EPISODE 4.08

HABEAS CORPSES

Written by: Jeffrey Bell

Directed by: Skip Schoolnik

The Duality of Wesley's Nature

While Wesley is a decent, moral man, there has always been a dark side to him.   This was best illustrated by his kidnap of Connor.  He thought that such a move was necessary to save the child.  But he only came to that conclusion because he distrusted not only Angel but Gunn and Fred as well and because he could not see how wrong it was to take a child away from his father.   The kidnap was a defining moment for Wesley because it separated him from his friends and left him angry and bitter at them.  The question he faced as a result of this was whether his decency and morality would ultimately guide his path or would it be the darker side of his character?  This is where Lilah came into the picture.  Of course we know what she wanted.  She wanted him to allow his anger and bitterness to dictate the rest of his life and that way to tempt him into Wolfram and Hart’s clutches.  But Wesley overcame these darker impulses (at least to an extent). In “Deep Down” we saw that in spite of the feeling that Angel had betrayed and abandoned him, Wesley still worked hard to release him from his watery prison.  And, even though she was in his power, he forwent any revenge on Justine even though she had tried to kill him.  In fact he even gave her some good (if not especially friendly) advice. On the other hand Wesley never lost some of his darker characteristics. He was, for example, willing to use some pretty harsh methods to get the information he needed from Justine in the first place.  This is still recognizably the same man who has in the past been willing to embrace the idea that the end justifies the means, as in his kidnap of Connor. His intentions remain of the highest.  But at times those high motives are undermined by the insecurity, the inability to connect with others and the unwillingness to see things from a different perspective that has always been a part of Wesley.

This duality in Wesley between the man who wants to do good and the man who sometimes embraces evil in his anxiety to do so is symbolized by his attraction to two different women – Fred and Lilah.  The latter is a self-possessed and self-centered materialist who would do whatever she needed to achieve her goals.  But, in spite of this, Wesley does seem to have developed a genuine relationship with her.  This clash between his understanding of the evil she does and his attraction to her has made him positively schizophrenic towards her with feelings of trust and mistrust, attraction and repulsion  all mixed together.  He has, for example, never made any attempt to lay down certain ground rules, telling Lilah that if she wanted the relationship to survive she had to change.  But at the same time he appeared genuinely hurt by her use of him in “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.”  And these mixed up feelings are all too clearly evident by the mind games that they play with one another.  This was never going to be a stable state of affairs and in "Habeas Corpses" we see Wesley try to end it, saying to her:

“There is a line, Lilah. Black and white, good and evil.”

Lilah’s reply, however, underlines the complexity of the relationship that the two had enjoyed:

”Funny thing about black and white - you mix it together and you get gray. And it doesn't matter how much white you try and put back in, you're never gonna get anything but gray.”

Wesley’s wants to do the right thing.  But he continued his relationship with Lilah in spite of the risks he ran doing so.  She is trying to ensnare him in Wolfram and Hart’s trap.  She almost got him involved in Justine’s murder.  And she successfully used him in “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” to get at Lorne’s memories.  As he says himself, he has made mistakes.  That is why he understands intellectually that, if he is to chose the right side, he has to break things off with her or risk crossing the line that he referred to.  For Wesley, Fred did represent a degree of moral clarity that his relationship with Lilah did not.  And undoubtedly his decision to choose the side of good reflected his conviction that that was the same side that Fred was on. 

But, in keeping with the duality of his nature, it is hard to believe that Wesley is responding to the call of principle alone here.  Lilah herself has a shrewd understanding of the mixture of motives he is experiencing:

Wesley: “After what I saw last night, I believe a day of reckoning has arrived.”

Lilah: “And you just reckon you'll toss in with the good guys?”

Wesley: “I'm choosing a side.”

Lilah: “And the girl of your dreams just happens to be on it.  Hmm. What are the odds?”

It is simply not credible to suppose that Wesley’s decision to leave Lilah now was influenced exclusively by the fact that she was a servant of evil.  He has to long a history of ignoring such considerations.  The fact that Wesley can now see the prospect of Fred breaking up with Gunn must have something to do with his decision.  But Lilah also observes that Fred doesn’t wear the color gray.  Here she is effectively saying that Fred would reject Wesley because he was morally compromised, perhaps being unaware of how morally compromised Fred too now was. So, again we have an example of the different forces at work within Wesley and in his relationships.  He chose good over evil, not because it was the right thing to do and not because it was something he should have done a long time ago but rather because of the woman he was attracted to.  And the fact that this was a woman who had already rejected him for another doesn’t seem to deter him.  Nor does the fact that, in spite of the fact that he regards this same woman as being unambiguously on the side of good, the two of them have already conspired together to kill someone as an act of revenge.    Is it any wonder that we doubt this will end well.

The White Knight

But in spite of the choice that he made, Wesley still seems to care about Lilah.  That is why, when he hears about the attack on the Wolfram and Hart building, he instinctively goes there in spite of the manifest risks that the Beast would pose to his own life.  It wasn’t to fight evil at Fred’s side.  It was to rescue Lilah; in spite of the fact that he would agree intellectually that the world was very much better off without her.  Interestingly the writers take the opportunity in “Habeas Corpses” to remind us of what Lilah is capable of.  When Connor comes to her in a state of anxiety and confusion, her reaction is predictable:

Connor: “I want to know why I'm here, what I am.”

Lilah: “Timeless question, and one we're more than happy to help answer. We have an in-house lab. We'll do a few easy work-ups: psychological, physiological, neurological. And focus on exactly who or what you are. And we'll slice you open and start poking around.”

For Lilah, it really is all about what is best for her and an opportunity to score a major triumph by finding out how Connor can be the offspring of two vampires is too good an opportunity to pass up.  And certainly the fact that this means the brutal torture and murder of a teenager isn’t going to be a problem for her.  Now in the fate of the Wolfram and Hart staff in the aftermath of the Beast’s attack it seems to me to have a fairly clear piece of symbolism.  First of all, as Lilah tells Wesley:

“The building automatically shuts down under full scale attack.”

And by “shuts down” she means that heavy metal shutters close over the front of the building or as she also puts it:

 “Windows, doors, air vents. Nobody gets in or out.

Then, even after the Beast’s attack has killed everyone, the dead are reanimated and continue to defend the building as zombies.  It seems that under all circumstances, anyone who works for Wolfram and Hart continues to serve their purposes.  Not even death is an escape.  But in spite of this Wesley’s care for Lilah produces something approaching a change of heart in her, at least a temporary one.  When Wesley tells her:

“That thing won't quit 'til everyone at Wolfram and Hart is dead. Go underground, change your name. Don't make its job easy.”

she seems touched by his concern.  And in return, notwithstanding her cold blooded threats to Connor, she tells Wesley that he is still in the building. She is after all human.  She acts as she does out of selfishness; not because she is evil.  She too shares the same dual nature as Wesley.  And because of this she too is capable of being better than she is.  When the building shuts down, Wesley says to her:

“Come on, Lilah, there must be a way out for someone like you.”

Of course here he is referring primarily to an escape from the building.  But if we see the building shutting down as a metaphor for the hold that the Law Firm has on its employees, then Lilah has another means of escape as well – by cutting her ties with Wolfram and Hart and herself choosing the right side.  Her decision to tell Wesley about Connor proves that she is capable of making the right choice.  Whether she will or not is another matter.

Three Is A Crowd

So, here we see clearly laid out the theme for this episode – the duality of human nature: the mixture of good and bad, selfish and selfless, the cruel and the compassionate.  And this theme is sustained when we look at the two principal triangles that the storyline concerns itself with.  Perhaps we should begin with Wesley, Gunn and Fred since I have already discussed the first mentioned of these so extensively.  When Wesley, Fred and Gunn return to the Hyperion after their crushing defeat by the Beast, Fred gives Gunn a big hug while Lorne and Wesley walk past them. Wesley then watches her tell Gunn:

“Oh! I thought you were dead.”

It is only later that she acknowledges his presence when she says to Gunn

“You're safe now,”

and then adds, looking at Wesley:

“all of you.”

Gunn for his part is still acutely aware of the part that Wesley played in Fred’s decision to kill Professor Seidel.  Not only does he resent that, he also understands the fact that, in Wesley, he has a rival for Fred’s affections.  And between Fred and Gunn now the murder of Seidel has created a gulf.  That was why she had fled the hotel and Gunn before the arrival of the Beast; that was why she had returned late and found the others gone.  Lilah only spoke the truth when she warned Wesley that crossing the line between Black and White has repercussions that will not go away.  Fred and Gunn are finding that out too.  And it is this little tangle of resentments, anger and jealousy that drives the relations between Fred, Gunn and Wesley throughout “Habeas Corpses”:

Gunn: “Right now we need to regroup, think about getting back out there and mixing it up with that demony thing.”

Wesley: “That's not what Angel would do.”

Gunn: “Thanks for your opinion, and I don't remember asking.”

Again and again throughout this episode we have his pair at loggerheads.  When Wesley appears with news about Connor, Gunn and Fred snap at one another:

Gunn: “Oh, good. More bad news.”

Fred: “Can you just try to get along? He was your friend.”

Gunn: “Heavy on the "was."”

Fred is impressed by Wesley’s inside knowledge about Wolfram and Hart but when he tries to impart what he knows about the secret door into the building, Gunn’s reaction is far more hostile:

“You believe or you know? 'Cause every time you show up believing something seems somebody gets their head drilled or falls into a portal.”

And even when they are confronted by zombies the bickering continues as when Gunn expresses his willingness to kill Wesley if he becomes a zombie and when Wesley accepts with alacrity Gunn’s invitation to escape with Fred, leaving him behind.  At one level the former can be seen as an act of friendship and the latter reluctantly embracing a sorrowful necessity.  But the subtext makes it clear that, in both cases, jealousy and a desire to rid oneself of a troublesome rival are the real motivating forces.

For Everyone

Nor are Wesley, Gunn and Fred the only ones in whom personal rivalries bring out the worst.  The same thing happens with Angel, Cordelia and Connor.  Each member of this trio equally exhibits a mixture of motives and actions.  Let’s begin with Cordelia.  It was she who, in “Apocalypse Nowish”, initiated sexual relations with Connor as it rained fire.  She did so in spite of how young and emotionally vulnerable he was.  Indeed, it seems that she deliberately played upon this fact:

“You never had a childhood, or a family or friends or anything that's real, and if this is the end, I want you to have something that is.”

She knew he was attracted to her, knew how unstable he was and knew how he questioned his own role in the Apocalypse.  Indeed, as she was seducing him she specifically reminded him of the potential for a connection between himself and the Beast.  For Connor then, in the face of that frightening possibility,  the need for a human connection became all the more important.  And the fact that the most desirable woman in the world was offering that connection would have been overwhelming for him. Thus, Cordelia cemented the connection between the two of them. By having sex with him she made herself the most important person in the world for Connor.  And then, having created in him expectations that she had no intentions of fulfilling, she destroys his hopes:

“You're very special, Connor. Last night will always be special, and something we both needed, but it happened because of unusual circumstances. You understand what I'm saying?”

Of course he didn’t understand.  It would be unreasonable to expect someone like Connor to understand.  Not only that, but she used the very thing that made her so important to him (his doubts about his connection with the Beast) to push him away:

“You're Angel's son. It rained fire last night - never a good sign. And a giant demony beast crawled out from the earth where you were born.”

Her decision to end the relationship then and there was belated recognition that what she did with Connor the previous night was wrong.  She was, therefore, trying to do the right thing by him now.  And after Connor disappeared she certainly did the right thing by going to Angel to tell him about the teenager’s worries.  Both of these things seem to show a genuine concern for his welfare.  But by then of course she was too late.  In fact worse than that, her words to him actually drove him to Wolfram and Hart and put him in danger.  What was that Lilah said about the consequences of crossing a line?

Then there is Connor himself.  In the Teaser the Beast asks whether Angel is sure that Cordelia is safe with him.  And this reminds us what an ambiguous character Connor is.  He is human.  He has a soul.  He knows right from wrong and he wants to do the right thing.  But, he has trouble knowing what the right thing to do is – distinguishing between for example a just punishment and cold-blooded cruelty.  Is this linked perhaps to the fact that he is the offspring of two vampires – something that should not have been?  Is this linked to the fact that he is somehow connected to the Tro-Clon, a confluence of events leading to some sort of apocalypse; perhaps the very apocalypse we are now witnessing?  As we have seen, Cordelia is well aware of the ambiguity in his situation.  And Connor himself seems to agree with her concerns about him.  As he says to Lilah:

“That demon you're seeking, I think I'm connected to it. I wanna find out how.”

But while the Beast seems to be an engine of pure destructiveness, Connor isn’t.  He says what the Beast is doing is “his fault”, thus acknowledging the Beast’s wrongdoing and his own sense of right and wrong.   And because of this, the only thing he wants to do to the Beast is to kill it.

Equally, however, Connor is still a highly unstable teenager.  He put the worst possible interpretation on Cordelia’s words when she tried to break up with him gently.  He then stormed out on her without giving her a proper chance to talk to him and did the worst possible thing by going to talk to Lilah about his possible connection with the Beast.  Or perhaps that should be the second worst possible thing.  The worst possible thing would have been to confront the Beast.  And he did that too.  He is still a mass of resentments towards his father.  It doesn’t even seem to have occurred to him to talk to Angel about his possible connection with the Beast.  And when Angel risks his own life (and that of Fred, Gunn and Wesley) to save him, he gets a less than enthusiastic reception.  Connor’s reaction to his father, while played for the humor nevertheless conveys a serious point:

Connor: “What's a zombie?”

Angel: “It's an undead thing.”

Connor: “Like you?”

Angel: “No, zombies are slow-moving, dimwitted things that crave human flesh.”

Connor: “Like you.”

To Connor, Angel is himself a deeply ambiguous creature; someone who is a vampire and therefore evil but also someone who adopts a high moral ground and lectures him on his behavior.  But in this instance Angel is himself in no position to be self-righteous.  We could perhaps have guessed his reaction to the sight of Connor and Cordelia together without his little temper tantrum with the slamming door.  But if there was any room for doubt about his reaction it was removed when he retreated into his own sanctum to brood.  Others might assume it was the Beast which caused his mood:

Lorne: “The man looks like he was hit by a tank.”

Gunn: “I don't remember seeing him that down after a fight.”

Wesley: “Can't blame him. No one likes to lose, whatever the circumstance.”

But it wasn’t his loss to the Beast that Angel was concerned with, as demonstrated by his talk with Cordelia.  He construed everything she said through the prism of his own preoccupations.  He wasn’t even thinking about the Beast.  And when Cordelia tries to tell him that Connor thought he was connected to the Beast because he was born in the same place that the Beast surfaced, Angel initially doesn’t realize what she is telling him and even when he does understand refuses to engage properly with the information – despite its potential importance:

Cordelia: “Listen up, daddy dearest. The fact that this hell beast you're all looking for crawled up out of the ground in the exact spot where your son was born seems precisely what we should be talking about right now.”

Angel: “Same spot? Really?”

Cordelia: “You said you already knew.”

Angel: “Of course I knew. Doesn't mean anything. Could just be a, you know….”

Cordelia: “Coincidence?”

Of course when he hears that Connor is in danger, his son’s safety becomes the overriding consideration for him.  As he tells a bickering Wesley and Gunn:

“Will you guys shut up? I don't give a rat's ass about what's going on between you two. Put it away. We're here for Connor.”

But even in the face of that seemingly all important need, Angel cannot forget his resentment of Cordelia.  He prevents her from taking part in the rescue mission, saying:

“Cordelia, I don't want you there. It's too dangerous. Way too dangerous. I can't risk it.”

But concern for her safety isn’t really on his mind, as he demonstrates by his peremptory:

            “Fred, get a move on.”

No, his real feelings are made plain by his reaction to both her and his own son when he arrives back at the Hyperion with Connor.  He ignores the latter and to Cordelia says rather coldly:

“Now, take your new boyfriend, and get the hell out of here.”

Everyone therefore is trying to do the right thing.  But at the same time everyone has their own agenda.  And everyone’s agenda puts them in conflict with the very people they should be working with.  So, Cordelia trying to rectify one terrible mistake only makes things worse by driving Connor into the hands of his enemies.  And in Angel Investigations we have a team which at various times

There is a recognition of the importance of fighting the Beast.  And when Connor is in danger, not only Angel but everyone in the Team readily volunteers to save him.  This is in spite of the great risk to themselves and the fact that Connor has hardly endeared himself to any of them.  Indeed in Wesley’s case this is in spite of the fact that he has just barely got out of the Wolfram and Hart building alive and has seen first hand what happened to everyone in there.  But at times the battle against evil doesn't appear to be at the top of anyone's agenda.

The Unpredictability of Human Nature

What we see again and again in “Habeas Corpses” is the darker impulses of human nature thwarting good intentions.  In particular we see a team which cannot focus on the task at hand – be that fighting the Beast or rescuing Connor.  Instead its members seem to be worrying about their own injured feelings or intent on picking fights and settling scores with one another.  In other words we see the duality of human nature: the mixture of the good and the bad.  Just as Lilah said to Wesley, once you cross the line into selfishness, jealousy and hatred it had implications for you and for the way that you carry on your life.  And it is here that we see the central importance of this aspect of ANGEL, not only to the immediate problems that the members of Angel Investigations faced, not only to the progress of the present story arc but to the whole future of out titular vampire. 

It is the duality of the nature of our central characters, not least Angel, that means that we do not know how their stories will evolve.  It is this duality that makes them fundamentally unpredictable. As human beings we have the power of choice.  The choices we make, however, are driven by the competing forces within us: the ambiguities of our character.  Human beings are both individual and social, competitive and cooperative, hedonistic and hard-working, controlling and influenced by others.  It is the way that these conflicts are resolved that determines our choices and it is by these choices that we may be judged as black, white or gray.   And we see in “Habeas Corpses” how the conflicting currents within someone can affect their choices.  Angel knows that the Beast must be fought and defeated.  That is why he and the others faced him in spite of the dangers.  But there is a part of him that isn’t just concerned with helping those in danger from the Beast.  He is also concerned about his own disappointed hopes and his own injured pride.  That is why he was more concerned about brooding over what happened between Cordelia and Connor than planning his next move against the bringer of the Apocalypse.  He loves Cordelia and Connor; but that love has both a genuinely selfless and a selfish side to it.  The selflessness leads him to risk his life for his son.  The selfishness leads him to give into jealousy.

We see the same process at work in the conflicts between Wesley, Gunn and Fred.  We even see it in Lilah and the way that Wesley’s concern for her may have had a transforming effect on her.  And the strength of this is that it reminds us that there is sometimes a very thin line between good and evil; that it is very easy often unknowingly to step over that line.  And given the importance of Angel’s own quest for redemption in the series this is a very salutary warning.  But at the moment, more important are the implications of this warning for present purposes.  Just when Angel Investigations needs to be united and focused on the task of defeating the Beast they are divided and distracted.  The Conduit said to Angel, Wesley, Gunn, Fred and Connor:

            “The answer is among you”

Is this referring to an individual or to something that someone knows or is there another explanation entirely?  We cannot know at the moment.  Indeed there is so much about the present arc that we cannot know.  Why did the Beast attack Wolfram and Hart with such deadly ferocity?  Removing the competition doesn’t carry a ring of truth about it.  What does the Beast have to fear from competition it destroyed so easily and completely?  Then there is the fact that the Conduit itself saved Angel and the others from an attack by the Beast, presumably to prevent the Beast from destroying whatever constituted the answer.  It seems that it isn’t only Angel and his team that suffers from mixed motives.  In any event, it is clear that the uncertainly about the best way to deal with the Beast is less a result of its power and more a result of failings within Angel Investigations.   And so once again we see the leitmotiv running through ANGEL as a series: no matter how powerful the foe, the deadliest opponents our heroes face are their own flaws.  This is what makes the arc so unpredictable and what gives it its power and fascination.

And I didn’t mind that this was an issue explored largely through the medium of the rivalries and jealousies between the members of two romantic triangles.  I have criticized the way in which ANGEL has tended to drift recently into more overtly soap opera territory.  “Ground State” was a prime example of this. In a series which is, at its core, a journey in which the eponymous hero must seek redemption through helping others, his personal life and romantic relationships must always be placed very firmly in the background. They can only come to the fore when they had something to contribute to the larger issues being explored as, for instance, in "Couplet.”  At first sight this episode was also about two romantic triangles.  But this was simply a peg upon which to hang various other issues, including Angel’s feelings of insecurity about himself and Wesley’s developing distrust of Gunn and Fred.  In “Habeas Corpses” the point that the writers were making was that our heroes’ romantic feelings should not get in the way of the important issues but did. 

The Plot

There will of course be one feature about this episode that recommends itself to a large number of people – perhaps even most people.  And I can best illustrate this feature with the following question and answer:

Q:  What do you call a building full of horribly slaughtered lawyers?

A: A good start.

This is a variation on my own personal favorite lawyer joke:

Q. What is the difference between a dead skunk lying in the middle of the road and a dead lawyer lying in the middle of the road?

A. There are skid marks in front of the skunk.

But even if we leave this obvious merit aside, “Habeas Corpses” has considerable  strengths.  We start where “Apocalypse Nowish” left off, with our heroes defeated and Angel Investigations split up.  And it’s not only the fact that the Beast has won that is important; it’s the totality of the victory.  The fact that the aftermath of the battle found out heroes divided physically served as a symbol of the state of the team.  Even as Angel and the others struggle back to the hotel, there is no sense of them coming together to plan a fight back.  They remain divided and because of this they are also directionless.  They seem helpless in the face of the physical presence and power of the Beast, which is both enormous and very well symbolized by the rain of fire, the helpless bafflement of the radio newscast and the panicked reaction of the citizens of LA.  But even more problematic is the fact that no-one seems to know or understand the nature of what has just happened.  And in contrast to the hapless condition of Angel Investigations, these two elements – the power and the mystery of the Beast – are reinforced over the course of the episode

We have never doubted the enormous resources that Wolfram and Hart has at its command.  Indeed, Lilah makes a reference to this when she tells Wesley:

“Slept at Wolfram and Hart. FYI, safest place to be in case of an apocalypse.”

But suddenly and unexpectedly the Lawyers’ headquarters itself comes under attack from the Beast who sweeps aside all opposition from them as easily as he swept aside Angel and the others.   But it’s not only the sheer strength of the Beast.  It is the methodical, almost emotionless way that it goes through with its gruesome task.  It doesn’t hurry; it takes it time and it’s thorough.  Indeed the very deliberate way in which it goes about its task is in stark contrast to the panicked desperation of the lawyers, and even of the whole organization.   After all Wolfram and Hart put into effect measures that were obviously only intended for cases in extremis and the ineffectiveness of even these measures was obvious. Thus we are left in no doubt about just how powerful an enemy our heroes are up against, especially when it destroys the Conduit itself so easily.  But more than that, it is also brutal – unnecessarily so.  Those it slaughtered were defenseless and no matter what they had been involved in they were also human.  The attack on Wolfram and Hart itself may have had a good reason behind it.  But there could be no good reason for this.  This was mass slaughter for the sake of it.

Apart from showing the gratuitously violent nature of the Beast, the attack on Wolfram and Hart did something else.  It deepened the mystery about the nature of the Apocalypse.  What exactly does the Beast want?  And of course  once more the episode left us with hints that the Beast is somehow connected to Connor.  All and all I think this is a terrific set up to the arc.

But “Habeas Corpses” is more than just set up.  The Beast’s attack on Wolfram and Hart and Wesley’s rescue of Lilah combined a dark, claustrophobic atmosphere with considerable tension and excitement.  And Gavin’s death gave it a lot of impact.  The fact that a character we knew was murdered brought it home to us what was really happening here.   And as time went on we saw fewer and fewer people moving and more and more dead bodies.  This created a stillness in the building which was the perfect background  for a terrific chase sequence with the Beast pursuing an obviously injured Lilah.  Now, Lilah is never going to win a humanitarian of the year award.  But she is far from a two-dimensional villain.  Even in this episode we saw some emotional vulnerability from her when Wesley split up with her, her strength and determination when she took on the Beast herself as well as a perhaps not unexpected degree of insight into her own role and motivation in Wolfram and Hart in her “gray never goes away” speech to Wesley.  Not only that but her almost weary reaction to the end of her world indicates her ambivalence to Wolfram and Hart itself.  She is a rich and entertaining character and the danger to her created serious tension.

Sadly, I am afraid this high level of tension was not sustained into the rescue of Connor.  By then the Beast had effectively disappeared and the main danger to the team became the zombie lawyers (cue soulless flesh eating monster jokes about the lawyers).  There were some good things about this.  Their appearance was itself a surprise and especially in the darkened building they contributed a lot to the creepiness of the episode.  But ultimately they carried no sense of threat. Angel called them slow moving and dim-witted.  And so they proved.  True, there were a lot of them and they were difficult to disable.  But it was difficult to take them seriously, as witness by the fact that Gunn was trapped with them behind a locked door.  He not only escaped; I didn’t for a moment think he was in real danger.

On the other hand the escape of the team itself from the White Room was very well done.  There was a stark contrast between the dark and claustrophobic atmosphere in the rest of the building and the bright and open look of the White Room.  But the latter was no less creepy.  And just as disturbing was the little girl – an ancient evil in the body of an innocent child.  And finally we see the reappearance of the Beast, as menacing as ever.  The obvious question is how would our heroes escape.  There seemed no way out.  Yes, the actual escape happened a little suddenly.  And yes, there was a feel of a deus ex machina about it. It is hard to understand why the Conduit might want to save  Angel and the others.  But I think the resolution was all in keeping with the mystery that the season’s arc has become.  There is clearly something going on beneath the surface and I for one can’t wait to see what it is.

Overview (B+)

For once I have no quarrel to pick with the soap opera feel to proceedings.  The personal lives and romantic entanglements of our principal characters were center stage.  But the intention was not to emphasize romance at the expense of more important considerations.  Quite the opposite.  It was to show how wrong Angel and the others were to allow their personal feelings to get in the way of their mission.  And in this context the writers brought us right back to an idea that is not only fundamental to the series but also ranks a personal favorite of my own.  Our heroes are damaged people.  Their quest is to earn redemption by repairing that damage but the damage itself is the most serious obstacle to the successful completion on the quest.  Add to this interesting thematic development, some very strong set up, with a seemingly all-powerful opponent with a mysterious agenda, and a tense and atmospheric story about the rescue of Connor from this creature and you have  a solid and entertaining episode which leaves us a lot to look forward to.