Angel 4-14

I don’t know if I liked this one or not. The humor seemed a bit forced–although I loved the three-part scream after the bloody fist punch–and the thing with Eve being immortal seemed cobbled in.

I like the suburban hell idea, but I think I missed something because I didn’t really understand the deal with the guy in the basement. What exactly happened in the final fight? I came back as they were walking out leaving Gunn behind.
As to the preview—Yeah, Drusilla!! She’s my* favorite*. I can’t wait.

I forgot about it.

<bangs head against wall repeatedly>

Somebody please spoil me…

<curls up whimpering>

This is quick recap from memory:

Angel is sitting at the table in the meeting room asking the Harmony why no one else is at the meeting. She runs down why no one showed up.

  • Wesley is busy with the ex-demon god in Fred’s body.
  • Gunn is in the hospital after being sabbed by Wesley.
  • Lorn too broken up over Fred’s death.

Spike walks in. After Spike acts annoying for a little while, Angel decides that he is tired of being in the dark about the senior partners.

He and spike go to the apartment where Eve is hiding from the senior partners. While they are there, the symbols that keep the senior partners away fade from the wall. Something is after Eve. The three escape out the window before a big guy in a nice suit breaks in.

They return to WRH to protect Eve. They question her about who she really is and what she knows. She says that she is a child of the partners, made to act as a liaison. She says she doesn’t know (or remember if she ever did know) what the senior partners are doing. She is immortal, but if the guy in the big suit gets to her she is going to die. She says that they missed their chance when they got rid of Lindsey. He had studied the partners.

Angel visits Gunn in hospital to see if there is anything in his contract with the partners that will help him protect Eve. He gives a Gunn a pep talk about guilt and redemption. Gunn says there is a clause in his contract that could be interpreted as allowing him to place a WRH employee under protection.

Back at WRH they discuss how they could find the hell where the senior partners would have stored Wesley. Gunn shows up. He knows how to get there and insists that he is going too.

We see the hell dimension where Lindsey is kept. It is a sunny suburb. Lindsey seems to lead a happy life until his wife sends him to the basement. We see fear in his eyes but we do not see what happens when he goes down.

Harmony and Lorn stay behind to protect Eve.

We get the impression that Lindsey is reliving the scene we already saw when Angel, Gunn and Spike show up. He doesn’t remember them. They try to tell him that the life he is living isn’t real, but he doesn’t believe them until they remove the amulet from his neck.

The wife and son then enter the room with machine guns and start firing. The men escape to the basement, which is a torture chamber. They find a pile of hearts that were torn out of Lindsey during torture sessions.

The torture demon shows up and seems able to handle fighting Spike and Angel fairly easily. Finally Gunn puts on the amulet that they took of Lindsey, thereby taking Lindsey’s place so the other guys can escape.

Back at WRH, the big guy in the nice suit gets into the office. A security guard tries to stop him but he punches his fist through the guard. Harmony tries to stop him. He shrugs her off. Eve and Lorn escape to an elevator that takes them to the garage. They get in a car to drive away when Angle, Gunn and Lindsey fall on the car. (from a the exit to the hell dimension?)

The big guy shows up. Before a fight breaks out, he makes Eve sign a contract terminating her position as liaison to the partners. He is the new liaison. Some one complains that she says that she would die if the guy got to her. She will know since she looses her immortality with the liaison position.

Interspersed with the above are scenes where Wesley and the ex-god demoness have some pointless conversations.

The demon in the basement was there to torture and tear down Lindsey (yay! Evil hand is back!). The occupant repeats the same day over and over, ending up in the basement. The way the hell was set up, each house had to have an occupant. Gunn took Lindsey’s place by putting on the amnesia necklace, which opened up the firy door and causing the demon to step aside. I guess that only normally happens when the Senior Partners rotate out prisoners.

Between the preview containing Conner saying “Hi dad” and Wesley’s mentions of “horrible things done” in tonight’s ep, it looks like the whole “alternate history” set up by the Senior Partners broke down.

While I was trying to figure out Wesley’s “joke”, I noticed he had an open collar shirt, and no scar from his throat slitting. Is that new? He seemed to stick to turtlenecks the past couple seasons. I know that was a dream, but he was wearing the same shirt when he woke up, and the scar was still missing. I had been watching my season 3 DVDs last week, and the gash was pretty nasty (although it was obviously recent).

Not too bad of a fate for Gunn if it means he no longer has to remember his part in Fred’s death.

I think in the torture chamber they remember - the lack of memory is that so each day is like the first day of the hell. Every day you have a perfect life and then suddenly you are sent to the basement to suffer for what you’ve done in the amount that you know you deserve to suffer, or maybe to the degree you are capable of suffering for sins.

As for Wes’s scar I hope that it comes back when the spell breaks down. That would be a very cool little touch. I thought the interaction between Illyria and Wes was interesting, but definitely a touch of philosophical wanking. Then again what do you expect when you get an ex-Watcher and ex-All Mighty Demon God together?

I think the episode was a nice start of the end. Lots of interesting stuff to follow up on and a natural follow up to what came before.

Season 4 has just started on TNT and I’m amazed at how much got done in the first three episodes, and how good those episodes were. I know that the people who make Angel can get a lot of show into a little time and do it well - so I’m expecting a lot from these last five episodes.

Thanks for the spoilers, guys. I’m setting up the VCR for next week TODAY.

Guys, guys, guys. The whole Gunn/Lindsay Hell thing is Promethius. For stealing fire from the gods to give to the humans, he was chained to a mountainside. Each day, his insides were torn out by vultures; each night, they regrew and it began again in the morning. But he was considered a hero, which as we know is very Angelverse. Or Whedonverse. Or whatever.

Can’t believe I am writing into an Angel thread. jeevmon would be so proud!

I’m going to have to watch it again, because after hearing Lindsey explain everything about how there were deeper layers made Wes’ dream where Fred said something like, “This is just the first layer. Don’t you want to go deeper?” make a lot more sense.

I am so going to miss this show. :frowning:

By the way, I am so glad that wasn’t the end of Gunn’s story. I was afraid that we might never see him again after this episode. But he was in the preview for next week.

When/if Wolfram & Hart’s reality-altering spell breaks down, is Patrick Duffy going to step out of the shower?

:smiley:

“You drink too much whiskey and you called me a Smurf.”

Gods, I love this show! And they are replacing it with what…?

Just the right amount of Harmony, and she actually acted brave and sorta selfless. :smiley: