Previously: Spike wasn’t a Nazi, he just wore their jackets!
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Smile Time
Lorraine: Who gets the puppet episode? THIS GIRL.
I’m pretty pumped, but first, I wouldn’t be a true Snark Lady if I didn’t say that puppets will always and forever remind me of Goosebumps, and that one time we thought it’d be an awesome idea to cover all three Night of the Living Dummy books. (It was an awesome idea.)
Sweeney: Night of the Living Dummy is Traumaland’s One True Puppet.
Lor: Always and forever.
On to the episode: While the screen is still black, some jaunty, cartoonish music greets us. It’s coming from a TV show that features (BIG REVEAL) puppets! A sick child is lounging on a couch, watching this show. The puppets sing, “it’s Smile Time,” meaning a first ever Gold Star for a puppet:
Kirsti: Meanwhile, I get all excited because Sick Child is Mini!Dean Winchester, which makes me sad because LOOK, MINI!DEAN WINCHESTER HAS A MOTHER. *cries*
Lor: Sick Child’s mother is talking on the phone, presumably trying to arrange child care before her shift. She walks away and the puppet on the screen starts talking directly to Sick Child, reminding him that he made a promise of some sort. Sick Child doesn’t look like he very much wants to keep this promise, but the puppet is pushy, insisting that Smile Time isn’t free. Things take a turn for the weird sexual innuendos (seriously, just like Goosebumps) when the Pushy Puppet is all, “TOUCH IT [Sick Child]. C’MON. TOUCH IT.” Sick Child gets up and touches the TV screen and Pushy Puppet starts making very satisfied noises and I wonder if we’ve restocked on Brain Bleach since that whole Jasmine thing happened?
K: BRB, making a trip to Costco for more. (We buy in bulk because we know we’ll use it)
Sweeney: This is all so amazingly Goosebumps. Speaking of, remember that time R. L. Stine tweeted at Sara and told her she needed professional help? (And then we were all like, “Yeah, we know, that’s why we did what all good 20-somethings do with that revelation and started a blog.”) Good times.
Lor: Still one of my favorite Snark Squad moments, ever.
Sick Child’s eyes roll into the back of his head and he passes out. Pushy Puppet hears the mother returning, so he rushes back into the TV frame. Meanwhile, the mother finds her kid on the floor, unmoving but smiling.
Electric Cellos. (And thus ends yet another teaser featuring none of the main cast members!)
Evil Radio Shack. Knox hands Fred some files delivered by the courier. They are medical files on a “mini-epidemic” happening in LA. 11 children between the ages of 5 and 8 have been hospitalized and none of them have woken up. Fred assumes it’s mystical in nature. Knox asks why and she shows him a picture of a girl, in a coma, but her eyes wide open, face frozen in a creepy smile. I’m either never letting my kids watch anything with puppets or never having children. One of the two.
Knox suggests it was the Joker and Fred looks at him like he’s lame. (K: Obviously. He picked a DC villain to name drop.) (S: I liked this joke – reminded me of the hardcore BATMAN! vibes from the pilot.) It gets worse as Fred sees that she’s also holding a week late Valentine’s Day card from him. She smiles stiffly and reminds him that they talked about this already. He thought they could talk about it again. Fred tells him they have work to do, and pushes some samples into his chest, along with the card. He takes off.
Nina the Werewolf gets off the elevator and quickly finds Angel. It’s almost the start of the full moon, so she’s come to stay in her special quarters. They banter about the fact that Nina hasn’t told her sister that she’s a werewolf yet. When Harmony sees Nina, she jumps up to say her suite’s ready, but Angel offers to take Nina there himself.
Sweeney: Harmony does this little, “Get it, boss,” smile and nod that made me giggle.
Lor: Gunn asks Harmony if she got a receipt for some paperwork he sent down to the county clerk. Harmony remembers that they called back, and he actually sent them the wrong paperwork. Gunn is disturbed by his mistake. She asks if he did that on purpose as a sneaky lawyer maneuver and he says he totally did that on purpose, just so we’re clear that he did not, and something may be wrong.
Down in the Really Strong Cages Wing of Wolfram & Hart, Nina is doing her darnedest to get her flirt on with Angel. She tells him that she looks forward to seeing him all month and even asks him what he’s doing for breakfast the next morning. Angel says, “drinking blood,” and shuffles awkwardly away. Aw. Hey, wait, are they ever going to mention that the Cordelia thing happened?
K: NOPE. If there’s one thing this show doesn’t deal with well it’s discussing things that happened in previous episodes and how that effects the characters. Unless it’s Wesley’s slit throat. Which, now that I’ve mentioned it, how the hell does he think his throat got slit if he’s forgotten about Connor? Sorry. I’ll stop poking the plotholes now…
Sweeney: (1) That, in particular, is one plot hole I will never stop poking. (2) Shows doing things and then ignoring them seems to be a thing in Traumaland this month. I need to figure out how to call to request a little less of that.
Lor: We’ll flood the hotline.
Later, Angel tells Wesley all about his awkward response to Nina (“I ignored it completely, changed the subject, and locked her in a cage”) because it wasn’t just breakfast, it was breakfast. They had a platonic thing going on and then all of a sudden… Wesley interrupts to asks if he’s blind. Nina’s been giving clear signals off for months, and all the girls agree. “As Harmony put it, “Why else would a chick who’s coming to spend 3 nights in a jail cell dress like it’s her first date?”
To feel good about herself?
Because she likes pretty clothing?
Because she was somewhere important before coming to W&H?
For reasons that are none of your damn business?
NONE OF THE ABOVE. Because she likes a booooooooy.
K: BRB, picking up matches and flammable liquids while I’m at Costco.
Lor: Angel says the ladies are right, and Nina is downstairs turning into a werewolf and liking him. Unfortunately for her, Angel thinks he has no time and no right to do anything about that. Wes scoffs at the idea that he could achieve another moment of perfect happiness, since “99.999-ad infinitum percent of the best relationships in the recorded history of the world have had to make do with acceptable happiness.” That seems like a little, little bit of a different take on things that we’d seen before, but sure! (K: Retcon! Although only sort of, because we already established that CrAngel could have sex with Darla without losing his soul…) (S: It didn’t feel as retcon-y as other shit they’ve pulled lately. More importantly, that line got some major from-the-belly laughter out of me which isn’t a thing this show does a whole lot. A+ for you, Wes.) Wes tells him to stop hiding behind his gypsy curse, but Angel insists that he’s not “that guy.” “That guy is charming and funny and… emotionally useful. I’m the guy in a dark corner with the blood habit and the 200 years of psychic baggage.”
Sweeney: LOL again. This is a fun conversation. We haven’t even gotten to puppet!Angel and I’m already enjoying this episode!
Lor: Wesley yells at him to get over it, and Angel gives a funny, “why are you yelling at me?” Because, Angel. He’s projecting his own problems onto your situation. Angel soon picks up on that when Wesley says that if there is an attractive woman who doesn’t see you as a “sexless shoulder to lean on,” you have to make a move.
Their bro chat is interrupted when Fred comes in with her files on the Creepy Coma Kids Epidemic. Angel jumps at the chance to take on a case and while looking through the files notices that all of the kids were watching TV before they collapsed. After Angel leaves to follow that lead, Fred points out that he really jumped on the case. Wesley shares that he just realized Nina has feelings for him. Fred says it took him long enough and they share a smile over how dense Angel is. SPEAKING OF DENSE! Fred tells Wesley her car is in the shop again and starts to ask him for something, with a bit of a shy smile and eyebrow waggle so all the non-dense get where she’s heading. Wesley, though, picks up the phone and calls her a car service. It’s funny, right, because he’s missing her (recently changed) signs, but also, it kind of says a little bit about how Wesley sees Fred, that he thinks she would come to him to call a car service. WTF? She’s a grown ass woman with fingers and access to a phone.
K: Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Lor: Lorne is sitting with Angel, chatting about Nina. Angel shuts that down, because he wants to focus on the Creepy Coma Kids Epidemic. Lorne at first can’t think of any showrunners up to that amount of sinister, but suddenly realizes that there’s a kid’s program in the right time slot. Lorne shows us that picture of the girl with a creepy smile again and tells Angel the show is called Smile Time.
K: Can we give Lorne a gold star too? We all know that Lorne gold stars are the best gold stars.
Lor: You can award it to him in your heart.
KTCE Television. We flash to a NO VISITORS sign and then to Angel, walking around all visitor like. In the hall, a janitor doesn’t seem to see or notice Angel, who goes as far as waving a hand in front of the janitor’s face. The janitor walks on by. Angel trespasses on into the Smile Time offices, and the Soundtrack Man starts doing overtime as Angel wobbles a bit before walking deeper into the office. He’s following the sound of some rumbling, and finds a large filing cabinet. The cabinet is covering a hole-in-the-wall entrance.
Inside the tunnel, Angel finds another set of locked doors, simply labeled, “DON’T.” Angel breaks the lock easily and behind the doors finds a man sitting hunched over his knees, a towel over his head. He weakly tells Angel that he shouldn’t be here and the camera pans up to an oval-shaped darkness behind the man’s head. A light appears at the bottom, giving it the appearance of an eye opening. The light blasts Angel back out of the room and into a bunch of cardboard boxes. We can’t see him, but we see some stirring beneath the boxes when suddenly a little puppet hand pokes out. Puppet!Angel lifts himself up with a confused, “huh?”
Evil Radio Shack. Fred is crunching some data when Angel calls. She starts rambling about some pathogen Knox found which means whatever they are dealing with is probably not mystical. Angel yells over her to get her attention. It’s definitely mystical.
Cut to Angel Office. His chair is turned so we can’t see him. Fred, Gunn and Wes all walk in and he spins around. (GIF EXPLOSION STARTS NOW.)
From the get-go, you see everyone’s WTF face, and the struggle to keep their reactions in check.
Sweeney: GLORIOUS. THIS IS MY FAVORITE “BROUGHT TO YOU BY TUMBLR” IN A LONG TIME.
Lor: Fred is the first to approach Angel.
Lorne joins the Gang now and Angel tries to explain what happened. His version of events, “but then I met this guy with a towel over his head, and something exploded,” seems to push everyone toward laughter, but again, they try valiantly to contain it.
K: Meanwhile, I’ll be over here laughing about Puppet!Angel’s eyebrows. BUT I also need to stop for a second and talk about their work/life balance again. Because we already established that Smile Time is on between 7am and 7.30am. Which means they all got to work well before that. And we established recently that finishing work before midnight is basically unheard of for them. And NOPE NOPE NOPITY NOPE. There is not enough money in the world for that kind of shit.
Sweeney: They’ve clearly got a similar Time Warp going on here to the one in Rosewood.
Lor: Angel goes into the conference room, fumbles with the remote control and slams it when he can’t get it to work. In a bit of a weird line, Wesley suggest that the transformation may have altered his stress-response mechanism. That, or he’s really fucking pissed about being a puppet, you never know. Gunn jumps in on the weirdness and clarifies, “He’s saying that you have the proportionate excitability of a puppet your size.”
Smile Time starts and everyone’s attention is drawn. Fred makes a call and asks someone to record the program with all their nifty Radio Shack things, so they can analyze it later. As Puppet!Angel watches, and the puppets sing about self-esteem, his brow becomes more and more furrowed. He starts barking out orders, telling them to send helicopters and tear gas over to the station. Lorne says lots of kids love that show and they can’t just “toss a Jihad” (WHUT) at the studio. Angel calms down and agrees, instead sending Lorne and Gunn to meet the showrunner of Smile Time and Fred and Wesley to find out what’s happened to those kids. As they leave, he asks them all to keep his condition classified.
Nina lets herself into Angel’s office and he Puppet!Mario Jumps behind his desk. She hears him shuffling around under there and tries to talk to him about her previous night’s confession, but he tells her to GTFO. She does, sadly.
Angel is just lifting himself up when Spike comes strolling in, asking to borrow another car.
K: I wonder how much of that fight scene was acting and how much was James Marsters just laughing his head off because he had to film a fight scene with a puppet…
Lor: Gunn and Lorne find the Smile Time showrunner at his workstation. (K: And it’s writer and executive producer David Fury!!! Also known as The Mustard Man.) He’s upbeat and cheery, and knows exactly who they are, and what firm they represent. He has especially heard of Lorne, who has made big waves in their industry despite his “deformities.” Lorne seems shocked by this, so you have to wonder exactly HOW he’s been running around town and what his cover story is.
Gunn threatens to shut Showrunner down, but can’t quite muster up a convincing reason why. Showrunner announces his intent to fight them if they try to pressure or extort him in any way. Gunn tells him a fight suits them fine and they leave. We pan around Showrunner, down his back, where there is a gaping hole. Pushy Puppet remove his hand from his human puppet, which slumps down on the table.
After a Not Break, the whole Puppet Posse is meeting. Showrunner is twitching next to them. Pushy Puppet asks his companions, Girl Puppet, Dog Puppet and Toot Toot Puppet (give me a break, okay?) which one of them turned the CEO of Wolfram & Hart into a puppet. They all figure that it was Angel who broke into the Don’t room and messed with the Nest Egg. They are worried about the Angel problem, but have a plan to suck the life out of all of their viewers the very next day. (S: He calls it a Harvest, which gave me Buffy nostalgia feels.) Dog Puppet is excited to debut a new song about metaphors versus analogies. That sentiment earns him a coffee mug to the head. Pushy Puppet points out that they eat babies’ lives. Dog Puppet: And uphold a certain standard of quality edu-tainment. I mostly just quoted that for the word edu-tainment.
K: Totally a legit reason to quote something.
Lor: Anyway, the point is that they are pulling life forces that are innocent, which will have a huge market in hell. Showrunner weakly begs them to let him die. Pushy Puppet instead shoves his hand back in Showrunner, and I am highly disturbed.
Sweeney: It was really helpful for Pushy Puppet to include that total nonsequitur so that we, the audience, can understand the reason for his big! diabolical! plan! Better to reveal yourself to your minions, rather than in some mid-fight villain gloating.
Lor: Really Strong Cages Wing of Wolfram & Hart. Nina is about to take off her shirt, as it must be getting close to wolf o’clock. Puppet!Angel stands outside her door and calls out to her, apologizing for how he acted earlier. Nina says it’s fine. He probably has better things to worry about that a monster girl’s crush. At that Angel reveals himself. Nina asks if he’s okay, and he replies, “I’m made of felt. And my nose comes off,” which he demonstrates for us. (K: His nose coming off is quite possibly my favourite thing about Puppet!Angel.) Nina doesn’t know what to say. Angel again apologizes for that morning, saying he didn’t want her to see him this way. Nina wonders at him caring what people think since he’s a big HERO! (close enough to champion for a shot!) and she finds the whole vampire thing sexy. Puppet!Angel says that all sounds good, but it’s not how he feels. Nina knows. That’s what she likes about him. (…his insecurity? LOL. OKAY GIRL.)
Sweeney: So basically: he doesn’t knooo-oo-ooow – he doesn’t know he’s beautiful! That’s what makes him beautiful!
Lor: Angel sighs a big sigh and walks a couple of steps away to soliloquize about how bad he is at looking up and noticing what is around him. So of course, just as he’s saying he’s getting better at paying attention, Wolf!Nina grabs Puppet!Angel and gets to chomping. If you die as a Puppet, do you die as a manpire?
#thedeepphilosophicalquestionsofTraumaland
Lorne is walking through Wolfram and Hart when he finds Angel, stumbling along, hold his felt. I’m dying right now. He’s holding his felt. Lorne rushes over and grabs him in his arms.
Can you imagine how fun to shoot these scenes must’ve been?
K: I’m genuinely surprised they actually managed to shoot anything usable that didn’t just end in fits of hysterical laughter.
Sweeney: I feel like they should have made a separate gag reel for this episode. S5 Gag Reel + Smile Time Gag Reel.
Lor: Pimp My Brain Office. Gunn tells the doctor he’s losing his brain upgrade, which the doctor finds hard to believe. However, one light flash into the eyes, Dr. Squick is all, “yep! Totally losing it,” or rather, “acute “Flowers for Algernon” syndrome.” Gunn sits on the doctor’s chair and tells him to fix it. Dr. Squick chuckles that Gunn can’t afford his procedures. He got the brain upgrade because the Senior Partners wanted him to have it, which means they probably are the ones taking it away. Gunn is desperate not to lose the upgrade and Dr. Squick happens to have a squicky proposition for him. He has something held up at customs, some thing that Gunn the lawyer could help him retrieve (K: For those of you who can see the future: ohgodohgodohgodohgod). Gunn doesn’t make deals with people like Dr. Squick. Dr. Squick says he doesn’t make deals with people like high school drop-out, street muscle Gunn. He would make a deal with Charles Gunn, attorney at law, however. Gunn considers this.
Wesley and Fred are watching footage of Smile Time. Knox shows up with two coffees, one for him and one for Fred. There’s an awkward, “oh did you want coffee too?” moment with Wesley, who just turns away and gets back to business. Fred wants to comb back through the signal, earning loud protests from Knox who says they’ve already done that and everything is clear. Wasn’t Knox also the one who found something to prove the Creepy Coma Kids Epidemic wasn’t magical? #MMMHMMM. #OKAY.
Having had enough of his shit, Fred tells Knox to go home. He doesn’t want to abandon ship, but Fred insists and sends him on his way. He stops at the door long enough to see Fred hand her cup of coffee to Wesley. Once he’s gone, Wes casually asks Fred what’s up with her and Knox. She says they went out a few times, but she ended it because he’s nice enough, but doesn’t make her laugh. (K: Plus, you know, she’s his boss and EW.) This deflates Wesley. She’s looking for someone funny. Fred says she’s looking for a certain kind of funny, and it’s less that she’s looking for it, and more that she’s looking at it. Wes interrupts her, though, and doesn’t get the full sentence; he’s just spotted something on Smile Time. If the TV is on mute, Pushy Puppet gets up close to the TV and seems to be talking to the audience. When the song is playing, it acts as a cloaking spell for the soul sucking magic.
We cut to Angel’s office where he’s trying to stitch himself up. He’s got a few puppet scars across his face now. Wes and Fred come in with their cloaking spell updates. They tell a scowly Angel all about it, but don’t get a reaction until they say that destroying the Nest Egg will probably turn him back into a manpire. Angel celebrates by hugging Fred, and giving her big, puppy, puppet eyes. He realizes how awkward this is (because he’s eye level with her vagina) (K: And her skirt is at Buffy-in-season-1 levels of short just to make things even more awkward!) and backs up.
Gunn comes in, with a briefcase, so probably he’s back to being smart. Here is the proof: he knows it’s not Showrunner they have to go after, it’s the puppets. Showrunner signed a deal with some devils to get his show’s (local access) stats out of the toilet.
K: And apparently all demon deals get lodges in the Library of Demonic Congress. LOLOLOLOLOL.
Lor: Unfortunately, there was some really complicated legal-ese that only people like super smart Charles Gunn can understand in the contract, that gave the puppets control of everything including Showrunner. In order to end this, they have to take out the puppets. Angel dramatically grabs a sword from his wall and says, “let’s take out some puppets.”
We get a signature power walk, with Gunn, Fred and Wesley walking shoulder to shoulder. The camera pans down to where Puppet!Angel is leading them, sword across his neck.
Smile Time is on. A little girl watches in her room when Pushy Puppet instructs her to get up and approach the TV. He starts sucking the life out of the girl, announcing that it’s Smile Time when we hear, “no it’s not. It’s time to kick your ass all the way back to hell!” This is a fun game: how much more ridiculous does your show’s dialogue get when recited by a puppet? Angel: 1000xs more! It’s fantastic. (K: AGREED)
Angel attacks Pushy Puppet and Gunn beheads the Dog Puppet. Pushy Puppet sends Toot Toot after the Nest Egg. Fred and Wesley are already down there. Wes starts chanting but is grabbed by Toot Toot. Wesley yells at Fred to keep reading. Back in the studio, Gunn is attacked by the Girl Puppet. Fred keeps chanting while Toot Toot spins and throws Wesley. Toot Toot grabs a fire extinguisher and goes for Wes, so Fred’s finally all, “fuck this.” She stops reading and shoots Toot Toot.
Fred’s proud little, “yeah, it’s whatever,” head tilt after she shoots a puppet is precious. (S: I just wrote the word “PRECIOUS” in big letters.)
K: I agree about the preciousness, but that moment also grates for me. Because they made it out to seem like it was a BFD that Fred picked up a gun and protected her friend/love interest. And SERIOUSLY? Are we talking about the same Fred who invented an axe-throwing suitcase and who singlehandedly worked out a way to help her friends see Jasmine’s true face? Pre-season 5 Fred wouldn’t have dithered. She would have helped Wes defeat Toot Toot in like two seconds flat, and then they would have read the scroll together. In short: UGH.
Lor: The inconsistent depiction of Fred’s badassery is nothing new. I’ll focus on the precious.
Puppet!Angel karate chops Pushy Puppet and then starts choking him. Pushy Puppet says Angel has a little demon in him and he says, “I have a lot of demon in me,” AND THEN HE PUPPET VAMPS OUT. OH MY GOD. I AM DYING. Vamp!Puppet!Angel throws Pushy Puppet clear across the studio into some bits of the set.
In the tunnel, Wesley pulls Toot Toot’s horn out and it makes him spew his stuffing and go down. Fred finishes the spell and the Nest Egg cracks. Back at her house, the little girl from the beginning of the scene is thrown back away from the TV. She’s fine. (K: Although she looks a little like she’s been raiding Faith’s coma make up…)
Back at Wolfram & Hart, a naked Nina comes to. She has a bit of stuffing in her mouth and fears that she ate Angel. He shows up, though, so she scrambles for her robe and tells him to come in. He’s still a puppet. Apparently it’ll be a couple of days before he turns back. Puppet!Angel asks Nina out for breakfast, and bless her heart, she accepts.
Sweeney: They strut out hand in hand heading off to that breakfast, but maybe she’d like to put some real more-than-just-a-robe clothes on or something.
Lor: Or probably just wait until her date in not a puppet.
Fred goes to Wesley’s office. The Coma Kids are coming out of their stasis. Wesley is taking his leave but Fred stops him. She tries to explain about all the signals she’s been trying to give, but figures screw it, and kisses him. She asks if that’s clear enough. Wesley says no, but mostly because he wants more kisses. The self-esteem song starts playing again, as we fade to the end credits.
Sweeney: D’AWWWW!
Lor: Definitely one of the most enjoyable episodes of Angel. It’s in a mostly joking, mostly superficial way, but I think it works because there’s that hint of meta-humor that I love. All of the dramatic puppet!Angel moments felt like they were poking fun at those moments as a whole. There were a ton of heavy handed (but purposefully so) transitions or characters making declarations only to have them negated in the next second.
It was fake robot Papa Wesley who called Angel a puppet earlier this season, so it’s perhaps another bit of in-joking here to feature an episode where he is one.
I’m not saying one necessarily has to do with the other, but this episode was very light on Spike. And very enjoyable. (S: LOL.)
I don’t have any strong feelings about Wesley and Fred. I gave up caring about Fred’s love like many moons ago.
K: This is definitely one of my favourite episodes of Angel, and one of the few that I would happily watch again and again. It’s so ridiculously over the top, while also setting up a whole lot of stuff for the next episode. Which, NOPE. Can we just pretend the season finishes here???
Next time: Fred is infected by a demon and the gang need to find a cure ASAP BECAUSE THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE in Angel S05 E15 – A Hole in the World.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
