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We pick up pretty much where we left off last week. Wesley is hard at work translating the prophecies to make sure he didn't miss anything. So hard at work, in fact, that he's fallen asleep. Angel comes in with Connor and wants to show Wes a trick Connor can do. Angel then vamps out and makes a buffet out of Connor's belly. A demon-voiced Gunn is also on hand to tell him he's "running out of time." To top it all off Wes's hands start gushing blood onto the books. It's gross, it's intense, it's disturbing, and it's all a dream. Wesley wakes up totally shaken and completely losing his mind.
Not to be totally outdone by Wes' nightmare of blood and baby eating, Angel takes Connor to the doctor because he heard a wheeze. Wesley tags along and watches Angel transform into BatDad and give advice on how to get a colicky baby to sleep. I really thought they were going to play up the Wes/Angel cute couple joke, but instead we get Angel as BatDad. It was still pretty funny as it was, but come on, who doesn't want to see Wesley look into the camera and go "I think I'm kinda gay."
It turns out Connor is completely fine and they took a blood sample just to be sure. Before we can go back to the hotel though, we see a woman steal Connor's blood sample. Now we can zip to the hotel. Angel is still in BatDad mode as he shows the Cordy-less (she's on vacation com-shuking with Groo) gang all the cool stuff he bought Connor. Apparently, Angel is one of those live vicariously through your kid parents who has Connor's whole life planned out. Then there's Wesley sitting alone in the office looking completely heartbroken as he hears this. Just a few facial twitches from Alexis Denisof gets me right here. The man is a great actor.
Without Cordelia and her vision-ity this week, the gang has to make due with a visit from a walk-in customer named Aubrey. Aubrey tells a terrible tale of vampires from the pier (Lost Boys reference!) turning her son into one of the undead. Then having to watch her little boy burn to a crisp in morning sun. After all the vamp action this show has had it was really cool to see the human side of people that are affected by the supernatural. I really felt sorry for this woman, then we cut to the HoltzCave and find out Holtz has a whole army of vampire hunters, and this woman was just doing recon. It's good to see Holtz is no longer shopping at the Puritan Emporium. He's shaved, wearing real clothes, and I think he might have a little thing for our Rent-a-Slayer, Justine.
We're soon treated to a little throwaway scene with Lilah (remember Wolfram & Hart) talking on the phone with her Alzheimer's inflicted mother. What is it with parents on this show? Everyone's parents have some kind of problem. The whole pointlessness of this exchange is pointed out even better by how quick it ends. The time demon teleports in and gets in a great line about how we modern types are jaded to the ways of mystical forces. He also complains that Holtz is taking too long to kill Angel. So he asks Lilah a favor. The ominous music rises, the time demon inches toward her, his voice lowers, he describes how tough and difficult a task this is, "I need the blood of Angel's son..." Lilah cuts him off, "We got it. My company rocks." Right there is why Lilah is great and needs more screen time. And somebody needs to appreciate the coolness that is Wolfram & Hart.
Fred and Gunn are once again on recon duty this week as they check out the boardwalk. Once again they try to grab a little on-the-clock-nookie. And once again, they fight over whether or not they should be mixing business and pleasure. Didn't they learn this lesson last week? Apparently not, because instead of reconning and heading back to the ranch, Fred and Gunn are caught in an ambush with three vamps set loose by Holtz's crew. I guess it's a good thing they didn't learn their lesson yet, otherwise we wouldn't get this good fight scene with Fred and Gunn versus three vamps on a carousel. Very nicely done and it's always a plus to see Fred kicking ass.
Wesley is off doing his own thing as a wizard has told him where to find an oracle that can tell him the future. Now this isn't your average everyday oracle. This is a hamburger-shaped drive through oracle. Would you like fries with that prophecy? Now I could get all more critical than thou and go into a huge long diatribe about how a serious show like Angel shouldn't resort to such cheap jokes as a talking hamburger shrine. But I can't do that, because I loved every minute of this scene. Once that drive through hamburger morphed into the giant talking oracle I sat up and took notice. It's hard to put into words just how great this scene is. The hamburger is cranky; it shoots Wes with lightning for being a smartass. Poor Wes, he should have brought the Grimace with him, because nothing can kill the Grimace. That would have shown that cranky hamburger. The hamburger does do its part, though. It tells Wesley the three signs of when the prophecy will come true: an earthquake, a fire, and the sky will run with blood.
Slowly losing his mind even more, Wesley meets with Aubrey to tell her the vampire problem has been solved. Somehow Angel and Wesley figure out she's lying to them and is really a part of Holtz's team. They're the detectives, not me, so I'm sure there had to be some tell-tale sign. But this is really nothing more than an excuse for Wesley to follow her back to the HoltzCave, where we get a glimpse at Wesley Wyndham-Price, badass. Who would have guessed after Wesley's early days on Buffy he'd turn into a guy that could punch someone in the throat and say "Maybe you could lie on the floor and gag for awhile?" The Emmy people are obviously too scared by Dennis Franz's pale butt to notice this great performance. I mean Wesley is downright suicidal, asking both the hamburger shrine and Holtz to kill him and end his suffering. He even stares down Holtz and makes fun of his low, scary voice.
This all leads into the big finish, the three signs. An earthquake rocks the hotel causing the stove to explode in spectacular fashion. Angel does the hero thing and saves both Wesley and Connor from the burning room. Angel is quite bloodied from the explosion and is dripping blood all over Connor's blanket, which is a sky blue with clouds on it. I love how prophecies work on this show. Then of course there's the kicker. After they get out of the fire, Angel turns to Wesley and says "At least I woulda had something to snack on." What was up with that? Did Angel go evil, was Wesley going even more crazy? I must know!
There were a few little weird things in this that I noticed. Angel was drinking blood out of a glass a lot this episode. The time demon was whiny, but he's got the best pick up line ever, "would it impress you if I told you I invented daylight savings time?" And why the sudden interest in Angel's son? Something's going on there. Most importantly though, as my fellow Angel fan Charagon pointed out: THE WORD CHAMPION WASN'T USED ONCE! There were a few slow spots (most notably the rerun plot of Fred and Gunn), but this is Wesley's world, we're all just living in it. He turned this episode into a true classic and hands down the best episode of the season.