Inside Out

Props to DeKnight, il miglior fabbro.

April is the cruelest month, breeding reruns out of the dead air, mixing reality and contrivance, stirring dull line-ups with spring premieres. Am I right, people? Previously on Angel, Darla gave Angel a handful of dust, Cordy was looking into the heart of light, Satan surprised us with a shower of fire, and Cordelia fell for the old "Cary's going to do a spell in a secluded location" trick.

As usual, we start moments after last week's episode ended. Angel declares, "All this time, it was you, wasn't it?" While Cary pulls out a little collapsible crossbow, Cordy claims that at one time she would have seen the trap miles away, but she sensed the audience was getting impatient so she figured it was time to slip up. She asks, "What finally tipped off the Great Detective?" Is Sherlock Holmes on this show now, too? I lost track of who's in the cast several months ago. Angel answers, "Tongue. Slip of." Talking backwards he is why? Flashback to last week, when Cordy described her parasite as "my sweet baby." Back to Angel, who's gone all Atticus as he says, "'My sweet.' Same phrase [the Forced Evil] kept using." I'd make fun of the damning evidence, but it looks so pretty fluttering around in the breeze like that. Wesley adds that her wording was the final blow: "What we already knew, what he found out as Angelus -- all the circumstantial [sic] led to you." If you say so. Cordy smirks, "Little late to the table, but I might have a few scraps left." Fred asks Cordy why she did it, and Angel insists that "it" isn't Cordelia at all. Cordy grins, "Maybe you just don't know me very well." Angel steps closer to her, and she tries to attack him with the dagger. Angel swats her arm away and grabs her by the throat, growling, "Where's Cordelia?"

Connor surprises them, coming down from the ceiling in a shower of glass. Is there a skylight in this pipe-filled basement? Are they in a basement? I need more context. Connor does a backflip as Angel -- who has stupidly released Cordy -- shouts, "Wait, Cordy's not what you think!" Connor tosses Angel into Wesley. Cary fires the crossbow at Connor, who dodges and knocks Cary down. As Angel gets up, Connor does a neat little thing where he wraps Fred's arm around himself and fires the tranq gun she's holding at Angel. Then Connor backhands Fred. I like that kid. Connor grabs Cordy's hand and they run away. Cordy looks back to smirk in slow motion as Angel collapses. The Magic 8-Ball rolls across the floor toward Angel, and then into the camera. It reads, "Ask again later." Heh.

Credits. I call Johanna, and she says that they used the joke I made about the 8-Ball saying "Ask again later." I point out that I didn't make any joke like that, although I probably would have if it had occurred to me. She wonders where she saw that joke. I think she's reading other Angel recaps behind my back. I feel betrayed. This week's Boreanaz quote is one that I was saving for the finale, because it's been providing me with hysterical giggles for a couple of years now. But it fits this episode so nicely that I have to use it now. Ready? "I bless my parents that I crawled out of my mommy. It's all my parents; they're the people that created me, so you take that for what it is." You can probably stop reading now, because I'm not going to be able to come up with anything funnier than that. Ever.

For the five remaining readers...Gunn enters the lobby with a phone in hand, explaining, "I just got your message -- being close to electric Gwen can really screw your equipment." Hee hee. I missed that the first time. Gunn noti-- hee! That's so dumb. Heh. Okay, I'm back. Gunn notices that Fred's holding a bag of ice on her chin, and asks what happened. Fred snits, "Cordy's evil. Nice suit." Angel grumps that Cordy isn't Cordy, but Wesley isn't sure. Gunn asks if Connor and Cordy attacked them. Cary says, "Kid Vicious did the heavy lifting; Cordy just mwah-ha-ha-ed at us." Angel explains that Cordy is the Forced Evil. Actually, he calls her "Beastmaster," but I'm not going to because I've heard that if you say that three times, Marc Singer appears. Gunn says, "Guy steps out for a few hours, half the place goes super-villain." Angel insists that Connor's "just...confused. Again."

Gunn, boggled, asks when this happened, and snags the drink Cary's holding. Fred wonders if Cordy's been evil ever since she mysteriously reappeared. Cary grabs his drink back from Gunn with a peeved look as Gunn asks if Cordy's amnesia was a trick. Angel speculates that something "crawled deep inside for the trip" back from glowland. He adds that the carnage began with Cary's memory spell. Flashback of Cary giving Cordelia the memory-restoring hummus. Cary realizes that the stuff he saw when he read Cordy wasn't her future, but "the smackerjack surprise." Angel takes a turn on the wheel of exposition, and describes how the Forced Evil spiked his blood at Gwen's and killed Manny. We see a pseudo-flashback of Manny sitting in Gwen's vault, and then Cordy swinging an axe. Gunn interrupts to ask how Cordy could have done that without getting blood on her clothes. Wesley says, "Lizzie Borden. It wasn't wearing any." That's not quite the non sequitur it seems, since apparently there was a theory that Borden killed her father and stepmother while naked. It's not a popular theory, perhaps because she was discovered burning a dress three days after the murders. There's your trivia for this recap. We repeat the pseudo-flashback, but this time Cordy's naked. Hee. Gunn says "Quick sponge-bath in the sink..." and Cary finishes, "Voilà. Shower-fresh murder." Angel moves on to the murder of the Svear family. Another maniacal Cordy shot, and cut to the bodies of the victims. , we see Cordy opening the safe as Angel describes how she stole his jar o' soul. Fred asks about the first re-souling spell they did. Angel says it was misdirection: Pseudo-flashback of Angelus being lifted by the magical clouds during the spell, and a new shot of Cary's eyes glowing red for a second. Cary figures that's why he misread Angelus. Angel winds up his story with Cordy letting him out of the cage, and some flashbacks of Cordy grabbing and stabbing Lilah, as he summarizes, "All designed to keep us off balance." I guess Wesley saw the flashbacks too, because he suddenly says, "It was Cordelia. She murdered Lilah." It's like they're thinking, but they're actually just jumping to random conclusions. Plus, nobody has wondered why Cordelia wanted Angelus around in the first place. If it was just to distract them, okay, although most of her actions to hide Angelus are what probably aroused their suspicions. Angel repeats, "We don't know if it's really Cordy." Fred adds, "Or what she's got baking in her oven." Gunn chirps, "Evil and pregnant? I'm guessing it ain't cookies."

Cut to Cordy and Connor, who have found a new hideout. It's not in a cookie warehouse, though, which is a shame. Connor assures Cordy that Angel won't find them, and then asks why the MoG were attacking her. Cordy sadly explains, "They're afraid of you, of me, of what our love has created." She says they were going to kill her and her baby. Connor says he was worried about her and followed her scent; he then plaintively asks, "How could he do that?" Cordy says that Angel hates Connor. Creepy lullaby music tinkles as Cordy tells Connor, "I didn't want to believe it, but he does. He hates you for being with me." She goes on that way, less and less convincingly, and then gives Connor a kiss. She wraps things up nicely by saying, "You were right about Angel. He's an animal. And he's turned everyone against us." She looks scared, and Connor hugs her and whispers, "I'll kill them all before I let them hurt you." Cordy calls him a "sweet, sweet boy," and starts to roll her eyes a little.

Wesley is holding a drawing of Cordelia up in front of the camera for reasons I don't understand. He puts the picture down as Angel enters in his new hoodie-and-jacket combo. Angel says he couldn't track Cordy and Connor down. Wesley says that Angel was wasting his time. Shut up, Wesley, unless you have a better idea, which you don't, because you never have a better idea, so shut up already. Angel blames himself, and says he didn't realize what was happening because he was busy freaking out about Connor and Cordelia. Oh, Angel, don't be so hard on yourself. You wouldn't have figured it out even if you'd had both of your wits about you. Wesley says that Cordy and Connor's relationship "did what it was supposed to" by distracting Angel. He adds that Cordy was trying to "draw [his] attention away so this thing could continue to murder anyone..." He pauses and says that at least Angel had a reason for being distracted. Angel recognizes Wesley's tone from his own years on the pity-party circuit. Angel offers an awkward "Lilah and I weren't exactly friends --" Wesley interrupts to say they were mortal enemies, and asks why Angel cares what happened to Lilah. Good question! Angel says, "Because you did." Bad answer! But I guess that's nicer than saying, "Well, I don't, actually, but you're bumming me out, man." Wesley gives up and says that he couldn't find any information on the Forced Evil. Angel asks about "pan-dimensional texts, like the one Lilah --" Angel stops short, and Wesley gives him a look, and I guess their talk of thirty seconds ago had healed all of Wesley's hurt feelings but saying her name now has ripped the scars open again or something. What's with the pained looks? They were just talking about her! Wesley says that Cary's off being an errand boy again, looking for information on the black market. He suggests that, if something happened to Cordy after her ascension, maybe The Powers That Be could help. Angel observes that TPTB haven't been inclined to help lately. Wesley says, "But at least one of those [times] was to save Darla's life. A mass-murdering ex-vampire dying of syphilis? A strong 'no' is hardly a shock." What? Is he? Talking about? This is the first I've heard any suggestion that the John Hurt-esque guy was really involved with TPTB. And Angel couldn't save Darla's life because she'd already been revived once. There was never any suggestion that who she was, or what she'd done in any of her many lives, had any effect on how that worked out. Angel ignores all of that, I guess because he's used to Wesley being insane, and says that TPTB must have known what was going on. He grumps, "They didn't stop it because they didn't want to get their hands dirty." He pauses and adds, "What we need is somebody who does." A gardener? "Somebody right in the middle of all this." Oh.

Blipvert. Cordy and Connor enter yet another hideout. Or a different part of the old one. It's not important. Cordy reassures Connor that it'll all work out, but he's still shocked that Angel wanted to kill her. He gets an idea: "Maybe it wasn't really Angel! Angelus could have tricked us again, and --" Wow, everybody's practically thinking in this episode. It's freaky. Cordy tells Connor to let go of the straws, and Connor goes back to brooding over what a jerk his dad is. Cordy sadly explains, "Lies. Meant to keep you in your place, where he can watch you, control you." Connor can't believe that the rest of the MoG were in on it: "I thought they were..." Gardeners? "Good." Oh. Cordy goes all deconstructionist as she tells Connor that good and evil are just words the MoG used to order him around. Cordy reminds him, "You're with me now; you don't have to live by their rules. You remember why?" Connor rather bitterly says, "Because we're special." Cordy ignores his tone and simply adds that their baby will be the mostest specialest baby ever. I'm starting to wonder if they're satirizing Baby Boomers with these two.

Blipvert. Fred has gone through Cordy's room, looking for Evil Clues, but no luck. Angel, meanwhile, has pulled the old hockey puck out of a desk. Angel tells Fred and Gunn to keep looking while he's gone. He says, "If I'm not back in a couple of hours --" "You're dead, we're screwed, end of the world," Gunn says stoically. Fred adds that Angel could stay with them. Angel cheerfully says he's done this before, and that it's "a walk in the park."

A demon is knocked into a wall and collapses. Angel shakes off the punch and grumbles, "I really hate the park." He picks up the demon's sword and moves on.

Angel descends the stairs into Billy's former prison. Torches light a throne facing away from the stairs. Angel sneaks up to the throne and prepares to attack, but Skip jumps up in surprise and reintroduces himself for the benefit of new viewers, like there are any. He also offers Angel some buffalo wings and says, "The game's on in five if you wanted to --" But Skip doesn't live here! He commutes, remember? I suppose the location of Skip's home isn't really the most pressing continuity issue. And he could have been lying about that, all things considered. Fine. Angel asks when Skip last saw Cordelia, explaining, "She told me that you were her guide when she decided to become half-demon." Skip tries to prepare Angel before he says, "This is gonna be really hard for you to accept, but Cordelia has ascended to a higher plane." Angel dryly explains that Cordy, or something that looks like her, is back. Skip insists, "Nobody comes back from paradise! Okay, a Slayer once, but that..." I had not thought death had been undone so many times. Skip claims that Cordy's ascension was beautiful, so I'm guessing that his hidden weakness is a vulnerability to clichs. Angel is surprised to hear that Skip saw the ascension, too, and wonders why Skip wouldn't have been there for Cordy's return. Skip puts it down to "mysterious ways," but Angel wonders if TPTB wanted to keep Skip from warning Angel about Cordy's return. Angel quickly notes that only the Forced Evil would have wanted it to be a surprise. Well, he's thinking, which is nice, but trying to follow his logic is giving me vertigo. For whatever reason, Angel figures that the Forced Evil needed Cordy to ascend in order to work its magic. He tells Skip, "Either you've been played for a dupe, like the rest of us, or you've been in on this from the start...Skippy." Skip and Angel chuckle, and Skip finally says, "Whatever's going on, I'm telling you true --" Skip extrudes a pointy thing from his arm and finishes, "Not a dupe!" Skip can't stand up very well under interrogation. Or possibly he's lost interest. I could see how that would happen.

When we return from the ads, Skip knocks the sword out of Angel's hands and sneers, "Not like last time, is it monkey-boy?" Skip's a Lectroid? This gets more and more complicated every minute. Skip hurls Angel across the room, into a wall. Skip says it was hard to "take a dive" when Angel rescued Billy, and prepares to pound Angel some more. Okay, hang on: so the Forced Evil captured Billy, put him in a fiery box, and had Skip stand guard, but it actually wanted Billy to be free, so when Lilah forced Angel to go rescue Billy by threatening Cordelia, the Forced Evil ordered Skip to take a dive, and all of this was to ensure that...what? If the Forced Evil just wanted Billy to be free, why not just tell Skip to let him out? There were consequences to all that later, but none of them really depended on Billy being a prisoner. I can buy that parts of this story might have been in mind last season, but Skip's involvement sure looks like a late addition.

Cordy tells Connor that Angel won't stop until he finds them. How many times are they going to redo The Terminator on this show? I don't mind; I'm just curious. Connor insists that he can beat Angel. Cordy puts Connor's hand on her belly. He gasps when the baby moves, and Cordy says, "That's what babies do when they're happy." She gets wistful about how the others won't let them be happy, and says, "Maybe when they see how beautiful our baby is..." Connor asks if that will change how the MoG feel. Cordy foreshadows, "Our baby's gonna change everything." She says that the baby won't come for another week or two, but that Angel will find them before then. Connor promises that won't happen. Cordy says, "I don't want you killing each other; that's never what I wanted." She has an alternative: speeding up the birth. She tells Connor she'll need "some very special things."

A bloodied and bruised Angel asks Skip what happened to Cordelia. Skip asks, "Or what, you'll bleed on me some more?" Skip punches Angel a few times, knocks him down, and wonders how many parts he can chop off of Angel "before he goes all dust-bunny." Angel stands up, gets a few punches in, and then swings across the room on one of the convenient dangling chains. Johanna thinks it's not safe for Angel to go swinging around in a room lit with lots of torches, and she has a point. When Angel swings back, Skip knocks him down. That went well. Skip taunts, "What are you, Tarzan? See, this is the nefarious meat of it, pal. You die, never knowing what really happened to the woman you love. Gotta respect the classics." Angel yanks one of the chains out of the ceiling and, as Skip approaches, whips it at Skip's arm. The arm-spike is torn off in slow-mo. Then things go in and out of slow-mo for a while, and I shout, "Knock it off!" Angel whips the chain around some more, knocking Skip's head-sickle off. I meant the slow-mo. Angel punches Skip in the face repeatedly, and Skip tries to get another taunt in, but collapses instead.

In the Hyperion's lobby, Fred is crossing the room saying, "Maybe I can --" There's a blaze of light as Angel and an unconscious Skip appear in the room near her. Fred finishes, "-- have an embolism!" Oh yes, please! The magic dreidel spins to a halt on the floor. Gunn's changed into a track suit. Feh. Angel explains that Skip's part of whatever's going on, and adds, "We need to bind him to this dimension." Everyone stares at messy Angel and unconscious Skip. Angel eventually hints, "Before he wakes up would be nice."

A blonde girl is in a rats' alley, where the soon-to-be-dead girls dropped their books. She backs away from a vampire, who says, "I really love virgins." Johanna and I both spend some time wondering how the vampire can tell she's a virgin. Maybe it's her sensible shoes. The vampire suddenly explodes into dust, as Connor saves the day. He asks the girl if she's okay. The girl bursts into tears and thanks him for saving her. Connor looks around, nods awkwardly, and punches the girl. Whoa.

Cordy strolls around the girl, who is lying unconscious in their hideout, and asks Connor if he got everything else. I guess a kidnapped virgin makes a change from the usual pickles and ice cream. Connor's looking pained. Yet elfin. It's his gift. Cordy says, "I know what your heart is telling you, Connor. But it will lie to you if you let it." She tells him to mourn for the girl, but to remember that "she's one of them. One of the average, normal people that fill this world." This is eerily similar to the recapper initiation ceremony. Whoops, I've said too much. Cordy explains that they will give her death meaning: "Her blood for our baby. That's more than fair. Isn't it?" That higher plane must have offered advanced classes in moral relativism.

Skip is trapped in a shiny red circle of FX, which fades away because it'd get expensive pretty fast. He assures the MoG that he'll escape from it in time. Angel says they'll make things permanent. Angel has changed into a deep purple V-neck button-down shirt which I think I love. This sentence is here to prevent the last two words of the sentence from even appearing to the first word of the sentence. Fred advances and shows Skip a book while saying, "Sphere of the infinite agonies. I should be able to whip one up in, um, twenty minutes?" Angel says, "Everything you know, or she starts whippin'." Wesley suddenly swoons. Skip says, "I'm just a merc," and agrees to spill. Angel demands to know where "the real Cordelia" is. Oh, his shirt is collarless, too. I definitely love it. Skip says, "That thing that has turned your life into a burning ring of fire? She is the real Cordelia. Or at least, she's in there somewhere." Angel asks if something possessed Cordy on the higher plane. Skip asks, "How d'ya think she got there in the first place?" Wesley asks if the ascension was part of the Forced Evil's plan. Skip says, "No, Cordelia was chosen to become a higher being because she's such a pure, radiant saint. Puh-lease!"

Cordy's gone back to the chanting. She sits cross-legged on the floor in a circle of candles. Her outfit looks especially silly when she's sitting on the floor and has to pull it up so it's not tangled in her legs. I guess most outfits would look odd in that situation, though. Connor watches unhappily.

In the room, the girl is in a corner, her hands bound. She opens her eyes suddenly, and sees Connor kneeling in front of her. He offers her water, and she instantly bursts into tears and begs to be let go. It doesn't take her any time at all to process what's happening; she just opens her eyes and starts crying. I mean, she's got reason, but, well, I'm petty. She wails, "My mom's gonna be so mad!" and I like the fact that her mention of a family seems to pain Connor. He apologizes to her, and then an echoey voice says, "Listen." Connor looks around suspiciously and asks if someone's there. The echoey voice is more clearly Darla's this time, and she says, "I've always been here. Close to your heart." Just to the left of the aorta. She continues, "After all --" and then materializes in a pale dress and white sweater. "Isn't that where a mother belongs?" She smiles us into the commercials. Parents always drop in right when you're doing something embarrassing, don't they?

When we return, Darla claims, "The Powers have sent me to give you a message." Connor, shell-shocked, says she's not his mother. She replies, "I have her memories, her feelings. Isn't that what makes a person who they are?" Interesting question. And interesting way of avoiding Connor's question. The girl goes back to crying and begging to be let go. Darla looks at the girl curiously and says, "I know that sound." Darla squats to the girl and says Darla nurtured fear "in all the people that [Darla] murdered." Connor whispers, "My mother's dead." The girl looks up at him, startled, at which point it becomes clear that she can't see Darla, and I start thinking it'd be pretty damn funny if Darla was The First. Maybe The First moonlights for TPTB while it's waiting for something to happen on the other show. Darla goes on about how she shared Connor's soul when he was inside her, which I still find ridiculous. She says, "You brought light to my shadow, filled my heart with joy and love, and caused me to make really dopey sentimental speeches like this one." Bah. Connor asks if Darla killed herself because she hated him. For the benefit of the understandably confused, I'll point out that Holtz doesn't know why Darla staked herself, and only Angel heard her rooftop speech about the glories of motherhood. I'm not sure Angel's had a chance to tell Connor about the details of his birth, and even if he had, I don't know if telling Connor "your horribly evil undead mom loved you so much she killed herself" would really cheer the kid up. Darla explains that she did what she needed to do: "My life for yours." She repeats her line about how Connor was the only good thing she ever did, and says, "I'd die every day for the rest of eternity for you." I'm sure she means that nicely and everything, but perhaps she should tone it down. Darla looks at the girl and asks, "And this is how you repay me?" Connor, resigned, says, "We need her for our baby. To keep it safe." Darla hisses, "By anointing it in the blood of an innocent? You really think that safety can be plucked from the arms of an evil deed?" I guess dying four times makes you a little more poetic. Connor quotes Cordy: "Good, evil. They're just words." Darla begs Connor, "Don't let my death mean nothing." I think the meaning of her death is her problem.

Skip insists that nothing he says will change what will happen. Angel asks what is controlling Cordy. Skip says, "To give it voice would rend your feeble brain into a quivering mass of --" Angel says that nobody will notice the difference. No, he just asks Fred to get the torture-sphere ready. Skip confesses that it doesn't have a name. Gunn asks what Skip calls it, and Skip says, "Y'know, 'Master' or 'Hey'..." Angel grumbles that Cordy's vision-girl stint proved to TPTB that she was worthy. Wesley suggests, "Unless it maneuvered her to inherit the visions in the first place." Skip says, "The rubes are catching up." Man, he cannot keep a secret for anything. Angel guesses that everything Cordy's been through in the past few years was part of the plan. Skip says it wasn't just Cordy: "Do you have any concept of how many lines have to intersect in order for a thing like this to play out?" He addresses the MoG in turn, and refers to Cary's arrival in this world, Gunn's sister, Fred's visit to Pylea, and Wesley's relationship with Lilah. He concludes, "I love a story with scope." It leaves your breath minty, too. Gunn asserts his free will, and Skip says, "Sure, a cheese sandwich here. When to floss. But the big stuff...Two vampires squeezing out a kid." Angel guesses that Connor was intended "to create a vessel" and guesses, "Being inside a human makes [the Forced Evil] vulnerable, doesn't it? That's why it had to stay hidden -- why it had to create something stronger to pour itself into." Gunn, understandably confused, asks if the Forced Evil took Cordy over so that it could "give birth...to itself?" Skip says that's the circle of life. Heh. Angel asks how they can stop it. Skip says that's a snap: "All you gotta do is find Cordelia, and chop her head off." Angel wants alternatives, so Skip admits that any fatal wound will do the trick. Angel grumps, "A way that won't kill Cordy in the process!" Skip explains, "It takes a whole lot of crammin' to get that much sweetness into a human." I bet it involves the same magic they use to pump extra calcium into plasticized pseudo-cheese food products. Skip says that every part of Cordy is suffused with cheese -- sorry, I mean "with the Forced Evil," "and it ain't letting go 'till it got [sic] a brand new bag." Fred asks what'll happen to Cordy after the birth. Skip says that the birth will drain her "life force." Angel asks if that will kill her, and I know he probably doesn't have much life force himself, but doesn't it sound like an important thing for living creatures to have? Skip answers, "Or she'll end up a head of cabbage."

Wesley asks Angel what he wants to do. Skip answers for him, "The only thing he can do. Kill the woman he loves and save the world. Times like this, it's really gotta suck being you." Angel's probably thinking that this scenario sounds kind of familiar. He heavily asks how he can find Cordy. Skip suggests, "I'd go with the Bu'shundi ritual, but you're gonna need sacred Hutamin paw." Cary interrupts the stirring background music to announce, "The real Cordy kept one in her desk drawer." He heads for the desk while Skip insists that it must be a knockoff: "It's not some trinket you throw in a desk drawer." Cary pulls out something that looks like a deer's hoof on a stick, and explains, "She thought it was a back-scratcher." Angel tells the gang to get started on the spell, while Skip backpedals, "Did I say 'Bu'shundi?' I meant 'Ru'shundi.'" Oh, now he decides he's said too much? See, here's another thing: Cordelia's evil plan is near its climax. Why leave Skip alive when he knows so much?

Connor insists, "They hate us because we're special." Darla squats to the girl, who sobs that she doesn't hate Connor. I find that shot particularly chilling, with Darla watching this terrified girl with vague curiosity. I almost wish more of this had included the girl's point of view, because she's just hearing Connor rant to himself like a loon, and that's spooky. On the other hand, there's already an awful lot going on. Darla calmly insists that the MoG are scared "because of what [Connor's] done, not because of what [he is]." I don't know how reassuring that is. Connor says, "They wanted to kill me while I was still inside of you," and since Darla is right to the girl, she must think he's talking to her, and I think that's just so creepy. Darla insists that once Connor was born, the MoG liked him just fine. Connor insists, "And [the same thing] will happen again when they hold my child!" Vincent Kartheiser is kicking so much ass in this episode. He's all confused and crazed and upset and I'm having a hard time making jokes because of it, curse him. He looks at the girl more coldly and says that it's the only way. Darla says that Connor has a choice, and Connor demands, "What choice? They're hunting us like animals!" Darla replies that they're acting like animals. Another really bad argument, because it ends up sounding like, "You started it!" Darla says that she committed her atrocities because she didn't have a soul, and asks what Connor's excuse is. She doesn't quite ask, "What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?" Connor says he doesn't want to do this, but he has to. He turns away as Darla says, "There are things happening, Connor, things that I can't...it has to be your choice." So I guess telling him anything about Cordy is against the rules? This is why, when you're a super-powerful being that controls our puny lives, I strongly advise you not to agree to any rules. They're nothing but trouble. Connor quietly quotes Cordy again: "Her blood, for our baby's. That's fair, isn't it." The girl sniffles that she wants to go home, and Connor shouts at her to shut up. Darla says that this isn't like him, and Connor uses an extra-creepy low tone to say, "You've been gone a long time, Mom. How would you know?" That sets Darla off on soul-sharing again, and then says, "I feel the good in you. And no matter how much you're beaten or twisted or lied to, it's still there. In your heart." She places her hand on Connor's chest, ruining all my elaborate speculations about crossover-y yet independent plots. Although maybe they're planning to wait a couple of years and then have a flashback where it turns out that Darla has her own hidden agenda here. I mean, why not?

"What do you think he'll do?" Fred asks. She's talking about Angel, as she and Gunn sit in the lobby. Angel's behind his desk, staring at his drawing of Cordelia. We don't see the drawing, though; we just see him holding the notebook. I like that. It doesn't quite make up for the overuse of slow-mo in this episode, but for a first-time director, DeKnight did pretty well, I think. Gunn answers, "What he has to. Like he always does." Turn death into a fighting chance to live. Oh my goodness, Angel's going to destroy the Enterprise! Fred wonders if it'll matter, if they're just "pieces being moved around the board." On the word "board," we see Skip scratching his ear, like he's bored, and I desperately want to believe that was intended as a visual pun. It probably wasn't, but let me have my strange jokes. Gunn says that they can "kick [the board] over, start a new game." Gunn makes a little speech about free will, claiming that this is "a little something [he] picked up rubbin' mojos these past few years." Whatting whats? The rest of his speech is similarly arcane, and quoting portions will make it even less sensible, but his point is that some choices do matter, and since they don't know which choices are meaningless, it's best to treat them all as important.

Cary and Wesley enter the room, and Cary says, "We got it!" Skip grumpily mutters, "You're all puppets." Wesley points the now-smoldering deer's foot at Skip and says, "Shut up." Hee. The deer's foot totally makes that worthwhile. Cary holds a map and says that Cordy and Connor are hiding "downtown, in the meat-packing district." Angel morosely enters, takes the map, and heads for the weapons cabinet. Gunn gets ready to roll, but Angel says he's doing this alone. He says, "Whatever's taken over Cordy, it's still her inside. She's still our friend. She's still the woman I --" He's interrupted by the wails of people who...er. Who take out very nice banner ads and support TWoP! Hooray for them! Right, so Angel finishes by saying, "I won't let you carry that. I can't." Secretly, he's thinking, "Maybe I can just send her to hell for a few thousand years, and then she'll inexplicably fall from a ceiling somewhere. Naked!" Skip asks, "Anybody got a hanky?" and Cary shoots him a "you're spoiling the moment!" look. Fred and Wesley state the obvious, and Angel heads out, sword in hand. Fred runs after him, asking him to wait. Fred looks at him pleadingly. Angel looks back numbly and shakes his head a little, and he didn't particularly sell that look, but oh well. Angel exits. Skip says, "That'll go well."

I don't think I'll have many jokes for this part. Sorry. Connor tells the girl to hush, and starts to untie her hands. Darla looks on proudly and says everything's hunky-dory. Cordy interrupts: "What are you doing?" She stands in the doorway holding a cleaver so that it dangles into the frame. Connor jumps up and insists, "Nothing!" Cordy says to hurry up, please, it's time. Darla says, "Listen to your heart." Connor hesitantly tells Cordy that they should let the girl go. He repeats Darla's line about anointing their baby with innocent blood. Cordy sneers, "Who's been filling your head with big, confusing words?" She wonders if "a little birdy's been peckin' at [him] behind [her] back." Darla says, "She'll lie to you." Why stick to the future tense? Cordy reminds Connor that the MoG like relying on magic. She looks around the room searchingly and says that Angel's trying to trick Connor. Darla and Cordy take turns cajoling until Connor starts to cover his ears. Cordy wants to know who is the third who walks always beside him, and finally says that Angel's sent "a cheap vision of....Darla!" Connor gasps, "You can see her?" Cordy says, "I see the lies." Darla and Cordy make dueling pleas, moving closer to Connor, and he gets increasingly upset until he finally shouts at Darla, "You are not my mother!" He grabs the girl's wrists and starts dragging her out of the room while that lullabye-ish music plays. Darla watches as Cordy follows with the cleaver. If this was the only slow-mo scene in the episode, I think I'd be fine with it. There's too much of it elsewhere, but here it really works. The girl is dragged out into the main room, and Cordy raises the cleaver. The girl looks up at Connor, and suddenly she's Darla. Oh, great idea, Good Guys, if that what you are. Screw him up some more, why don't you? "Don't do this, Connor!" Darla says. Cordy swings the cleaver. Blood splatters on Connor's face. Cordy, with blood sprinkled on her neck, says, "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Dude.

After the ads, Connor looks down at the dead girl, who still has Darla's face. Brrrr. The awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract. And stuff. Cordy is back within the circle of candles, lying on the floor. She moans in pain and says that they have to do this "while it's fresh." Connor looks down at the blood on the floor. Darla's image has faded away. The nymphs are departed. He squats and presses his hand into the blood as Cordy starts chanting again. Cordy tells him, "Do it now," and Connor places his bloody hand on her belly. He moves away, and the blood fades instantly as Cordy wails in pain. And, naturally, that's when the earthquake hits.

At the Hyperion, Wesley stands in a doorway, which is the smartest thing I've ever seen him do. Gunn shouts for Fred, by which he means Gwen. Gunn, Fred, and Cary collapse as the floor shakes. Fred asks, "What's happening," because she is the biggest idiot in the world. Some crumbling bits of the ceiling fall onto the circle around Skip, breaking the barrier imprisoning him. That's a pretty lame magic circle, I have to say. Skip says, "End of the world, cupcake. For you," and walks out of the circle toward her.

Connor holds Cordy's hand and says that they have to stop whatever's happening. Cordy gasps, "It's coming! The beginning of a new world!" "Or not," Angel says. Connor stands up and turns to face his father.

Skip tosses Gunn across the room. I guess he went to Satan's School for Tossing. He turns back to Fred, who is crawling away. Wesley hits Skip in the back with an axe, which has zero effect. Except that it causes Skip to turn and knock Wesley across the room. And then he taunts them a bit as the earthquake continues. There's always time for taunting.

Angel's sword hangs in the left-hand side of the frame, recalling the way Cordy held the cleaver earlier on the right earlier, and I'm sorry to keep harping on the slow-mo, but everything else about the direction really impressed me. Angel tells Connor that Cordy isn't Cordy, which I feel obliged to note is a lie, and Cordy tells Connor not to listen. Connor rushes Angel, knocking the sword away, and Cordy pleads, "Kill him! Kill him, Connor!"

Skip grabs Fred by the neck and lifts her up. Fred has achieved a bloody nose at some point. Skip asks, "What was that you were saying before? Something about infinite agony?" Gunn rushes up and attacks with a sword. Skip drops Fred and knocks Gunn away. Wesley leaps up and starts blazing away with a pistol. Bleah. Guns have ceased to be excitingly realistic intrusions into this fantasy world, and are now just further evidence of Wesley's incompetence. The bullets harmlessly bounce off Skip, except for shattering some nearby decorative touches. But that doesn't stop Wesley, no sir! In a bit that took me and Johanna some time to figure out, Skip turns so that a bullet bounces off him and hits Wesley somehow, causing him to drop the gun. Skip asks, "Do those things ever work? I mean, really?" It's been a long time since I've been amused by the closed captioning, but I do giggle a bit at the shot of Fred with the caption "[Breathes heavily.]" As Skip turns back to Fred, Wesley makes a squinty Clint Eastwood face. There's a wound in Skip's head where his sickle was knocked off. Wesley makes a ludicrous slow-mo rolling dive for his pistol, and I guess I should give props because it's clearly Alexis Denisof doing the shoulder-roll, and that's great, but Jesus, knock it off already with the slow-mo! I'm seriously starting to wonder if the episode was five minutes short. So anyway, Wesley aims and fires, and the bullet enters the wee hole in Skip's armor. Skip sighs, "Well, that ain't right," and collapses.

Angel and Connor keep fighting. Okay, my other quibble is that because of the back-and-forth between battles, we don't have enough time to think about what's happening in this fight. I mean, Angel must have realized that he might have to kill his son in order to kill Cordelia, and that just makes everything suckier, but it's never mentioned, and we don't have time to do anything but think, "Hey, superheroes are fighting!" Angel quickly hurls Connor into a door as he says, "You think I want to do this? I don't have a choice!" He picks up the sword and stands over a moaning Cordy. Angel raises the sword. Connor starts to get up as Angel says, "I'm so sorry." Cordy screams, and as Angel moves to strike, light blazes out from Cordy's belly. Angel and Connor are knocked down. Prismatic light fills the shot, and the silhouette of something with tentacles is visible. The tentacles gradually coalesce. Johanna says, "Connor is thinking that as long as it has ten tentacles and ten horns, he's happy." Connor and Angel stare, bewildered, as the light fades to reveal Zoe, from...oh, you know, that science fiction show. That show that got cancelled. Remember? No, I mean this season. The name started with "F." No, the one on Fox. No, not the one with the robot who drinks and smokes; I'm talking about the show that didn't make any sense. Yeah, that's the one. Anyway. Angel looks at Cordy, who moans and falls unconscious. He quickly grabs the sword and jumps up to attack, then stops suddenly and gasps, "Omigod." California is finally rubbing off on him. Angel falls to his knees, and Connor does the same. "You're beautiful," Angel sighs. Zoe smiles prettily and says, "Angel." Shantih.

week, Zoe starts a twelve-step program, and Fred gets some really nasty outfits.