“Friends” title: The One With All The
Subtext.
So, did Connor's high colonic manage to cleanse him of all the evil?
I'm thinking not. He's still this seething ball of hatred, and an anti-demon bigot
to boot. When he drew a knife on Cordy, that was a manifestation of a deeper
level of evil than we've seen in anyone in the 'verse, probably. And Cordy's
hugging him was a little more than maternal, and his hugging Cordy was more
than a little creepy. Something terrifically unwholesome brewing there.
The look on his face when he finds Justine holding Holtz in the alleyway
indicates he's still got at least a couple clicks left in him.
Heck, Fred's little Geiger counter should've been going uniformly nuts
throughout the hotel and for several blocks out.
But this episode is all about Holtz' evil plan, so let's start there.
Holtz telegraphs us a little information at the beginning -- that he's never
lied to Connor about his origins. That means he's never tried to pretend that
Connor is his son. The whole "G-d gave you to me" must've been hard
to get a context for in the darkest of the dark worlds, but we'll just let that
slide for now.
It's just hard to guess exactly when Holtz conceived of this revenge.
Was it when he read in the newspaper that all of those years that he'd spent in
the Qor'Toth -- including the couple few years after Connor managed to escape
-- were just a couple weeks in this reality? So Angel hadn't suffered enough in
his loss of Connor? Heck, measuring it by the theft of his childhood, that's a
hard one to judge. Angelus had stolen his childrens' lives, and Holtz got to
spend Connor's raising him. He seemed to genuinely love him -- in his own
twisted, psychotic way. Did he hatch his evil plan while playing 11-day
hide-and-seek with Connor? Did he hatch it when he saw Connor in the alleyway
and planned to kidnap him? It's hard to figure.
But hatch it did. And for the record, Connor seemed to be genuinely fond of
Holtz, and even to miss the Qor'Toth. Of course, there is such a thing as
Stockholm syndrome.
He was, for example, deeply resistant to Holtz pushing him away -- fortified
with the nutrition found in the big metal box outside the hotel room -- to
spend time with Angel.
I did love his asking Angel what he had to eat. "Well, I have an
insouciant 1998 vintage AB negative ..."
Hey, it's our old friends the Powers That Be! Where've you guys been?
The Powers That Be: * sip *
Yes, clearly drunk, because this wasn't a Mission for Angel. This mission was
clearly for Connor's benefit, watching Angel dust some vamps, indicating a sort
of nuance for Mr. IH8DMNS.
And it was a scenario set up part and parcel by Lilah to test Wesley. Who I
would argue did pass. As metaphysical as Lilah would like this to be, the fact
is that Wesley was asked to save the life of the woman who was largely
responsible for the worst of his mess to begin with. Anyone else, I'm sure he'd
have given a heads-up. Justine deserved death. Wish someone had been allowed to
serve it up.
I do need to expand my list of scenes in which I like Connor. I truly enjoyed
his fight scenes with Angel in the bar and their sparring out in the alley.
While I'm sure he'd have been happier to dust one vamp more, I'm thinking he
really enjoyed that.
But the Powers could've sent them out to any vamp attack to give Connor that
experience. They can't possibly have been interested in saving Justine.
Maybe they are evil.
Back to Holtz' evil plan.
If they hadn't gotten all drunk on margaritas, maybe they'd have allowed
Justine to die. And then she'd have been unavailable to help Holtz with his
suicide-by-psycho scheme. Except for maybe Judy Tenuta, Michelle Shocked or
Icelandic singing sensation Björk, no one else is twisted enough to have helped
him out with that -- letting Connor find Justine (who he contacted ... somehow
-- that's just unclear) holding his lifeless body in an alleyway behind the
hotel.
And how did he manage that, anyway? If Fred and Gunn hadn't had their
natterfest, all Connor would've had was a dubious note from Angel and sneaking
suspcions. As it was, Justine barely had enough time to clean the wounds before
Connor arrived on the scene and got sent like as unto a hate-missle back to the
Hyperion.
There seems to be a ghost in this machine. But it's a friendly ghost, in that
it set up one of the most dramatically satisfying scenes -- of the series.
So Cordy's glowy thing didn't seem to solve much of anything. Connor is still a
seething pot of anger and hatred. If anything, it did seem to infuse him with
acting abilities beyond those of mere mortals. For he managed to come back to
Angel after discovering Justine with Holtz and convince everyone that he wants
to be part of Team Angel, and make it through all of "Tomorrow" and
the next three months without anyone suspecting him of his evil plan.
.... so looking forward to "Tomorrow" ...
P.S. -- The addition of the Groosalaug was one of the most ham-handed plot
devices ever. I'm trying to picture Groo in a Pylean meadow chanting the portal
opening spell. The man can't pronounce "purple." I did enjoy the
scene between Groo and Lorne. And Cordy did at least finally get over her
schoolgirl crush on him.
Nine episodes late is better than
never, I suppose.