Angel 5.7: Lineage

This week on Angel: Cyborg Ninja Assassins!

Not only are they cyborg ninja assassins, they’re face changing cyborg ninja assassins! How FABULOUS is that! Cyborg ninja assassins are ALL the rage! You know it’s going to be mere episodes before these puppies end up on Alias. They’re that cool. And JJ Abrams is on that much crack.

But I digress. As stated above, this episode is chock full of cyborg ninja assassins. There is also a plot involving more father issues than Joss can shake a stick at and Eve develops a staring-at-Spike problem. Could Whedon’s father just apologize already? Shit.

Turned on by a woman holding an enormous gun. What a surprise.

We first meet these cuddly harbingers of ninja doom in the middle of a guns deal gone horribly awry. Wesley and Fred were attempting to infiltrate an arms dealer’s group when they got totally shown up in the badass department by cyborg ninja assassins. Everyone gets their ass kicked, Fred gets hooked (not that we get to see it or anything, because ME doesn’t believe in giving anyone a happy ending ever, as we all know), Wesley revives the side dive/roll he perfected so well a season or two ago—and we just need to take a little break here to ponder the whole side dive while shooting two guns thing. It’s everywhere, you can’t get away from it. And what I want to know is, is this responsible TV? Some young thug out there some day is going to try this move to save his ass, and his ass is not going to be saved. His ass will, in fact, be the opposite of saved. So probably dead, or at least severely bruised. Perhaps shows like this should put little disclaimers on them at the beginning, like “side dive, double fisted slo-motion gun action for entertainment purposes only and performed by professionals. Please do not attempt this in a gunfight, as it is not actually very useful or safe. We will not accept responsibility for the cap in your ass if you do.” Let’s keep America’s kids safe, okay?

Anyway, Angel shows up in the middle of the ninjaing. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, and I don’t really care, all I know is he comes out of nowhere and flies through a window before dispensing his own brand of dead boy-fu. After dispatching of the CNAs, Wesley and Angel are denied their post-fight head butts of pride because someone starts mewling uncontrollably. That would be the hooked Fred. Killing the fun like always.

Back at the law firm, Angel rips Wesley a new one because he took Fred out and endangered her. Ye gods, I cannot tell you how stupid this is. She fights evil. She’s been out to battle before. She lived in a cave while dodging psycho Pyleans. What, now that they have dispensable, morally ambiguous people on the lackey payroll Fred’s not good enough to go out and get hurt? They send red shirts out knowing damn well they’re coming back in buckets, and Fred’s too Fred to go on a mission? Bite me.

While Wesley and I both recover from Angel’s hissy fit, which the ever-helpful Eve thinks was set off because Angel’s still annoyed at Wesley for the whole kidnapping his son thing even though Wesley doesn’t remember it and now it technically never happened, Fred trots on over to Wes’ office to show him her cool sling. I suppose it should come up too that Eve says Wes is a “sees the big picture” kind of guy, because Angel tosses it out there at the end when consoling Wesley for shooting the cyborg ninja assassin he thought was his father, so I’m just gonna mention it.

I may have just given away the surprise ending there. Woops.

Anyway, Fred comes traipsing into Wes’ office and reams him for being condescending when he said he should have protected her or something right after Angel reamed Wesley for not being condescending to Fred, and at this point Wesley isn’t really sure if he should be grabbing his ankles or what, when his father shows up and instantly begins berating him for being an embarrassment and a failure and an all around bad son. He seems rather disappointed in his son’s current employment and says the WC wants him back. Even though everyone and their reference materials were all blowed up and the Slayers aren’t really taking orders from the Nancy tribe anymore, Wesley falls for it because he loves his daddy, no matter how much his father tells him he sucks.

Really? I beat out everybody dying in an explosion as most embarrassing failure?

The horrible father/son bonding continues up in the lab where the smart smart people are dissecting the CNA from the beginning scene. All I can say about this scene, besides the fact that Wesley starts a panic when he sets off a self-destruct device because, as his father rudely points out in front of the girl his son likes, he read the manual wrong, is that Knox is in the hizzouse. Knox, sadly, is totally and utterly wasted and is given nothing but really stupid lines to utter. Rather than recap them and the rest of this useless scene (Wesley has Daddy issues. We get it. We’ve gotten it ever since under my skin in season two, okay?), I would like to present to you a list of things that Knox could be doing that would be a much greater use of his Knoxosity than saying things like “we’re detecting blah blah blah with the blah blah blah”:

1. Say things like “we’re detecting blah blah blah with the blah blah blah” while shirtless. (that one’s really for SP)
2. psycho-analyze Spike. shirtless (what? They’re going to stick Spike in there anyway, it mine as well be in a scenario I can enjoy. And I’m sure it’s insanely hot there in W&H, what with them being so close to hell and all. The boy might want to take off his shirt.)
3. Stage an exciting and dramatic coup, wherein he emerges triumphant and makes the Fang Gang his bitches. Shirtlessness optional.
4. Spins off to his own series about hot lab assistants, their madcap lives and the recappers who love them. Just a thought.

But this isn’t fairyland, and < spoiler alert >Santa Claus isn’t real < / spoiler alert >, so let’s continue.

Everyone goes into hyper drive trying to sell Wesley to his dad. Wesley bumbles around negating everything they say about him being cool because his daddy makes him nervous. He shows his daddy his prize magic books and after some hemming and hawing and cyborg ninja assassin ass kicking, his daddy knocks him out. His daddy wants a staff Wesley has in his office safe because he wants to control Angel. I dunno. It’s kind of dumb. And at this point I get sort of bored with the episode, and just want to cut the recap off right freakin’ here, so maybe we should see if SP watched it?

In case she hasn’t: It’s not Wes’ dad, it’s a Cyborg Ninja Assassin. They comment about how hard it is to get into W&H, even though it seems Wesley’s cyborg ninja father just sort of walked right on in unannounced without being stopped. The Ninja assassin cyborgs may have been good and just hate Angel because he was bad and they think he’s dangerous at the law firm. And they’re not entirely wrong. Angel exposits that the possibly good CNAs must have gotten everything they need (psych tests, every moment between Wes and his daddy ever) from the WC’s blown up files. Fred is a dumbass and Wes shoots the ninja assassin when he thinks he’s his dad because the ninja assassin threatens Fred.

Well, like I said, don't beat yourself up. You know. I killed my actual Dad.

He shoots his father because he threatens the girl Wes has a crush on.

Heard what happened up top. Offing you're dad and all. I don't know if you know this, but I killed my mum. Actually I'd already killed her, and then she tried to shag me, so I had to uh.

Without hesitation. Just chew on that, yo.

If you're here to tell me about how you killed your parents, perhaps we could wait for another time.

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