorable.

Previously: Is it bad that I barely remember? Body swapping something.
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Fredless

Lorraine: We get a good, old fashioned misdirection opening today, this time with a big pointy sword in Wesley’s face. I’m happy to report that his hair is deflating, but unfortunately it is still not at acceptable levels.

Sweeney: I wonder if his Puff Level will prove comparable to John Green’s as an indicator of stress level?

Kirsti: We can but hope, Sweeney.

Lor: Cordy is holding the sword. They banter about running through inventory, because Angel has been complaining about the weapons cabinet. Cordy asks who the boss is anyways. From off screen, Fred asks what time it is. Wesley lifts up his arm and Cordelia reads it. The camera pans to show Fred sitting on the floor in front of a big, wooden box. The time is three minutes after the last time Fred asked.

K: I have to say, it kind of bugged me that the entire Fang Gang treat Fred like she’s a child. Yes, she’s a little loopy at times. But she’s a physicist who survived five years trapped in a dimension where humans are treated like cattle. That’s pretty bad ass.

Lor: Cordelia tells her Angel will be back when he’s back.

For those of you who are new around here, Fred asks if Angel and Buffy (“that girl with the goofy name”) are going to get back together now that she’s resurrected. I’d lightly complain about all this exposition, but it leads into a most delightful exchange. It starts with Wesley saying that no, there is no chance, never, no way. Fred mentions how strong and handsome (SHOTS!) Angel is, so clearly Buffy will love him and he loves her, so what’s the deal? Cordelia offers her the Cliff Notes and soon Wesley jumps in to help.

Sweeney: THIS SCENE BROUGHT TO YOU BY TUMBLR!

Lor: I love when we find ways to tie the Buffy and Angel recaps of the day. Today? BROUGHT TO YOU BY TUMBLR.

Also, a few things:

(1) – It’s amazing to think about how this is the same Wesley we met in Bad Girls.

(b) – This is hilarious. Buffy and Angel’s love is dramatic and over the top. But his friends know that it’s over, and Wesley and Cordy have every confidence that he will be back.

(cat) – Aw, Angel. Seeing Buffy must not have been the easiest thing and then this.

Sweeney: Yes to all of that. And also, LOLFOREVER.

K: A+, Lor. Mostly I’m impressed that when Angel says “How about you both bite me?” it’s not with his usual note of BRB BROODING FOREVER. It’s with a note of “yes, the past few days have sucked, and yes I should probably be mad at my friends taking the piss, but that was pretty damned accurate, so I’mma let it slide. Mostly…”

Lor: Right, because he gives it back to them a little bit by refusing to talk about it at all, even when Cordelia says that the curiosity will kill her. Angel deadpans that he wouldn’t want that. He does want ice cream and Fred jumps at the chance to join him. Cordelia says that now they’ll never know and from off screen Angel says, “because being on two different TV networks means no one will ever know.” Something like that.

After a seizure cut, Angel and and Fred are walking through the sewers and she’s got a big ass cone of ice cream in her hands. She’s expositing some more about how they encountered a monster on their trip to get ice cream. I wonder if that would help me stay on a diet if I encountered mortal danger every time I stepped out for superfluous calories. Probs not, though maybe running for my life would keep the pounds right off.

Sweeney: Most effective exercise regimen ever. Combine with Sara’s A-inspired Dieting Text Messages for maximum effect.

Lor: And the Snark Squad weight loss program was born. 

Fred is finding this all super exciting, even the sewers which are so “bleak and oppressive and homey.” Angel says they are looking for a Durslar demon, who rarely goes above ground. Fred keeps talking a mile a minute about her own kookiness and how she doesn’t know how they put up with them, when a growl tells them they must be near the Durslar’s lair. Angel tells Fred to head back to Brooding Hotel and wants to know if she knows the way. She knows the way down to the meters. She realizes her nerd is showing and heads back. She offers her help a couple more times and even makes Angel chuckle.

I just love Fred.

K: So do we all, Lor.

Lor: The Durslar appears behind Angel and we cue the Electric Cellos.

After the credits, the Fang Gang are still doing inventory and Wesley is telling stories about his rogue demon hunter days. Gunn tells Cordy to hurry up and get a vision already. She snits about getting a painful vision for his benefit, but stops short and doubles over in pain. Gunn jumps up with a, “YES!” but it turns out that Cordy just stubbed her toe on that wooden box Fred was sitting with earlier. Wesley thinks it looks like a spring loaded decapitation device. Um. BAMF.

Sweeney: She may have proved a little rusty last week, but I can just imagine her BAMF Dating Site Profile: “Hobbies include: running from demons for exercise, and creating clever new ways to quickly decapitate your enemies.”

Lor: “Also, I love ice cream.”

Inventory time is further interrupted by an older couple, Roger and Trish, arriving at the Brooding Hotel. Wesley makes with the introductions and shows them into his office. Roger and Trish are looking for their daughter. The Gang starts running through a list of possible suspects (fiends, demons, vampires) but they are missing the point. Roger and Trish already hired a detective to track their daughter, and he did, all the way to Angel Investigations. These are Fred’s parents.

Speak of Fred, she’s just getting back, and when she sees her parents she runs straight up to her room.

In the office, Wesley says Fred is fine, but just out with one at the moment. Cordelia starts trying to backtrack on all the fiend, demon, vampire talk. Roger and Trish appear more interested in what’s happened to Fred during those fives years they lost touch with her. Wesley says they’ve only known Fred for a few months. Cordelia half-lies that they found her in a fit of depression and Wesley half-truths that she’d “recently relocated and was have trouble adjusting.”

Wesley wants to know how they found Fred and Roger and Trish say they got a letter from her a month ago with no return address, which is when they hired a private eye. Gunn is impressed that the detective was able to find her with no address on the envelope.

K: I’m inclined to agree. That’s some Veronica Mars level investigation right there.

Lor: Angel comes bouncing in, telling his demon at Hagen-Dazs story and holding the head of the Durslar demon. He stops short when he sees Roger and Trish. Cordelia tells them that Angel makes monster movies and introduces him to “Fred’s very normal parents.” Angel gets the heavy hinting and promptly hides the head behind his back.

Upstairs, Fred tries to scrub some of her Crazy Crayon Drawings off the wall, but soon gives that up. Downstairs, there is much awkward, until Roger and Trish are all, “so, where’s Fred?”Angel figures she’s just up in her room.

We cut there with her parents looking about her room. Trish asks what the Crazy Crayon Drawings are about. Roger leans close to her and says they might have to call “them” in sooner than expected. Cordelia whisper-asks Gunn and Wesley when the last time Fred left the hotel by herself was. Gunn: A couple weeks after never. Right, so this whole thing where she left because her parents showed up is  fishy.

After a cut, everyone is back downstairs and Cordelia is still saying that something isn’t right about this. Gunn asks if they can imagine Fred sneaking off to send a letter to her parents.

Sweeney: Cordelia’s teasing of Fred occasionally feels a bit mean spirited and a little too Old Cordelia for my liking. I hope she cuts this out soon.

K: Did we have “Angel has self-worth issues” on the drinking game board? Because SHOTS if we did! 

Lor: Wesley thinks Roger and Trish could’ve lied about the letter and Angel points out that even if they didn’t, the letter did say, “DO NOT COME FIND ME.”

Angel asks where they should start looking for Fred and the only idea is from Gunn, about hitting all the local taco stands. Angel says he’ll go back to the sewers and Wesley remembers she used to work at the library and may have contacts there. Cordelia peeks out at Roger and Trish and they are whispering conspiratorially.

The Gang tell the Burkles that they are going to go search for Fred. Roger asks if it would be smarter to split up, and this opens the door for Angel to bumble through an explanation about underground industry contacts.

We cut to Lorne’s still destroyed bar. He’s in pajamas and a robe and someone is knocking on the door. He opens the door, and it’s Fred. He dismisses her quickly and she just runs behind him and stars singing, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”She gets through one squeaky line before Lorne’s all, “ENOUGH ALREADY.” Fred says something has happened and Lorne gestures his destroyed bar saying that sounds familiar. Fred assumes another massacre, but Lorne says it’s just been the one. She asks why it’s still destroyed but Lorne doesn’t answer and switches the subject back to why she’s here.

They sit and Fred admits that she needs cash, but she doesn’t want to talk about why. She will sing if she needs to. No need- her distress is pretty evident. He says the old monsters have hunted her down, and that her problem is that she hasn’t run far enough.

Sweeney: This episode was heavy on the misdirection, giving Fred’s parents a bit of a Toby Edit. Most of it is fine, in retrospect, but this is the one part I don’t particularly understand. It seems like either (a) he gave shitty advice in service of the Toby Edit -or- (b) he knew that he was setting in motion this whole magic chain of events, but I’m not sure how consistent that is with other instances of Lorne giving guidance without knowing certain external forces that could intervene to change things.

K: See, I was working more on the basis that the old monsters are in her head. They’re the monsters she spent five years dealing with in Pylea, and she’s managed to push them away for the most part since she got back. So what Lorne’s really saying is that running from Pylea to LA isn’t far enough. But yeah, this was total “her parents are evil” misdirection.

Lor: In the sewers, Angel is calling out for Fred. He passes a glowy creature.

We cut to the library where Trish is asking if Fred spends lots of time at the library. She used to love the library back home, and Trish would pick her up there after her rounds. Cordelia assumes she’s a doctor, and mentions that must be where Fred gets her smarts from. Trish is actually a school bus driver and there is a moment of awkward.

Wesley and Gunn appear to confirm that Fred is not there. Roger asks what they will do next, and Wesley pulls Gunn and Cordy aside to talk about it. Cordelia insists that something is off with Roger and Trish while Wesley wonders out loud where Fred would go for guidance.

Angel is still in the sewers and he’s startled by his phone ringing. (K: I LOLed.) He’s being watched by something as he answers the phone and duh’s about where Fred would for guidance. He says they’ll meet there.

Lorne doesn’t seem very happy to be standing in front of Angel, the Fang Gang and the Burkles. He asks Gunn about his other friends, and Gunn takes that as his cue to wait outside. It was too soon, Gunn. Too soon. Roger asks if this is one of Angel’s monster movie contacts, what with the fake horns and make-up. Lorne says they aren’t fake and it’s just a little eyeliner. Wesley tries to give him a little they-are-from-the-country-eyebrow-waggle and Cordy lies that he just got back from a shoot, but Lorne isn’t for playing their game.

Sweeney: Given that his bar/home is still in ruins from their most recent visit, in which it was trashed for no reason more or less complex than the way he looks, they shouldn’t be too surprised.

Lor: Agreed. Storming in with the whole crew was poorly planned, considering.

Angel pulls Lorne to the side while Roger and Trish grouse about what lousy detectives they are. Angel apologies to Lorne about the bar, but they need to find Fred. Lorne starts rambling about how no one cares about his feelings and how they get pimiento in olives. Angel says nothing until Lorne offers the information: Fred doesn’t want to see her parents. She has her reasons and there is no need to face a showdown. Angel insists and the music swells as Lorne says to play it delicately because it’s going to get messy.

This goes back to the entire misdirection thing, because the amount of DUN DUN DUN doesn’t match with what actually happens.

We cut to a bus or train station. Fred is sitting on a bench next to what I’m assuming is a homeless man. She talking to herself, saying that leaving will be easy as pie, and then starts to recite the digits of pi. The homeless man is like, “fuck this,” and gets up and walks away. Fred: “I was just calculating pi… to relax. I’m not dangerous!”

K: Poor Fred. It has to be pretty brutal to realise that your own special brand of crazy scares away even those usually seen by society as legitimately crazy…

Lor: And in so many ways, she’s still very much homeless herself.

We see Fred through fuzzy insect vision right before her parents and the Gang arrive at the station. She spots her parents and tries to run away, but the Fang Gang block her in. She starts crying and yelling that her parents can’t be them because they don’t know.  Her parents are trying to understand and she explains, in her Fred way:

“I got lost. I got lost, and they did terrible things to me, but, but it was just a storybook. It was just a story with monsters, not real. Not in the world but – but if you’re here and you see me then – then it’s real! And it did happen. If you see what they made of me… I – I didn’t mean to get so lost!

Her mother grabs her face and tells her that it doesn’t matter what they did to her and Fred lets out a, “mommy.” I didn’t get emotional watching this the first time, but I came back to it for recapping and it made me teary.

Sweeney: They’ve been playing Fred’s serious trauma for laughs (but delicately enough that it doesn’t feel too inappropriate) so it was lovely to finally see this side of it. This has been well paced, too. This packs more emotional punch because we’ve had a chance to get to know her in a more lighthearted way.

Lor: As they are hugging, a giant insect demon in a fantastic costume drops from the sky. Angel tells everyone to get out, because he’ll handle it. The Gang all runs out only to see Angel thrown through the doors a second later. Wesley finds a pile of luggage and it includes some golf clubs and a super convenient bow and arrow, which Gunn uses against the Insect Demon. We’ve probably already called something the Insect Demon, but oh well.

The Gang is being tossed around by the bug, and it stabs Angel through both shoulders. Fred tries to come to the rescue by whacking it with a club. The Insect goes after her but Angel jumps in the way. Roger comes over with a large tank and clunks the Insect over the head. “That’s my daughter you damn cockroach!” Adorable. I feel really weird about calling that sequence adorable now.

Sweeney: It was though! Weird Adorable is sort of the essence of Fred at this point.

K: True. I also kind of love the parents-threatening-evil-things-to-stay-away-from-their-children thing. It’s a nice flashback to Joyce in School Hard, as well as giving a big fat dose of Molly Weasley feels.

Lor: Angel is still fighting with the demon, but it tosses him aside. It takes a few steps toward him again, but a bus comes speeding by and smushes it good. My first thought was, “how convenient,” but it turns out to be Fred’s mother driving the bus. She gets out, laughing and hopping around while she says, “did I get it? Did I get it, y’all?” LOL. Yep. That’s Fred’s mom, all right.

K: BAMF. I mean, how many people would go from “OH SHIT MONSTERS ARE REAL” to “I’MMA KILL IT WITH A BUS” in the space of a couple of minutes?!

Lor: The Burkles.

At the Brooding Hotel, Cordelia is bandaging Fred’s arm, while chatting with Roger and Trish. The severed head of the Durslar demon is there too, and Fred notices that it’s covered in the same crystals she noticed down in the sewers with Angel.

Angel and Wesley are watching Fred with her parents. Wes notes how happy they look. Cordelia says she’s done with Fred and says next up is multiple stab wounds. Angel hops up like a little kid. I think he’s excited to be touched by Cordelia. Fair.

Wesley asks Fred how she feels and she says her heart’s a little achy and her arm feels like a giant bug tried to kill her. But Angel saved her. Trish notes that Angel does that a lot, and Fred says it’s what he does.

 

Weirdly adorable, Fred. Keep up.

Roger explains that this whole time they were thinking of calling the police on them, explaining why they were getting a Light Toby Edit. (S: LOL I love that you called it that too. BRAIN SHARE.) Angel is all, “shucks! I’m no hero!” and Gunn calls him a blood sucking fiend, but with a smile, so it’s like those people who say douchey things but follow it up with an “LOL.” or “JUST KIDDING,” but you know they aren’t. Roger doesn’t care if he drinks pig’s blood, just that he saved his daughter. Angel answers in the weirdest way, basically saying he only had to save Fred because she got in the way.

This makes Fred get sad faced, even while Angel and Roger bond a little over being old. Fred announces that she wants to go home. She says she isn’t cut out for staying with them, and she should probably go home where it’s quiet and safe. The Burkles all hug and Gunn offers that she’ll probably be happier there. Wesley agrees with a marked lack of conviction.

Later, Fred stands in her room staring at Crazy Crayon Drawings. Angel comes to visit and she invites him in. He starts to explain that he only needs the initial invitation. Fred knows, but she did it more as a “one last time,” sort of deal. Angel asks if she’s going to remember everything she wrote on her wall, and she says that she will because it’s a story. She starts with “once upon a time,” and goes on to tell the story of a girl in a cave, far from home, trying to figure out a way to escape. One day, a HANDSOME man rode up on a horse and saved her. Problem was that as soon as they got back to the castle the HANDSOME man went away again and the girl built herself another cave, hoping he would save her once more. Fred looks at Angel and says he can’t save her though.

Sweeney: SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, EVERYBODY!

K: Shots with a side of “this is giving me feels though”, right?

Lor: Feelsy shots are a thing.

Downstairs, Trish is talking to Cordelia about Alien movies, and jokes about how the one Joss Whendon wrote put Roger to sleep. I wish I knew that because of my stellar Joss Whedon knowledge but I found that out by accident while Googling for gifs. Thanks, Internet! You make me look good.

 

Gunn and Roger show off the contraption Fred made, and Wesley explains that they think it’s a weapon. Or it makes toast. Fred comes downstairs and Angel is carrying her suitcase. Trish is all, “hey did you pack your shirt soaked in Insect Demon guts that might be useful to the plot later?” Fred says she’s got it!

Then, it’s time to say goodbye. She hugs Gunn, and then awkwardly hugs Wesley. She hugs Cordelia who whispers that she’s almost a little jealous. Fred and Angel just look at each other as she thanks him and he hands off her luggage. The Burkles leave.

A seizure cut later, the Burkles are in a cab and Fred is surprised to hear that her parents have rented out her room. Anyways, it’s time for her to pull out the Plot Device Sweater and notice the crystals.

Sweeney: Plot Device™ is a very popular brand in Traumaland.

Lor: Styles for all occasions.

At the Brooding Hotel, there is a Group Brood session going on. Cordelia says in a weird way, she’s going to miss Roger and Trish. She asks if that’s wrong, but Angel doesn’t think so. They were nice. Cordelia says they were more than nice. Gunn offers that they were parents. Wesley lets a little bit of his Childhood Trauma show when he says that Fred’s parents loved her, they didn’t berate, debase or scorn her. I can hear the Wesley feels in the comments already. Poor Wes.

He snaps out of it, and Cordelia takes over the conversation and says that at least Fred will get a normal life. Things are never normal with them. At that we cut to the severed Durslar head they kept for absolutely no reason at all, and it starts pulsing.

After a not Break, insect tentacles start to break through the Durslar head. Back with the Group Brood, Angel says he found Fred’s brand of quiet crazy soothing. Cordelia: And what? I’m not soothing? I can be soothing. I could soothe your ass off, pal. I’m sure, girl. I’m sure. Cordelia tries to play like she’s glad Fred is gone, but gets happy when Angel says she’ll come back and visit.

There is an Insect Demon outside the Hotel.

Cordelia says she’s done with the Group Brood, heads out and finds the Insect Demon in the lobby. In fact there are bunch of Insect Demons outside in the courtyard too. The Gang spring into action, grabbing weapons. Angel gets thrown down to the floor and Fred comes running in. Angel asks who’s helping him, and Fred happily says she is. She stops down on her conveniently located Toaster Weapon and an axe goes flying through the air and splits the Durslar head in half. There are a gag-worthy number of cockroaches inside.

Sweeney: To clarify: there are a fucking lot of cockroaches. Clarification necessary because 1 is a a gag-worthy number of cockroaches.

K: I was going to go with “metric fuck-ton” as the descriptor. Because I’m totally on board with Sweeney’s assessment on this one. 

Lor: Thanks ladies. This is why we make a great team.

The Insect Demon grabs what’s left of the Durslar head and takes off. A group of bugs follow behind. Fred starts explaining how she saw the crystals and it meant that the Insects laid eggs in the Durslar and went looking for them at the bus station and then showed up here with its posse to collect their eggs. Just go with it. Wesley compliments her on her huge brain.

Gunn also compliments her on her badass Toaster Weapon. She says she came up with it after thinking about having to do battle with your arms cut off. Anyways, this has all led Fred to realize that she can’t just go home to pretend to be normal. She wants to stay, if the Gang will have her. Wesley quickly says they should put it to a vote, doesn’t let anyone else chime in, and passes the motion. Being boss has its perks.

Her parents say they will stay around a couple of days to spend time with her. We cut to them all in her room painting over the Crazy Crayon Drawings. Gunn and Wesley start lightly arguing and Trish gives them a motherly, “boys…” They stop. Cordy comes in with pizza and Fred says she’ll eat right after she finishes off a particular section.

 

It was nice spending an episode on Fred. It wasn’t a great episode, particularly the details with the demons, but still. Fred had to deal with her Pylea arc, much like Gunn had to deal with his position between his old gang and new. Both episodes left something to be desired but I think that going forward we’ll be better off because they happened.

 

Next time: Something is turning men into Christian Grey in Angel S03 E06 – Billy.