Wolfram & Cast
This is not your grandsire’s podcast! In Wolfram and Cast, long time Angel fan Steven Youngkin host an Angel Podcast geared toward Buffy and Angel fans who have seen the entirety of both shows and want a more in depth discussion than a simple recap and review. Each episode of Wolfram and Cast will focus on one episode of Angel, but we will touch on greater themes and character arcs from the entire series, so a spoiler warning is in effect.
Wolfram & Cast
S2E3 ("First Impressions") -- Who DOESN'T Love Denzel?!?!?!
Ever find yourself pondering the emotional intricacies of vampires or the moral ambiguities of demon hunters? Let's navigate these shadows together with my latest discussions on "Angel." Imagine witnessing Darla's unsettling resurrection and Gunn's leap from street fighter to legal eagle, all while handling the laughter that ensues from Angel's quirky misadventures with cars – neon pink helmet included.
Join me, Steven Youngkin, as we tackle the tough themes, from the nuanced portrayal of racial stereotypes to Cordelia's remarkable growth from superficial queen bee to a beacon of empathy. The episode "First Impressions" lays bare the complexities of our heroes' internal demons, as I dissect the dynamics within Angel Investigations and their relentless fight against the darkness.
Finally, we're throwing in the mix a riveting dive into the psychic hotline business, stripping away the veil to reveal insider secrets. The lure of supernatural connections draws us in, but it's the human connections that hold us tight. There's no guest this time around – just you, me, and the labyrinthine journey of our favorite nocturnal defenders. Ready to see where the night takes us?
Hello, welcome to Wolfram and Cast an angel retrospective. I'm longtime fan Steven Yunkin and it's good to know that I'm not the only one who has erratic dreams involving characters from BUFF seducing me. The only difference is that mine are usually involving Clem and D-Vac. I wonder what that says about me. In this podcast, I'll be doing a deep dive discussion on the BUFFY spinoff show, angel, one episode at a time, with spoilers for both series. I have chosen to focus on Angel because, as a fan of the show, I feel that even 20 plus years after the show premiered, it still has themes and ideas that are worth discussing. Thus, for each episode, I will go over what works, doesn't work and all of the ideas and themes the show puts forth. In this week's episode, I will discuss the third episode of the second season, first Impressions, which was directed by James A Cotner. This was one of 13 episodes of Angel that James directed. On Buffy. He directed 20 episodes, tying with Jaws for the most episodes directed, and among the ones he did were Bewitched, bothered and Bewildered, faith, hope and Trick and the Harsh Light of Day. Previously, he had worked as a cinematographer, winning an Emmy for the Michael Mann series Crime Story, and had worked as a cinematographer on movies like Jaws 3D and as a camera operator on movies such as On Gold Pond and the 1978 version of Superman. The episode was written by Sean Ryan, who also wrote Reunion, blood Money, the Thin Deadline and Belonging. Sean also wrote for a series such as my Two Dads, nash Bridges and the Shield, for which he was nominated for an Emmy. He had tried writing episodes for Buffy but was turned down, but fortunately he was given a shot on Angel. The episode originally aired on October 10, 2000, and the IMDb description of the episode is Angel encounters an amorous Darla in his dream. Cordelia vows to protect Gunn after she experiences a vision of him in mortal danger.
Speaker 2:First Impressions had the job of bringing two different storylines further into focus. First it had to find a way to reintroduce Darla, whom Angel had dusted in the first season of Buffy, into Angel's life. It also had to maneuver Gunn, who is now a regular but still essentially an outsider, into the fold of Angel Investigations. And it raised the difficulty level by relegating the title character to a supporting role in the episode After being front and center in the previous two episodes. He was moved somewhat aside and Cordelia and Gunn were given the primary A-plot roles. This had been done on Buffy, where Buffy was a supporting character and not the main one to winning effect.
Speaker 2:In episodes such as the Zeppo, the Dark Age Phases, bewitched, bothered and Bewildered, and the Wish, it is tough because you have to have supporting characters that are strong enough at that point to lead and drive the storylines, as well as a story that makes sense as to why we're not watching more of the title character. With that in mind, I have just two questions for the audience. First, were Cordelia and Gunn interesting enough to lead the episode? And second, did any of you also wish we had gotten to hear David Singh sudden into clowns? Before I answer those questions, just I want to share with you a couple of comments that were sent in by listeners. The first one is from the podcast series Buffy and the Art of the Story podcast. It was about the episode Judgment. They wrote on the Facebook page.
Speaker 2:Your podcast helped me understand why this episode never quite lands for me, though I also love it. The Terminator is my favorite movie. I wrote a four book series exploring and subverting the supernatural pregnancy trope. That's how much the concept intrigues me, and the episode has great moments the hosts Angel singing, but the whole tribunal falls flat. As you know, we don't know why there has to be this trial or why the young woman appears to be running from her protector when Angel encounters her. The storyline feels like too much of an obvious vehicle to show Angel messing up and the team reaching a new understanding of what they're doing.
Speaker 2:In regards to my comment that I made about the fact that Angel has such a bad singing voice, and make my joking comment about this is why we never got a musical episode of Angel, like we did on Buffy with Once More With Feeling, laura Homridge wrote David has a great voice in real life. He's just acting like he sounded bad in Angel, but in real life he is a good singer. Now, in regards to that, I have to admit that I've never heard David sing normally or in any other setting, so I can't really pass an opinion on whether or not he has a good voice and if this was just him acting like he has a bad one. But I'm glad, though, that they did have Angel have such a flat, miserable singing voice, because not only did that make it comical the same way his awful dancing was in she, but also it helps deflate the persona that Angel, who's tall, strong, good-looking, fast, intelligent, can think fast on his feet, etc. Is not perfect. That in spite of all of his other strengths and pluses that he has he's a lousy dancer, he's a lousy singer, so being a vampire does not give you musical gifts. So it's nice to see that and I want to thank Laura and Lisa Lilly from Buffing the Art of the Story podcast for these words and also just general comments about the episode, and encourage all of the listeners to please write in with any comments, whether you agree or disagree with me on anything I say about these episodes. The more you contribute, the more interesting the reviews get. So please feel free to send in any comments that you might have been, just like with Laura and Lisa, I might read them on the air now.
Speaker 2:As for the episode itself, this was a decent but not great episode because, as I mentioned, we had two parallel plots that almost feel like they were completely separate stories neither, which were big enough to fill their own episode, but they shoved them together into this storyline and shoehorned them together, especially at the end, with Angel and Wesley coming to join in the fight, as it were. And because the two storylines of Gunn and Cordelia again know each other, and then Darla's manipulation of Angel's dreams. As I said, it's two storylines shoved together in not always smooth fashion. Out of the two of them, I will say actually the one that I was more interested in is the Angel storyline, because that was the more subtle of two.
Speaker 2:Because in that storyline what we're seeing Darla doing in his dreams is slowly separating Angel from his team, because she's first of all causing him to sleep all the time and not be as physically close to them, because he's always in bed, he's always exhausted, so he's always having to go to sleep. But also because she's making him doubt their gratitude and really the need for him to help them out, by causing him to admit that maybe they're not as grateful to everything he's doing for them as they should be. So she's sowing seeds of doubt into his mind and she's getting at him in the most vulnerable way possible in his dreams. Because, as anyone who's ever seen a Nightmare on Elm Street movie knows, the one place we cannot truly defend ourselves is when we're asleep, because that is where we have no control really over what's happening to us in our dreams and also we can't stop from going to sleep because that's physically needed. Even for vampires, apparently, they cannot go without sleep, and so darla knows she can get at him in this very vulnerable way, which is an interesting approach, and also what I like about it is it brings back one of the many reasons I had said in the past I like darla was the fact that she is both comforting to him as well as seductive, because she's giving him the support that he feels he's not getting from Cordelia or Wesley or anyone else, because, yes, they are friends to him but they don't support him and they're always asking him what he can do for them, not so much what they can do for him, and even as a vampire, he's admitting that he does need people to support him. And also she's giving him part of the biggest thing that he needs, as we saw in are you now or have you ever been? Forgiveness.
Speaker 2:As I commented in that episode, the best scene in that episode was him forgiving judy at end. Well, that's the same thing he wants and craves his forgiveness for his actions that he's done in the past, and so by having the woman that sired him, who is his lover, who is his protector, who is his friend, who is his mentor, who was probably the most important person in his entire life. I would argue, even more so than buffy, that darla is the single most important person is in his entire existence, because she truly did make him who he was today, both good and bad. And how does he repay her? He dusts her so in the back of his mind, even though he knows why he did it. Darla was evil. Darla was about to kill buffy, so she deserved to be destroyed, but still, this was a tough thing for him to do, to dust a woman that had such of an impact on his life and what she's. Instead of condemning him, instead of coming at him in his dreams, anger and all that, she forgives him, which is probably the thing that gets at him the most, and that's the part, the biggest way to warm her way back into his life, and also what I like about it is we do see how intelligent she is.
Speaker 2:This is a vampire who had been around for several hundred years, as, as you saw in Buffy, a lot of these vampires literally just got out of the grave before the Slayer had dusted them, and even the ones who managed to get that far probably didn't last very long. In the case of Darla and Spike and Drew and the Master and Angelus, they had been around for centuries and that was because they were clever, they knew how to pick their battles. They didn't just go whole hog and just start slaughtering everyone Well, except for Angelus. But even there he did it strategically. So for Darwa to have been around even longer than Angelus was meant she had to be intelligent, and we saw on Buffy that she was, that she was a smart vampire, and we saw on buffy that she was, that she was a smart vampire.
Speaker 2:And so it makes sense that in this case she doesn't come stumbling hard right into his life in the waking days, because who knows how he would react? Because she knew if she just showed up on the doorsteps of the hyperion say, hey, angels, I'm home, then most likely angel might turn around and dust her again you're evil, you deserve to die. So instead she plays the long game with him by making him miss her and want her more, by bringing up the feelings that he hasn't had in over a century, that last time he had them for her was when he was angels. Because the way she worms her way in was, as we'll see in the next episode, by bringing up memories of him, as angelus saying see, remember how good was when you're evil and by forgiving him, by bringing up, by reigniting these feelings. It makes him miss her, and that is a very clever and intelligent way of getting at him, and, as we see here, the end goal is not to dust him in turn. No, the thing she wants most out of everything is to bring back, is to bring her boyfriend back, is to bring back angelus, to bring that side out of him one way or the other.
Speaker 2:And what is interesting this episode, though, is why she wants to do that. Is it because she wants to get revenge? Because it was Angel who dusted her? So the best revenge is to get rid of Angel by bringing back Angelus. Or is it because she truly misses Angelus? Because, as I commented in past episodes, that even though she is pure evil, being a demon, being a vampire, there is a sense of love, both romantic as well as maternal love for Angelus, that Darla had for him. We could see that in episodes like the prodigal. She truly wanted to teach him, she truly loved being with him and going on this murderous rampage, just like we saw spike truly loved drusilla, that vampires, even though they're evil, are capable of love, not granted in the cases of spike and darla. It might be somewhat perverted at times because they are evil, but it is true affection that they have and so more impossible. She is bringing back angelus because she truly loved and missed him and, as I said, that storyline was interesting even though not too much was happening. I'm tired, let's have a dream. I'm'm tired, let's have a dream. But it did further the storyline and beat us one more and see what more was going to happen.
Speaker 2:Now, as for the A plot, which is the gun in Cordelia, well, it's the more familiar of the two and also, as I'll point out as I go through the episode a little bit more on the bother side, and this is the big reason it was bothersome. It played on black street people stereotypes you have the snitch oh, I'm not going to tell you yeah. And then also about car thieves. They even have Gunn. Make it a line reference at one point when Cordelia says, hey, do you know how to hotwire a car? And Gunn, looking offended, saying Just because I deal with thieves doesn't mean I am a thief, but she assumes not so much because he deals with curses, because he's black and from the street he must know how to hotwire a car. And then also, of course, the black party where there's a whole bunch of loud music, you know, and so on and so forth going on there. The episode just felt very stereotypical throughout and I'm gonna save my discussion of the streetwalker dialogue that cordelia did. I'm gonna save that for when I get to that scene about how cringing that scene was, and not even so much on a comical side, because what this all did was it didn't make a comment so much on stereotypes as in previous episodes, like even in she, about the stereotypes that I mentioned there, but in this case it just played it up to further the plot.
Speaker 2:Now the more interesting part of the gunning cordelia storyline is the furtherance of their overall character arcs, because we got to see a little bit more of Gunn the most we've seen of him since the episode he was introduced Warzone and we see that Gunn is actually very similar to Angel in a number of ways. First of all, he feels like he doesn't need anyone. We'll see that play out big time later with Angel when Angel purposefully separates himself from the team. But same thing here, gunn, yes, I'll have people doing stuff for me his gang, angel Investigations but in both cases the men feel that they're the leaders, they're the ones who have to make the tough choices, they're the ones who ultimately could do this all by themselves. And also, just like we saw angel at the very beginning of the series same day here with gun, is that they will tend to settle stuff with violence. First I punch an attack, some threatening motion towards another person that they go at the fist approach first before they use their heads. And what is interesting here? It does seem appropriate that later on, gun, who is this punch first, ask questions later type of man that in the fifth season, when they join wolferman hart, how does he change? He becomes the lawyer, where at that point he doesn't use fist cuffs at all, he is all brain, because now he's given all of the demon legal knowledge. So a result instead of beating it out of somebody, he drags them into court and sues them, which is a nice twist there.
Speaker 2:But getting back to the way things are now, just like angel, he feels guilt over his action and he feels these are stuff that he will always have to atone for. But he'll never get forgiveness. And in both cases it was the murder of a sister. Because for Angel, if you remember, in Prodigal he killed his baby sister after she invited him into the home. What did Gunn do? He killed his sister.
Speaker 2:As we saw in Warzone and other actions are stuff that he feels guilty for, even though they understand intellectually it was something they couldn't help. In the case of Angel he was an angelist and he understands that that was not Angel doing it, that was the evil side of him doing it. And in Gunn he realized he had to kill his sister because she was evil. So they understand intellectually why they did it, but emotionally they still feel guilty for doing it. And what is interesting though, also with Gunn, is the fact that, as I mentioned, that all of these actions does make him his own worst enemy, because it is appropriate that in Cordelia's vision, unlike other visions where we see the demon attacking the victim, in this one we do only see God. He is the only one we see in the vision and, as a result, at the end, when she spells it out, just in case the audience didn't get the point in a little bit of a heavy hand dialogue, she does make it clear. He's the one who's the threat to himself, not the vac, not some other vampire or demon or anything like that. No, gunn is going to get himself killed eventually. Cordelia likewise.
Speaker 2:Her plot arc also is further along in this episode, not so much story beats wise or anything, but just in terms of how we're seeing the change in Cordelia, because in this episode she is becoming braver and more confident in her actions. When she has the vision and she can't reach out to Wesley or Angel for various reasons, she doesn't hesitate to go out and help, god Granted. She says to herself I'm going to die because of this, but she doesn't say that in a cowardly way. It's one of those I'm going to die, but realizing I still have to do this because somebody has to save God. And there is a nice change throughout the episode because at the very beginning and after this fight with the vampires, she's upset that Axel Grease got onto her new clothes, on her nice clothes. But on the other hand, at the end, when she's helping out Gunn's friend and the blood gets onto her sweater, she doesn't make any comment about it. In fact she doesn't even notice it. That's the show, just in the episode, how she has changed Axel Grease after a fight. Yeah, these are. This is a new sweater. You know how expensive this is. We're on blood.
Speaker 2:Hey, I had to do what I had to do just to show the progression of the character. Now, before I get into the episode itself, I just want to mention I do have to talk about the joke in judgment about the fact that whites don't understand black culture. Now, we saw this in the previous episode Judgment, with Wesley and Cordelia not understanding that Gunn is his last name and Cordelia is his next tag and to show how fly he is, and Wesley saying, oh, what does he fly? To show that, oh, they're suburban whites. They don't know black culture. We have the same thing here, and even more cringing, with Cordelia's use of the phrase working girl, by saying, yeah, I could be a working girl and then saying, oh, but I'm not trying to imply, you couldn't be, and then realizing, oh great, I'm saying that you could be a prostitute. Just, the entire scene was so cringing as I'll mention again later when I get to it and to the point where, even though you had gun and his friend well, not so much glaring at her, but just having a look to shut up, it didn't still excuse the fact that they could have done without that entire dialogue altogether. But that being said, let's get into the episode itself.
Speaker 2:The episode does open with angel talking to lauren and we see that he had just finished doing a double song, medley sending the clowns and also the song tears of a clown. And as soon as lauren mentions that, my first thought is why couldn't we have heard at least a few bars of that? You could have cut out the prostitute dialogue and thrown in Angel singing that medley. Any chance to hear Angel sing is okay with me. You don't have to give a reason, you don't have to give an excuse. Just put David up on the floor, even though, as I said at the beginning of the episode and in the comments, yes, they purposely have Angel being a bad singer for comic effect. Well, it's great comic effect, I'm all for it. But anyways, lauren advises angel dead through the singing that he can see his heart and he says that we're what he does with his heart. What he does with his feelings now is up to him.
Speaker 2:With that, angel then walks off as Lauren is singing and once again, any chance we get to hear Andy Hallett sing more than fine with me and I'm so glad that the series did try to make as much use of him as they possibly could for the singing, because the late Andy Hallett had a phenomenal voice and you could tell the producers were saying just give the guy a song, just let him sing, doesn't matter. Why Doesn't give the guy a song, just let him sing, doesn't matter. Why Doesn't matter what the song is, just let us hear him sing for a minute or so. And in this case he's singing the song Get here by Brenda Russell. And this is not a random song. What I like about it is when they pick the song.
Speaker 2:Choices for these characters to do it is for a reason. Choice for these characters to do it is for a reason, and in this case the lyrics almost have a selfish attitude towards it, towards the characters, because the lyrics include there are hills and mountains between us, always something to get over. If I had my way, surely you would be closer. I need you closer. He's wanting her back in his life and the her is Darla, because as he's walking across the bar, we see Darla standing there, looking absolutely stunning and beautiful in a simple red dress. And instead of being surprised seeing this woman that he dusted. Instead, he is happy to see a woman he cares about standing there and he warmly hugs her. He then takes her out onto the dance floor, smiling like a schoolboy, while holding her the entire time.
Speaker 2:And what I like here is the transition, is the fact that the club Herotos, which, when he's walking over towards Darla, is busy filled with other patrons, is now empty. Thus Gia's note that this is all a dream, without making it blindly obvious. But while he's doing this, lauren is still singing get here. And now. These lyrics include I don't care, I don't care, I want you to get here. I need you right here, right now. I need you close soon. Which, once again, great of a song, not just because it's a beautiful song, but because the lyrics are very selfish I don't care what happens, just get here now. I want you in my life.
Speaker 2:And it's reflecting Angel's selfish attitude. He needs somebody like a Darla in his life, somebody who cares about him, somebody who, as I've stated in my general comments, is loving and affectionate and forgiving towards him, somebody who, as I've stated in my general comments, is loving and affectionate and forgiving towards him. He wants her here now. He doesn't care how she gets here. Well, as they're slowly dancing, he is apologizing to her and expresses regret for killing her and then, as I mentioned, she does the thing that he needs most of all, and she knows he needs most of all she forgives him. She asks also if he has told anyone else about these dates that they've been having, and he says he hasn't so, thus causing a rift between he and Angel Investigations, because he is now hiding something from them. He's hiding her existence even in his dreams, and that's why she is prompting him almost not to tell them about her, because there is this separation that she can then use to pull him away from the gang. Well, he then kisses her romantically and passionately, as Lauren then says someone get these two love amps a room, and at that moment the camera then cuts to her in bed, waking up from the dream.
Speaker 2:Well, after the opening credits, then it cuts over to the Hyperion lobby and Cordelia is framed to dust and clean the place while Wesley is going through the papers. Gunn then walks in saying he had a 4 pm appointment with Angel because he needed his help in fighting Devak, a demon that is attacking his gang, and put two of his men in the hospital. Well, cordelia offers hers and Wesley's assistance and Gunn just looks at them with the stick figure Barbie and C-3PO comments, basically making it very clear they would be useless against somebody as strong and tough as D-Vac is. Well, at that moment, someone who's even more useless than Gunfield's Wesleyan Cordelia would be appears on the doorstep, which is David Nabbit. And it turns out that he's there because Angel had requested his assistance.
Speaker 2:And, as a side note, this is David's last appearance in the series because, as I had mentioned when he had first shown up in Warzone, he was going to be a semi-regular the way Lorne was used until he became a regular. In the case of David Nabbitt, because of David Herbin's other commitments, they never made him a regular character and, to be honest, as sweet and light as the character is, I'm still not sure they could have done too much with him. They would have had to greatly change his character. But anyways, angel finally comes downstairs and he explains that he needed David's financial advice to figure out how to buy the hotel with no money down. With that, david presents a laundry list of options right off the top of his head For a moment. There he drops his. I'm a D&D nerd type of thing, as he just starts rambling off all of these different things that you do, which makes sense, because they made it clear that David Nabbitt is a very successful businessman. He has a mini empire, as it were. And well, he did it through smart investments and smart business decisions. And the one cute thing I like about it is the fact that we have a call back to old school cordelia by the fact that she is positively aroused by his rapid fire of listing all the financial options, because that is the buffy era, cordelia who loves, and she has a man here who is pure success financially.
Speaker 2:But anyways, angel then assembles the entire team though Gunn is still against Wesley and Cordelia to go fight D-Vac. Well, they arrive in a parking garage to talk to a human informant who has information on D-Vac. Well, angel and Gunn take two different approaches towards the snitch. Angel offers him money, which the snitch refuses because he says I'm more scared of D-Vac than I am of you. You're just a vampire. This guy's even worse. And when he refuses to talk, gunn then goes with the old school approach of beating him up and in fact he starts beating him so much that Angel has stopped Gunn before things get even worse and Gunn ends up putting this guy in the hospital At that moment.
Speaker 2:Vampires then appear to fight the gang and, in credit to the gang, cordelia managed to dust a vampire that was attacking Wesley. So, in a nice change, instead of Cordelia being the one being rescued or having one of the male members of the gang have to destroy the vampire who's about to attack her, she killed the vampire that was attacking a member of the gang, which lets a little bit more credence to her being able to protect gun throughout the episode later on. And meanwhile gun and angel are fighting one each, with angel taking longer than he normally does to kill a normal vampire. And it's not like these are super strong vampires or very great fighters. These are just your run-of-the-mill vampires that we've seen in numerous other episodes. Angel could dust within seconds even without the cool sleeve stakes, but just on his own could easily kill them. But in this case it looks like it'd take them quite a while to kill them and in fact it cuts to later, not sure how much later, but definitely later we see three piles of dust indicate the vampire's fate and in fact the script for the episode described the aftermath of the garage battle, as, quote, what's left of the attacking vamps, not three neat little piles, piles, nothing too cutesy, but clearly dead, dusty, chunky vamp dust.
Speaker 2:Well, all four members of angel investigations are sitting down and they're recovering from their wounds.
Speaker 2:It's not so much we see any visible cuts, bruises or anything like that, but just sore muscles, sore neck things like that.
Speaker 2:And gunn even mentions that he's got a sore pair of ribs and angel comments about his arm hurting out because of it.
Speaker 2:And wesley's back is sore. And out of the four of them, one who says she suffered most of all, cordelia, because she has a grease stain all over her new outfit, which once again called back to old school cordelia, who that would be the things you would be most concerned about. It's not so much being sore or anything but got grease on my new outfit. Well, gun is upset that even after fighting the vamps and the snitch, they still have no idea where d-back is. And wesley wisely points out that, based on how tough that battle was for them fighting three vampires it's clear they're not ready to go up against somebody who is as tough and strong as D-Vac. Well, gunn, ignoring Wesley, is still ready to hunt down the snitch and get more info, and Cordelia tries to give him advice and this is even before she had the vision, still wanting to help, gun out by saying that he might want to be a little bit more subtle, as it were, in his approach towards getting information, with this line when you do find him.
Speaker 3:you may want to be a little more guy pearson la confidential and a little less michael madsen in reservoir dogs. I've been bothered to see a movie since denzel was robbed of the Oscar from Malcolm X Later. That was quite a performance, I know Talk about wound up too tight.
Speaker 1:No, I mean Denzel.
Speaker 3:Well, he was always great.
Speaker 4:What about you? Who doesn't love Denzel?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, one comment on to the line said there that I have to agree with. One denzel was robbed of an oscar for malcolm x. Because I watched the movie again a few weeks ago and in a very storied career and very impressive resume that the actor has, I would have to go with malcolm x is his best performance. It, if you have not seen the movie, watch it. It is an incredible, wonderful, brilliant movie with a four-star performance from the actor. And that leads to my other line that obviously I am agreeing with, and that's from Angel, who doesn't love Denzel. The man is just pure charisma in everything he does. But anyways, wesley is concerned that Angel, as I had mentioned, had more trouble than he should have had with the vampires, because normally in a situation like this Angel could have taken on all three vampires by himself. He shouldn't have struggled as much as he did. Well, they arrive back at the hotel and Angel just rustily says I'm going to bed, I need to get to sleep. And Cordelia is now concerned as well, because that's all he's getting now is just sleep. He's barely awake. He's constantly going back to bed. Well, it cuts over a little bit later to Cordelia's apartment and she's trying to relax when she has a vision and we're not shown what exactly it was at first, just like her normal vision, very painful, very visceral, and now we see it again. And now we see who the victim is. It's done.
Speaker 2:And now one side comment here, and this is just about her clothing. Normally I don't talk too much about people's clothing, but this one I just want to point out. A piece of trivia is the fact that the outfit that cordelia is wearing in this scene and will wear throughout the rest of the episode is the same outfit that cordelia wore in the episodes the gift, and I will remember you. So I'm not sure what that truly has to say about the character. They're having her spot, that sport, that, other than to show, maybe, a strength, an increasing strength in her character, that she's not so much a slayer yet, but she is becoming stronger, more confident by wearing clothes that are similar to buffy or, to pull a line from my favorite slayer, faith, oh, she's wearing big sister's clothes now.
Speaker 2:Well, now, as I mentioned, cordelia is having the vision she collapsed to the ground of him being attacked. Well, she tries to call angel, but he's too busy being unconscious and having very erotic dreams about darla and in fact, that we see why he's not answering the phone. Because he's having a dream of he and darla on a beach, probably enough at night. They're moonbathing because well, being vampires, I doubt they get too many sunbathing. But a nice touch here is the fact that even though it's at night, because they're on a beach, then the closest thing a vampire could get to a tan they're wearing sunglasses at night, wearing sunglasses not so much because of the time of the day but because of their location. So that was a nice touch there for the characters. Well, in the dream, he's hearing the phone, but darla just tells him to ignore it, once again pulling him away from people who need him by making him focus instead all on her, separating him, and she explains that she is still kind to him even after he dusted her, because she knows that they are one. Once again pulling him closer to her and away from others. Come to me, be with me. Once again, the song that Lauren was singing at the very beginning of the episode, and as they're with each other, it very quickly becomes a very erotic dream between the two of them.
Speaker 2:Well, back in the waking world, since she can't reach Angel. Cordelia tries to reach Wesley and she's frantic about God, and because she can't actually reach him, she leaves a message. But because she can't reach wesley, she then decides that because they can't help him at the moment, she has to, and she realizes the odds of her living are very slim because of the fact that the creatures they fight the vac and others. Physically she's not up to their level, but nevertheless she admits herself she has no other choice. So she has to go. She grabs an axe and leaves.
Speaker 2:Now, at this moment, though, question I have as a viewer is okay, we know why angel didn't answer phone. He was having the erotic dream with darla and he was deep in sleep. Where was wesley? I mean, why would he near phone, just in case something happened? Because wesley knows their situation. He knows that essentially, their job is a 24 7 on call situation. Because, well, especially at night, with demons and vampires coming out. But anyways, she drives over to guns hangout and she runs down the hallway and she sees a gun is in a fight involving quarterstaffs in a laundry room. She then runs in, smacks his opponent hard with the axe handle and it turns out that no, he wasn't being attacked. He was doing a training session with a member of his team. That this was more of a quarterstaff fight demo. He was in no danger whatsoever. As I said, he was training others on this. Well, I mean now, that bit I did like because an obvious joke. Yes, she misinterpreted a situation, so she jumped in, but still cute.
Speaker 2:But now it cuts back to angel, who's still deep in his dream, and they're standing outside of the hotel post cocoitus and darla is now sad, she's not happy, she's still loving, but now she's sad now because she's saying she has to go. And then she says something that you know. She said to get at angel, I'm in danger. Because that is the part that she knows angel will respond to the most the need to help a damsel in distress, to help others. So that's why she says I'm in danger, to pull him closer to her, to protect her, to help her out. Well, in the dream there is now a louder and louder pounding.
Speaker 2:In the dream, dave's hearing. He looks over and he sees wesley pounding nails into a coffin which is obviously the thing that as a vampire being buried and all that, not the thing he wants, and also to remind him of what he is and what's happened to him. Well, angels sit turns and sees that darla has left after he glanced over at wesley, which wakes him up, and he sees Wesley and his immediate reaction is that Wesley cooked Darla from him. So he leaps out of bed strangling him and, as a nice bit of foreshadowing there, as we see in a later episode, this is not the first time he strangles Wesley or tries to kill Wesley, except that this time it was almost by accident. Wesley then explains that Gunn is in trouble and they have to go and help him out.
Speaker 2:Well, it cuts back to Gunn's place and Cordelia is bandaging the head of the man that she had clocked with the axe handle and Gunn tries to throw her out by saying he doesn't need her help. He doesn't that he can, he is fine, fine on his own. She tries to warn him about her vision, but he writes off saying whatever it is, I can handle it, I'm tough. Well, they walk outside and angel's car that she had driven over to gun's place has been stolen. This is also a nice transition scene that I like, which is the fact that we first have gun and cordelia standing outside of his place and Gunn saying where's your car, and it immediately cuts over to Wesley and Angel saying outside the Hyperion, and Wesley saying literally the exact same words where's your car? And in both cases the person they're asking is understandably confused. Because Cordelia is confused because Angel's car just got stolen, and Angel is even more confused because he didn't realize Cordelia had taken the car. So last thing he saw, last thing he knew, was that Cordelia was going to park the car after dropping him off back to Gunn and Cordelia. Gunn takes his truck and they go driving, and he offers to fight Angel's car, figuring that there's only a handful of guys in the neighborhood who would have stolen a vintage car like Angel's, so the list is very short for them to go through. And he continues saying that he doesn't want or need her help. And regardless of what he says, though, cordelia comments that she is going to protect him, whether he wants her to or not, and she produces the items that she says can help him out the axe that she had brought and clocked his friend with, and also a small can of mace.
Speaker 2:Well, now we're back at the hotel, and instead of taking a truck, the alternate transportation here is wesley's bike, which angel refuses to get on. Now he, wesley, has changed bike. From last time we saw him ride one, because in the episode parting gifts, where they brought wesley into the series, in that episode wesley is riding an avery american big dog motorcycle. In this one, though, he's riding a very british triumph motorcycle, which actually makes sense considering how british is. But the one thing he kept was was his biker jacket and motorcycle, same ones that he had in that episode. So he may have traded in the bike, but not the clothes.
Speaker 2:Well, we see why angel's not willing to get on the motorcycle. It's not so much because I think wesley doesn't know what he's doing on a motorcycle or whatever. No, it has nothing to do with that. It's the helmet and the reason why it's neon pink, which actually makes me wonder why wesley has a neon pink motorcycle helmet because we don't want to see him hanging out with too many women to offer his helmet to them. So who knows why he's got that anyways. It does provide for a cute joke, though, because angel is refusing to wear the helmet, but wesley insists that it's the law he has to have it on, and angel, very reluctantly, puts it on, and it does provide for a nice, once again deflating of the masculine nature of angel, or the perfect nature of angel, because it's. The series is showing where to find the humor in Angel's character, deflating his cool, tough guy exterior with dancing, singing and now having to wear the helmet. They know David could sell bits like that very easily, and he does. Well, they take off.
Speaker 2:And now it cuts over to a car lot where Gunn and Cordelia are looking for the car and Gunn thinks it might be in this garage. Well, he meets up with the owner, a street tough named Henry, who says he doesn't have the car, but most likely another guy, a guy named Desmond, has it and that Desmond is at a party thrown by Tito. And before they leave, gunn notices that there are cars from around the neighborhood and he very forcefully doesn't beam up this time, but he makes it very clear he will, very forcefully tells henry to stop, as he says, jacking neighborhood cars or else. And what's interesting here is the fact that gun isn't saying I don't want you stealing cars anymore. No, he says, feel free, if you want to take him from affluent, affluent neighborhoods, do it.
Speaker 2:You know, go in peace, I have no problems with that. Just don't do it from the people in my neighborhood because these are people I know, these are people I respect, these are the people I said I would protect, or if it means protecting them from you, I will. You don't have to be a vampire or a demon. Well, after he leaves, dvac and a group of vampires come from behind henry's building, it's very clear that dvac knows who god is and says that he will settle it. At this point, while I quickly take a nap and dream of julie benz, my spidey sense is tingling. It must be time for our pop culture segment, where I find every pop cultural reference in this episode. Compile it in a supercut and make heads or tails of what they are talking about.
Speaker 4:Your spider sense. Pop cultural reference sorry, Sun in the clouds and tears of a clown, both one night.
Speaker 1:I find D-Vac. I'm gonna need more than c-3po and stick figure barbie backing me up.
Speaker 3:No offense when you do find him, you may want to be a little more guy pearson la confidential and a little less michael madsen in reservoir dogs. I haven't bothered to see a movie since denzel was robbed at the oscar from apple max.
Speaker 1:There are hills and mountains between us, always some living in awe. If I had my way, surely you would make a loss of it.
Speaker 3:I ain't buying none of this, dionne Warwick crap.
Speaker 2:Now what I'd like to talk about is that last line Dionne Warwick crap. Now this was a reference to the very popular singer in her time with a thing called the Psychic Friends Network. Now, the Psychic Friends Network was launched in 1991. It relied on infomercials to attract clients and used the call distributing system to forward calls to a network of psychics and I am putting massive quotes around the word psychics working in shifts from their homes. This technology allowed the customers to build personal relationships with individual psychics, basically people who, as we saw in movies such as now you see me and others, where people posed as psychics but were really con men that they could, just through talking and knowing human nature, could understand how to make predictions or read your aura or your future or whatever, by telling the callers what they wanted. Here they weren't actually psychic. It was a scam. This was a very successful scam because, according to the Slate article, what Psychic Friends failed to foresee? They said Psychic Friends, infomercials have been among the most popular in history.
Speaker 4:This is a paid commercial presentation of Information Incorporated. Today you'll find out what Dionne Warwick has to say about the psychic friends network. I think that anyone watching this show can benefit from speaking to a psychic. Meet psychic to the stars linda georgian here. Would one of our psychics had to say about daytime tv's hottest couple? Is this gonna be the end of our relationship? I mean, is this going to ultimately destroy our, our astronauts? Yeah, Meet other soap opera stars who called the Psychic Friends Network.
Speaker 2:Between 1993 and 1994, they aired this infomercial aired more than 12,000 times and at one point Infomation, the company that did the infomercials, was shelling out half a million dollars a week to buy airtime on cable stations. It was money well spent. At its peak, psychic Friends was bringing in as much as $125 million a year, most of it through infomercials. Slate reported that the psychic business is trying to focus on establishing continuing relationships between individual psychics and their customers and saying, like I don't want just any psychic, I want to speak to clarissa by making that clarissa your own personal psychic. The infomercial was presented in a talk show like format, as you can tell from that commercial that I just played, and it was hosted by singer dne Warwick and quote psychic to the stars Linda Georgian. As the commercial mentioned, each installment featured a 1-900 number for viewers to call in to consult a psychic and according to Jack Schember, publisher of Response TV, a magazine that attracted the direct response television industry, the Psychic Friends Network had the most successful infomercial of all time. Magazine that attracted the direct response television industry, the psychic friends network had the most successful infomercial of all time and according to usa today, the psychic friends network infomercials opened the parody floodgates. Shows like saturday night live and other shows did sketches satirizing this infomercial. Well Well, the parent company, inflammation, took in profits over $100 million within the first few years of the network's operation. So guess who had the last laugh? But soon what goes up must come down, because the company cleared bankruptcy in 1998 with liabilities of $26 million and assets of only $1.2 million, and in 2001, the bankruptcy trustees for the Psychic Friends Network sued MCI Worldcom Network Services for mismanagement of billing and collection and won a judgment of $7.5 million in 2004, of which MCI eventually paid $4.1 million.
Speaker 2:Mark Edward, who worked as a telephone psychic for the network, gave an insider's account of the organization's business model, as well as his deal with clients in his 2012 book psychic blues. He described the organization as a quote a psychic switch shop unquote and revealed how he gained the confidence of clients while working as a telephone psychic and rose to prominence in the company without possessing any paranormal powers of any kind. When asked by ABC News if psychics are real, edward said no, they're not real. It's just a matter of intuition. If you're good with people, you learn how to read people. Do you want to be a real estate agent or a clairvoyant. They're all a similar skill set. It's a skill you can learn, it's real, but it's nothing supernatural or a similar skill set. It's a skill you can learn, it's real, but it's nothing supernatural. Edward told ABC that he was taught techniques to keep his conversation vague, flattering and drawn out. The goal was to make the callers feel good about themselves and keep them talking. He said that he once gave a two-and-a-half-hour reading at $3.99 per minute. The caller paid more than $600 for that reading. Edward also revealed that the psychic business is built on lies. There is no supernatural power, can't see the future. We're in the golden age of the con. There are people coming out of the woodwork that would love to separate you from your money, but people just want someone to talk to. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 2:On that wonderful note, back to the episode. And we're back at tito's party and a young man and his friends are leaving when gun cordelia show up and it turns out somebody who's working for gun, because gun is chilling the man out for shirking his patrolling of the area to attend the party. And after the guy leaves, that's when cordelia says could have been a little bit nicer to the kid. I mean, he just wanted to have a little fun. But god makes it very clear no, I'm in charge, don't tell me how to run my game.
Speaker 2:Well, they enter the party and before they do, he orders cordelia not saying anything. When she goes in, she is taking offense, saying you know, I know how to blend in. I've been to many parties in my life, which when she was in high school she no doubt did because she was a leader of the cordage. She was the most popular girl in school. But the party she's at now is not the party she went to in sunnydale and as soon as she enters it's very obvious, based on the ethnic and cultural makeup of the attendees, she is not going to blend in this party. Well, his friend veronica approaches gun and we get that scene that I referred to at the very beginning of the episode. Who me?
Speaker 3:I'm no friend. I mean, I'm just here on business. I'm a working girl, I'm not wrong. I mean, obviously I'm not a working girl. Not that I couldn't be if I wanted to, of course I could. God, that's how we stuck up, didn't it? I didn't mean to imply that I could be a working girl and you couldn't. Far from it. You'd make a great.
Speaker 2:Could you just point me to the hors d'oeuvres. You'd make a great, as I said, extremely cringing bit of dialogue, even worse than the one in the earlier episode, with the mistaking of what gun's last name is, because just runs too long and is too stereotypical. But anyways, veronica directs Gunn over to Desmond, and Cordelia now also assumes that most of the guys there at the party, because they're black and from the street, that they're all criminals. Well, gunn says well, yeah, most of them actually are. But he points out that there are white-collar criminals as well, that it's not just black-shirt criminals as well, that the only, that it's not just black terror criminals. And one thing I do have to give credit to, though, as a nice joke though, is the fact that he tries to bring up david nabbit, playing up the stereotype of because he's a billionaire or who knows how many millionaire, that he must be a criminal, because that's the stereotype the rich are evil, the rich got their money through illegal means, through ripping off other people, and and also the fact that because he's rich, he must be corrupt. And cordelia very calmly and quickly explains that actually he's not, by explaining the fact that he made his first million by creating software for the blind, are you going to criticize anyone who gets their money that way? And that other software automatically donate 20 million dollars a year to charity. So he's giving back. And in response to that, though, gun then comments that none of the charities don't reach out to where he lives. So since they're not directly helping him or his neighborhood, who cares what charities they give to? But anyways, gun sees desmond and is talking to him about angel's car when two vampires enter and the vampires trash the place and beat everyone up, centering on gun himself, and in the process they toss veronica through a mirror with a shard of glass in her neck. At that point the vampires all take off and gun and cordelia rush veronica to the hospital.
Speaker 2:Now one comment I want to make here. I referenced this at the beginning of the episode with the change in cordelia through, just through this episode. At the very beginning, after the vampires in the garage fight, she was upset that there was grease on her new outfit. Well, in helping her, in helping veronica, some of veronica's blood gets on her. Well, first of all one in going over to veronica, she doesn't panic, she doesn't freak out. She knows exactly how to help out veronica to stop the bleeding from the neck, to try to slow it down. And also, the blood gets on her very nice sweater doesn't mean anything to her at all. She's able to put that part aside to separate herself from that, to help others, to show that she is becoming strong. She is becoming braver in less vain, that she's less of a stick figure Barbie that Gunn described her as at the beginning. Well, as I said, gunn and Cordelia rush Veronica to a hospital and the doctors go to work on her and they straight out comment that Cordelia rush Veronica to a hospital and the doctors go to work on her and they straight out comment that Cordelia's action towards Veronica to stop the bleeding may have saved her life. So you know good for Cordelia.
Speaker 2:Well, later at the hospital, cordelia sees Gunn beating himself up over what happened to her, the fact that it was because of him being at the party that the vampires were there. They attacked Veronica and she barely nearly died. Cordelia points out that she lived, but that doesn't make him feel any better because he says she wouldn't have been in any danger at all if he hadn't been. So it's still his fault and he's upset that he let his guard down for just a moment and as a result, somebody died. And in the course of his rant he accidentally refers to veronica as lana, his sister, and at that moment, that's when he says he can never suck, he can never let his guard down again.
Speaker 2:If anything, he's more driven now and it's with that line, the scene, that we do see the reason for his brute force attitude. It's guilt, because the one time he was vulnerable, the one time he was nice, his sister, the woman he loved, the woman he had vowed to protect, ends up dying. And he feels guilty, not so much because he staked her, no, he realized he had to do that. No, it's the fact that, in his mind, he's the reason she became a vampire, because if he had done a better job of protecting her, the vampires in Warzone wouldn't have grabbed her and sired her and turned her, and so, as a result, it's all his fault. And so now, as a result, just like Kate and we haven't seen several episodes he is now just as driven and obsessed as she is, and thankfully, unlike Kate, we do see in later episodes he does actually change, that this driven and obsessive side of him does actually alter in a way that is more helpful and doesn't become his downfall. Well, as they're talking, desmond is walking behind them to the elevator when Cordelia angrily stops him, demanding her car back.
Speaker 2:Well, angel and Wesley, getting to the party, later approach Tito's party and sees the aftermath of the attack, complete with cop cars. One of the girls walks out injured, with a not severe but still noticeable head injury, and doesn't know what happened, other than a group of very strong guys attack party Angel, sensing something's wrong, and also, as we find out later in the series, vampires can sense their own. Headbutts her very hard in a nice move for holding her first. For a second, though, it looks like he's just examining her head for head injuries, when instead bounces his head hard off of hers, causing her to vamp out. Well, he then demands even further information from her.
Speaker 2:Well, it cuts over to gun in cordelia, who opened up desmond's garage and sees angel's car in there. And angel explains that how they managed to get, how the car was stolen in the first place. She left the keys in the car and she says it was because she was in a rush to get in, which, okay, is a little goofy because that's not the nicest of neighborhoods. Not only would you not leave the car locked. You definitely don't leave keys in it, especially for a vintage car. It's just begging to be stolen, but anyways. She then asks Gunn if he knows how to hotwire, and that's when he gives his response of just because I know some car thieves doesn't mean that I am one.
Speaker 2:Well, as they're looking in the car, dvec and two vampires appear with the keys to the car and dvec confronts gun and lifts him up by the by the throat, one-handed, choking him cord. Cordelia tries the axe and D-Vac just swats it away with one hand while still choking Gunn. And that's when D-Vac then morphs into the snitch from earlier, thus revealing that actually Gunn would have been able to fight D-Vac at the very beginning of the episode in the garage heading out. Well, d-vac continues to choke Gunn in the form of Snitch until Cordelia using Chekhov's mace you don't introduce a can of mace in the first act if you're not planning on using it in the third. Well, she produces Chekhov's mace and maces him, causing him to drop Gunn, and that's when he then morphs back into D-Vac's state.
Speaker 2:Well, at that moment Wesley and Cordelia come skidding in under the mostly closed garage door and Angel, making use of the hamlet attacks one of the vamps while Wesley goes after the other. Gun, of course, is focusing on D-Vac, who easily fights off Gun's punches. I mean, gun looks to be in excellent shape, but D-Vac looks twice the size, so does not surprise. Well, wesley stakes one of the vamps that's attacking cordelia does provide a nice bookend from the very beginning, when what cordelia saved wesley, wesley now saves cordelia. Well, for the d-vac gun fight.
Speaker 2:D-vac gets the upper hand on gun and is about to stab him when angel does a somersault in the air, grabbing the act in midair, and runs into devak's head, killing him.
Speaker 2:A little showy of an approach, you know the spin in the air grabbing the axe, but still impressive looking as stunt. Well, now we go out into the alleyway and angel is pushing his car out there because once again they don't have he yet and wesley has found them. And this is another nice touch I like about this series is, unlike with buffy, where the results of for the most part of any fight is just dust. Here the result of a fight is viscera or and, as wesley comments, the keys are covered either in demon blood or pus or, as he pauses for a second, possibly both. Well, gun is thanking cordelia for saving his life and cordelia explains that the fact wasn't the danger she saw in the vision. And that's when she spells it out for gun and says that gun is his worst enemyn, is the one that he should be fearing, because she comments that he's creating his dangers for himself and is on a self-destruct course.
Speaker 3:D-Vac wasn't the danger my vision was warning me about. He wasn't.
Speaker 1:No, then what was I'm looking?
Speaker 3:at it. It's you, charles. You're the danger. Excuse me, it's how you live your life. You don't just face danger, you create it. You're on a self-destruct mission, unless you get to know.
Speaker 2:And I'll talk more about this line here in just a moment, when it gets to favorite kills and lines of the episode, and Cordelia then says that she is going to keep with him, she's going to keep trying to protect him until he finds a way to find some inner peace. Well, now we get back to the hotel for the epilogue and angels returning to it, and darla greets him and is concerned about how exhausted he looks, and she points out that no one bothered to thank him for saving their lives, once again separating him from the team, because she also further points out that he takes care of so many people, yet no one takes care of him, and even more than any erotic acts she might do, as I mentioned at the very beginning, I'll take care of you, I'll comfort you, let me help you. It's probably the most seductive thing of all, as I said, even more so than any erotic acts. It's just her doing for him, because this is part of him that she knows he's most vulnerable, because, as I said at the very beginning of the episode, that he spends his entire existence doing stuff for others saving strangers, rescuing them, saving his friends, like as just on the previous fight, he is the one who rescued gun and get the feeling. Gun didn't even give him so much as a thank you. In fact, who did gun thank? He thanked cordelia for, quote saving his life, which is ironic considering Cordelia technically didn't save his life. It was Angel who saved him, not Cordelia. But yet we don't see any dialogue between Gunn and Angel. We see it between Gunn and Cordelia, and Darla is playing on this the lack of gratitude to pull Angel further away. Well, she uses that to further seduce him and it cuts the angel sleeping in his bed and now we see the final image, which is darla in waking life beginning to have actual sex with him while he's asleep, and that's how the episode ends. Well, now it's time to talk about my favorite kills in line in the episode. Well, for the kills in this episode, we had all members of Angel Investigations get in their kills Because, as I mentioned, cordelia killed a henchman of DVac at the very beginning.
Speaker 2:In the initial fight scene in the garage, angel took out three himself. One was a D-Vac vampire henchman. I'm assuming it was the one he was fighting because, as I said, we don't actually see him kill the vampire, we just see the pile of dust. And then also he killed D-Vac with the act. And then in the final fight with D-Vac we see him kill one of the vampires that was helping out D-Vac there. Gunn, in the initial garage scene, also killed a D-Vac vampire, henchman. Just like with Angel. I'm giving Gunn the credit for it, even though we don't technically see him kill the vampire. We see him fighting him. And then next shot, shot, we see dust. So I'll assume it was gun. And then in the final fight Wesley got rid of a vampire that was attacking Cordelia. So that takes us our kill total for the series up to 44.5 vampires for Angel, 1.5 for Wesley, 3 for Gun, 62 for everyone else. So a total of 111 deaths that have occurred so far in the series.
Speaker 2:Well, now for the favorite kill, that one. I would have to, oddly enough, go with cordelia at the very beginning of the episode because, unlike with wesley, gun and angel, who, for all three of them in my chart you'll notice, I'm not listing how many Cordelia kills. I'm keeping track of how many three men kill One because they stay throughout the entire series, so they'll have the larger totals out of everyone. But also it's because Cordelia doesn't get that many deaths. In fact, this is the first demon that she killed since episode 12, expecting that's the first one she ever killed, so it's nice to see her get one in once in a while. And now for the favorite line. It would have to be the one said by cordelia at the end that I played.
Speaker 2:It's how you live your life.
Speaker 2:You don't just face danger, you create it. You're in a self-destructive mission unless you get some help. As I mentioned at the very beginning of the episode, my general comments is the fact that gun is very similar to Angel in the sense that he runs recklessly into danger because he feels like Angel, he's almost invulnerable, nothing can hurt him. And also, just like with Angel, it's not just that they feel they're tough, they can handle the fights, they also undervalue their lives. They feel that the only purpose they have is to fight other creatures, other people. That's the only purpose they serve, that they have no value to anyone else other than through fighting, other than through risking their lives.
Speaker 2:And, as we see with Gunn and with Angel, is that there is a difference between being brave, which is a very noble trait, and being overly risky, which is stupid.
Speaker 2:And that is what alana and warzone and cordelia in this episode try to explain to gun, which is the fact that, yes, we admire you for being brave, we're grateful to you for it.
Speaker 2:That is a noble trait but not at the risk of your own life, because now you're taking unpolled risks on unwise risks. That becomes stupid and also what we. What the episode makes clear is that we need to realize that do need other. We do need people to help us out, that, no matter how capable we might feel that we are, without others we'll not survive. And this was a theme that was brought over from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the original series, because, as that show makes very, very clear throughout this series, buffy, yes, she died twice, at the end of Prophecy Girl and in the Gift, but she would have died even more times than that. That if it wasn't for the scooby gang, for example in the episode school hard spy could have theoretically have killed her as well at the end, the episode of her mother had saved her, and he makes this reference at the end of that episode.
Speaker 4:A slayer with family and friends.
Speaker 3:That sure as hell, wasn't in the brochure.
Speaker 2:And that's the entire point of that line that if her mother had been there to clock Spike with the fire extinguisher, he theoretically could have killed her. Remember, he's taken out two slayers in his time so he could have taken out a third. And, as I had mentioned, she did die twice and in both cases, technically, she was saved by friends, because in Prophecy Girl it was Xander who brought her back and in the episode Bargaining it was Willow doing the ritual that brought her back. Now, granted, in that case it was being brought back to heaven, but we'll set that aside. And throughout the series, as, as I said, she would have been killed several more times had they not rescued her. For example, angelus would have killed her in part two of becoming if well one, if spike hadn't helped him, helped her out, because, as angelus looks at her, says do you truly think you take all three of us on? And the beyond says spike had and pulled drusilla away and or clocked angela's. If the three of them had teamed up against buffy, yeah, the three of them would have killed her instantly and also even at the end in the sword fight. What ended up saving truly at the end was widow's spell restoring his soul and, as I said in the episode School Heart, she was saved from spike by her mom with the fire extinguisher.
Speaker 2:So, ultimately, what is true in that situation? That Buffy needed her gang to save her. The same is true here in Gun for Gun and Angel. They need a team survive. And this is a lesson they each have to learn from themselves that without the team they're helpless and they will not survive. Well, that's it for this week's episode. In the next show I will discuss the following episode on an all-new angel. I'm going to help you.
Speaker 1:A harmless woman, more powerful than she appears. Everyone thinks I I'm so fragile. She's just a girl.
Speaker 3:People that thought you were helpless before have died. She needs help. She's out of control. A woman with a force so deadly she must be contained.
Speaker 1:You have the power to do it. You're going to kill us, you're going to die. Bye, you own new Angel.
Speaker 2:I will continue my retrospective, with Angel having to deal with a fellow superhero and also being further manipulated by Darla, in the first episode since the pilot show to be directed by Joss Whedon. So join me as I discuss how Bethany is not an X-Men, regardless of her mutant powers. So join me, stephen, for the next episode of Wolfram and Cast. If you wish to reach out to me with any questions or comments, you can reach me on Facebook, instagram or Twitter, at WolframCast, or email me at WolframCast at gmailcom. Feel free to write to me and I might read your comments or emails on the air. Please leave me a rating and review and be sure to press subscribe on iTunes, spotify or wherever you get here. Just get here if you can.
Speaker 1:There are hills and mountains between us, always something to get over. But if I had my way, surely you would be closer. I'll meet you closer. Surely you would be closer. I've been too concerned.
