'Rm w/a Vu',
spelled as such since Jane Espenson
wanted it to sound like a classified ad in a newspaper,
... is a seminal moment in Cordelia’s arc.
We’ve had bits and pieces of Cordelia’s struggle shown to us up to this point
...but this episode is a deep cut.
And while I think the whole thing becomes a bit too frenetic during the climax,
...it's still a lot of fun
...and one of the better episodes of this season.
"Angel."
"I get...visions."
"We do things a certain way in L.A.."
"I'M BAD!"
Doyle is listening to Cordy reenact her failed audition for a commercial.
I was struck by how kind and endearing his crush on Cordy has become.
Where he began the season with a crude reference to her while talking with Angel,
...he now just seems to bleed affection and generosity.
And as she heads home for the day, Doyle delivers a line that may sum her up the best.
“It’s like...wrestling a tiger just to get to know her.”
Back at her place, Cordy’s apartment’s cockroach infestation has gotten out of control.
She decides to take Doyle up on his offer for a place to stay.
Meanwhile, Doyle is confronted by a demon who says Doyle owes his boss money.
As Doyle doesn’t answer his phone, Cordy ends up staying at Angel’s.
The next day, Doyle is showing signs of having been roughed up.
"--big guy here to see ya."
"I’ll tell him you’ll be right up.”
[breathes]
"Okay."
Doyle runs...
...only to find out...
...Angel was baiting him into revealing his hand.
Angel agrees to deal with Doyle’s problem
...if Doyle can just find Cordy an apartment,
...since Cordy is rapidly destroying his.
Doyle takes Cordy on a tour of various inappropriate places to live
...including a shower curtain apartment in a cult
...and one with a monstrous terrifying landlord.
I couldn’t help but wonder what the casting call looked like for his part.
“Fat, creepy, sweaty type."
"Must intimidate women.
"Headshots please.”
After a number of intimidating options, Cordy accepts Doyle’s inside tip
...and they discover,
...a rent controlled jewel.
“First thing, I hire someone to take out that wall.”
[creepy wall]
Angel beats the snot out of the leg breaker that's after Doyle and arranges for Doyle’s safety.
He later talks to him about it and asks Doyle why he lives the way he lives.
"I guess it's the kind of life that keeps your..."
"...expectations from getting too high."
“I just don't know why that's important to you."
"This kind of life..."
"...sort of that picked me.”
Not EXACTLY true though, is it?
“Show me your world.”
["Be careful what you ask" moment]
Cordelia spends the night in a haunted apartment
...and the next morning, forces herself to chant there is nothing wrong.
Having spent a few years in San Francisco,
...I get it Cordy.
There are some aspects to city life that look like insanity if you’ve never lived them.
The next morning, the ghost persists
... and so does Cordelia.
Angel and Doyle show up with house warming gifts
...and the ghost reveals itself to all of them.
Angel tries to convince Cordelia to give up the place.
"It's haunted."
"It's rent-controlled!"
They devise a spell to eliminate the ghost and go their separate ways to accumulate the items.
Later, Cordy gets a call from Angel saying to meet him at her apartment
only….
[in Angel voice] "You got my call."
Maybe the ghost just doubts Cordy’s commitment to Sparkle Motion.
"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion."
Turns out one of the previous tenants of Cordelia’s apartment
...was a mother disagreeing with her son who was in love.
The ghost traps Cordy,
...and capitalizes on her fears.
“If anyone really cared about you,"
"...would you be HERE?"
"People let you end up here"
"...because they were happy to see you fail."
Angel and Doyle begin the binding spell to get rid of the ghost
...while Cordy sobs uncontrollably,
...now on fire with her insecurities.
The boys try and abandon the binding spell but are confronted...
...by a TRIO of leg breakers
The ghost, annoyed by the party of too many
...raises a racket and inadvertently saves Team Angel.
Cordy gets sucked into the bedroom where the ghost tries to convince her to kill herself.
[sniffle]
"--you stupid, little bitch.”
(record scratch)
“I’m a bitch."
And she conquers the ghost mother by revealing the its shame:
The son she buried in the wall to keep from leaving her.
Angel promises to help Doyle out in exchange for the full story of his life
...and the episode ends with Cordy having struck a balance with her new roommate,
...Dennis the ghost.
Cordy has been in an interesting position since moving to L.A.
...that has flown under the radar a little bit until this episode.
Her fall from the mountain top
which started...
...in 'Buffy Season 3' with her father’s bankruptcy
...and the awareness she was not going to be able to go to college,
...carried on into the first few episodes of the season.
Living in a dumpy apartment,
getting rejected from garbage bag commercials,
...and accepting "unseemly" invitations
...from Hollywood influentials who turn out to be vampires.
"Hey, you're a vampire!"
"What?"
"No, I'm not."
Regardless,
...Cordy put up a facade,
"Malibu."
"A small condo on the beach."
"It's not a private beach"
"...but, you know, I'm young, so I forebear."
"And you're acting?"
"--and then BOOM"
"...it was like..."
...my life."
...lying to Angel, pretending everything was fine,
...and persevered.
Her taking on the business side of Angel Investigations allowed her to save both Angel and herself.
Angel, the noble putz, who could never bring himself to charge or advertise his services,
...might’ve lost his home at this point without Cordelia,
and Cordelia having something to do has given her life meaning she hadn’t been able to find yet.
But there is still the question of how she got to this point.
"---this really is just a place to live."
"No,"
"...it's more."
"It's beautiful."
"And if it goes away, it's like--"
"Like I'm still getting punished."
“For how I was."
"For everything that I said in high school just cause I could get away with it.”
"And then it all ended and I had to pay."
And now we see there's a common theme among the 'Angel' protagonists in this season.
“We all got something to atone for.”
And even though by this episode she has found a tenuous stability,
Cordy’s confidence and identity are still wavering,
as what does it mean if she is lacking all the tangible trappings of success?
The money,
the clothes,
the celebrity
...and the apartment.
Is she less than she was?
The ghost tears down Cordy’s facade and gets at her insecurities.
"--you stupid, little bitch."
“Can you pick out the one word there"
"...you probably shouldn’t have said?”
“I’m a bitch."
Take away the clothes,
the money,
the trappings of conventional success
...and what is left
...is STILL Cordelia.
She’s back,
...but better that she was.
With a confidence founded on her own bedrock of self.
Love her,
...or get the hell out of her way.
And Cordy reciprocates by tearing down the wall the ghost put up to keep things as they were,
...revealing one of my favorite details on 'Angel',
...Dennis the ghost.
Beyond Cordy’s arc, there are a host of character building details in this one.
When Angel baits Doyle into revealing he is actually afraid
...we get a nice insight into both Doyle and Angel’s growing senses of perception.
One thing that isn’t always in plain view
...is that Angel is sharp.
Intelligent.
Perceptive.
That acuity is always present.
And his little manipulation of Doyle is fun to watch
...and shows his growing care for his new friend.
I also love the signs of Angel’s fastidious nature:
[sigh]
“You got peanut butter on the bed.”
"Really?"
"I don't think so."
And beyond just the first few lines of dialogue in 'Angel Season 1',
...Doyle has had little to do until we got to this episode.
I was particularly moved by his comments as to why he lives the way he does.
"I guess it's the kind of life that keeps your..."
"...expectations from getting too high."
The one exception to the great character bits going on...
...is Kate,
...who is becoming more and more Detective Exposition in these episodes.
She feels completely shoe-horned in.
A minor point in the scheme of things.
'Rm w/a Vu' is excellent.
I complained that 'I Fall to Pieces' was 'Angel'’s Detective Procedural format done wrong.
'Rm w/a Vu",
...is the format done just about right.