Angel S03 E04 – Nope.

Previously: Gunn’s loyalties were further tested. Also, Darla’s mystically preggo and on her way to Los Angeles.

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Carpe Noctem

Sweeney: The episode begins with everyone sitting in the lobby quietly and jumping when Fred enters. Fred looks over Cordelia’s shoulder at her magazine and having starved in a cave for five years, is confused by the starved-looking models. She’s also just generally lurking and even though it’s just a beauty magazine it still gives me, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BUBBLE WHEN I’M READING,” feelings just watching. (K: Agreed. My mum does it all the time and it makes me squicky.) She mentions that Angel is probably reading, which is his cut to enternouncequestion if anyone else has read this great thing in the paper. Said great thing is a Charlton Heston double feature which nobody else gives any fucks about, but I’m going to go ahead and declare shots for the Angel/art OTP. I’m reaching a little here, but I don’t care.

Lorraine: I don’t think anyone here is going to judge you for reaching for shots. Reach on, girlfriend.

Sweeney: Glad we can all support each other in this way. This episode, as we’ll see, calls for it.

Angel asks if anyone wants to join and only Fred says yes. He takes this opportunity to passive aggressively joke to Fred that, “certain friends and co-workers have been known to accuse ME of being the quiet, stay-at-home sulky one. Some people just don’t know how to have fun anymore.”

Elsewhere in Los Angeles, two women are telling their muscled male lover that they need a break from all the sex. He grabs a drink and makes a comment about how good it is to be young, in such a way that suggests to the audience of this particular show that something demonic is afoot. He then has a serious headache, to which he says, “It’s been fun,” before his ghostly red essence floats out of him and his skin falls into a rubber pile on the ground and the ladies scream. Electric cellos.

Afterwards Fred is flailing about the movie to Wesley. She alternates between gushing about Angel and the movie, and it’s awkward.

K: SO FUCKING AWKWARD OMG. Someone help the girl out.

Lor: I’m defending Fred here and just reminding everyone that she was on the run in a demon dimension for five years. I think dating skillz are the first thing to rust.

Sweeney: Oh, I don’t question why Fred is struggling. Just pointing out that the girl who spent five years hiding out in a cave in a demon dimension is now, in fact, supremely awkward.

Cordelia confronts Angel about the fact that he needs to be clear with Fred about the fact that this wasn’t a date. She also mentions something about Angel + sex being a big no-no, which gets awkward, though Angel does not actually correct Cordelia on CrAngel’s failed attempt at soul-ditching.

Anyway, she eventually drags Angel (literally) into Wesley’s office.

Rather than talking to Fred — who gives Angel googly eyes — he points out a story in the paper about the sexytimes-gone-mystically-awry scene we just saw.

Lor: Dude. While I understand Cordy’s point, dragging Angel into the room in front of the whole team wasn’t the way to get the convo started. The distraction was needed.

Sweeney: Preach. Tragically, this doesn’t even rank on the list of most uncomfortable parts of the episode.

Wesley says he heard about something similar 10 days ago. Cordelia tries to get this back on track by noting that nobody has hired them, but Wesley’s already interested and Angel is pretty set on derailing her efforts. Angel tells her to open a case file and leaves.

At Wolfram & Hart, Lilah is ignoring Daniel Dae Kim who is trying to assure her that he will prove to be totes legit and earn her respect eventually. I’m going to go ahead and say that in addition to the fact that she’s underselling the building code violation move, she should really pay attention to how aggressively the writers are selling him which obvs means he’ll be a big deal of some sort. After he walks off she tells her assistant to get a graphic artist/forger named Carter Williams on the phone.

Brooding Hotel. Wesley’s assigning everyone people to talk to and jobs and the like. Cordelia’s noted that the common theme among the now bags of skin is that they were all members of the same health club, which is where she and Angel will be headed. Poor Fred is left standing alone in the lobby, without a job to do.

K: This episode can basically be summed up as “Sucks to be Fred.” This is just the beginning of her woes.

Lor: Aw, man. I will not get attached. I will not get attached. I will not get attached.

Sweeney: At the health club, Cordelia continues to get on Angel about the Fred thing, saying something about keeping work and professional lives separate as a jokey jumping off point for her to eagerly go question some hot guy at the gym. Angel tries to talk to some trainer/employee of the gym about the former members. Said employee notes that these guys “like, died.” Angel easily manipulates this guy into letting Angel look at their membership records.

Mr. They Like Died says that the only thing they seemed to have in common was that they all took an evening Pilates class. Angel asks if that’s like  Tae Bo, to which Mr. They Like Died scoffs, “Yeah, if you’re living in 1999.” Oooh, burn. ‘Cause, like, Angel’s old. Wooo! SHOTS.

Anyway, the billowy coated one walks through this Pilates class and nobody seems to notice. OK. Whatever. He spots someone with glowy eyes and/or goggles watching the room from a window across the street. It turns out to be a retirement home. He interrupts Cordelia’s flirterrogation session to tell her that he’s headed over to investigate.

He knocks on door 316, belonging to a Marcus Roscoe.

K: I really want to know if Angel’s magic skills include “Identifying exactly which door to knock on based on the windows” or if he’d knocked on every other door on the floor and had to be all “Hi, I’m Angel. Are you, by any chance, a peeping tom?”

Lor: ANGEL’S SUPER SENSE OF SMELL. Sorry. That’s my default answer for everything.

Sweeney: Another tragic turn of events: that would hardly be the most dubious part of the episode! Head canon accepted.

Mr. Roscoe answers and Angel gives him a card and asks to be invited in to answer some questions. There’s an awkward pause as the guy walks into the room, waiting for Angel to follow before satisfying the invitation magic with, “Come on if you’re coming.”

Inside, Angel spots some binoculars, which is presumably the source of the glowy eyes. Angel asks if Mr. Roscoe has seen any of the bag-o-skin dudes, to which Mr. Roscoe smarms that he’s more of a girl-watcher. Angel notices a occult urn of some sort as well as some magazines for outdoorsy stuff like hiking and skiing and basically not the activities of a man in a retirement home. This is a whole lot of rather aggressive potential villain set-up for this show, especially a mere third of the way through. I hope this is misdirection.

I spoke about 20 seconds too soon, because Mr. Roscoe does, indeed, start chanting at Angel who starts to tell him that he might want to think twice about that, but he’s cut off with a big blue glowy energy exchange, of sorts. Not!Angel headbutts Not!Mr. Roscoe and walks outside. He doesn’t recognize Cordelia, of course, but she speaks to him and they both say they found nothing. She tells him to hop in and she’ll take him back to the hotel. Not!Angel gets very smarmy and excited about this. He’s grossing me out so much right now. Also, how does Angel’s vampireness work in this exchange. I’m confused.

K: I suspect this episode was created partly because David Boreanaz was all “Yo, Whedon. I’m sick of brooding all the time. Can we do something else for a change?!” Be careful what you wish for, because the results might be gross.

Sweeney: It’s funny you should mention this, because I had more or less the same thought in the next scene.

At Brooding Hotel Cordelia goes to her desk while Not!Angel dings the bell on the counter, calling out for service. Cordelia says Wes & Gunn may have found something out, as Not!Angel notices the business cards on the desk and adds that yes, Wes & Gunn are totes valuable parts of their investigating team. This bit where Not!Angel is putting the pieces together is at least moderately amusing.

We quickly shift back to grossing me out territory when Cordelia turns his hitting on her into the you-need-to-talk-to-Fred conversation. Ew, ew, ew, YOU STAY AWAY FROM FRED, NOT!ANGEL. Anyway, Not!Angel thinks Fred is a dude, though. He looks at his outfit and says, “So I’m a…obviously.” Har, har. I do not like this at all. I should add, though, that David Boreanaz is a lot better at this campy stuff than the brooding feels stuff.

Lor: This is not the first time they’ve played the Angel is gay thing for laughs. Eh.

Sweeney: Agreed. Not the first time and not at all amusing.

Back at the retirement home, Not!Mr. Roscoe comes to and finds this body a little slow and shitty. He sneaks down to the lobby and uses a phone that is conveniently left unattended. Equally as convenient is Not!Angel rummaging through Wesley’s office on the other end and being the only one to hear Not!Mr. Roscoe’s “Cordelia, are you there? Pick up!” voice mail. Contrivance aside, I’m annoyed that Angel didn’t even assume that some version of this would be possible. What’s more, he knows that he doesn’t have his own voice.

Whatever. Fortunately, Not!Angel picks up the phone to get his villain speechifying on, talking about how hot Cordelia is. He also advises Not!Mr. Roscoe to stay out of Ryan’s way. That is “Ryan’s” cue to appear and tell Mr. Roscoe he’s lost his phone privileges for the month. Embarrassingly, I recognize him from that reality show, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance.

K: I recognise him as Joe the Bartender from Grey’s Anatomy. I think you win, Sweeney.

Sweeney: I remember seeing him as Joe the Bartender and having this same thought then too.

Back in the office, Not!Angel smashes the answering machine tape.

In the retirement home, Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance is having a chat with “Marcus” about the “episodes” he occasionally has. Thanks to Not!Angel, he’s able to identify Ryan and buy himself some time not getting put into restraints like we can assume the other three dudes were when they woke up as Marcus.

Cordelia enters Wesley’s office to find Not!Angel passed out at Wesley’s desk, which allows her to provide him with the additional information of Angel having a room at the hotel. She also insists that he needs to have that talk with Fred, just as Wesley enters. A not-actually-funny jokey scene ensues (mostly because of how squicked out I am by Mr. Roscoe as a character) in which Not!Angel tries to have that chat with Wesley before Cordelia calls out to Wesley that the food is there, revealing to Not!Angel that he wasn’t talking to Fred after all. Sorry, that paragraph was confusing as shit if you didn’t actually watch the scene in question. I don’t care enough to do anything about it.

K: It’s kind of like the Cordy thinking Harmony was a lesbian scene from last season, only not. YAY HOMOPHOBIA!! O.o

Sweeney: This was worse, perhaps in part because it was dragged out more. Anyway, Not!Angel asks where Fred is, to which Wesley replies that she’s probably in her room. Not!Angel gets more smarmy with excitement over the feminine pronoun. He then comes out and is a dick to Gunn, stuffing cash in his pocket and assuming he’s the delivery boy. Just to complete the misogynistic dickbag package with a side of racist asshole! Weee!

Cordelia asks why Not!Angel is eating. Gunn notes the charges the three guys racked up, which included booze and escorts. Gunn and Wesley debate who should go interview the escorts, but Cordelia seizes the paper, saying she’ll do it. Everyone scurries off to keep investigating, leaving Not!Angel to “keep an eye on the evidence.”

At the retirement home, Not!Mr. Roscoe is sitting in the lobby eyeing the door. Just when he thinks he’s got an opening to flee, he’s stopped by another resident who wants Not!Mr. Roscoe to meet his granddaughter. Cute baby has also closed the window of opportunity. Not that I think it was really there in the first place, given how slowly Not!Mr. Roscoe moves.

In Wesley’s office, Not!Angel is shredding files and having a drink. Fred appears, conveniently inserting her name into the conversation. Not!Angel smarms about how beautiful she is and then feeds her the olive out of his drink. UGH. I HATE HIM. He says he has some work to finish, but she should go get pretty so that he can take her out on the town. She runs off excited. DAMNIT, NOT!ANGEL. FUCK YOU.

As soon as she leaves, Lilah enters. She’s brought Angel a stack of all the necessary certificates to send DDK’s bureaucrats on their way, which she says she’s doing so that she can cut DDK down a notch. Not!Angel nonchalantly thanks her before pouring them both a drink and hitting on her.

Back at the retirement home, Not!Mr. Roscoe pulls the fire alarm so he can make his escape. Unfortunately he has what looks like a heart attack as he is making that escape.

Hotel. Not!Angel stops a drunk Lilah from leaving. “Don’t tell me you never thought about it.” They start going at it on Wesley’s desk. (Poor Wesley.) Fred appears in her pretty dress, just as they are throwing things off his desk. My heart breaks for her. Meanwhile, Not!Angel vamps out and bites Lilah. I guess that somewhat answers that other question I had.

K: While simultaneously creating a whole lot of new questions about Lilah, because generally speaking one doesn’t jump the enemy. Especially when one works for the law firm named Most Likely To Murder Their Own Employees…

Lor: Yeah, I didn’t like that Lilah, Evil Head Bitch in Charge was all, “wait? In my pants? Right now? SURE.” My “eh” has now graduated to a “meh.”

Sweeney: Agreed. It doesn’t make a lot of sense and was super disappointing coming from Lilah.

After a Not Commercial Break, Lilah scurries off and tells Angel that she hopes he enjoyed that sick game because he’ll never get that close to her again. Not!Angel is confused by the new bumps on his face and corresponding fangs. He goes to the bathroom to look in the mirror and is confused.

Not!Mr. Roscoe wakes up hooked up to a heart monitor. He marvels at the fact that his heart is beating. Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance backstories that this is Mr. Roscoe’s fourth heart attack and he probably won’t survive the next one.

Cordelia returns to the office, joking about how not Pretty Woman-esque the escorts were. Nobody’s there though. She calls out to Angel, who doesn’t answer. She hears Fred crying in the elevator, which she opens. Fred sobs that she should have knocked, and that he called her a sweetheart, but it’s just an expression. FRED. HUGS. ALL THE HUGS. Cordelia goes into comforting mode, saying that this is all her fault for telling him to do this. Fred incredulously asks if she told him to make out with that woman on the desk. Cordelia’s all, “Wait, what?”

K: I’m not sure I would have picked the lift as an ideal place to cry though. Especially when the stairs are right there. But okay, show. Whatever.

Lor: Again, it’s Fred. I guess the elevator was most cave-like.

Sweeney: Seizure cut to Not!Angel coming into a bar. He’s apparently discovered the vampire super speed and uses it to miraculously appear next to a woman with a drink. They go outside and start hooking up. She mentions that her boyfriend can come at any moment. Not!Angel bites her, just as the boyfriend and his two minions appear. Fighting ensues, though nobody dies. Not!Angel says something about being young and strong for ever before doing a superhero jump and running off.

K: He’s also wearing the leather pants, so just to really rub in the fact that he’s evil.

Sweeney: Brooding Hotel. Wesley is justifiably grossed out by his desk now. He adds that this isn’t like Angel. Cordelia says it’s totally like him – “doing the mystery dance with some cheap blonde.” Fred clarifies that it was a cheap brunette and Cordelia quickly agrees with Wes that this not like Angel. I actually paused to laugh at that, the first time in an episode that makes many attempts at jokes. A+ for you, Cordelia. (L: +1)

Gunn asks who the woman is, but Wesley says that’s not important. The important thing is who he was. Cordelia’s all, “Yup. Angelus.” Oh, girl, you’re losing that A+ because the prototype tiny blonde was Angelus’s girl. Gunn says it seems odd that there isn’t a body left behind, if that’s the case. Wesley further adds that whoever it was had clearly been doing all sorts of reading up on vampires. He also notes that all of the bags-o-skin exhibited wild, uncharacteristic behavior just before they died.

Wesley asks Cordelia if anything weird happened at the gym and she has a major memory lapse as she insisted that they were together pretty much the whole time. She then remembers, “Except for when he went across the street.” I’d also add, “and also the entire time we were at the gym,” but that’s not the point. (L: Butitkindofis.)

This mention of across-the-street segue magics us over to the retirement home where Not!Mr. Roscoe is trying to sneak out. His grandfather friend from earlier catches him and jokes about how he doesn’t quit, adding that nobody’s going to have to turn him in this time because his kid is signing him out. With that, he turns around to see Not!Angel talking to Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, donning Leather Pants of Moral Ambiguity. Not!Angel turns and sees him, calling out, “Hi dad!”

After a Not Commercial Break, Not!Mr. Roscoe (so. many. nots.) tries to sneak away. But he’s old and slow and Not!Angel has all that awesome vampire smell helping out. They have a confrontation in an empty room. Not!Mr. Roscoe explains that Marcus will get to keep this body that won’t burn out if he murders his other self. Not!Angel blah blahs about what a shitty job Angel was doing of being a vampire.

The Fang Gang magically arrives just in time to prevent the murder. They start beating Not!Angel and knock him out.

Lor: Know what knocks me out? The giant YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS, SEE? anvil.

K: I get momentarily pissed off because just like we were complaining about over in Sunnydale a few episodes ago, the girls both have bats of some description and proceed to just hit Angel with them repeatedly, rather than having weapons that will ACTUALLY DO SOME DAMAGE like the guys are carrying. I mean, obviously it’s Angel and they don’t really want to kill him. But enough with the female characters getting blunt force trauma weapons already! 

Sweeney: As you can see, my objective now is to get us all out of the episode as quickly as possible. Wesley and Not!Mr. Roscoe discuss the spell, which Wesley had already correctly identified because he’s brilliant. Fred goes in for an extra hit. Cute.

Seizure cut and we are back in the same room with Not!Angel tied up and unconscious. Wesley gives Not!Mr. Roscoe a paper to read. He does. Glowy breath. Angel wakes up and satisfies the gang with nothing more than an, “It’s all right Gunn, it’s me.” That’s it? Really? Nothing to clarify before we have Cordelia hand over the conjuring stone for him to crush?

Whatever. Angel “quips” that he has a bad heart because he never uses it. Oof. (L: SERIOUSLY. It’s amateur hour.) They leave as Mr. Roscoe appears to have another heart attack. The dramatic Fang Gang walk from the credits happens, as Angel tells Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance that dad’s having a rough night. I’m really dismayed that this is where that opening credits dramatic walk comes from.

Back at Brooding Hotel, Fred is sitting outside reading when Angel finally comes out to have the much needed conversation. (L: I laugh forever because she’s reading in the dark and we used to give Angel tons of shit for this back when he was in Sunnydale at the Brooding Bungalow.) She apologizes for the bonus thwack on his head, but he says he deserved it. Angel sits down and says he’s been meaning to have a talk with her. He hesitates, but Fred fills in the gaps, saying that Cordelia already explained it to her. Cordelia also added that Angel would probably just screw it up. LOL. Fred adds that, “It’s like something out of Fitzgerald — the man who can have everything but love.” Aw, Fred. I just adore her.

As Fred goes on that love is everything, which includes heartache and disappointment, they are cut off by Cordelia rushing out to say that Willow is on the phone because Buffy’s alive. Huh. Weird. Question for anyone who watched in real time — did this air before Buffy 6×04? Now that I’m thinking it, I assume this call from Willow would have come shortly after calling Giles? Weird.

K: IMDB informs me that it aired the day before the Buffy episode did. Which doesn’t really clarify things a whole lot, because it kind of implies that Angel sat around dealing with his feels for 24 hours, then called Buffy back. Or the timelines are kind of whacked out, and he sat around dealing with his feels for like a week, and THEN called Buffy back. Either way, it seems weird and not particularly well done.

Sweeney: Agreed. On that note, roll end credits. I’m glad this episode is over, because HEY, did you notice? I did not like it. Fully independent of the squick factor of Mr. Roscoe, everything around it felt so sloppy. The dialogue was clunky and weak. None of the jokes were funny. The premise was ridiculous and too out of sync with everything else that we’ve been told about the way Angel/Angelus inhabit that body. I hatehatehate when they get sloppy with these big, essential elements of the show’s mythology.

I love Fred more with each episode, and Cordelia had one or twogreat moments, you know, when she wasn’t just awkwardly set there to service the stupid plot. On the whole, this episode was a big, “Nope,” for me.

K: For me, this episode felt both really long and incredibly short. I was half expecting Angel to destroy the stone and then Mr. Roscoe to go “Wait, it didn’t work, I’m still trapped in the old dude’s body!” and for the Fang Gang to have to find some other way of switching them back. But no. I’m with Sweeney though – this episode sucks. And poor Fred seems to end up as the punching bag every step of the way. Ugh.

Lor: It felt like an inconsequential episode. I’m prepared to bite my tongue if the Obnoxious Fiance turns out to be a hellgod or if grandpa from the old folks home swears revenge on Angel.

But I’m thinking it’s not likely.

Next time: Fred’s parents turn up, and Angel thinks something’s hinky. Are we in for a rerun of what happened when Tara’s family turned up? Find out on Angel S03 E05 – Fredless.