Oh, and one more thing: Taser to the balls. As a guy, watching that scene was sort of similar to the “creeped out and comforted” thing. Ouch, but at the same time very gratifying.
Could somebody post a link to a good episode guide or summary of the 10/29 episode? Or write one up here if you want.
I second the request for spoilers or a more detailed summary.
In a colossal example of stupidity, last night I went out to eat with my DVD player on Pause. Since I pipe my DVD player through my VCR, this meant the VCR was still on and didn’t record the show.
Lilah “choosing” to be a woman? Wesley a villain? Someone please explain!
I’ll give it a shot. Here’s the first half of the episode.
WARNINGSPOILERS
“Billy” (first half)
Our show opens with Angel teaching Cordelia how to fight with a sword. He tells her that these techniques will help her stave off an enemy until help arrives (Angel presumably). “Ha” say Cordie, “I know how to stave. I need to learn how to fight. Besides, what if it’s you I need to fight?” She ends with some sword moves based on old cheerleader moves. “Go team.”
Cut to Wolfram and Hart. Lilah is just going into her office to meet Burning Hell Boy - the guy Angel recevered from hell. She finds Gavin in there with him. Seems Burning Hell Boy has been missing for a few days. His name is Billy and presently his uncle, the senator from back east with lots of money, show up to take Billy home. After they leave Lilah and Gavin get snippy as usual. Finally Gavin grabs Lilah by the hair and throws her accross the room. He then starts beating on her. We get a final shot of Billy leaving with a smug look on his face. We consider that Billy may be short of “William Kenedy Smith” and cue credits.
We return to Wesley’s place. Wes confides in Cordy that he is attracted to Fred. Cordy says he should tell her and then collapses in vision-mode. She witnesses a man murder his wife in a convenience store. The gang discusses how to track this guy down when Cordy tells them that it happened a week ago.
Later, back at the hotel, Wes has managed to get the file on this canse from the police (he claims from the same sources who sell to the tabloids when the case is more high profile). Surveylance video shows Billy in the store a few minutes before the murder. Both Angel and Cordy descide that they are responsible. The guys go out to get Billy.
I may get a few of the following scenes out of order or remember things wrong. I’m sure someone will correct me.
First stop, Lilah’s. Angel kicks open the door but can’t enter. Lilah is sitting alone in the dark, severely beaten and very edgy. She does manage to tell Angel who Billy is but refuses to cooperate further.
The guys head over toBilly’s home where Angel jumps the fence while Wes and Gunn hang back. Angel crashes right into the house. Looks like Billy ain’t human. Durring the confrontation, the police show up and take Billy away. The cops are am man and a woman. Billy touches the guy and leave weird glow marks on his arm. In the police car, the male officer gets progressively more hostile until a fight breaks out and the car crashes. Break for commercial.
Back at the hotel, Cordy is grabbing weapons. First a stunner and then a crossbow. Fred asks her where she’s going. Cordy tells her “just an errand” and heads out.
Back at the accident we find out that the female officer managed to shoot her partner. Billy is gone. The guys find a bloody handprint. Angel and Gunn head off seperately to check on leads while Wes takes a sample of the blood back to the hotel for analysis.
Cordy visits Lilah and waltzes right in to her appartment with crossbow trained. The confrontation is rather nice and I’m not sure I could do it justice. We learn that Billy brings out a “primal misogeny” in men, the results being rather nasty attacks on women. Cordy tells Lilah about her own helplessness when she was getting the killer visions and gives Lilah somehting to chew on.
At the hotel Wes and Fred are looking at the blood in a microscope. They determine that Billy can infect people through touch, sweat or blood. Something like the following exchange occurs:
Wes: Where’s Cordelia?
Fred: I think she’s out.
Wes: What do you mean?
Fred: She said she was going to do an errand.
Wes: (losing paitence) So when you say “I think” you really mean “I know because I talked to her”.
Fred: (getting frightened) Yes.
Wes: (still upset) Good. I’m glad we got that cleared up. (going beck to the microscope) Lie to me again and there’ll be trouble.
Cue commercial
I’ll be back to finish up later. (heh heh heh)
Two reasons for this, I think. First, his cousin may not know the extent of his powers. He may just know that bad things happen to women when Billy’s around. Second, he’s still a misogynist. I wouldn’t want a guy like that around my wife, even if he was fully human.
I appreciated Gunn’s willingness to get bopped when he realized he was starting to turn. Add me to the chorus of, “Damn! This show just keeps getting better!”
I don’t understand what you mean by a clever double-fake. She ran away, she fell over. That’s the cliche. The culmination of the cliche is she sits there and waits to be killed (which I wouldn’t have minded too terribly, have I mentioned that I really don’t like Fred?). Gunn’s “intervention” was that he came back to the hotel and Fred ran into him. The “woman runs away, falls over, gets killed” thing is a stupid cliche and I really expect better from Joss. Fred just as easily could have scurried around a corner, peered out to see Wesley was gone, then turned and run into…someone…who turned out to be Gunn. Same tension and release without the degrading “women always fall over when running from danger” garbage. Doubly bothersome in this episode, considering the main plot.
OK. Here we are. Part 2
SPOILERS*
When we come back, Wes is growing more angry by the second. Fred tries to make a graceful exit, but that doesn’t work. Wes starts on a rant about how she’s wearing provocative little dresses in to work. Eventually he smacks her. Fred tries to run but wes blocks the door. Fred runs upstairs. Wes calmly selects an Axe from the weapon locker.
Elsewhere. A party is in full swing. People are playing pool. A guy and his girlfriend are making out on the couch. Someone comes up to one of the pool players and tells him that his cousin is here. Said cousin is Billy. Billy makes a lot of remarks of a suspicious. He mentiones that the two people making out are inappropriate and offersd to have a little talk with them.
Wes is chasing Fred through the hotel. He finds her hiding under a bed in one of the rooms. She barely manages to escape. Evil Wesley is creee-py.
Angel knocks on a door. Mr. Party Guy answers.
Angel: I’m here to see your cousin.
Guy: You a friend of his?
Angel: I’m here to kill him.
Guy: Come on in.
Party Guy tell Angel that Billy was here earlier looking for money. He gave him the money and Billy’s gone to use the family plane. When Party Guy is asked why he let Angel in, Party Guy says there was a pretty brunette there earlier and she warned him that a melodramatic guy named Angel would be showing up.
Fres is running from Wesleyus. She trips and falls. Fortunately, Gunn is there to help. He brings her into one of the rooms (one with rotten floors) and starts to baracade them in. Gunn asks what’s wrong with Wes. Fred tells him that Wes has been contaminated by the blood sample downstairs. Gunn asks “You mean that bloody handprint I was looking at earlier?” Gulp.
Billy is at the airport waiting for his plane. Cordelia shows up. The two talk. Cordy tazers him in the nuts. She pulls the crossbow and points it at Billy’s jugular. At this point, a million viewers scream “JUST FUCKING SHOOT THE BASTARD”. Angel grabs the crossbow, telling Cordy that he’ll take care of things. Billy grabs Angel and leaves his creepy evil mark.
Fred and Gunn are trapped together. Wes is at the door with an axe. Gunn breaks off a table leg and tells Fred to knock him out. Fred hems and haws. At this point, a million viewers scream “JUST FUCKING HIT HIM”. Fred hits him. First blow doesn’t knock him out. Gunn says “You’re gonna pay for that.” WHAM. Out goes Gunn.
Back at the airport, Angel is starting to look angry. Turns out to be an act and he fights with Billy. Cordy grabs the crossbow and points it at the fighting duo. Suddenly – BLAM BLAM BLAM. Billy goes down in a hail of gunfire. Pan over to Lilah with a gun.
Wes manages to break into the room. He’s still evil. Fred is nowhere to be seen. He talks about how Fred retreats to dark cave-like areas when afraid. He sees Fred in a mirror behind him. Fred says that she does like caves, but she also likes to build things. She pulls a lever. A fire extinguisher swings down and knocks Wes over onto the rotten floorboards. He goes crashing through to the floor below – out cold.
Later, everyone is back to normal. Angel and Cordy are training again. Angel explains that he wasn’t effected by Billy because he’s outgrown that kind of petty anger (I’m not sure I understood this).
Wes has not been back into work for a few days. Fred goes to see him. Wes is clearly horrified by his actions, but Fred forgives him. Wesley says he’ll go back to work. As Fred leaves, Wesley is left alone and begins to sob. Fred clearly hears this.
Cue credits.
A really good episode for many many reasons. Evil Wesley is scary. The acting is great throughout. I loved how Gunn was brought in the save Fred, but only managed to increase the tension. The teaser makes you think Cordy will have to fight Angel, but that never happens (I love it when they keep me guessing). Big thumbs up. I’m sure my synopsis can’t BEGIN to do it justice.
Gahhh! Preview is my friend. Sorry about the typos guys.
I’m sure you at least began to do it justice, Trion. Thank you.
Is next week the first rerun?
Nope - next week is brand new. And that’s all I’m sayin’.
Susan
Which is what I’m saying. As soon as Fred fell, I immediatly assumed that meant Wesly was going to catch her, because that’s how the cliche works: run, fall, get caught. When she bumped into someone and it turned out to be Gunn, I thought it was more surprising because of the natural expectations of this cliche. At any rate, the scene ended up being, “Run, fall, get up and keep running,” which is an entirely different animal. The villain didn’t even show up for the scene, so I don’t think you can say it’s the same old cliche. But I really like Fred, so what do I know? 
I really liked this most recent episode and the one before it. Evil Wesley was really freaky. But I like to see the characters evolve, do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’m sure actors who have been playing the same character for years appreciate the chance to break out and do something a little different. Every time Angel gets possessed by a body snatcher, or has to pretend to be someone else (someone who wouldn’t be nearly so broody) I always think, “Joss did this so David Boreanaz could have a facial expression or two for a change.” 
I’ve been noticing little clues that Angel may have a soft spot for Cordy. It’s becoming more and more evident as time passes. His reaction to her screaming, “Don’t hurt him; I love him!” about the Grusilog, for example. His reaction to her being hurt by the fake visions. The way he said, “I’ll always save you, you know that, right?” in this latest episode. Even his glee at it being “his turn” to have his wounds dressed by Cordy . . . these could all be little signifiers that Angel is beginning to feel something more than friendship for her. Has anyone else noticed this?
I’m sorry that Cordy didn’t get to be the one to waste Billy, but Lilah doing it was interesting, since there could be serious consequences for her if it’s discovered that she was the one. I am glad Cordy’s stepping up to the plate and taking some responsibility for her own safety and the need to be able to protect herself. This makes her a lot more practical than certain other characters from the Buffy/Angelverse, like Xander, who has never really done anything to develop his fighting skills and gets his butt-kicked regularly. If you’re around this stuff all the time, you’d have to be pretty stupid not to develop some skills . . . because sooner or later you’re luck is going to run out.
First of all, Thank you Trion. That was a good summary that seemed to cover all the important details.
I must say that Angel seems to keep getting better. Never mind the fact that I still find Lorne and Fred both quite annoying. At least we’re seeing some change with Lorne. I would have liked to see evil Wesley.
I’m somewhat dissapointed in seeing Billy die so quickly. I thought he was gonna be a super villain, unlike those lame ass geeks on Buffy, I hope they die soon.
Cordelia getting more proactive with fighting is cool, and the Wesley/Fred/maybe Gunn relationship(s) might get interesting. Also I second the Angel/Cordy idea from the hints we’ve gotten.
Yes the women falling down thing is cliche, but she didn’t get caught, so that saved it self from being overly cliche.
I’m waiting to see what will happen with Lilah and Gavin and the W&H people. (Also, anyone else think that the Lilah/Angel scene a few weeks ago was really hot? Hope they bring that up again). One thing I want to know, when are they going to bring back that Detective, Kate? I thought she had a lot of potential as a permanent cast member, better than Fred at least.
Actually, your synopsis is really good.
The scariest part for me is not when Wesley was ranting about women laughing at men behind their backs, but when he had Fred pinned on the stairs and said “What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?” <Fred whimpers> “Nothing you haven’t told her twice.”
So very not-Wesley.
How long to do you think Billy’s demonic blood cells live when he’s not around? Seems like it was several hours between Wesley taking the sample and Gunn being infected.
I don’t think Gunn was infected by the sample Wesley took-- Gunn was with Angel when they looked at the bloody handprint left by Billy. I think we’re to understand that he was infected by that, not the blood sample.
I thought the episode was very well-acted, and was one of the few episodes where the women did pretty much all the saving (with the help & hinderance of the men). Fred clocked Gunn. Fred set a trap for Wes. Cordy incited Lilah to stand up for herself. Cordy tracked Billy and tried to kill him. Lilah shot Billy. All excellent! The exchange between Cordelia and Lilah was particularly good, what with the digression to talk about shoes and the Cordy’s challenge to Lilah about wearing the mantle of vicious bitch.
When the characters get to act out of character, it’s always a treat. I loved Wesley’s impersonation of Angel last season, Angel inhabited by a randy old man this season, and of course, Evil Wes. Very fun stuff.
I liked the episode as well. One thing that was good about this one is that Fred wasn’t nearly as out-of-control with her babbling. She seems to be getting a grip, which will make her a much better member of the team. I found the crazed mumbling entertaining, but she couldn’t really be useful to Angel Investigations until she could act normal in most situations. She’s also reined in her worship of Angel, it seems.
Thanks guys. I’m glad you like the synopsis. I do wish I had checked for typos. I guess that’s what I get for posting at work on a busy day.
Ah well. Off to make dinner.
I have two thoughts on that.
First it could be all vampires, as they were talking about his demonic aspect and how it interacted with Billy’s power. However this doesn’t seem likely because Spike and other vamps seem plenty angry at other times.
Second it could be that Angel when he’s Angelus is completely inhuman (the Judge proved this). This would include a lack of anger, at least in the way that humans feel it. So even with a soul his emotions are sufficiently different to make him imune to BIlly’s powers.
I thought Angel’s lack of reaction to Billy’s power was explained really well in the last scene. IIRC, what Billy was doing was bringing out a primordial hatred in men, letting the inner anger and hatred out.
Angel said that, even when he was a vampire, he never killed out of hatred or anger; it was all about pain and pleasure. Leading to the conclusion that vampires haven’t got some of the base primordial instincts that humans have; instead, they have bloodlust.
What bothered me about the episode was that Fred kept telling Wesley that it wasn’t something inside him; that it was something the demon put there. Wesley, it seemed, knew better. What Billy did, IMHO, was bring down the walls of civilization in him, and let this one emotion, anger toward women, through.
I wish Fred had let Wesley know that, even though he had those feelings inside him, the fact that he always treated women with respect spoke volumes about his strength of character. We’ve all got demons; what determines our humanity is how well we keep them caged.
Beadlin: I don’t think Gunn was with Angel and Wesley when they found the handprint: he had already gone to the hospital to look for clues about the cop who shot her partner after Billy infected him. Also, remember when Fred explained to Gunn what was happening with Wesley, and he said, “You mean that handprint? In the lobby? The one I picked up and looked at?” I think it was pretty clear that was when he was infected. Also, the I think the effects were permanent as long as Billy was alive. When Wesley was talking about the guy who killed his wife in the convenience store (as seen in Cordy’s dream), it sounded, from Wesley, like the guy didn’t feel any remorse about it. (Obviously this is three quarters conjecture: this is fourth hand information about a character who wasn’t even on the show.)
MrVisible: I disagree. I don’t think it was a matter of Billy bringing some hidden anti-woman evil out of the depths of men’s souls. When Wesley was stalking Fred, he had some pretty specific dementias about women. When he’s first getting wound up, he says, “Is it because you bleed?” in an obvious and extremely freaky reference to menstration. I think Billy had some severely messed up ideas about women, and he was somehow able to pass his psychosis onto other people, infecting them, rather than drawing out some repressed portion of them. That’s my interpretation, anyway.