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Angel: Double or Nothing

Fred: "Oh, Charles. Your soul wasn't worth air conditioning?"

Well, let's see.

Angel spent nearly the entire episode staring at Connor's empty crib and looking constipated. Cordelia, with a terrible new hairdo, arrived with Groo in tow and spent the entire episode sympathizing with Angel and not telling us what she and Groo were doing for the last three episodes. Wesley, who spent the last episode lying in the park looking pathetic, spent this episode lying in a hospital bed looking pathetic, and then went home alone to a pathetic-looking apartment after being tromped emotionally by Fred. (Last year, everyone ganged up against Angel; this year, tag, you're it, Wesley.)

Which left the bulk of the story to be carried by Fred and Gunn again. They seem to have an almost Happy Days kind of relationship; the phone call guessing games, movies, Dodger games, chaste smooching in his pick-up. It got a bit too sticky for me this time; must have been those pancake kisses. (Although I really loved it when Angel said to Fred, "Let me get this straight. You and Gunn are dating?")

Gunn traded his soul for a pick-up truck? This from a die-hard vampire hunter? I just don't buy it, even if he was only seventeen at the time. Why couldn't he have had a better reason, like saving his sister or a friend? Or even a million bucks? And if he did make a trade for his soul, it seemed kind of smarmy for Angel to break the deal like that. Isn't Gunn's word supposed to be worth something, even if it was given to a soul-sucker?

Speaking of which, I found the soul thing was confusing. When you fall in love, your soul goes to your lover? I thought there were rules about souls in the Buffyverse, and I don't remember that one. The cockney demon said that he got the bodies after Jenoff got the souls, but why wouldn't there be a soul-less body still walking around? Angel was intimating that he'd still be walking around afterward, but I guess that was only because he's already dead. (I did like him giving that stake to Cordelia and telling her to make it quick.) Anyway, like I said, the soul thing was confusing. Consistency, thou art a gem.

The delicious Jason Carter was totally wasted under eighty-five pounds of makeup. I actually forgot he was in the episode, remembered it later, flashed back to the demon with the cockney accent and thought, frell, no! Tell me Marcus Cole wasn't under that! At least he had sunglasses and a certain amount of cool. *sigh*

Lorne was saying at one point that Connor was the only child Angel would ever have. Why? Darla's pregnancy still hasn't been explained. How do we know that Angel couldn't go on a sex binge and knock up Buffy, Cordelia, Faith, Anne and Fred? Or for that matter, Drusilla?

Kibbles and bits:

— Wesley has apparently lost his glasses.

— Did Cordelia call Angel "Ace"? Where did that come from? And speaking of Cordelia, how come she didn't get a vision of the whole Connor fiasco while she was away with Fabio?

— Connor is left-handed? Did they cast him already? I'll have to check on that when he finally shows up.

— "Leprechauns don't exist, son." Like Buffy asserted to Giles in an episode of BtVS a few years ago. It was a Faith episode, I think... which one was it?

— If the trade was seven years ago, Gunn is now twenty-four.

— Did we reach our gross-out quota, with eyeball pronging and decapitation? Bleah.

Quotes:

Gunn: "Skenches take over a house, right? Drive out the people who live there?"
Wife demon: "Well, God knows you can't stay. What with the shrieking all night and the projectile phlegm."

Wife demon: "Sid has a phobia about phlegm."
Husband demon: "I do not. I have a phobia about sputum."

Gunn: "Man! You hear those two?"
Fred: "It's beautiful. All that time, and they're still in love. The way they finish each other's insults..."

Fred: "Don't forget your machete."
Gunn: "Yes, dear."
Groo: "He is very fortunate to have such a woman looking after his weapon."
Lorne: "I'm not touching that one."

Dan gave it a weak two, and Pam gave it a strong zero; how about one out of four stakes?

Billie
---
Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.

1 comment:

  1. I liked Cordy's bob cut or whatever it's called. It's hot. And happy to see Groo back. It breezed by pretty quickly for a lame filler.

    PANCAKE KISS~

    ReplyDelete

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