We start the episode with an interesting scene of Taylor trying to put his 2 cents into Sonia's dating life with Connor and being reminded where professional and personal lives end. Sonia, unlike the other UTFers, has decided she likes having a personal life and that Taylor doesn't control every facet of her life; he believes that a soldier is a soldier, no personal involved. Just as this argument comes to a shaky close, a large crash takes place and Taylor goes all weird - electrics in his eyes, telling Sonia to get away from him. And thus ends the teaser.
The first act opens in the Hyperion, with Spike annoying the rather ghostlike Wesley. When Wes complains to Angel, he blows them off (referring to them as 'children'. Thinking of them as Angel's kids, just, hee). Spike offers Angel a pep talk to get over the 'million and one failed spells in a twenty-four hour period', and Angel attempts to call Skye. She, however, doesn't come running, leaving Angel to lament Spike's existence.
Wes moves out to the garden where Illyria sits silently. As he tries to get her to open up, she yells at him for assuming she might be emotionally affected and not just quiet. Wes moves back into the hotel, where he and Angel discuss spells to restore Wes, then quickly move on to Illyria. Wes thinks Illyria is annoyed at him for not being too enthusiastic at being back, or is affected by not having brought him back fully. Angel hypothesises it's possibly that Fred may be returning.
We get an excellent scene between Sonia and Taylor, wherein he reveals he was once a warlock. Sonia is hurt that he never told her anything, but he tells her he would have lost UTF, which is pretty much all he has. They fight, and after he says she's 'sleeping with the enemy' (Connor), not even his yelling can bring her back. And Illyria witnesses a car crash, closing the act.
Act two opens with a nice little 1995 flashback, revealing Taylor didn't always have no personal life. He had a cute little son and a beautiful wife, and a cover story as an insurance salesman. this scene is genuinely cute, and brings out some possible sympathy for Taylor - though his and his wife Marissa's 'wrestling' is interrupted by a phone call. We soon learn he was a Watcher's Council worker, eliminating demons with magic. One of the Council members, Winston, begs Taylor to not take the job because the demons could trace it. He seems troubled - but only until he sees the magical items he's been given access to.
Back in the present, Illyria vanishes from the bridge, heading to an 'antiques' store. We soon learn she's after the K'Quasz, a kind of supernatural weapon. Back in flashback mode, Taylor's son breaks a glss in the middle of the night, and Taylor sends him to bed. The demon appears suddenly, attacking his son- and he wakes up. However, he realises it wasn't a nightmare, more a vision, and charges out to save his son's life. He fights off six demons, and victoriously tells his wife it's okay... then realises his son isn't moving.
Illyria takes the weapon she just purchased to the scene of the accident, a bridge. It starts to send energy all over the place, and as she disappears, we learn it's turning people to ghouls and demons! And we end the act.
We open the act with Johnathan's (Taylor's son) funeral. There's an exchange that feels a bit off for me, where Marissa accuses Taylor of 'murdering [their] son' and calling him a freak. Why does she think that? For all we know, he could have told her some lame cover story about not knowing anything about the demons. Unless he told her his secrets in an attempt to explain and she reacted badly. Or she just thinks he killed their son and there were no demons. I dunno, gonna assume something explained Tay's backstory to her.
Next scene shows a driven-crazy-by-grief Taylor tryng to resurrect his poor dead son. Winston tries to negotiate him into not doing something so STUPID, but he doesn't listen. The Watcher's Council swoop in and knock Taylor out with tranqs, and Winston explains to the chained man that they want to un-Warlock-ify him and give him head spot at thir new LA branch, the (dum dum dum) UTF!
Back in present day, whatever Illyria (accidentally?) started up is wreaking havoc on the town. The wave sets off Nina's wolfness and brings Angel into full demon mode (see Season 2's Pylea arc for more details). Somehow Sonia and Spike are unaffected, ven though technically Spike should go all Pylea monster too, and Sonia should become a ghoul, but okay. Sonia, Connor, and Nina all die. Taylor sets off for 'revenge' as we make our way into Act Four.
Early into the act, we have a quick Taylor vs. BeastAngel fight, in which Angel is dusted quickly. Taylor catches up with Illyria and he reveals his magics to her. They get the K'Quasz and reset til before it started misfiring, and Taylor destroys it. Illyria promises death, Taylor explains. We get a long speech from Taylor at his son's gravestone about not forgetting him, and switch over to the Hyperion. A quick, emotional exchange between GhostW3es and IllyriFred in which she reveals she's become more human as the days pass.
And we end the episode learning that Sonia has packed up the UTF and left Taylor alone with nothing. I should either feel sad or happy, but I don't.
Now to get into the actual review. I was enjoying this episode a lot throughout the first half. It was good, even if the Illyria plot felt rather random and ill-conceived. The Taylor backstory was a nice glance into his past. However, the episode stumbles in the second half in my opinion. The end of Taylor's flashbacks didn't really give him any sympathy from me, as it was all his fault in the end. It did explain why he's an ass most of the time, at least, but I still feel a black hole of apathy when it comes to his character. The K'Quasz storyline felt badly handled - it was there and then gone and then back again, and not particulrily well explained or handled, shoed in between flashbacks. The fight scene after the energy wave made no sense to me, as I didn't remember any reason why Nina/Angel would change and Sonia/Spike wouldn't. The Taylor/Illyria scenes weren't very intriguing as you already knew what had to happen and there wasn't anything particularily amazing about them that made it worth it.
This will be hard to mark. I was all set to give this a very high mark, but it let me down later in the episode. It'll have to settle for a...
The Episode: B-
The Season So Far: B+
The teaser is a scene of strangely familiar horror - a demon/human marriage that bears a striking resemblance to many human/human marriages. The demon (Halkan) is a nasty drunk, and there's a confrontation between him and the human woman (Amanda). Obviously the demon man has superior strength and overpowers the woman - but her son (Benjamin) stands up for her. The demon 'father' chases him into his bedroom, and off his angry, violent glee, we're left to imagine what's to come as we black out, moving into the first act...
Which opens with Spike telling Angel a hilarious story of trying to rip off a street thug's arms for robbing a woman, and how he decided champions don't rip off appendages. Angel ignores him, leading him to stomp off - after pretending to a client that Angel is his secretary. Of course the client is Amanda, but we don't learn the ending of the teaser situation just yet as Spike buzzes off to annoy Illyria. After a short confrontation, Illyria and Wesley have a chat. Illyria concedes that Fred's presence is, in fact, around - oh, and that if Wesley becomes solid, Illyria wants to 'experience physical love' (aka sex) with him, because she wants to have sex and Fred's body wants Wesley. That's pretty much the sum of the conversation.
We come back to Angel and Amanda, who reveals that Halkan has made hurting her and Ben a common occurrence. Luckily, they're both alive. Skye thinks that the woman was an idiot for marrying an asshole of a demon, but Angel shushes her before the conversation moves too far forwards. We cut away, then cut out to the hallway, where Angel and Skye have gone to talk. Angel confronts Skye about her 'attack mode', and we see she feels very strongly about this sort of thing. She convinces Angel to take the case. We finally learn what happened to Joe (Watcher foster home? Did I miss where this was explained?). Then Amanda reveals that Wolfram and Hart already offered help, and Angel snaps up the case in a second.
Angel delivers an ultimatum to the bastard - this stops now. The guy doesn't take the hint, instead vowing vengeance on his wife. Angel returns to the Hyperion, where Illyria wants to kill something, and Spike excels at being his annoying self. Ah, I missed this fun rapport. Spike points out Skye said she was helping Angel out, but Angel never saw her... We soon catch up with her, rescuing Ben from Halkan's house. There's a tense car moment, where Spike shows that there's a great load of importance to making sure Skye is okay, for him.
The Fang Gang make it there as Skye escapes with Ben. the group tries to restrain Halkan, but he eventually smacks the boy hard- really hard. So hard, in fact, he actually kills the boy. Skye freaks out, launching a major attack on Halkan. Unfortunately, Spike stops her before she outright kills him, but at least she leaves him with practically half his bones broken. Illyria offers to kill him, but Angel has other plans.
The group returns to the hotel at the opening of act three. Angel inquires as to where Nina is, and we get a brief scene with Connor before we shoot right to Spike interrogating Skye. Skye reveals she had a friend when she was younger who was in the same situation - an abusive parent kept secret. Skye promised to keep it a secret, and the father eventually killed her friend, leaving her with boatloads of guilt. Spike gives her a 'things happen because they happen and you can't save everyone' speech.
Connor has agreed to keep Illyria from killing Halkan. In his attempts to converse, he utters the line, "So... you're, like, really old huh?". This seems a bit dumb for Connor, but I found the understatement quite amusing. Spike suggests using Halkan as a sort of punching bag for the group, and complains about working for Angel again. He promises Illyria he would have let her kill the demon, which made me smile. Angel reveals he's giving Halkan over to the council. Spike: "Oh. Well, that's just as well then. They'll torture his arse from here to hell's end. If I had a dollar for every time those buggers tried to do me in, I would have been the fifth damn Sex Pistol!" Spike covers for Skye's sob story when Angel inquires - then attacks Angel over calling Giles in an attempts to get in brownie points with Buffy. Their argument causes Illyria to make me grin again: "What is a ‘Buffy'?". Wow, Illyria, you're in the wrong show if you don't know about Buffy. Connor sums her up succinctly, "A girl that they both dated." So simple, but 100% correct. Though less 'dated' than 'had a sexual relationship with', because I don't remember many actual dates occurring. Illyria stops the Buffy madness. Spike storms out, ending act three.
Act four opens with Connor helping the Watchers out with 'disposing' of Halkan, with some handy exposition for them about who exactly Angel is and who he works with. these guys seem a bit dumb, as everything he tells them should be widely known, council-wise. They think Angel = Angelus and Spike = William the Bloody, so when Angel appears they run off screaming.
Skye goes to see Amanda, and restates Spike's speech about how you feel guilty, but things happen and there's nothing you can do. There's a sad moment as Amanda break out into tears. This is balances with a 'character/sad/comedy' scene at the cemetery, where Skye tells Spike she doesn't want to be alone, and Spike promises to be there, then passes along Illyria's idea that they 'fornicate' and talks about killing and vamping his mother, causing Skye to... laugh? Both scenes are a little effective, but feel that though you can tell their purpose, the actual events feel a little contrived and out-of-characters.
And we end with a short scene Angel trying to call Buffy, and Spike's 'I knew it!' from offscreen. END.
This was an excellent episode, with some strong emotional ties and character movement. You can see the character relationships forming, between Illyria/Wesley and Skye/Spike. For a main love interest, Nina sure likes to stay offscreen. However, Spike was especially well written, which amped up my enjoyment of the episode. The chemistry was good, the subject handled well with a clear metaphor (though it was a bit Buffian in its style) and touching the characters. A few things felt contrived ( the speeches) or a little too obvious (Spike/Skye), but the latter has already been built up for episodes so it doesn't take much from the experience.
The Episode: A
The Season So Far: B+
Episode Description: Angel learns of a plan by Wolfram & Hart to build some kind of doomsday machine, and a new player arrives in town...
Alright, coming off of a very strong episode run with Waylon Wyche's very good "Broken Home" and "Paradyse" and pretty good episode "Counter-Clockwise", and Lee A. Chrime's strong "Too Many Cooks", we move into what looks to be a pivotal episode, bringing in (what I've heard) is a crucial element to the rest of the season. Curious as to the identity of the 'new player', I begin with anticipation.
The teaser consists of an opening scene that continues the trend of bringing up Fred and Illyria - this one mentioning that Illyria starts her day meditating in the sun just like Fred would. Wesley speculates that Fred is starting to show through, and Illyria doesn't deny as vociferously as she did before. then, we shift to Wolfram and Hart, where we revisit old friends Manners and Kirsten, giving two mercenaries (vampires, presumably, by their mentions of the sun) a new job. Kitridge even manages a mention, but not appearance. The gang are each tasked to bring a piece of a new machine for W&H's devious plans, and Manners offers a good monetary reward for deeds well done. Then, we kick off the main portion of the episode by shifting to...
Act one, wherein we find Taylor moving in. Taylor grouses that his gang moved on without him, but he'll make himself useful here. Angel explains their current job is looking into a group of mercenaries. Taylor offers to help with Wesley's body-restoring as his reason for keeping his warlock-ness secret is gone. As it's daytime, Spike and Angel stay home as well, to help with the prophecy, leaving Skye, Connor and Illyria to head out and 'observe' the enemy. We also get the heads up on Sonia - apparently she's helping out in the field. Spike and Taylor re-establish that they hate each other, and we move on.
Kitridge is supposed to get a group together to assemble a machine that's very time-specific - to that night. Geez, you'd think the Senior Partners would give him a heads-up. Anyway, he has to keep Angel from ruining the plan. Angel, Taylor, Wesley and Spike work on the prophecy, which mentions a 'keeper' and a 'shell', presumably the 'new player' and Illyria respectively. Meanwhile in the field, Sonia gives the group the lowdown on the shipment that's currently being stolen - missile parts. Illyria and Skye clash a little, and they head down to 'observe' some more, leading into...
Act two. Sonia establishes where she and Connor stand, relationship-wise, with a quick kiss, while Illyria starts up a distraction. Sonia grabs the 'shopping list' and leaves a black box at the scene before getting the group out of there quickly. Wesley wants to come back and take a walk with Illyria - he misses touching things. She wants to stay in this dimension. Kitridge wants Angel's team to piss off, but they won't - they've already snatched a blueprint, and Kitridge has decided summoning some demons will put a stop to further developments.
We learn, through Skye, Connor and Sonia's magic artificer demon visit, that Wolfram and Hart are prepping a machine that pulls ghosts into this dimension and makes them corporeal. Sound familiar? Either this is really convenient, or W&H want Wes back in action. Angel warns Wes that they may need to destroy the machine to keep W&H from bringing back whoever they're aiming to (Wes hypothesises the 'keeper' is their goal).
And so the group heads out to fight, with majestic music swelling and all that. Skye and Illyria have a short scene, before we go to the most annoying antagonism in the history of the world. Taylor pisses me off to the biggest degree. He annoys Spike, whines, then starts going on about Spike and Skye. If Spike kills him, I won't mind. We have a couple of great action scenes with the demons, with Taylor getting Spike out of a fix then a Skye/Illyria/demon match. Skye shows some interesting half-vamp, half-Slayer abilities that mean she can see the cloaked demon. She and Illyria defeat the thing, then she and Illyria have a chat about Skye's abilities. It seems Illyria has a high opinion of Skye, and sees potential - but she has 'much to learn'.
We get a scene between Manners and Kitridge where Kit brings up the issue I did not too long ago - he was brought in pretty late for the head of the Angel case (and all of Special Projects? All of W&H?). However, Manners just blows off Kitridge's concerns. Is Kitridge just a figurehead? Why is he being ignored? however, we (and he) are left in the dark and Manners just walks away, leaving us to return to:
Sonia and Connor, who are in a van working up a storm. However, they are quickly trapped in there with a garren demon as we close the third act!
Kitridge finally shows some plot movement as he arranges a trade - Sonia and Connor for the Fang Gang's piece of the machine. Strangely, Kitridge lets Angel set up the meeting - you'd think W&H would want to have every advantage in case of betrayal. If Angel manages to grab C and S, or stall long enough, the pieces are worthless. Anyway, Angel and Kitridge are ready to make a trade. Taylor shows concer over Sonia, and swe see Skye challenge Spike about not wanting to go through with the trade by asking if he'd leave her in W&H's hands or risk her life in a coup.
So, the trade is made smoothly. Kitridge heads back to W&H's roof, where the de-ghostifying machine is set up. He asks, again, what it's for. I get a smile at one exchange (Kitridge: What are we doing, summoning Hitler or something? Manners: Heavens, no. Tried that once, it was an unmitigated disaster!). The Angel squad is given the heads up on another un-ghostifying machine, and decide to save wes rather than try and stop W&H.
And we're introduced to... the Keeper! but... who is it? "Stepping out of it is a tall male figure, dressed in black and with a hooded cloak billowing out behind him in the winds. A shining gold facemask covers his features, and as he steps fully out of the portal, he looks up at the sky and begins to LAUGH." Well, that helps.
Anyway, this was a solid episode. It was pretty much all plot, but with some nice character stuff (Connor/Sonia kiss, Taylor worrying about Sonia, the whole Skye/spike stuff) that reminds us of the main character relationships and their statuses. We also had a dash of Nina, though nothing memorable. It did its purpose, and while it wasn't terribly amusing, it was intriguing, with some great action. We also had some more information on Skye, after her seeing the cloaked demon. Good episode - not amazing, but solid.
The Episode: B
The Season So Far: B+
