Further proof, were it needed, that
there is nothing so coincidental that Mutant Enemy won't build a script around
it.
First and foremost, when is Tom Irwin going to catch a break?
Supporting dad character on single-season wonder "My So-Called Life,"
he skates around in shadows and obscuria before making an appearance here in
David Greenwalt's production of "Angel," and then in Tim Minear's
production of "Miracles" -- which you don't even necessarily know
about because the episode he was in -- "Ghost" -- was meant to air
right after the pilot episode but was pushed back and pushed back and
ultimately ended up as No. 11 -- back among the "never aired"
episodes.
As an actor, his arc reminds me of a line in Julius Caesar:
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of his life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
The boy is due for high tide.
And what can be said of Gwen Raiden that hasn't already been mumbled
incoherently in a million darkened bedrooms? In one of her first lines, she
talks about what she's doing to the lasers, and her line would have been as
accurate if she was cut off two words in -- to wit: "I'm exciting."
You certainly are.
She gets a great introduction -- sort of a Batman without the social conscience
and with an actual superpower. Can't say I didn't have a lot of
immediate affection for "Nick," who showed up for four frames to hand
her some lipstick -- but who had a lot of warmth and an excellent Q rating that
reminded me of a young Nana Visitor or Mia Sara.
Tracing around to the main course I'm going to pause for a "JASMINE
WATCH!" There's no way Cordy has been possessed as yet. That's so
completely her up there and, while Jasmine does speak in her idiom once she's
in possession, I think she's still hiding among the nebulous clouds surrounding
Cordy up there in cloud-land.
And off we go to the story.
There's discussion of loss -- who Team Angel has lost, those who have slipped
off into the shadows and into the distant limelight, and left them short a few
heroes – Subcommittee Angel, if you will.
With the return of Angel and his rightful supplanting of Connor in the
subcommittee, Angel wants to get the rest of his team back -- largely, one
assumes, for the sake of doing it.
But then again ...
Connor's in town (tho hardly a functioning part of Team Angel). Angel could get
to Lorne. He actually meets with Wesley (although Wes has got his own
team now and his own issues to work out). But he instead focuses like a laser
on Cordy.
This speaks to questions he wants answered, longing he has felt in his heart
probably since she was infused with demon essence, perhaps before. Cordy and he
were, on some level, forming a couple before Groo showed up, and then looked
all but foregone before Connor and Skip stepped in at the end of
"Tomorrow."
He is focused on getting Cordy back. Not Fred, the demonstrated brains of the
group (though not the artist – loved the ghost and its "BOO!" up
against Angel's vastly more accomplished draughtsmanship), not Gunn, the
acknowledged heart of the group (if you don't believe me now, wait 'til it's on
his sleeve in "The House Always Wins.") No dark mystics, no lighter
-- well, greener mystics – no redundantly broody superstrong patricidal
nutjobs. He wants Cordy, the soul of the group.
The Subcommittee’s run-in with Gwen was just wild, and here's the coincidence I
was talking about. Wes guides Angel to Dinza, and Dinza points him in the
direction of the Axis of Pythia.
And at exactly the same time – while it just happens to be in town – Tom Irwin
gets it in his head that he ever-so-wants this very same Axis of Pythia (at one
heck of a discount) and for at least the second and possibly the third time,
Team Angel finds itself at an auction house (Gunn choking on coffee was
hysterical).
Again, like the crazy-making death shroud, there's no street value for
Axes of Pythia and Tom could probably just bid on it and get it cheaper than
hiring Gwen. Or, for that matter, Angel could steal it from the buyer, who may
or may not have better security but would certainly have less traffic.
But because this is how the show is written, both forces converge on the
unsuspecting Axis of Pythia (rendered by Fred as a sybaritic dildo) and get in
each others' way. Gwen for no reason whatsoever kills Gunn (and Fred reacts
outside all proportion, but then she needed a breakdown to make
"Supersymmetry" make a little more sense) and, in some whipsaw
editing indicating an internal motive for redemption, she starts up the Chevy
that is Gunn (and what a wasted opportunity -- Gunn could've seen something
while he was out and about), forging a nice little tie for them to revisit
later in the season.
Gwen gets away, and Angel tracks her to Tom, learning something interesting on
the way about Lilah and Wesley, and using a lovely bit of leverage -- which he
couldn't, ultimately use -- about Lilah's tracking his son. If he does anything
about it, her corpse isn't likely to be especially informative.
However, without this confrontation, we wouldn't have had the delicious Lilism:
"I know you've been out of the loop for awhile, but I'm evil. I
don't run errands unless they're evil errands."
It's reminiscent of Spike in "This Year's Girl": "When are you
bloody Scoobies going to get it through your thick skulls that I don't like
you!"
Angel gets more value out of Lilah's information and there's a renewed
confrontation in Tom's office. But the elevator trap is so lame. Both of them
are fit and trim individuals and would've had no trouble wriggling through
those horizontal bars. But add the fact that a taser knocked Angel on
his bum, one wonders why Gwen was having so much trouble.
Tom wouldn't have been able to recover the Axis anyway because along with
Gwennie, there was a vampire in there with it and everyone knows you can't
poison a vampire (unless the script calls for it like in "Graduation
Day" and "I Fall To Pieces"). But Tom was going down anyway --
just a matter of how.
And now ...
Now ...
Now we come to the Very Important Last Minute And A Half.
When Buffy was quite dead -- mystically dead, but dead all the same -- and her
soul was at peace and floating about in a heaven dimension, she was pleased to
be there. This information would've been available to Willow if she'd been
interested in tracking it down, and instead, her friends, determining that she
has died, decide to bring her back to life.
If they'd had an Axis of Pythia, they could've found out that she was at peace,
happy, surrounded by light made out of pure joy. They may or they may not have
marshalled the magicks to drag her out.
Angel does find out where Cordy is, determines that she's happier where she is,
figures that she's earned that and decides he's going to let her stay.
Within an episode, the "heaven dimension" has spit her out, clueless,
into the lobby of the Hyperion.
This is never explained. But more importantly, the one person he's been
chomping at the bit since he returned to reincorporate into Team Angel -- the
one who's been screaming at him in her extradimensional-type way to get her
out, by the way -- is no longer an objective.
It's not explained. But maybe it is hinted at.
Cordy's reappearance in the next episode happens once all efforts to get her
back cease. This seems to indicate that if any effort at all had been made, it
would've succeeded, and perhaps too effortlessly.
What could this mean ... ?
* considers revisiting the Jasmine Watch! portion of this discussion, but
decides, this bit of explication laid down, to leave it tantalizingly at that *
We, folks, are indeed being toyed with.
Masterfully.
What an extraordinarily cool eppy.