EPISODE 3.14

COUPLET

Written by: Tim Minear and Jeffrey Bell

Directed by: Tim Minear

Couplets

A couplet is a pair of lines in a verse, usually a long poem.  Together they are self-contained in grammatical structure and in meaning.  Each line may be independent in the sense of having a meaning of its own but even then it will be closely linked to its partner in the couplet.  Frequently, however, the first line runs on into the second.  In other words each has its natural place with the other.  And it is in this idea that we find the meaning of “Couplet.”  This episode in effect presents us with two triangles:

In each case the question is not so much which is the couplet – which two of the three naturally belong together.  Rather more importantly, the writers are asking: where does that leave the third?  I say “more importantly” because from the very start of this episode there is little or no doubt as to where Cordelia’s and Fred’s affections truly lie - at least for the moment.  Angel and Wesley may want to find their place in a couplet with Cordelia and Fred respectively but from the beginning it is clear that they cannot.  The focus is therefore on how each of them reacts to this discovery.

Of the two relationships we see here, the one between Fred and Gunn is the stronger.  The scene in which they share breakfast is a little cloying for my taste but it does establish a number of things.  First of all that they have been seeing each other for weeks.  This implies that they got to know one another before they began to develop romantic feelings.  And this scene also shows that they are actually communicating – talking about their feelings for one another.  This is the basis of any serious relationship.  We, therefore, have it established right at the beginning that Fred and Gunn are a “couplet” and that Wesley is the outsider:

Gunn:  “Until  that kiss last night I would have thought that you and Wesley had a thing for each other.”

Fred: “Wesley?”

Gunn: “Yeah.”

“Fred: “No, we’re just good friends.”

There is a very interesting contrast between this couplet and Cordelia and Groo.  Certainly the former was excited to see Groo when he first arrived.  But throughout the episode her concentration is not on him as an individual, but on sex.  She has no trouble expressing her physical attraction to Groo but the desire for sex with him simply seems to be a function of that attraction and her own loneliness.  As she put it herself:

Cordelia: “I realized something today.  It’s not the threat of losing the visions that’s keeping me from being close.  It’s me.  The visions are just an excuse.  I mean there’s always some excuse. "

Angel: “Right.”

Cordelia: “I’m tired of being lonely.”

The contrast in the interaction between Fred and Gunn on the one hand and Cordelia and Groo on the other shows clearly that  Cordelia doesn’t really love Groo.  She just wants a human contact – or in this case a human looking contact.  This is why there was such a concentration on “com-shucking like bunnies.”  There is nothing else between the two of them. On the one occasion when Groo tried to make a deeper connection, Cordelia had to disappoint him.  When she tries to give him a makeover, he hopes that this can lead to a deepening of their feelings:

Groo “And will this new me be one that you can allow yourself to love?”

Cordelia: “What?”

Groo: “Will the new me please you in ways the old me could not?”

Cordelia: “Groo, it’s a hair cut.  It’s nor gonna make me like you any better.”

Groo: “Oh, I understand.”

Cordelia: “You didn’t give up your throne and come all this way for a makeover.  Did you?  You came for something I can’t give you – me.”

But even if the connection between them was shallow, it was for Cordelia the only game in town.  It was obvious throughout “Waiting in the Wings” that she was entirely unconscious of Angel’s feelings for her.  Every time he stumbled over trying to say how much she meant to him, she misconstrued his words.   Of course the fact that she tries to make Groo into an Angel clone may say something about her own subconscious but at no stage in this episode is she even aware of making a choice between two different suitors.  Indeed when both Angel and Groo arrived injured from battling the tree demon, it is the latter who occupies all her attention.  The only thing she says directly to Angel was:

“You were supposed to look after him.”

What we have therefore are two established couplets; there is no real doubt  about the ties that bind them together or about the fact that Wesley and Angel are excluded. That is why the real interest in this episode lies in the way that

(a)   on the one hand Angel’s attitude towards Groo and Cordelia as a couple changes and develops and why: and

(b)   on the other Wesley’s attitude towards Gunn and Fred doesn’t change and what implications that might have.

Two Angels for the Price of One

Let us start with Angel.  At the beginning he is in denial:

Angel: “There’s nothing between Cordelia and me.”

Lorne: “Sure there is, and it’s got arms like steel cables and a deeply ironic sense of timing.”

But the way he sniffs the perfume on his coat gives the lie to Angel's denial straight away – as does his jealousy.  He is visibly relieved to learn that Cordelia didn’t have sex with Groo and when she mentions alternatives he is keen to steer her in the “right” direction:

Cordelia: “But there’s got to be other things we could do to relieve the tension.”

Angel: “Jogging could be a thing.”

Wesley: “Perhaps there’s some form of paranormal prophylactic.”

Angel: “Because you know, jogging…”

Cordelia: “I guess we could probably “com” without actually “shuking”. “

Angel: “Well, I don’t know. That… that could be a slippery slope, that once you’re on, you could…slide.”

But his underlying feeling is a genuine concern for her, a desire to do what is best for her.  And in the end he puts his own feelings aside.  Because she asks him to do so, he accepts the humiliating job of accompanying Groo to a brothel to get the “paranormal prophylactic”.   And in the end he even provides her with the means of spending some quality time with his rival:

Angel: “Cordelia. “

Cordelia: “What? What is it? [Angel hands her some cash] What’s this?”

Angel: “Just some money I saved up.”

Cordelia: “Why? What for?”

Angel: “I did something for you tonight. Now I want you to do something for me. Don’t come in tomorrow. In fact, don’t come in for a couple of weeks. Take Groo someplace nice, someplace where there’s sun. He’d like that.”

Wesley’s reaction to his disappointment is, on the face of it, rather more controlled.  At no stage does he give in to the same rather juvenile bouts of overt jealousy Angel is prone to.  But the disappointment is just as real.  And whereas Angel is finally  able to find some peace with his disappointment, Wesley remains unreconciled.  His first reaction is to separate Gunn from Fred by sending the former off on what I am sure he considered a wild goose chase.  Angel’s view of Ms Frakes’ story was that it was certainly that.  After all when a “hot blonde” is involved, witchcraft isn’t the most likely reason for a man to stray.  It’s not clear how much Wesley knows about the case but he is clearly not very interested in establishing the truth:

“After all if witchcraft is involved we should probably look into it.”

This isn’t a very compelling reason for getting involved when there is no real evidence witchcraft was used in the first place.  But when this attempt backfires Wesley’s reaction is even more interesting.  He had every reason to discipline both Gunn and Fred for failing to do their job.  Objectively it was what he should have done.  But he didn’t.  His reaction was disturbingly mild.  That suggests to me that he was not really concerned about their dereliction of duty and far more concerned with the relationship between his co-workers.  And it was clearly this that lay behind the unmistakable threat he issued to Gunn over his dating Fred:

Gunn: “Well, I’m not so sure that’s any of your business. “

Wesley: “No, you’re probably right. Still, she could get hurt. I trust that won’t happen. “

Gunn: “What are you? Her brother? “

Wesley: “Apparently. “

Gunn:” Wesley, I…”

Wesley: “She chose. It’s just important to me she’s taken care of. “

Gunn: “She will be. “

Wesley: “Good.”

The relationship between Gunn and Fred is clearly therefore still preying on his mind.

Now, if the nature of the relationships between Cordelia and Groo and Fred and Gunn and of the disappointments faced by Angel and Wesley  were all that there was to “Couplet” it would hold very little interest for me.  But although I have regarded with some trepidation the drift in the series towards a greater emphasis on relationships I think that, for the time being at least,  the writers have kept firmly out of soap opera territory.  I do not think that the elements of this episode that I have just described have become ends in themselves.  Rather I think that they have been used very cleverly for thematic purposes and as a means of both character development and as set up for the coming arc.  And just as the nature of the relationship between Fred and Gunn and between Cordelia and Groo was revealed in the parallels between them, the nature of Angel and Wesley’s feelings and the potential significance of those feelings are revealed by the parallels between them.

Angel’s first reaction when he saw Groo back was to try to demean him by suggesting he was short.  And this was only the beginning:

Angel: “You think he’s evil?”

Wesley: “Evil?”

Angel: “Well maybe not evil but he’s definitely hiding something.  Does he seem shorter to you?”

This is a classic defense mechanism for someone who is unsure of his own strengths and acutely aware of his weaknesses.  When he perceives a rival he tries to convince others, and especially himself, of that rival’s own failings.  By taking this attitude Angel shows us that at the heart of his reaction to Groo lay insecurity, a fear of his own lack of worth.  This fear was articulated by Ms Frakes.  She was one side of another triangle in this episode – one which also comprised her fiancé and (although she didn’t know it at the time) a demon tree.  She summed up her reaction to the fact that her fiancé had become enamored of another in the following terms:

“You think you know someone. You think your place is secure and that there’s a future there. And then something happens. No, strike that. Someone happens. They insinuate themselves, pushing you out, taking your place.”

This speech is a voiceover to a scene in which Groo demonstrates before Cordelia, Gunn and Fred the way he killed the “disgusting spiny” demon of Cordelia’s vision.  Angel had been left a helpless spectator to this event because the demon had escaped into the sunlight where he could not follow.  And in this scene we were immediately made conscious that Angel wasn’t just afraid of Groo impressing Cordelia.  He was afraid of him taking over his whole role in Angel Investigations.  And he later confesses as much to Wesley when discussing the possible effected of Cordelia and Groo com-shuking:

Angel: “So the visions pass to Groo. He gets them instead of her. So what?”

Wesley: “Are you suggesting the Grooselugg could replace Cordelia?”

Angel: “Maybe not Cordelia.”

Wesley: “I see. You think he could replace you.”

Angel: “I don’t know. It seems to me, here’s a guy who can do everything I can and a few things I can’t.”

Wesley: “That’s not true.”

Angel: “You saw what happened this afternoon. If Groo hadn’t been there…”

Wesley: “Then the rest of us would have. Angel, you’re the reason we’ve all come together. It’s your mission which animates us. We each contribute, it’s true. But you, you’re unique. You’re like one of these rare volumes. One of a kind.”

Symbolically his fears appear to be coming true when Cordelia first turns Groo into an Angel clone, when she gives him his favorite broadsword and above all when Gunn, trapped by the demon tree, summons Groo rather than himself as he would always have done.  Truly Angel at this stage does look as though he is redundant.

But then Groo’s attack on the demon tree came to grief.  And the important point here is that it did not fail simply because he rushed recklessly into the attack.  It failed because the only thing he had to rely upon was his strength and against that demon mere strength was useless:

Fred: “I don’t think hacking it is going to do any good.  It doesn’t seem to have any vital organs.  It uses people as batteries.  It draws it’s power from its victims. 

Gunn: “It’s getting stronger since it tapped into Groo.”

Groo’s very strength therefore is something to turn against him.  But there was more to Angel than mere strength.  The first interesting thing here is that he managed to convince the tree demon that he was a better source of energy than Groo anyway. But when Angel persuaded it to try to hook up to him, it gets the wrong sort of shock:

Angel :”Oh ok, jeez, that’s ok.  No-one’s using my heart at the moment anyway.”

Tree Demon: “Kill you.”

Angel: “Sorry, already dead.”

Tree Demon: “Vampire!”

Angel: “Yeah, did I mention that.”

Tree Demon: “Cold.”

Angel: ”Oh yeah, it’s kinda cold in there but don’t let that stop you.”

As Wesley had understood, Angel was unique and it was this very uniqueness that allowed him to destroy the Tree Demon and rescue the others.  Because he was a vampire – a walking dead man – the tree far from drawing energy from him was mortally damaged.  But of course a normal vampire would have no interest whatsoever in helping humans.  The Tree was therefore only destroyed by the singularity of the combination of human soul and vampire body.

As we have seen, even before this Angel had shown that he was prepared to put his own feelings aside and accept a humiliating assignment to help Cordelia fulfill her dream.  Even as he was doing so his insecurities about Groo persisted.  But with the final defeat of the enemy (and no, I’m not talking about the Tree Demon) these lingering insecurities vanished.  He was now secure enough in himself to be able to come to terms with Cordelia’s choice.  Hence the rather generous gesture he made as she was leaving the hotel.  But it was not only the fact that he had now reaffirmation of a special  place in the scheme of things.  There was also his son.  After all no-one could replace a father.  When Cordelia does leave, Angel goes straight to see Connor and when they later meet Wesley he says:  “I thought I was alone.”  Angel replies: “Yeah, so did I.”  By this he doesn’t mean he was mistaken in thinking that Wesley was not in the hotel.  What he really means is that as long as he had his son he wasn’t alone.

The Developing Arc

And here we come to the sting in the tail.  As an episode that dealt with Angel’s uniqueness “Couplet” was interesting enough.  We again get to see what a paradox this individual is – a lifeless creature created for evil but now using the very qualities that made him an engine for destruction in the service of good.  But more than that we also get to see Angel as a layered individual.  The initial petulance and jealousy is irritating and amusing.  But when you strip these away you get to see what it means to him to be wanted and needed.  And there is undoubtedly pathos in that.  As there is in the fact that he takes solace from the fact that it is as a vampire with a soul that he is needed.  But there are implications behind that fact and behind the uniqueness: the "cold heart" being one of them.  “The father will kill the son.”  Surely a loving father would do no such thing.  And didn’t Angel reaffirm his own willingness to sacrifice his life for Connor in “Dad”?  And yet if we were asked was this a credible threat we would have to say “yes”.  Angel is certainly capable of killing Connor, not by accident but deliberately.  And he is so capable because of the very uniqueness that featured so heavily in this episode.  There is within him a coldness that is inhuman and his control of that coldness is at the best of times imperfect.

Prophecies in the Angelverse (as in the Buffyverse before it) should not be taken literally.  And unless my eyes deceived me Wesley’s notes on the prophecy contained a reference to “paternal relationship”.  This is not necessarily the same as being a father.  But the coming arc is clearly going to turn on Angel and his relationship with his son.  And the most important fact about that relationship will be the combination of genuine good and real evil that Angel represents.

And it is also here that the comparisons and contrasts between him and Wesley become important.   Angel may have found peace over Cordelia’s decision.  But Wesley certainly hasn’t found any over Fred’s.  And if anything he was already a greater mass of insecurities than Angel ever was.  It is, I think, a fair assumption that he began to “hit the books” over Connor as a reaction to his crushing disappointment over Fred.   If he was rejected by her as not being good enough there was at least one thing that he did have confidence he could do.  But what he found was the prophecy.  Wesley would naturally take any threat by a father to a child very seriously indeed.  He would see it as a special obligation on himself to protect that child.  But how?  We see clearly that, at least for the time being, he feels he cannot tell Angel.  Cordelia is now gone for two weeks and in present circumstances it is doubtful if he can confide in Fred or Gunn.  He is already under emotional pressure because of the "couplet" the latter have now become.  So, he must now feel in a pressure cooker over what to do about Connor while at the same time he is dangerously isolated.  At a time when a premium will be placed on his judgment, the promise that that judgment will be exercised well was never less certain.  So we are left with one final couplet in this episode - Wesley and Angel.  They too are locked together over the fate of the baby. How will this end?

Plot

As I have tried to explain, there was never really any doubt about Cordelia choosing Groo over Angel or about Fred choosing Gunn over Wesley.  The principal focus of this episode lay, therefore, in the wider battle of wills between Angel and Groo.  Who would prove himself the real champion?  The writers could of course have portrayed Groo as trying deliberately and maliciously to undermine Angel.  But this would have been completely out of character.  It seemed to me that his scenario, therefore, only worked as a one sided competition that was played, prima facie at least, for humor.  But it posed two fairly obvious and immediate difficulties.  The first lay in the title to the show  - ANGEL - and in the fact that Groo was a recurring (and not even a regular) character.  There was of course no way he would ever be allowed to supplant the hero.  Angel’s vindication was therefore inevitable.  The only question was how it would be achieved. The second problem was that, because this was a competition that Groo was entirely unconscious of, Angel had to create a battle where none existed.  In other words his insecurities had to be exaggerated.  The writers therefore left themselves a very fine line to tread by making Angel’s reaction humorous without toppling over into unreality or worse still dislikeability.  The writers therefore had to  be funny while still keeping Angel in character and without alienating the audience from the hero.   And while they were at it also had to leave room for some real doubt as to how Angel would turn the tables on Groo.  I think they succeeded pretty well on all scores.

At times it is true that the humor was a little forced.  I don’t think for example that Angel’s preoccupation with Groo’s height quite worked, especially since DB is (somewhat bizarrely) the shortest male member of the regular cast.  And the way that Angel misunderstood Wesley’s opening remarks about Connor as confirmation that he too thought there was something wrong with Groo was just too obvious to be funny.  Nevertheless it is a well established part of Angel’s persona that he is a little vain and touchy about himself and the way he looks.  And DB plays the comic side to Angel with such assuredness.  So while I didn’t find much here laugh out loud funny, there was a lot that was wryly amusing.  Groo’s sudden and completely unexpected transformation into an Angel clone and Angel’s sensitivity about not being “together” with Groo at the brothel were I thought highlights here.

Nor should we forget about Cordelia.  I must admit I have become a little bored with Cordelia, self-sacrificing heroine and friend to all mankind.  The was therefore a glorious incongruity about the tackiness of her being so shallow in a sort of throwback to her Sunnydale High days, not least because CC played it with such charming earnestness.  It was very easy to believe that this was a woman who knew what she was doing was shallow but who was desperate and didn’t really care.

I also think that the writers avoided the obvious pitfall of making Angel too jealous.  The point is that there was no real edge to the things he said or did.  He was always quite careful about Cordelia’s feelings.  He never directly confronted her about Groo.  He could have played the guilt card – suggesting she was being totally irresponsible in risking losing the visions.  Alternatively he could have tried to sabotage the relationship by making Groo feel guilty.  Instead he just acted like a petulant schoolboy confining himself to complaining to himself or others largely about peripheral matters.  In other words he was being immature but without showing any malice.  And it must not be forgotten that, even before he resolved his own insecurities over Groo, he was able to rise above his feelings when asked by Cordelia to do something for him.  To actually procure the means whereby she was able to have sex with Groo was bad enough but to see in the demon brothel a glimpse of what was being taken away from him must have been doubly hard.  The way he carried it off and the way he gave Cordelia and Groo his blessing later had more than a touch of nobility of character about it.  It was also I thought genuinely touching without becoming mawkish.

Finally the writers did manage to surprise me in the way that Angel finally turned the tables on Groo.   At first the story of the client and the faithless fiancé seemed a subplot that had more to do with Wesley’s reaction to Gunn and Fred than it had to do with Angel and Groo.  So the fact that the fiancé had been sucked underground when he stood beside that gnarled old tree came as a real surprise.  Of course the fact that Gunn and Fred got into trouble immediately afterwards and needed help was then only to be expected.  But even when Gunn called on Groo to help rather than Angel there seemed no obvious way in which Groo would prove useless and Angel would be left to save the day.  The solution devised took thought and imagination.  This is what you need to surprise an audience and if you are able to do it, it’s well worthwhile.

Overview (B)

At first sight this was an episode about romantic relationships.  But it seems to me that this element of the episode was simply the peg on which hung other, more interesting, issues.   This episode is part character study and part set up for the rest of the season and I think it works very well as both.  The tone is kept comparatively light throughout and the humor by and large works quite successfully.  But the episode still manages to delve into some very thought-provoking territory, for Angel especially.  We may laugh at the manifestation of his insecurities but when we are reminded of the reality of his unique nature, suddenly things seem that much more  serious.  And in reminding us of who he is, the writers seem to me to be pointing clearly to the fact that the grim scenario painted in the final shot may indeed be a real possibility.   Wesley's difficulties too were well signposted.  He is upset and isolated. The scene is set for what promises to be a difficult set of choices for him.  How will he react to them?  Can he bring himself to trust others or will his bitterness prevent him from doing so?  And if isolated how good will be his judgment of Angel and the threat he poses to his own son?  Interesting times ahead indeed.