Angel S01 E04 – A Stalking Situation

Previously: Angel acquired a magic ring that would let him go outside in the sunlight, but he was all, “No, man, that’s going to interfere with my brooding,” so he destroyed it. Also, Spike and Oz came to town for crossover magic.
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I Fall to Pieces

Sweeney: The episode starts with Cordelia lamenting all the bills associated with running their business, which is a problem, since Angel isn’t really big on collecting payment, as it interferes with being the hero. Doyle agrees that money would be good, but mostly because Cordelia thinks so.

Kirsti: Aww. Bless. 

Lorraine: Doyle is hitting on Cordelia in this scene big time, but I spend most of it noticing his beautiful eyes. He looks yummy here. Okay, carry on.

Sweeney: He is so very pretty. Cordelia calls Angel out on the money situation when he walks in and drinks the nasty week-old coffee.

Lor: In The Prom, Angel told Joyce he doesn’t drink coffee because it made him jittery. I remembered the jittery comment but not when it happened so my company just paid for me to spend about 7 minutes furiously searching for the episode.

Sweeney: Moving to LA is about trying new things, Lor. Duh. More importantly: thanks, Lor’s company! Angel says he’s not OK with asking people in need for money and they both turn to Doyle to back them up. He gets flustered and then suddenly has another Premonition Headache, which looks a lot like creepy hidden camera footage.

He asks for pen, paper, and scotch. He writes down the name of the woman he saw and the paper company she works for. As Angel walks away, Doyle stares after him and I laugh because writing these posts has made me see just how many slashfic fans there are in this fandom, and this seems like another of the thousand ways this show is hyper self-aware.

K: Also, Angel leaves the building in broad daylight and no one bats an eyelid. This fucking sunlight thing, you guys. It drives me insane. 

Lor: ME TOO. I’m hyper aware of all things sunlight and incest. THANKS SNARK SQUAD.

Sweeney: I THOUGHT WE AGREED NOT TO DISCUSS THIS. After the credits, Melissa, our Premonition Headache girl is at work and helping a co-worker with a cake for another co-worker, that they fucked up and wrote the wrong name on. Lots of banter between all these irrelevant people. Flowers arrive for Melissa, not the birthday girl, and the card says that they come with Ronald’s “undying love.” This makes Melissa antsy, so she sneakily grabs some pills from her purse and runs to the bathroom.

Later, she’s in the garage and is startled by creepy lurking Angel, who explains his knowing her name and waiting for her by awkwardly saying that he works in private security. “It’s…what I do,” he awkwards as he pulls out one of the calling cards. Melissa takes the card but says she can’t afford private security. He tries to tell her that it’s not about money, but she drives off.

Back at Brooding HQ, he’s pacing back and forth because he scared her and wants to know if he’s intimidating. Cordelia says that he’s pretty cuddly as vampires go, but mixing up the black-on-black look might help. He suggests Cordelia go instead, but she’s not getting involved with people who aren’t paying.

K: I’m going to stop for a second and point out that Cordy REALLY needs to brush her hair. I think she’s trying to go for the toussled beach look, but it just comes across as “couldn’t find my hairbrush.”

Sweeney: Doyle jumps in to say that while Angel is right that it isn’t about getting paid, the payment thing might actually be more helpful to people in the long run. The random savior swoops in and people get attached; if money is involved, people can feel like they’ve paid for it and move on. This gets a rare compliment from Cordelia who says he’s a lot smarter than he looks. (L: She follows that up by saying he looks retarded, so not really a compliment.)

Seizure cut to Melissa trying to use her ATM card, but the pin is rejected. Then a creepy, excessively upbeat man appears and tells her that he changed her pin because her birthday was a stupid pin. (To be fair, he is totally right about that.) She says he needs to stop doing this and she doesn’t even know what he wants. “I just want you to be happy and healthy, silly — speaking of which, have you been losing weight?” OMG THE CHRISTIAN GREY COMMENT. Someone warned me about this last time. Weee, another crazy stalker boyfriend, just what this blog was missing!

K: STABBY STABBY STABBY. And I don’t even cover 50 Shades…

Sweeney: Anyway, he goes on about how she should cool it with the tranquilizers because he saw her take three in the bathroom at work today. WUT? He adds that he prescribed something else that she refused to take. She tells him to leave her alone, which he can’t do because two people in love can’t do that! They had one date. GUYS. I CAN’T EVEN WITH THIS PLOT. His beeper goes off calling him to surgery, but not before he hands her the money and card from the ATM and tries to go in for a kiss.

Cordelia answers the phone, because Melissa > Ana and recognized the need for professional help. Angel runs off to change out of his black shirt, because he’s precious. Melissa comes in and explains that the stalking has been going on for about seven months. He’s a neurosurgeon who operated on her to save her eyesight. Afterwards, he asked her out and she agreed mostly because she felt obligated. She then tried to say she wasn’t interested, but he wasn’t interested in that no, because he goes to the same No Means Yes meetings as Christian Grey.

K: Pretty sure she should report him to someone on account of DATING PATIENTS IS WEIRD AND UNETHICAL.

Sweeney: Very much so. Once she mentions that the guy can see her when she’s alone, their interest is piqued as that’s the most supernatural element to the story. (Crazy stalkers can be human too!) Doyle goes with her to make sure she gets home safe while Angel and Cordelia discuss how this is possible, but their guesses mostly deal with invisibility.

That night, Melissa is getting undressed for bed, while stalker Ronald sits in his study. We pan slowly around from behind his chair, back and forth between the two, until we learn that one of his eye sockets is glowing red because the eye is floating around Melissa’s house. If only Christian Grey knew that trick! I think it would actually put his mind at ease, since his girlfriend doesn’t do anything besides sit around thinking about him when they are apart. Also, will we learn how the eye gets places? Like, does it just appear where she is? What is the likelihood that other people will encounter this floating eye? I’ll stop. These questions might be answered.

K: I, meanwhile, will have a small dry retch and a panicky “hide behind a cushion” moment on account of I have eyeball phobia and that’s really fucking gross. I mean, the special effects are awful. But still. Eyeballs. NYARGH.

Sweeney: Angel goes to the police station to see QuasimodoKate who is back, as you all promised. Awkward meeting is awkward. Angel tells her that he needs a favor because his client’s stalking situation might get ugly. Quazi wins my heart by rightly pointing out that if she’s being stalked, then it already is ugly. A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FROM THE TRAUMALAND’S FIFTY SHADES AMPHITHEATER.

Melissa is at work wondering why Doyle is staying with her all day, as acquiring a round-the-clock in-your-face stalker wasn’t the solution she’d imagined for her stalking-from-an-assumed-distance stalker problem. They chat and she assumes Angel must have handled stuff like this before. Doyle’s all, “OH YEAH ALL THE TIME!” and unhelpfully adds that of cases just like hers there have been, “four, three of which are very much alive!” WOMP. She has a picture of her being adventurous, because she used to be adventurous before she had a stalker.

K: I honestly don’t think I’ve ever known anyone to have a framed picture of themselves on their desk. Especially when they’re alone in the picture. It just seems a little sad, you know?

Sweeney: Agreed. QuaziKate pulled records and Melissa did file a report a couple months ago, but Ronald is represented by Wolfram & Hart. Their demony-ness is obviously not known to Kate, but she is aware of how shady they are. Ronald had a restraining order taken out on Melissa, and does not yet have a record of violence. Angel is nervous and if that earlier comment hadn’t already won me over, this would: Kate tells Angel that Melissa needs to get angry and fight, because the hardest part for Kate is that for all the creeps she puts away, she knows that they still win because he can kill her every night in her dreams until she overcomes that trauma. Kate, I will probably only call you QuaziKate once or twice an episode now.

Lor: Her posture has been much better, to be fair.

Sweeney: Seizure cut to Angel walking around the hospital where we must assume Ronald works. He breaks into a room that says “Private” on the door, which conveniently turns out to be Ronald’s office. This seems like a weird bit of contrivance, considering that most doctors’ offices usually just have their names printed on the door, but all right, show.

K: There are so many stupid bits of contrivance in this show. SO MANY.

Sweeney: Inside, there is a picture of Melissa on his desk. Angel snoops through his books and as he’s reading a thank you note inside one book, Ronald returns and wants to know what the fuck Angel is doing in his office.

Angel quickly makes up a lie in which his name is Jensen and he’s there for a medical miracle for his wife who is dying of cancer. Ronald starts to say the procedure Angel came up with on the fly is dangerous and illegal. Angel gives a speech about being crazy in love with someone, holding up the picture of Melissa and asking lots of questions, and adding that if Ronald would die for this girl then he understands how srsbsns Jensen is. He adds that he’ll pay whatever it takes, telling Ronald to think about it before walking out.

Cordelia is interviewing a doctor, pretending to be a reporter for what she thinks is medical magazine but would actually be a medical journal, whose name she can’t even pronounce. She also throws in the expected Cordelia EWs (says the hypocrite who has added half a dozen EW comments to the day’s two posts) as this doctor  explains Ronald’s medical specialties. How this doctor isn’t confused by either the fact that a medical journal appears to have a reporter or the fact that said reporter knows all of nothing about this supposedly big deal guy she’s asking questions about is something I’ll attribute to The Great Contrivance Spirit. Anyway, uninquisitive doctor tells Cordelia that Ronald found ways to extend the time between when severed limbs could be reattached and is also the best ever at reattaching nerve endings.

This isn’t really helping Cordelia, so she cuts to the chase, telling the doctor that she’s actually writing an article prompted by her dislike of the way Ronald treats women.

Lor: This reminds me of a couple of times we saw Cordy’s non-stealth interviewing skills in BtVS. Most specifically I remember her in Earshot.

Sweeney: Cordy promises to keep this doctor’s name out of it if she’ll tell more. She bites. He’s not generous, won’t share techniques, and claims to have done some radical stuff.

Cordelia asks what and we seizure cut to her explaining that reattaching eyes is one of those things. Then this happens:

Cordelia: What is stalking now-a-days, the third most popular sport among men?
Angel: Fourth, after luge.

Then he goes on to explain that Ronald/Grey can’t handle an actual woman so he makes one up and eventually she fails him, so he rages out and kills her. IF ONLY. I mean, not you, Melissa, but if that’s what has to happen to get rid of Ana, well, sorrynotsorry.

K: The whole world would be sorrynotsorry if that happened.

Sweeney: Anyway, knowing this still doesn’t answer the bigger HOW question. Angel stole the book with the note, though, which leads them to a guy who led a retreat for a bunch of doctors and then became a total recluse. Angel sends the guy a cryptic email about needing help with Ronald.

Lor: A recluse with a handy email address! Very convenient. DrRecluse@donotcontactmeever.com

Sweeney: A+

Seizure cut to Angel talking to said recluse, in a dark broody sitting room that must make Angel feel super at home. The Recluse explains some nonsense that includes the whole we’re-not-using-most-of-our-brains bit, and also uses the words “psychic surgeon” and I’m super tired and bored and my eyes are glazing over.

K: Right there with you. This shit belongs in Charmed or something equally ridiculous.  

Sweeney: Ronald came along and became the Recluse’s bestest student ever, which made him stop teaching. “Because you stopped believing?” Angel asks. “No, because I believed completely.” cue ominous music and me rolling my eyes.

Speaking of eyes, my earlier questions are about to be answered. Ronald is standing outside a fence at Melissa’s place, so that answers the proximity thing. A cop appears and Ronald turns around, both eyes in his head. The cop tells Ronald to put his hands up. Ronald puts his arms up and there are no hands because his hands are climbing up her bed like Thing but creepy and evil. The cop immediately feels guilty for picking on the guy without hands and lets him go.

K: SERIOUSLY, POLICE OFFICER? You suck at your job. “Oh, I can’t possibly arrest this axe murderer because he’s missing a finger and he’s clearly sad about it.” 

Lor: Clearly that axe murderer isn’t very good with an axe but still needs to be in jail.

Sweeney: In her bed, the hands are crawling under the blanket and down her body, which was a mega creepy direction I hadn’t anticipated.

K: I’m 90% creeped out and 10% confused, because there are bloody tendons and bones and shit hanging out the ends of the hands, but his hand stumps are sealed. How do his hands reattach?! And how does he not develop septicaemia or something from all that bloody stuff trailing around on the floor??

Sweeney: Shhh, you’re trying to apply logic.

She starts screaming and so the cop busts in the door. He inspects the place, though, and finds nobody there. As he’s telling her that everything is fine, the hands land on his shoulder and starts choking him.

She runs outside and into Angel’s arms. She’s freaking out but he comforts her, assuring her that he knows what he can do and won’t let him touch her. Ronald is, of course, watching from behind the fence, as his hands skitter back to him.

Later, lots of other cops, including Kate, arrive. Melissa’s story obviously doesn’t make any sense. Kate says she pulled prints, though. Off to the side, Doyle points out that bars couldn’t really hold this guy, which means they now need to resolve the major issue of how to kill this guy. Angel suggests chopping him up and keeping the parts separated long enough that the lack of blood/oxygen causes them to atrophy.

K: EW.

Sweeney: Back in the Brooding Basement, Doyle is duct taping all the nooks and crannies of the place. Angel is assuring her that he believes the crazy business with the hands. Also that she’s the one who is strong because she’s still standing, while Ronald comes unhinged, referencing back to the Angelus days of stalking and tormenting women until they become Drusilla.

Cordelia is good with her and Doyle staying with Melissa, but doesn’t like that Angel is planning to go off to deal with Ronald by himself. Angel is trying to figure out where to buy steel boxes at whatever crazy-late-probably-close-to-morning-now hour it is when the phone rings on one of the special lines. Cordelia answers for Jensen International and it’s Ronald. He tells Angel that he is willing to operate if it can be done out of the country and if Angel will pay him $100,000 up front. Angel agrees to meet him in his office that night.

Angel walks in and they immediately dispense with any nonsense about money, though Ronald believes the steel box to be a fake safety deposit box. Then he shoots Angel with a dart which he explains that he developed to work with animals and explains that it will slow Angel’s heart and stop it. Isn’t it already stopped? Angel is panting and sweating and collapses, though. I’d say he’s acting, but the sweating seems a bit much.

K: Fake sweating seems like a very impressive skill.

Lor: I was expecting for him to rip out the dart and be all, “NO HEARTBEAT, BITCH.” I’m not sure what’s happening here.

Sweeney: In the Brooding Basement, Cordelia and Doyle are chatting while Melissa sleeps. Cordelia laments the hopelessness of dating and shoots Doyle down when he tries to make an opening out of that. Poor Doyle.

This is interrupted by the noise of Ronald’s hand breaking through the duct tape. They try to investigate the noise, but find nothing. Then we see the eye float in. Elsewhere, Doyle spots the other hand trying to undo a hatch from below. The duct-tape hand is now opening the door to let Ronald in. As Doyle and Cordelia open the hatch, he walks up and Doyle goes down after the hand while Cordelia is knocked out and pulled out of the apartment, which Ronald locks behind her.

All of this wakes Melissa up for her confrontation with Ronald. He smarms about how she disappointed him, and then she ladies up and tells him off. She says he can go ahead and kill her, but it won’t change the fact that he sucks and knows that she could never want him. Get it Melissa! I’m sorry I wanted to sacrifice you to kill Ana.

This contributes to Ronald’s emotional breakdown. He says something about how he killed Angel, which is Angel’s cue to appear, all undead and stuff. Ronald is totes confused and says that Angel can’t be human which, you know, ha! He throws is little surgeon knife thing (K: Would you be looking for the word ‘scalpel’, perchance??) (L: LOL.) (S: GUYS IT WAS 3AM. I WAS CONFUSED BY MY OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. WORDS ARE HARD.) at Angel and also one of his hands, so he can focus on Melissa. Angel uses the scalpel to kill the hand and then knocks Ronald out, just as he starts melting body parts which, again, EW.

The next day Melissa shows up to give Angel a thank you plant. Angel hopes it doesn’t need sunlight, and I’m all, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HARD IT WAS FOR ME TO OVERLOOK THAT ALL EPISODE SO JUST STOP IT WITH THE WORDS WE DON’T MENTION,” (K: WHOOPS. I forgot that we had a ban on that word) but nobody hears me. Cordelia clears her throat loudly and Angel stammers before saying that there’s also a bill. How do they charge for this, exactly? What does this bill look like?  I am so intrigued by their business model.

She’s all, “Oh yeah, I brought you a check too, duh!” and hands it to him, or, rather Cordelia, as she runs up to take it. Before Melissa leaves she adds that she hopes she never sees him again. Cordelia and Doyle celebrate the check as Angel takes the plant into his office, because he actually did it for the greenery. Or something like that.

 

Next time on Angel:  The gang tries their hand at exorcisms on S01 E05 – Rm w/a Vu.