Wow. This was a good one. And certainly an issue I can relate to; I lost my own father last year and our relationship was not what it should have been, to say the least.
This episode reminded me of those great flashbacks-that-parallel-the-present sequences in Highlander. Angel re-lived his horrendous relationship with his father, while Kate experienced the loss of her own father in the present; Angel did his best to save Mr. Lockley for Kate while trying to protect her from the consequences of Lockley's criminal actions.
It's almost impossible to leave that parental baggage behind, isn't it? When your father says that you're a layabout and a scoundrel and that you'll never amount to anything, you believe him, even when you've become a superhero. Two hundred plus years later, Angel is still carrying his parental baggage around, and as Darla said, he certainly can't ever win his father's approval now. Of course, it's probably worse when you turn into a vampire, lose your soul, and kill your entire family. I think that if I were Angel, though, I'd feel worse about little sister Cathy, who seems to have inadvertently given Angel his new name.
The Kate and Dad Lockley scenes were good, too. I especially liked the hot dog scene where they were discussing Angel. I also liked Angel's compassion for Lockley; Angel certainly made some bad choices, too, and understood how easily it could happen.
Cordelia continued to be some of the best comic relief I've ever seen. I thought the scene with her jumping in with the saw was a hoot. She had a great exchange with Wesley, too: Wesley: "Fools rush in." Cordelia: "No, he wants you to stay here."
Bits and pieces:
— We learned some tasty tidbits about Angel. His name was Liam (Angelus never sounded like an Irish name to me anyway); he was from Galway; he was born in 1727 and died in 1753, which would have made him about 26. I want more.
— The alarm system sequence was great.
— Demons were here before people? We didn't know that, did we?
— Elizabeth Rohm has absolutely gorgeous eyes.
— Cordelia's birthday is May 22.
Quotes:
Wesley: "They're incredibly articulate, gentle creatures not even capable of the kind of power and strength you described."
Cordelia: "Maybe it was just having a bad skanky-rag day."
Kate: "The evil thing wasn't an evil thing?"
Angel: "Well, it was an evil thing in terms of that word. It just wasn't an evil evil thing."
Kate: "There are not evil evil things?"
Angel: "Well, yeah."
Trevor: "Must be something wrong with him. He married?"
Kate: "No."
Trevor: "West Hollywood?"
Wesley: "I did identify eye of newt as one of the ingredients, but one suspects added chiefly for taste rather than kick."
Demon: "Kill Lockley, too. God, do I have to think of everything around here? Someone give me an adrenal gland!"
Wesley: "A deliberate cautious approach would be the most sensible plan. Fools rush in..."
Cordelia: "No, he wants you to stay here."
Very, very good. Four out of four stakes,
Billie
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Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.
This was quite good, wasn't it? The two father issue story lines were both interesting.
ReplyDeleteLiam/Angel/Angelus killing his little sister was chilling. It reminded me how evil he really can be as Angelus.
For the first time a flashback to his early life and turning didn't leave me impatient for the present day portion of the story.
I guess we really shouldn’t be all that surprised that Angel has daddy issues. It explains a lot about what we have already learned about him. What the flashbacks did well was show that Angel was not always completely evil. He had a push or two along the way. Darla calling him on the fact was a great coda to the episode.
ReplyDeleteFor some odd reason, I actually watched the end credits this time through and was struck by several of them. Three of the producers’ assistants have gone on to have great careers in the business. I guess we have Joss & Co. to thank for originally hiring Jesse Stern (now a writer and EP on NCIS), Diego Guterrez (now writing for Warehouse 13), and Jose Molina (who wrote for Firefly and is now at TVD).
Wow Chris B, you really know you're stuff. I think that doing anything on this show or Buffy would be a great way to start - such talented people in all the ranks. I enjoyed this episode and felt terrible for Angel as he watched Kate's dad die. I kept hoping that he would just invite Angel in but he was trying to protect him. Money is evil and corrupting. You can't give your daughter security with dirty money. Now that she knows, she won't even accept it.
ReplyDeleteHello, Internet! Attention, Readers of the Internet!
ReplyDeleteChristina Hendricks is in this episode. She plays a bar maid in one of the flashbacks.
I just wanted to let everyone know that Joss discovered her first. Even before he re-discovered her in Firefly.
^I did actually notice Hendricks here this time lol. Neat.
ReplyDeleteAnother great episode, though of course Kate's dad had to die just as I was starting to appreciate him :( Sorry to see him go.
That shot of Angel's dead sister was oddly upsetting to me. Just kind of a really sad sight. Liam's dad didn't seem that bad, just rigid. "I was never in your way, boy.."