Show Notes
Angel, Spike and Gunn track down Lindsay, hoping he has information on the senior partners' plans; a nearly invincible stranger infiltrates Wolfram & Hart looking for Eve.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Investigating angel, an angel rewatch.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Podcast, where we analyze each episode of angel the series with no spoilers. We are your hosts, Leah and Sarah.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: And if you love angel, this is the podcast for you foreign.
Hey, guys. Welcome back to Investigating Angel. Today we're Talking about Season 5, Episode 17, Underneath, written by Sarah Fane and Elizabeth Craft and directed by Skip school Nick. Aired April 14, 2004 I know. I think this is. Is this the first? I can't remember now. At this point, someone's gonna correct me. I feel like this is.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Wrote something in the beginning of the season.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: That's what I think too, but now I can't remember at all. But it's been a while since our girls.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: One of them went and, like, cheated on the other, and they wrote an episode with another writer.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: So true. We're like. It was Sarah Fade. We're like, wait, where's Elizabeth? What's going on?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Where's Liz?
[00:01:11] Speaker A: What happened between them? What they do?
They had beef. They had a falling out. Yeah. Elizabeth had the flu. What's going on?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
But they're back. Our ladies are back. And we're. We were talking about, before we started recording about how much we really liked this episode, which is funny because the first time I remember watching it, I remember being like, this is stupid. And I was not impressed. But watching it this time, I was like, wow, this was good.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: This is an episode that I often forget about for some reason. And then I get. And then I watched it now, like, literally just now, and I was like, this is so fun.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: What an enjoyable episode to watch. But, yeah, it's one that I characterize it as, like, Lindsay in the hell dimension, but otherwise, it's not something that I remember, like, many scenes from. But there's a lot of really good scenes in this episode between all the characters. And, yeah, it's pretty good.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah. You and I were talking about how there's a lot of really good character moments for several characters. Like, Wesley obviously has a lot. Illyria. But Gun and Lauren both have significant character moments. And I was like, this is so, so good. I know, right? Finally.
Finally. So happy. Like, I just. It was. It was the first time this season that I was like, this is an ensemble show. Like, we're actually talking about the characters in a substantive way. Like, even Life of the Party, I expected to be much deeper, like, kind of like this in its character analysis, but it didn't really tell us very much. But this one, I was, like, shocked.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah. This was so brave.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Even Eve had some time.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Harmony. Yeah, he had some time. Every single character had a little bit of time to shine.
Not in, like, a way where they just were given a line just to say that they're, oh, this is an actor in the main credits, and we need to have them say something on screen.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: This was, like, actually stuff that is true to character that's telling us something about the characters.
I loved it. Yeah. So great.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: So refreshing. Oh, yep. Refreshing. Yeah.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I feel like, again, the most common complaint I think I'm. I have about this entire, like, show is I just kind of lose the characters, lose interest in the characters as individuals along the way, because I feel like this show does really well in some aspects, but I feel like when they're trying to focus on one character, they kind of sideline the others and throw them in the background and just kind of give them lines to say.
And that just makes it really hard to be invested, to be honest. And we've. I mean, I've struggled with that for a while now, for, like, a few seasons. I don't know about you, but it's nice to, like, care about the characters again because they're giving us.
I don't know, they're just, like, making them more interesting again. And not necessarily. They don't have to be likable to be interesting. They just have to have substance.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. I was. Even Lindsay had some stuff to this as well, and I don't know, it was. It was very enjoyable, but it also was heavily leading us to the finale, which is so interesting. And we'll talk about that in just a second, how this is the episode where they. The cast and crew realized that they were being canceled, but they had already written all of this stuff. And I'm like, it's crazy because I can see us pivoting to the finale right here, Like. Like, majorly so. But they'd already written it, which is very fascinating.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: I wonder if they, like, went back, though, and, like, rewrote and reshap scenes.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Oh, they did not. Yeah. I have some quotes that I'll read in a second.
Apparently, Joss kind of had an idea that they might be canceled in season five. Especially, like angel, more so than Buffy. There was always this, we're. We might get canceled. Like, they felt like they dodged it for several seasons, but he kind of had a feeling they wouldn't have a season six, so he wrote this season.
The ending that they have for this season was the one they were always going to have, apparently.
Um, but There was a few changes, which we'll talk about as we get there, that they would not have done, but they were always planning on having the ending that they did. It just wasn't always meant to be the series finally.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Right. It was going to be like there was going to be a follow up to that, which I think they end up doing a lot of it in the season six comics.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Where, like, I'm not sorry I was going to spoil, but.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I know I was like, where.
Let's talk about it. Just, you know, like four more episodes. You got, you got. You can hold on to it for a minute, but Mercedes McNabb joins the regular cast and is added to the opening credits for flipping Finally, Unicorns Hearts. This is the final time that a new member is added to the main cast. I thought about what a bummer it was that, like, you know, Mercedes McNabb gets added to the cast. Adam Baldwin comes in as a reoccurring character. And it's the episode, like, they find out that you mean Riley Jr.
Riley Jr.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: I don't know why he gives me. I was like, is this Riley's brother?
[00:06:04] Speaker A: That's funny. I know him as Casey from Chuck because I grew up watching Chuck when it aired and that was like one of the first shows I remember watching. Like, every week we'd be like, chuck's on. On Sunday. So we go and, like, watch the new episode. It was one of the first shows that I watched as it aired and he was Casey in there and.
Yeah. But he also is on Firefly as well. So another Joss Whedon fan or Joss Whedon favorite.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: I just think, like, physically he looks like Riley, not as a character.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: He's got the very military vibe, right?
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: The deep voice and the deep. Carries himself very, like, stiffly.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: And yeah, he's taller than David Boreanas, which is crazy.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Oh, he's so tall.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Large man.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I think there's something like, especially the way that they show him, introduce him. It's kind of Terminator esque. And I think there's something instantly more menacing about him than with Eve because Eva's like, Adam, mind games. Yeah, we was gonna play mind games, but she never came across as super menacing. But the fact that this guy is incredibly strong adds another layer of like, oh, he's here to keep angel in check. Which I think is really interesting.
The credits also have been edited to show Amy Acker's character as Illyria as well as Fred, which is definitely something they obviously did.
They went back and edited and it was again during the filming of the basement fight scene that the showrunners informed the crew that the series had been officially cancele. There's a couple of quotes I have that talking about that. There's some I cannot talk about until we get to the end of this, the series, because they kind of spoil some things. But David Furey says Joss's idea for Illyria was in the mix a long time before angel was canceled. In fact, if we knew we were going to be canceled. Oh, yeah, I think I said that last time. Oh, yeah. Here's where it was. So while Year five. This is from Slayers and Vampires. While Year five was flourishing creatively despite the numerous obstacles placed before it, the WB nonetheless chose to cancel the series at the end of the season. There were a couple of factors that precipitated that decision. One being that Joss Whedon insisted on an answer about renewal earlier than usual so that he could craft a proper ending if necessary. And that fed into the fact that the network was developing a primetime reboot of the gothic horror soap opera from the 1960s called Dark Shadows, which they would have, unlike the situation with angel, owned a piece of. Additionally, did they really want two vampire centric shows on the network at the same time? They delivered their answer with an early cancellation, a decision that bit them in the corporate jugular. When Dark Shadows turned out to be disaster and fail to go to series.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: That's what they get.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: That's. I mean, there's so much bad blood too, because they were just tired of Joss Whedon having more control.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: They had Buffy and Angel on the same network, too. That's two vampire shows on the same network.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. It sounds like it was just a bit of petulance, some pettiness there.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: It sounds like angel wasn't making them as much money as they wanted it to make them. Like it didn't financially for them. It just didn't make what it they were expecting it to make in their pockets. So they decided that we don't want the show anymore. And I think that's probably what happened with Buffy, too.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Probably.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: They're saying they were probably like, we don't want to give the show more money. Actually, we want to take away money because it's not. But at the same time, like, I feel like these were two of their most popular shows. This is Buffy was the show that put the WB on the map.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: As a network.
And angel is like a directly, like, related to that show. Like the audience from Buffy would more than likely go and watch Angel. So.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Well, I do know that longer. The longer the shows are on air, the more expensive they become because the cast starts to require more money to stick. Stick around and stay on. So that's probably a factor. But also, I just know we know that there's bad blood there because of Buffy getting picked up by someone else. And also Joss wanting more creative control than most other showrunners, I think was becoming even harder. Which it stinks, because it sound like they, the network and Joss had a really good rapport in the early seasons of Buffy, and then it just kind of soured as time went on.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: But David Fury says, my memory is that Joss didn't want to be played with the way he was in season five of the Buffy. So he wanted an early answer about season five of Angel. He said, tell us we're picked up. We deserve it. The show is doing better than ever. The ratings are up. The critics are praising the show. And they went all right, and then quickly came back that it was canceled, which I believe they regretted almost immediately. And certainly since then, I've heard lots of things that they realized it was a bad mistake. But it's kind of like you can't let a creator, actor, or star dictate when they decide to pick up a show. So I don't know if they were making an example or what, but they kind of shot themselves in the foot by picking, not picking angel up.
And then Ian Wolf, who's the first assistant director of angel, says, I don't think anyone was anxious to get out of there. It was actually a surprise to us when they canceled the show because on the one hand, they have this hundredth episode celebration with all these speeches from the executives at the WB and Fox, how great we were, blah, blah, blah. Then, like, a month later, we're told the show is being canceled. I was like, what? Wait a second. What happened between the hundredth episode last month and now? At that point, we were told that we weren't going to come back for a sixth season. It was in January. We typically wrapped in March. So the last three months, it was kind of a little bit sad. People were starting to jump ship to get on other shows because it's all about paying your mortgage. And then James Marster says, we were not expecting to get canceled. When I came on the show, a lot of Buffy watchers who may not have been watching angel came over to the show. And so our numbers were really good on that final Season we were really sure that we were going to have a long run, but the network had a pilot in the works for the creator of er, Dark Shadows, which was the medical show that launched George Clooney. They decided to run with that and cancel us. And I don't think the pilot, it turned out as well as they hoped. They were looking for another angel for many years that ended up regretting the fact that they didn't run with it. And then Stephen tonight talks about how they knew early enough from the network that they weren't being renewed, so they were able to kind of plan how to wrap it up, which was really vital because it's possible the show could have just ended and we would have had a ton of loose ends.
Yeah. And then Kelly Manners, who's like the money guy, talks about how they knew it was the beginning of the end, so they tried to enjoy it. He says deep down in their hearts they kind of knew there would be no season six. So they all just, just went in with the best attitude that they could. Christian Cain has a whole quote where he talks about it, but it really kind of ties into the finale. So I'll save that for when we get to the last episode.
There's a really interesting, interesting quote that I had not seen before called Ian from Ian Wolf. And he was talking about some of the actors and like their mindset and stuff in season five and I just didn't expect this. But he says as the seasons go by, and this is typical, the cast gets more restless in the first couple of seasons, they're all happy to be there, but as the seasons go by, none of the actors want to be there. They don't want to come to work, they want to get their big salaries and they don't want to show up. That's typically what happens. They just get tired of it. Then when it's all over and said and done, it's like they don't realize how good they had it being. Because being on a long running TV show is like winning a lottery, especially for the cast, for the crew, there's so many more jobs out there for them. But for the cast, it's a finite amount of jobs for these people. Especially the series regular. I remember Kelly Manners telling me about a year after angel, after he was done, he was walking through the halls of Fox to go to an interview for another show. And who does he see sitting on a folding chair with some sides waiting to go on to an audition? Alexis Dennis, off. He looked up at Kelly, said, you know you were right. I didn't realize how good we had it. Because Alexis was one of the ones that complained. He really wanted out. Now he's sitting there in a folding chair waiting to audition for a job. He didn't work for a long time. It's like, there's nothing you can say to these guys because the actors typically surround themselves with their PR people, their agents, their managers, their egos get built up and up. So they think that this is never going to end. And it does.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Damn.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: I.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: That's the thing, though. At the end of the day, it's a job. And it's like, who hasn't worked at a job where, like, you're five, six, seven years in, and you're like, I can't do this anymore. I need a change. Like, I get it.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: And obviously, like, he's right in the sense that actors have to audition. Like, they can't just apply for a job to be somebody behind the scenes that does, like, you know, technical stuff.
And they have to apply and get a job based off of, like, what's needed. And there's a lot more. But that's really interesting that Alexis wanted out. And I wonder why that is.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Well, I would guess.
I mean, he'd been playing this character for a while, but probably also due to getting married to Alison Hannigan, Alyson Hannigan was moving on to other stuff, and she started on How I Met yout Mother a year after this. And Alexis. He says Alexis didn't work for a long time. Alexis was on that show quite a bit.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: He would pop up on there and stuff, and he played a very different character.
But, I mean, as far as being, like, a show lead, obviously he's never really done anything as big. Well, I think there was. There. There was, like, legacies or something else that he was on as a series regular as well. Or not series regular. Sorry. A reoccurring character. I don't remember what it was. He was like, a professor or something in some other Supernatural show, but obviously not. Nothing to the extent that he had with Wesley.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Nobody except David Boreanas and Allison Hannigan really went on to be.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: In, like, shows for decades. Like, not decades, but, like, a long time.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, it almost was. I mean, how much? Your mother went for 10 years, so.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Bones was like, what, like 300 years?
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it was like 13 seasons, something like that. I. Yeah, it was a. It was a long.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Seven seasons of Seal Team, mind you. I think that was more like shorter seasons, but still, like, that was a.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Transition into networks being more.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Like, shifting and more. Being more online and stuff. Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: But, sorry, back to your point about, like, when you were reading the quote about how the network, like, regretted canceling angel and stuff. And I always am sorry.
I feel like, on one hand, I'm always so surprised that angel made it as far as it did. Not because of the show itself, but because of everything that we know is happening behind the scenes and just, like. You know what I mean? Like, I'm always so surprised that they even made it to five seasons, because there's a lot of shit that happened where you're like, oh, my God, like, how is the show still kicking? But at the same time, I feel like Buffy ending at season seven was perfect. It needed to end. I think it could have ended before, and it would have been great. But I feel like this season in particular, it's like angel got probably better than ever this season, and it could have had another season easily. Like, creatively speaking, there was more story to tell, whereas I feel like with Buffy, I don't think there was more story to tell after season seven.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I would have been really concerned about where the show would have gone after season seven. Like, it was already starting to fall apart in the way that it was portraying the characters. And it was very obvious that Joss didn't have anything else to say about them. So when he has nothing else to say, he just deconstructs the characters and turns them into something that we just don't even recognize. That was starting to happen in season seven. And thankfully, the show ended in a good place. And with enough of the characters, their essence being retained that we. Like, we didn't. We could still skip through some things and still get the overall idea, but I think if it had gone longer, it might have ruined the show overall.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But it's. It's. It's interesting because I feel like with angel, it ends so strong and it ends in a season that opens doors for so many other stories to tell.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: And then they just never get the chance to tell.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: It's really a bummer. Yeah.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: And I, like, with all this talk about this reboot, I've been seeing a lot of people saying that angel should be getting a reboot, but I think at this point, it's too late to go back. Like, I just don't really know if that's something that. I mean, what are you gonna do 20 plus years later? Right. If it had been at the time, I'm absolutely On board with an Angel. Season six, like.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: In terms of storytelling, I think it would have. We needed a season six for sure.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: But not.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: It's too late for that now.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: It's too late.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. We have an immortal vampire. You could sure have him, Sean. Shoot. But I don't know that that would change a lot of the essence of the show.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: And I don't know how you could do that, truly.
So.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
Last quote by tonight, Stephen. Tonight he was talking about how when they knew that the series was ending, he says the story became serialized again and it became much more about destroying the Illuminati kind of deal and taking out the enemies, blah, blah, blah. He says he looked at the Internet response when they were canceled, and by then episode 16 or 17 had aired and a lot of people were saying they obviously made that last minute change because they were canceled, which of course is not true. By the time we found out we were canceled, episode 17, where Illyria appears, was already being edited. It had already been shot. One thing the fans often don't realize is the lapse between when they see an episode and we actually do an episode is a month. We usually had three or four weeks of post production. There would be two weeks of filming and a couple of weeks to write the script. Another hard thing about TV is that you can't adjust to the fans or a turn on a die or on a. On a turn of a dime. If they express dislike of a character, chances are they're going to see that character for four or five more episodes because they're already shot. So again, this episode is interesting because you could totally, like, at this point, the fans had already known the show was going to be canceled. We talked about this a couple episodes ago.
So they're watching this. They're like, okay, they clearly must be pivoting. But it's crazy that everything written in this episode was already planned to be there. And it. I mean, they didn't really have to do, thankfully, that much rewriting to get to the end of the season and the end of the series.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: So interesting.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Lucky for them. My goodness, could you imagine? They're like, we didn't plan any of this. And they have to quickly, like, throw something together. That'd be so unsatisfying.
Yeah.
But yes, this episode pivoting to talk about just this one, it's a lot about atonement, also delves into a lot of postmodern ideas of the sense of self, which I'll get into specifically with, like, Illyria this idea of, like, when your world is shaken up and thrown into chaos. It can often cause us to question who we are.
Fred's death is causing the characters to spiral and to examine themselves and what they're doing and the decisions they've made to get to this place. And they're all feeling some semblance of guilt because all of them made the choice to join Wolfram and Hart. They can't help but see the very clear trajectory that got them here. And these choices that they've made. And that if they hadn't, it's very, very possible that Fred would still be with them.
And for a lot of them, they don't know what to do with all this grief and this guilt. But it's really fascinating because angel, on the oppos opposite side, is almost thriving in this environment because it's so familiar to him.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: And critically touched. Has a really good quote. They say it is the aftermath of Fred's death that Angel's motivations in fighting the good fight become clear. He realizes that it was his choice which brought her to Wolfram and Hart in the first place and which ultimately led to her loss. He acknowledges to himself that Fred's death could have been prevented. But angel will respond to her senseless demise not with grief and sorrow, but with atonement. He has fought long and hard to make up for the sins of his past and will only continue to do so in the future. Underneath shows us that Angel. Angel still has a great determination and willingness to continue fighting by showing us that no one else in his group does. Except for. Except the exception is Spike.
But Spike is different because Spike didn't make active choices to get them to Wolfram and Hart. So he doesn't have that same amount of guilt that everybody else does.
So it's. It's. It's very sad. But it's also kind of an interesting place to take all your characters. Have them all grieving and having them all kind of demoralized and kind of, in a way, being able to relate with angel in a way that they haven't before, I think.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: So.
All right. Jumping into the episode. So we start off in the conference room, and Angel's, like, waiting for everyone. Apparently, they all have, like, a really big meeting and nobody's coming.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: He, like, presses the inner duo tangs, like, set up on each chair and, like, papers and.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: But what, like, what a good way of starting out your episode is a reminder that, like, your team is fragmented. And that's kind of something we've been seeing all season long, but it's been masked a little bit better, and now it's, you know, crumbling.
So he, like, uses the intercom and calls Harmony. And he's like, where is everyone?
And she's like, well, you can be super grouchy. Maybe they don't want to be here.
And he was like, well, what about the meeting? And she says, everybody's occupied. Wesley's babysitting Illyria. And then she's like, why aren't we killing her again? And then she says that Gun is still in the hospital. I really like how there's still, like, this undertone of, like, comedy to it all. Like, she's like. Or angel says, gun. And she's like, well, maybe if we had a really big one. He's like, no. Where is Gun? And she's like, oh, the hospital. Still, like, it's. This episode is, like, funny, but it's also moving the plot forward. But it's also, like, doing a really good job of, like, showing you where everybody is at the same time. Like, it's so clever.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: It is.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: And then Lauren is MIA since everything with Fred, Lauren is the one that.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: I've had enough.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: So sad. I get so sad every time we, like, watch another episode of him just falling deeper into depression then. But you know who is not depressed? Spike.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Mike. Roni with his briefcase.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Spooky. Spooky Rooney.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Spookeroni. Squeak.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Spoike comes in, and he's got his briefcase. Spike is 100% buying into this corporate mindset. He's like, where's everybody else? Like, except he has his briefcase.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Beer in his briefcase.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Hey. He's not taking it too seriously. This is still very on brand for him. He's like, this is an important meeting. Where is everybody?
[00:24:07] Speaker B: He showed up. Honestly, I think angel should give him a pass and let him drink a beer during the meeting.
He's there, and he's.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: This isn't even a meeting anymore. This is just two meetings of two bros.
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: And Angel a beer and just, like, talk about what you need to talk about.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Probably get more done.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Spike's, like, trying to come up with a name for them. He's like, oh, we're not Scoobies. How about Angel's Avengers? Angel's like, no. And then he's like, hang on.
I kind of like that idea.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Corny.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: And then Angel's like, I have assignments for people. And looks up. That's when Spike is drinking his beer. And Angel's like, forget it. It. It's like, gosh, nobody. Nobody respects me. Nobody respects my meeting. He's like, this is just you being annoying. And then Spike grabs the paper and is like, ooh, bullet points. Classy. And he's like, wait, why am I always reconnaissance? I should get a decently flash gig. Like, save the girl. Steal the emerald with the girl. And I was like, bruh, the last time you did that, you slut shamed her and sent her on her way and called her a stupid cow. There's no way you're going to go save the girl anymore. We're done with that.
Reconnaissance is perfect for you.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Yes. Thank you.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: And then Angel's like, handsome man saved me from monsters. Setting the tone immediately as, okay, everybody's feeling guilty and despondent, right?
He talks about how that's the first thing Fred said to him in Pilea. We get a little bit of, like, a. A reminder again of everything that's happened to her.
Spike says that she wanted to be here. It was her choice. Angel said, says, was it? And then Spike's like, hang on, you're too depressed. Which means you're planning something. Like, what's going on? You're going to do something stupid. Angel says, I've already done it. Spent every day lying to myself about making the world a better place. Spike's like, well, welcome to the planet. We all paint on our happy faces every day when all we really want is to pound the neighbor's misses Steal as Ben Franklin's. And while we're at it, not think about the third of the world that's starving to death. This is so important. Important, because that's essentially what is happening with Lindsay. And this is so interesting. That's what I really, really love and didn't catch in my previous re Watches is this utopian place world hell dimension that Lindsay's been placed into is basically a. A reflection of what Wolfram and Hart has been for angel and the rest of the team this entire season. It's Wolverman Hart distracting them and giving them everything that they wanted.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Like, what was the illusion of comfort?
[00:26:38] Speaker A: It's the illusion of comfort which distracts you from the battle, but it also allows you to kind of forget about things. Because at the end of the day, we want to forget, because it's easier than having to be faced with reality every single day and being faced with our true selves, our true self. And it's really interesting because this is all coming back soon. I bet you we're leading up to some Sort of revelation about angel wiping everybody's minds.
And we talked a lot about this in season four.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really appropriate what the next episode is gonna be.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: Yes, yes, exactly. We can see where it's going. But, like, we had a lot of it in season four about even Wesley saying how he wishes he could kind of unbe. Have his mind wiped, have everything undone, everything that has happened. And so it's like they kind of got their wish this season. They had their minds wiped. They were given everything that they really wanted. And for Wesley, a lot of that was Fred. And we're going to talk about that in, like, the next sc.
And so it's like, what happens when that's all revealed to be a facade, when that's all been taken away and you're left with the reality of who you are, or you're left with chaos, and you have to grab all the pieces and pick it all up. Like, it. This episode really is a great follow up. Two shells and that idea of everything being shattered. And there's been a lot of hints about chaos in particular. And that's why I talk about it being, like, very postmodern, because postmodernism is a lot about breaking down the rigid structures and classes and societies and stuff like that and kind of making something new out of all of that. And in order to break things in breaking things down, there's often chaos. And we have Faganbaum, which is Fred's teddy bear rabbit or whatever it was. It's named after the chaos theorist, Faganbaum. And so there's this thing baked into Illyria's presence that is chaos, that is pointing back to the themes of this entire season. It's very meta and it's very interesting. But it's kind of nice to see all the pieces coming together after being kind of like, where's the season going for so long anyway? All right, so then angel says, I'm not saying that I can fix everything. I just have to do better. The senior partners have a plan. And I go, yes, yes. Just like, finally, we're gonna do something with angel. It only took 17 episodes for him to be like, I need deduce better. Like, yes, you do.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: But I thought. But I thought. You're welcome.
Changed all that.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I know, right? It's like every episode it was like, oh, he comes to some great breakthrough, but then is still demoralized and doesn't do anything the next episode after that. So it's like, yeah, can we. Are we actually gonna do something. I mean, he does do things this episode, so it's great. And I love that scene with him talking to gun in the hospital room, which we'll get to and stuff. But it's just nice to see angel not just being like, gosh, don't know what I'm gonna do. Really depressed. Is there anything else? It's nice to him to see him finally moving past that and being like, okay, I have to do something, you know?
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: And then Spike brings up the prophecy, and then angel talks about the apocalypse. He says, the one last year. The year before that. No, the senior partners are up to something now, and I'm not waiting for them to spring it on us. We're through operating in the dark. And it's so fascinating how this mirrors Buffy's speech and Bring on the Night and her overall mindset in season seven. This whole we're taking the fight to them. It's just very interesting how the end of season or the end of Buffy and the end of angel kind of mirror themselves and what Buffy and Angel both decide to do. It's. It's kind of fun.
So then Spike's like, well, this might be easier if we knew anyone who had a direct line to the Big Idea, the big guys. And then angel gets a big idea in his head. Then we cut to, I guess it's now Eve's apartment. And I'm like, has this girl just been hiding in the apartment? Like, how's she getting food? Is she, like, order UberEats? But then is she allowed to open her door to get it? Like, will the senior partners see her if she does that? Like, I'm curious how this works. She. She probably invented a pulley system that.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Like, causes, like, she has, like, a giant stick, and then they just leave a giant stick groceries outside the door. Just like. Like, reaches out with her giant stick and pulls them in.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: There you go. That's what it is.
But I'm like, girl, like, who's paying for this apartment? How are you paying for the. I have a lot of questions, but whatever you can hold up.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Maybe they bought it in cash.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, definitely. I mean, if you're gonna paint symbols on every single wall, you might as well own it because there's a deposit back.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: So then she's like, I don't have connections to the senior partners anymore anyway. I don't want to help you. And she's like, you're not intimidating me. And Angel's like, well, you're not trapped, Eve. You're hiding. And he's like, don't bother playing the pity angle. You're just trying to save your own ass. And then she's like, the only thing I care about is gone, meaning Lindsay. And she's like, you let him be sucked up by the senior partners. And Angel's like, well, I could let them do the same to you. He's like, tell him how to see through your security system. I'm like, bro, just pick her up and throw her out the door. All you have to do is just throw her out the door.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yeah, but then the senior partners will come for her, and then he can't use her, so he's. But he's saying he's using this as leverage.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: I mean, I get it, but, like, he's talking about how I can just tell the senior partners where you're at. It's like, but you could also just pick her up and throw her out the door is such a weird way to threaten her when he could be like, just grab her and take her to the door and be like, I could just open this door and boom, you're gone. You know?
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. That's fair.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: It was just funny how. It's like, he's gonna leave and go tell the senior partners.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's also funny because, like, this guy just shows up. Like, they obviously know where she is.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Right. She's no hiding from anyone.
Right.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Like, how did that guy know where she is?
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Exactly. It's those times where she opened her door to get her food. That's what it was. Even with the stick. Like, they got glimpses of her.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: Yeah, they saw a stick poking out of the apartment. They're like, surely that's Eve collection.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: There she is.
Yeah. She's not fooling anyone.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: No.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: So then we hear a rumbling sound. Sounds like an earthquake. Eve's like, oh, my gosh. You gave me up to them. Angel's like, it wasn't me. Glass starts shattering. And then Eve starts begging not to let them take her. So then the door bursts open. A man wearing a fine, tailored gray pinstrip striped suit comes in.
And then he looks around the apartment. By then, Eve and Spike and angel are gone.
And then we are now in. I didn't realize it, but this is Caritas. And. What? Yeah, it. It's supposed to be Caritas. And Lauren is sitting in the bar reading a client. I don't believe it's Lauren's anymore. I think it's a bar that was rebuilt by someone else and stuff.
And a bartender is singing To Lauren asking about his future. He's hoping that he's going to get married. And Lauren is just so depressed. He's like. He holds up his cocktail glass and he's like, more c. Less breeze.
And then he gives the bartender good news. And the bartender's like, oh, this is amazing. From now on, your money's not good here. And the bartender's like, you know, what about, like, possibly having a son? And Lauren says, what do I think? I think I'm tired. I think I'm sick and tired of wearing bells on my toes and making like everything's gonna be okay. I think it's pathetic that lately I'm too scared and sad to tell people the truth. Truth. So I just say what they're. They want to hear instead. Most of all, I think the term happy hour should be banned from the English language. There's nothing happy about this hour or any other. What I know is I started drinking the moment that I found out that a girl I loved was gonna die. Every time I get to the bottom of the glass, I hope that that last drop is gonna take me the distance.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Oh, that's so sad.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: He's just so pure.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: And he started, like, literally three years with this gang, and Lauren is ready to end it all.
Like, even Pilea didn't do this to him.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: That's so true. That's really, really sad. Like, what. Like, I just. Thinking about the Lauren that we met early on, and we just haven't heard him sing in so long, and he's just so sad.
He's not singing anymore. And, like, he's obviously lying to this guy about his future because he's just tired of pain and sadness and he just.
Yeah, he's just sad. He's depressed. And I'm starting to become so, too.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: And I think that's, like, going back to what I was saying in Life of the Party about, like, what is Lauren's motivation for being here? And that's to belong. And I think he's starting to realize that this is not the life that he wants to lead. Like, this is just the same as Pilea, where he left because he couldn't sing and he couldn't be himself and he was outcast and. And I think he's starting to get to that point here where he's just like, this is not how I want to live my life. There's no happiness here. There's. There's just, like, loss and pain and what are we really doing? And I think it definitely fits with what the Rest of the cast. Not the cast. The rest of the characters feel at this point in time.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I also think that Lauren is like, I'm not helping at all. I'm not doing any good at this point. I'm just perpetuating a lie.
And it's. It's. It's very much the idea of he's seeing through the facade that Wolfram and Hart has put up for them and is realizing, oh, I don't know, that everything I was doing was actually outweighing all the. The bad that I possibly have caused with Fred's death and stuff.
And, like, the whole, you know, I'm gonna put the bells back on and with a smile and equip, go back into the belly of a very ugly beast and pretend like I can help.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Help.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: And he's like. Because that's what the green guy does. And I'm just like, oh, poor Lauren.
Which. I mean, life of the party, he was burning himself out thinking that he was doing good. And now he's going, I've done all of that for nothing. Yeah, I would be depressed, too.
So then back in the lobby of Wolfram and Heart, angel comes off the elevator spot, followed by Spike and Eve. And then he's like, harmony. She's like, yipper.
I love her. I love her so much.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: He's, like, shining light in this. This office at this point.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: She truly is. And you can tell that Lauren, like, brightens up with her around, too.
And he's like, you know, I want to guard at every entrance. I want security on red alert. Nobody enters this building. I'm like, bra. This is. This never works. This never helps. And she's even like, you know, this never works. And he's like, harmony. And she's like, all right, on it. And he's like, okay, stay with Eve. And he. He tells Spike this. Stay with Eve. Anything gets past security, kill it. And he says he's going to go see his lawyer. So he leaves them and goes to the hospital room where Gun is just sitting, reading all about the Bachel Color at in his magazines. And Angel's like, we have a problem. Senior partners have found Eve. He's like, they're sending something to take her out, but I need to know if I have jurisdiction to protect her. What's the protocol? And Gun, you can tell he's afraid to say anything because I think there's this idea in his mind that he shouldn't use the knowledge that's been given to him because it would be possibly, like, tainted. It's tainted, but it would be, like. Like icky because of everything that happened with Fred and.
Yeah. And then angel says, gun, you paid a high price for what's in that brain, so use it. And I was like, yes. Like, I love that. I think that's a really great way of phrasing it. And he's. And then Gun says, there's a proviso in your contract. Basically says that you can, as CEO, you can take custody of a wayward employee. It's not usually used for protection, but you can basically use it that way.
And then Angel's like, well, how do I do that? And Guns, like, I'll make a call, which I have questions. I'm like, didn't they fire Gun?
[00:38:22] Speaker B: So I don't think he fired him. I think what. What I understood is that Harmony brought over papers telling Gun that he can't sign anything, like, on his own.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Okay. That would make sense.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: He needs to, like, get approval by a supervisor or whatever.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Which would be more than fair. Fair. Yeah, than fair.
So then as angel leaves, he says, listen, God, I know you feel bad about your part and 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. Oh. You signed a piece of paper. That's all. And I'm like, oh. And then Gun says, I. But I knew. Not about Fred, but when I signed, I knew there would be consequences. And angel says, you know, the thing about atonement is you never run out of chances, but you gotta take them. You can't hide in some hospital room and pretend it's all gonna go away, because it never will. I'm like, oh, this is so good. And I just wish someone had had this conversation with Wesley.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: You know.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: Well, I think the first step of atonement, as we've seen from angel, is you have to acknowledge what you've done was something that was bad.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: And that you need to atone for it. If you can't acknowledge that, then at that point, kind of like, you're a lost cause. Right. And that's what happened with Faith in season three of Buffy. She just kept denying and denying that what, you know, her killing the mayor's assistant was bad. Like, she shouldn't have done that. And even if it was a mistake, that she still did it and she has to own up to it. It's like, she didn't. She denied it and denied it and denied it and spiraled into this dark place until eventually she finally acknowledged that, no, like, I did something bad and I need to pay for it. And Wesley never exactly like Wesley never acknowledge that.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Yes, well, it allows you to change. It allows you to grow and move past that. And there's something that's in. Really interesting that I realized about Wesley in this episode, which I'm excited to talk about when we get to it. But I'm starting to wonder if the show, especially with how we know how the series ends and everything. I'm starting to wonder if the show actually is self aware of the fact that Wesley didn't apologize and that Wesley had. Has been viewing or had viewed Fred as more of an object. And I'm wondering if Wesley is not necessarily like, how everything ends and all that stuff isn't necessarily supposed to be like this, like a good thing. Like, I don't know. I'm excited to talk about it because there's a few things. Like they're using him as kind of a cautionary tale of someone who truly.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: 100% think that that's such a good way to describe it. Wesley's arc is amazing, but I think at the end of the day, it is cautionary tale.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: I don't think it's. Yeah, I don't because I think we often think of. Oh, he's. He's a morally gray character. And I do think there are semblances of the writers using him as a self insert. But I also do think that there is a level of they.
They don't. Like he could have gone a different route than what ends up happening and the whole, like, lying to the story. I'm trying to be vague, but hopefully you guys know. Like, I don't. I, like, I'm. I'm starting to see glimpses and especially the turn that he's taking here because obviously I don't like that they. Fred to move Wesley's arc forward.
But. And there's like deep problems with that. But I, I like that it's not.
It's. It's showing that Wesley is ultimately damaging himself in the way that he viewed Fred. Like, they're not using it to prop Wesley up as this great moralistic hero, but it's a cautionary tale, you know, cautionary tale. Numero cinco.
But yeah, I'm talking very vaguely, but like, once we get to it, it's gonna be really fun to talk about.
All right. Speaking of which. Oh, I guess we are kind of. Kind of already are there. We're now in Fred's apartment.
And Wesley's just, like, staring ahead in the dark. We hear Fred's voice say, you have a visitor. Wesley says, I thought I was in isolation. And Fred appears behind his head, kissing his neck from behind, and says, whose fault is that? Kneels in front of him and says, tell me a joke. And Wesley says. Two men walk into a bar. First man orders a scotch and soda. The second man remembers something he'd forgotten. 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.
And it's like, this is so layered because there's this sense that Wesley is aware that this Fred is a figment of his subconscious.
This is actually Fred. But there's also, I wonder, a meta narrative of Wesley realizing that maybe he didn't actually know the true Fred, that the idea of Fred has broken down. Like, he had this idea of her as the dream girl, and now that that's being taken away, he doesn't know what to cling to. Because she was his idea of happiness, that idea of, like, perfect happiness. And that's something that he didn't realize he was holding on to so deeply. And now with it gone and shattered, there's a sense of a loss of sense of self, in a way.
But so Fred says, yeah, you always know where you are. Wesley says, it's my particular skill. And then Fred says, this is only the first layer. Don't you want to see how deep go. And again, this is talking about possibly the connection between Illyria and Fred. Is there an essence of Fred that's still inside of Illyria? It could be Illyria trying to get inside of Wesley's subconscious and see how deep she can warm herself in. But there's also this idea of Fred being again, this. This mythical idea. Idea in what? And Wesley's mind that this is his subconscious also talking to him, going, do you want to see how deeply I've burrowed myself inside of you and how much you have to separate yourself out now from that. That idea and that. That.
I'm talking very, like, vaguely, but that idea of, like, happiness and everything that you've wanted, like, how much of yourself have you placed into that? Yeah, into that ideal.
And I'm not going to read this whole thing. This is, like, really very philosophical and a lot of psychology and stuff. But there's an essay called She's Unpredictable Illyria and the Liberating Potential of Chaotic Postmodern Identity by Jennifer Hudson. You guys can look that up if you want to, but she talks a lot about how Illyria is the representation of the self in progress in an attempt to find meaning and figure out who she is as represented by postmodernism, and how that really is reflected in a lot of the other characters in this show. And the essay talks about how the show addresses is this postmodern idea of self, specifically through Illyria saying the postmodern dilemma with tales of volatile characters that destabilize traditional identifying systems, blurring lines between natural and supernatural, good and evil, human and demon, and everything in between.
And talking about how there, this is why Lindsay's hell is repetitious. And he's doing the same thing that everyone else is doing. There's no unique sense, sense of self. And that in kind of turning your brain off and forgetting, you are not able to move forward, obviously. And there's this idea that the characters of Angel Investigations, they are not able to move forward because there's parts of their identity and self that have been erased through angels spell in removing their memories. And so part of that might be breaking through here, and it's causing chaos.
It gets really, really, like, philosophical and stuff. But they basically talk about how there's this idea of Illyria. The conclusion they come to is that Illyria and Fred, it's possible that there are parts of Fred that have sifted in or, like, seeped into Illyria, saying that both identities become simultaneously distinct and blurred. In this sense, the shell, the body, becomes a Koric realm, a site of contention where Illyria transitions from being a unary self to becoming a self in process through an experience of chaotic identity. Again, very like, all that stuff, but basically, like, through Illyria being able to. Like, last episode, she used, like, the electromagnetic thing with her fingers to show that there were bits and pieces of Fred that kind of, like, still exist. There's this idea that there's a link possibly between Illyria and Fred, and there's this connection, and it's causing Wesley to be able to connect with Illyria in a way that he might not have ever been able to connect with Fred, or at least he wasn't able to connect with Fred in the time that we saw with him on the show.
And they talk about how at the very end you have.
Or Illyria saying we are weak at the end of this, like, at the end of this episode. And for the first time, she's kind of making a correlation between herself and Wesley and She's almost taking on human emotions and such.
And the. The essay says emotions, one would assume, have no value to Illyria in her previous reality, as conquering all had been her only goal. However, now that she has inherited Fred's form and aspects of her consciousness, Illyri Aleria fears that she reeks of humanity and even identifies herself as such when she observes that we are weak.
There's a lot more to it and stuff, but it's just very interesting, this idea of self and how, again, picking up the pieces of self, it's chaos and all that stuff. And it's going to be really fun to talk about that, particularly in the next episode with Illyria and stuff. So you guys feel free to look up the essay again. I'm not going to go into it because it's so flipping long, but it's very, very interesting. Interesting.
So Wesley wakes up from his dream, and Illyria is just standing there, and she says, you've been sitting for a long time. And Wesley's like, yeah, I dozed off. And Larry's like, you drank a lot of that poison. And she says, you called me a lot of names meant to hurt feelings I no longer have.
And then you sat there for hours making noises with your nose. And then Wesley says that he was dreaming. Lyria points out that he said Fred's name. He says it was a nightmare. And then Illyria says, in my time, night nightmares walked among us, Walked and danced, skewering victims in plain sight, laying their fears and worst desires out for everyone to see this to make us laugh. And it reminds me a lot of the episode Nightmares, where the Master tells Buffy that he exists because she fears it, and then, because she fears it, the whole world is falling into chaos. And remember, like, the Master was someone who was trying to resurrect the old one. So there's a lot of correlations and links there.
And then Illyria says, nightmares are trapped inside the heads of humans. And then Wesley says, this world must be a terrible disappointment to you. And he says, I'm not too impressed with it myself. And then Illyria says, why don't you leave?
And critically touched. This is the part that I was kind of alluding to earlier is very interesting. They said back in the early episodes of season three, Wesley saw Fred as the picture of perfection, an object of sweetness, beauty, and intelligence unlike any he had known before.
From the start, he wished to attain her, but only for this purpose alone. The interest he showed in her was never embellished beyond this concept. And in that lies the tragedy. When he and Fred finally shared a kiss and smile time, Wesley felt like he had finally accomplished something. And now that something is gone, he and Fred never shared any but the most basic connection. He hasn't lost a beloved colleague, but rather an object. And the pain he now feels is not for Fred, but for himself.
All this is beautifully captured in Wesley's cryptic and haunting dream sequence. The joke he tells Fred mirrors his own conflict. He is falling and falling fast, but there is no one he wishes to latch onto to pull him out of his bottomless pit of grief.
Moments later, dream Fred moves in and whispers, this is only the first layer. Don't you want to see how deep I go? Her meaning is clear. Wesley never stopped to think of Fred beyond her surface layer. And now, as he wakes up, it's too late for him to do anything about it. Fred may be gone, but Illyria remains. After the events of shells, she clings to Wesley, having no place else to turn. He was willing to accept her then, but mainly because of her physical resemblance to Fred. And now he begins to wonder if even that was reason enough, as Illyria's cutting remarks regarding his emotions torture him even further. Illyria has just lost the thing which mattered most to her and is now stranded in a cold, dark, meaningless world. And so now there's. There's parallels to her and Wesley, and he feels the exact same way. And so he lashes out, out at Illyria, asserting her beliefs that the world is a terrible place in using them in an attempt to chase her way. But by doing so, he's only digging his own pit of despair even deeper.
But they're saying that that is their connection because both of them are now floundering. And he's saying. And then the writer was saying that, in a way, Wesley and Illyria discover that the other recognizes the world and sees the world in a very similar way. And this causes them to form a connection that goes. Goes deeper than the connection, arguably, that Wesley and Fred even had, which is super fascinating.
[00:51:30] Speaker B: And. Sorry, I just. A line that, like, stuck out to me was, why don't you leave? And, like, if you think about it, the only way out of the world is death.
So is this kind of implying that Wesley almost has, like, a death wish? Like, he.
That's. That's where he's headed? Death.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Totally.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: You know, I really like that especially.
Yeah. I just. I'm gonna stop there.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I know. There's, like, a lot more I want to say. Yeah, but it's interesting because, like, Wesley and Lauren both turn to drinking to kind of numb themselves, because they're trying to forget. And that's what Gun chooses at the end of this episode. And that's what's happening to Lindsay right now.
And, yeah, I just find it very, very fascinating.
All right, so back in Angel's office, even Spike are waiting for him. And Eve's like, this is a stupid plan. This is brilliant, because they'll never think to me, look for me here. And then Spike's like, you're making it hard for me to want to help you. Angel comes in and is like, all right, you're under my protection now. He's like, but you better behave, because I can take it away with one phone call. Convince me not to, Eve. And then he's like, what do you know about the senior partners? And then she tells them, I guess, that she's a child of the senior partners, so she's basically created by them simply to be their liaison and to do their. Be their bit. Sitting. What does that mean?
[00:52:49] Speaker B: I don't know.
Maybe they snatched her up as a child.
Is it somebody else?
[00:52:55] Speaker A: Is it similar to, like, the people that are in Lindsay's house?
Like, did they create these people just to torture and torment Lindsay and the other men that we see there? Like, is it supposed to be?
[00:53:09] Speaker B: I always took it as the people in the. In the dimension, the hell dimension, are like. Like demons. Like, they're like.
Like they're just like a. An A figment. I don't know. I. I didn't ever think that they were, like, actual people. Or maybe they are, and they're, like, brainwashed or they're. They were built to do just that. They look like humans, but they're not. I don't. Yeah, I'm not too sure.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: There's just a lot of lore that they threw at us this episode, and they just don't delve into it at all. And I'm always like, leave it.
[00:53:38] Speaker B: I want to know more.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:53:40] Speaker B: I think the way that I see it is that these things tell us that the senior partners have infinite resources and power, and they can really make anything they want happen.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: True. Yeah.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: That's how I kind of take it. Yeah.
[00:53:52] Speaker A: I do like the parallels with even the rest of them. The fact that she fell in love with Lindsay and was willing to give up everything else for the sake of being with him, and how that kind of mirrors what is happening with Wesley and with others and how even Eve is kind of despondent and stuff.
So then she says that she doesn't have access to any more information. And even if she did, the senior partners haven't unlocked certain parts of her brain. And the person who does know everything is Lindsay. And she says that he dedicated his years of his life to the study of the senior partners. No one knows more about them than he does, what they've done and what they plan to do.
She says that he does hate Angel, Lindsay does, and that he knows more about angel than possibly even angel does. And that the senior partners probably snatched Lindsay up because they couldn't risk Lindsay and Angel talking and letting angel know everything about what the senior partners are planning and stuff. And she says that they probably didn't kill him, that they wanted him to suffer horrors, that he's probably in some hideous, awful hell. Cut to Lindsay, like, in this amazing, gorgeous bed, kissing another blonde woman. I thought it was Darla for a minute. I was like, oh, well, that's rude.
And then he has, like, a kid that comes in and seems just very idyllic. And we're like, oh, this is crazy. Critically touched talks about how perfection is humanity's ultimate goal and that despite our efforts to reach it, it's still just a goal that we do our best in life to. To fix problems and be content. But how many of us can say we've achieved perfect happiness and how this kind of makes a correlation to angel and Angelus? And they said that angel or Lindsay's holding dimension shows us an example of what would happen if we ever did overcome everything and had a crystallized utopia, to the point that each day is bland, unfeeling and perfect, and that there would be no progress and that each dream would actually become a vivid nightmare. And they talked about how, in the context of the episode, it's so interesting because by confining Lindsay to a world of utter idealistic bliss, the senior partners infinitely magnify the few moments of gruesome torture he goes through each day by showing how perfect life could be. So compared to the rest of the house, the cellar, and the heart cutting demon lurking within it is pure nightmare fuel. It also serves to complete the prevalent theme of this holding dimension. In a world filled with unfeeling, practically robotic individuals, a heart is completely useless, which I really, really love. It's just a lot of, like, cool metaphors and stuff that's going on. So then we have, like, fun or Castro music playing over a scene of Lindsay walking out his front door. It's like a beautiful sunny day. He collects the newspaper. We see all like 1500 other men walking out the door, collecting their newspapers. It looks like it's an endless suburban nightmare, like tons of people. And then he picks up, you know, his skateboard from the sidewalk on the way, walks back inside.
I'm cracking up because I think I recognize this neighborhood. I had a friend that grew up. I'm pretty sure it's in Santa Clarita. I recognize the mountains and even, like, the stone walls. I had a friend that grew up, I think, in the same. Yeah, if you. If anybody's watched Santa Clarita Diet, it was on Netflix for a while. The landscape and architecture is very similar, so I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure this is the same place, which. It's so weird.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: Damn.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I grew up in a hellhole, guys. Suburban la.
Suburban la.
All right, so then in Angel's office, they're all just kind of pacing and trying to figure out which hell dimension that he would be in. And Eve is reiterating that she's not actually lying because they're thinking, oh, she just wants to get Lindsay back. Lauren verifies that she's not lying. And Gun walks in and says, hey, I know which hell dimension it is and I can get us in. And he's wearing his street clothes again. And he looks just like the old gun. And I was like, oh, nostalgia.
[00:57:55] Speaker B: He's ready to let it go.
No, I mean, he's ready to let go of this facade that he's been.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:58:04] Speaker B: I prefer playing the. The. The one where he thinks that he's only useful by upgrading his brain and, like, not being the muscle and not being his true self because he's not worthy as his true self.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: Self.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: Like, I think he's gotten to the point where it's like, okay, the person that I was trying to be is responsible for the death of somebody that I love. And if it wasn't Fred, it was going to be someone else. And I think that's like. It's just a true.
It's just a really nice, like, reflection that Gun has, like, is doing. He's like, self reflecting. That's what I get by seeing him.
His old clothes flows, is that he. He reflected on what he's done and he says he, you know, he just. He's decided that he doesn't want to live like that anymore.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And I like how he's still using the knowledge, but he's dressed up as the old gun. Almost like an assimilation of the two sides of him. Like, I. I'm going To.
I'm gonna still use the knowledge that has been given to me, but I kind of reject the facade and that need to put on the suit and be someone that I'm not. Not in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
So then we cut back to the suburban house, and Lindsay's helping his son study for a test. He's answering questions about the Earth's, the different, like, center. Like, the center of the mantle, the core, the inner core, the outer core. And then the wife asks for a bulb in the basement.
And Lindsay is, like, terrified to go down there. And she, like, subtly. Not so subtly, is like, no, you need to go down now. So he heads down. I'm like, it's always the basement, basement. The shows are always like, ooh. The basement's where the deepest, darkest, worst things happen.
So he heads down there. We don't see what happens. We just know he's terrified. We go back to Wolfram and Hart and Gun, and Angel and Spike are heading into the garage to go find a car.
And Gun says that the senior partners had some trouble with a guy in the Tokyo Division way back. Lindsay probably got the tattoo idea from studying up on him. He says, wherever they sent this guy, that's where Lindsay is. Spike's like, I hope it's toy poodle Hell. I've had my fill of fire. Gun says, it's not hell. It's a Wolfman Hart holding dimension.
He says it's their version of a penalty box. And then they jump into the Camaro, they drive, and they end to a side. Or they end up going to a side of LA that they've never seen before. They go through a tunnel, and Spike keeps pulling out, like, all of these.
These television references. It's been so funny. Like, this is literally me when I'm on the podcast. Me being like, hey, Leia, you've never heard of Knight Rider? And you're like, no. Like, you're angel in the situation. Yeah, forget it.
So it's so true. End up getting in. They go through this tunnel. It was nighttime when they went in the tunnel. And they come out into daytime, and they're now in this idyllic suburban neighborhood. And Spike's like, this isn't hell. It's the verbs. Close enough. And Angel's like, this is Lindsay's punishment for trying to kill me. He's like, maybe it's a reward.
And so then back in Fred's apartment, Angel sees it instantly. It's like, hey, wait a minute.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: Maybe it's a reward.
[01:01:17] Speaker A: It's Like, a reward.
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Mike is like, that's close enough to hell that I, like, I don't even want to go there.
[01:01:23] Speaker A: Spike's like, I. I don't want a picket fence. I. I don't want all of that in just, like, wait, maybe, maybe, maybe.
[01:01:29] Speaker B: This is great. Can I come live here?
[01:01:33] Speaker A: Literally, he's like, about swap places with Lindsay.
[01:01:36] Speaker B: Seriously.
[01:01:37] Speaker A: So then, in Fred's apartment, Wesley and Illyria are still talking. He's like, you could go anywhere. Meanwhile, Wesley being kind of, like, stuck in his own purgatory, which is really, really cool. Lyria says, it's not possible.
Wesley's like, are you telling me that Illyria, idol of billions, was limited to one small dimension? She says that she traveled. Traveled them as much as she pleased, talks about how, like, the different worlds that she went through the different dimensions, and then mentions the one of shrimp that Anya mentioned in Superstar, which is really fun.
[01:02:05] Speaker B: The one without shrimp? Or was it the one with shrimp?
[01:02:08] Speaker A: No, nothing but shrimp. Everything was nothing but shrimp.
[01:02:11] Speaker B: Oh, my God. That sounds amazing.
Nom, nom, nom.
[01:02:14] Speaker A: But what if you're a shrimp? Like, there's nothing. Like, you go in, and you turn like Dr. Strange with America Chavez, like, going through all the different things.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: I'd be okay with that.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: All right, you do you.
And then Wesley's like, but then why stay in this world? Okay, maybe not the world with shrimp, but why stay in this one? He's like, why don't you go? You can go. Why don't you? And then she kind of, like, has a panic attack, and she talks about how everything's too small and she can't breathe. There is no room for anything real. And then she says, I should gut you where you stand. You challenged me. There's not enough space to open my jaws. My face is not my face. I don't know what it will say. And then he tells her to come with him. Him. We cut to the suburban houses, exactly the same as the previous day. That orchestral music plays. Lindsay walks outside, grabs newspaper with all the other guys, waves, grabs the skateboard, goes back inside. And then the music changes, becomes more ominous, and we now see the Camaro driving and stopping in front of Lindsay's house. And Spike's like, oh, so we just open with being on fire. That's great. Like, he's like, we're gonna open the door and completely, spontaneously combust. This is just fantastic. And he's just like, okay, let's put our coats on. We're gon, like, make a run for it. And gun just, like, opens the door.
[01:03:27] Speaker B: So reassuring.
[01:03:30] Speaker A: Like.
And then they're like, wait. And gun's like, guys, alternate dimension, remember?
Can't fry. And Spike's like, oh, yeah, I figured that. I knew that. I knew that the entire time.
So stupid.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: So funny.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: So they get out the car, they walk up to the front door, and guns like, all right, kill everything in our way. And Spike's like, well, what's going to be in our way? The family mutt. And cuz like, well, this is Wolfram and Hart. There's something ugly behind that door. Open it to a gorgeous, beautiful blonde. Which.
[01:03:59] Speaker B: Wait, you know, can I just say.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: Their greatest op right here.
[01:04:03] Speaker B: I don't know if you noticed, but when Spike says, what are we supposed to be afraid of? Or whatever, the family mutt, David Boreanas completely broke character. He was like. He, like, sucked his lips in, and he was just like, oh, really?
I posted the video in the Discord, if you want to go see it. But he's, like, trying so hard not to laugh, and you can see it on his face. And he, like, very quickly, like, gets his composure again. Like, he very quickly, like, straightens his face again. But there's like, a few seconds where he's. He's on the verge of just bursting.
[01:04:36] Speaker A: Out into laughter's buddy, Christian Cain again.
[01:04:39] Speaker B: I know.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: And he, like, can't hide his excitement. He's just, like, giddy.
He's so excited.
That's funny. Well, I was dying because, like, they're like, it's gonna be something horrendous and ugly. And it's like his beautiful blonde girl. Instantly, both angel and Spike are like.
Their eyebrows shoot straight up, you morons.
Angels. Like, hang on. This is not fair that Lindsay gets.
[01:05:00] Speaker B: To live out my fantasy. The one that likes blonde women.
[01:05:06] Speaker A: I mean, so does Lindsay. It seems.
[01:05:08] Speaker B: Games.
[01:05:10] Speaker A: And they're, like, sitting there like, hey.
Hey, is Lindsay home? Can you come out and play?
[01:05:15] Speaker B: Can you come out and play?
[01:05:17] Speaker A: She's like, sure.
[01:05:19] Speaker B: Come in.
[01:05:20] Speaker A: So they, like, go in, and she's like, honey, there's coffee.
And then they go, well, I think she was offering them honey. All right. And then they.
[01:05:28] Speaker B: Coffee. She was offering them coffee.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: Well, she was offered honey. She offers some honey coffee. Something like that. And they're like, no, thanks, we're fine. Then Lindsay comes downstairs, stairs, and it's like, oh, I realized. I didn't realize we had company. Doesn't recognize them at all. And they're trying to, like, jog his memory. They're like, hey, your family's not real. This is actually hell dimension. Does the name Wolfram and Heart mean anything to you?
Lindsay's like, oh, my gosh. Like, this is just a joke. It must be my guys outside. And he, like, goes to the window at one point, and they keep, like, pressing him. They're like, have you ever heard of something called the Wrath? And he. He's like, this isn't funny, you guys.
And he's like, I think you should leave. Then we cut to Angel's office. This is so funny to me. I, like, cracked up. So Eve is, like, pacing. She's agitated. Lauren and Harmony are keeping her company. Eve's like, they should be back. Like, this is taking so long. And Harmony's like, hey, come on. It's really hard to get a firm ETA on alternate dimension travel. I've tried. And he's like, I just want him back. I don't want him to die. Lauren's like, don't worry. No one's going to lay a finger on you without Angel's permission. Harmony's like, like, yeah, I got strict instructions. No torture. You're totally safe. And then Lauren is like, it. In fact, it's so. It's like, it's totally going to be fine because we have bulletproof doors and no one can get in here. It's. This place is a fortress. And it's like, how many times have we heard this and have we said this? Even angel was like, why?
[01:06:56] Speaker B: Is, like, the unsafest place on earth? Actually, at this point, I think the.
[01:07:03] Speaker A: Hotel would be safer than this or even the Summer's home.
[01:07:05] Speaker B: One million percent.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: Which I guess the Summer's home.
[01:07:08] Speaker B: You could be inside the Hellmouth and be safer than at Wolfram.
[01:07:12] Speaker A: Probably, yeah. Inside the Hellmouth is a lot harder to get into, let me tell you.
[01:07:16] Speaker B: It at least requires with the Turacon, if you're just, like, really quiet and still, like, they might ignore you. I don't know.
[01:07:24] Speaker A: Literally. Wolfram and Heart, not so much. Everybody can come in, out everything. The security, alarms, of course, they go off. Everyone's looking really nervous. Lauren's like, okay, so how bad is this thing that's coming to you? Then the same guy who busted into Eve's apartment walks off the elevator and comes in.
[01:07:40] Speaker B: Riley, Adam.
[01:07:41] Speaker A: And it's Radom. And then Eve starts to cry, and she's like, oh, God, he's here. And Harmony's like, that guy. He's just a suit. And then a guard rushes towards him. And then Ryan, like, punches through the security guard completely. You See, he's like, bloody fists come out the other side. And this made me die laughing so hard. We have Eve, Lauren, and Harmony screaming in terror as they watch through the window.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: And I was like, that's fun or something.
[01:08:10] Speaker A: It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. I just want to see more of Lauren and Harmony. Like, we had a whole episode of Just Harmony. Like, could you imagine a whole episode with just Lauren and Harmony? Like. Like, they met, they make a mistake and mess up, and they have to, like, spend the entire episode, like, oh, my God, Trying to fix it. Like, so fun.
[01:08:27] Speaker B: I had to see them, like, toward the end, they, like, found each other again and started, like, a bar together or something again.
[01:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. And, like, them gossiping with all, like, the girls from. What was it, like, the sixth floor or whatever.
Yeah.
So back in the suburbs, Angel, Spike, and Gun are still talking with Lindsay. They're like, hey, hey, we're here to help. Lindsay continues to get more agitated, and then he. Angel sees the necklace that Lindsay's wearing, and he rips it off. Lindsay collapses to the floor, comes to and then sees angel and is like, all right, well, you're here to kill me, so make it quick. Angel rolls his eyes. Like, I was gonna kill you. It wouldn't be quick.
[01:09:08] Speaker B: This entire scene is so fucking funny. Like, every new thing that happens is more ridiculous than the last. Like, when the wife comes down with the. Like, a Glock. Like, she comes down with a. With a machine gun. And she. And then the kid, and then everybody. There's like a. Like, a ice cream truck outside. I'm just like, what is going on? And then Christian Cain is just standing there staring.
[01:09:29] Speaker A: Yeah, he just stares as everybody's jumping behind. Yeah, it's so funny. It was really, really funny. The.
My favorite part was the wife, like, coming around the corner with this big smile on her face and just holding this massive gun just dead behind the eyes.
[01:09:43] Speaker B: Eyes so funny.
[01:09:46] Speaker A: So Gun notices the necklace before all this happens, grabs it.
We have a ton of stuff just being shot at. Lindsay just staring in confusion.
Spike being like, seems like your wife's a little moody. Angel tells Spike to get Lindsay to the car. He rushes the wife. They try to go outside, but of course there's more people shooting there.
The Camaro is now gone and missing.
And so Spike shields Lindsay and Gun takes bullets in his back as he pushes them back inside the house. House.
And so then they're like, okay, they're hiding behind the couch, and they're like, okay, we need to get out of here. We need to find the Wrath. And they're like, you know, do you know where it is, Lindsay? Lindsay has no clue. And then gun's like, hey, I saw a door in the kitchen. Might be a way out. It must be the cellar. Lindsay's like, no, no, we can't go down. Not through the cellar. And Spike's like, seller it is then. So they head down and get in there.
And Lindsay's like, we're all gonna die. And Angel's like, not today. And Lindsay goes every day.
So then back in Angel's office, the man in the suit is still pursuing Eve. And he enters in. And Harmony, good for her. Jumps right on top of his back and tries to fight him. Does no damage. He ends up throwing her off and knocking her out. As Lauren and Eve make it to the elevator doors and get down into the carport port. And then back at the house, the rest of the gang has gotten into the cellar, and they see that it is full of bloody instruments, and it's basically a torture dungeon lit by candles. And Spike looks up to a pile of a hundred or so bloody hearts and is like, wait, whose are these? And Lindsay says, mine. Spike immediately drops it. Is like, oh.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: And it's so funny because there's no, like, residue on his hands. Like, you could tell these are just, like, rubber or something.
And he just drops it. And I'm like, but where's the blood on your hands, James?
There's none.
[01:11:43] Speaker A: Blood that's supposed to have stained the table. Just looks like paint. It's really kind of. Kind of like, you know, makes it a little less scary, but whatever.
[01:11:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:54] Speaker A: Angel's looking for a way out, and Spike.
And I think the funniest part of this is that they all, like, Lindsay has clearly said that he's the one being tortured here. He seems to know what's happening. But you have angel and Spike ignoring him, going like, wow, like, oh, what happened here? Somebody had fun with this and not go, okay, Lindsay, like, tell us what happens. What's going on?
Where is there a way to get out? Where does this guy come from? Like, he. This Lindsay has a lot of answers, and they're not asking him anything.
[01:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like. Yeah, but why would they. Like, that's the thing. They.
They don't trust Lindsay. And also, he doesn't seem to, like, remember a lot of things. He's just like, I don't know, maybe don't go in the basement. I don't know, though.
[01:12:42] Speaker A: But the Fact that they're, like, not even asking, like, okay, why do you have a million hearts that are yours out here? Like, they don't question things. Like, I feel like my first question would be, dude, why are you standing sitting here? Why are there hearts? Why do they want your hearts? What is taking.
They're in a rush, okay?
[01:12:58] Speaker B: There's no time to sit there and ask questions right now.
[01:13:02] Speaker A: But some of these questions could help them find a way out anyway. Whatever.
So Spike ends up seeing a huge flaming furnace behind the door. They're like, oh, you know, this is probably the Wrath. And Spike's like, ugh, what did I tell you? I knew there would be fire. Gun says, the lock is mystical. Lindsay goes, he's coming. He knows. He always knows. Nose. And then the Wrath comes in, just, like, materializes out of nowhere. And Angel's like, all right. Gun guard Lindsay. Gun takes Lindsay out of the way while angel and Spike face off of the demon. A fight ensues. Spike swinging a pipe at the demon. Angel uses his dagger.
And then eventually, after much punching and kicking, the vamped out vampires overpower the demon by using his own torture devices. But just as they're about ready to go out through the fire, Gun puts Lindsay's nail necklace on. And he says, I'm doing what needs to be done. Angel says, I'm not leaving you here. And Gun says, you don't make the rules here. Wolfram and Hart does. If. If one leaves, one has to stay. A void is impossible. The gate in front of the fire now opens. And Angel's like, wait, you knew? And Gun says that thing about atonement. And then angel just kind of like, looks at him and is like, Gun. Like, he. He recognizes this is Gun's choice. And he's like, all right, we'll worry about.
[01:14:16] Speaker B: That's not what I meant, though.
[01:14:18] Speaker A: No. No, it doesn't mean we beat ourselves up again. This whole idea of shame. You can't be stuck in the shame cycle of things. You have to move past that. You have to forgive yourself and move on. Like, that's kind of the first step.
[01:14:31] Speaker B: There's definitely an element of that. Or you could view it as like, Gun is sacrificing himself so that they can get Lindsay out, because Lindsay's gonna be able to help them figure stuff out about the senior partners. Like, maybe he feels that this is his way of. Obviously, there's a part of him that, like, wants to be punished because he's blaming himself and he feels really guilty. Guilty. But I. I would like to think that it's also, in part, that it's like a sacrifice.
[01:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I do think there's the gang for sure.
[01:14:59] Speaker B: Because they do need Lindsay's knowledge about the senior partners totally. To get out of this entire situation.
[01:15:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree. I definitely do also think that this is a selfless act. Like, this is gone. Also thinking about others, too. It's not just like a, oh, I need to be punished thing, but I do think there is that aspect of it here. Here for sure.
So then gun's like, when I forget, the door closes. Go, you have to. And then as they leave, gun's like, this is where I was.
And kind of like, he's like, I belong. What was I doing? What am I doing down here? The gate in front of the fire closes. And then we hear the wife, Trish, I guess is her name from off camera is like, what are you doing down there? And he goes, I don't know. Must be losing my mind.
[01:15:44] Speaker B: Gonna come back for you, I promise.
[01:15:46] Speaker A: Yeah, literally, they have to. They have to. They're losing people left and right. Like.
Yeah.
So then Lauren and Eve are now rushing off the elevator into Angel's private garage. Lauren's like, we're gonna go up the coast to Canada. He's like, you'll love it there. It'll be great. And so they, like, grab a random key and they're just, like, clicking the buttons, trying to figure out which key is. Is going to attach to which car. So they're heading towards a car, and as they get in, Angel, Lindsay and Spike drop from the dimension. Like, the portal opens. I was like, why there of all places? That's so weird, so bizarre. Lord's like, what the Daisy?
Spike's like, I'm on fire. And then he's like, oh, wait, never mind. Spike's like, you'll never get me, Pervane.
[01:16:31] Speaker B: You'll never get me, Pervane. Spike has, like, nightmares at this. Like, I feel like he has recurring nightmares about being set on fire.
[01:16:41] Speaker A: Being dragged to hell.
[01:16:42] Speaker B: Literally died in the hell mouth by being set on fire.
[01:16:45] Speaker A: He's got some ptsd.
[01:16:49] Speaker B: Spike, you've gotta. You've gotta come to terms with this, because that's more than likely where you're going.
[01:16:55] Speaker A: It's so true. It's like, I'm sorry, but, like, get.
[01:16:59] Speaker B: Real crazy with fire, babe. But like, he.
Yeah, you need to start, like, mentally preparing yourself. Yourself. If you ever die in your immortal life, like, that's where you go.
[01:17:10] Speaker A: Which is very likely with the amount of Fighting. You do. And yeah.
[01:17:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:17:15] Speaker A: My favorite part of this was, like, Eve being so excited to see Lindsay, and Lindsay just not seeming to care at all.
[01:17:20] Speaker B: Like, her. He doesn't even like this woman.
[01:17:24] Speaker A: Yeah. She's, like, so desperate to see him, and he's just like, oh, what? What's going on? Like, he was more excited to see Angel. Thank you. He was.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: He was more excited about his fake wife than he is.
[01:17:38] Speaker A: So true, actually. Yeah.
[01:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:17:42] Speaker A: So then Lindsay's like. Or Eve's like, what did they do to you? Angel's like, he'll be fine. Spike's like, whereas we got shot and almost killed by a juiced up S M Demon.
So true, though. It's like in his bondage room that they just left gun in.
It has an M. Demon. And just like, all right, let's get upstairs.
He's like, be careful. He's hurt. And Lauren's like, angel, you should know. There's a very tall, well dressed. Hey, where's gun? And then Angel's like, stayed behind, and Lauren's like, stayed behind, but you never leave. And then angel and Spike, like, won't look him in the eyes. And Lauren goes, oh, I guess we do.
[01:18:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:18:25] Speaker A: This poor man is becoming demoralized with every second.
[01:18:27] Speaker B: He's like, feel like Lauren has a running lip list in his head of, like, one. One column is, you know, love you guys. Next column is I hate everything you're about. And I feel like the I hate everything you're about column is throwing up, like, really quickly.
[01:18:45] Speaker A: Well, I feel like Lauren has boundaries. And I could see. I can almost see each one of them getting torn down and he's trying to erect new ones. Like, he's moving the goalposts. Like, he's like, I'm sticking around for my friends because I can do good. Oh, I'm not doing good anymore, but I'm sticking around for my friends because we about each other. And now it's like a. Oh, we now are leaving our friends behind. Okay. But they would never leave me behind, and I would never leave them behind and I would never harm them. So that's going to be my next goal post. And it's like, at some point, all the goal posts are going to get smashed through and Lauren's going to be like, that's it for me.
[01:19:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:19:21] Speaker A: Then there's a thumping on the stairwell door. He's like, oh, God. And Lauren's like, yeah, like I was saying. Then the man pursuing Eve punches the door off its hinges, comes in and approaches everyone And Angel's like, damn, he is well dressed.
[01:19:33] Speaker B: What an un angel thing to say though.
[01:19:37] Speaker A: Angela does not care how people are dressed. That's a very David Boreana's thing. You know it actually. No, sorry. It would be more David Boreanas if the man was wearing a fedora.
[01:19:48] Speaker B: Oh. And beads.
[01:19:49] Speaker A: Miss Clothes Ginormous cross.
The amount of inside jokes we have just from watching David Boreanis Instagram is just really.
[01:20:05] Speaker B: Oh my God.
It's like a. Every day on the discord is like, let's analyze David Boreana's outfit choice.
[01:20:13] Speaker A: Yeah. David Borean.
That is a well dressed man. Eagle emoji.
[01:20:19] Speaker B: The eagle emoji.
We're like, it's like where. It's like what not to wear with Stacy and what's his name?
[01:20:31] Speaker A: Yes. I don't remember his name. But I loved. I loved what not to wear. They're coming back together.
[01:20:36] Speaker B: Make you stand in front of a mirror and just like rip apart everything you're wearing is.
[01:20:41] Speaker A: But it was so helpful. Like, that's how I learned to dress.
[01:20:44] Speaker B: And then Carmindy came in and did their makeup and it was amazing. And then they got their hair done and there was like, it was so good. Love that show.
[01:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:20:53] Speaker A: And they were always so nice. Like, I didn't feel like they were.
[01:20:56] Speaker B: Like, they obviously kind of mean sometimes. They weren't like Tyra Banks level to tire. Chop off your hair.
[01:21:03] Speaker A: And then, yeah, we're going to chop off your hair. We're going to put extensions that make your head bleed. And then we're going to ask you the very next or we're going to make you like, we're going to make you take. We're going to make you take a photo shoot in a coffin knowing that your best friend just died.
[01:21:16] Speaker B: Like, and do you want to be on top? Because if you want to be on top, you have to do all these things.
[01:21:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Literally, that. That show is unhinged, man.
[01:21:26] Speaker B: But I honestly love America's Next.
[01:21:29] Speaker A: I love it. There was like, there was no reality crazy show like it. Honestly, we all are a little scarred from that show. But at the same time it's defined who we are.
[01:21:37] Speaker B: Like, they like, they like bring this one girl that's like so. So both like regular sized, smaller than, like you're overweight. Like, you're a plus size model. Like, are you so excited to be a leading person in the plus size modeling industry? And I'm like, what?
[01:21:55] Speaker A: Like, meanwhile I'm over here. I think I'm heavier than she Is. Yeah, we're over here with our Cheetos. Like, gotta do what you gotta do to be on top. Girl, come on, cut off that.
[01:22:06] Speaker B: You want to be on top. Like, do you want to. To be on top? Because if you do, then you got.
[01:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
No pain. No gain without pain. Right? Beauty is pain.
I always think about. I don't know if you've ever seen Little Women, but there's a quote from one of them because there's so many of them where Joe goes, let us be fashionable or let us die. And I think about that all the time.
[01:22:30] Speaker B: I agree.
[01:22:31] Speaker A: Yep. The. The old slogan of do you want to be on top? Went from, let us be fashionable or let us die To. To you want to be on top.
[01:22:41] Speaker B: I love it.
[01:22:43] Speaker A: 2. Damn, he is well dressed. Eagle emoji.
All right.
Eve's like, please don't do this. As the man approaches, and Angel's like, eve's under my protection. You can't touch her. And then the man pulls out a pen, and Spike's like, whoa. Didn't see that coming.
[01:23:03] Speaker B: And the man's like, fully expecting the pen to start, like, shooting out bullets or something. Yeah, right.
[01:23:08] Speaker A: He's like, you know how it works, Eve? It's like a. It's a. A needle she has to inject in her arm or something. Like, it has to write it in blood or something. I'm surprised he didn't make her prick her finger and sign all this in blood.
[01:23:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[01:23:20] Speaker A: That's what Wolverine Hart would do. But true. Yeah. So Eve's like, you could talk to the senior partners, tell them it's a mistake. He's like, that's impossible. And Eve is, you know, resigned. And basically, she has to sign several stuff in the contract. And she's signing over her mortality. And we find out the man's name is Mary Marcus, the new liaison, liaison to the senior partners. And he says that she's signing over her mortality and certain other privileges and her duties over to him. Angel's like, this is about a contract. I thought you said you were going to die. To Eve. And Eve's like, and now one day, I will. Hamilton says, the senior partners felt it was time for a change. Eve was too easily distracted, lost sight of the big picture.
[01:24:00] Speaker B: I fell in love.
[01:24:02] Speaker A: And he's like, yes, congratulations, girl.
Meanwhile, Lindsay's back there not saying, he's.
[01:24:08] Speaker B: Not that into you. He's literally not that into you. Like, you need to move on. She's literally gave up everything for this man.
[01:24:15] Speaker A: Girl.
Stand up. Go back to UC Berkeley. If you even ever went there. Just.
[01:24:21] Speaker B: Just seriously.
[01:24:23] Speaker A: He's like, wonderful escape, by the way. Very clever. We'll be in touch. Oh, I have some excellent ideas. I can't wait to share. I hate him already. And he. Angel's like, this is my house. The only ideas that matter are mine. And Hamilton's like, absolutely.
[01:24:35] Speaker B: He's like, sure, sure, Jan. Sure, Jan. Yeah.
[01:24:39] Speaker A: And then he looks at Spike and he says, welcome to the team. And Spike's like, hang on. I'm part of the team now. Lauren's like, he's not so bad.
Then we cut back to the rooftop, and Illyria and Wesley are standing up there. And Illyria's panic attack is gone. And she says, I breathe easier. Wesley says, the walls don't press in as hard when you can't see them. Them? She says, but they're still here. He says, yes. She says, all I am is what I am. I lived seven lives at once. I was power and the ecstasy of death. I was God to a God. Now I'm trapped on a roof. Just one roof in this time, in this place. With an unstable human who drinks too much whiskey and called me a Smurf. Wesley says, like. He kind of chuckles. And she's like, you don't worship me at all, do you? And he says, and you can't really leave. She says, I don't know. And I fear in any other dimension in this form, I'd be but prey to those I knew. I reek of humanity.
She says, your world is so small, and yet you box yourselves in rooms even smaller. You shut yourselves inside, in rooms, in routines. And he says, there are things worse than walls. Terrible and beautiful. If we look at them for too long, they will burn right through us. Truths we couldn't bear, not every day. And she says, we are so weak. And he says, yes. Yes, we are. And right there, we have a connection between the two of them that is deeper than anything at least we saw between Fred and Wesley, which is just really sad. But maybe that was the point of it all, which is, again, another layer of sad for Fred. But yeah, all right. An Angel's penthouse. Lauren is pulling out bullets out of Spike's back. And he says, I'm afraid I don't have Fredikin's gentle touch. Lindsay and Eve are sitting side by side on the couch, and Lindsay looks exhausted. Did. And angel walks in and is like, I'm not your hero, Lindsay. I'm your warden. Lindsay's like, it's all how you look at the glass. Angel says, I thought a few months of torture at the hands of the senior partners would have dug a little deeper. And Lindsay says, just scratch the surface. Turns out they can only undo you as far as you think you deserve to be undone. I wonder how Gun's gonna make out.
An angel says, the senior partners want to know everything you know about them. About the apocalypse, about their plans for me. Spike's like, yeah, me too. Too. Because, you know, I'm part of the team now. Lindsay says, you know what I know? The world's a cesspool. We all live, we die. Even you, babe. And he's like, lindsay, don't. He's like, he's still happy to see me. And she doesn't respond. I was like, oop, Trouble in paradise.
[01:27:02] Speaker B: He doesn't like her.
[01:27:04] Speaker A: No, he does not like her. Does not like her at all.
And then Angel's like, yeah, yeah, Hell's on earth. I know this. Holland Manners told this to me. Or tried to sell it to. To me three years ago. And Lindsay's like, well, did you ever.
[01:27:15] Speaker B: Has it really been three years?
[01:27:17] Speaker A: Isn't that crazy? Feels like an eternity.
We've been stuck in that little, like, room with the necklace on. Or, like, in that. That house.
Yeah. And that was season three and four for us. The constant, like, repetition. Going out and getting the mail every time. Waving at Cordelia, going back inside the house.
Having to help Connor. Like, that's what it feels like. I feel like.
[01:27:40] Speaker B: Like it hasn't been that long. But technically, I mean it. Yeah, it has been.
[01:27:45] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:27:46] Speaker B: Damn.
[01:27:47] Speaker A: Angel's like, we can philosophize all night, Lindsay. In fact, we can do it forever. I don't need to eat, sleep, drink. How about you? Lindsay's like, that's what I like to see. The angel of Y. Takes no prisoners, suffers no fools. How about this? It's here. It's been here all along. Underneath. You're just too damn stupid to see it. How about those flames, Spike? They're coming up. They're looking. They're looking at your toes. And he says, the apocalypse, man. You're soaking in it. And Spike's like, I've seen apocalypses. This isn't. This isn't one. And Lindsay's like, no, this is the apocalypse. What, did you think a gong was going to sound? Time to jump on your horses and fight the big fight. Start starting. Pistol went off a long time ago, boys. You're playing for the bad guys. Every day you sit behind your desk and you learn a little more. How to accept the world the way it is. Well, here's the rub. Heroes don't do that. Heroes don't accept the world the way it is. They fight it. And then angel says, you're saying everything we do, it's a distraction to keep us busy from looking under the surface, which I love. That everything we do, if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. Like, it's this idea that what they've been doing has not actually been fighting the good fight. It's been distraction. Lindsay says we have a winner. The world keeps sliding towards entropy and degradation. And what do you do? You sit in your big chair. Entropy, chaos. You sit in your chair, you sign your checks. Just like the senior partners plan the wars here, angel, and you're already two soldiers down. We cut to the suburban house, and Gun is helping the boy study for a test. And it's an exact mirror of everything that happened with Lindsay. Same words, same line, same questions. The wife asks Gun to go get the bulb from the basement. And Gun uses the same language as Lindsay, makes excuses, but in the end, he has to go into the basement just like Lindsay did.
[01:29:30] Speaker B: Damn.
[01:29:31] Speaker A: Such a good episode. So many layers to it.
[01:29:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah, this was great.
[01:29:38] Speaker A: And it makes me very, very excited. I'm really excited for the next episode and then.
[01:29:42] Speaker B: So excited for the next episode.
[01:29:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a really good one.
Yeah. And then one after that is really good, too. There's just, like, some really, really good episodes coming up and. Yeah.
[01:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:29:53] Speaker A: It's gonna be fun to, like, finally talk about these characters in full depth and detail and. Yeah. Get to the conclusion of everything and.
[01:30:00] Speaker B: You know. Know what? So for the finale, I've. I've always had mixed feelings about it, but I feel like talking through these episodes, like, starting from a hole in the world and everything after, like, so far, it's kind of getting me to view it a little bit differently.
[01:30:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:30:15] Speaker B: Knowing what's to come. So I'm really curious to see if, when we do get there, if I'm gonna feel still kind of mixed about it or if I'm gonna have a new perspective and see it in a different way. Because. Because of the stuff that we're seeing in these episodes and, like, just, I guess, recontextualizing everything and, like, tying it all in together.
Because that's been something that I've been kind of looking forward to, is just seeing how I'm gonna feel about the finale this time around.
Yeah. So it's been Interesting to kind of talk through all these things because it does really, like, the. Like, we're. We're getting there.
Yeah.
[01:30:53] Speaker A: We're a couple episodes away.
[01:30:55] Speaker B: Like. Like, we're starting to, like, talk about those things that are gonna happen.
And. Yeah. It's just interesting to think about it in different ways.
[01:31:06] Speaker A: So when I. Again, like, I have a new appreciation for, like, this episode, I always thought that the whole House thing was so stupid. And I never really understand the metaphorical reasoning behind it and how it's supposed to be a smaller picture of what Wolfram and Hart has been doing to angel and the crew for this entire season. And this numbing of things and giving you everything that you want and desire in perfect happiness to distract you and to cause you to forget about the horrors of the world around you. And how that is even, like, even when critically, Touch was talking about how that's such a cool picture of even the perfect happiness idea with Angelus.
[01:31:44] Speaker B: And it ties back to season two.
[01:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah. With angel wanting to numb himself in Darla so he can forget about the horrors of the world. And so angel writing now, getting back up and fighting is the exact opposite of what happened in season two. And that shows growth, because in season two, angel, the. The reveal that Lindsay has at the very end is the same that Holland Manors had. And angel fell into perfect despair. And this one, instead of falling into perfect despair, which is what is happening with Wesley and with Lauren and with Gun, Angel's going, no, I'm going to keep fighting, and I'm going to do the right thing.
[01:32:17] Speaker B: It's conviction now.
[01:32:19] Speaker A: Yes. It's growth.
[01:32:19] Speaker B: It's giving conviction back into that mindset.
[01:32:23] Speaker A: And it. And it's nice. It's nice to see angel actually making different choices and different decisions because for so long, there's been this pattern of becoming despondent, falling into despair, and then getting back up, starting to fight again.
[01:32:36] Speaker B: Too comfortable.
[01:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:32:38] Speaker B: Or getting too comfortable and just reacting to things that are happening around him. Like, I just think of angel in season three also, where he's not necessarily depressed. He's probably the happiest we've ever seen him. But he seems to not really care about the mission that much unless somebody's telling him to care about it. He's very much focused on his own personal problems and his own personal life and, like himself. But that's not Angel's role in the world. He can't focus just on himself. He's got a.
His purpose. Like his beat. His purpose in life is to. To do good. Right? Like, to help people. And I feel like even then in that season when he's at his happiest, I feel like he kind of got away from the mission statement of the show. Right. So.
[01:33:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. So I'm. I'm excited to, like, watch even more because I didn't remember any of this stuff, so it's kind of fun to be like, ooh, there's actually a lot of stuff here. And again, it makes me kind of sad because I'm like, I wonder how season six would have been. But, yeah, it is what it is.
[01:33:43] Speaker B: It is what it is.
[01:33:45] Speaker A: So. All right, guys, let us know your thoughts about this episode. Let us know what you think the house represents. All that stuff with Illyria and Wesley with Gun, there's just. There was even. Even Lauren. There's a lot of stuff going on with our characters right now.
And obviously, if you've seen the show, you know where this is going. But let us know what you think about the episode.
And, yeah, we will talk to you guys next time. Thanks so much for listening to Investigating Angel. If you enjoyed this podcast, feel free to follow, subscribe, and review us on all platforms. You can also find us on Instagram @ InvestigatingAngel podcast, and you can email [email protected].
