Props to SistaKaren and Selannia.
We open back at the stirring climax of "Destiny," when Angel tells Spicule that the cup is a burden, not a trophy, and so on. This time Spicule cuts him off, saying, "Blah blah blah. Give it a rest, hero." Angel whines that it's his destiny, not Spicule's. Spicule turns, cup in hand, and tells Angel that his life has been a lie. "This was never about you," he finishes, and drinks from the cup. Spicule is bathed in light, and I wonder if his soul is going to leak out again. Spicule gasps, and drops the cup as he spreads his arms messianically. Angel screams as flames start erupting from his skin.
Cut to Angel waking up with a start in his office.
And cut again, to a strip joint, where Spicule is watching a young lady spin around on a pole. Whee! It's more like a burlesque show than a strip joint, actually, since the girl is fully dressed. Spicule finishes a drink and reaches into his pocket for some cash when a fresh drink is set before him. Spicule looks up at Lindsey and says, "Thanks, but [you're] not really my type, Mary." He pushes the drink back at Lindsey, who just stares at him. Johanna wonders how Spicule can afford to refuse drinks. "He doesn't have any money, does he? How is he paying for this stuff?" I theorize that he sold the car Angel gave him. And that Angel will be pretty grumpy when he finds out. Lindsey thinks that Spicule's looking kinda lost. Spicule identifies his location as The Peppermint Stick, and explains, "The prima ballerina up there's Sunshine. Though I'm fairly certain that's not her real name." Lindsey insists that they should talk. Spicule stands up, and there's a slightly weird shot of Spicule and Lindsey in profile, facing each other. They're only standing about a foot apart from each other so that they'll both fit in the frame, which might be why it looks so strange. It's hard not to imagine celebrity director David Boreanaz giggling to himself behind the camera: "See, they're the same height! Which is considerably shorter than I am! Ha!" Spicule tells Lindsey to go away, and then starts to stomp off. It seems like, if Spicule was leaving, he should have told Lindsey to stay put. Lindsey calls after him: "Get any interesting mail lately?" Spicule turns around all frowny and asks, "Who the bloody hell are you?" Lindsey sits down and replies, "Your new best friend." Hey, he's actually got earrings in both ears! Now I'm sure he's a pirate!
During the credits, Johanna says that she wants to see a "best friends" montage of Lindsey and Spicule shopping together, doing each other's nails, and watching movies. I complain about Lindsey's shaggy mullet hairdo. Though in all fairness, he looks a lot burlier than I remember. A lot. Wow. Johanna thinks Spicule's hair looked a little weirder than usual as well. I gasp, "Oh my lord, Wesley was right all along! Gunn grew hair overnight, Angel's hair got poofy, and now there's Lindsey's mullet. 'The whole point of this experiment is hair!' That was really, really subtle foreshadowing!"
When we return, Spicule confirms that Lindsey sent him the box of recorporealization, and that he was also the one who sent the Amulet of Assitude to Angel. Aw! Lindsey sent Angel jewelry! That is so sweet. Oh, that reminds me: Johanna thinks that Angel hated Harmony so much last week because she stole the amulet from him, or tried to steal it. We have a lot of theories. Sometimes I lose track of them. Lindsey says, "We couldn't leave your spirit trapped in a bauble at the bottom of the Hellmouth." Spicule asks who "we" are, and Lindsey enigmas that there are people who are "powerfully interested" in Spicule. Spicule gets bored and grabs Lindsey's arm, twisting it to show off the runes on Lindsey's skin, and threatens to snap it if Lindsey doesn't start explaining things. Lindsey finally says, "You can call me Doyle." Spicule can, but I'm not going to, because this is all confusing enough.
Back at Wolfram & Hart, Gunn and Wesley are debating how to deal with an evil warlock. Wesley's in favor of assassinating the guy, but as they apprach Harmony's desk, Gunn proposes that they "open a can of Machiavelli on his ass." Harmony -- looking very pretty in a blue top -- sneers, "It's Matchabelli, Einstein, and it doesn't come in a can." Heh. Gunn ignores that and asks, "Is he in?" Harmony duhs, "Is who in?" and so Gunn and Wesley march into Angel's office.
Gunn and Wesley are still arguing, and Angel looks increasingly bewildered by the conversation until he finally snaps, "CEO! Right here! In the dark!" Wesley hands over a folder on one Lucien Drake. Gunn explains that Drake has over a thousand followers who sold their children in exchange for "serious demonic mojo." Wesley adds that the cult is stockpiling WMDs (weapons of magical destruction). But the cult has powerful allies, so they just want to eliminate Drake. Gunn explains, "Then they spend the billing cycle fighting among themselves to hack out the new pecking order." And then when they have a new leader, do you take him out, too? It's not so much a strategy as a delaying tactic. Angel asks, "Are we doing this because it's right, or because it's cost-effective?" Gunn says it's a bit of both, and Wesley admits that it's a grey area. Angel interrupts, "Can we just get through one day without saying that?" He rubs his head and asks them to explain it again.
Back at the Peppermint Stick, Spicule's gotten bored and starts to leave. Lindsey follows, grabbing Spicule by the shoulder as he insists, "You've got a destiny." Spicule whirls and throws Lindsey against a wall. Hey, Spicule, Lindsey only likes that rough stuff when Angel does it. Oh, I can't believe I said that. I blame you all for putting these ideas in my head. As he grips Lindsey's throat, Spicule asks if Lindsey is responsible for their quest for the holy ginger ale. Lindsey rasps that he doesn't know anything, and insists, "I'm just doing what they tell me!" Spicule asks who "they" are, and Lindsey growls, "They! Them!" and points upward. Oh, those. Lindsey explains that he was just an ordinary guy until he started getting visions of "people in trouble, who need a champion." Spicule says that's Angel's shtick, but Lindsey insists that Angel's switched sides, and now nobody's being a meddlesome do-gooder. Lindsey adds that he had a vision right before he came to find Spicule: "If a young girl gets murdered tonight and you didn't lift a finger to stop it, ask yourself, can you live with that?" I'm betting he can. Girls get murdered all the time, really.
Cut to a girl screaming and running from a vampire in an alley. The vamp shoves her against a wall and prepares to bite her when Spicule approaches with his hands hooked in his belt. Does he think he's Fonzie now? The vamp turns to face Spicule, and is still making threats when Spicule punches him in the throat, knocks him through some convenient wooden fencing, and stakes him. Spicule, looking disgusted, brushes the resulting dust off his coat. The girl starts to thank Spicule, but he snaps, "What do you expect? Out alone in this neighborhood? I've half a mind to kill you myself!" Heh. The girl is confused, and Spicule continues, "What kind of retard wears heels like that in a dark alley?" The girl stammers that she was trying to get home. He points her toward the street and says, "Then get a cab, you moron." She heads out, and he calls after her, "On your way, if a stranger offers you candy, don't get in the van!" Tee hee. Spicule's harranguing is interrupted when Lindsey, perched on a fire escape, asks, "Believe me now?" Spicule is underwhelmed by the accuracy of the vision, pointing out, "You can't throw a stone in this town without hitting some bimbo in trouble." Lindsey compliments Spicule for saving the girl's life, though he suggests being nicer time. Spicule doesn't like the sound of "time," and claims that he was saving people long before Lindsey turned up. Lindsey disagrees: "You just helped a person when there wasn't anything in it for you." He suggests that normally Spicule "only does good deeds to impress...women." Spicule gets all offended at that, because it's true. Lindsey placates Spicule by adding, "From what I hear, Angel didn't save the girl on his first mission." Spicule asks what Angel has to do with this, and Lindsey says, "Nothing. Not anymore."
Gunn and Wesley are still arguing strategy when Fred slips past them to give Angel a lab report. She's wearing a ruffly red blouse and, I swear, a gold lamé skirt. Is Cary picking her outfits? That would at least give him something to do. Fred gets drawn into the argument, and I zone out briefly as she takes a very long time to confirm that they have a "microwave cannon" that could kill someone in an untraceable way. Well, hell, why don't they use that all the time? Angel's zoning out too, but he's also looking tired and sweaty. We zoom in on him, closer and closer, and pull back! Eek! Angel suddenly says, "Let's kill them all." The MoG pause as Angel rants, "Warlocks, minions. They're all evil. Sold their kids to the devil. Let's just wipe them all out. We've got the power to do that, right?" Wesley starts to interject a "but," and Angel stands up to say, "Why don't we?" Yeah, really. The first time I watched this, I thought he was being sarcatic, and was about to lecture the MoG about how they couldn't do that. But on review I think he means it, and I also think he's right. Angel shouts that they should get back to basics: "Good versus evil. Offing the monsters where we find them." Gunn starts to explain why that's a bad idea, but since there aren't any convincing arguments to muster, he switches to asking if Angel's all right. Angel rubs his head again and sighs that he's tired. He tells Gunn more calmly to talk to "[his] best Judas," and that if they think Drake will find out, they'll go with Wesley's plan. Fred and Gunn are still concerned about Angel, and Fred tells Angel that maybe he should sleep in tomorrow. Angel says there's too much going on, but the MoG are quick to say they can get along without him. Wesley watches intently as Angel heads for the elevator.
Angel steps out into his boring-ass apartment. Wesley suddenly walks in and starts to help Angel into the bedroom. Lindsey will kill him if he tries anything. Ack! Dammit, get out of my head! Angel sits on the bed and explains that he feels weird. Wesley guesses that Angel's having a hard time adjusting to the situation: "Finally adjusting to the truth. That you're irrelevant. It's difficult to face, I know." Well, you would, Wesley. Wesley adds that Spicule's arrival makes things simpler, and pulls out a stake. Angel "Wha?"s, and then Wesley stakes him. Angel screams.
And then Angel's alone in his bedroom, gasping.
After the ads, Spicule is re-enacting the fight from the teaser of "City of." Only this time he's protecting a guy and a girl instead of two girls. There are also some prolonged slow-motion shots, and while I'm sure everyone reading this is as sick of my complaining about this as I am...I just caught "Five by Five" earlier today, and not only is the fight between Faith and Angel cool, but I don't think that there's any slo-mo. I'm sure there's a nifty stunt or two in there that I miss because it's not shown frame-by-frame, but seeing all the punching and kicking without a pause to process it makes it feel a lot more brutal. When you see the moves in slow motion, you start admiring the stunt work instead of feeling the intensity of the fight. And I'm pretty sure the latter is what you want. Where was I? Oh yeah, fighting. Spicule winds things up by using Angel's old dual-staking move from the pilot, which is just hilarious. Spicule stares at his stake-cuffs, and as the rescued couple stop cowering behind a car, the guy asks, "What were those things?" I expect Spicule to say, "They're stakes. Sharpened bits of wood." But in fact, the guy is asking about the vampires. Spicule says they're better off not knowing, and starts to walk away. The girl asks Spicule who he is. With his back to them, Spicule says, "I'm the hero." I kind of wish we'd seen his face for that line, because I'd like to know if he was being sincere or sarcastic. Although maybe it's intentional that we don't see his face, so that we don't know how he means it.
Blipvert. The day, Wesley gives Harmony something to pass on to Accounting. Can't he give it to them? He just put it in an inter-office mail envelope; it seems like that ought to be enough to get it to them. Harmony says that she needs Angel's approval to talk to Accounting: "I accidentally authorized a few Bath of the Month subscriptions." Wesley stares. Harmony insists, "On accident [sic]!" Wesley tells her to use his authorization code. Harmony grabs the envelope and leaves just as Eve enters, holding a broken bit of stone. Eve says she's looking for Angel, but Wesley says that Angel is "indisposed." Eve hesitates, but Wesley says, "Angel's just going to hand it off to me anyway, so you might as well show it to me now." Eve hands over the rock, which has some runes inscribed on it, and says that the Senior Partners want to know all about it as soon as possible. Eve strolls off, and Harmony rushes over to tell Wesley that she's supposed to tell Angel about anything to do with the Senior Partners. Wesley says he's got it covered. Harmony adds that she's also supposed to tell Angel about anything with runes on it. "And not try and read the runes myself. 'Cause that can cause a fire." Heh. Angel's sudden hatred for Harmony is starting to make more sense. Wesley says that when they know what it is, they'll tell Angel, but for now they'll let him rest.
In his apartment, Angel's still in bed, panting and sweating and so on. He opens his eyes upon hearing Fred call his name. Fred, still in yesterday's outfit, enters the bedroom and tells Angel he looks awful. Angel moans, "I think something's wrong." Fred reassures him nervously, and then pulls a latex glove on while menacing, "Let's take a look under the hood."
Fred gloves her other hand, and now she's in a lab coat, and Angel's bedroom has turned into the lab. Angel looks increasingly nervous as Fred wheels a cart with a bucket on it to the bed. She picks up a scalpel and starts to slice open Angel's chest while he gasps. She looks down at the cavity she's opened and cheerily says, "Let's get these out of the way." Angel begs her to stop as Fred pulls out his liver and kidneys, and drops them in the bucket. They don't look like a real liver and kidneys -- well, it looks like a nice slice of liver, and maybe those look like kidneys you'd buy at the butcher's? I don't know what kidneys look like, really. I should have gotten Keckler or Sobell to help out here. Fred reassures Angel, "You're a vampire; you don't need this stuff anyway." She reaches deep inside and pulls out a walnut, cheerily saying, "There's your heart!" Tee hee. Angel looks so sad and worried during all of this, it just kills me. Fred pulls out a long string of beads, or possibly pearls, depending on how Freudian you're feeling. She loops it around her neck and reaches back in for something else. "Raisins!" she says, and eats a few. , a bent licence plate. Fred hms, "Came up the gulf stream, huh?" Fred plunges her arm back into Angel's chest and pulls out a large fishbowl with a dead golfish floating at the top. "There's your soul!" Fred exclaims. She looks more closely at the fish, and sighs, "We're gonna have to flush this." She turns and hands the fishbowl over to a guy in a bear suit. "Thank you, bear," she says, and the bear takes the fishbowl away.
Quick aside: while I'm not usually that keen on finding meaning in every little oddball thing, it's difficult for me to see the bit with the fish as anything but a shout-out to Sam Keith's The Maxx. Here's a sample from one of The Maxx's hallucinations: "That fish is your conscience, and she's wheezed her last wheeze! You're all alone, Maxx...your misson's forgot. The only one who can remember is Snot. Your face is a figment of a man with no head! Your mask, it is evil and your fish...it is dead!" And it's a goldfish in a little glass bowl, too. I probably didn't need to quote all of that, but I hate to ruin the rhyme scheme.
Anyway. Fred turns back to Angel and sadly reports that she can't find anything wrong with him. She peers down into the cavity in his chest and sighs, "You're empty. There's nothing left. Just a shell." She leans down over him and says she thinks she can hear the ocean. Heh. Then we cut to a, uh, intestine's-eye-view? Well, a shot of Fred from inside Angel. She says "Hello?" and we pull back, or sink, until the screen is black except for the tiny image of Fred's face at the distant opening. And then we pull back even further, and it's a close-up of Angel's pupil. Ooo, fancy. Angel twitches and mutters restlessly in bed.
In his office, Wesley is showing Eve's runic rock to Fred. Gunn enters and says that they've gotten reports of a vampire vigilante rescuing people. How do the people who were rescued know that Spicule's a vampire? He didn't vamp out in the fights we saw. Wesley reads the report: "Vigilante reportedly killed two vampires at a gas station, then asked the women he'd saved if they'd, quote, like to get a bottle of hooch and listen to some Sex Pistols records with him." I'm having trouble imagining Spicule saying "hooch." Fred asks, "Are we sure Angel's just tired and not, um, crazy?" Gunn points out the description of the rescuer, and when they hit the "platinum blond" part, they realize that it's Spicule.
Lindsey leads Spicule into a basement efficiency apartment, explaining that it's Spicule's new home. Lindsey says that the place has all the mod cons (he doesn't put it that way, but I've always wanted to say "mod cons"), and that the windows don't get direct sunlight. I don't see any windows, period. Which is fine, and mimics Angel's batcave from the first season, but they should have dropped that line. Spicule says he doesn't want to be Lindsey's "kept boy." Does Spicule know that there are motivations other than sex? Maybe not for him, but for other people. Lindsey points out that Spicule doesn't have a lot of options, because I guess he's used up all of the proceeds from selling the Viper. Spicule complains about the twin bed, and Lindsey says that Spicule won't be sharing it with anyone. Hooray for Lindsey!
Angel opens his eyes, and then turns as someone starts moving on the other side of the bed. It's Spicule, screwing someone. Someone blonde. Guess who? If you guessed, "some girl with her hair all over her face so we can pretend it's Buffy," you're right! Spicule tells Angel to hush, and adds, "You've got something on your shirt." Then there's a jarring snippet of Buffy's dialogue from "The Prom": "Every time I say the word 'prom,' you get grouchy." I like the concept of using old Buffy dialogue, because it sort of makes sense that Angel would replay things she's said to him. But maybe they should have distorted the sound or something, because it's such an obvious cut-and-paste job. Angel frowns and asks Spicule if he's taking Buffy to the prom. Another Buffy snippet replies: "Can you say jumping the gun? I kill my goldfish!" Angel stammers that he thought he was taking Buffy. So to speak. Get it? Spicule hisses, "Shhh! I can't be a marathon man with all your yammering!" I'd have thought that would help. If it doesn't, that suggests -- ew! Angel must have had the same thought, because he wakes up, and then starts to get out of bed.
Angel steps out of the elevator into the lobby. Fred -- still in yesterday's clothes, so we know it's still a dream -- greets Angel and then points out that he forgot to put shoes on. She adds that he should put on a clean shirt. Gunn hurries past, saying, "Come on, you'll miss it!" Angel follows as they pass a refreshment stand and enter the conference room. The MoG, and the rest of the employees, are sipping sodas and looking out the large windows. Angel stares as he sees that the horizon is a mass of burning office buildings. Cary tells Angel to move, and Harmony adds, "You're blocking the apocalypse!" Angel turns, revealing a large black stain on his shirt, and says that he has to go help. The MoG say that Spicule's taking care of it, and repeat that his shirt is dirty. Angel looks down at the stain.
Angel twitches in bed, and we pan down over his bare chest. Aaaa! Oh, and there's a little slimy creature stuck to him, too. Double aaaa!
During the commercials, Johanna says, "I hope that wasn't why they wanted Sarah Michelle Gellar back." I say, "I hope it was! Because that would be hilarious!"
When we return, the MoG, the other employees, and, sigh, Eve are gathered in Angel's office, singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Wesley blows one of those little tooting party favors enthusiatically. Hee. They chant, "Speech!" as the camera spins to show Spicule, bashfully taking in their prase. It also reveals Angel, standing by the door. Spicule thanks them all and confesses that he doesn't know what to say. He insists, "I'm just a working-class bloke, fulfilling his destiny." Fred says that he "single-handedly ended Armageddon, and turned the world into a beautiful, happily-ever-after, candy mountain place where all our dreams come true!" The crowd turns and sweeps their arms out to gesture at the window, where we can see a high-school theater backdrop painting of a green hillside, a castle, and a rainbow. Gunn says it's time for Spicule's reward. Wesley is happier than a game-show host as he chimes in, "Yes! Your reward!" Ha! It's all in the delivery, but man that's funny. I have to watch that again. Ha! Okay. Spicule says he didn't do it for a reward, and Gunn replies, "That's why you're getting one!" Everyone gasps, and Spicule turns to see a scantily clad Blue Fairy floating in with her wand at the ready. Fred says that Spicule deserves to become a real boy. The Blue Fairy adds, "And so you shall!" and waves her wand, sprinkling glowy dust onto Spicule. Spicule declares that his heart is beating. Fred presses her head to Spicule's chest and cheers, "You're alive!" Gunn runs over saying, "Ooo! I wanna hear!" He listens to Spicule's chest while I giggle. The crowd cheers, and Angel looks lost. Then he looks down to see that he's wearing a drab short-sleeved shirt and tie. He slowly, sadly turns and starts to trundle his mail cart down the hall. Aww. Poor Angel is so very screwed up. I almost feel bad for laughing about it.
Spicule opens his door and discovers Gunn and Wesley standing there. Oh my gosh, Wolfram & Hart has turned them into Mormons! They enter menacingly while Spicule gets a beer. Gunn asks what Spicule's up to, noting, "You don't call, you don't write." He says they thought Spicule was headed for Europe. Spicule says he changed his mind. Maybe they've come to get Angel's car back. They're not Mormons, they're repo men! Wesley mentions Spicule's new heroic hobby, and there's some more back and forth before Spicule finally asks, "Need me to help you collate something?" Wesley says, "You're fighting the good fight these days." Gunn adds, "We figure that's our territory." Heh. I like the idea that they don't want any entrepreneurial do-gooders moving in on their turf. I sorta wish they'd done more of a Pulp Fiction thing here, although I guess they'd look silly in the dark suits. Gunn is wearing a lovely grey ensemble, although I don't like the cut of the jacket for reasons I am unable to articulate. Gunn insists that they're just wondering why he left Wolfram & Hart. Wesley rasps, "If you want to save the world, we've got the resources to help you do it." Spicule says he doesn't want to join the "evil empire," and Gunn claims that they've changed things. Spicule bites his thumbnail or picks something out of his teeth -- I'm not sure which, but it was sure weird. Then he says that Wolfram & Hart is corrupting them, and "spinning [their] compass needle around." Gunn says that they're "playing by a new set of rules." Spicule asks, "You want me to put on a suit, come play with you?" Wesley says, "Something like that." Oh. Maybe they're really just trying to get him to lose the jeans and black tee. But he can't! Because he's a cartoon character! Spicule is surprised that Angel would agree to this invitation, and then realizes, "He doesn't know you're here, does he?" Gunn and Wesley stare, all ominous. Spicule chuckles and asks if they're hedging their bets. Gunn says that isn't it, but Spicule continues, "And the compass needle keeps spinning, and the world gets murkier and murkier." Is Lindsey's enigma-speak contagious?
Cut to Lindsey saying, "They don't have a clue what's happening, do they?" Like confusing the MoG is a big accomplishment. The camera spins counter-clockwise until we see that he's lying in bed, talking to Eve, who's perched on top of him and drooling on his neck. Lindsey asks if she's sure the MoG aren't checking on Angel. Eve says that they're busy with her block o' runes. She starts to reach for someting on the nightstand, but Lindsey pulls her back and she simpers, "Fine. Let's talk more." She asks how Spicule's coming along, and Lindsey says, "He hasn't sewn a big red 'S' on his chest yet, but he's getting there." He adds, "We keep building him up, and we tear Angel down. Pretty soon the Senior Partners are gonna start thinking they're backing the wrong horse." Hm. Interesting. I do enjoy the fact that I could accept it if it turns out that Lindsey is good, evil, or indifferent and just out to give Angel a bad time. Eve pauses in her teenage-seductress flailings to smirk, "Unless they find out we're fixing the race." Lindsey sits up suddenly and says he's dead if that happens. Eve reassures him, and they trade exposition about the fact that the markings covering Lindsey are "the only thing keeping [him] off Wolfram & Hart's radar." Eve asks if Lindsey's going to give her what she wants, and I guess it's supposed to be a single entendre, but it's hard even to interpret anything she says sexually because she's so very bland. Lindsey throws Eve onto her back and says, "Good girls always get what they want." He starts sucking on her neck, in a non-vamp way, and Eve turns and reaches out toward a mysterious box on the nightstand. "This is gonna be fun," she sighs.
Wesley and Gunn return to Wolfram & Hart, and Fred hurries to greet them. She's wearing a dress with a red top and a deep brown skirt, with black trim. It's actually a nice cut and suits her, but the colors make her look like a Vegas cocktail waitress. It's definitely an improvement, though. I don't know why I'm so focused on her clothes. Except that what she's wearing is usually more interesting than what she's saying. Fred asks what Spicule had to say, and Gunn answers, "Oh, you know. Stuff." Wesley sniffs that they aren't good enough for Spicule, and Gunn adds, "Thinks we sold out." Fred says that they're trying to change the system from within. Gunn notes, "When you say it out loud, it sounds really naïve." Fred asks if they should tell Angel, but Gunn doesn't think Angel will be happy about the news. This leads Fred to wonder if anyone's heard from Angel.
Fred walks over to Harmony's desk and asks if she's heard from Angel. Harmony looks up from the Trendy magazine she's reading -- that's the title, not just a description. Although I'll bet in the script it just said, "a trendy magazine." Props to the, uh, props team. Anyway, Harmony hasn't heard a peep from Angel. Fred suggests that they should check on him. Harmony asks, "Act like we care? Good plan!" Heh. She dials.
The phone rings in Angel's apartment. He's still in bed, asleep. Twitchy. I wonder if he'd be more comfortable if it were raining or something. He always seems refreshed by a soaking wet twitch, and he hasn't had one in ages. Wow, that sounded dirty.
Angel suddenly sits upright in his bed as a piano plays. He looks around, and to his bed he sees Cary, playing an upright piano and dressed like a saloon pianist from a western. He even has a little handlebar moustache. Cary introduces himself as "Honky Tonk." Cary spits into the spittoon that's suddenly in Angel's lap. If Angel knew about that last scene with Lindsey, he'd probably be glad it's a spittoon and not Eve in his lap.
Harmony says she got Angel's voicemail. Fred says she'll go "check in," and I guess she means "on Angel." But it doesn't matter, because Eve suddenly approaches to ask if Fred's had any luck with the block o' runes. Eve stresses that the Senior Partners are very eager to know about it, and suggests that she's in trouble if she doesn't have answers for them soon. I wonder why any of the MoG would care if Eve gets in trouble.
Cary stops playing "Clementine" and asks Angel what's bothering him. Harmony -- dressed a bit like Carmen Miranda -- sets a drink on the piano and poses. Angel whispers. "I think I'm lost. Everything hurts." Cary agrees: "Everything hurts, and then we die. Or, in your case, everything hurts, and then you go on and on and on." Cary suggests that Angel sing for him. A spotlight illuminates Angel's bed. Cary starts in on "Clementine" again. Angel opens his mouth to sing, and then just looks bewildered as he can't make a sound. He finally manages to make a high-pitched squeak.
Fred says, "I told you he was empty." We whip across the room, and see Fred, Wesley, and Gunn sitting around a little bistro-style table. Wesley sits forward so that he's creepily illuminated by a red candle and complains, "We paid good money for this. We paid blood for this." Cary observes that the crowd is turning on Angel. Gunn turns, and we see that he's wearing cool yellow contacts with slit pupils like a kitty. He roars angrily. Eve steps up behind Fred and says, "You poor thing, you're really suffering, aren't you?" Cary says there's something on Angel's shirt. Angel looks down and sees the little alien chest-hugger attached to him. He grabs it and manages to pull it off his skin.
Angel sits up in his real bed, clutching the chest-hugger. He stares at it sweatily and closes his hand, crushing it. And it instantly goes from "kind of silly-looking" to "ew, gross, ew" as its guts ooze out into his hand. Ew. The focus shifts to Eve, standing across the room, holding the box from Lindsey's place. She says, "You killed Junior." She walks toward the bed, insisting that she's just another one of Angel's dreams. She unlatches the box and opens it, adding, "Don't worry. The dream's almost over." A much larger chest-hugger starts to climb out of the box. It looks like a hermit crab took up residence inside a skate. (The fish kind of skate, I mean.)
Eve smirks and exits while Angel watches the hermit-skate crawl up his body. He manages to swat it, and it makes an entertaining shriek as it is knocked off the bed. Angel hops out of bed and collapses.
Spicule returns to his new apartment with a six-pack, and finds the door open. Lindsey is making himself at home, but explains that he's just checking in. Lindsey starts to help himself to a beer, but Spicule grabs it away and tells Lindsey to "bugger off." Lindsey starts to say something, but then bends over moaning as a "vision" hits him. Spicule says he's not going to jump every time Lindsey has a vision of a frog, so to speak, but Lindsey says, "I think you're gonna want to jump on this one."
Angel pulls himself across the floor and manages to pull a phone off a table. He rolls over to dial, and the hermit-skate suddenly lands on his chest and bites him.
Angel is in a sunny meadow, sitting in an easy chair. We are way, way too close to his face. Yikes. Fred says, "This is really nice." Angel turns his head to see Fred strolling over, wearing a summery dress and with an especially curly hairdo. Wesley, Gunn, and Cary join Fred in gathering around Angel. Wesley soothes, "You can stay as long as you like. Stay forever." Angel says there's work to do, but Gunn quickly insists that they can take care of it. Cary adds, "Enough fighting, Angel-heart." Heh. "Time to let freedom ring. Let yourself go."Angel protests, but Fred says, "All you have to do is stop caring. Just --" and then she puts her head back and lets loose a high-pitched screech. Wesley, Gunn, and then Cary join in the shrieking as...
...Spicule pulls the hermit-skate off of Angel and throws it squishily into a wall. Angel moans, and Spicule says, "No need to thank me. Just helping the helpless." Ha! Spicule walks away, and Angel collapses again, panting. But not twitching.
Some time later, the MoG are gathered in Angel's apartment. Oh, and Eve's there, too. Who invited her? Wesley explains, "It was a Selminth parasite. Its teeth inject an anesthetic, making the host oblivious to its presence." He adds that the parasite fills its host with toxins that cause paralysis and hallucinations. Angel's busy gulping down a tall glass of blood. In a glass! Not a mug! Yay! It's the little things. Angel goes through the "And you were there, and you, and you" spiel. He complains that Gunn heckled him, leading Gunn to say, "Uh....sorry?" That might be my favorite joke -- that Angel interprets a leonine roar as heckling. Wesley says that eventually Angel would have been "stuck in a permanent vegatative state." Like Cordy! Cary wonders how Spicule knew that Angel needed rescuing. Angel looks shifty and admits, "Didn't say." I'd have liked a shot of Eve here, because I want to know if she's surprised that Spicule intervened. I mean, really. Did Lindsey screw her over? Did Lindsey tell Spicule about Angel's situation, expecting that Spicule would let Angel rot? Or was the rescue part of the plan?
Fred moves on to wondering if the beastie escaped from the lab. Angel suddenly says that Eve put the big one on him after he killed the first beastie. Eve says that Angel was dreaming, and Wesley insists that there was only one parasite. I'm annoyed that they're so quick to disbelieve Angel's accusation. Because suddenly they all trust Eve? Angel unsteadily stands up and says that Eve changed her clothes -- which is true. She was wearing a grey suit earlier, and now she's in a pastel dress. And people saw her in the grey suit, so it seems like it would be fine if Angel described what Eve was wearing, and the others confirmed that he was right, and that's how they all knew Eve was lying. But instead Angel says that Eve's still wearing the same earrings, which is a goofy way to catch her. Especially when she's lit so her ears are in shadows, so I can barely see the earrings that are suddenly so critical. Oh well. Eve denies, Fred confirms, and finally the MoG all stand up to look suspiciously at Eve. Angel suggests that the Senior Partners wouldn't like whatever she's trying to do. Eve huffs, "So things aren't going your way, and you're looking for someone outside your little circle to blame." She marches to the elevator and suggests, "Maybe you should try looking inward. Unless you don't like what you see." And then there's a shot that was a good idea, but I guess they couldn't master deep focus or something. The MoG are all gathered in the background, and a shot of glowery Angel has been superimposed on top of them. Good concept, poor execution.
And speaking of execution -- Angel should have killed Eve right there. Her parting shot isn't actually a bad one. Angel's dreams were about distrusting his friends as well as his own feelings of pointlessness, so playing on that is fine. But the fact that they just let her walk away makes them look like idiots. Again. If he was killing her, and her last words were a suggestion that something's rotten in the state of the MoG, it would have been more disturbing for the MoG and for the audience. Plus, it'd be a surprising ending, and best of all: no more Eve!
time: Andrew's worried that a crazy slayer is torturing Spicule. Good luck making anyone care about that, Andrew. I was on the phone talking to Johanna while the commercial aired, and when they showed the "in two weeks" shot of an overjoyed Angel hugging a revived Cordelia, I said "Awwwww!" Followed by, "I'm surprised that made me feel so gooshy. But Angel looked so happy!" Johanna had a similar reaction, which is reassuring.