“Reprise”
It’s time for the 75-year review at Wolfram & Hart! Fun times for all when a Senior Partner comes to visit. I love the concept of Wolfram & Hart. Something about the mundane merged with supernatural evil makes me laugh every time. So employees are subcontracting goat sacrifices, and very possibly trading in the souls of their firstborn children.
But this means a Senior Partner will visit our dimension, in the form of a demon which can be killed. And Angel could steal its return ticket to, well, Hell, and while it’s not clear what exactly he plans to do when he gets there, it will probably be messy and ultimately suicidal.
Angel crashes the review, fights Darla, kills the demon, and takes the interdimensional ring. Holland Manners (in the first instance of the firm’s employee contract extending beyond death) invites him into a long elevator ride to the Home Office.
While this is happening, Kate is getting fired, then overdosing on pills. Wesley is getting dumped by Virginia, and Angel’s elevator opens onto the same scene he left. Holland tells him that the Home Office exists in the hearts of every living thing and I’m not really sure how to take that. Angel takes it badly, and goes home and has sex with Darla. Afterwards, he awakes with a start as a storm rages, just like after he had sex with Buffy.
It’s certainly very thematic that Angel is presented with this world being the source of Wolfram & Hart’s evil. On the other hand, Holland is totally just fucking with him. In the next episode, Lindsey says they had to do a disenchanting of the ring. The demon came from somewhere, the ring does something, and Wolfram & Hart just want Angel to give up on humanity. And it kind of works.
“Epiphany”
It’s a fake-out! Angel didn’t lose his soul. It’s not that surprising, everybody. It’s perfect happiness that does it. Not momentary penis-happiness. And he sure isn’t happy with Darla, which makes her very indignant.
We get another fake-out when Angel wakes up enough to respond to Kate’s suicidal voicemail. He’s able to burst into her apartment, but she’s not dead. This is supposed to be a sign from the powers, but… since when is Kate important to TBTB? And it’s not like the plot required that Angel be allowed entry. This is a human thing. He could have just called 911 and been all “my friend just got fired from her job that was basically her entire identity, she left me a slurred, crying voicemail and now she’s not responding”. This is what they do!
Angel then meets with Lorne to try and crawl out of that depressive, murderous hole he’d gotten himself into. Lorne is able to see the upside in evil Angel, but Cordelia, Gunn, and Wesley are in danger, and Angel has to go save them.
Wesley and Gunn accept his help for Cordelia’s sake, but overall are unimpressed.
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| I really, really like Gunn and Angel’s chemistry. Gunn’s swagger plus Angel’s need to have the last word creates something beautiful. |
Oh, and Lindsey finds out that Darla and Angel had sex and goes after Angel with a sledgehammer. This ends about as well as you would expect.
“Disharmony”
It’s Harmony! She’s left Sunnydale after Spike chose both Drusilla and Buffy over her, and tries to find her destiny in LA. Her destiny is not a) eating Cordelia b) helping Cordelia fight evil or c) turning Cordelia into a vampire under the influence of a vampire motivational speaker. But we’ll see her again!
We’ve also got Angel trying to repair his relationship with Cordelia. “We’re not friends”, she tells him. This lasts even less time than it did when Buffy said it, because rather than allowing time for Cordelia to trust him again, as Wesley suggests, he has gone out and bought her a bunch of clothes. Which is kind of sweet, considering he donated a bunch of her clothes to Anne’s teen shelter.
“Dead End”
It’s decision time for the special projects department at Wolfram & Hart. They need to pick a director, and it’s looking good for Lindsey. They gave him an expensive new hand, and Lindsey doesn’t start asking questions until the new hand starts writing “KILL KILL KILL” all over his meeting notes. He and Angel find out that Wolfram & Hart are harvesting body parts from less-valuable former employees, and that, unlike everything else Wolfram & Hart have done, is what tips Lindsey into finally leaving. He completely wigs out and leaves during the big meeting, and Lilah gets the job by default.
And man, why is Lilah always second choice? She works hard, is reasonably evil, and screws up way, way less than Lindsey.
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| I'm really looking forward to Lilah getting out from Lindsey's shadow. |
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