“In-house attacks are down 30 percent.” Heh. They’ll never beat Sunnydale in the cross-city strange death championships. Wesley’s of course, El Diablo Robotico, also funny.

Hee. I loved “I really hate this place” coming from behind the glass window. Angel is so lovable and funny this year. Finally got the pitch on his humor just right — not goofy, just Angely.

And this would be possibly the weirdest nitpick I’ve ever found myself making, but… Spike can’t masturbate? That makes no sense. He’s corporeal to himself, no? Otherwise his arms would pass through his body and stuff like that. Of course ghosts can masturbate. But maybe they can’t be aroused, because of the lack of blood and flesh. Talk about going through the motions.

Overall, it was a little talky and facile, but still decent. And it’s nice to see the Latino portion of L.A. finally get some recognition, although it was a wee bit stereotypical.

You’ll get everywhere with me by incorporating Mayan codices. Though Wesley mispronounced “Cuauhtitlan” — the emphasis would be on the middle syllable. Whaddya know, the writers based that one on a real thing: the Codex Chimalpopoca, Annals of Cuauhtitlan. The passage seems to be a basic pre-Columbian origin myth, with the five suns representing five cycles of history. But, oooooh, does this (roughly translated into English) sound familiar: “In which it happened that it rained fire on the inhabitants, who for that reason burned.” Or this:



Again I say, ooooh.

Wesley, does last year not strike you as an epic Apocalyptic battle? Why do they always assume the prophecies refer to the future, even after they’ve passed through events that match the descriptions? They’re never going to get anywhere that way.

I’m both happy and horrified to hear the mindwipe brought up. It’s like the dead body hidden in the closet… you know the secret has got to come out some time, but boy do you not want to look at it. They chose a bad example for Angel to use a reminder. Has he not realized that “The father will kill the son” came true? And in any case, would he treat it so cavalierly? It’s not actually a bad line, but Boreanaz misstepped on the delivery: should have been bitter and pained and angry. Oh, god, they are going to deal with it. And Wesley remembers nothing, going back that far. Poor memoryless people. Poor Connor. Poor me.

Wesley is so worried about Angel. Really feeling the love this week. And I suspect he now suspects something. There’s something in that word they used over and over again: “disconnect.” Damn straight he’s disconnected. He’s disconnected all his friends, his son, and a good part of the world from actual reality, from the normal thread of time. Is a full reveal too much to hope for? Recovery certainly seems so.

FINALLY. An episode that I loved from beginning to end. This is the episode I've been waiting for. I loved the whole myth type storyline. Very reminiscent of the X-Files. (I'm thinking the Baseball one...Mulder talking to the old guy...reminded me the way Angel talked to Number 5)

It was funny, had good character interaction, charm...I loved it.

I didn't recognize the name of the writer who did this one, but kudos to him!

Jeff Bell joined the writing staff at the start of season three, and was promoted to showrunner last season. Before he was on Angel, he wrote for The X-Files.

I liked this episode a lot. Because Mexican wrestlers are cool. And also because they're moving forward on the missing memories. I was a little concerned that with the new emphasis on stand-alone episodes, the mind-wipe issue would fall by the wayside. I have to wonder if the contracts department mentioned tonight and the room in which Lorne's removed sleep was stored will be at all significant in future episodes as they continue to pursue the Mystery of the Missing Memories.

One thing I didn't like: the business card that read "Attorney's at Law." Oy.

Ah...no wonder it reminded me of the X-files...I was always a big Vince Gilligan fan, and Glen Morgan and James Wong...*sigh* why did that show have to go so far down the toilet?

I've enjoyed Angel this season, but read so many negative things from those that hate Spike and miss Cordelia. I was just getting beaten down by the "Fellowship of the miserable", so I am really happy with how much I enjoyed last nights.

Did it really? I'm ashamed; I paused that and everything to see who the lawyer was, and I didn't even notice. (The lawyer who went to recruit Numero Cinco? Holland Manners.)


He doesn't remember it. He has no idea. Presumably no one in Los Angeles does, actually. (What, you don't remember the big apocalypse last year, eej?)

Yes, very relieved that it looks like they're going to deal with the mindwipe at some point.

I did not feel the need to go "ew" at Wesley at any point, so that was nice. El Diablo Robotico! Loved AD's delivery of that. Kind of horrified and wistful at the same time. And aww, he loves Angel so much. It's sweet.

It's weird... this was the episode that I respected the most, and I liked a lot of things about it, but it felt... slow, somehow. I dunno.


Maybe he doesn't feel that he killed Connor? Though he obviously did; Minear's been quoted as saying they always meant that prophecy to be true.

I loved it. I don't know why, but I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that, as JH mentioned, Mexican wrestlers are cool. I especially loved their well-choreographed flashback fights. I'm going to miss Number 5, though. It was always fun watching him deliver the mail every week and wondering what his story was. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that I had to squint through most of the episode. Was it me, or was this episode extraordinarily dark? Maybe it's my VCR.

No, I thought it was really dark too...there was one point where both Bill and I had no idea what had happened. I think it was during the fight where the demon didn't take Angel's heart.

The trick to dark lighting is to watch television with the lights off. I never have a problem seeing things.

I liked it as well but for some reason, Spike stuck out like a sore thumb to me. He was so unnecessary and although I presume he was there to provide comic relief most of what he said just wasn't that funny. He's like the annoying little brother you just can't get to leave the room.

I am also glad to see that the mind wipe might be addressed. Between that and TWW mentioned Sam Seaborn this week, I am one happy camper. As has also been mentioned, one of the things I am really enjoying about this season is the Angel/Wes relationship. I'm all about the HoYay but I am also enjoying it on its most obvious level, that of two men who, each year, become better and better friends to each other.

Ooh, I like the way you think. If only Wesley will stumble over Angel's contract. And if only all of the missing memories are stored in those freezers, ready to go. Just a little defrosting in the microwave, and then, bam.

Wesley delivered the "El Diablo Robotico" line in the same tone as his "in the deepest jungles of Latin America" speech a week or two ago... He's got a little of the drama queen (Watcher variety) in him too. It's great to see them playing with that image, in the same way they do with Angel's. Straight out of B movies, he's the British guy with the books.

Holland mispunctuates things because he's Evil. Evil, I tell you.

A thing that makes me go hmmm. It was odd of Wesley to have misunderstood Spike's cry of "shotgun," because I'm almost sure we've heard Wesley call shotgun in the past. Wesley likes shotgun. I suppose he was just preoccupied, or having a dense moment.

Also, I should think that the solution, when a ghost calls shotgun, would be to just sit in him. What's he gonna do?

Would you want to drive the streets of LA sitting in the middle of Spike, though?

Now that I've said it, I really want to see somebody do it. I think it'd be hilarious. And I imagine Spike would have to cry uncle sooner or later... that's a battle he's not going to win.

Although, hmm, I wonder if he could manage to corporealize a finger and tickle your spleen.

As long as it's just his finger he's corporealizing.

Hey! Somebody had to say it. Now it's been said and we can move on.

Well, after what happened to the necromancer, I'd be a little afraid to sit myself down inside a ghost. Although it would be very funny.

Hmm...maybe I should rewatch this. I just remember being bored. The mention of the mindwipe was good, but are we really to believe that nothing of last year happened (in their memories)? No Jasmine, no rain of fire, no nothing? That's pretty intense, if so. I do hope that Wes is smart enough to go look up "The father will kill the son" right away. Please, Wes, be smart enough.

Spike, totally annoying. Also, his explanation of why you'd have to remove the demon's heart made no sense. If he'd stopped talking after "It's in the poetry," I'd have been ok, but then, I guess Spike never stops talking, does he.

I like that everyone's noticing Angel's disconnect, and I like the concern. I'll like it even more, though, if that concern turns into resentment and horror when they realize it's because he misses a son they don't remember, and that their brains have been royally manipulated. I've not enjoyed this season much, but last season was so good that I still have a little bit of hope that they'll get it right where Buffy got it wrong. A mindwipe can be an interesting bit of story, but it has to be a story. Not just a way to tapdance around inconvenient plot elements.

Indeedily. And they have to undo it, I think, too, for the story to be functional dramatically. You can never really throw out the previous several years of storytelling — which the viewers well remember — and not permanently rend the fabric.

The once-futile, now increasingly likely prospect of mindwipe revelation, and the prospect of getting some more old-timey flashbacks and backstory, were the things that made me still feel some hope of happiness about this season.

After rewatching this, I'm tempted to say that Denisof overplayed Wesley's last "Are you all right?" to Angel. That husky quavering whisper. I'd say that, if I didn't love it so damn much.

Well yeah, you have to undo it. Even if that means that Connor runs off in horror and hatred, you have to undo it. Reap what you sow and all that. Also, this mindwipe was different from the Buffy mindwipe for a few reasons. It was perpetrated by a main character, and it appears to have deleted huge sections of memory, whereas Dawn seems to have been more of an addition. Not that that changes my feelings about that mindwipe, but I think it's of even greater dramatic importance that they fix it in this case. It's the only reason I'm watching this season.

Yes, the fact that it carved huge craters in the memory of nearly everyone does now seem to be a promising sign that an undo is on the way... although I'm terrified that that won't extend to Connor, and in my opinion his case is the most grave. The others were robbed of part of themselves, but he was robbed of everything, killed.

I agree with you on the Scraptastic mindwipe. While I do think that the need for it was just as dire, and that it damaged the story just as much, the symptoms weren't as severe.

I am wracking my brain to find good things to say about this episode, but I'm coming up empty. It was basically a stand alone. I guess I like the small thread that was the Shashu references, I hope they lead to more mention.

And I could go about another lifetime without having to hear Spike mention not being able to "diddle his willy". (((shudder)))

I laughed out loud a number of times, all during the Mexicans' scenes. So, I enjoyed for the first time this season. I was bored out of my skull for the first 10 minutes, and turned it off. When I came back to it the next day, the rest was really funny. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood the first time. It's truly sad that I can think that I might not be "in the mood" for a Buffyverse event.

I remember watching the first two epsiodes of "CSI: Miami" and thought that Kim Delaney had no purpose, and that her lines could have gone to other cast members to give them more screen time. Spike is my Kim Delaney. I never was a Spike hater; I've been pretty neutral on him over the years, and still feel neutral. From this place of not caring one way or the other, his lines seem like a waste of script, when Gunn and Wesley have brought the snark before and could again.

I would be more than happy for Connor never to come back- there were times I liked his character, but as SNeaker describes, he seemed so inconsistent and I couldn't relate to him one bit. I woulnd't mind their being a mindwipe resolution of some kind. I miss the Wesley who knows just how dark he can get. Also, I don't even know if anyone other than Angel even remembers Jasmine, and that's disappointing.

Has anyone, in the endless exposition of this season, mentioned how they came to run W&H?

Spike is so very pointless. He has no point. He's inverted. If he Shanshus, I'll spit.

Mexican wrestlers are indeed cool, if not original as superheroes. But I liked that, even though it was a little weird that they always kept their masks on. I liked this in general. The story felt a little as if it could have fitted into another (lesser) genre show, but I still see funny little moments - often Boreanaz' delivery, as in 'I hate this place' or his look as the four dead brothers ran past him - that stand out to me as signals that this is still a cut above, a stranger, deeper show than others.

I noticed the use of the word disconnect too. My theory is that this might refer to him losing his connection to the Powers, as it was always referred to. I admit that I probably want this to be true simply because I'm finding it increasingly annoying that they never mention Cordelia. I was willing to accept it at first because a) there's obviously an out-of-story conflict and b) I was convinced that it would be the focus of an episode later on. But it's gone on so long now that if they go back to it, it'll seem odd, unless there's some sort of thing like they've all forgotten her because of the mindwipe.

However, I agree that they'll be dealing with it in some way eventually. They have to. I honestly don't feel they'll still be running W&H in a year's time. It's something they had to try, or felt they did, but it's not going to work. But this season seems to be going oddly and I do think that it's because of the pressure to turn the show into a more stand-aloney thing. There are too many repetitive statements ("We're running this evil law firm blah blah"), no real import, an unsettling ... disconnect, I suppose. Maybe it was a meta-comment?


Oh god yes. God. I actually had to stop the tape and pause for a minute to let my nausea pass.

Just been rewatching this one. It felt very slow, but the characterisation (and acting) of Angel was really nice and subtle. It makes complete sense that after the huge, huge events of last year he would be drained and feeling pointless. When you've had the chance of a "perfect" world and realised that nothing, in fact, is perfect and there are no short cuts, it must be hugely depressing. Not to mention the grim reality of having had to give up Connor. I hope they find some way of making this explicit in the show, but I imagine that it's the sort of thing that gets harder as time goes on - believing that you did the right thing, but being so unhappy about it, without any prospect of relief from that pain.


There's a prediction I'd be happy to be wrong about now.

Obviously I am stating this from a position of much less information that the rest of you, but I suspect that they’re not going to address the mindwipe at all. I think it would be just too complicated for the writers and the viewers. Face it, I’m a much more than averagely engaged Angel fan, but frankly I can’t be bothered to keep track of who remembers what and why. The vast majority of viewers will have even less of an idea than I do.

With luck you all know that I’m wrong by now, though.

I was kind of disappointed in this episode, I’d been hoping that we never found out why there was someone wandering around in a wrestling mask in the background. I like the unexplained.