Previously: Darla gave birth by STAKING HERSELF. And Holtz was all, “Don’t worry, I’m still gonna kill Angel.”
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Dad
Sweeney: The gang returns to the hotel immediately after the end of the last one and Cordelia is talking about making minor changes for the baby but stops short when she sees the carnage from the battle.
Kirsti: Cordy, honey. The baby is like half an hour old. You probably don’t need to worry about covering the outlets JUST yet.
Lorraine: But cleaning up the blood is generally good life idea.
Sweeney: They freak out when the door opens, but it turns out to be Lorne, who has decided that after they destroyed his club twice, (three times if we count the car, post-Pylea, which I do) they owe it to him to let him crash. Yes, they do. Lorne wants to hold the baby, but Angel’s not having it and Cordelia informs him that they’re all still waiting their turn because Papa Angel’s been super possessive. Aw, cute. More importantly: when exactly did the make a pit stop to acquire that baby blanket? Anyway, Cordelia gets some ointment for the little scratch the baby got in the rush to flee the alley. Angel makes it cry more when he tries to apply it (after snatching it away from Cordelia) and she neener neeners him about how a woman’s touch would have done the trick.
K: UGH. The way Cordelia acts in this entire episode pisses me off like whoa. And I suspect it was a product of the era, because I watched an episode of Charmed last night in which they had to look after a baby for a few days, and the whole thing was “Needs a woman’s touch” and “Motherhood is our natural state” and “Look, the ones who didn’t want children changed their minds from spending time around a baby!” and FUCK THAT SHIT. </segue>
Sweeney: Agreed! Angel might be being weird right now, but he’s also the baby’s father, which only compounds my annoyance with this, “See, I’m a ~*woman*~ so I can do stuff with babies,” nonsense.
Gunn inspects a sharp weapon he doesn’t get. Fred says you could throw it, specifically right behind them, where someone is sneaking in, probably to attack. Gunn throws as ordered and makes the kill. The gang conclude that Prophecy Baby will probably inspire a few more attempted assassinations of that kind. A plan is in order. Angel says he’s figured it out, but all he’s figured out is that the baby is crying because he peed himself. He’s having a rough first day. Electric cellos.
After the credits, Wesley is annoyed that Angel is changing the baby’s diaper on his desk, adding that he almost had sex on it once. Angel calls “NOT COOL” on using the body snatcher against him. He’s clearly struggling, blaming it on the newfangled diapers without pins. I was just talking to one of my cousins not that long ago about those. When they had their first child her husband was all, “We will save SO MUCH MONEY if we use cloth.” She knew how this was going to go down she was all, “LOL, k. Sure.” The very first time he had to clean a cloth diaper he was on the NOPE! train and accepted that disposable diapers are a modern marvel. Angel grossly tosses the used diaper to Wes. Not cool, Angel. Not cool.
Out in the lobby, the gang is making a list of all the people they should be worried about now. The baby is crying and Angel goes to feed him to make it all better, but it’s not working out and he continues to refuse to let anybody else help. Now he’s just being super annoying because crying baby is crying and everybody has to listen to it. Oh and also I guess that sucks for the baby too. (L: And all the people with no children say, “BUT MOSTLY FOR OUR EARS.”) He says something about erasing all the people on the board, which Fred misunderstands and starts to actually erase the board before Cordelia stops her to clarify that erase = kill. NGL, it wasn’t clear, Fred.
She re-writes Holtz so that we can segue magic over to him chatting with Sahjhan about the murder plan. Holtz wants an elaborate plan, what with the elaborate torture he received from Angelus and Darla, but Sahjhan wants to get straight to the staking, plain and simple. Holtz isn’t a huge fan of the soulless maiming/killing demon minions that Sahjhan has on hand for him. Holtz poisons the minions because he wants warriors convicted to the cause.
Holtz asks Sahjhan to “find information using this box” by which he means the computer. He wants obituaries, but the screen is open to the Demon Database we’ve seen Cordelia use in episodes past as our way of transitioning back to the Brooding Hotel where she is sitting on the computer as well. She’s already found three websites offering money for the baby, which Fred is going to help track. Angel still can’t successfully get the baby to stop crying or drink the bottle. LET SOMEONE ELSE TRY, DAMN IT.
K: He’s also holding the baby like he’s about to handpass a football, and NOPE.
Lor: I’ve mostly been playing spot the plastic doll. You guys should try. You can kind of ignore annoying part of Angel being a baby hog and focus on the part where this is a miracle baby and this entire thing is so within character for Mr. You Guys Stay Here So You Won’t Get Hurts and I Will Do Everything By Myself.
Sweeney: That’s a valid point. (Or multiple valid points, because Spot The Plastic Doll also sounds like fun.) It is very consistent, and really my only grievance with the baby hogging is that he’s clearly not succeeding in his efforts to get it to stop crying. I get it, in a general, “It’s my baby and holy fuck how do I have a baby and will I ever get it back if I let go of it?” sense.
There’s a blue flash of light and a thunder noise, but Lorne emerges to assure the gang/us that it was just furies putting a force field around the hotel keeping people from being able to get in or out. Fred rightly points out that all it would take is a fire bomb, given that Caritas had a similar spell. There’s an emergency exit in the sewers, for which the password is the Pylean word for hedgehog. This makes Fred giggle because it’s a dirty joke. Cordelia jumps in to point out that the baby book lists a bunch of reasons why this infant born by magic in the middle of an alley should probably get looked over by a doctor, because duh.
Angel freaks out about how long this list business is taking and then tells them all to do better. (Instead of offering to let someone else hold the baby for a bit while he, with his 200 years of additional demonic knowledge, gets with some research?) Then we get to the heart of his weird possessive you-can’t-touch thing: “I promised his mother: no one is going to put their hands on this child.” Angel, this is super sweet, but I think in this instance it’s fair to not take that promise quite so literally.
Lor: And everyone looked at Fred funny for actually erasing the board…
Sweeney: Back at Wolfram & Hart, they are watching Angel with their creepy surveillance cameras. DDK insists that they need to get their hands on the baby and he’s got intercept teams on it. Lilah’s working on tracking down Holtz. Boss man Linwood coos at the baby on the screen, creeping about how Angel(us) could rip his throat out. He pauses and says that he likes kids, before asking for them to turn up the volume on the cries.
Just as I was about to type “PLEASE STOP WITH THE CRIES” we jump to Angel trying to make him stop crying with a stuffed animal and briefly singing Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ra which was the lullaby my mom sang to me each night. She’s much better at lullabies than Angel, I promise.
K: Anyone is better at lullabies than Angel. Also at singing in general.
Sweeney: Lorne walks in and tries some good singing, though that still doesn’t do the trick. Angel freaks out some more about how he’s tried everything, but can’t make him stop crying which must make him a terrible father. (L: I’ve been around some new parents who have had this same break down. I mean, after more than 1 hour with baby, but still.) (S: That is both sad and adorable.) Lorne points out that Angel’s been giving off major league anxious vibes since the kid was born and that might be part of the problem. Angel says a newborn with a mile long enemies list has every reason to be anxious. Lorne cuts that shit out and points out that Angel should also just be in awe that the baby exists. Lorne leaves him alone. Careful with all that awe, though, because it ventures uncomfortably close to happiness.
Lor: Maybe the baby will have well timed poops and voms, severely cutting down the possibility for true moments of happiness.
Sweeney: Ooh, yeah! The survival instincts of the baby born to the cursed vampire.
Angel tries making a bunch of silly faces, to no avail. Finally he says he’s only got one more and then he vamps out, which makes the baby stop crying. Watching Angel make funny faces is strange. It’s sweet, I guess, because he recognizes his father as a vampire? It’s a little creepy, though. Also HAPPINESS. This baby is making me way nervous about the happiness thing. Probably I shouldn’t worry about it, because “Whedon finding a way to destroy happiness” is probably a lot more likely than actual happiness, what with the million people trying to take this baby away. So many potential thieves of happiness!
Lor: I still do an obscene amount of filing in my HR set-up, so I may have been crying like little miracle baby during this scene. Trauma.
Sweeney: Elsewhere, Holtz is being a creepy lurker, because I guess squaring off with Angel means you pick up some pro-lurking skills. He’s creeping on a ginger chick who wears a Bad Girl Leather Jacket™ and smokes. EVIL! It’s weird to see that combo in daylight. She assaults him out of his lurking, and they fight a little before he tells her he knows all about being a shadow-lurker who has suffered. She compliments him on his Stalker Goatee™ and leaves, but stops when he calls her by her name, which is Justine. He then rattles off his stalker file on her. It’s like something out of Christian Grey’s Binder Full of Submissives. Much like Christian Grey, he swears he just wants to help her, but Justine responds like an actual woman and says that she wants him to stay the hell away! Yay Justine! I mean, you’re being recruited by Holtz, so I’m sure I’ll hate you soon, but that analogy just made me really happy, so let me have this, all right?
K: As one who can see the future, allow me to say UGH, JUSTINE.
Lor: JUSTINE, JUSTINE.
Sweeney: I love you. A+
Brooding Hotel. Fred and Cordelia are researching. Angel comes downstairs with the baby and says he was up all night being in awe. I’m starting to think that all this happiness is like deliberate misdirection. Like, the show wants me to be all, “OMG THE CURSE!” so that I can be all, “FUCK HOW DID I MISS THAT?” when happiness is inevitably torn away. Cordelia makes a joke about how the baby looks like him because of its brows. This poor baby didn’t deserve that.
Angel tells Cordelia that he’s the baby’s only family, which means it’s his job now to be his only family. Cordelia tells Angel to follow him and she goes outside. He WTFs accordingly, but she points out that this baby is going to need to go into the sun. Maybe he’ll need to go to the hospital during the day. But basically the sunlight is the most obvious example of a way in which Angel’s gonna have to share this responsibility. He sticks his hand into the sun to prove a point, insisting that if the baby needs to get to the hospital on the sunniest day of the year, he’ll get there, even if Angel doesn’t, before going back inside. Cordelia doesn’t make the very obvious next point that this would leave him fatherless and, like, that’s probably not the best plan?
Inside, Lorne makes some jokes, but the Brooding Hotel Lobby is not in a jokey mood. Gunn arrives with some news. A whole mess of problematic people — vampire cults, humans who are big on extortion, and some new demons for the whiteboard. That last one is extra bad news, because they have extra powers during the full moon which will, of course, be tonight. Gunn points out that they’re not going to be able to fight off the whole world when the force field gives. Wesley says they’re going to have to. I love him for that.
In the Filing Cabinet of Purgatory, Lilah is going through files and desperately trying to remember Holtz’s name, because she heard Angel say it when she was there. Flo, who knows all the things from being the reference desk girl, catches Lilah’s slew of “Ho-” sounds and offers up his name, followed by his shortened history, ending when he went missing. She also knows the number where you can find the file. This leads to Lilah realizing that she wasted 14 hours when Flo knew all. Flo, as it turns out, is basically a robot. THIS IS GREAT BECAUSE IT’S FLO. Sorry. I’m excited. Anyway, after Flo fills Lilah in, she’s pretty excited that they’re dealing with “a single-minded vengeance machine with a bloodlust to match.”
K: I think my favourite part about Flo is how sassy she is. She’s all “You think you’re such a fucking bigshot lawyer? You didn’t even think to ask me for help, and as a result wasted half a day of your life. LOL.”
Sweeney: She’s the sassiest little robot!
Speaking of Holtz, we cut to him shadow-lurking while Justine fights a vampire in a cemetery. The vamp ultimately gets the upper hand, but Holtz steps in to stake him. He tells her that her problem is that she fights wildly and needs his awesome training, which he’ll give in exchange for help fighting a particular vampire. She makes a Karate Kid reference, but he tells her not to waste her time with modern pop culture references. He then mind voodoos her with all his creepy knowledge of her, namely her talent and hate. Whee. This gets her on board with the idea of being turned into a vengeance machine.
Lor: Christian Grey came to Ana’s “rescue” too, you know. Just saying.
Sweeney: Yup. I was bummed that she blew it so quickly. Obviously a girl in a Bad Girl Leather Jacket couldn’t keep making those good choices.
Just outside Brooding Hotel, some men in purple robes are chanting creepy things. Gunn alerts everyone that the magic demons are starting to take the field down. There are some other people outside fighting over who gets to kill the Fang Gang first. Angel takes this in and decides it’s time to peace out with the baby. Everyone else expresses their enormous disapproval of his plan to abandon them to die, because obviously. Cordelia says he really didn’t hear anything she said earlier and he whatevers and leaves. Angel. Seriously? Seriously, seriously? This is your brilliant plan? I’m almost willing to forgive the fact that he disregards the gang’s safety because he’s single-mindedly focused on his baby, but this is a stupid plan for the baby too. He has contributed nothing to the research efforts, because he’s spent all of his time with the baby, so how the fuck is he going to fight anything off alone? I can’t even with how stupid this shit is.
Lor: Yeaaaah. I kind of defended him earlier in an, “I get it!” way. At this point, this almost seems comically dumb and I’m getting that happiness misdirection vibe on this stupidity here. Or maybe, I just don’t want to look so silly for defending him. EITHER OR.
Sweeney: Back at the Creepy Surveillance Camera room at Wolfram & Hart, where they’re glad that Angel is giving them a chance to intercept the baby, because DUH. Because leaving alone with the child is so clearly the worst plan in the history of ever. Linwood points out that this baby has a totally legit possibility of growing up to murder all their faces off. A valid concern. Lilah wins points with him when she says she’s worried DDK’s people will kill the kid before they can dissect it while it’s still alive to understand how it exists. Ew, Lilah. Ew. Also, “Ew,” to Linwood’s creepy look of approval.
Military-like dudes join the waiting-outside-to-kill-the-baby party just in time for the Purple Robe Demons to finish killing the protection spell. Inside, Wesley and Gunn are having an adorable bro moment as they discuss the fictional characters they are pretending to be in order to prepare. Precious. I love their friendship and I like that this show can give me a reason to call something precious as our favorite people await their doom.
K: It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Wes/Gunn BrOTP moment, and I was thrilled when this one cropped up.
Lor: Remember when we were all, “THE FANG GANG IS SO PERFECT AND HAPPY TOGETHER?” LOL. Good times.
Sweeney: WHY DO THESE SHOWS KEEP DOING THAT TO US?
Outside, fighting ensues, because everybody wants to be the first one to the baby. It’s helpful that their enemies hate each other too. Angel sneaks up the sewers, but the guys in the tanks spot Angel getting into his car, because his plan is stupid.
Purple Robe Demons get inside and Wesley awesomely puns before pulling a flame thrower on them. AWESOME. A vampire who runs inside to alert his master that Angel was fleeing is met with the same fate. The little smirk Wes gives this vamp before killing him is also perfect. I’m a huge fan of the image of Wes burning shit down. LOVE.
Some shots of the remaining attackers following the pursuit of Angel before we go back into the lobby where Wesley says he hopes that they stalled long enough. Gunn has no fucks to give, since this stupid plan was Angel’s idea.
Speaking of, he’s about an hour or two north of the city, talking to the baby that he’s holding in one hand while driving, which is another reason this plan is stupid. (L: Britney Spears level shit! I’m sticking to “too dumb to be real.”) Tank behind him finally gains on him enough to ram the back. Angel quickly cuts off onto the dirt, which is also stupid. Quick turn maybe makes sense, but once the tanks have made they turn, they’ll obviously be better off on the dirt than you. But Angel manages to find a place to hide and flee while his pursuers fight each other. That lasts for about five seconds before he’s got. Angel says they can have the baby and tosses it to them before getting back into his car. We see that it’s actually a bomb. He was holding it cautiously while driving because it was a bomb.
Well, damn it. I mean, I guess I should go back and take back the millionty times I called his plan stupid, because now I feel stupid. WHATEVER. THEY MISDIRECTED ME. And the plan, if it had actually been the plan, would have been stupid. *sigh* Being a Snow is hard.
K: I have so many problems with this. But let’s stick with just two: a) If he was so concerned about the bomb, why did he crash his car into a mineshaft at high speed?, b) If it was a bomb all along, WHY WAS HE TALKING TO IT LIKE IT WAS THE BABY AND BEING ALL “YOU’RE GONNA HAVE THE BEST LIFE EVAH”?????
Lor: BECAUSE MISDIRECTION! Mostly, I’m just happy I was suspicious of the plan. I feel like this allows me one know-nothing-Snow-moment to be redeemed in the near future. That will certainly come in handy.
Sweeney: Gotta save those up. We’ve got a Snow black market where we trade such coupons. Highly valuable.
We cut to the hospital where the rest of the Fang Gang has taken the baby to a hospital, which is an actual good and smart plan.
Just to clarify how the show pulled a fast one on us, we cut back to the surveillance room where Linwood notices a conversation between Lorne and Angel that I think I glossed over and disregarded completely. (Right after the WATCH ME BURN chat with Cordelia.) Lorne was casually tucking a note in Angel’s pocket while saying something about the janitor’s closet being the only really safe room. (At the time it was implied that it was the noise.) We get further clarification on what went down from Lilah, who tells us that Lorne’s magic ears could hear the frequency of the cameras.
Linwood isn’t concerned by this little trick, though, because Angel successfully thinned the herd, and obvs they didn’t want to have to deal with all the other people after Angel’s baby either. Lilah and DDK update Linwood on Holtz, again stuff we already knew — that he’s human and a time traveler. He’s important because he was also mentioned in the Baby Prophecy Scrolls. Linwood says they need more information on Holtz and how he got there. GO ASK FLO!
Lor: And bring her some chocolate! Files are hard.
Sweeney: Just then, alarms go off and Angel storms in and slashes Linwood’s face, because his baby has a cut on his face. Angel holds Linwood’s head to the table and tells him that every terrible thing that happens to his baby will happen to Linwood, from scraped knees to sunburns. Angel, how are you going to make good on the sunburn one? I digress. Angel has decided to make Linwood the baby’s godfather, tasked with making sure he lives a long and healthy life. That includes a college fund.
Segue over to the hospital, where nurses are telling the Fang Gang what a healthy baby boy they have, and both Cordelia and Fred are all, “NOPE, not a mother.” The nurses pretty nonchalantly accept that the mother of this newborn is not in the picture.
K: I’m okay with the nurses being nonchalant because they also couldn’t tell that neither Cordy nor Fred had just spent nine months being pregnant. I mean, getting your figure back is one thing. But within a day of giving birth? WORST. NURSES. EVER.
Sweeney: Clearly. There is much to be said about their failure on that front. The Great Contrivance Spirit was all, “Listen, we’ve got too many other weird plots going on for me to deal with your mortal hospital concerns, so let’s wrap this shit up quick, k?”
Angel waltzes up just in time to answer their question about the baby’s name, which as was SPOILERED LAST WEEK, is Connor. They also had to tell the hospital that Angel’s name is Mr. Geraldo Angel. Fred filled in a full backstory in which Mr. Angel is a pet psychiatrist in Pacoima.
Lor: Wesley kind of hoping for Wesley reminds me of the “Rupert,” jokes Giles has to suffer on Buffy recently. Sigh. Giles. In less sad news, Geraldo Angel is my favorite. I’m going to use that randomly from now on, because it’s perfect.
Sweeney: It will always make me smile.
Gunn wheels up with a stroller for the baby and everything is sweet and lovely and now we get another scene with the gang walking all together, but this time with a stroller and a baby. I was waiting for something dramatic and terrible after that, but it didn’t happen. Which is even worse. I feel like the show is fucking with me. “Look, they’re all walking with the baby!” so you know something dramatic and terrible is about to happen in the next one.
K: For me, this episode was dumb from start to finish. Can we just skip to episode 13 and its awesome guest star now?
Lor:
Next time: I don’t know what happens, but I’ve learned that bad things happen on Name Days in the Buffyverse, so the title concerns me. Find out if that concern is justified on Angel S03 E11 – Birthday.
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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