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Angel: Untouched

Bethany: "I've done stuff. I can make you happy."
Angel: "You wouldn't like me when I'm happy."

I'm impressed. This was the fourth good episode in a row.

Sexual abuse and incest victims are sometimes portrayed as one-note characters, but Bethany certainly wasn't; she was a regular three-ring circus. Apparently, Lilah was planning to enlist her as Wolfram & Hart's new easy-to-acquit assassin (replacing the blind woman from last season, perhaps?) by manipulating her into killing her father. It was sharp of Wesley to figure out what Bethany's buttons were. I wonder if she'll be coming back as a character now that she has control of her powers? And if she'll stay on Angel's side? Can you say loose cannon?

Wesley may be good at the research angle but why isn't he doing more about the fact that Angel is sleeping twenty hours a day and spouting crabbiness to the point of seriously attempting to fire Cordelia? Hello? But hey – I really like what they're doing with Darla, so I should just shut up and enjoy.

Gunn works well with Angel on the action side of the business, certainly much better than Wesley did. I'm also really enjoying the Wesley/Cordelia conflict ("Our discussions tend to go about three minutes, then it's strictly name-calling and hair pulling"), especially considering how those two started out so attracted to each other on Buffy. Cordelia also did well with her new calling as Gunn's advocate. She got him paid – and at least he wasn't calling her names this week.

Bits and pieces, sometimes literally:

— Vamps bite each other while having sex? How Anne Rice of them.


— I hope that rebar didn't mar Angel's tattoo.

— Loved Gunn's hubcap/battle axe.

— Lilah spoke at Bethany's school? Is that how they find "talented" people? Ick.

Quotes:

Cordelia: "You're such a sheep. You've never had an opinion that you didn't read in a book."
Wesley: "At least I've opened a book."
Cordelia: "Oh, don't even try with the snooty, wooly boy. I was in top ten percent of my class."
Wesley: "What class? Advanced bosoms?"
Angel: "Hey. What the hell is going on here?"
Cordelia: "We were just discussing whether or not we should offer to pay Gunn."
Angel: "No, you weren't."
Wesley: "Well, our discussions tend to go about three minutes, then it's strictly name-calling and hair-pulling."

Lilah: "I'm sorry I couldn't make it. But work just got insane, and our new clients are monsters."

Angel: "I was impaled at the time."
Cordelia: (pats his knee) "Of course. Perfectly understandable."
Angel: "You know how hard it is to think straight with a re-bar through your torso?"
Cordelia: "Actually, I do. Benefits of a Sunnydale education."

Gunn: "You call, I come. Loaded for bear, ready for battle, and... something else that starts with B."

Angel: "You think you could find out who they are?"
Gunn: "You got it. But if I come back here on the end of a spatula, I'm expecting some serious workman's comp."


Wesley: "If I'd given her time to get her defenses up..."
Cordelia: "She wouldn't be crying, you wouldn't be bruised, and Angel wouldn't have had a near Melba-toast experience. What did you say to her?"

Bethany: "So, are you and Angel...?"
Cordelia: "Oh, no! I like my men less broody and more spendy."

Three out of four stakes. Very good. And I'm waiting breathlessly for next week,

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

6 comments:

  1. I love going through your thoughts on the show after I've watched them. I'm just catching up on Angel and am really just watching it in anticipation for season 5, when Spike reappears.

    One note though...Why is it normal for vampires to sleep?? This whole thing with Angel and Darla betwixt the dreams really bothers me because I don't believe he sleeps or needs it. That is all. ;)

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  2. I love the interactions between the main cast in this episode (mostly the mental image of Wesley and Cordelia pulling each other's hair), but the plot-of-the-week makes me a little uncomfortable.

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  3. I agree with Josie. The plot this week makes me a tad uncomfortable and I am getting a little tired (ooh, pun) of the Darla dream thing. Let's move on already.

    Having said that, I love the whole paying Gunn thing and his reaction when Angel tentatively offers: "Cool!"

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  4. It is quite a good episode, but agreed...uncomfortable is how the subject matter made me feel.

    Also look forward to an end to the Darla dreams, the don't stand up too well in re-watch.

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  5. I'm not so bothered by the ongoing Darla dream scenes. I think it is kind of interesting for Darla to be working on ensnaring Angel in his dreams but have the things that are occurring in his waking life interfere. There were always hints of the sexual element to their killings in the flashbacks of Angel's early time with Darla and she's reminding him of that with the dreams she's invoking. But now he's dealing with a victim of something very similar and it makes a nice symmetry for that redemption he's working on.

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  6. "I really like what they're doing with Darla"
    Well I don't! I was so happy to get away from all the lip-smacking from my previous show and now it's suddenly back, dangNabbit
    All the windows of the hotel exploding after Bethany's dad's surprise visit was a very cool shot, to be sure. And 'Advanced Bosoms' was such a lame early-Wesley like joke that it actually made me laugh. Classy of him not to glance down as he said it.

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