Angel 4.2: Ground State

[thebratqueen]

Huh. Not bad. Not great but not bad. Much better than I was expecting given the fact that Mere penned the ep. Oh, sure some of her hallmarks were on it (the drop in IQ of the characters, Angel's speech at the end) but for the most part they weren't to be seen and hey - great!

Directing was a problem though. Who thought it was a good idea to put Dork!Angel into what should have been dark scenes? The Wes scene should have been more serious. Instead Angel came off like an AV geek trying to get the captain of the football team to notice him. Likewise him talking to Gwen about Cordy should have been more intense, and not goofy.

But, still - not a bad job! Gwen wasn't a blatant Mary Sue, which makes me happy. The kiss scene still made no sense, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and say that it wasn't supposed to, in much the same way that "Speaking about saliva, where's Cordelia?" was also supposed to be a non-sequitor. I'm going to read that as Angel himself also being surprised that that was his reaction, and then after the fact thinking "Well, the ta-tas are bodacious..."

Fred's actually growing on me. Only a few flat lines by Amy Acker. Could've done without her channelling Dawn from last season but still - they're finally fleshing out her character. Only took them a year but hey - gift horse? Mouth? Not looking.

Wes. Mmm... Wes. Hello slashy subtext. And here I will admit I am a total whore for anything which forces Angel to admit onscreen how much he needs Wes, and throws in scenes of him having to beg for Wes's attention on top of it. I'm not made of wood.

Love that my guess was right and Wes is holding his own, business wise. Loved the interplay between him and Angel. I found Wes's handing of the file to be interesting - not only did it show Wes being about ten steps ahead as always, but to me also implied a test on Wes's part. "Okay, I got you out. Now I gave you Cordy. If you actually need me, just let me know."

And Wes and Lilah - mmmm. As I said elsewhere, the fact that 100% of season 4 episodes so far has included Wes oral sex scenes is proof that the writers love me. Even Mere, apparently, which you wouldn't think after all the times I wished for her to quit and take up a career in the quickserve industry.

Again great lines with Wesley. Am I alone in thinking the boy's got something up his sleeve that he's not telling anyone? Can't wait to find out what. And god I hope my guess is wrong. Well - one of my guesses, anyway.

Gunn was himself again, which was nice. He and Amy still have no chemistry, but at least the banter between them was written much better and convinced me that Gunn likes something about Fred beyond the fact that she eats.

And loved loved LOVED that Angel knows about Wes and Lilah and is keeping that piece of information mostly to himself. Hee!

Finally, again - hi to the hide in plain sight spoilers! Wonder if those are going to be a theme for the season.

Edited to add: Alexis's accent was slipping - or, rather, his real accent was showing through. Plot point re: Wes going native or could AD just not keep the accent while trying to yell over the background noise of that abandoned flame factory?