Papa, Don't Preach -- Just Lie There And Bleed

S05E07

Props to Goalie31 and CleaPet.

The show begins with another spooky warehouse. It's lit in orangey sunset-glow, to distinguish it from last week's spooky warehouse, as well as from the Wolfram & Hart lobby, because I think that's what it is. As the steadycam creeps through the building, there's the echo of a voice speaking. This appears to be the first of several audio problems my local WB affiliate is having. The camera finally arrives at a little table, around which Wesley and some goons are gathered. Sound finally returns just as the head goon, Elim, tells Wesley, "There's no Better Business Bureau for what we do." Hey, my mom works for the BBB. Shout-out? Eh, guess not. Elim goes on for quite a while, and what he's saying doesn't make much sense until later, when we find out that he's buying something from Wesley. Wesley interrupts the speechifying to say, "If I'd known this was going to be a seminar, I'd have worn my name tag." Elim says he just wants to make it clear where they stand, and Wesley quips, "You're standing on the brink of my patience." What? So Elim is about to enter Wesley's patience? What? Eventually, we near some kind of point, as Elim explains that he wants to inspect the merchandise. Wesley gestures, and Fred walks out of the darkness carrying a case. Elim coos over Fred, although she does look nice since her hair is pulled back and she's dressed in grown-up clothes. Fred opens the case and begins assembling a sniper rifle as she goes over its specs. Wesley adds that they have two hundred units ready now, and will assemble the rest once they've been paid. Elim asks how Angel feels about supplying nefarious characters with big guns. Wesley explains that guns are almost never effective on this show, plus Angel's more concerned about people who have a lot of pointy wooden objects. Well, actually he says that the guns have to be used outside Los Angeles: "We choose our battles." He goes on to insist on meeting Elim's distributor, because he doesn't want to go through middlemen. Elim takes offense, and I have to support him here, because if he makes his living selling weapons, why would he want to cut himself out of the deal? Then Elim gives in, and I grow increasingly confused about the whole transaction as he writes down a phone number for Wesley to call. Elim tells Fred, "To think I used to sell this guy collapsable swords...." He's interrupted by the sound of a jingling chain.

One of the goons starts as what I think is a grappling hook lands in his head and hauls him away. Wesley immediately knocks Fred down. Hooray! Oh, he's just trying to move her to safety. Poop. The second goon starts firing at them, and Elim roars, "No one double-crosses me!" Fred asks what's going on, and Wesley doesn't know, so he pulls out two pistols and does the dive-and-roll while firing. In slow-motion. Although I like the part where they cut from slo-mo Wesley in mid-air to Fred, in real time, sighing, "Thank you, Wesley, I'd love a gun," and back to slo-mo Wesley. Heh. Wesley takes out the goon. Then the first goon falls to the ground and is immediately followed by a superninja. Elim puts his gun up and says, "I don't want any --" The superninja whips a chain around Elim's neck and snaps it. (His neck, not the chain.) Wesley pops out from behind cover and takes aim at the superninja, but it dives out of sight. Very quickly. Whatever they did to convey super-speed right there, I liked it. Some of it was just quick cuts, but they may have sped up the film a little, too. Wesley slowly advances through the warehouse, and the superninja pops out and knocks his guns away. Then there's a crash as Angel dives in through a window and battles the superninja. The superninja knocks him down and whips out another chain, but Angel grabs the chain and yanks the superninja to him. And then he snaps its neck, because he loves doing that. Instead of falling down dead, the supeninja collapses into a twitching heap and emits blue sparks. Angel pulls the ninja mask off to reveal a metal plate covering the superninja's face. Angel and Wesley look at each other, and then Fred moans off-camera. Wesley gasps, "Fred," and rushes to her while Angel ponders, "Fred?" They discover that Fred has a wound on her shoulder. I thought she'd been shot, and was prepared to declare this the best episode ever on those grounds. Wesley pulls out a hankie, because that'll fix it, and he and Angel look troubled as we go to the credits.

When we return, they're back at Angel's office, where a cowed Wesley is getting a bad review from Angel. Eve is also there for no reason. Angel wants to know why Fred went to the meet. A cowed Wesley quietly explains that she was there to explain the weapon's features. Angel sniffs, "Nobody else here knows how to explain a gun?" Wesley says that Fred can take care of herself, but Angel points out that they found her bleeding on the ground. Angel gruffs, "From now on, you clear it with me before using any of my people!" Wesley repeats, "Your people?" and Angel snaps, "Got it?" Wesley nods slightly and leaves, and he's so not getting a Christmas bonus this year. Eve asks why Angel was so hard on Wesley, and then answers her own question by suggesting that Angel's got some lingering resentment about that whole thing where Wesley kidnapped his son. She goes on expositioning for what seems like days until Angel sullenly insists that he just wants to be kept informed. Well, if you want to know something, why not just ask Eve? Oh, maybe her evil power is that she can only tell him things he already knows. It's like a new twist on Cassandra. Eve wonders if Angel is worried about Wesley betraying him again. I'd like to say yes, but I don't think Angel is that smart.

Cut to Wesley, glaring at the camera in his office when Fred pops in. Her arm's in a sling, but sadly her tongue is just as vigorous as ever. She wants Wesley to come see all of the cool stuff inside the superninja cyborg they're disassembling in the lab. Honestly, unless they found a "handcrafted by the devil" tag inside, I'm not interested. She claims that the ninjaguts look like "an M.C. Escher picture," and I'm so glad she was specific there so I didn't think she was referring to the famous artist Bob Escher. Who talks like that? Wesley says he's sorry she got hurt, and Fred brushes it off by saying, "All I had to do was hide and I couldn't even do that right." Wesley insists that he should have protected her, and then tries to apologize for his phrasing as Fred tells him that he's being patronizing. He goes on to say that she shouldn't have been there, and Fred gasps, "That's not for you to decide!" Well, if he was the one who told her to come along, it kind of is. Wesley makes that same point, and Fred snaps, "Stop trying to be all valiant; you're coming off like a self-pitying child." She's only just noticed that now? Wow, Fred really is oblivious. As she yells at him, Wesley looks past her at a man standing in the doorway and says, "Hello, Father." Fred somehow doesn't notice that Wesley is looking over her head at someone behind her, because she's an idiot, so she goes on to say "I wish I was your father; I'd tell you to grow up." Finally, the man in the doorway interrupts: "It doesn't work. I've tried." He steps forward and introduces himself as Roger Wyndom-Pryce. Hey, it's Roy Dotrice! I'm sure you all remember him form Tales of the Gold Monkey. Oh, hush. Fred babbles per usual, claiming that Wesley was helping her practice belittling employees. Good cover story, Fred. Now I understand why she doesn't usually go along on the missions. She finally excuses herself and lets us get on with the family reunion.

Wesley goes on staring at his father like someone dropped a hammer on his head, and finally asks if his mother is okay. Roger says she's "sturdy as ever," and explains that he dropped in to discuss some business. Wesley awkwardly clears some papers off the couch, and Roger sits down and goes over the fact that the Watcher's Council done blowed all up. He explains that he and some other former Watchers have decided to reform the Council, I guess because there's a danger of the Americans' getting too far ahead of the UK in the all-important "international meddling" category. Good luck with that, guys. Wesley hesitantly wonders if he's being invited back into the Council. Roger quickly says, "There are some who believe that your tenure as Watcher ranks as our most embarrassing failure." Wesley regains a little backbone as he snaps, "I beat out everybody dying in an explosion as most embarrassing failure?" Well, it's not really embarrassing to get blown up. Roger reminds Wesley to show some respect, and finally admits that they just might let Wesley back into their special club after an evaluation by dear old dad. So they'd let Wesley's own father evaluate him for membership? I know, I know, but the fact that Wesley buys it kind of points up one of the many things wrong with the Watcher's Council. Wesley ponders that for a moment, but then gets up and sniffs, "I'll save you the trouble: I'm not interested." Roger argues that this is Wesley's chance to clear his name. Wesley insists that he's happy at Wolfram & Hart. Roger doesn't buy that, perhaps because Wesley can't be happy unless he's making himself miserable, and refers to Wolfram & Hart a "haven of evil."

Roger steps out into the hallway, and Wesley follows, claiming that Wolfram & Hart is slightly less evil now that incompetents run it. He proves his point by crashing into the doorframe and rebounding into a woman, knocking a pile of files out of her hands. See, if I'm supposed to care about what happens to Wesley later, they probably shouldn't remind me about all the pratfalling. I may not like Wesley, but at least he's an interesting character now, and he sure wasn't back then. Eventually, he sorts himself out and resumes his argument that Wolfram & Hart is a "powerful weapon" that the MoG can use for good. He adds that they take their work seriously, and I don't even have time to say "cue Cary, acting wacky" before Cary approaches and mentions that he heard Wesley's dad was visiting. He greets Roger by saying, "It's like Winston Churchill and a young Richard Harris had a beautiful love child...which, according to my sources, may not be as ridiculous as it sounds." Wesley puts his hand up toward his face so that he can grimace at Cary behind it, but Cary is, of course, clueless. Wesley tells his dad that Cary runs the "Entertainment Division, or possibly Public Relations, depending on which week it is." Roger snides that he can see how that would be very important to the fight against evil. Gunn chuckles, "You'd be amazed at how many horrible movies we've stopped," as he wanders downstairs to join the gathering. I'd like it if Lucas was the villain for the season. But maybe that's a little too realistic. Gunn explains that the whole building is talking about Roger's visit, which seems pretty weird to me. And by the way, where's Harmony? I don't particularly miss her, but as long as we're trying to embarrass Wesley in front of his dad, it seems like a prime opportunity for her to pop up and say, "Wesley helped get me this job as Angel's secretary, and he didn't even mind that I'm still evil and everything!" Where was I? Oh yeah, Gunn tells Wesley that they need his help in the lab. Wesley explains to Roger that they caught a superninja while "infiltrating a weapons ring." Oh, is that what they were doing? After a short pause, Wesley invites his dad along to check out the robot. Roger agrees to join the fun, and gives Cary a few weird looks before following Wesley upstairs.

In the lab, Fred babbles while Angel looks at the superninja, the torso of which has been ripped open to expose guts and hunks of metal. Eve and Spicule are also watching the proceedings, presumably on the off chance that there's a sudden need for exposition or whining. Angel wants to know if the superninja was originally human, and Fred says she thinks so, but that the superninja "blurs the line between human and robot." Spicule looks up from gesturing at the Erlenmeyer flasks to wonder if they've considered the possibility that "a human being could have boffed a robot." I think he's suggesting that the superninja is the child of a robot and a person. Basically, we're pretending that Spicule is even dumber than usual so that he has some reason to add, "Sex with robots is more common than most people think." Everyone greets that news with the expected awkward silence, and then we go back to the technobabble. Joy. Fred wants to try to hack into the superninja's memory to find out what it was doing. The dull stuff is once again interrupted by Spicule, who manages to knock a beaker off the shelf. He's excited about his accomplishment, the others are irritated, and I'm just kind of sleepy. I don't mind the concept of having Spicule there to break up dull but necessary exposition. But this isn't necessary at all. We've learned that the superninja is a robot. I knew that already. Oh yeah, we're also learning that Eve keeps staring at Spicule, which turns out to be important later when...well, it's not actually important, now that I think about it. It's mentioned later. So sleepy. Fred says that they haven't been able to get into the superninja's memory yet, and Knox pipes up uselessly to note that it's "a binary-based system." Brilliant.

Angel starts to leave, but then Wesley and Roger enter. Wesley makes with the introductions. Roger sharply tells Spicule, "We've met," and briefly mentions that in 1963 he found Spicule "slaughtering an orphanage in Vienna." He adds, "Killed two of my men before you escaped." Spicule blinks, "Oh...How have you been?" Off Roger's nonresponse, Spicule turns, wide-eyed, and wanders away. Heh. Angel steps up and introduces himself, but Roger glares at Angel's proffered hand and growls, "Do you really expect me to shake that?" Angel replies, "I'm not real comfortable with hugging." After a beat, Angel acknowledges that this must look strange to Roger, but that they're all doing good work. Except for Eve and Spicule and maybe Knox and arguably Cary. If you want to be technical about it. Roger isn't mollified, and Wesley turns the subject back to the robot. Fred eagerly leads Roger toward the superninja, and Wesley gives Angel a pained grimace before following along. Family's always embarrassing. Angel tells Fred to keep him posted and exits, Eve trailing along, shaking her glossy mane for all it's worth. Which is about forty-seven cents.

Wesley, Fred, and Roger gather around the superninja. Fred points out some mysterious symbols in the superninja's chest while Knox steps up to note that they've picked up some traces of radiation from the body. Fred thinks there could be a self-destruct mechanism inside. God, I hope so. Then Knox and Fred share a "cute" fumbling moment, and Wesley's eyes pop back and forth between them like he's watching a ping-pong match. Fred says that she wanted Wesley to translate the symbols, and takes the opportunity to tell Roger how great Wesley is at bungling translations. Roger unexpectedly agrees, saying, "The academy didn't make him Head Boy for nothing." Suddenly there's a shot of Spicule looking over at the others. I really hate the director. Although he seems okay with action shots. It's just that whenever the characters start talking to each other, we get a series of close-ups and it's extremely flat and dull. It'd have been better if we'd just seen Spicule looking at them from the background. Oh well. Wesley makes with the translating, and says that the symbols look like a battle prayer or maybe a binding spell. He says that part of the text is hidden under something else, and starts shoving bits of superninja out of the way. As he jostles the carburetor, it lights up and beeps at him. Everyone stares, and Roger asks what Wesley did. Wesley says, "Unless I'm very much mistaken, I've just activated the bomb." It would have served him right if the bomb exploded while he was still in the middle of that sentence. Wesley, could you at least pick appropriate times to be longwinded? Failing that, shut up.

Commercials. I call Johanna. She asks why I'm calling her, since we aren't friends anymore. She's still a little upset about the bad puns last week. She relents long enough to ask me why Eve keeps staring at Spicule. I suggest that maybe they'll fall in love and run away, which would solve a lot of problems in one fell swoop. I mention that I'm glad Roger is just a subtle jerk instead of a moustache-twirling villain, and that I like the fact that Fred seems quite taken with him. Then I say, "Wouldn't it be great if Fred fell in love with Wesley's dad? I mean, as long as they're torturing him, let's have fun with it."

When we return, Wesley is insisting that they should evacuate the building, but he and Fred continue poking through the ninjabits. Spicule starts to make a run for it, but then catches himself and asks, "What the hell am I worried about?" Fred keeps trying to help, but Wesley grabs her arm and drags her toward the door while gibbering that she has to get as far away as possible while he tries to defuse the bomb. But then there's a whirr and the bomb shuts down. Wesley looks over at Roger, who is standing over the superninja with a gadget, and asks what happened. Roger explains that Wesley misidentified and mistranslated the markings, which is even worse than is usual for him. The symbols actually explained how to handle the superninja's power core, and how to turn off the self-destruct mechanism. He sniffs, "Quite simple, really."

Cut to Angel, pensively nibbling on his finger. He looks up from his desk and asks, "What happened?" Before Wesley and Fred can answer, Spicule leaps in front of them and happily declares, "I can explain: apparently, when Percy here was younger, he used to be known as Head Boy!" Angel says he knew that, and a crestfallen Spicule says, "I have nothing else to report," and moves out of view. That didn't make any sense at all, but it was funny so I don't care. Ha! Wesley less cheerfully explains what happened, and if you don't mind I'm going to skip over describing other characters' descriptions of what I just described. Wesley gives his dad credit for defusing the bomb, and Angel asks where Roger is. Fred says that Cary is entertaining Roger.

Cut to Roger, leaning on one hand with a look of despair while Cary fails to regale him with a story. I'm regaled as hell, though, because Cary is saying, "So I'm covered in cherries, the police are just pounding on the door, and Judi Dench starts screaming, 'Oh, that's way too much to pay for a pair of pants!'" Wow, Cary got to be in two scenes! I wonder if he gets overtime for that.

Cut back to Fred, who suddenly realizes that Roger might not appreciate Cary's comedy stylings. She hurries off to rescue Roger (Fred loooooves Roger!), and Spicule offers to have someone type up a report about "head boy." Angel grunts, "Get out," and amazingly, Spicule does. Then Angel reassures Wesley, suggesting that having his dad looking over his shoulder distracted him. Angel says, "Fathers and sons, that can be torture sometimes," perhaps thinking of "Dad," and quickly changes the subject back to the superninja. He hands over a report from Wesley's department about assassins that might be superninjas. Wesley looks over the file and notes that the superninja have taken out several demonic groups. "Sounds like they're doing our work for us," he says. Angel wonders if the superninja are good guys. Wesley says he'll investigate some more, and Angel adds, "If these guys are on our side, somebody should tell them before they start trying to kill us again." Maybe they were going after the gun dealer and you guys just happened to be there; did you consider that? I dunno, it seems like we were supposed to think the superninjas were the "A" story, and that the visit from Wesley's dad was a subplot. I suspect it would have worked better if the first half was written that way, but the focus is so clearly on Roger that, if anything, the superninjas seem like a subplot.

Fred and Roger are pedeconferencing, and Fred is asking, "He was how old?" Roger guesses six or seven just as Wesley joins them. Roger explains that he was telling Fred about the time he caught Wesley with a resurrection spell, but that he can't remember what Wesley was doing with it. Wesley explains that a bird flew into his window, and he was trying to bring it back to life. Fred marvels that Wesley could read the spell at that age, and Roger says that Wesley's mother thought he was a prodigy. Roger adds, "Luckily I caught him, or we'd have had zombie birds pecking out his little eyeballs." Hee. Fred laughs, and Wesley stiffly asks if Roger could help with some research. Roger merrily asks, "You aren't going to try to blow me up again, are you?" and Wesley says, "Probably not." Roger agrees to help out.

Wesley and Roger enter the library, where Wesley continues muttering to himself about researching possibilities. Roger points out that Fred seems to like Wesley, and asks if she was trapped in a hell dimension for several years or something. No, not really. Roger's just meddling, and wants to know if Wesley likes Fred and if Fred knows that Wesley likes her and so on. Wesley tries to change the subject, and Roger guesses that Wesley already has a girlfriend. He sighs, "How am I supposed to know these things?" Heh. Wesley snaps, "You could have asked." Roger claims that Wesley is being defensive, although I think "passive-aggressive" is more accurate. If you react to someone expressing interest in you by snapping at him, you're discouraging him from trying that again. Because you secretly want to feel ignored. Wesley finally says, "The last girl I was with, I had to chop into little, tiny pieces because a higher power saw fit to stab her in the neck." Roger asks Wesley not to be sarcastic, and Roger, even if you don't believe Wesley, that's not sarcasm. I think someone screwed up Roger's thesaurus. Roger tries once more, and simply says that if Wesley likes Fred, he should tell her. Well, that's just craziness, and Wesley rightly ignores his father and picks up a book. Wesley says "The Saitama Codex" to the book, and opens it as the pages fill with text. Roger demands some exposition about the magic books, which Wesley provides himself instead of ringing the bell to summon Eve and making her explain. Roger starts to fret about how dangerous it is to leave all of these magical resources out where anyone can get at them. Wesley insists that the books are perfectly safe.

Cut to superninja landing on a rooftop. Presumably it's the Wolfram & Hart building's roof, but there's no way we could tell that. I like thinking it's a completely different building, and that this has no connection to the rest of the show. This seems like such a mistake. On so many levels. If we didn't see the cyberninjas here, we'd go on thinking that Roger is picking on Wesley, but as it is, we think, "Ah, Roger has a point, and Wesley is an idiot." Granted, I think that kind of thing habitually, but I still think that it completely undermines what you want the audience to believe at this point. Plus, since we've seen them, we're not at all surprised by what happens in the scene. So you've got all that balanced against a not-very-funny half-second gag. Seems like a bad call to me.

Cut to Eve in an elevator. Spicule wooshes in and demands to know why she keeps giving him the hairy eyeball. Eve avoids the question and asks if he's been able to affect the world lately. They trade significant yet meaningless jibes, and this is when the director really earned my ire as we switch back and forth between Eve and Spicule talking directly into the camera. God, that's annoying. It's sad when a simple two-shot would be visually stimulating. Spicule tells Eve that he figures the Amulet of Assitude was meant for Angel, and asks, "So why am I here? Why don't they just let me go?" Eve non-answers, "Who said the amulet was meant for Angel?" And then the lights dim and the elevator stops. Spicule mutters, "I know what this is," and shouts, " You'll never take me to hell, Pavayne!" as the emergency lights kick in. Eve stares at Spicule until he offers, "That's just something I say. When it gets dark." Heh.

Back downstairs, Angel stumbles out of his office into the dimly lit hallway. Gunn joins him for a mood-lit pedeconference and states the obvious regarding the lights. Angel asks if someone could stop the whirring alarms, and they immediately cut out. Angel says, "That's better," until Gunn says that means they've lost security. Spicule appears and mentions that the elevator's stopped. Angel ignores Spicule and asks Gunn to contact Security. A suit is suddenly knocked across the lobby, and then the cyberninjas drop into view.

Wesley and Roger are dealing with the attack in their own special way. Mostly by snapping at each other. A superninja bursts in and starts whipping a chain around. Why are the superninja armed with chains? It's such an odd choice of weaponry. Wesley knocks his dad out of the way and grabs a sword which was conveniently hung on the wall nearby. Wesley spars with the superninja for a moment, and then is knocked down. The superninja moves toward the books, and Roger starts to protect them. Wesley tosses the sword to his father, who defends the books for a moment until Wesley can grab the superninja's arm and swing him down to the floor. Roger complains about Wesley's battle tactics, and then Wesley grabs the sword and whips it into the superninja. It collapses in a burst of blue FX. Wesley says that they should retreat, and Roger points out that it was going after the books. Wesley says, "Grab the books," and he and Roger each take an armful. Then Wesley opens the secret panel in the bookcases, because why have bookcases if they don't hide secret passages? A hidden door is revealed, which Wesley opens by saying "Elysium," and he and Roger retreat into a vault. With some of the books. But not all of them. Plus, it seems like, since the books are just magically connected to the actual texts, it's not really a big deal if you steal them. I mean, you should be able to disconnect them magically from the source material, don't you think?

As Wesley opens a locker in the vault and loads the books into it, Roger grumbles about the kids these days with their clothes and their superninja. He slips in some praise for Wesley, and asks what they should do . Wesley squintingly confirms, "You're asking what I think?" Roger pats Wesley on the shoulder and tells him not to be shocked. Wesley figures they should find the others, and then turns back toward the locker so that he can finish stashing the books. As he starts to elaborate on his plan, Roger pulls a gun out of his jacket and bonks Wesley on the head with it. God, I wish he'd followed that up with "Shut up, Wesley." Instead, he grabs Wesley's keys and opens another locker. Roger pulls out a "magic staff" from a Renaissance Fair and then puts a hand toward his ear and reports, "Phase One complete. Begin Phase Two."

Commercials. Johanna forgets that she isn't speaking to me long enough to say, "I think my crush on Spike might be coming back." I'm surprised to hear that, and she confesses that their love is in a fragile stage. Kind of like her friendship with me. I wonder if my betrayal of Johanna will lead to me having a perverse relationship with a stunning brunette. I think I'm okay with that. Cheers!

When we return, superninjas are busting out all over. Gunn gets tossed onto the staircase, and slides down it head-first. Owie.

Wesley wakes up in the vault, because all Watchers are given steel-plated skulls. He looks in the locker and sees that the books are still there; he then goes back into the library where the superninja is still twitching a bit.

Elsewhere in the building, suits are running around in a mildly panicked way. Roger marches along busily, but suddenly bumps into Fred. Roger quickly tells her, "Wesley's department has monitored some sort of spatial disturbance on the roof -- he's gone to investigate." The research department found a special anomaly? Lucky for him, Fred's not very bright. Roger adds that they have to get Angel up to the roof. Fred, for some reason, fixates on the idea that Wesley sent his father to convey this message. Roger insists that he's perfectly capable, except for being a little bit lost. I also wonder if this might have worked better if we'd seen the story more from Fred's point of view. Or at least if we still thought Roger was essentially Good, if not necessarily a Good Parent. I mean, there's no suspense here at any level. We know Roger's misbehaving, but we've got no reason to think that Fred's in particular danger. Ah well. Whatever. Fred dashes off, leading Roger to Angel.

Wesley pulls of the superninja's mask, and then, with more effort, rips off its shiny faceplate. Underneath is a mutilated human face gasping at him. Wesley says, "Good, you can feel pain." Wesley asks if the superninja can talk, and when it doesn't respond, he wiggles the sword around in its guts. The superninja begs him to stop. Wesley says, "We're making progress. Let's see if you have a sense of self-preservation." He digs into the superninja's chest and activates the bomb inside as he asks, "What is my father doing? What did he take?" And then I lose audio again. According to the captions, the superninja points out that the bomb will kill Wesley if it goes off. Wesley admits that it will, and notes that it would kill everyone in the building, including Roger, "which would be one way to stop your plan."

Out in the lobby, Angel knocks one superninja down but is soon tackled by another. Another superninja wraps a chain around Gunn's neck. Spicule is casually strolling by when he spots Gunn and rushes to the rescue. Spicule stands in front of Gunn and stares at the superninja while Gunn gasps, "What are you...?" Spicule says, "I have to concentrate. Shh, don't talk!" He ponders for a moment and finally punches, knocking the superninja away from Gunn.

Angel is about to get walloped by a superninja when Roger knocks it out with what looks like an andiron holder, which can't possibly be right, because why would that be in the lobby? Oh well. Roger puts out a hand to help Angel up, and the fact that Roger now seems to respect Angel might be almost interesting if we didn't already know that Roger was evil. Again, it seems like the superninja should have been a threat earlier in the episode, and that Roger should have seemed genuinely helpful for a while. I feel like there's the core of an interesting story here, and it's just handled so badly that it frustrates me. Fred arrives and tells Angel that Wesley wants him up on the roof. Angel repeats his instruction to Gunn to check with Security, and then tells Fred to "check who's injured" like she's fucking McCoy or something. What the hell? Angel starts off, and Roger insists on following, saying, "He's my son!" Ugh. Again, if we didn't already know Roger was up to something, we might think that this was leading to a heartwarming moment as Roger realizes his little boy is all growed up, which would make the revelation that Roger is eeeeevil a lot more dramatic. God, I want to rewrite this episode. They head out, and Spicule tries to tell Gunn that Eve's still stuck in the elevator. Gunn calls, "So tell maintenance," as he walks away. Spicule starts to do that, and then reminds himself, "To be honest, I don't even care." Thanks for playing, Spicule. Now, if you don't mind, shut up.

Angel rushes out onto the rooftop, shouting for Wesley. Roger trails behind and confesses, "I'm sorry to have misled you, but this was never about Wesley." He pulls out the goofy staff and says, "Atistrata." Swirly balls of magic form around Angel, who gasps in pain and collapses. See, this should have been the surprising moment, right here.

During the commercials, Johanna and I have a conversation that I can't really recreate anymore, but let's just say it inspired the poll and move on.

When we return, Roger is advising Angel not to fight what's happening. He puts his hand to his head again and says, "Ready for extraction. We're finished." And then Wesley yanks the staff out of his hand. Roger and Wesley pull guns on each other, and face each other over a still-useless Angel. Wesley explains that the staff is draining Angel's will (even though I'll bet Roger already knows that), and tells Roger, "Your cyborgs panic a bit too easily." Roger insists that Angel's existence is a danger: "He's a puppet, he always has been. To The Powers That Be, to Wolfram and Hart. Now he's ours." Wesley triggers some kind of The Usual Suspects montage as he expositions that Roger arranged the attack on the building, and smuggled the gun inside by hiding it in the first superninja. Oh, I see, so he...what? WHAT? He -- what? He sent a superninja to a place where Wesley would be, so that the superninja would be captured and dissected, so that he could haul a gun out of its guts because Wolfram & Hart's sophisticated tech can pick up trace radiation but doesn't notice a freaking gun stuffed inside a corpse? What? Wouldn't it have been a lot simpler just to sneak a knife into the building instead? Whatever. At least now I know who taught Wesley how to make a plan. Wesley doesn't care about how much sense this makes, because he's too hurt that Daddy bonked him on the head instead of asking him for help. Roger sniffs, "You failed me enough for one lifetime."

And of course that's when Fred rushes out onto the roof and obliviously hurries straight to Angel without seeming to care about the fact that there are two men in a Mexican standoff two feet away. Man, this is clumsy. Roger wonders why Wesley would help Angel after everything Angel's done. I feel like they've spent much too long pointing guns at one another. And there's so much more gun-pointing left. Blah blah, Roger doesn't trust Wesley, blah blah, Wesley is resentful because his father's a jerk, and I just can't believe they think that this is the appropriate time for this conversation. And by "they," I mean both the writers and the characters. Wesley -- who appears to be saying whatever words occur to him from moment to moment -- asks, "What is it that galls you so? That I was never as good at the job as you? Or that I just might be better?" Roger figures that Wesley's been California-ized if he wants to talk about feelings. They're still pointing guns at each other, by the way. And Fred is still just staring at them while kneeling to a supine Angel.

A helicopter in the distance reminds Roger that he's actually got something to do here, so he asks Wesley for the magic staff. Wesley backs over to the roof's edge and warns Roger that if he shoots, Wesley will drop the Thorn of Oblivion...I mean, "the staff." He sure is lucky that Roger didn't shoot while they were yakking away for the past five minutes. Anyway, if the staff falls, the crystal in it will break, freeing Angel, because crystals are notoriously fragile. What the hell is it, enchanted rock candy? Roger takes it seriously, though, so he suddenly grabs Fred and yanks her up, saying, "Maybe if it's someone you care about --" He doesn't get to finish that thought, because Wesley instantly starts shooting. Okay, that did surprise me, just because they'd spent so long talking that I kinda forgot they were still holding guns. Wesley marches forward, pumping bullets into his dad. The helicopter fades away again as Wesley turns and stiffly walks away while letting the gun and staff fall out of his hands. He leans over a bit, and then we cut to Fred as the delightful caption appears: "[vomiting]." Well, I don't like Fred, but I wouldn't go that far. Apparently, the sounds of puking were also included here, but darn the luck, that appears to have been another moment of difficulty for my audio because I thought Wesley was just steadying himself until I saw that. Then there's a sizzling electrical noise, and Wesley looks over at his father's body as Roger fades away to reveal another superninja. "My father was a robot!" Wesley gasps. "I wonder if mother knows. Wait, maybe she's a robot as well. But that would mean that...." and then Wesley opens up his own torso to reveal a lot of wires and metal. And then Rod Serling sends us home. Sorry, I'm just trying to distract myself from wondering why anyone would build superninja robots in such a way as to ensure that if they're shot in the chest repeatedly, they're destroyed. I mean, isn't the point of robots that they're harder to kill than people are? And yet snapping their necks and bonking them on the head and shooting their hearts seem to stop them just fine. Makes you wonder why anyone bothers.

Blipvert to Angel, sitting in his office, looking bedraggled. Wesley joins him, and Angel mentions that the worst part about having your free will removed is, unexpectedly, the nausea. Angel asks if Wesley has any theories about whom the superninja were working for. Wesley doesn't. Is there some reason not to suspect the Watcher's Council 2.0? The evidence looks pretty compelling to me. Angel sighs that even the good guys are against him now because of Wolfram & Hart, and worries that the MoG are seen as "weak." Wesley thinks he was the one who looked weak. I swear, Wesley is the sort of person who'd shout "I'm more insecure than you are!" Angel says that Wesley isn't weak: "You do what you have to do to protect the people around you, to do what you know is right, regardless of the cost. You know, I never really understood that. You're the guy that makes all the hard decisions, even if you have to make 'em alone." But those decisions might not be quite so hard if he didn't insist on making them alone. Wesley wonders how the superninja could impersonate his father so accurately, and Angel blithely dismisses that, figuring that they stole the old Watcher's Council files. Angel chirps, "I killed my actual dad. It was one of the first things I did when I became a vampire." Wesley isn't sure the situations are comparable, and Angel admits, "I didn't really think that one through." Heh. Angel heads off to rest, and Wesley exits the office.

...And runs into Spicule, who's sitting around looking for someone to yap at. Spicule says he heard about what happened, and consoles Wesley by saying, "I killed my mum. Actually, I'd already killed her, but then she tried to shag me so I had to --" "Thank you!" Wesley interrupts, "I'm very comforted." Heh. Wesley, perturbed, goes to his office.

Wesley goes to his desk as Fred steps into the doorway. Wesley says, "If you're here to tell me about how you killed your parents, perhaps it can wait for another time." Fred insists that Wesley didn't kill his father, adding, "Part of you knew it wasn't him." Wesley says, "No. I was sure it was him." Fred, not surprisingly, isn't sure how to respond to that. Then Wesley gets up the nerve to say exactly the wrong thing, telling her, "He pointed a gun at you, Fred. So I shot him." Fred starts to say something -- possibly, "I like you as a psycho friend, not as a creepy stalker" -- but is saved by the Knox, who tells Fred that he's come to take her home. To wherever she lives. Fred makes hesitant noises about staying with Wesley, but Wesley tells her, "You should go." Knox puts an arm around Fred's shoulder as they walk away. Wesley sits down and picks up the phone. As he starts dialing, I think, "If it's really late in Los Angeles, won't it be really early in England?" Sure enough, he gets on the phone with his dad and then apologizes, "I didn't realize it was so early there." He gets as far as "I had a bit of a --" before getting interrupted again. Finally he says, "Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to call and see how you were."

time: naughty flashbacks, and Dru. Aw.