The biggest
resonance I've ever caught between Angel and Nina is not their monsterishness,
but rather, in fact, their more mundane super powers.
Angel has always been an artist. He tracks Cordy in "Parting Gifts"
by recognizing a statue, he terrorized Buffy by drawing her sleep, he drew a
thousand pictures of Darla, he apparently has heightened powers of persuasive
visualization in "Supersymmetry" (which they very sensibly put back
in the closet after that episode, but hell, Dru could make Giles see things and
a lot of what Dracula did was a thrall so it's not beyond the pale) and his
drawing of the Axis of Pythia and of Cordy in "Ground State" put
Fred's drawing of the -- well, to my untrained eye that was some sort of not-a-stake
-- completely to shame.
What I'm saying is that Joss has not handed this ability out to absolutely
everyone, and in this episode, we are very subtly reminded about Angel's
artistic bent in his very capable drawing of Nina Ash.
Nina, for everything else she is, is an art student. The longing in her voice
when she's talking about the ceramics class she's missing, where she's supposed
to be learning about raku, is not the tone you heard when I was in
school about going to algebra class, for one example.
Artist, art student. Could it be love? Could it be romance?
Well, let's just get past the whole monster thing first (does Wes get to be the
mummy?)
And he did get a look.
This is another introduction to Angel's world -- not an especially explicit
introduction into his love life, but we establish through Fred that he did have
unresolved feelings for Cordy who continues to weigh on his mind although we
don't hear about her much. The introduction to Angel's heart was the third
layer of introduction in this show, "Conviction" covering his work
and "Just Rewards" covering his motivations.
We also learn about how the Senior Partners might be winning.
Team Angel can't deal with an apocalypse, silent or otherwise, with all of the
buzzers and whistles going off around them all the time. We hear at the
beginning of the episode that the team has been dealing with their own
departments, each managing their own set of boiling pots, and not working with
each other.
This is, of course, ridiculous. Department heads get to set their own
schedules. If they insist on carving out an hour -- or seven hours -- a
day to work with one another, they can do it. They've all got staves.
Lorne doesn't need to take every meeting. Fred doesn't need to sit
there and stare at every bubbling beaker. Wes does not need to sit there
watching Sirq all day and Gunn doesn't have to mope around being all defensive
about stuff he hasn't in any way opened up about to the rest of the team. I
mean it's a law firm fer Chrissakes! Gunn does not need to dot every
damn' "i" that’s out there.
As a strategy, the Senior Partners put themselves together a nice little recipe
for distrust and disaster, but these people are wildly engaged in
stirring the pot. And Angel's not helping. Instead of being a leader, and
making sure that the communication keeps flowing, he's all broody about how
special he's not because Spike is back (in some form) and he's irritating to
him. Well, Atlas, how about a shrug? Get over Spike, stop worrying about
whether you made the right decision ...
Oh, G-d, it doesn't happen often, but I wanted to slap Gunn across the head in
this episode.
GUNN WATCH: Not evil, not as yet, but very broody, and defensive. Hey, you're
right. All of you got something out of this. But pulling away from and lashing
out at your friends' perfectly legitimate concerns is hardly building the
trust, and -- given all the synapses they fired up about legal strategy and so
forth, it's incredible that you can be that dense about your own team.
Also, when absolutely everyone in the building was working on the Nina case,
and all of them were focusing on the same project, no one commented on how nice
it was all to be working together.
Mostly because it wasn't. Because Angel was driving them all too hard, and not
saying things like "Great suggestion Lorne," or "Excellent work,
Fred" or "Do you need any help with that at all, Gunn?"
Lorne's right. He's pulling into himself and closing himself off from everyone
else.
But everyone got to participate. Spike inadvertently saved the day by leading
Fred to Dr. Royce. Wes by having a Cross pen. Lorne with the brilliant
suggestion about the traffic light. The lead from Angel's drawing. Gunn knew
how to track traffic video. And Fred fought like a champion against the
paramilitary gourmands, and improv'd a nice cover story.
This was a good episode, all things considered, and developed a few storylines,
including Spike's terror, which we'll get to explore a little more next week.
But for now, one of the nicest things was the transition from a huddled,
fractious and snipish collective hiding out in a midnight picnic ground to a
warm, convivial team gathering for drinks and Chinese in Angel's lavish suite.
The image of being let into his world, and their letting him more into theirs.
Makes you almost unhappy about the stuff that's coming.