Angel S03 E16 – Now what do I feel?

Previously: Wesley called out Holtz’s creepy monotonous voice and talked to a hamburger that confirmed the baby-killing prophecy

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Sleep Tight

Sweeney: The episode begins with Wesley back to obsessing about the prophecy, which thanks to the earthquake happening as foretold by the hamburger, he’s now sure is legit.

Kirsti: Would YOU doubt the word of a talking hamburger??

Lorraine: This is a trick question, I’m sure of it.

Sweeney: Connor is fussing in his crib, which is in Wesley’s office. I bet he can sense his prophesied doom. Angel appears and there’s a bit of misdirection as to whether it’ll be another nightmare, but it is not. Angel picks up Connor and gives Wesley a hard time for looking like hell – “the hardcore one – you know, Nixon and Britney Spears.” Wes notes how chipper Angel looks today. He’s also super thirsty and energetic. He’s also not concerned about the massive earthquake damage, because HOTEL = lots of rooms.

Lor: I remember noting before that we hardly ever saw Angel drinking blood. In these past two episodes, he’s had a glass of blood in hand pretty much always. It’s a little weird.

Sweeney: Definitely a strange uptick in blood consumption. Or, at least, on-camera blood consumption.

Angel hears singing because Lorne is seeing a client in the garden. We pan out to the garden where a long-curly-haired Joan Osborne type is singing and playing a guitar. That seems a bit excessive. Lorne says he can only see that she’s plenty scared, and urges her to go on singing her song about her aching soul.

Inside, Angel goes to the weapons closet and says they’re going to have to start baby-proofing the place. He hands Connor to Wesley and notes that his Uncle Wes loves him very much. Meanwhile, Fred is coming downstairs chatting on the phone talking to Gunn about whether Texas or California is better. (CALIFORNIA.) The conversation continues with Gunn’s arrival and the crazy saccharine business that I’m over. They hang up and Wesley rightly snarks about their misappropriation of the company lines. LEGIT, WES. LEGIT.

K: Totally legit. Work phones are not for schmaltzy we’re-about-to-see-each-other-but-are-on-the-phone-anyway calls.

Lor: Is this before unlimited talk plans? I don’t know where in the scary, dark past we are, so yes. LEGIT.

Sweeney: Angel says that Connor likes Wesley. Wesley says he likes him very much too and would like to do a play date of some sort in the next day or two and Angel agrees. Lorne calls the gang over to watch his Joan Osborne client sing her little song. She repeats the bit about her aching soul and then suddenly her face morphs into something demonic and shouts threatening things in a low raspy demonic voice. She returns to herself and voms green stuff, shaking. This looks like a case for ELECTRIC CELLOS.

Lor: And also throwing up in my mouth a little.

Sweeney: After the credits, they’re all inside getting caught up. Occasionally Demonic Joan Osborne says she’s known Lorne for a while, but this demonic thing is new and possibly related to this mellow hippy band she was playing with. Angel, meanwhile, is being extra chipper and weird. I think they’re trying to push us on super-happy-possibly-soul-losing but it’s like…twitchy, too. (Which is to say it doesn’t feel almost-soul-gone, though it does bear a passing resemblance to Angelus-pretending-to-be-Angel immediately after losing his soul.) He babbles about how the Flying Nun flew and everybody gives him “DAFUQ” faces. ODJO continues that this band of hers started getting demonic looking and also their sound changed. Wesley assures her that she’s not going to become a permanent demon because Fred inspected her goo and confirmed that it’s just an infection that’ll clear up with some magical antibiotic after about a month.

K: So it’s demonic syphilis?

Sweeney: Wesley grabs a book and these demons are called Wraithers and can sometimes look human and also that name sounds kind of like Reavers. ODJO says that they can find the band at their rehearsal space in Echo Park. Fred wants them to call Cordelia and Groo back before they go in, you know, in case anybody dies in action because these guys are mega scary. Angel, growing ever more wound up, thinks it won’t be an issue.

Cut to Holtz’s lair where Justine is training their new recruits with a vampire she’s chained up, while shouting about trusting each other and not blood suckers. Holtz watches approvingly. She tells them to practice so that she can chat with Holtz. Justine expresses hesitation over having to potentially kill the humans who work with Angel. We see Holtz pull a knife somewhat secretly as Justine backtracks and says that she guesses they’re enemy soldiers if they chose Angel.

That’s Wesley’s cue to enternounce that this must make it alright. Holtz is glad to see him, though everyone else is suspicious because, you know, enemy soldier.

Rehearsal space. Wraithers are playing loud terrible music when Angel, Gunn, and Fred burst through the window with a trash can (and Angel under a blanket because SUN). Pointless banter. When it’s clear the fight’s coming, Gunn sends Fred off with the groupies. Gunn pulls a crossbow and sees the demons backing off, but we pan back and see that they’re actually afraid of Angel who has his game face on. He jumps into the fight and takes on three at once, though Gunn does have to take one out. Fred comes back and she exchanges looks with Gunn about Angel being extra-murdery today.

Lor: There was an excessive amount of growling too. Growling is never good.

Sweeney: Holtz’s Lair. Wesley is correcting Holtz on terminology – it’s Angel not Angelus. Holtz gives no fucks about the soul or what they call him and neither does Justine. Wes gets very wise and knowing, asking Justine who she lost that made her so angry and dedicated. She won’t answer, but Holtz answers that it was her twin sister. He goes on to say that he’s sorry she lost family, but the people he works with are his family and he’s mostly worried about them. With that he BAMFs out and grabs her knife hand and twirls her around to grab her neck with the other hand. He releases her and chats with Holtz, who swears he’s just in this to protect the baby and is willing to give Wesley one day to handle the endangered baby situation or else he’s coming and will see to it that everyone gets hurt.

Brooding Hotel. Lorne is telling Connor a story with his stuffed animals. I love Nanny Lorne so much. If I ever have kids I want a Lorne to actually take care of them. (K: A+ decision) The gang returns and Angel goes straight for the blood and gets really angry as Lorne is saying that he thinks Connor needs some papa love. Angel rants about his whiny needy baby and shouts at him to shut up. He chucks his glass of blood across the room and Gunn tells him to get a fucking grip. He pauses and looks faint, asking what’s wrong with him.

After a Not Commercial Break, he says that something is wrong. Lorne points out that Angel has been aggressive with the blood-drinking lately. Angel says he just got it from the same butcher he always goes to, though this batch seemed a little tastier than usual. Gunn recounts Angel’s erratic mood day and Fred compares it to alcoholism. Angel takes offense to that, but Lorne suggests that somebody might be spiking Angel’s drinks, what with people plotting against them on all days that end in “y.”

K: How this has never occurred to them before is beyond me. I’d be getting it from random butchers all over town rather than from one “usual guy,” because that makes it way easier to mess with.

Lor: I’m so happy this blood drinking and Angel being weird was a thing and not just some creepy contrivance based on the hamburger prophecy. Wow, that was a weird sentence to type. Thanks, Angel.

Sweeney: I will continue to work references to the talking hamburger into these posts for as long as possible.

Wesley is walking down a suburban street at night. He calls out to someone behind him that he knows that they’re better at following people than that. It’s Justine. She’s alone and wants to talk to him about Holtz. Wesley keeps walking away from her, saying that while she respects her as a fight-to-the-death soldier, the man she works for is not as noble and good as she thinks. She counters with, “Yeah, but VAMPIRE.” Wesley goes on to say that Holtz talks about justice but he’s really just blinded by revenge and will allow any collateral damage in his quest for it. Justine says he’s wrong and that Holtz has done a lot for her, which sounds like a nice cult to Wesley. Justine says that he’s the one who’s blind, given what he’s about to do to his friend. When she says it’s easier to hate Holtz than himself, Wesley says there is enough hate to go around.

Wesley urges her to be careful and walks off. Holtz then appears all creepy-like to say that she is being careful, since he didn’t even hear her leave. Yup, super cult-like.

Brooding Hotel. Angel is wary of holding Connor, what with his recent freak out. Fred confirms that there is just a trace of human blood mixed into the pig’s blood. Angel says he can feel that it’s Connor’s. He says that for the last couple of days, Connor has smelled extra food-like. Lorne concludes that they’ve been feeding him his own son’s blood to get him hungry for it.

K: EW.

Lor: SERIOUSLY. So terrible. Poor Angel. Again, though, I like that this ties back to his completely weird, inappropriate, “at least I would’ve had a snack!” line from last episode. Well played.

Sweeney: Still totally inappropriate, but yeah, it’s good to give it some explanation.

Fred asks who they is and Angels, “Who do you think,” segue magics us to Lilah sitting at the bar where she met Sahjhan. She purrs at the mirror behind the bar and goes on to say it’s gotten to where she can feel when he’s near. She turns around to find Angel there. He creeps that he could torture her for a really long time. He asks how she could do this with his own son, and she says it’s her job. She goes on to say that in exchange for her many devil’s bargains she lives comfortably and her mother is now well taken care of. (See, that hastily established bit of sympathetic backstory from last week? Weee!) Lilah goes on about her bitch-game-face is her always face, and she’s not helpless and basically he can go fuck himself. She’s pretty stoked about making the rest of Angel’s eternal life miserable.

Sahjhan appears, calling her a traitorous bitch for drinking with her sworn enemy. Lilah tells him to calm the fuck down because Angel found her. Angel’s piecing together this new sworn enemy news (not having any clue who Sahjhan is) and that these two are working together. Angel also deduces that this is the guy who brought Holtz back and Lilah calls Sahjhan an idiot for giving all that away with his little visit. He gets defensive about his dimension jumping issues. Angel wants to get back to why Sahjhan wants him dead, and Lilah offers that he wouldn’t tell her either, though she didn’t need a reason. Sahjhan just looks at Angel and insists that he will pay, before disappearing again.

K: The problem with time travel is that it’s really hard to keep track of your own timeline, and you just never know who will turn out to be your enemy. At least if you’re the Doctor, it’s a good bet that any Queen of England will inevitably end up on the list…

Sweeney: Brooding Hotel. Wesley is walking with purpose to the lobby, where Connor is alone and crying. He starts packing an overnight bag. Lorne asks where he’s going, and Lorne says he’s keeping Connor overnight for their play date tomorrow, which Angel knows about. Lorne is suspicious, but lets it pass. Wesley picks up Connor and, without thinking, starts singing softly to him to calm him down. Lorne gets a read and runs to the office, presumably to grab a phone. Wesley tackles him, punches him repeatedly, and then KNOCKS HIM OUT WITH A LARGE BLUNT OBJECT. If you’re following me on Twitter, you might know that I accidentally watched up to this point before watching the last episode. I shouted, “OH MY GOD,” at the screen a couple times before concluding that some PROCESSING needed to happen. Now that I’m actually writing the recap I realize that I need to save that for the end anyway, but just know that this properly freaked me the fuck out.

K: Um, understandably. It freaked ME out, and I’d seen it before.

Lor: YUP. PROPERLY FREAKED.

Sweeney: With Lorne knocked out, Wesley grabs Connor and the overnight bag. He spots Angel on his way out, who wants to know where everyone is. Wes says that Fred & Gunn (K: Can we continue to refer to them in this way? Because it reminds me of the clothing store Rodd & Gunn who sell boring middle aged man clothes, and that sort of sums up their relationship at this point) are out and obviously lies about Lorne. He tells Angel that he packed up overnight things so that he could maybe take Connor all night. Angel his hesitant, but says it’s probably a really good idea. Wesley lets Angel hold him to say goodbye and gets FEELS look on his face as Angel holds Connor. Angel asks all the parent questions – phone numbers and the like. He also asks if Wesley can look into who his new sworn enemy Sahjhan is before he goes.

Fred & Gunn come back and ask about Lorne, because Fred might eat his hoagie. Wes lies again about him needing to go out. Wesley then says that he has better books at home and Connor’s sleepy so he should probably go. WESLEY. DON’T DO IT. WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING. DON’T DO IT. I SEE THE SADNESS AND HESITATION SO DON’T FUCKING DO IT. But he can’t hear me, so out he goes. I bet he would have listened to me if we could have just had a little chat about all this.

Angel sits down and chats nervously about spending his first full night without his child. Gunn sweetly offers to stay up with Angel. Then they hear Lorne groaning from Wesley’s office. Just as Fred asks if someone is in there, Holtz and his minions enter from multiple doors. Well coordinated, guys!

After a Not Commercial Break, Holtz asks Angel how fatherhood is treating him. Angel says it’s fine, but goes on to ask why Sahjhan hates him. One of the minions spots the empty bassinet and shakes his head no to Holtz. Holtz asks about Connor’s whereabouts. Angel says he had to go out and then asks if Holtz is there to fight (and implicitly to make with that if that’s the plan.) Holtz says he wants to keep Angel alive but not well and the minions attack. A fight ensues, which Holtz mostly watches. Lorne comes to just in time to let out some high pitched screeching and assist. Holtz leaves as his minions have all been maimed or killed while the Fang Gang is wounded but generally just dusting that dirt of their shoulders.

Lor: I appreciate this defeat if only for the stupid freakin’ self satisfied look on Holtz’s face when he walked into the Brooding Hotel. I mean, there is still season to go, but BOOYAH FOR NOW, HOLTZ.

Sweeney: INDEED. SUCK IT.

Angel tells Fred to call Wesley and adds to Lorne that he should sit down because they got him good. Lorne clarifies that it was Wesley who did that to him. He explains the scene we saw earlier. He says that his read didn’t tell him why Wesley did what he did, but Lorne knows that Wesley went to see Holtz twice and that he’s taking the baby away for good.

Wesley is getting into his car when he spots someone moaning and coming towards him. He pulls a gun and says that’s close enough. It’s a badly-wounded Justine, there to say that Holtz is everything Wesley said. She hobbles closer, saying that Holtz didn’t keep his word and when she questioned him about it he presumably inflicted whatever she’s suffering from. Wesley says she needs to get to a hospital and with that she grabs him AND SLITS HIS THROAT HOLY FUCKING SHIT. As Wesley is collapsing she grabs the baby and runs off. Wesley holds his throat and collapses as he watches her drive off. OMG.

K: THIS SCENE. She played on all of Wes’ weaknesses, and it hurts. 

Lor: I’m really upset with Wesley, even if I kind of understand him, AND THEN SOMEONE MAIMS HIM. SO NOW WHAT DO I FEEL?

Sweeney: YES, THAT. My emotions are so confused right now. Which, you know, typical.

Not Break. Brooding Hotel. Everyone is trying to figure out why Wesley would even do that and trying to reach him to no avail. Lorne suggests getting the wounded minions to a hospital but Angel’s dead set on finding Holtz. Holtz knew Connor was absent or else he would have torn the hotel apart, adding that finding Holtz is now the key. Angel gets very jumping-to-conclusions on the whole, “I’mma fuck Wesley up,” which is kind of fair, since his current knowledge is, “Wesley took my child.” (L: Meh. Also, “Wesley has met with Holtz twice and didn’t tell me and Lorne was freaked out by his singer-ju-ju and he plans on not coming back.”) Gunn intervenes, though, offering that they don’t yet know the whole story. They start to get physical and Fred intervenes telling them all to calm the fuck down and focus on locating Connor. Angel starts torturing the wounded minions until he finds one willing to give him an address and he storms out. Fred and Gunn decide to go find Wesley, starting at his house. Lorne stays behind to wait and grabs a baseball bat in an attempt to convince mostly himself that he’ll be ready.

Lilah arrives on the scene at Holtz’s Lair with some private military guys who know a condensed version of what we know. He gets a radio call directing them to the 6th street bridge. Angel emerges from some shadow-lurking to take out two commando dudes as they get into their truck. Having successfully commandeered a ride, he speeds off.

Holtz is standing in the middle of the street when Justine pulls up. She confirms that it all went exactly as planned. Holtz turns around to tell his new kidnapped baby that he’s now his father and Justine’s his mother and they’re going to live on a ranch in Utah. LIKE SOMETHING THE HEAD OF A CULT WOULD DO.

K: YUP. DON’T DRINK THE KOOL AID, CONNOR.

Sweeney: As they start to drive off, Angel’s truck peels around the corner. They drive under the bridge where they are joined but Lilah & Company. Everyone gets out of their cars for a brief standoff. Holtz threatens to snap Connor’s neck if anyone gets any closer. Angel tells him not to hand the baby over to Lilah because in a quick calculation, W&H seems like the more terrifying prospect. She threatens with guns, but Angel notes that they clearly want the kid alive. (K: Which is confusing because why did they want Angel to consider him food?) (S: W&H has always been an, “All generally evil options are on the table,” team + we learn in a second that Lilah’s plan is newly updated.) As Holtz confirms that they all want the same thing, Sahjhan appears all, “NUH-UHN!” but Lilah informs him that their arrangement has changed. Plus, he’s impotent in this dimension so he can’t do a whole lot about it.

Angel manages to wrestle a gun from one of Lilah’s men and Lilah makes her men stand down, knowing that vampire beats humans in a gun fight. There’s a big moment of hesitation and Angel reluctantly agrees to let Connor go with Holtz. Holtz says that the child will be well-cared for and will never know Angel existed. If, however, Angel should come after him, he’ll kill him. That seems somewhat incongruous with raising him as your own…

Sahjhan is having none of this shit, though. He raises his arms, chants, and lighting strikes by Holtz’s car. He explains that he’s just opened a portal to the darkest of the dark worlds and either they can murder the baby or he’ll widen the portal and suck them all in. Lilah orders the kill, to which Angel again reminds them of his gun. Holtz, with Connor still in hand, charges into the hell dimension. Angel tries to follow but the lightning strikes him back. Sahjhan says he hadn’t counted on that, but it solves his problem. He makes the portal disappear and he goes too.

Angel lies on the ground shell-shocked. Lilah’s annoyed about all the paperwork, but pleased that Angel will not left to suffer. Justine, Lilah, and the others all drive off, as Angel remains on the ground and whispers Connor’s name. End credits.

WELL. THAT WAS AN EPISODE. A few things:

(1) WESLEY. I’m really glad that you’ve all spent so much time assuring us that we still haven’t reached the final evolution of the BAMF Wesley Pokemon, because I feel super confident that he didn’t just die. (Also because I’ve seen him in the gif of puppet!Angel. Thanks Tumblr!)

(2) Setting up isolated Wesley was very well done. A little less well done since we’ve gotten tons of comments telling us, “SEE! LOOK HOW ISOLATED HE IS!” but I’ll try not to hold that against the show 😉 (L: LOL. We love you guys!)

In all seriousness, though, I’m still perturbed by the hastiness of the various romantic arcs but it was clever because while those felt rushed and contrived, Wesley’s isolation then felt natural. It’s all part of the same stupid hasty nonsense, in truth, but because they got that out of the way a few episodes ago, it felt fairly natural that he would do the stupid unilateral decision-making thing. I’m calling it that because that’s what it is. I think there’s a fine line here – I 100% understand where Wesley was coming from, and why he felt devoid of other options, but that doesn’t make it the smart move. This whole have-feelings-isolate-self-do-ill-planned-thing. The show definitely did a good job of setting up that isolation, though, and it made the whole thing progress in a way that was wonderfully heart wrenching. So, yeah, I see why nobody else found those arcs as annoying as I did because they were part of a trade off that I think was worth making. This show hasn’t really done much in the way of romantic arcs, so it was passable for them to do some quick shitty love triangle stuff in order to do this isolation thing that they do have a nice track record with. It’s more important to the show’s core, and I can respect that prioritizing decision, even if I dislike some of its consequences.

(3) That Lorne scene. It’s one I had to sit with for a few days, so that obviously affected my viewing a bit. It was frustrating and difficult. Wesley is definitely super isolated and I get that. Gunn and Fred are off the table and Cordelia is gone. But the fact that he beat the shit out of Lorne rather than making any attempt at explaining what’s going on is hard to justify and was even harder to watch. (Twice, at that!)

(4) I’m excited to figure out what Sahjhan’s endgame is, though I suspect he’s going to drop off for a long time now. I’m still a little confused by Holtz’s endgame. I guess he learned enough to know that taking Angel’s son would inflict some srsbsns trauma and YAY vengeance achieved, but rotting in a hell dimension yourself seems like a high price to pay for that. Also, speaking of their tormentors, I’m annoyed by this weird pop-up backstory of Lilah’s mother. Lilah’s a decent villain. I like some of her moments, but that seems like a somewhat forced attempt at making her more sympathetic. It fails.

This was a pretty intense episode. I was thinking about this in the last episode and it bears mentioning here: this show did a really interesting thing by setting a certain crazypants standard for the fluidity of the world. There are obvious tone differences from this show to Buffy, but it also seems like a different ‘verse in other ways, not the least of which is that so much suspension of disbelief is part of the original contract that I’m a lot less likely to question things. Or it could just be the product of blogging this show second and being tired. We always joke in our email chain about how much this show suffers from being second.

K: I don’t entirely know how to feel about this episode. I have a long running problem that pretty much every episode of Angel feels middle of the road to me, and this is only a small notch about that. I get the whole “OMG WESLEY WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING STOP THAT IMMEDIATELY” thing, and I’m thrilled that stuff is finally moving forward. But I have so few fucks to give about Angel and Connor that the whole thing came across as melodramatic rather than feelsy. OH, HEY. IT’S THE RETURN OF TEAM HEARTLESS COW, Y’ALL!!! So yeah. It’ll probably rank pretty far up the list when we hit the end of the season, but mostly because everything else was forgettable for me…

Lor: I get grief for not caring about Spike, but Kirsti can say, “eff a baby and his father?” I’M KIDDING.

This stressed me out so much, so I guess watching it on second watch would rid the episode of what it does best: create tension. I very rarely care about “what comes next” on Angel. It seems like I’m just bouncing around from great moment to great moment, but rarely am truly invested in turn of events. This was different and I enjoyed it.

 

Next time: Angel gets a little CrAngel in the wake of his son’s abduction on Angel S03 E17 – Forgiving.