Previously: Buffy’s “Anne” fell into CrAngel’s radar for being loosely affiliated with Wolfram & Hart. She slapped Angel for screwing with her shelter for homeless/runaway teenagers. CrAngel totally deserved it.
—
Happy Anniversary
Sweeney: We kick off the episode upstairs at Brooding Hotel. Angel looks out the window as the tinkly pianos of feels play. We’re starting with the pianos of feels? I have no idea what’s about to happen, but as I’m not actually recovered from Buffy, I am upset about this.
Lorraine: I trust the Piano pretty implicitly too, so I’m upset about being upset and not yet knowing why I’m so upset. Way to go, episode.
Sweeney: Also trusting that Piano implicitly and therefore upset? Wesley. Except he’s actually about their grim situation in their dank new office. Cordelia’s trying to stay upbeat, because she still has the visions, and this is their future at stake. Lots of cheap laughs at the office being faily in every way, culminating with their non-working telephone and Wesley cutting the power when he tries to fix it.
We jump to Angel, in bed at the Brooding Hotel. He opens his eyes and hears the Star Spangled Banner. He goes downstairs to investigate and I flail because it’s Lorne. Best.
K: SO MUCH. Although I was confused at first because it totally sounded like a woman singing. Andy Hallett had some serious pipes on him.
Lor: And damn if his speaking voice doesn’t just woo the pants off me.
Sweeney: He is just amazing in every way.
Angel’s super grumpy about this wake up call, and asks why Lorne is there. “Tomorrow night. World’s going to end. Thought you might like to know.” That was the best “dropping by” scene ever. All the awards, Lorne. Cue electric cellos.
After the credits, Angel is skeptical of this apocalyptic business and Lorne is making small talk about what a bummer it is that Angel fired the Now Fangless Gang. (TRUTH!) He mentions something about the British boy playing a huge role in something that we don’t know because he stops short but probably the apocalypse. Or maybe an off Broadway play after he gives up on their post-Angel business venture.
K: Not gonna lie, after seeing Much Ado About Nothing over the weekend, I would pay to see that.
Sweeney: Lorne gets to story time. Guys, is this going to be a Lorne-centric episode? Because that’s amazing and exactly the thing my feels needed.
Lorne is telling his story with lots of side details and Angel tells him to get to the point. “I would if you’d let me get a word in edgewise, Mr. Get-to-the-pointy-pants,” Lorne sasses. So, this guy who appears totally unremarkable and wears glasses, like all unremarkable people on TV. No, wait, sorry, that’s Secret Hot Girls. (K: And Clark Kent. But also, A+.) Anyway, Lorne expects Mr. Unremarkable to be boring, but as it turns out, what Lorne sees makes him blackout. When he comes to, Mr. Unremarkable is gone, but Lorne saw that neither this guy — nor anyone else — has a future after 10pm tomorrow night.
Angel still doesn’t get why Lorne took this problem to him, now that he’s gone dark! and, like, didn’t everyone get the memo on that? He updated his Twitter bio and everything.
K: I am laughing so hard right now. I love you 5ever, Sweeney.
Lor: I started laughing all over again when I noted that Sweeney is clearly following.
Sweeney: Sadly, he’s not following me back.
But alas, Lorne pretends he has not seen Angel’s updated Twitter bio and wants Angel to step the fuck up and be a champion and also forget about those pointless, deadly missions Lorne accidentally sent Angel on. Angel asks why the guy split, and Lorne says that people often come in thinking that they want to know and then get cold feet. When Angel suggests that he just likes karaoke (and chooses to sing it in underground demon bars?) Lorne’s all, “Great idea, let’s go check some karaoke bars! Unless, you know, you’re too busy murdering lawyers and stuff.”
K: I love how Lorne can get away with stating the bleeding obvious on account of he does it in a funny way and Angel doesn’t quite know how to respond.
Sweeney: I have lots of other thoughts and feelings about this episode, but yes — putting Lorne to this excellent use was one of the few things this episode gets right.
We cut to an outside shot of a university. Mr. Unremarkable is inside a Lab of Sciencey Things thinking about something and two other people banter about him – a dude who is clearly jealous and a glasses-wearing girl. Girl Glasses informs us that Mr. Unremarkable is, in fact, remarkably smart. Sorry about the nickname, buddy. Girl Glasses goes to chat with Mr. Unremarkable about bending space and time and stuff. NBD.
K: YES AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH FOR IT.
Lor: Sween, you are racking up all the love this post.
Sweeney: SUCCESS.
Mr. Unremarkable has a plan for freezing time. His girlfriend shows up to mention that he has a date tomorrow night, and then makes a creepy face. This reminds me of when Veronica asks Mac if she’d ask someone out on a date if she was going to blow up the school before that day arrived and Mac’s all, “That’s the only way I’d ask someone on a date.” This tangent was irrelevant, much like the girlfriend’s arrival in this scene. She literally seemed to stop by to say, “Anniversary tomorrow!” and then awkwardly leave.
Lorne and Angel arrive at a karaoke bar, and Lorne can’t help but read the guy singing. Angel doesn’t want to hear it, though, as this is their 17th karaoke bar. The bartender then conveniently joins their conversation and I guess after 17 karaoke bars, The Powers That Be Contriving needed to step in.
Lor: Lorne, meanwhile, is just casually walking into all these places. Like “yeah. Wassup. Demon in the house.” OKAY.
Sweeney: Bartender is able to ID Mr. Unremarkable based on Angel and Lorne’s impossibly vague description (He’s, like, a person? And he a sang a sad song at a karaoke bar?) and sings for Lorne, so that Lorne can get a proper read and confirm that it’s the same guy. Lorne also adorably encourages the bartender to keep working on his novel, and sidebarring to Angel, “Gotta give the people hope.” CrAngel eyerolls in frustration that he’s reinvented himself and nobody understands the new him.
Lorne asks which university this grad student went to, so we can segue magic to Mr. Remarkable working late at said university. He turns on his machine and it’s glowy and has drippy water, all of which is a subtle appearance from our favorite Terrible Special Effects Team. This was not, however, what Mr. Unremarkable wanted to happen. He says it’s never going to work and storms out.
Two demons that basically look like withered mobster corpses emerge after he leaves because they’ve been lurking. One speaks in Subtitled Language, “He is the one. He does not know it, but he is the one.” K. I know it because the episode is about him. They say some stuff about human pestilence coming from nothing and returning to it, as they wave a staff with a glowy orb in front of Mr. Unremarkable’s Whiteboard of Epic Calculations. I should add that the more we see of them, the less mobstery they look. Apparently being in the shadows deceived me.
K: They remind me of a cross between The Gentlemen and a generic little old man from a non-specific sitcom.
Sweeney: That’s a much more accurate description.
Back at the Tragic Office of Misery, Wesley and Gunn tell Cordelia to stop with all the trying.
They further discuss their general lack of excitement and Gunn says the words of every upset person who is not in the mood to be consoled ever: “And don’t try to tell us there’s nowhere to go but up, because there’s always more down.” Virginia’s all, “Yeah, great, but I found you a rich client!” The job is helping said mega rich family (“They invented, like, chairs or something.“) scare off a demon who has been hanging around. Cordelia’s all, “YES, WE’LL DO ANYTHING,” and Virginia gets in a, “That’s so sad,” before continuing with the explanation, which includes the fact that someone has already died.
K: I’ve been wondering what the hell Virginia’s purpose was recently. Apparently it was “rich connections with demon problems.”
Lor: She’s pretty sassy too, and she said boredom can be cured with food, so she can stay.
Sweeney: This pretty well sums up my reaction to her presence: “Why do you exist? Never mind, I am mildly entertained by you, so I do not care.”
Mr. Unremarkable returns to his Lab of Sciency Things the next day and is all, “OMG THE ANSWER IS ON MY WHITEBOARD OF EPIC CALCULATIONS!” He makes some eight second changes to his machine, which glows to life again, before running across campus with glee. Not even making this up. This is what happened.
We see him run by the library before we segue magic to Angel and Lorne inside the library. Angel goes to the librarian who just happens to have all the books Angel needs sitting under his desk. It is a giant stack of yearbooks and faculty guides, which is also insanely contrivancey and eyeroll inducing. As they walk away, we see that one of the Generic Old Gentlemen Demons was listening.
Yeah, I had a whole sidebar about the college yearbook thing. It’s sometimes a thing, but not really, and is generally absurd, but nobody cares and aint nobody got time for me to elaborate on this, which is why I reduced that commentary to “insanely contrivancey and eyeroll inducing.”
Outside, Girl Glasses and Mr. Unremarkable’s girlfriend are having a little girl chat session. Mr. Unremarkable comes running up to gloat, just in time to overhear his girlfriend saying that she’s about to break up with him on their anniversary, after giving him the sympathy bone. This whole conversation is ridiculous and confirms that the girlfriend’s presence is, indeed, the product of pure contrivance. She insists that he was really sweet, but it’s not the kind of love that lasts, just to twist the knife as he sits there listening in. Rough, buddy.
K: Because, you know, we didn’t already have enough of the people-overhearing-things-they-shouldn’t thing in the Whedonverse today…
Sweeney: I swear to you that I typed that EXACT SENTENCE at some point, and I don’t know why I deleted it before saving this draft, so thank you for making sure that point was made. Snark Lady Brain Share.
In the library, Angel and Lorne have just spotted Mr. Unremarkable, who they now know is a very good physicist. Angel puts on a fake smile and pretends to represent a foundation with grant money and asks the librarian where to find Mr. Unremarkable. The librarian knows who he is because he’s totes famous on campus and has his own lab and everything. As Contrivance Librarian is explaining where to find this lab, he’s all, “Uh, what is that?” and Angel’s all, “NBD, mascot,” thinking it’s Lorne, before getting knocked out by a Generic Old Gentleman Demon.
We cut to Mr. Unremarkable in his Lab of Sciencey Things, looking at his still-on glowy machine. He creeps, “So I’ll give her the kind of love that lasts.” Oof. Really? Why does every failed relationship result in someone going crazy?
K: All it needed was an evil laugh on the end to be complete.
Lor: I guess when Angel is the titular character, going crazy for love is par for the course.
Sweeney: Back at the Contrivance Library, Angel fights the Generic Old Gentleman Demon. Lorne says something to it in his language and throws a book at it. GOGD ducks, though, so the book hits Angel in the face. LOLZ. This feels more like the beginning of S1, when we saw Angel getting beaten up a bit more for the laughs. WITH A GREEN DEMON BY HIS SIDE. Sorry. I didn’t mean to; it just happened. #doylefeels
K: DAMMIT SWEENEY *cries*
Lor: It’s like a naturally occurring phenomenon. DOYLE FEELS JUST HAPPEN.
Sweeney: Anyway, Generic Old Gentleman Demon runs off. Lorne says that he said that they came in peace and that the GOGD said, to Angel, “You shall not stop the golden child, the one for whom we have waited.” He adds that the Generic Old Gentlemen Demons are religious fanatics who want to destroy the world. Always with the destruction and the severing, Buffyverse religious zealots! Angel’s all, “DAFUQ?” which is about where I’m at too, Angel.
Lorne says that it’s obvious they’re dealing with a criminal mastermind, so that we can segue magic to Mr. Unremarkable doing science-y things. Lorne and Angel arrive at the lab, to find Jealous Guy equally unsure of Mr. Unremarkable’s whereabouts, adding that all of his stuff is gone too. Jealous Guy explains what Mr. Unremarkable was up to, and Angel still has, “HUH?” face, so Lorne clarifies: “Stopping time.”
The conversation continues in voiceover, with Angel asking how it would work, if Mr. Unremarkable could do it. Meanwhile, we see our heartbroken scientist in his apartment, with his machines. Jealous Guy goes on to reiterate “STOPPING TIME” in other words, specifically words that involve things-staying-exactly-the-same-forever as Mr. Unremarkable lays a rose on his bed. It really drives home the creep vibe.
K: Especially as the girlfriend was all “I’ll give him pity sex before I dump him on our anniversary.” And now he’s setting up the machines around the bed. In short: EW.
Sweeney: Angel and Lorne are driving through LA and Lorne lectures Angel on how he’s over his whole “sour puss” schtick. COSIGNED, EVERYONE. Lorne points out that Angel wouldn’t really give a shit if the world did end that evening, and that pushing his friends away was a disastrous move. This whole episode has been pretty clunky, but this Real Talk With Lorne chat is one of the least clunky elements, because this much needed conversation works coming from Lorne. I feel like the entire episode basically happened so that this could happen.
K: Agreed. I kind of wish they’d left out the rest, because it sucks.
Lor: Whatevs. I’ll take it just because of Real Talk. Someone needed to tell CrAngel to STFU.
Sweeney: Lorne wants Angel to tell him what happened to make him go all CrAngel and lawyer-murdering. Lorne sings, and that makes Angel snap, because CrAngel don’t do singing. He brats that he snapped because he’s screwed. Between the fact that he can never actually atone for 100 years of unthinkable evil and the fact that a team of brilliant lawyers are working full time driving him crazy, it’s too much. “Why the hell is everyone so surprised that it’s working? But no, it’s ‘Angel, why are you so cranky?’” I just quoted that because he called himself cranky, which backs up my fake Twitter bio in which he calls himself CrAngel.
Lor: It kind of made me feel bad about calling him crazy. There ARE a whole team of people trying to make you crazy. Fair.
Sweeney: Anyway, Lorne insists that things will get better, unless they fail to stop Mr. Unremarkable in time, in which case he’ll be frozen in his Epic Brood for all of time, which sounds awful. That’s like Middle School Forever levels of bad.
K: Truth. But CrAngel would probably be on board with that on account of he’s trapped in an endless cycle of brood.
Sweeney: Just then, a Generic Old Gentleman Demon appears and Angel hits it. They get out to inspect the body, and heaps more GOGDs appear from all over the place to stop them.
Back at Mr. Unremarkable’s apartment, the girlfriend arrives and they exchange greetings like they’re not about to break-up and/or freeze time to stay together forever and ever.
Then we jump to the rich family with the demon problem, where Rich Dad is congratulating the team on their successful demon murder. But it’s time for Wesley to play Mr. Green at the end of the Clue movie. This scene is campy and delightful, but it also feels jarring at out of place in this episode. I’m perplexed by it. Anyway, he Mr. Greens that someone was mind controlling the demon they killed in order to get all the money bags. It was Sweet Aunt Helen! In the library, with the magic!
K: Honestly, I wish this entire episode has just been Lorne sending Angel on a wild goose chase of karaoke bars, and therapist-ing him in between, and then the Fangless Gang dealing with the rich people’s demon problem. Because that would have been magical.
Sweeney: Wesley says something about the truth hitting you to segue to Angel punching a GOGD, who all patiently wait their turns to fight him one at a time, like good TV villains. Lorne watches for a bit, until a few come at him and he cripples them by belting out a high pitched note. I love Lorne.
K: Right there with you.
Sweeney: We cut to the Awkward Anniversary, which is now starting to feel appropriately awkward. Jump back to the fight, where Angel and Lorne are finally driving away. Back at the apartment, the Awkward Anniversary has moved into the bedroom, where the girlfriend is taking off her clothes for that sympathy bone.
As they have sex, Lorne and Angel arrive and spot another GOGD conveniently located to tip them off as to the whereabouts of the machine. The time stoppage is activated and we get a weird glowy effect (thanks Terrible Special Effects Team!) over the sex. So, his plan was to freeze them mid-fuck for the rest of eternity? That shit is just impossibly weird. Joss Whedon, I’m not sure why you made this episode that feels like a PSA warning us all against dating nerdy guys, but.. uh.. bad.
K: Joss really does love his PSAs. This one is creepier than most. Because that is the most disturbing plan of EVER.
Sweeney: Contrivance continues to cause the weird glowy effect take place in an insanely gradual fashion, so that the GOGDs fighing Angel are frozen as he gets close to the machine and flips it off just before the terrible glowy effect reaches him. ZOMG this is sloppy as hell. This is like, S1 Buffy level bad. It’s not quite I Robot, thanks to Lorne and the totally out of place Clue scene, but a general SERIOUSLY?
OK. A few minutes left: the glowy effect recedes and all goes back to normal. Mr. Unremarkable hilarious unfreezes mid-orgasm and is dumped shortly thereafter. (K: AWKWARD) Cut to later, when Lorne and Angel are sitting at his table and he is apologizing for fucking everything up because he just didn’t want his girlfriend to use her free will and leave.
K: Is it Wednesday? I could have sworn it was Monday…
Sweeney: Lorne encourages Angel to say something helpful, and he tries, but it quickly becomes super dark and Lorne has to step in for the recovery.
“It’s like a song. Now I can hold a note a long time – actually, I can hold a note forever – but eventually, that’s just noise. It’s the change we’re listening for. The note coming after and the one after that. That’s what makes it music.“
Lorne, this episode may be a cracked out mess, but I love you.
Mr. Unremarkable redeems himself with his apologies and the fact that his only response to Lorne’s speech is, “Do you guys like beer?” He leaves so that Lorne and Angel can revisit the Angel-left-his-friends-in-the-cold theme from earlier. He says he made it pretty hard for them.
With that, we segue to them partying at their dank, nasty office. Someone is lurking outside, though that someone turns out to be a potential client, rather than Angel. They usher him in and offer to go in back to discuss his problem. The lurker asks which one is Angel and they exchange awkward glances before Wesley says, “It’s just a name,” and we roll end credits.
Sweeney: Definitely. I liked that ending quite a lot. As with the last few episodes, I loved the Fangless Gang stuff. I even enjoyed all of CrAngel’s scenes with Lorne as his sidekick. This is sort of a running problem for this show — sloppy, ridiculous episodes redeemed by character moments. It’s hard-earned redemption on this one, because it contained pretty epic levels of ridiculous bullshit. I mostly had fun with this episode, once I accepted how low on the Sense Making scale it was going to fall. It was a fairly MEH episode on the whole, that I expect to fall somewhere in the bottom third when I rank this season.
K: Agreed. Like I said earlier, I would have liked it a LOT better if it had just been the Therapist Lorne stuff and the Fangless Gang stuff, without all the creepy “Imma stop time for the whole planet so my girlfriend doesn’t leave me” horseshit. Because UGH. Still, it’s not as creepy as the guy who could remove his own body parts in season 1, so…there’s that?
Sweeney: Thanks for that reminder. -_-
Next time on Angel: Angel adds the Fang back into the Gang when they fight zombie police in S01 E14 – Thin Dead Line.
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 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.
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.
