Well…
I guess we had to hit one at some point or another with 'Angel'.
Let's rip this band-aid off.
"I get...visions."
"We do things a certain way in L.A.."
"I'M BAD!"
Cordy and Doyle are trying to figure out how Angel Investigations is supposed to make money if Angel won’t charge.
They try to have a monetary intervention with Angel
and Doyle has a head splitting vision of a woman in an office somewhere.
Angel sets off to save the day.
“Maybe I’m a little attracted.”
At the office in question, we meet Melissa,
who is unnerved by the arrival of a gift of flowers.
Angel approaches Melissa in a parking lot
with a SLIGHTLY more developed approach to a stranger after three episodes of warming up.
Melissa is distrusting and uninterested and drives off.
At an ATM, Melissa tries to access her bank account.
"I changed your pin number.”
"I mean, Melissa, your birthday?"
Ronald is a creepy stalker who appears to have strange vision into Melissa’s life.
Uh, by the way, we’ve met Andy Umberger already, playing Ronald here.
He’s the actor who plays D’Hoffryn, Anya’s former boss
and is one of five actors to have appeared in every Whedon show.
Melissa, terrified, and now a paying client returns to Angel.
They take on the case
Angel tries to enlist help from Kate.
Kate shares a history of violence and rich legal action from Ronald.
At Melissa's place, a police officer stumbles on a man stalking from outside.
Turns out he has no hands because his hands are inside groping Melissa.
We get a scene that TRIES to be horrifying,
but 'The Addam’s Family' visuals deeply undercut the insane amounts of tensions they're shooting for.
['The Addam's Family' theme]
Angel prevents the attack
and Kate wonders incredulously to Angel how
No Hands
McFloaty Balls can do it.
The gang attempts to hole up Melissa at Casa de Angel
but Captain Jimmy Hands breaks in without a problem.
"I think you disappoint yourself."
“I think you gave up on being loved a long time ago"
"...and now you’re just another creep who gets off on pain.”
This kind of gets at the root of "she has to solve this problem for herself"
...but comes out of nowhere
Angel knocks Captain Handsy’s head off
and Melissa pays the gang for their services.
I couldn’t help but wonder...
he can make his hands,
eyes,
and general extremities levitate and go places.
Can he...
...you know...
....leviate...
...uhhh...
…ALL his parts?
YOU KNOW Joss and David decided that one.
Now, I get what they were going for,
it’s just unfortunately this episode feels like
deficient pantomime of much better material.
That being the back half of 'Buffy Season 2'.
So Ronald, the doctor, is the avatar for Angelus,
stalking and obsessed with Melissa, the Buffy of this story.
Ronald says he loves he but as Melissa points out this isn’t really love.
"I know it's not love!"
“It’s obsession!"
"Selfish, banal obsession!”
Her description of Ronald as just a sadist who gets off on pain is also fitting of Angelus in 'Season 2',
and Angel’s fight here to protect Melissa is him trying to pay the debt for the 'Buffy Season 2' part of himself that is still there.
I think as viewers, Angel’s guilt can be frustrating to watch
because we so cleanly distinguish between
Angel and Angelus,
souled and unsouled,
but Angel isn’t really capable of making that distinction for himself so easily.
He holds the memories of Angelus' actions as though it was he himself who did them.
And if a vampire maintains the same impulses as its human had,
think Jesse in the pilot of 'Buffy',
just simply with conscience and restraint stripped away
then Angel can feel that some of his actions as Angelus
were driven by impulses he had,
has,
and may always have.
Now just that brief reflection on the 'Buffy' lore highlights a glaring flaw in this episode.
Melissa and Ronald are interesting in reflection
...as symbols.
But as characters they are two flat tires on this episode’s bus.
Melissa is whatever the plot needs her to be at any one moment,
scared and distrustful,
vulnerable and afraid,
and, for no meaningful reason,
...brave and courageous.
There is no through line there.
And Ronald,
while successfully seedy and gross
suffers from such debilitating stupidity that mostly I’m never rooting for or against him.
I’m just wishing the episode was over.
The writing credits for this one are as confusing as the episode is a mess.
Joss Whedon AND David Greenwalt wrote this?
There are even one or two DEVASTATINGLY bad lines.
“You’re a lot smarter than you look."
"Of course,
"..you look like a retard.”
What?
Really?
The two creators made this?!
Bizarrely, one of the bigger misses here is Cordy.
I have to imagine she’s a difficult character to write.
Cordy has been constructed as an honest and incisive Alpha.
Tactless by choice.
But here, she is just a mouth out of control.
“You should listen to him, Melissa."
"He knows what he’s talking about."
"He has stalked plenty of..."
In that form, the character falls a little flat,
traipsing into ditz territory which I have staunchly maintained that Cordelia is not.
The episode reeks of good intentions
...but failed execution.
I wonder if the creators looked at the previous three episodes
and felt like Angel saving woman after woman
...had begun to regress a bit on 'Buffy'’s feminism.
Kate has the significant line here:
“He took this girl's power away and nobody can get it back for her but her.”
It’s the only thing she says in the scene that’s been re-recorded in post,
as though they wanted to nail it JUST-SO.
And that line works in the context of 'Buffy Season 2'.
But here,
while Melissa does finally stand-up to Ronald,
maintaining her integrity while Ronald falls to pieces
I don’t really understand what triggers the change in her character
because she just doesn’t really have much of a character.
Which makes the moment seemingly only occur
because we were 3/4 of the way through the episode and it was time for the climax.
The whole episode is just dead on arrival,
perhaps the consequence of plot versus character.
An episode built entirely around plot is fine,
provided you have
...developed the characters to draw us along with it.
Here, the procedural structure that 'Angel' the Series is so far going for
can’t support
...the lofty intentions of the writing,
...and collapses under the weight.
“He took this girl's power away and nobody can get it back for her but her.”
"You survived a living hell these last few months and you're still standing"
"...while he's coming unhinged at not being able to control you."
"He's the weak one."
"You're the strong one."
"Me."
"Oof."