Chief Seattle review of Angel S4 E1
Linda
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EPISODE 4.01
DEEP DOWN
Written by: Steven S. DeKnight
Directed by: Terrence O'Hara
The World is a Cruel Place
Near the end of this episode Angel confronts the son who had taken a
particularly nasty and undeserved revenge on him and says:
"Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh, and cruel.
But that's why there's us - champions. It doesn't matter where we come from,
what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as
though the world was what it should be, to show it what it can be."
And here in a few short sentences we get the entire theme of "Deep Down":
life sucks. The episode starts with an idyll. Angel has his whole family
around him, including Wesley, Cordelia and Connor, those who in reality have
deserted or been taken from him. They are gathered around what looks like a
typical Thanksgiving Table. Thanksgiving is of course when we give thanks
for the gift of life, as represented by food, and celebrate both home and
family. And in the continual references to food and family in this scene we
see that this too is where the writers' emphasis lies. The meal is a
moment of particular happiness for Angel:
"I wanna freeze this moment. You , Connor, all of us - safe and happy and
together. Considering what we went through over the summer..."
But this is not the reality. It's a hallucination. And what works best
about this scene is that the representation of the ideal serves to highlight
the grimness of the reality. Little by little discordant references are
introduced - as the food passes Angel by and his hunger becomes more and
more pronounced, the family gathering vanishes and the water comes to
dominate all. And to sum up Angel's situation Connor picks up his earlier
comment and gives it a very unpleasant twist:
"Freeze the moment, dad. It'll last forever."
Instead of being left forever with memories of a pleasant interlude, Angel
is forced to confront the possibility of being trapped in a box under the
seas, also forever - and all at the hands of his own son who appears to take
an almost malicious relish in it. This is indeed the harshness and cruelty
of what is as compared what ought to be.
Then we see Angel meeting Cordelia the way he should have in "Tomorrow",
with the latter declaring her love for him:
"I can't remember what it was like..not knowing you, not being close to you.
I'm in love with you Angel. Deep down I think I have been for a long time. I
needed you to know that."
But again reality intrudes when Angel has flashes of what really did happen
when he was ambushed by Connor and eventually overpowered.
Angel's third hallucination involves Connor. We see vampires attacking the
pair of them and father and son in turn fighting like a team. When a vampire
comes up on Angel's blind side with a stake, Connor calls out a warning.
Angel bats the stake aside and they quickly finish off the vampires. Again
this is the story of what should have been, instead of what was. And again
we are slyly reminded of this by snatches of conversation such as when Angel
says:
"I'm not going anywhere."
And Connor replies
"No, you're not."
Of course, none of this is new to Angel. It is in fact his life story. As
we saw in "Prodigal" he was hardly a paragon of virtue; but the fate that
overtook him was grossly disproportionate to his fault. Indeed the depths
of misery he faced when he had his soul restored was precisely because he
was basically a decent human being. When he finally showed signs of getting
his life together in Sunnydale, that too ended is disaster. And when he
felt that redemption was in his grasp, it seemed to be torn from him by the
events at the end of "the Trial". Even the joy of becoming a father ended
in abject misery. It's no wonder self-pity threatened to overwhelm him:
"Life should be beautiful and bright. But, no matter how hard I try,
everything I touch turns to ashes."
A Better Place
But the corrective here is at hand in the form of Lorne's words:
"Snap to, buckaroo. The only one turning to ashes is that patricidal pup of
yours."
Yes the world sucks. Angel and those in his orbit seemed destined for more
then their fair share of misery. But Lorne is saying that what is important
is not what happens to you but what you do in response. And to illustrate
that point we must return to Angel's hallucinations. In these he is not
just a passive figure to whom things happen. He reacts - violently. With
Cordelia he first professes his need for her, but just when we think this is
need in the emotional sense, he leans in to kiss the side of her neck, then
vamps out and sinks his teeth in, drinking from her. He pulls back and says
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" before he returns to feeding. And here we become
aware of the fact that he is hungry. But in biting Cordelia Angel is
exhibiting no mere gag reflex. He is aware of what he is doing and is
perfectly in control of it. He is simply willing to sacrifice even Cordelia
to his appetite. Then, with Connor Angel turns into a smiling assassin.
He kills his own son presumably in revenge for the way that he had betrayed
him. But even more chilling than the fact of the murder was the calm,
almost cold-blooded way that he did it.
The important point here is that, in both cases, the cruelest, most shocking
and nastiest parts of the hallucination were these violent attacks by Angel
rather than the realization of the trouble he was himself in. In other
words, in contrast to the scene in the Teaser, the writers concentration
here is not on the difference between the way the world is and the way it
ought to be. Rather it is on Angel's reaction to it. In his hallucinations
we see Angel's need for food and desire for revenge. The brutality of these
feelings is no doubt magnified by the demon within. But what makes them so
shocking is that we know they are not the way Angel would behave. Indeed,
on both occasions in his underwater tomb he reacted with horror to the
vision of his own violence. He would never sacrifice Cordelia for his own
selfish reasons and he would never seek that sort of brutal revenge on
Connor. To take up the words quoted at the beginning of this review, it is
by showing us Angel reacting in this way that the writers emphasize that he
now does live as though the world was what it should be, to show it what it
can be.
So, when Angel grabs Wesley by the throat but subsequently recognizes him,
he allows his former ally to pull his hand away having now let go of the
outburst of anger that overtook him in "Forgiving". Then, when Wesley
offers Angel his blood he takes it. But he does not abandon himself to
blind hunger. He doesn't vamp out and only takes some blood, even though
the quantity he took was clearly not sufficient to restore his health or
even assuage his hunger. In this Angel rejects the desire for revenge and
the need for blood he gave in to in his hallucinations. In doing so he says
that his time at the bottom of the sea when he could contemplate his own
miserable situation as well as dealing with the ways he was tempted to react
to it, lent him
"a kind of M. C. Escher perspective."
The use of the word "perspective" here is an interesting one. It can mean
the art of depicting on a one dimensional surface, a three dimensional
object so as to express the different dimensions. In another sense it means
the perception of how one thing relates to another. M. C. Escher was famous
for using perspective in the first sense to explore perspective in the
second. About this he once said
"I try in my prints to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly
world, not in a chaos without norms, even though that is how it sometimes
appears. My subjects are also often playful: I cannot refrain from
demonstrating the nonsensicalness of some of what we take to be irrefutable
certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure to deliberately mix together
objects of two and three dimensions, surface and spatial relationships, and
to make fun of gravity."
I am sure you will see the significance of the first sentence in the
context of what Angel said to Connor in the quote with which I began this
review. In his works Escher created structures such as a waterfall where
the water appears to flow uphill and a building with an impossible staircase
which rises or falls endlessly yet returns to the same level. He described
the latter in the following terms:
"Here is a perspective drawing, each part of which is accepted as
representing a three-dimensional, rectangular structure. The lines of the
drawing are, however, connected in such a manner as to reproduce an
impossibility. As the eye pursues the lines of the figure, sudden changes in
the interpretation of distance of the object from the observer are
necessary."
As in all trompe l'oeil art, the purpose of perspective here is to trick the
eye - it is a game that artists use with spectators to raise questions about
perception - how and why we see things. In looking at the Escher waterfall
we can at first see no mistakes, but what we are presented with is a clear
impossibility. So by this trick of perspective Escher forces us into taking
a second, a third and a fourth look and really ask how does water mover
downhill. At the bottom of the Ocean Angel found himself in a position in
which things could hardly be worse. But he was forced to look again and
again and again at what his situation really meant. By doing he concluded
that he didn't have to be moulded by the evil done to him. He could rise
above it. Connor's perspective was life sucks - Holtz was dead and his real
father was a monster. So he had to get some revenge for the suffering
caused to him. In doing so he simply continued the destructive cycle that
he felt had victimized him. That is where Angel's perspective differed
from Connor's. Each had suffered but what made the difference between them
was not the reality but how each saw himself as relating to that suffering -
their perspective on it. And by the perspective Angel gained, he gave the
lie to Justine's assertion:
"He'll turn on you. He won't be able to help it. That's what he is. Sooner
or later he will turn on you and all your friends."
In these words Justine reveals far more about herself than she does about
Angel. To illustrate this I can do no better than to quote the following
exchange between herself and Wesley:
Wesley: "You were always a slave, Justine. You just couldn't see the
chains."
Justine: "Thanks, Swami, I'll meditate on that."
Wesley: "You think she would be disappointed?"
Justine: "Who?"
Wesley: "Your sister. That's where it all began, isn't it? Sister murdered
by a vampire, consumed by a need of revenge..."
The murder of Justine's sister was another one of those "ought not to have
been's". But it was. And once it had happened the important question for
Justine was how to react to it. She did so by acting on the hatred that her
sister's murder engendered. To wage war on creatures that fed on other
humans, to prevent others from suffering her sister's fate would have been a
courageous and praiseworthy response. But to let her actions be dictated by
blind hatred, regardless of the merits of its target, this was as Wesley
pointed out a form of slavery. It was to become a reflection of what
happened to her sister - and by extension the cruelty and harshness that
exists in the world. It was to make herself no better than her sister's
murderers.
The counterpoint between Justine and Wesley could not be clearer. It isn't
that Wesley himself is against violence. He clearly meted out some fairly
rough "justice" to Justine herself by keeping her chained and gagged in his
closet. And it's not hard to guess how he persuaded her to betray Holtz and
reveal the secret of his death and Connor's revenge on Angel. The
difference between Wesley and Justine, however, is why he behaved as he did.
Wesley was not acting out of a spirit of revenge. Certainly, as he reminded
Justine he had every reason to hate her for the way she betrayed him and
slit his throat. But Wesley's concern here was simply to release Angel. He
was willing to do whatever it took to do so, but once his mission was
accomplished he had no further interest in Justine. He even gave her some
good (if not especially friendly) advice. The fact that Wesley was no
longer part of Angel Investigations was another of those things that shouldn
't have been but was. As we were reminded here, because of Justine, Angel
had lost his son and had tried to smother Wesley with a pillow. Wesley
could have felt anger and resentment against one or both of them. Indeed he
almost certainly does. Ever since the events of "Sleep Tight" Wesley has
shown no sign of remorse or even self-doubt. When asked about Angel he
says:
Wesley: "I have no idea where Angel is, Lilah, or what happened to him. And
I really couldn't care."
Lilah: "Wow. That was cold. I think we're finally making progress. Come on.
Doesn't it bother you just a little bit? The not knowing?"
Wesley: "That part of my life is dead. Doesn't concern me now."
Wesley was certainly being economical with the truth here. What he said was
nothing but the truth but it was far from the whole truth. He didn't know
where Angel was then but he was making considerable efforts to find him.
Moreover he allowed a hungry vampire to feed from him and that was a very
considerable risk to take for anyone. We need not, however, doubt him when
he disavows any personal concern for his former colleagues. This fact can
be more than adequately demonstrated by the following exchange:
Gunn: "What took you so long to tell us about Connor?"
Fred: "You knew what he could do to us."
Wes: "You're human. He wouldn't have hurt you. I thought you were safer not
knowing."
Fred: "We were safer? You really don't care anymore, do you?"
No, I don't think he did. His reasons for helping Angel were far from
personal. Justine was quite wrong in her assumptions about Wesley. He was
not interested in getting back into Angel Investigations or any other sort
of "happy ending". His reasons are summed up in his challenge to Justine:
"You can continue to be a slave, Justine or you can live your life. Your
choice."
Wesley accepted what had happened. It was wrong and it had tragic
consequences all round. But he wasn't going to spend his life a slave to
those events. He rescued Angel because it was the right thing to do and
when it was done then so was he with Angel and the rest of his former
friends.
Connor's Future
But while we can see the theme of the episode reflected as much in the
counterpoint between Wesley and Justine as in Angel's sufferings, it is I
think no coincidence that it was so clearly enunciated by the vampire to his
son. Connor in many ways has the potential to be a formidable force against
evil (I refuse to take ME's preferred word "Champion" seriously). He has
all the attributes necessary. At the start of the episode he saves the day
by intercepting an axe aimed right at Fred and returns it with interest,
decapitating a demon who was too stunned by his speed to react. And when
he, Gunn and Fred went after Marissa his hunting skills are even more
pronounced. Not only was he one step ahead of everyone in finding the
quarry, he clearly outclassed them all in physical abilities. But at the
same time his behavior in "Tomorrow" and "Deep Down" must lead us to
question whether these talents are matched to a willingness to use them
properly. As Gunn at one point observed:
"Offspring of two vampires. Last time I checked that's not supposed to
happen. And jumping off a six-story without busting your coconut kind of
sways me to the side of not just a boy. I mean, come on, Fred. His nickname
back in Quortoth was the destroyer. And unless you put Conan in front of
that, I'm guessing it's not a good sign."
Fred in particular (for most of the episode at least) treats Connor as just
a teenager who has lost his father and desperately wants him back. This is,
however, just one more example in this episode of something that should be
but is not. Connor wants Angel where he is and far from being concerned to
find him is only concerned to prevent him from being found. Killing Marissa
was hardly wrong. But the deceit in letting her escape, killing her and
pretending that he had no choice was, especially since it was designed to
prolong Angel's suffering. That was not because Connor was intrinsically
evil. Fred reacted violently when she discovered the truth:
"I can't imagine what you've been through, Connor, being taken away by
Holtz, raised in that place. It must have been horrible. I know you're still
hurting but I promise, it's not nearly as much as you're gonna hurt for
what you did to your father."
But in doing so she really missed the point. For Connor Angel was not his
father - Holtz was. Connor's reaction to Angel was conditioned not by anger
over a single incident. When the latter told him how he had spent his
summer Connor's reaction was curious:
Connor: "You deserved worse."
Angel: "Because I killed Holtz - except I didn't. I tried telling you that
while you were busy offshore dumping me, but I didn't know the whole score.
Holtz killed himself. Actually he had your buddy Justine do it with an ice
pick. Just to make you hate me."
Connor: "Even if .you still deserved it."
Connor doesn't put up much of a struggle before accepting what Angel says.
It's almost as if he knew all along. But the anger and hatred he felt was
real all the same. It seems to me that here we see all the attitudes
inculcated in "Stephen" - hatred of vampires and a desire for justice for
the wrongs done to Holtz - surfacing. From his perspective, Angel being
alive and Holtz being dead was also an example of a state of affairs that
shouldn't be but was. Connor had no control over these feelings, but he was
responsible for the way in which he reacted to them And here we come to
perhaps the real nub of the episode. As we have seen there are four
characters who have, or believe they have, been deal with harshly and
cruelly. As Angel demonstrates that harshness and cruelty does not have to
dictate how they behave. He describes to Connor the ethos of Angel
Investigations as set out in the opening quote of this review. He adds:
"You're not a part of that yet. I hope you will be. I love you, Connor. Now
get out of my house."
Angel's motive in expelling his son remains to be seen. At this stage,
however, it hardly matters. What is important is that he is not being
dictated to by feelings of revenge, but rather by a hard headed assessment
of how to do the best thing for his son. He chooses to do the right thing
in marked contrast to the way he dealt with Connor in the hallucination. By
his example he is telling Connor (just as Wesley had told Justine) that he
too can choose to do the right thing regardless of the anger and bitterness
he feels. So, in the end it is this emphasis on the sovereignty of the
human will and the responsibility that goes with it that is important. For
after all if Angel can make the right choice so too can Connor. And if he
doesn't do so he cannot plead what happened to him in Quortoth to absolve
him from that responsibility.
And it is the way that this theme has been developed that I find very
attractive about this episode. At the beginning of the series, Angel's
mission seemed a fairly simple one - do enough good that you even the score
for all the evil Angelus did and you become human as a reward. There was
nothing wrong in that concept but it did seem limited. Season 2, however,
saw a revolution in which it was abandoned in favor of a very different one.
In "Epiphany" Angel described it in the following terms in a conversation
with Kate:
Angel: "Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there is no great glorious
end to all this, if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we
do. 'Cause that's all there is - what we do, now, today. I fought for so
long. For redemption, for a reward finally just to beat the other guy;
but... I never got it."
Kate: "And now you do?"
Angel: "Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because I
don't think people should suffer, as they do. Because, if there is no
bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in
the world."
Here we see the writers drawing out the implications of this mission
statement. And in doing so they concentrate not on the emotional aspects
but the moral. In fact this episode can be read as rejecting what often
seems the central tenet of BUFFY as a series - the importance of feelings.
Fred was so taken up by the way she felt about Connor that she herself
reacted with anger. This was not only uncomfortably close to Connor's own
ways of behaving but was also self-defeating. It was the last thing to make
him change. Instead Angel cautioned against reacting on the basis of what
you feel and instead on the basis of what was right. And his definition of
this was based not what he or anyone else had suffered at the hands of
others but on the example that good people can give in how to treat others.
This is a particular example of the general message of the whole series - a
message that insists on the rejection of self and the elevation of empathy
with others as the arbiter of behavior. As such it has in microcosm the
strengths of this message. Because it never endorses a mainly emotional
reaction to situations it avoids the overly sentimentalized or histrionic.
It also avoids being too simplistic or moralistic. There are real issues
of right and wrong and they are (in the main) dealt with honestly and fairly
so that we have a firm basis for judging what is right and wrong. But
equally we are given a fair and balanced understanding of why each character
reacts as they do. So, we are left not with the empty and false feeling of
moral superiority that so much television seems to strive for these days but
a sense of genuine exploration of the moral context in which human beings
operate.
That is not to say, however, that I do not have some problems with the way
the theme of the episode is finally exposed. The first is a comparatively
minor one. As I have already said, the whole theme of "Deep Down" was laid
out pretty explicitly in the quote with which I started this review. I
appreciate that often writers are afraid of burying their point in subtlety
and seeing viewers miss what they are trying to say. I think, however, that
even without Angel's words to Connor, the theme of the episode was clear
enough and hammering the point home so blatantly does come close to
anvilling. More significantly, however, the confrontation between father
and son at the end does go overboard in two ways which alienate me from the
writers message. In the quote I have just referred to Angel presents doing
the right thing as the prerogative of "the Champion". I have never been
comfortable with this term and its use here shows one reason why. It
suggests that there are some people who are endowed with a moral
superiority, who are by nature or experience suited to be a beacon to the
rest of us, morally imperfect beings. Cordelia being presented as a "higher
being" is simply one example of this writ a little larger. I have no
interest in seeing morally superior beings preach to others. If I thought
this was what ANGEL as a series was about it would lose any interest for me.
What I have an interest in is a fallible creature who once abandoned a bunch
of lawyers to their fate in a wine cellar because of his own damaged psyche
but who eventually learned from his mistakes. I want to see someone who is
still as fallible and damaged as ever and who is going to make other
mistakes as a result but who tries to do better next time and to share what
he has learned with others.
And speaking of fallible creatures it struck me as very odd that Angel gave
his little speech to Connor shortly after threatening him:
"Wesley told me everything that's been going on. So, as far as I'm concerned
what you *deserve* rests on one answer: Did you do something to Cordelia?"
Suppose Connor had done something to Cordelia. The implication here is that
Angel would have done something very nasty to him. Are we expected to see
what would be no better than personal revenge as some sort of act of
justice? I couldn't. Then what becomes of Angel's proud boast about
showing others the world as it should be. Wouldn't it ring a little hollow?
As far as I am concerned this, along with episodes like "That Vision Thing",
is simply one more example of the personal connection between Angel and
Cordelia distorting the series message. It is fair enough to introduce a
personal connection and seeing how Angel's sense of mission is affected by
it. But the writers have to do it honestly. If Angel forgets what he is
supposed to be doing because Cordelia is the most important thing in the
world to him (even including his own son) then that is what they have to
show. Instead we are being force fed the idea that Angel will always put
Cordelia first and there is no problem about that. Well no matter how much
the writers pretend otherwise there is.
Plot
The events of "Tomorrow" left us with two outstanding issues - the
disappearances of Cordelia and Angel. For us of course there was no mystery
to either. We knew what had happened. But those left behind in LA didn't
and it was obvious that their search for answers would provide the main
thrust of the plot in "Deep Down". But here we come up against a troubling
anomaly. The whole point about the ending to "Tomorrow" was to give us a
visual contrast between the fates of Angel and Cordelia. One sank to the
bottom of the ocean just as the other ascended (or was assumed) into the
heavens. Angel's danger was therefore manifest and immediate. For the same
reason Angel's fate was also easier to deal with than Cordelia's. Of course
all that was known was that both Angel and Cordelia had vanished after
arranging to meet. Yet watching this episode I was struck by the
concentration on Angel's fate. You can rationalize this in Wesley's case.
When we first see him he had already discovered what had happened to Angel
and it was logical therefore for him to concentrate on helping where he knew
he could. The same could not be said for Gunn and Fred. It therefore seemed
more than a little jarring that they should be preoccupied to such an extent
with only one of the "disappeared ones".
The second problem "Deep Down" presented us with was related to the first
one. Because we knew what had happened to Angel and could guess that it
would not be long before he was rescued there wasn't likely to be very much
tension derived from his rescue. There was indeed an almost tacit
acceptance of this fact on the part of the writers. They didn't really try
to create any sense of uncertainty over the rescue. We no sooner discovered
that Justine was Wesley's captive when learned that Wesley knew what had
happened to Angel and where to find him. It was only a matter of time until
he was rescued and as there was never any sense of a race against the clock
to meet a specific deadline, events could unfold at their own pace.
So, if Cordelia's fate was a non-issue, if we could not share in the mystery
of what happened to Angel and if we were left without any real suspense over
his fate, what was there left? Well, first and foremost even though the end
result of the journey seemed pre-ordained, the writers gave us plenty of
unexpected twists on the way. Not least of these was Lilah's quite
unexpected disposal of Linwood. Now I have to admit that I thoroughly
enjoyed the sudden reversal of fortune but it did bother me. The fact that
Lilah had seen a Senior Partner without the fact being revealed to the
audience beforehand was itself something of a deus ex machina. Worse still
it was a pretty implausible one. Leaving aside the fact that it was the
first time it was even suggested that senior partner's could be contacted in
this was, why would one of them trust Lilah? What Linwood had said about her
was perfectly true.
"Your failures at Wolfram and Hart outstrip your successes by and
comfortable margin."
She had already been put on probation once and only missed getting the chop
because Lindsey left. Since then things have been going downhill. Of
course Linwood wasn't doing any better. But that doesn't explain why both
weren't purged.
But in the end the machinations within Wolfram and Hart were peripheral to
the events in "Deep Down" and the real interest in this episode lay in the
twists and turns of the A and B plots - Wesley's efforts to rescue Angel and
Connor's efforts to stop Gunn and Fred from doing so. The first surprise
here lay in the fact that Connor was living with Gunn and Fred in the first
place. His interest in doing so wasn't obvious until I realized that he had
the perfect motive- to make sure that the people with the greatest incentive
to find Angel never succeeded. Of course the fact that Wesley was -
unbeknown to anyone in the Hyperion - obviously well on his way to finding
Angel himself robbed this fact of much of its impact. So instead of the
audience wondering whether Connor was going to prevent Angel's rescue, the
real question became whether Fred in particular was going to discover Connor
's treachery. And in a curious way I almost found myself hoping she wouldn'
t. She had completely taken his side, especially with Gunn. As she said
herself:
"He's Angel's son. That's all that matters."
So it was easy to understand how crushing the truth would be for her. But
at the same time as we wanted to see her avoid the pain of this realization
we realized that she couldn't. This fact alone lent Connor's efforts to
deceive her a horrible fascination.
Moreover the mere fact that Wesley of all people should be leading in the
hunt for Angel was unexpected. Of course the way that this aspect of the
episode was introduce - through the fact that Wesley had Justine a
prisoner - was itself a stunning surprise. But mores interesting still was
the question why was he so intent on rescuing Angel in spite of their recent
history? My first assumption was that there must be a hidden agenda. Indeed
it was only quite late on and through his conversations with Justine that I
realized that there wasn't and that his actions had to be taken at their
face value.
But above all the very certainty of Angel's rescue propelled us to wonder
about Connor and what he would do when he finally confronted him. And I am
sorry to say that this was perhaps the least successful aspect of the plot.
In the first place, the effectiveness of the final confrontation depended on
us believing in Angel's dominance of his son - both physical and moral. I
cannot accept that someone who had only just been released from months of
captivity in a confined space and needed quantities of human blood to revive
him was physically capable of matching Connor. But worse still, Connor's
attitude of someone who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar made
his desire for revenge on Angel look like a petulant act of a teenager
instead of a piece of visceral rage. If he had been serious then why cede
superiority to Angel? Why not confront him directly as the avenger of past
wrongs? Half guiltily saying that he deserved worse than what he got and
sitting scrunched up against a wall as he was interrogated about Cordelia is
weak. It lacks any drama or conviction. Worse still, there was
astonishingly little to indicate any sense of loss on Angel's part. Instead
we had Angel's declaration of love for Connor followed immediately by his
exile. This neatly juxtapositioned seemingly contradictory ideas. It
suggested that throwing his son out on to the street was intended to help
him. But beyond a rather clichéd suggestion of tough love it gave us no
idea how. This seemed curiously anti-climactic. Angel's son had dominated
his life for over a year. It had been a year of immense highs and lows.
Now faced with the realization of the gulf between the two of them, we get
very little sense of what this means to him personally. This just rang false
for me. Instead the focus shifts to Cordelia and not in a good way either.
I had pinned a lot of hopes on Skip misleading her about being a "higher
being". It now looks distressingly as though the writers were being
serious. And so instead of the episode ending with a punch it ends with a
lame joke.
Overview
B (8/10): There was a lot to like in this episode, especially in the
development of the theme and the way in which it was combined with some very
solid character work in Angel and Wesley in particular, but also Connor and
Justine. The storyline wasn't particularly compelling but then having to
resolve (usually in a fairly obvious way) the issue of Angel's disappearance
left over from the previous season's finale left little room for maneuver.
This is actually a very good reason to avoid contrived cliff-hangers. But
within the limitations imposed by this task the writers did a very good job
in leaving us enough twists and surprises to keep our interest. There were,
however, a number of key weaknesses especially in the all important final
confrontation between Angel and Connor. Dramatically it was anti-climactic.
More important still though some of Angel's behavior undermined the
conviction that the writer's exposition of theme should have had and that is
a pity.