'Somnambu'...
'Sommn'...
'So'...
This episode is a significant step forward in 'Angel'.
We get a nice surge of character growth in Angel and Kate.
We get another darkly playful window into Angel’s past.
We get to see why an already built out Wesley makes such a great addition to the cast.
But most significantly
it feels like one of the earliest episodes
where all of the show’s aesthetics are starting to work in tandem with each other.
I really like this one.
"Angel."
"I get...visions."
"We do things a certain way in L.A.."
"I'M BAD!"
The episode opens with a woman running from some danger.
She’s caught by an unseen man with a medieval finger piercing attachment,
which he uses to scar her face before killing her.
The camera pulls back and we see it’s Angel,
...who immediately sits up in bed.
Did he dream that or was he really killing?
Cut to Kate finding a body in an alleyway
...and the same marking from Angel’s dream.
The next day,
Angel is insomna-grumpy
and Wesley discovers a disturbing story in the paper.
I still don’t quite understand the PI Florida Everglades linen suit he’s wearing
but I suppose it’s sort of...
...Watcher-inverse
...with the same deference to decorum.
Angel goes to visit Kate to follow up on a routine lead
...and discovers his dreams were actually real.
Kate preps her homicide detectives with the Crucifix Killer's profile.
Which sounds suspiciously like Angel himself.
"It's unlikely he'll be married,"
"though he may have recently come off a long term relationship that ended badly."
By virtue of his Watcher background,
Wesley has made the connection to the Crucifix Killer and Angel’s past history,
...telling Cordy of the whole background.
"Okay."
"You get to leave now.”
THAT made me grin.
Cordy’s loyalty and backbone are always fun to watch.
She may doubt Angel to his face at times
...but never behind his back.
Angel confesses he’s been dreaming about the killings.
“They’re not nightmares."
"I’ve enjoyed them.”
"Oh."
The dreams are either reality or somehow precognitive.
As an experiment, they chain Angel to the bed.
That night he has another murderous dream
...this one an apparent flashback.
There’s been another murder that Angel couldn’t have committed
...but he’s grown to understand what is actually happening.
Angel had an apt-pupil,
Vampire Hawkeye,
who in Angel’s dream
...had just eaten his own sister.
Cut to Hawkpyre
...in modern day,
looking at clippings of his gruesome murders.
The paper has deemed him Pope Killer
...but I like Crucifix Killer, so nuts to that.
Angel suggests he lead Kate to VampEye without fully explaining the whole situation.
Kate’s murder board induces a flashback
...and Angel understands what the Crucifix Killer’s pattern is.
He tells Kate who the next victim will be.
Hawkvamp chooses as Angel thinks he will.
So the cops have now trapped a gruesome serial killer
who just tried to eat a kid
and flew through a second story window,
and Kate...
...goes in alone.
Okay.
Angel goes in as well.
Renferatu attacks Kate
...and he and Angel have a reunion.
“Why are you here?”
"To kill you.”
Angel fights him off
...but has revealed himself to Kate.
PyrePire dupes Cordelia into revealing Kate’s identity,
who he wants to kill apparently because Angel cares for her.
Angel enters.
He and EyeHawk verbally spar.
"I'm sorry what I did to you, Penn."
“What I turned you into.”
"A first class killer?"
"An artist?
"A bold reinterpreter of the form?”
“Try cheesy hack.”
Interesting how Angel still has an artist's appreciation for killing.
We get a montage section heavy on cross dissolves as
all our characters try and figure out what will happen next.
The editing and composition is very evocative of 1940s noir,
...if a little overdone.
It feels a little like when I discovered star wipes in Adobe Premiere.
Kate makes it clear she knows who both Angel and Angelus are now
...and she doesn’t distinguish between the two.
Angel Investigations figures out where Vam-ner’s lair is.
Angel doesn’t bite on his sleight of hand,
probably because that’s HIS move that he did to Buffy over and over again.
“And you fall for it every single time."
Instead, he finds Blah Blah capturing Kate at the police station.
Blah Blah gets the upperhand on Angel and Kate stakes him through Angel's belly.
And the episode ends on the roof
...with Cordy and Angel contemplating man's immutable nature.
"Strange."
"She was my sister."
"Ah."
"Yet you feel nothing."
"No."
Obviously, the episode’s biggest sin
...is Jeremy Renner’s terrible accent,
though bad accents in the Buffyverse might be tradition at this point.
"Chick fight?"
But there were a couple minor details here and there that felt a little cheap to me.
For instance, why did Angel wear his jacket to bed?
I get that it’s supposed to leave us in doubt
as to whether Angel is actually doing these things or not
but by the end of the episode
...we know he wasn’t.
So wearing the duster to bed is a little illogical.
Likewise, Kate’s profile of the Crucifix Killer really only works as audience manipulation,
since Angel is the only one we know who fits the profile she’s describing,
...not Vampire Meow Meow.
This kind of baity switchy stuff is less fun than an actual twist
...because we don’t feel like we could have seen it coming.
Consideration of the events in reverse just feels weird.
Still, Angel and Cordy’s chemistry is really starting to show.
Kate’s new knowledge of Angel’s vampirism makes her a more profoundly more interesting character to watch.
This is the best Kate episode by far,
and I love how her distrust of Angel
...is firmly grounded in a backstory of isolation that we’ve gotten to see up to this point.
Also, it’s a weird rule but, in general,
...any episode with Angel flashbacks tends to be really good.
It feels like the instruments of the show are learning to play well together.
As heavy handed as it CAN be at times,
I even enjoyed the gothic noir elements to this one.
I loved the cinematography of the opening shots
and a lot of the textured lighting.
“I was just thinking about how much this place is like where I grew up."
"It’s not so different."
"People moving through their lives."
"I wonder if anything ever really changes.”
This little section here is wonderful and a great closer to my favorite episode of the season so far.
Of course with Angel, there's always an alcoholic metaphor at play.
He’s sworn off human blood and living a life of measured choice.
But the impulses for his addiction are always with him.
Los Angeles may be a taller, brighter place than Angel’s home,
but is it really any different
...if somewhere in the shadows decay and darkness still lurk?
Is Angel really any better if somewhere inside him
...there is always the drumming impulse to drink?
If there is always Angelus?
"You're not him, Angel."
"Not anymore."
"The name I got in my vision."
"The message didn't come for Angelus."
"It came for you."
"And you have to trust that whoever The Powers That Be"
"...Are--"
"They know the difference."
One of the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous is to believe that a higher power can help restore you back to sanity.
It’s all a nice continuation of Angel’s journey started in 'Amends'.
Desire and impulse versus action and choice.
How can we be redeemed if the corrupting impulse is always present inside us?
Within the metaphor, Kate and Penn also represent a fascinating and significant impairment to personal change,
...especially when it comes to addiction recovery.
In general, we as human beings surround ourselves with other people who are like us.
Because agreement feels good.
We want to feel right.
So the people in our direct environment tend to share our tastes, beliefs and habits.
And our addictions too.
And when we discover a part of ourselves we want to change,
...often our environment won’t let us.
The people around us are mirrors of our best and worst selves.
Which is why I really like the visual of Kate stabbing THROUGH Angel to kill Penn.
Sustainable change
...inside and out.
And in Kate not distinguishing between Angel and Angelus,
there is the representation of the person who only sees the addict as they were.
Who doesn’t trust this new person.
"Chick fight?"