beginning | blinding torment | boils | lies | making me bitter | evil compounds evil | blah blah bity blah


 


























Guess what I'm not doing? Breathing.



Guess what Dru's doing? Apparently breathing. The dumbass. Did no one tell her vampires don't need to breathe?








 

 

 

 



Are you pondering what I'm pondering? 


 

 

 

 



Angel 5.1: Conviction


Against my better judgment, I watched the Angel season five premiere. And, for the record, it wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be . Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the fantastic new beginning I’ve seen touted from here to kingdom come, but it didn’t suck. I like the new liaison to the powers of darkness, Eve. I don’t hate Harmony. I think it’s stupid she’s willingly off the smack, but I don’t hate her. I miss Lindsey still, but I’m coping. And most importantly I didn’t hate the plot. Considering I skipped the last half of season four because it was so inane I couldn’t handle it anymore, that’s, like, a seriously glowing compliment from me.

 

But what actually happened?

 

Well, if you missed the first few minutes, you missed Fred filling ya’ll in on that in her “cute” run-ony way. So you’re lucky. Basically, for those of you that skipped last season and aren’t spoiler whores like us (for though we skipped the episodes, we know everything that happened. So it’s almost like we watched it, without the actual inflicting of physical pain on ourselves.), the Fang Gang got offered the LA office of the multi-dimensional law firm Wolfram & Hart to do with as they see fit. Now, instinctually they’d shut the puppy down, but as Eve points out, if they do that, they lose their in. So instead they have to get all “shades of gray” on our asses and go through their client list, deciding who’s really evil, who’s evil evil and who’s just sort of naughty. Not an easy task.


Now, uh, the vampire that you terminated, he actually did work for one of your clients.
So, but, hey! First week, no one will squawk, ok?.


All this, while dealing with the fact that they’re not sure why they’re there and they’re worried about turning evil and what really matters here is that Holden’s back. Oh, sure, he’s called something else…possibly Knox, but it’s still our Holden. Sadly, he’s Fred’s lab assistant, so it seems that to see him I’ll also have to deal with Fred, but for Holden? I’ll make it through a thousand rambling sentences of idiocy. I’m just that kind of girl.


What, because we're crusaders against evil and now the law firm that represents most of the evil in the world has given us its L.A. branch to run however we want, probably in an attempt to corrupt, divide, or destroy us, and we all said yes in, like, 3 minutes?


Moving on, Cordy’s in a coma and I’d care, because it’s fucked up she’s gone and all since she helped start this show, but they destroyed her character so totally and completely that I’m not really shedding a tear or anything. Connor, the albatross around Angel’s mopey neck, is gone. Angel traded himself or his soul or something to kill Connor to give him a normal life. Or something. I didn’t actually see the episode, but I hear he stabbed him and then Connor was a normal boy in a normal family and he doesn’t remember the Fang Gang and they don’t remember him. Woo! Angel does, of course, because he needs a reason to mope, and Eve knows, presumably so she has something to annoy him with. Oh, and Harmony is back, hand-picked by Wesley to be Angel’s secretary. And if that’s not Wesley trying to drive Angel up the fucking wall, I don’t know what is.

 

So let’s see, Angel’s the boss boss with necro-tinted glass, meaning ME has finally found a way to just completely ignore that pesky daylight thing they painted themselves into a corner with nigh on 8 years ago, Fred’s the brilliant head of the brilliant science department that does good as well as evil, Gunn isn’t really anything until they send him to some cheesy brain dude who straps a contraption that looks like it came straight out of Pinky and the Brain to his head and fills it with every legal fact ever. So he’s a lawyer. Who knows all the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, because Eve feels it’s good for elocution. Wesley heads the library or something, I’m not really sure, and Lorne heads the entertainment division.

 

Angel’s new morally-difficult job comes with perks: his own wetworks squad, 11 cars or so with the previously mentioned stupid tinted glass, a private elevator, a big office and what seems to be an apartment in his office. I’m gonna miss that big, empty hotel. I am. But then again, I just saw part of Room with a Vu on TNT, and realized that I miss the old office too. And the old Cordy. And Doyle. And a show that was cool and didn’t suck. So I’m all nostalgic and stuff, and I’m sure this whole hotel missing thing will pass.

 

Fuck, people, I miss Kate. It’s just wrong.

 

Anyway, a case comes up. Someone whose name I didn’t bother to learn because he won’t be back, is going to be convicted of bad things. Of course he did said bad things, but if they don’t clear him, he’s going to unleash a virus or something on the entire city by just saying a magic word. Instead of finding ways to make him mute, the gang scrambles to their own respective specialties (Fred to the lab to freak out on poor Holden’s ass because she thinks the lab created the very bad thing, and maybe it did but leave Holden the fuck alone, Wesley to his books, because he’s not actually allowed to be cool ever, and Angel goes to kick some ass) and sends Lorne to watch the proceedings of the court, to report back and stuff.


Don't get someone on it, have someone on it. Did we build this thing? Do we have an antidote? Do—do we have an Antidote Department? Do you do anything besides pretending you're running an evil Radio  Shack?


Angel goes to a guy who made a magical container for the bad man with no name. The guy likes to be called Spanky, and he likes to spank things. Presumably women, since he tells Angel he doesn’t spank men. Angel does, though, and bitch slaps his ass across the room to get the information he wants. But before this, I would just like to point out that Spanky attempts to choke Angel, a la Spike choking Dru until she passed out in Becoming 2, and Angel blithely says he’s not using his windpipe. I just sort of, you know, wanted to point that out and all. No reason.

 

Turns out, the Spanky dude made a vessel to hold the really bad thing, and the vessel was somehow this very bad man’s son. I don’t know if he cast a spell on the boy, or if he created the boy, or if the boy’s a walking talking robot type boy who doesn’t know he’s not really a real boy but actually a vessel for evil, but any way you slice it, Angel’s pissed. Because of his own love for his own very special boy, you know. So Angel takes it all personally and goes to the school to quarantine the boy in his very own helicopter. Oh yeah, he has a helicopter. Just one more perk to balance out the non-perks, ie working for evil, having lawyers follow you as you try to rescue people and making them sign waivers thereby diminishing your cool factor, etc.

 

Now, don’t worry, he hasn’t gone all shallow and taken the copter to show off, but rather because the wet works team eavesdropped on him and decided to go on in and take out anyone in, oh, a 50 meter radius or something. I don’t remember, I wasn’t really listening. Angel beats them, because he’s the conflicted good guy, somehow empties the school, and kicks the shit out of the wet works team. He kills the head wet works dude before he can tell us how tradition works because he’s all out of mercy, which saddens me but does save the ME team with having to make something up, so I guess that works out for everyone involved. But me. But whatever.


You really think you can solve the problem? Come into Wolfram and Hart and make everything right? Turn night into glorious day? You pathetic little fairy.


Back at the courthouse, Gunn struts on in to save the day, all suited up and tarty. He messes with the judge in some very abstract way having to do with obscure stocks she holds which create a conflict of interest and gets the trial called off until another judge can be found. Gunn feels he can hold this out for years, and the very bad man will have to behave until it’s all settled, giving the Fang Gang time to work out the whole virus/vessel thing and Eve’s real proud of all of them—especially Gunn who, she points out, did it violence-free. Woo!

 

To ensure that this episode does not end on a high note, we are then treated to Angel opening up an envelope containing the Amulet of saving-Buffy’s-ass and, of course, in a swirl of wind, up comes Spike. Yay.


Blondie bear?


 

angel 5.2: just rewards