We open with a tidy symmetrical shot of Angel at the conference table, drumming his fingers and staring at the empty chairs. Finally, he hits the speakerphone, and Harmony assures him that she reminded everyone about the meeting. Angel points out that if everyone were there, he wouldn't be alone. He snaps, "Why am I alone?" Hee. Harmony strolls in and points out, "You can be super-grouchy," before diving into a mass of exposition. Which for once I'll forgive because of the hiatus and all, so let's make this fast: Wesley's training Illyria, Gunn's in the hospital, and Cary's scene isn't till later.
Her work done, Harmony exits just as Spicule arrives. Poor Angel. Now he wishes he was alone. Spicule gets all the way to the table before noticing nobody else is there, and joins Angel in grumbling. Spicule says that this is an important meeting: "My first official parley as a very loosely affiliated member of the -- what are we? Tell me we're not Scoobies." We finally see that he's carrying a briefcase, which is funny. Angel says that they don't have a name for the gang, the big liar. This debate distracts us from the strange notion that Spicule is now an "official" part of the gang. What does that mean? Did he sign a contract with Wolfram & Hart in the interval? Because he's been hanging around all year at most of their meetings, so what's the big deal? Anyway. Spicule says it's good that they don't have a name, adding, "You'd probably want to be 'Angel's Avengers' or something." He opens his briefcase while Angel scoffs, sits back, and clearly starts thinking that's a cool name. Hee. Angel starts going over the agenda, and is interrupted by Spicule's popping open the can of beer he apparently pulled out of his briefcase. Angel glares. Spicule sniffs, "I'm listening. With beer." What a coincidence, so am I! Angel sighs, "This isn't a meeting. This is you, being annoying." He gets up and stares out the window while Spicule looks over the agenda and complains about being assigned reconnaissance. Spicule wants something more like "save the girl." Well, you didn't do so well last time that was your job, kiddo. Cue the angst, as Angel mutters, "Handsome man saved me from the monsters." Oh my God. Now they're just being mean to me on purpose. Angel expositions about Fred, and concludes that he shouldn't have brought her to Wolfram & Hart. Spicule points out that it was Fred's choice too, and suddenly asks, "You're fixing to do something stupid, aren't you?" Like send a thousand balloons to the Fox network? Don't be silly; Angel's not that dumb. They keep yammering, and Angel finally says that the Senior Partners have a plan. Spicule scoffs, "That ever-lovin' apocalypse you keep goin' on about." He does? When was that? Whatever. Angel insists that he's going to find out what the Senior Partners have planned. And he really means it this time! Spicule agrees unenthusiastically, and observes that they could use a source. That gives Angel an idea...
Cut to Eve is saying, "No way." See, Eve's still using Lindsey's place as a refuge from the Senior Partners, thanks to the magic runes sprinkled about, so Angel is threatening to tell them where she is. She's been around all year, too. It's not so much that they only just realized that they have a source of information, as that they only now have a way to use that source. If by "only now" you mean "for the past four episodes." I didn't dislike this episode when it aired, but it sure doesn't hold up to a second viewing. Right, so Angel makes with the threats, and Eve is just shocked that Angel would be so mean, and they're interrupted by the building (or perhaps just the camera) shaking. Eve gasps, "You bastard! You told them!" Angel says it wasn't him. Everything keeps shaking. It's like we're on the bridge of the Enterprise. Except the cast isn't even bothering to lean back and forth, which I admit is cheesy, but it would at least help me pretend that this isn't just a particularly vigorous case of shuddercam. The painted runes melt away, and Eve shrieks, "Don't let them take me! Angel, please, I'll tell you -- I'll tell you anything you want to know!" Angel ponders that, like that isn't the reason he came in the first place. And what luck that he suddenly decided to talk to Eve only moments before the Senior Partners would have found her, eh? We shakily zoom in on the apartment door, which bursts open as Adam Baldwin steps into the room. Boy, Shack's gonna be jealous. At least until he realizes that this episode makes Firefly look almost coherent. I feel cheated because Baldwin doesn't have a goatee. Damn it. Baldwin looks around the empty room, and spots a window that's swinging closed.
Credits. Finally! I was starting to wonder if they'd forgotten them. I call Johanna, and she reports that she's a little behind because she was Tivo-ing. She notes that the teaser is very long, and I report that it's almost five minutes long. She assures me that it's more like five hours long. Oh yeah, and there are new shots in the credits, like most of the Fred bits were replaced with Illyria, and Mercedes McNab got a shiny green credit. And stuff. Go look at it yourself if you care. It's possible I'm just grumpy because they redid the credits and didn't bother inserting shots of the puppet anywhere. Shame.
Cary is at a bar, listening to the demon bartender screech out a painful rendition of "Lady." The bartender stops and sighs, "She's gonna say no, isn't she?" Cary sullenly says that he sees a June wedding for the bartender, and adds, "More sea, less breeze, huh?" The delighted bartender pours a fresh drink and starts asking if he's going to have kids. Cary monologues that he's tired of being chipper and telling people what they want to hear. He says, "What I know is, I started drinking the moment I found out a girl I loved was gonna die." Whoa, started drinking? When did he stop? Cary says that he has to "go back into the belly of a very ugly beast and pretend like [he] can help." And so he, um, does. Apparently Cary had a whole subplot or something about having a crisis of faith. I'd say it's a shame that it happened almost entirely off-camera, but the whole thing sounds incredibly dull, so it's probably for the best.
“ Angel orders Spicule to kill anything that gets past Security. Moments later, half the janitorial staff is dead. ”
Angel and Spicule lead Eve into the lobby. Angel orders Harmony to put Security all around the building, nobody gets in, and thank goodness Harmony interjects, "Okay, but you know how that never works?" Angel grumbles, and away she goes. Angel orders Spicule to kill anything that gets past Security. Moments later, half the janitorial staff is dead. Whoops. As Angel stomps off, Spicule asks where he's going. Angel says, "To see my lawyer." Amazingly, he doesn't mean Lindsey.
Gunn sits in his hospital bed, reading a magazine. Angel enters the room and declares, "We have a problem." He explains that the Senior Partners are after Eve, and asks if he has "jurisdiction to protect her." He's concerned about jurisdiction? Yeah, I can't even work up a rant about that. Let's all play along and say, okay, Angel needs an excuse to go talk to Gunn right here, and it isn't really important why. Gunn says that he doesn't know, and Angel tsks at him for reading about "Trista and Ryan's big baby plans." I wonder if Cary felt all depressed because he knew someone else was getting the obligatory pseudo-celebrity namedrop this week. Gunn insists that he can't help, and Angel lectures, "You paid a high price for what's in that brain. So use it." Gunn sighs and describes a "proviso in [Angel's] contract," and I forget about playing along as I try to process the idea that Angel really signed a contract with Wolfram & Hart, and doesn't know what it says. Feh. Anyway, Gunn concludes that Angel can take custody of wayward employees. Then he adds, "I'll make a call." To whom? About what? I mean: hooray, they solved a problem that nobody would have thought twice about if they hadn't brought it up! Whoopee. Angel starts for the door, and then turns back and says, "I know you feel bad about your part in what happened to Fred, and you should. For the rest of your life, it should wake you up in the middle of the night. And it will, because you're a good man." I suspect Angel was thinking, "Ooh, guilt! I know about this! I'm good at this! I finally get to be the expert with Mister Know-It-All, yay!" Angel adds that Gunn just signed a piece of paper, but Gunn says he knew there would be consequences, even if he didn't know what they would be. Angel lectures Gunn about atonement, because he loves doing that, and says that "You can't hide in some hospital room and pretend it's all gonna go away. 'Cause it never will." Okay, he's great at guilt, but maybe Angel should brush up on being reassuring and comforting.
Cut to Wesley, who's gotten cheekbone implants. Or maybe it's just the lighting. He stares through a sunny window as Fred says, "You have a visitor." Wesley portentously says, "I thought I was in isolation." Fred pops up from behind him, kisses his cheek, and I sigh because I already know that Wesley's dreams aren't nearly as amusing as Angel's. Apparently Fred hasn't learned that lesson, because she kneels in front of Wesley (er, not like that) and asks him to tell her a joke. Wesley goes back to admiring nothingness as he says, "Two men walk into a bar. The first man orders a scotch and soda. The second man remembers something he'd forgotten, and it doubles him over with pain. He falls to the floor, shaking, and then through the floor and into the earth. He looks back up at the first man, but he doesn't call out to him. They're not that close." Ha ha ha ha! Well, it was all in the delivery. Okay, not really. And, well, Fred blee and Wesley blah and she says, "This is only the first layer. Don't you wanna see how deep I go?" and Wesley wakes up in a dark room.
“ Eve declares that there are 'layers upon layers at Wolfram & Hart.' Is the place full of chickens? ”
From the back of the room, Illyria observes that Wesley's been sitting there for a while. She says that he drank a lot, called her names, and concludes, "Then you sat there for hours making noise with your nose." Wesley calls her a twit. Heh. They talk about dreams. Illyria whines because she was a big powerful demon and now things just suck. It's seriously boring. I certainly like Illyria more than I liked Fred, but at least Fred was saying things that I had to pay attention to because they involved the plot. Anyway, Wesley observes that the world's a disappointment to Illyria, and adds, "I'm not too impressed with it myself." Illyria wheels on him and asks, "Why don't you leave?" Wesley looks shocked, like he'd never thought of that. He hasn't been reading the recaps.
In Angel's office, Eve sarcastically says, "They'll never look for me here....I'm gonna die." She looks a thousand times better now that she's wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. Spicule is barely understandable as he slurs, "You make it hard for me [to] wanna help you," and I start wondering if he's drunk. Angel arrives and says that, actually, they don't want to help Eve, and then adds, "But we will. You're under my protection." This reassures Eve, for some reason. Angel insists that Eve has to answer some questions to repay them, and starts off by asking what exactly she does for the Senior Partners. Eve says, "I'm a liaison. I liaise." Heh. Angel and Spicule glower at her. Eve declares that there are "layers upon layers at Wolfram & Hart." Is the place full of chickens? She finally says, "I'm a child of the Senior Partners. Created to do their bidding." Angel figures that means that Eve is immortal. Maybe it just feels like that because her scenes make time slow down. Angel asks what Eve's job is, and she says that she watches Angel, reports back to the Senior Partners, and passes on their messages. We knew that. Angel asks what, exactly, the Senior Partners are. Eve doesn't know. Boy, this episode is chock full of revelations, isn't it? Eve explains that she only knows what the Senior Partners want her to know; the knowledge may be in her head, but she can't access it. Finally, she whines, "There was someone who could've told you everything you want to know, and you let the Senior Partners take him away." She claims that Lindsey spent years studying the Senior Partners, and knows all about their plans. Did she notice that Lindsey didn't seem interested in helping Angel? Plus, if he knows all this stuff, why didn't he tell any of it to Eve? Angel, almost as confused as I am, asks whether all of Lindsey's meddling was an attempt to get at the Senior Partners. Eve says, "No, it's about you, too. He really doesn't like you." Okay, I'm mildly amused by the idea that Lindsey spent years forming a brilliant strategy to take out Wolfram & Hart, and then was so distracted by a chance to annoy Angel that he improvised a series of really idiotic pranks instead. I don't think that's the idea here, but it makes as much sense as anything else does. Eve frets that the Senior Partners are probably torturing Lindsey now: "They'd want him to suffer horrors. Lindsey is in some hideous, awful hell."
“ Spicule points out that Eve could be lying to them, because she just wants them to rescue Lindsey. Mere moments ago, Spicule couldn't think of more than two kinds of hell, and yet he's still the smartest one in the room. That's just so sad. ”
Cut to Lindsey in bed, kissing a blonde. Maybe he's not in hell, but his hair's gone all shitty again. A kid runs in and hops on the bed, begging them to stop kissing: "That's how I get sisters!" Heartwarming family togetherness ensues.
Commercials. Johanna says, "The time people are sitting around telling jokes, I'm telling Wesley's." I suggest that she should play it up, giggling throughout while she's telling it, and then bursting into hysterics upon reaching the punchline.
We return to swooping, upbeat music as Lindsey exits his suburban home and walks out to get the newspaper. All down the block, other men are also picking up their papers in unison. The only difference is that most of them have had haircuts. Oh, and Lindsey's wearing a really ugly necklace, too. About here I was thinking, "That necklace had better be important, because otherwise, ew." Lindsey waves to someone across the street, as do the rest of the men, and they turn back to the house. On his way, Lindsey picks up a skateboard that's on the lawn.
Back at Wolfram & Hart, Spicule is bitching that there thousands of different hell-dimensions. "You got your fire hell. Your ice hell. Your...ice hell. Your upside-down hell." Heh. Angel says he doesn't care if Lindsey's in "Toy Poodles On Parade hell." I wonder if that's where Angel went. No wonder he went crazy, then. Anyway, Angel insists that they have to find Lindsey in order to get information about the Senior Partners. Spicule points out that Eve could be lying to them, because she just wants them to rescue Lindsey. Mere moments ago, Spicule couldn't think of more than two kinds of hell, and yet he's still the smartest one in the room. That's just so sad. Eve turns to Cary for support. Oh wow, Cary gets to be in multiple scenes this week! Cary confirms that Eve was telling the truth: "No one can fake it through 'The Pia Colada Song.' Not once the chorus kicks in." Angel repeats that he wants to find Lindsey. Spicule repeats that it'll be hard to find him. Just before the scene laps itself, Gunn appears. With his hair all gone! And he's wearing a sweatjacket! Callou, callay! Gunn says that he knows where Lindsey is, and he can take them all there.
Back in "hell," Lindsey is coaching his son on the earth's layers while Mom makes breakfast. Dear Mutant Enemy: Yes, we have all noticed the motif with "layers." But you know what's nice with a motif? Having it mean something. Anything. Love, Your Dwindling Audience. Mom interrupts to say that the oven bulb just went out, and asks Lindsey to fetch a new one from the basement. Lindsey tries to delay things, claiming he's busy with the kid, but Mom insists, "I kinda need it now." Why? Who needs an oven bulb urgently? Sadly, Lindsey does not scream, "Get it yourself, bitch!" Instead, he gives in and heads for the basement. Tensely. He rests his hand on the doorknob and looks back nervously. Oh wow, is Xander in the basement? Then maybe this is hell after all. Poor Lindsey! Finally he opens the door, gives his family one last frightened look, and heads downstairs.
“ Wesley, not to be outdone in the recreation of cinematic moments, gets his Mrs. Danvers on as he hypnotically whispers, 'Why don't you go? You can go. Why don't you go?' ”
Gunn leads Angel and Spicule through the garage. Oh, crap, we're back to the stupid cars. Gunn says something about how Harmony told him "what was going on," and I have no earthly idea what he's talking about. Whatever. He explains that a guy in Tokyo caused the Senior Partners some trouble once upon a time, and says, "Lindsey probably got the tattoo idea from studying up on him." Angel figures that Lindsey is in the same place the Tokyo troublemaker was sent to: a "holding dimension." And they know where the Tokyo guy was sent because...? It sounds like they're explaining something, but they totally aren't. If there was documentation saying exactly where the Tokyo guy is, why wouldn't there be the same kind of documentation about where Lindsey is, in which case you don't need to know about the Tokyo guy at all, so, what the hell was the point of all that? Angel asks how they get to this place, and Gunn whips out a set of keys and asks, "Ever taken the Camaro?" The Senior Partners gave Angel a car that will take him to their super-secret punishment dimension. Which isn't that secret, actually. Could we just have one development in this episode that makes a tiny bit of sense, please?
Cut to Gunn, Angel, and Spicule in the car. Which is apparently driving itself along the empty nighttime streets. The steering wheel turns as Angel holds his hands over it and says, "This is weirding me out. Is this weirding you out?" Spicule says, "You never heard of Knight Rider?" They haven't. Wesley's joke was funnier. Gunn explains that after they find Lindsey, they have to get out via something called "the Wrath." He doesn't even try to explain how he knows that, which is probably for the best. The car goes through a tunnel and poof, it's daytime and the boys are goggling at the sight of the many suburban homes which would be surprising if we hadn't already seen them. Angel grumps, "This is Lindsey's punishment for trying to kill me? Huh. Maybe it's a reward."
Wesley tells Illyria that she could leave this dimension. Illyria says she used to travel to other worlds, and channels Roy Batty as she stares into the mirror. She says that in her travels she saw "opaline towers as high as small moons. Glaciers that rippled with insensate lust. And one world with nothing but shrimp. I tired of that one quickly." Heh. Wesley, not to be outdone in the recreation of cinematic moments, gets his Mrs. Danvers on as he hypnotically whispers, "Why don't you go? You can go. Why don't you go?" Illyria whirls and grabs him by the neck for a moment, then lets go of him due to a sudden attack of claustrophobia. She babbles, "There's not enough space to open my jaws. My face is not my face. I don't know what it will say --" Wesley tells her to come with him.
And we're back to Lindsey, strolling out for the morning paper again. He waves, grabs the skateboard, goes back to the house. The camera swings back as the bitchin' Camaro pulls up in front of Lindsey's house. Angel suggests that he and Spicule can use their coats as a shield from the sunlight while making a dash for the house. Gunn opens the door, and Angel and Spicule scream and cover their faces as the sunlight streams in until they notice that they're not bursting into flames. Gunn says that the sun won't hurt them since it's another dimension. Whatever.
The boys walk up to the door as Angel sums up the plan: "We grab Lindsey and we get out." Gunn adds, "Kill anything in our way." Spicule rings the doorbell, which isn't really the act of someone ready for battle, is it? Shouldn't Angel kick it down? And can I just mention that they didn't bring weapons? Morons. Gunn says, "Odds are, there's something ugly behind that door." Okay, really now, cut it out! We've already seen the interior. Keep on abusing Dramatic Irony this way and you'll be up on charges for battery. Mom opens the door with a cheerful "Can I help you?" The boys blink and Angel asks, "Is Lindsey home?" Hee. It sounds like they want to know if Lindsey can come out for a game of softball before dinnertime. Mom invites them inside and calls Lindsey.
Lindsey comes downstairs and asks what he can do for them. Amazingly, it only takes a minute for Angel to realize that Lindsey doesn't recognize any of them. Oh my lord, Lindsey has sideburns, too. Going down past his ears. Is he insane? Anyway, Gunn suggests that Lindsey take a seat while they explain a few things. Lindsey does so, asking if he won a free vacation. Angel explains that Lindsey's under a spell, and that his memories aren't real. Lindsey gasps, "So, Trish is not my wife? And Zach's not my son?" And then he accuses them of being part of a prank arranged by a friend of his. I don't know why they expect Lindsey to believe them. Or why they care. Just bonk him on the head and drag him out with you. Instead, Angel just repeats that none of this is real, and Lindsey starts getting annoyed. He tells them to leave.
Back at Wolfram & Hart, Eve wonders why retrieving Lindsey is taking so long. Cary and Harmony try to reassure her, although they don't try very hard. Y'know, originally I was pretty annoyed that they left Eve with such lousy protection, but actually, there's no reason to waste manpower guarding her since she already told them everything she knows. Which was nothing. So, okay, good decision there, MoG. Cary says that it's impossible for anything to break in and get to Eve. Right. Cary doesn't seem to be drinking in this scene. Maybe he's talking nonsense because he's sober. As soon as Cary says, "This place is a fortress," alarms start blaring. There's a "ding" as the elevator arrives in the lobby -- and that must be one seriously loud "ding" if they can hear it across the lobby and in an office. I bet that's annoying when they're trying to do work. Or rather, it would be annoying if they were ever trying to do work. They all go to peer out into the lobby.
Adam Baldwin steps off the elevator and strides through the lobby. Harmony chuckles, "That's the guy? He's just a suit!" A security goon approaches Baldwin, gun in hand. Baldwin raises his eyebrows at this, and then punches his fist through the goon's torso. Eve, Cary, and Harmony shriek. It'd be funnier if Harmony's reaction was more like, "Ooooh, cool!"