Angel S01 E02 – Real clothes are overrated.

Previously: We were introduced to Angel in LA, Cordelia with bad hair, an attractive Irishman, lots of questions about sunlight and a surprising amount of humor.
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Lonely Heart

Lorraine: Angel is sitting in the dark, because darkness helps concentrate the brood. Doyle turns on the lights and says it’s Friday night and Angel should really get out.

K: This sounds very much like something my mother would do to me. Except I’m not brooding in the dark. I’m just allergic to leaving the house. 

Lor: He suggests drinks to toast the new business. Angel catches his drift and suggests that if Doyle wants to go out with Cordelia, he ask her out himself.

Enter Cordelia with “calling cards.” I’m not sure why we’re calling them that and not business cards. They have moment a of confusion about the Microsoft Clip-Art looking graphic on the front of it.

Sweeney: Huzzah for the Batman reference!

K: The only reason I can think of to refer to them as calling cards is that Angel’s old as dirt and therefore more likely to understand that than “business cards.” Carry on.

Lor: Doyle snarks that an angel is obvious, yet clever. Cordelia swats at him. He doubles over in pain, not ’cause of the swat but because of the Migraine-O-Vision. He sees a club with, “untz, untz, untz” lights and people dancing. Doyle says he recognizes the place.

They head to the Untz Untz Bar and we focus on a blonde girl. A dark-haired stranger approaches and asks if he can sit next to her. They introduce themselves as Kevin and Sharon. He says he hates places like this, and the camera zooms in on him in a way that suggests he’s creepy. ELECTRIC CELLO TIME.

Kevin and Sharon talk about the difficulties of dating and singles bar. He thinks she’s super special, though. Behind them, Angel, Doyle and Cordelia enter the bar. They decide to split up and look for any unusual activity or maybe cameras zooming in on suspicious men. Something like that.

Sweeney: I bet they’d figure it out a lot quicker if they just followed the cameramen.

K: A+.

Lor: Angel asks the bartender, whom I’m pretty ashamed to say I recognize from playing Bodie on Dawson’s Creek, if he’s noticed anything unusual.

K: OH MY GOD, I KNEW HE LOOKED FAMILIAR. But apparently I was too lazy to actually look it up. Thanks for fixing that little niggle in the back of my brain, Lor. 

Lor: If I had to look it up, maybe I might have been too lazy. Alas, this was just straight up knowledge. I’ll recap the rest of this from the shame corner.

Cordelia is making her way around the room handing out calling cards. Doyle stops her, saying that they need to fly under the radar. Besides, they are supposed to be looking for someone in trouble. Cordy doesn’t need to talk to anyone to know their story. She points out a couple of people (a mama’s boy, a self-absorbed dud) before she spots Sharon and guesses she comes from money, mostly because she’s now leaving the club with Kevin, who is hot.

K: BURN.

Lor: Meanwhile, Angel is talking to a leather-clad dude who walks away as he says, “Seriously…I wasn’t hitting on you.” I’m truly sorry we missed that interaction. Angel leans against the bar and a woman asks if he’s okay because he looks “bad.” She stutters that she didn’t mean it like that, because he is very nice looking. These once-an-episode reminders that Angel is hot make me feel like I’m back in Sweet Valley.

Sweeney: At least he can’t check out his reflection in the mirror 78 times a day.

K: THANK GOD. Because a) it would be really annoying, and b) he’d constantly be fighting with Cordy for mirror time.

Lor: Small blessings.

The woman’s name is Kate, but she’s bent over in the most awkward way so I’ll call her Quasimodo.

She complains about the cheesy bar, and says she’d rather go to those hard to get into bars, but she can never get into them. She’s not unattractive, so one can only deduce that posture matters. Angel admits this is his first time at this particular bar and he’s just “looking for someone to rescue.“

Can I just say that I love socially awkward Angel? I mean, it’s definitely something we saw of him in Sunnydale. Or maybe this feels like an explanation for things we saw of him in Sunnydale. And David Boreanaz has so far made it humorous and endearing.

Sweeney: +1

Lor: Anyhow, Quasimodo asks him what he does and he stutters, “Well, basically, I’m, uh, I help — I’m a veterinarian.” 

Sweeney: His delivery of this line is a perfect example of what you just said. It’s adorable.

Lor: Doyle and Cordelia are chatting elsewhere. Some guy in a horrendously patterned shirt walks up and asks if Cordy was the one handing out cards, but only because he wants her number. She tells him that it’s a business card (NUH-UH! CALLING CARD) and is for people who need their services. He wonders if she charges by the hour for her “services.” Cue all around anger.

K: To be honest, I don’t know how Cordy handing out non-specific cards while offering vague descriptions like, “We’re very discrete” didn’t result in this happening earlier.

Lor: At the bar, Kate is saying she doesn’t trust people easily, which seems like a rather trusting confession. Angel asks what she wants; she wants to make a connection. She wonders if Angel wants to go some place more quiet, but he says he can’t. She fiddles with her drink to hide the pain of rejection.

Doyle is insisting that he doesn’t want any trouble, but a friend of Horrendous Shirt’s approaches and adds to the tension. Horrendous Shirt tells Horrendous Friend that Cordy is a hooker and being difficult. Doyle again insists that he doesn’t want trouble but then head butts Horrendous Shirt. Fighting ensues, and Bodie Bartender and Angel join in. The Horrendous people are subdued and Bodie kicks them out.

A red-head appears to fawn over Angel and ask if he’s alright. He wants to know if she’s alright, because see, he’s trying to help people. She gets flirty and we watch Quasi watch this all from afar and eventually sulk out of the bar.

Kevin and Sharon wake up in a bed together. She wants to leave but Kevin wants to hold her some more. She looks like she doesn’t want to be held.

Back at Untz Untz around closing time, Angel wonders who they were supposed to help. Talk turns to how crazy this bar was, and how different from say a local tavern, Doyle says or high school, Cordy says. As much as the dating scene has changed, it’s even worse for Angel, who has to worry about true moments of happiness and losing his soul.

Sweeney: One of a couple times this episode that Angel expresses all of my feelings about socializing in places that require me to wear real clothes. So, like, most places.

K: Agreed. As much as I dislike Angel and all his brooding, he makes an excellent point here.

Lor: I hate real clothes. This is probably why we’re bloggers. I’m wearing boxer shorts right now.

As they leave the bar we seizure-cut back to Sharon and Kevin, except that Sharon is alive and Kevin is dead and gross looking. (1) The seizure-cuts are in fact images laid over each other. Like in this one we saw a dead Kevin, the sun rising and Sharon sitting at the bar. It’s pretty neat in theory. (2) The zoomy-camera-of-evil-people LIED TO US.

Sweeney: I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO TO TRUST ANYMORE.

Lor: The gang do research that night on strange happenings around the club we learn is called D’Oblique. EW. Cordy struggles with typing and it reminds me of Willow’s nerd revenge in season 1, when she told her to press “deliver” to save her work.

K: Aww. Good times…

Lor: They find stories about a girl who went missing and a boy whose body was found “eviscerated” both last seen at the club. Angel tasks Cordy and Doyle to use the library he apparently keeps downstairs to search for eviscerating demons. He’s off to the club again.

Outside of Untz Untz, Angel runs into Quasi-Kate again. He apologizes for being rude and cryptically warns her off going into the club. Woah, there, buddy. Vague and cryptic warnings is what started your love affair with Buffy… (S: YOU STOP THAT, SIR. YOUR VAGUE, CRYPTIC WARNINGS ARE SPOKEN FOR. FOREVER.) Quasi says she can go wherever she wants and he can go to hell. She stomps off. Angel: “Been there, done that.” It was a requisite joke. Hopefully they got it out of their system.

Inside, Angel sits at the bar with Quasi a few stools down. Killer Sharon is talking up a nerdy-looking fella who says he has trouble landing the girls. Killer Sharon flirts.

Next to Angel, a dude asks Bodie Bartender if he’s seen Now Dead Kevin, who never showed up for work. Bodie said he left the night before with a girl and Angel’s ears perk up.Which girl, he wants to know and they give him Killer Sharon’s name. By this time, she’s gone and Angel runs off to a phone book to look her up. I laugh a little more than I should at a phone book. Quasi-Kate watches Angel suspiciously.

K: I probably would too. Also, LOL PHONEBOOKS. Next he’ll be using a street directory to navigate.

Lor: Killer Sharon and Nerdgasm are in bed together. He’s apologizing for how much it sucked. She tells him to roll over because she wants to be the big spoon. Nerdgasm starts to say something about the cuddles being nice, but Killer Sharon’s chest busts open and a wormy-demon starts burrowing into Nerdgasm. It’s pretty gross.

Angel is running around trying to get to Killer Sharon. It would be cool if he had a convertible right about now, right? He could rush to places. He busts into Killer Sharon’s apartment and we see that she is eviscerated on the bed. Oh. I wasn’t expecting that. (S: So we can trust the zoomy cameras after all!) Nerdgasm, who is now the wormy-demon carrier, is still in the apartment. He says he will keep killing until he finds the right body to live in. A fight breaks out and Killer Nerdgasm is actually quite strong and at one point karate-chops Angel’s back so hard that it causes him to fall to the floor. I giggled.

Killer Nerdgasm makes himself scarce and Angel picks himself up just in time for Quasimodo to walk in. Angel tries to say it isn’t what it looks like but she pulls out a gun and a badge. WHOOPS. Didn’t see that coming either.

Kate starts Mirandizing Angel and then goes on and on about what a sicko he is, baiting lonely people in this way, but as she goes to cuff him, Angel pushes her off and escapes out of a window. He lands on a car. Anytime I see someone land on a car, I feel bad for the person who wakes up the next morning all to find their car smashed.

K: YES. Also, I’m pretty sure we’ve never had a “vampires can jump out of high windows and not get hurt” canon in the Whedon-verse before. Have we???

Lor: I don’t know, but he was just karate-chopped to the floor, so I don’t think the “things that hurt Angel” list is hard and fast.

Cordy’s gross apartment, where once again, she mentions that high school is SO behind them. Angel knocks on the door and after an awkward moment, Doyle exposits that he needs to be invited in. He emphasizes that as long as she’s alive, he can’t enter uninvited. I hadn’t even noticed that homeboy was bursting into places all over town, but I guess Killer Sharon was dead when he did. Hmmm.

Sweeney: Also, he assumed she was non-human, so I don’t think he ever doubted that he’d be able to get in. Do they ever discuss whether the inviting thing only applies to humans, or am I just making this up?

K: Pretty sure it was discussed at some point? Either that, or we had the same hallucination about it being discussed, Sweeney.

Lor: Share hallucinations! Cute.

Angel tells his team that the wormy-demon is a burrower and he basically just came there to tell them that and now he’s off to the bar again because apparently this is the only cheesy singles bar in LA.

We get a musical montage of Quasi-Kate searching Angel’s place and Angel searching the bar and the wormy-demon burrowing into a pretty girl. Finally we see Angel walking around at dawn-light. I know, I know. It’s not “direct sunlight.”

Sweeney: Because “sunlight” is on our list of words-we-never-want-to-discuss-ever-again.

K: A+. Oh, wait. You maybe shouldn’t write the word “sunlight” off before we get the next episode out of the way. #justsaying

Lor: I hate that you see the future, sometimes.

Angel goes back to Cordy’s apartment and they let him know that the wormy-demon is called Tahlmer and that its weakness is fire.

Angel thinks he’ll need Quasimodo’s help to defeat it, so he calls and tells her to meet him at the bar at 7. She’s hesitant, on account of thinking he’s a creepy murderer. Seizure-cut to Kate sitting at a table at Untz Untz. She asks Bodie Bartender to let her know if he spots Angel. Some random, flirty dude approaches Kate with a line about hating places like this. She tries to shoo him away and gets help in the form of Bodie who returns to say he saw Angel in the alley. She leaves and the camera gets all zoomy on the random, flirty dude, insinuating that he’s evil. FUCK YOU ZOOMY CAMERA. I don’t believe you no more.

Sweeney: It’s true. Can’t be trusted. Damn it.

Lor: Quasimodo is walking ahead of Bodie and he knocks her over the head with a bottle. We see he is infected with the wormy-demon and trying to pass it to her. Angel shows up in time to save Kate. Killer Bodie and Angel tussle a little, but KB manages to shove both Angel and Kate down into a basement and lock the door.

Killer Bodie is all bloody and sweaty and even has a piece of his face coming off. That doesn’t really stop him from going out to the bar and trying to pick up a string of women with some well-worn pick-up lines. He fails miserably.

K: He probably would have failed miserably even if he didn’t have pieces of his face hanging off.

Lor: Things you never thought you’d write.

Angel is trying to break down the door to the basement but for some reason, this door is a lot tougher than the one we saw him break down two scenes ago. He gives up on the iron door and spots small windows that Kate says are twenty feet high. Angel has his grappling hook, though, which he hooks on a ceiling beam. When he pulls, the beam comes crashing down. Amazing. Kate grabs her gun and shoots out the lock. Thanks for not doing that back when Angel was beating his shoulder against the iron door, Kate.

Sweeney: My thoughts exactly.

Lor: Killer Bodie is now wandering the streets with chunks of his face missing. He resorts to grabbing a girl and dragging her into an alley near some guys standing next to a trash can fire. FIRE. DID YOU SEE IT? Angel comes running down the alley before Killer Bodie hurts the girl. They fight again, and Angel manages to flip him into the garbage can fire. The wormy-demon squeals and starts to get dangerously close to Angel, who is hurt and on the floor. Thankfully, Quasi-Kate shows up and fires a few rounds into Killer Bodie, keeping him back.

We cut to Kate telling Angel that it all adds up as the bartender was connected to everyone who died. She admits that she illegally searched his place and he wonders why she should admit that. Honesty, you see. Trust and starting fresh. She says all those weapons he keeps don’t really scream “veterinarian” but he doesn’t extend to her the same honesty. He just hands her a calling card in case she ever needs him. She looks at the card and wonders if it’s a lobster. Har har har. He’ll be around, if she ever needs him.

Note: I called her Quasimodo because I thought she would be a one episode lady. Whoops.

Sweeney: I’m glad Quasimodo can be thing around here. Also, because I don’t like Angel giving vague cryptic warnings to anyone else, and more importantly because I am petty, the Quasimodo nickname works for me.

K: Seeing as how I can see the future and all, LOL FOREVER. 

Lor: Back at headquarters, Angel tells Cordelia and Doyle that they’ve been working hard and wonders if maybe they could, and he struggles here, maybe go out for fun? “Or we could go home,” Cordy says as she heads out. Doyle: And you could sit in the dark alone. Angel: God, yes, thank you.

I have absolutely felt this way before. Also, he is adorable. Sorry I’m not sorry about both those confessions.

Sweeney: +1.

Lor: Angel sits at his desk, turns out the lights, and does what Angels do best.

 

Next time on Angel: Visitors from Sunnydale of the absolute best kind in S01 E03 – In the Dark.