Angel S04 E22 – No earthly way of knowing

Previously: Connor murder!punched Jasmine in the face. Also, Lilah came back from the dead.
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Kirsti: We pick up immediately where we left off. Angel demands to know what Lilah’s doing there, but Wes insists that it can’t be Lilah on account of he chopped her head off. “There’s a signed dollar in your wallet that says different,” Lilah says. Wes turns away. Lilah looks to Angel and tells him to use his creepy vampire senses. He tells Wes that it’s really Lilah. Fred asks how it’s possible, and Angel uses his supersmelling powers to deduce that Lilah’s still dead. (L: EW. JESUS. WHY.)(S: Mega letdown because I was hoping for crossover magic with this being first!Lilah. Boo.)  (K: That would have been much better than reality.) Gunn asks if she’s a vampire, and she “EW NO GROSS”es before pulling down the high collar on her shirt to show the line across her neck from where Wes decapitated her, which means she can’t be a vampire. She and Wes share a meaningful look.

Gunn wants to know why she’s there, and she says that she’s just the messenger and will be Hell-ward bound once she’s delivered said message. Angel informs those of us who are forgetful that a contract with Wolfram & Hart extends beyond death. She tells them that she has an offer for them. Fred scoffs, saying that there’s nothing Lilah has that they would want. Lilah disagrees, saying with a smirk that this is the offer of a lifetime. Electric Cellos.

Lorraine: I giggled through most of that. I know Stephanie Romanov has only been missing for a few episodes, but I think I missed her. She’s just fantastic at playing Lilah. Plus, can we shuffle our feet and whisper, “awkward,” in Wesley solidarity? Because AWKWARD.

Sweeney: YES to all of this.

K: Agreed. YES. After the credits, Lilah’s clearly dropped her offer bombshell. The Fang Gang shuffle back and forth, various people going to say something and then stopping. Lorne, because he’s the only sensible one here, has a drink.

Lor: I really like this bit. Fred is trying to form words, Wesley awkwardly tries to figure out what to do with his hands, Lorne drinks, Gunn just kind of smiles, Angel finds a bit of shadow and leans against the door jamb to his office and Lilah picks lint off her sweater. I’m amused.

Sweeney: I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the bit without dialogue was one of the better moments of the season, but yes, agreed.

K: It’s a sad state of affairs that awkward silent lint picking was better written and acted than most of this season… After almost a minute of silence, Gunn speaks up: “You want to run that by us one more time?“. She tells them that they’ve won, Wolfram & Hart is ceding LA to them, and as a result, the LA branch is theirs if they want it. No strings attached. Fred points out that the Beast destroyed said office, and Lilah replies “Oh, it’s back, restaffed and zombie-free.” Which is, you know, a plus when being given an evil office…

Gunn’s confused as to why they’d need an evil law firm, seeing as how they’re not lawyers. “Or evil. Currently…” Fred points out. Angel wants to know why, and Lilah says it’s their reward for ending world peace. They insist that what Jasmine created wasn’t world peace, and Lilah’s all “LOL, OKAY.” She tells them to think about the offer, and that if anyone wants the grand tour, there’ll be a limo outside just before dawn. With that, she gives them a “thanks for ending world peace” thumbs up, and leaves. “We ended a nefarious global domination scheme, not world peace… Right?” Fred says. The gang all turn to look at Angel.

Out in the street, it’s still chaos. Connor walks a lonely road, the only one that he has ever known, don’t know where it goes, but it’s home to him and he walks alone. Sorry. Couldn’t resist… Also, it’s pretty accurate. (L: Truth.) He’s got his brood face on. He turns to see a guy on a nearby rooftop. We cut up there to see a cop pacing back and forth, muttering to himself. Connor walks up to him and asks if he’s okay. The cop says that he’s lost something and he can’t find it. He’s cradling his gun in his hands, and points it at himself when Connor tells him that the thing he’s lost (Jasmine’s love or whatever) is gone. Connor runs up and stops him, saying that it feels horrible now but it will pass. He takes the gun away, and tells the man to go home and not do anything stupid. Here, Connor, have a gold star:

Lor: BUT DON’T GET USED TO IT.

Sweeney: I hate when people we don’t like get the star.

K: Me too. Although this one was pretty easy to earn.

The cop pulls out his wallet and shows a family picture to Connor. Except it makes Connor pissed that the guy was going to leave his family to cope without him. The cop insists that he didn’t think of that. Connor starts punching the cop yelling “Think about this!”

Sweeney: Welp. There was Connor having a nice moment – talking the guy down from suicide and actually being a good person. Naturally, it took him 30 seconds to fuck it up.

K: Obviously.

Hyperion. Wes scribbles locations on a map, suggesting a search pattern to locate Connor. Gunn says that’ll take forever, and that maybe they’d find him quicker if they, say, had some extra employees and a state-of-the-art-possibly-evil law firm. Wes is all “SRSLY??” and Gunn says that he knows Wes won’t be satisfied with his current role forever. Wes sighs, and Gunn apologises, saying that it can’t have been easy for him to see Lilah again. “Oh, yes. That was awkward, wasn’t it? You decapitate a loved one, you don’t expect them to come visiting,” Wes replies, all stiff upper lip.

Lor: SEE? Awkward.

Sweeney:

K: A+ gif selection.

In the lobby, Lorne informs the gang that LA is kind of a trainwreck right now. Angel says that they won’t stop until they find Connor. Gunn starts to suggest Lilah’s offer, but backs down when Angel snaps at him. Angel says that Gunn’s welcome to take the Evil Limo, but he’ll be corrupted before he even gets in the front door. With that, Angel broods his way out the door to use his super smelling powers to find Connor. (L: Which, why didn’t he just do that in the first place?) (K: Shhhh, contrivance.) Fred starts to say that she can’t believe Angel would think Gunn meant W&H, but Gunn interrupts to say that he’s going to bed. Wes dithers vaguely for a moment, then heads home. Fred stares after him.

Later that night, Fred sneaks out of her room. She heads downstairs and out to the street. The limo is waiting. From behind her, Wes says that he doesn’t know how long it’s been there, because it was there when he arrived. Fred guiltily says that she thought she’d be the only one but that she figured they should know what Wolfram & Hart were up to. Gunn, appearing from the shadows, agrees. Wes says they should go in with their wits about them, because they don’t want any more… “Surprises?” Angel says from the shadows. He walks over to the limo and opens the door for the gang. Lorne’s already inside, cocktail in hand, listening to dance music and chatting to the driver, because OBVIOUSLY.

Cut to Wolfram & Hart. The gang walk out of the elevator into a busy lobby. Lawyers hurry about, all of them saying “Good morning, Mr. Angel” on their way past. “There’s no way this is going to go well…” Angel says, and I hand over to Lorraine.

Lorraine: I shall start my section by saying that “Mr. Angel” makes me laugh because it reminds me of that still wonderful, “Geraldo Angel.”

Sweeney: Thank you for that amazing blast from the past memory.

Lor: Anyway, Lilah leads a group of five people toward our Fang Gang. She’s wearing another shirt with a built in scarf to cover her decapitation. (S: It’s very Daphne. Slutty Daphne.) Lilah is not at all shocked that they showed up and offers to introduce each of them to their respective guides, as they all have different interests. Angel thinks this is a divide and conquer strategy and says that won’t fly. He looks to his friends for back-up but they stay silent, except for Gunn who is fixated on a hot girl. Because of course.

Lilah reasons that if she wanted to kill the Fang Gang, she would’ve blown up the limo. A man wheels in a cart full of weapons and she tells them they can arm themselves, if they’d like. Wesley says that wolfram & Hart are pretty honorable in their own way and that seems to settle it. Fred is the only one who picks up a gun from the cart.

Sweeney: Definite down moment for Gunn, who looks like a fucking idiot in this scene, but at least Fred gets points for grabbing a weapon.

K: And not just a weapon, but a machine gun. Homegirl’s the only one around here with a decent memory – “Inside the evil law firm that’s tried to kill us all a hundred times? TIME TO PACK SOME HEAT.”

Lor: The introductions start: Lorne’s guide is a young man named Preston who works in the entertainment division. He’s wearing a purple shirt and woos Lorne with a list of famous clients. Wesley’s guide is a tall, middle aged man, dressed in a suit who shakes his hand stiffly and has a British accent. Gunn’s guide is the hot girl who Lilah says he probably has nothing in common with. Hot Girl leads him away and Gunn skeeves after her. He’s making skeevy a verb. Fred’s guide is an awkward guy in a lab coat. (S: Played by a Whedon Hat Trick – it’s Buffy’s psych!vamp in Conversations With Dead People!) (K: I’m both thrilled and devastated over this particular Whedon Hat Trick…) That leaves Lilah with Angel. She calls him Charlie and offers to show him the chocolate factory.

Sweeney: A+ and 1430.

K: Damn. Why haven’t we been using that gif all season?

Lor: Just waiting for the right moment.

Gunn tells the Hot Girl (Lacey) that it’s pretty slick of them to isolate Angel, as bringing a CHAMPION! over to the dark side would be major. Lacey says that while Angel is a priority, all of the Fang Gang members are important. Gunn once again reveals his insecurities about being nothing but the muscle, thinking that Lacey is leading him to the security office, but she says she has something much grander for him.

Sweeney: Playing to Gunn’s just-the-muscle feelings of uselessness worked well with Gwen, but falls flat here. Easily the weakest of the W&H threads.

Lor: Agreed.

Fred walks with Science Nerd (Knox) down a white corridor. He explains that he’s R&D and then makes a joke about D&D that earns him a bit of a side eye from Fred. A bigger side eye when he offers to show her their actual dungeon. Knox cuts himself off and finally just says that he manages the science division, and Fred, if she joined, would be the head of the division. They reach the laboratory and Knox shows off a hand held device that hacks into nearby electronics. Fred is impressed.

Wesley enters a sophisticated, wood paneled room with Stuffy British Guy (Sirk). In the middle of the room is a long, narrow table which holds about 20 or so large volume books. Sirk calls it the ancient prophecies wing, and Wesley is not impressed. Sirk says looks can be deceiving and asks Wesley to name anything to read. He does and Sirk picks up the first book, whispers at it, and hands the book to Wes. When he opens it, it’s exactly the text he asked for. (K: WAAAAAAAAAAAAANT. Not for ancient prophecies, obviously. But for, like, a never ending stream of books I can’t afford.) Wesley drily calls it impressive and then asks if the Watcher’s Council knows that he stole the only copy of this codex he asked for. Sirk says that there is no more Council, which Wesley acknowledges, and so I guess he knows that they all got blown up? And that something was after the Slayer line? Whatever. He was pretty busy with Gina Torres and stuff.

Sirk says that these are complicated times and lines become blurry. He asks Wesley how he knew about his Watcher’s Council background and Wesley throat punches him and says it’s something about Watchers and libraries. Wesley flicks his wrist and from his sleeve comes some kind of super spy rig thing. He shoots a cable into the ceiling from the rig and it lifts him up.

Sweeney: The punch was a pretty BAMF moment. I still call bullshit on y’all asserting that sociopath!Wes was BAMF!Wes, but this? Yes. More please. The Inspector Gadget bit was silly, but I’m letting it slide for the A+ face punch.

K: Although Sirk being all “HOWEVER DID YOU KNOW I USED TO BE A WATCHER?” was bullshit because the minute he walked on screen the first time I saw this, I was all “Welp, that dude’s a Watcher.” I mean, tweed suit, British accent, and looks disapproving? Who else could he have worked for?

Lor: Plus, they were obviously strategically pairing them. Of course this dude was a Watcher.

Lilah lists a number of perks for Angel: money, clothes, women, a juice bar, plus she shows him into a nifty office with his own private elevator. Angel says he’s done with the tour and turns away from Lilah, who presses a button to show him the best part. The curtains pull apart and sun floods the room. Angel turns and immediately flinches at the light but nothing happens. There are super special, non-vampire killing windows installed all over the building. Angel closes his eyes and basks in the sunlight for a moment before tersely telling Lilah to shut the blinds again. She acquiesces, saying, “good-bye, Mr. Sunshine. Hello, gloomy avenger.” Avengers shots, just for Kirsti, who only drinks cider!

K: SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS!! (I also drink strawberry daiquiris. I’m honestly not sure which is less appropriate to drink in shot form…)

Lor: Angel tries to leave again, saying he refuses to be a part of the problem, but Lilah says it’s up to him. He could do a lot of good with the resources at W&H and beat the system from within the belly of the beast. (S: She also references the first episode of the season, saying he lives as though the world were as it should be, which was a nice callback.) Angel points out that that insinuates being swallowed and Lilah smirks. She hits him with some stats next: in the past 90 seconds, six people died. That’s probably true, but also a really vague statistic. Plus, there are 6,000 people who could be dying soon just up the coast. Lilah hands Angel a file and he looks in it: Sunnydale. Angel takes out an amulet. Lilah says that it’s crucial for some kind of final battle, Angel puts the amulet away and says that Buffy can handle herself.

Angel tries to leave again and Lilah tries to bait him with intel in other areas. Open homicide. Missing persons. This makes Angel pause and turn back. He wants to know what she knows about Cordy and Connor. She claims to know nothing, but one phone call could give him the needed intel. Lilah holds out the phone receiver toward Angel. He grabs it and hangs up, apologizing to Lilah, but saying that he’s leaving now. For real.

Angel tries to leave again again, but the phone rings and Lilah calls him back, saying the senior partners want him to see all the amenities before he makes a decision. Lilah presses a button and reveals a TV playing a news report. Angel seems pretty impressed with that, right up until he sees that the report is about Connor, taking a store full of people hostage. Angel grabs Lilah by the throat and pushes her up against a wall. He thinks Lilah or the senior partners set this whole thing up, but she says that he’s responsible for Connor, on account of not being around to raise him.

K: Lilah also tells him to be careful because her head comes off kind of easily now, which made me laugh more than it should. Mostly because it gave me a mental image of her carrying her head under her arm while eyerolling about how she warned him.

Lor: Angel tries to leave again again again, but Lilah tells him this is a one time only deal and if he leaves, it’s all off. Angel says he will never be a part of this DOT DOT DOT the way they want him to be. He’s going to tell her what the deal is.

Cut to Gunn and Lacey riding in an elevator. He’s still smirking and eyebrow waggling at her. He asks about the long elevator ride and she looks at her watch and says it’s time. A big, white button appears on the elevator panel, and she presses it. Gunn freaks because he doesn’t want to go back into the white room and meet the replacement for the creepy little girl. But, against his will, he materializes in the white room, alone. He protests, saying this room is for the big cats. And then Bagheera appears in the room. I’m trying not to jump to conclusions about a black panther appearing to this black man, right now. Let’s just watch and see. Bagheera walks up to Gunn slowly and stops just in front of him. Gunn looks down into his eyes and sees himself reflected in the surface. He smiles a little and Bagheera roars.

And with that, I hand over to Sweeney.

Sweeney: That might just be our best hand off yet. Magical. Your finale gif game is on point Lor.

K: So much. I feel like you need a trophy or a tiara or something.

Lor: Aw, you guys. STAHPIT.

Sweeney: We seizure cut to Connor’s hostages. A father is trying to console his daughter and Connor smarms that he’s not holding her right and he better do it right or else he’ll wear the guy’s skin. He goes to inspect his bombs and super smells Angel’s arrival.

Wolfram & Hart: Watcher Seduction Tour. Wesley made his way down to the actual basement of actual research. Lilah appears to say that he finally got there to all the important information and Wes realizes that he was meant to wind up there.

Lor: That is some bullshit. Everyone else got escorted to their destinations and Wesley has to super spy his way there? Rude.

Sweeney: It doesn’t seem that Lilah deduced why he ended up there, though. He’s rummaging through files to find Lilah’s contract so he can torch it and release her. That’s the sweetest thing he’s done in forever. I have a soft spot for men with the decency to not want women’s souls owned by contracts. *cough* Unfortunately, a new contract materializes. Lilah says that the flames wouldn’t be eternal if they actually consumed anything, but it means something that he tried.

K: I don’t know who I have more feels for at this particular moment. 

Sweeney: There are just a lot of feelings.

Sociopath Shopping Center. Connor starts exploding shit and tells Angel that he can’t save everybody since they’re all rigged up to bombs and he can’t know who will be next. “Even her,” he adds, standing aside to reveal comatose, bomb-rigged Cordelia. After a Not Break Connor does his big Nobody Loves Me sociopath monologue and deep as my teen angst soft spot is, I have NO FUCKS to give for that speech when it comes attached to a giant bomb threat. Mega nope. Angel still gives a few paternal fucks and begs Connor to start over with him. He tears up, and I have half a fuck to give for that because Team Feels.

Lor: This isn’t working for me either. I can’t even with this reaction right not. It’s empty because I don’t totally buy his 2 day attachment to Jasmine. But whatevs, dude.

Sweeney: I don’t have to think about it too long, because Connor initiates destructo sequence and the fight begins. Angel manages to disable Connor long enough to free the non-comatose civilians and send them running. Connor tosses him aside but Angel throws a knife at him. Connor’s down and Angel insists that he really loves him and will prove it…BY SLICING HIS THROAT. I hate Connor, I do, but I think slicing your child’s throat is sort of instant WORST PARENT status.

K: Apparently I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at this point of the episode, because I read that sentence and was like “WAIT, WHAT?!?!?!?!” and had to go and check a transcript to confirm that this was what happened.

Lor: Well Angel definitely makes a slicing movement near or around his throat, though the scene washes and fades out before you are sure what’s going on. It did, however, play to me like Connor was asking him to end his life. “Prove it,” he says as Angel was holding a knife above him. It’s clear he wants out of the pain and suffering and I think we’re meant to believe that Angel was giving him that out.

Sweeney: Speaking of this episode’s quest to hurriedly put S4 behind us and contriving a completely new beginning, we cut back to the Wolfram & Hart lobby where the others congregate one at a time and gradually reveal that they all decided independently take it. (Gunn doesn’t reveal what Bagheera told him. Bummer.) Angel enter-nounces that he already took the deal. Lilah waltzes in and a very somber Angel assures her that, “It’s taken care of.”

Cordelia is still in a coma but is being well taken care of medically and meta-physically. Angel says he needs to see Connor, but Lilah says it wasn’t part of the deal. Lilah relents and hands him back the Sunnydale file and amulet before telling him that the limo waiting outside will take him to see Connor.

“Who’s Connor?” asks Fred as Angel leaves. LOL. I wish we could ask questions like this. Hilarious. I can’t even whine contrivance here because it’s perfect contrivance. “We realize that everything about this character was a bad idea. Here, let’s just wipe some memories and make it all go away, all right?”

K: Meanwhile, I’m over here hating the “changing everyone’s memories for them” plotline, because UGH.

Sweeney: Angel’s limo takes him to a cabin in the woods (but passing no magic honeycomb force fields). He shadowlurks and observes Connor sitting at dinner with his loving family who are discussing how he has his pick of colleges. I flail a little because I was in plays with the girl playing his little sister. She’s done some Broadway stuff and was touring as Young Cosette a little before this episode was filmed. (We’re also about to meet his That Guy dad as Ali’s dad in a few more episodes of PLL. Weird.)

Connor makes a toast to family so that we can cut back to Angel’s brood moving to a small smile. All right, fine, maybe not so much with the Worst Parent, but, like, he sliced his kid’s throat, so. There’s that.

Lor: Plus for a guy who was all FREE WILL. FREE WILL, DAMMIT. erasing and replacing someone’s memories is… not free will. WTF.

Sweeney: Absolutely. Plus? This poor random family! Acquiring Connor memories! Rough.

End credits.

This was quite a way to end things. It was a big old, “Look, we tried a thing and it clearly failed so let’s all just move on to this other completely different thing. We’ll get there as quickly and efficiently as possible since, at this point, the gang working for Wolfram & Hart makes more sense than anything we’ve done all season.” It was also one of the more enjoyable episodes in a good long while.

Fun fact about my weird one late-S5-episode-of-spoilers: I’ve long been watching trying to figure out how Angel ended up running shit at W&H. It’s all very hilarious and, “Of course,” that it was this abrupt and, “Yeah, sure.” I can’t stand Connor, but giving him this ending was less about Connor than Angel and I like it for that reason. I’ve appreciated the few dad moments that he’s gotten to have so I love that his ultimate sacrifice, his decision to cross the line he refused to cross, was for Connor. He wasn’t even willing to do it for Buffy – or at least Buffy alone. I suppose it occurred to him that she’d be a bonus perk, but I like that Connor was his ultimate reason, for the sake of his own character more than Connor’s.

K: BRB, scooting my ottoman closer to the Asshole Corner so I can laugh hysterically about the fact that Sweeney thinks she knows anything about how season 5 is going to go. 

Sweeney: I mean, my point was actually how little I know, even now in what gets us to that one point I’ve seen, but OK.

Anyway. I loved having Lilah around. This was a great episode for Wes. Decent for Fred and subpar for Gunn, though the Bagheera bit was random and delightful. Lorne was also reduced to his cheapest form for time constraints, but his cheapest form is still enough fun for that not to be a problem.

In short: I’m not retracting my basic opinion of this show as a whole, but this was a fun episode and if I try not to think about the impending arrival of Ramen Noodle Head, I’m almost looking forward to S5.

K: I’m definitely looking forward to season 5. Partly because there are some insanely hilarious episodes (Non-Snows, you know exactly what I’m talking about), and partly because it means we only have 22 episodes left of this ridiculous show. ONWARDS.

Lor: LOL. Ramen Noodle Head.

While this episode did a good job of moving the story forward, sorry, but I’m just not convinced by the story– that Wolfram & Hart would offer up their LA branch and that the Fang Gang, after an hour or two of wooing, would be all over it. Though, it kind of seems like it didn’t matter because Angel, in another excellent free-will-ignoring move, has accepted the position for them all. 

It truly did feel like a reset button, but one that is not wholly unwelcome.

Next time on Angel, SEASON 5. Also, Angel gets a parcel from Sunnydale. Find out what’s in it in S05 E01 – Conviction.