First, a song:
TOUCHED by Vast
Touched, you say that I am too
So much of what you say is true
I'll never find someone quite like you again
I'll never find someone quite like you, like you
The razors and the dying roses
Plead I don't leave you alone
The demi-gods and hungry ghosts
Oh G-d, G-d knows I'm not at home
I'll never find someone quite like you again
I'll never find someone quite like you again
I, I looked into your eyes and saw
A world that does not exist
I looked into your eyes and saw
A world i wish i was in
I'll never find someone quite as touched as you
I'll never love someone quite the way
That I loved you
No one does music quite like Joss, and while the story montage
this song was woven through was a little clumsy and very disturbing,
this song was a shining and well-chosen expression of longing. It's almost like
a white flag from the writers, throwing up their hands and saying "Yknow
what? Ignore the further conquests of the Tamlar demon, ignore Angel's
haphazardly clueless wandering around and please ignore Kate's creepy
home invasion. This -- this song -- says everything we're trying
to get across here.
That and it so completely rocked
On to more important matters.
Like the visions. Again with the vague. And again with the ulterior motive.
Yes, the visions did lead them to a Tamlar demon, which allowed for a nice tidy
little sermon on the evils of casual sex (avoid it -- not because you could
contract an STD or an unwanted pregnancy or find yourself alone with a psycho,
but because you could become terminal host to a Tamlar demon and we've all been
there, am I right, people?)
Never mind this episode, this show has a broad basic theme about how
lonely everyone is and all about how no one should ever try to do anything
about it because true love and happiness is an illusion and having sex turns
you evil.
We do meet Kate. Hello, Kate. Kate vaguely legitimizes Angel's activities
(which is odd, given how terribly she's written as a police investigator), and
puts a public, acceptable face on the things that bump and grind in the night.
Kate gives Angel access to files and records Angel is going to need to have
access to in order for the writers to develop this charade of Angel the Private
Investigator (oo, arr, anyone got any privates need investigatin'?) when
he is no more nor less than a vampire with a soul. He's not especially equipped
to help the hopeless. He's not even especially good at it. Where did he
get books? He's got no books. No one in that group has books.
Where'd the books come from?
Also, the Tamlar demon's been operating since the dawn of time. The Powers That
Be finally got someone working on that (if that was indeed their
objective) and at least five bodies later, the police and Angel arrived at the
same conclusion.
That Angel did it.
WHAT? Wait, no. That wasn't it. Angel didn't do it. But even with Kate
as his best alibi -- he spent the entire night talking to her -- she's still
certain he's done it. Based on, perhaps, this compelling line of reasoning:
"Hey! You were a person in that bar! I'd better follow you!"
No wonder it's taken them so long to catch this thing.
And never mind the bartender going up in flames so no autopsy would show much
of anything (btw: so much fun to watch a zombie trying to get his smoove on),
what about all of the other victims, the condition they were in?
How on earth could they manage to explain that?
They needed to just leave the police out of it, leave out Doyle's
larger-than-life grandiose philosophies about what he thinks all of it
means, and especially leave out Cordy, who invented a job for herself,
plunked down and started in with the gimme gimme gimme. It leads to
wonderful stories down the road and yes, characters the series could not
survive without. But for right now, it seems artificial and forced and not
especially good.
While I'm here, Cordy does positive reinforcement yoga and meditation. How is
that even possible in that slovenly dump? You wanna keep the positive
energies of success and good fortune flowin', sweetheart, you've got to put the
dirty dishes in the sink -- better yet, do them once in awhile. It's not
in the "home -- hotel -- hotel -- married" strategy, but how's that
workin' out for you?
What I'm saying is, everyone in this outfit needs a day job, because their
night job is not gonna pay the rent.
Especially with the crappy missions they're given.
And I'm still looking for any evidence that The Powers That Be are especially good
or indeed, interested in saving anyone.
Now, on to some fun:
Cordy the whore and her pimp Doyle. To be fair, those cards were
somewhat unspecific about what needs they were there to service (although
"Angel Investigations" should've been a tipoff that it wasn't a
callgirl operation.
"You look troubled ... oh, that might just be your lazy eye." Very
fun line from Cordy.
Cordy's thumbnail analysis of everyone in the bar was fun, if entirely
unfollowed up.
And in the future, let's not hand a box of business cards to Angel's
intrepid sidekick Seizure Boy. "If that was my gift, I'd return
it." Damn straight.
Ultimately, this was a floppy, monster-of-the-week entry that gave us very
little insight into Angel as an investigator (please -- the phone book?),
Angel the storyline or Angel the series.
But it did feature one heck of a song.