Introduction

One of the earliest indications of what ANGEL as a series would be about came from Joss Whedon when he said that it would be the second half of BTVS. It would extend the "High School" as Hell metaphor into the adult world. In "Lonely Hearts" we have a very early example of the supernatural as a metaphor for the problems of the adult world. And one of the reasons why this episode works so well is that it points up the fact that there are certain fundamental differences between life at school and life in the adult world. There is, therefore, a clear sense that this is not the same world that BTVS is set in; that we are moving from that world to another very different one. Cordelia puts it very well when she says of High School

"It was easy to date there. We all had so much in common. Being monster food every other week for instance."

To this Doyle responds:

"Well, you’re in the big, bad city now, huh? Where everyone’s a stranger - hiding behind walls, keeping secrets."

High School is an enclosed almost claustrophobic environment where there is a clearly defined and settled community with fixed relationships. The big city has a vastly larger and more mobile community where relationships are in a state of continual flux. There are problems of alienation and loneliness in both but they are different problems. "Invisible Girl" was a High School Story. It was about being an outsider in an enclosed world dominated by cliques and where status was all-important. It could never really have made as much sense in the adult world. On the other hand "Lonely Hearts" was about the loneliness of being surrounded by people you don't know. It could never have been set in Buffy's world. So, in this episode we get a clear sense both of place and of the society that inhabits it. This really sets the scene for the real centerpiece of the episode - its treatment of loneliness. The striking thing here is that everyone has this problem. It’s not only the people on the singles scene and the demon preying on them but, in different ways, Angel, Kate and Doyle.

The Theme of Loneliness

Let us begin with the victims of the week. As Kate later observes, outside work there are few options for meeting people. Singles bars are the only option. And the writers make a considerable effort to show how unattractive they are. Sharon, when we first see her, is alone and looks unhappy. Kate is just as uncomfortable and refers to D’Oblique as "the international house of poseurs". Nevertheless, people still come here. The grimness of the experience is intended to show just how desperate they are in their loneliness. Kevin and Sharon are the first couple we meet on the singles scene. Because of this and because the real story is only just starting to develop the writers use them to establish the basic premise in the following conversation:

Kevin: "When I was a kid I thought: you grow up, you meet her, and everything sort of falls into place."

Sharon: "Yeah, I had that. - Only I had a him, where you had a her. Actually I just had a Ken and Barbie."

Kevin: "Ken and Barbie had it easy. They never had to come to places like this. But you’ve got to try. I mean, what if she was here and you missed her because you were – I don’t know – too burned out to still believe? - You know what I mean?"

These aren’t people out just looking for a good time, an evening’s fun. These are people looking to meet someone with whom they can have a meaningful relationship. They want to make a connection. This is a term used so often in the episode that it practically constitutes hitting us over the head with the idea so that we don’t miss it. And here we come to what may be the sub-theme for the night – trust. Early on in the pieces there are three rather forced and awkward conversations. The first is that between Kevin and Sharon; then we have Angel talking to Kate and finally Sharon talking with the "Screech". All have one thing in common apart from the obvious discomfort of the participants. In each of them there is a slight but deliberate opening up – a confession of need and of inadequacy. Its as if by revealing a vulnerability they are watching how the other person reacts to it and using that reaction as a gauge to see if they can be trusted. The Screech puts it very clearly when he says:

"It’s difficult to know who you can trust."

And this is the irony of the situation. Sharon and the Screech both do trust and not only to the extent of going home with a stranger. They allow themselves to be held by that stranger while they were at their most vulnerable, naked in bed, only to have their trust betrayed. The message here seems to be clear, and it is a bleak one. The foundation of any meaningful connection must be trust – but don’t expect to find it on the singles’ scene. In other words no matter how hard you look you are not going to find what you are looking for.

The parallels with the burrower are obvious. It makes its own motivations clear in the following exchange:

Angel: "This has to stop. You have to stop."

Screech: "I will, when I find the right one. The one I can stay with."

Angel: "The right body? What’s wrong with this one?"

Screech: "Nothing, - yet. It’s new and different. It's great… But it won’t last. I already know it’s not the I can live in."

The need for the demon to find a body that it can stay with is a very good parallel to the need of the human to make a genuine connection with someone that he or she can stay with. This parallel is reinforced by the obvious fact that it is never going to find what it is looking for. The demons betrays everyone whom it can convince to trust it. And at the same time it can never find someone with whom to make a permanent connection. It is doomed to move from body to body, never finding the right one.

For me the parallels between the demon moving from body to body, never finding what it wants and humans in a desperate and equally fruitless search all work flawlessly. Moreover the scenario has just the right "feel" to it for ANGEL as a series. It is certainly a sophisticated and dark, if not downright bleak, idea. It taps a well of pain and misery that lies beneath the surface glitz of the big city. Moreover I am very intrigued by the idea of a demon that acts out of inadequacy or simple need. We have been used to the idea of demons as agents of pure evil. This in general restricts the impact that they have. Here of course you cannot have sympathy with the "donkey demon" but you can understand the motivation, indeed the desperation. This adds dimensions to it.

The Principal Characters

To an extent the attempts to find a connection on the singles scene are also paralleled by Doyle’s doomed pursuit of Cordelia. From the start of the episode his interest in her is made plain but he will not do anything about it. And there is one major issue between them – the fact that he is a half demon. He cannot open up on this point because he doesn’t trust Cordelia’s reaction to the news. While he continues to hide that he cannot form a connection with her. So here again we see the correlation between being able to trust on the one hand and the ability to make a connection on the other. But the inter-reaction between the Doyle and Cordelia was, however, little more than a pleasant interlude in the episode. Thematically it was consistent with the rest of the piece but the scenes between the two of them served no real purpose in either advancing the plot or casting any real light on the basic metaphor. Probably the writer couldn’t think of anything significant he could do with them and that is something of a pity.

The central figure in "Lonely Hearts" is, therefore, Angel. He is the one who has to stop the demon and it is in this context that we see the strength of the chosen metaphor. In what is basically an old fashioned detective story Angel’s own feelings of loneliness are the ideal way in which to connect him to the case. Moreover it is a useful vehicle in which to further explore his character and how it must change to meet the demands of his mission. In this episode we first meet Angel in his office, in the dark and alone. In distinction from Sharon, Kate and the other clients of D’Oblique he seems quite content to remain that way. This is nowhere made plainer than in the final scene, which is a very nice mirror image of the first one. On being left alone he mutters "God, yes! Thank you." And returns to his dark solitude.

It is Doyle who points out the problem with that attitude:

"Hey, you know, maybe we should go over this thing again of you getting out in the world and involving yourself with people."

His words are prophetic because when warned about the unidentified danger in D’Oblique Angel has to mingle with the crowd. This shows just how ill-equipped for human society he is. He can’t even strike up a conversation with the bartender without it sounding lame and his attempts to talk to another man are misconstrued as an attempt to hit on him. But the best example of his social ineptness is his excruciating conversation with Kate. I think that it is fairly clear that she is not just on a stake out. First of all the bartender knows her (he later gets her "the usual") and the very awkwardness of the conversation with Angel suggests that was the real Kate and not someone who was there professionally. Anyway, neither she nor Angel has any "small talk" and both flounder. Interestingly, however, they do make a connection of sorts. Kate in particular seems attracted to Angel. This potential rapport is, however, ruined by three events – the way Angel seems to spurn her interest, then his attempts to keep her out of D’Oblique’s the following night and finally by her discovery of him in the same room as the body of a victim.

These scenes serve a number of purposes. First of all they continue the humanization of Angel. There is nothing quite so effective in this regard as making us feel sorry for someone who is doing something he is ill-equipped to do and failing miserably at it. At the same time they illustrate his weakness in dealing with cases that do require him to involve himself with people. Secondly, and more importantly, they establish, or re-establish, the fact that Angel is cut off from human society. He is as alone as anyone on the single’s scene and this is what allows him to understand the motivations and ultimately the actions of the demon. But thirdly and most importantly, they set up the basic dynamic between Angel and Kate for this episode. And it is in this dynamic that we see resolved the issues posed by the way the burrower exploits its victims. When they first meet, the awkwardness between Angel and Kate is palpable:

Angel: "I'm just looking for someone to...rescue? Are you maybe in need of some - rescuing?"

Kate: "Well that's the strangest line I'm going to hear tonight."

Angel: "No, it's not a line. I'm..."

Kate: "Oh, I didn't mean... That was harsh."

Angel: "No, hey, you know...I'm not very good at this - talking."

Kate: "Well, I'm the expert. I'm sure you can see. Well, the answer is no, I don't need rescuing. I gave up on the knight in shining armor concept a while ago. Anyway I don't expect to find him here at the international house of posers."

In the cynicism and defensiveness, she exhibits here we can see the truth in Kate's later confession that she has trouble trusting people. And this is a truth that is later confirmed when she confronts Angel over the body of a girl:

Angel: "How did you find me?"

Kate: "I've been tracking you since last night."

So, even though she pretended to like him and to want to establish a connection between them, Kate was already harboring suspicions about him. In fact when she says:

"I mean, how do you get them to trust you, Angel? Give them the big dark eyes, the 'I'm not good with talk' speech?"

she forces us to conclude that it was Angel's lack of social skills that made her suspicious in the first place. She clearly thought that someone of these characteristics may well have a sick mind and was someone therefore clearly worth taking a professional interest in. The contrast with the Sharon and the Screech is both striking and important. They saw in others who had the same vulnerability the chance of making a connection. They believed that they had met someone who was looking for the same thing as they themselves were. That is why they felt able to trust them. But a contrast between innocents who do trust and are betrayed and Kate, who refuses to trust and so cannot be, sends too bleak a message.

Notwithstanding her distrustful nature and the grounds she is subsequently given to seemingly justify her suspicions of Angel, I think that the writers want us to accept that Kate and Angel have indeed made a connection. He makes the first move by making himself vulnerable to her:

Angel: "It's me. I need you to help me find the killer."

Kate: "That's easy. I'm talking to him."

Angel: "That would make things nice and clean now, wouldn't it? But it's not true and I think some pat of you knows that. Look he's still out there. We should be sharing information."

Kate: "That's not possible."

Angel: "All I need is 5 minutes. You think I'm your man after that, arrest me. Meet me at the bar at 7:00."

And perhaps because he was willing to do so that Kate responded. It was this decision that led to her discovery that Angel was not indeed the murderer and from that point onwards the two of them work flawlessly together to catch the demon. And here we see the crucial counterpoint: just as trusting the demon was a fatal mistake for Sharon, the Screech and others so was Angel and Kate’s willingness to trust one another the key to its downfall. In life there are no guarantees and to trust is to risk betrayal. But equally unless you do trust then you will never get anywhere.

The Plot

As I have already said, basically "Lonely Hearts" is a detective story. Angel’s task is to identify and find a killer. Classically such stories rely heavily on the discovery of small clues and using forensic resources or ingenious deductions to develop leads from them. That is not the approach here. Essentially once the connection of the killer to D’Oblique is made we are directed by Angel’s instinctive feel for it and its motivations. That is what allows him to track it to Sharon’s apartment and, after its escape, to guess its further actions. And this aspect of the story does seem to me to be very successful. The other important part of the plot was his decision to further involve Kate. This was, in itself, a logical decision but it depended upon the trust that I have just mentioned, the one that Kate was supposed to have instinctively developed for Angel. This is something I remain in two minds about. Part of me thinks that there is no way Kate would trust someone she had every reason to believe was a killer based on a five minute conversation, at least not to the extent of meeting him without any back up. On the other hand she was armed and intended to meet him in a crowded bar. When she thought he was lurking in the alley she did send for back up. It’s a fine judgment call whether this works or not.

The thing that I like most about the story, however, is that while there is a comparatively straightforward basic plot, the dynamic changes and develops in several very interesting ways. The "big surprise" was that that Kate was a policewoman. I am bound to say that I think this was a wasted effort on the part of the writers. We had known for some time that Elizabeth Rohm would be a recurring character and that she would be a police detective so there was not much there by way of a surprise. Still, the actual revelation itself was handled well enough and I could at least believe in Angel’s surprise.

More intriguing was the way that the killings themselves were handled. First of all we, the viewers, were at first given no privileged information denied to Angel and the others. We had no better idea than they what the nature of the danger was. We could guess it involved Kevin and Sharon with suspicion conventionally falling on the former. But we were none the wiser about precisely how either or both were involved. This state of uncertainty was maintained until the end of Act 2 and I thought that worked very well. When Sharon was the person who got up and left Kevin’s body behind our conventional expectation seemed to be confounded. We had to look back at the earlier scenes with fresh eyes in the light of this development to see if they gave a clue to Sharon being the killer. But it was only after what happened between Sharon and the Screech that we were able to understand ex post facto what had actually happened. The demon was in Kevin after all and we had to mentally review the same scenes again. I thought that this sort of double bluff was very clever. Unfortunately, in an effort to disguise the host for the final scenes, things got a little ragged after that. Not one but two killings must have taken place off camera and, unless I am very much mistaken, there seems to have been at least one occasion on which the demon killed twice or planned to kill twice on the same night. This doesn’t make very much sense. The payoff was, however, very good. I certainly didn’t expect the bartender of all people to attack Kate.

This set up an exciting final confrontation between Angel and the burrower. And here we see the strength of another surprise we were given earlier. When Angel confronted the demon in the body of the Screech, it was obvious that the two of them would fight. Conventional expectations would lead us to believe that Angel would be the more powerful and that the burrower would either be killed or more likely use some fortuitous chance to escape. In fact Angel clearly got the worst of the encounter. So, when the fortuitous chance arrived it saved him and not the demon. This immediately created a problem to which there was no obvious solution. How does Angel fight something stronger than he is? As he put it to Doyle:

“Look I want you to find out anything you can about this thing. Weaknesses especially. It was amazingly strong while we were fighting. It may be hard to kill.”

Creating a scenario where the good guy is at a significant disadvantage when fighting the bad guy helps to create and maintain great tension. And the one method that Doyle hits upon that seems to offer any promise certainly doesn’t undermine this:

Angel: “Any weaknesses?”

Doyle: “Few and far between. This kid is strong like you said. Not to crazy about fire though.”

Angel: “Something we have in common.”

So, any attempt by Angel to fight this particular demon with fire carries significant risks for himself as well. And this is something we see when the two of them fight. Angel throws the bartender onto a burning barrel. He overturns it and catches fire. As a living torch he stumbles towards an Angel who is lying on the ground unable to move out of the way. It was only when Kate shoots him that the burning bartender stumbles back and falls to the ground, saving Angel. All in all a strong ending to a well paced and tightly plotted storyline.

Overview (B+)

The metaphor here was a comparatively simple one. But it did serve to highlight a very important issue for twenty-somethings in a big city environment. As such it was well suited to emphasize Angel’s new environment of big city LA. Thus it can be seen as a fulfilment of the promise of the show to explore issues of significance for young urban adults. It also worked because it brought Angel himself and his characteristics as an individual directly into the story itself. In a very real sense this was about him, not just a set of anonymous victims of whom we know and care little. But the really strong point of the episode was he plot itself. There was an interesting and powerful villain. I much prefer to see heroes trying to battle odds to defeat an enemy rather than having the odds stacked on their side. Nothing was straightforward and the audience was left continually wondering what would happen next. But in the end the various developments leading to the final confrontation did make sense. I also very much liked the visual montage of Angel tracking demon and Kate tracking Angel. This actually helped propel the narrative forward by showing what the principals were doing to find the killer. Finally I have to add that while overall this was a very serious episode there was also a nice balance provided by the humor. Cordelia’s ruthless pursuit of business with the inappropriate cards, the batman and gay jokes and the technology that didn’t quite work all provided a very nice break in the tension.