Who's nervous about tonight? I don't know anything about it, and I am. So little time, so much potential to cause me pain. Plus I think I'm in the mode of madly possessive child on Christmas... I'm only getting to experience six more new episodes of Angel (and possibly the Buffyverse) in my life, and I do not want to give one up.

I'd almost rather that they stayed out there indefinitely, watchable but never watched.

"Underneath"? As in, what's underneath Illyria is Fred?

There's a new Angel tonight?

Huh. I genuinely had no clue.

Boy howdy, yes I'm nervous. I've seen the latest ad, so I guess I know a little more than you do, but not by much. It's tantalizing and yet scary in the extreme, that's how I care about how these episodes turn out.

I very much liked Angel’s touching-on-grand-points opening speech (Fred, his aloneness, how the gang can’t show up anymore because they’re all dead or screwed, among other things). “Bad things always happen here.” How perfect. And sad.

I also liked his reaction to “Angel’s Avengers” and how his face went slack after.

Illyria in the credits? Oh, fuck. Though I smell a rat. As we’ve learned at the hands of the Mutant Enemy Reeducation Department, credits can be a useful disinformation device.

Poor Lorne. Very eloquently expressed, his whole world and why he’s finally melted down within it. And poor Gunn; he looked old to me somehow, and I’m not sure if it’s just because I’ve been watching Season Three. Almost as though his hair was going gray, his face older and more angular. And Angel’s manner toward him and talk with him was excellent. Thank you! I was worried it’d be another horrible replay of “Forgiving.” Angel does learn… it takes him two years, but he learns from his mistakes.

Yay to seeing Gunn wearing his real Gunn clothes again. Maybe it’s just because he’s just out of the hospital, but I hope it’s not and it sticks… represents him rediscovering who he really was and being confident in that person again.

The nightmare and the scotch-drinking scene after it — actually, that was a handling of Wesley and Fred and Illyria that I don’t mind. Though the stuff later… clearly Illyria passed the time in the Deeper Well with her Word-A-Millennium Calendar. Wesley’s sense of humor is the only thing saving their Shakespearathons at all.

Oh my god — initially I thought that was dead Darla in Lindsey’s heaven/hell. And a yelp of joyful shock was had. How cool would that be?

Here I am hoping like hell that Angel freeing Lindsey from his mindwipe, that Angel seeing with his own eyes everything that’s wrong and soul-erasing about that situation, will lead him to free Connor when Connor comes. Because boy do I think that the show is going to leave Connor mindwiped and wiped from everyone else’s minds, and boy is that the one thing I want righted more than anything else. Though, o happy preview, at least Connor knows his father for a time, even if the morons take it back again.

“We never leave a [man behind]… I guess we do. That’s what we do now.” Ouch. And so true. That gives me a little hope that all is not as it seems… we’ve lost a suspicious lot of regular cast members in the last handful of episodes. I did imagine a scenario in which we lost everyone, one by one, and then they were restored in the last episode. But I thought it was too crazy. At least I know they’re not leaving Gunn down there.

“Apocalypse — You’re Soaking In It.” Snort! Howl! That’s magnificent. Best slogan ever. Though, dude, how many times have we heard someone say “An Apocalypse? No, this is The Apocalypse.” It’s THE Absolutely Postively THE THE THE Apocalypse. No, really, we swear. It’s The La Apocalypse.

Bottom line: there’s no point in Apocalypse snobbery, pretending your Apocalypse is better than anyone else’s.

This was very well written and clever and felt fresh. I particularly liked Lindsey’s helleaven… with the hearts piling up. Marvelously well conceived. I expected to be sorry tonight that the series was ending because this episode would feel elegiac and contrived and… can’t explain exactly, but instead I’m sorry because it was a real episode of Angel. It didn’t pay attention to what it should be and all the things it ought to be living up to. It was just a whole hour with its own plot and nature.

I missed the credits because I was trying to fire up the internet (need to get rid of dial-up). Because Adam Baldwin? In a suit? Yes, please! I would much rather have Adam Baldwin in a suit than Eve in a little skirt.

I pretty much ignored the Wesley/Illyria stuff after the nightmare. Illyria was cool before she discovered that nobody worshipped her, but now she's growing tiresome. I did like the parts where she said that Wesley called her a smurf and that he made noises with his nose. I cheered over the reference of a dimension with nothing but shrimp, but then I was a little annoyed because it seemed kind of heavy-handed. But blah blah blah, world's not evil, world's not fun, blah blah blah, was major power, now powerless, blah blah blah, wearing my lover's face. Yeah, we did this last episode. Something new for a new episode would be nice.

I thought that all of the performances were excellent. And Lindsey's hell was fantastic. I couldn't help but wonder if the neighbors were also prisoners and were living the exact same day as Lindsey. As we saw with Gunn, the day was kind of one size fits all. The fact that the neighbors all came out of their houses and picked up their papers at the exact same time seemed ominous. And none of them showed up with guns. It was just the ice cream man, the mail man, the wife and the son. It's like the cul-de-sac of horror.

I liked the monster in the basement, but his chains rattling got a little old and distracting. Monsters shouldn't jingle.

I knew we'd be seeing Lindsey again.

When I was watching last night, I didn't have any problems with it. It had funny, and some touching, and nothing bored me. It didn't make me stand up and cheer, either, but it was decent.

Then, on the ride to work this morning, the plot holes occurred to me. I see no reason why W&H wouldn't kill Eve after she signed away her benefits, or why they wouldn't kill Lindsay. It can't be that W&H still thinks Lindsay is still in suburbia hell, because they sent gons after the interlopers. W&H has to know that it's Gunn in (my own personal tract home) hell; why would they accept a trade. Gunn dind't betray them, Lindsay did, and he betrayed them openly and undermined Angel's work.

Then, at the end, Lindsay talks openly to Angel in the offices of W&H, where they know they're being watched by the Senior Partners. If Angel is so suspect of the partners, why have that conversation in the open? Why let them know he's on to them? If Lindsay hates the SPs so much, why be willing to share the "secret" of the The La Apocalypse where he knows they're listening?

It seems like a stupid plot hole designed to allow Gunn to atone without remembering every day, even though he seems to feel more guilty than he should.

I'll be rewatching/taping tonight, so we'll see if I change my mind. This? Is why I haven't read into an Angel episode in a loooong time- the inconsistencies.

Illiyria is still hot. Heh, a smurf.

Also, I wish they'd fucking cut Lindsay's hair. It's gross, it's split-endyand frizzy, and takes away all his hotness.

But it's so Lindsey. I also liked his post-coital manner in the last scene. It was comfortable, somehow, how they were all tired and worn down, like college students after an all-nighter only minimally fuelled by pizza.

Plus, having Lindsey around is really comforting, oddly. It makes it feel of a continuity piece with seasons past, the whole series, a real Angel. And he's very much real Lindsey now, whereas earlier in the season he didn't feel absolutely right to me. I still hope they'll explain away the apparent goof of Lindsey trying to kill Angel, because that's not the place he was in when he left.

Two soldiers down? Someone's math is off. I couldn't figure out if Fred and Cordelia were meant, since Gunn's not dead, or Fred and Gunn were meant. What about Doyle and Connor? There's a lot of people down now. It's no wonder Angel's alone at that stupid conference table.

I don't know this Adam Baldwin guy (missing Baldwin brother? like they need another), but I wasn't happy with the Agent Smith knockoff, seeing as I never liked Agent Smith. I suppose he's okay, but, really, why is he here? Now? Yes, that's exactly what we need now... to add new characters.



But wearing your lover's face is so in this season. Corpses are the new black.



It reminded me so much of The Sims. It was Sims Hell. I also think the other residents were prisoners, one to each house. But I do think that Lindsey's hell was specifically constructed for him and that they just plopped Gunn in as a last resort — witness his wife's resemblance to Darla and his kid's Lindsey-hair.

In my joy over Connor (which really has a lot to do with seeing in the preview that he remembers himself and his past, contrary to my terror that he'd spend the whole episode obliviously justifying what a fantabulous idea the mindwipe was... really, that means, to me, that he's alive again, even if it's just for an episode), I forgot to express excitement at the return of Darla and Dru, two characters who have always been very dear to me. I suspect they'll just be in flashbacks, which makes sense given how much else has to go on in so little time.

I pretty much figured Cordelia was the one left out of the "soldiers down" equation. Since, you know, she never actually existed.

Lindsey doesn't seem at all like real Lindsey to me. Real Lindsey wore suits and was amoral with occasional bursts of conscience, and was either totally cool and controlled, or a basket case. This guy is just "There's a new character but Christian Kane is playing him!" and I wish he'd go away and take his ugly hair with him so I could look back on him fondly instead of being annoyed with him being wasted. I hate that my three all-time favorite tertiary characters are either back or returning, and I'm just completely disinterested.

I actually muted some of the Wesley/Illyria scenes. Good lord, shut UP.

But Linsdey of yore wore the urban cowboy Okie look, too. And, lest we forget, this is his original hair. It wouldn't make sense for him to wear suits, since he's no longer at Wolfram & Hart; there's no intimation that he's even been practicing law since he left. And his personality seems eminently the same to me — smarmy, cool as a cucumber, bitter.



I'm inclined to think so, too... but the fact that Angel compared his loss of Fred to his loss of Cordelia in the previous episode or two makes me not entirely sure.

Okay, I'm unspoiled, but my assumption with Conner in the preview calling someone "Dad" was that his not-dad was there with him, and he was saying that to that guy. I don't think he'll remember anything about Angel. It seems like a typical teaser move.

This is *not* the hair Lindsey had in Season 1. He did have too long hair in early season two, but as I recall there was much singing and rejoicing when he finally cut it.

His Okie gear...see that to me was like "When Lindsey gets mad, he gets Southern!" but I still saw his overall look as very well-dressed and upper class. Outside of the boardroom and nice suits, he still used to dress pretty posh. I dunno, I'm just...not feeling the Lindsey love for this dude.

I also feel like, if I'm to believe that Lindsey is an *expert* on the Senior Partners, and that he still harbors an "I want to kill you" grudge for Angel, then I really need to know what the hell he's been doing for the past 3 years, because it really doesn't jibe with the Lindsey who left.

SImple soultion- Lindsey meant two soldiers down since they started working for Wolfram and Hart. Technically, they lost Cordy before then.

I thought of the Sims, too, eej.

Adam Baldwin (no relation to the Alec, Daniel, Billy or Stephen) played Jayne on "Firefly," where he won many hearts by being big, tough and stupid. He also played a character on "The X Files" that I loved, but whose name I have the hardest time saying: Knowle Rohrer. (I struggle with two r's close together. My favorite stuffed animal is Rory Lion and I want to be a librarian. Funny, huh?)

I have faith that that's not the case. There was one preview of Angel saying "Connor" and one of Connor saying "Dad," and both seemed to be in the offices. Plus Connor's manner when he said it seemed Angel-directed to me... about recognition. And an episode in which he never knows what's going on seems pointless and a non-starter to me. How do you make an episode out of nothing more than the scene we already had at the end of "Home" — Angel looking at his kid who doesn't know him?

Lindsey's hair looked long and messy to me in the pilot. And the suits were a costume of slickness he put on when at Wolfram & Hart, hiding his real self. When truly himself he reverted to the big belt buckles and cowboy boots. When he left Wolfram & Hart, he left that polished evil image/self forever, I think. This, to me, is the essential Lindsey (who very much happens to resemble my Lindsey Sim, I might add), the kernel of Lindsey.

SNeaker, I agree with you on the killing Angel motivation, which doesn't jibe. But I actually liked the mention that he knows all about the Senior Partners, because I can believe that he spent all those years sneaking through the files as he and Lilah used to, desperately trying to figure out everything he could that would keep him alive and ahead.

Lindsey in City of... Short and cute.

Lindsey at the end of Season 1 A little scraggly and overgrown, but not *too* bad.

As for his clothes- to me, Lindsey is the composite of the two- the Suit, and the Redneck. Without the cool lawyer half, I just don't find him as fun. May as well have stayed away and grown corn. And there were plenty of scenes of him, in his home, or in Dead End when he was investigating his hand, where he wore neither, but dressed very cleanly.

But Lindsey's not a lawyer anymore. At least not the kind we knew. I didn't expect him to ever go back to that, but I find his other self interesting... more interesting, actually. It was only what was underneath that made those early-season Wolfram & Hart characters even remotely interesting. Plus I never thought that the corporatewear did much for him... except make him look short.

Ok, well, imagine that the show wasn't cancelled. (Please, don't hurt yourself.) And imagine that at the end of this Season, Angel got the shanshu. And next season was all about Angel, who always wears bright sunny colors, standing in his backyard making barbecues. It would make sense for the character, yes? But I'd be bored to tears. At that point, his story is over. Bye bye now.

Lindsey without some semblance of Lawyerdom, or that detached confident whiz-kidness just doesn't appeal to me. I'm not compelled to keep watching him. I don't find him interesting- I don't even understand what the hell he wants, or what his motivations are, or what the heck he sees in Eve. He seems to be here simply for the fun factor of bringing back a popular character. I remember when he seemed smart, and adult. Now he just seems like a little kid having a rebellion against his senior partner parents "Nyah nyah, you can't make me cut my hair."

I don't at all think that Lindsey's story was or is over. Leaving a law firm and running away to the South isn't the same as becoming human and ceasing to be a superhero. Heck, to me, Lindsey and his story only really began to live that day in the boardroom when he gave his resignation speech.

I'd say he and his story are more interesting now, because Wolfram & Hart never was to me. He seems as confident and cocky as he ever was, and more himself.

And Lindsey was never smart. Dude, I remember his crazy "schemes." He and Lilah didn't have a decent plan to rub together. They were on a job share plan with the one brain cell.

It’s funny that Angel debated the question of whether it would have been better if he’d left Fred in Pylea, because I was wondering the same thing. Better for Wesley and Gunn’s deep friendship, for sure. Not so much better for Fred, though, I think, because she got to live again and then die (she shanshued! heh). And I suppose not better for Gunn and Fred, because that was real and meaningful.

I noticed an interesting word connection, one that makes me wonder if the writers are playing solvable puzzle with the dialogue the way they so often do. Eve says that there are layers upon layers at Wolfram & Hart, things that Angel cannot understand or see. And Fred in the nightmare tells Wesley that there are layers and layers to her… to Illyria, a hidden Fred that Angel and company cannot detect?

Heh… when Lindsey walks outside, it even plays Simsesque music. Although it sounds more like the Buy Mode music than the living mode. And you can’t tell me those even little white houses and suspiciously small neat plants aren’t Sims houses and Sims plants.

Oh. The wrath? I thought they said “the raft,” and it was a plenty humorous image that popped up, let me tell you. Involving one former street kid and two vampires trying to keep their leather coats out of the water.

Watching Wesley's isolation in Season Three has made me think about it now. Things have changed. So why the hell isn't someone — Lorne, or, no, Angel — going over to Fred's house and getting Wesley out of there? Stopping him from spending all his time with his girlfriend's animatronic corpse, getting him to put a beverage other than scotch into his stomach. Maybe a nice Jamba Juice? I can totally see Angel holding vigil with Wesley (I mean, if ever there was a friend who could sit in companionable silence while you brood, Angel is it), and don't understand why he's sitting around the office holding meetings with no one at them instead.

Wesley breaks my heart. Whatever happens in the last five episodes, Wesley isn't ever going to be put back together whole on the screen, and that makes me terribly sad.

You think? I hope you're wrong, as that would make me really sad too. Just watching Season Three, that shift, and seeing to what extent his life never got better after that, is bitter enough. And then there's this season, where I became removed from him and eventually started to dislike him and/or feel that this character wasn't really Wesley (hi, I'm shooting humans for no reason).

But if Fred reFredifies, presumably he'll be happy and wholly fulfilled again. Though that's a preferable alternative, I'd not be too keen on it either, since I don't think they're it.

It's eating away at me this week. Wesley needs helping. And no one is helping him. Even if they feel that Illyria needs to be babysat, and that Wesley needs to be with her to deal with things (emotionally and actually), Angel or someone ought to be around at the very least to make sure she doesn't kill him.

Five episodes isn't enough. Even when he's been happier, in spots earlier this season, it's felt to me like a veneer. He's not solid, he's not whole, and I think it would take him a very long time to be so again.

I suppose he could theoretically be smiling at the end, though, which might let me walk away thinking he will be whole in the future.

One thing I do feel is more certain is that he and Gunn will end the series in a not-friends and never-again-friends distance, which is horrible to contemplate. Stupid writers, throwing that away. At least maybe there's hope that the show will end with Angel and Wesley's bond being renewed, and Wesley finding some comfort and purpose in that. It's always been all about Angel.

I just remembered something that I thought was funny while I watched this. The tunnel that they drive through to retrieve Lindsey is strikingly similar to the one that Eddie, Roger and Benny the Cab drive through in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Is it possible that Lindsey's suburban hell is in Toontown?

Lindsey does often remind me of Yosemite Sam.

Oops.

I think you meant to be in the "Origin" topic. We skipped back a week in our ruminations.

Man, oh, man, even with annoying Eve and Lindseys fugly hair, this episode still rocked for me.

And the strange thing about it, I loved Spike in this episode. I've always run lukewarm on my like or dislike of Spike, but he cracked me up this time around. From the briefcase with beer in it, to the "we aren't called Scoobies", to the KITT love, to...



HAH!!

I'm also having much love for the silly things, like Spike and Angel reacting to the sunlight in "hell" and the group scream of Eve, Harmony and Lorne. I'm so easily entertained. Oh! And worlds with nothing but shrimp!



jenelope, the same thing was noted here, in their Hits and Misses part of their review of this ep.



Nice pick up!

Was the beer in the briefcase? I didn't catch that. I guess there's no other way he could have brought it in. Unless The Coat has beer-sized pockets.

That was exactly the reaction I just had. I yelped and then deflated when I realised it wasn't her

Oh LORD, this episode was so boring. I seriously looked at my watch about four times. I hated it.

I don't care about Eve. I never will. No one cares. Why have they kept hitting us over the head with this character all season?

Wow, I thought Agent Smith too! But anyway, while I would agree normally, I think we do need anything which will get rid of Eve finally. I don't see why there will be any need for her after this. And she can take Lindsey with her, because I don't care about him either anymore.

No, actually, they can take Lindsey back to suburbia now that his oh-so-important information is out (seriously, they needed someone to tell them that things haven't been right since they've been at Wolfram & Hart and the Senior Partners are using them? Are they thick?) and swap him for Gunn immediately. That was pretty disgusting, leaving him there.

Not even Denisof's pretty face could interest me in those ponderous, portentious scenes with Wes and Illyria. BO-ring.

The one part, the one part that I cared about in the whole episode was Lorne's speech in the bar. That was touching. I want to know more about him and less about all the other crap.

On the other hand, it sounds like you're saying Connor, Darla and Dru are in next week's ep, so surely that will be better.

Precious six? Ha. Maybe five.

IIRC, the "final six episodes" promo had Connor, Darla and Dru. The "next week" promo we saw with this episode, only had Connor.

Well, I'm going to have to channel SNeaker this week, because apart from:

1. world of shrimp
2. Illyria = smurf

there was absolutely nothing that I enjoyed about that episode. It hurts that Angel could be so blah. In fact I can hardly remember any of it even now, 20 minutes later. Five episodes to the end and all they can come up with is that suburbia is hell?

Too much exposition, too much tedious rhetoric, none of the characters making any sense. Don't care about Eve, don't care about Lindsey, I'm finding it quite hard to even care about Wesley at this point. And watching Illyria not blink is getting very distracting (which other Buffyverse character didn't blink? I'm sure there's someone, and it's really bugging me. Was it Buffy in "Primeval"?)

Plus, who keeps a stock of spare oven lights?

I don't notice the blinking because I browse through the paper when Illyria is on. But maybe it was the First Slayer?


Totally agree. It makes you think, okay, I see why they're cancelling it.

Well, Connor on his own should be enough.

It's sad to say, but tonight's the first time I've had that thought. It just seems to have run out of steam, of freshness.

The thing is, though, that even if you think the quality has declined, the quality has nothing to do with why they're canceling it.

Probably true. But it has to do with why I'm not more sad.

Yeah, this week's episode really made me mad.

Because it was bad.

Though things might look up if Connor finds his dad ...

And finds out that he's been had.

(Which would make ejg very glad)

You really have a gift for rhyme...

and makes stuffing with thyme

Why, how did you know?

That "Angel" would blow?

(Heatherbelle: Yes, yes, some of the time.)