Saturday, October 29, 2016

FRED

Angel S2E19 - E22

I love Fred. We meet her in these episodes, so they can do no wrong in my eyes.

“Belonging”

Cordelia has a vision of a girl in a library (FRED!) being sucked through a portal, and at the same time a demon has come through another portal in Lorne’s bar. It’s from Lorne’s home dimension Pylea, and he is very interested in completely avoiding any discussion of it, but they accidently open yet another portal and call one of Lorne’s relatives. After an adventure with him, they send him home. But Cordelia is inexplicably taken too. Very inexplicably, since she’s standing right next to Wesley and he doesn’t even notice.

“Over the Rainbow” 

Angel is pissed. And frantic. They are going to Pylea to rescue Cordelia, and that is that. And he is not interested in excuses like Lorne’s complete unwillingness to return home, or in Wesley’s concerns about travel mechanics.


Meanwhile, Cordelia discovers that in this world, humans are slaves, and seeing visions means you get tortured with pokers to determine if you’re “cursed”. Fred (FRED!) tries to help Cordelia adjust to Pylean life. She’s been there forever, and you don’t go back.



Wesley, Gunn, Lorne and Angel arrive safely in the convertible, and Angel, conveniently, does not burst into flames under the Pylean suns. This certainly raises his mood, despite Cordelia still being in unknown danger.


They quickly encounter trouble, though, and are brought to the Princess of Pylea for sentencing.



“Through the Looking Glass”

Angel is kind of enjoying Lorne’s family. They want to hear all his adventure stories, and celebrate him as a warrior. This is great, until they invite him to participate in the ritual slaughter of a “cow” for supper. It’s Fred (FRED!) and Angel quickly comes to his senses, rescues her, and rides away.


Wesley and Gunn are with Cordelia in the castle, raiding the library for a way home. Wesley finds the source of the priests’ power, in the triune books of the wolf, the ram, and the hart. They also find out that Cordelia, as the princess cursed with the sight, must “com-shuk” with the “groosalugg”, which is pretty much what it sounds like, and all that together points to getting the hell out of there. Wesley and Gunn make it, but Cordelia doesn’t, and is introduced to the Groosalugg. Turns out he is a handsome, deferential human. The “com-shuk” is looking up.

Angel finds out that Fred is in fact Winifred Burkle from Cordelia’s vision, who was sucked into Pylea 5 years before. Things haven’t gone too well for her.


When Angel vamps out in a fight, his vampire self is apparently different in this dimension, and turns into a unreasonable demon who forgets himself and likes to chew out enemies’ entrails. He attacks Wesley and Gunn until he’s lured away by Fred, in a wonderful shot where she stands on a hillside raising a hand covered in blood. This is Wesley and Gunn’s first sight of Fred and I love it. She’s beautiful, and brave, and unexpected in a way that will definitely change their lives.


She leads Angel to a pool to show him his demon reflection. That brings him back to himself, but with much angst. He’s really freaked out about it, and doesn’t want to face his friends. Which seems a little overdramatic. It’s not like biting Gunn was the worst thing he’s ever done while evil. It’s not even close to the worst thing he’s done in the last ten episodes.

"There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb"

Time to wrap this shit up. Lorne is gets his head reattached to his body, Cordelia regretfully declines the com-shuk, since that would transfer her visions to Groo, and Wesley creates a fairly ruthless plan to storm the castle and rescue the princess.


Part of the plan is that Angel goes all demony and challenges the Groosalugg, even though he worries he can’t come back from that. Wesley tells him he can.

Seiously, Wesley is in get-shit-done mode. I don't think we've seen him like this
since he attacked the bookie in "The Ring".
It all works out. They defeat the priests, Cordelia abolishes slavery, and they pile in the car to head home.

I don't know why this shot of them all squished in the car makes me so happy, but it does.
Everyone’s okay, except… Buffy.

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