EPISODE 3.22

TOMORROW

Written by: David Greenwalt

Directed by: David Greenwalt

Tomorrow Belongs to Me

I suppose that it was only to be expected that an episode entitled “Tomorrow” should be about the future of some of the characters in the series.  For two of them in particular it may well have marked the end of the road.  I have always liked Groo.  Sometimes his dialogue was a little stilted.  But his honest naiveté usually proved entertaining.  I shall miss him.  I will miss Lorne even more.  It wasn’t just the camp humor I enjoyed, although I am sorry the gay jokes at Batman’s…uh Angel’s…expense largely disappeared after season 2.  The character also had a sharpness about him, an ability to say the right thing in a way that made a serious point but didn’t give offence.  There was a very good example of this ability here when he warned Angel about Connor.  Implying that the latter's arrival had something to do with his own departure he said:

Lorne: “I'm not gonna lie. Kid's in the mix. Clearly not loving the demon kind. And…and I know it's the way he was raised, and I loved that little baby. I just wouldn't, ah..."

Cordelia: "What?"

Lorne: "Turn my back on him any time soon."

Imagine anyone else trying to tell the doting father that the apple of his eye was about the stab him in the back (if that’s not mixing too many metaphors). 

However in “Tomorrow” Groo and Lorne were again relegated to the background.  Instead the episode focussed on three people in particular – Connor, Wesley and Cordelia.  Each emerged from periods of doubt and uncertainty in their lives.  Each saw a chance to take control of their own destinies and each did so.  No doubt they each also decided that the decisions they took were for the best.  Each of them is wrong.

Connor

Let us start with our newest character – Connor.  When we saw him discover Holtz’s body at the end of "Benediction", there could be little doubt about where he would place the blame.  He was already ambivalent about Angel, half suspecting him to be evil.  When he saw the physical evidence of the vampire attack and with Justine there to confirm his worst suspicions it was obvious which conclusion he would jump to.  His reaction, however, was far less predictable:

Justine: "This didn't have to happen. Your father was gonna leave. He just wanted to talk to Angelus."

Connor: "Leave?"

Justine: "Angelus won. He could have just walked away."

Connor: "It's my fault. He'll pay."

Justine: "I'll help you kill him."

Connor: "No."

Justine: "You don't wanna kill him? After what he did? What do you wanna do?"

When, in the aftermath of Holtz’s escape with baby Connor, Angel learned that Wesley was still alive his response was one of fury.  But his attempt to kill his former friend, while no doubt sincerely meant, lacked any calculation and perhaps even any real determination.  It was an emotional reaction pure and simple.  And once Wesley was actually out of his sight he seems not to have thought further about revenge.

Connor’s reaction here was very different.  We can understand the grief, made even sharper by the necessity (as he saw it) to mutilate his father’s corpse just in case Angelus played the same trick with Holtz as he had played with his young daughter.  But the unflinching determination that Connor brought to that task was also reminiscent of Holtz’s treatment of his daughter.  Justine is herself a strong and determined character (as she needed to be to help Holtz with his plan).  Nevertheless she cannot even bear to watch and she didn’t grow up as Holtz’s only child.  And there is more to Connor's behavior than simple determination.  Even in the face of his grief he has enough self-possession to return to the Hyperion and look in the eye the creature he believed killed his father, to behave naturally around him and not once let him know what he was really thinking.  And all so he could learn how to fight him better and eventually destroy him.  Not, only that.  When Connor made a lunge at Angel only to have his blow deflected, his interest was simple:

Connor: "I wanna know how you do that."

Angel: "Fight?"

 Connor: "Yes."

Angel: "I think you got that down pretty good already."

Connor: "I wanna learn - to be like you."

Angel: "Well, there might be a thing or two that I could show you."

Connor thought Angel a creature if darkness; yet he wanted to learn to be like him.  In other words he wanted to learn to be a cold-blooded killer.

You see, there was more to his plan than simply allowing himself time to prepare for his future.  As was apparent from his veto of Justine’s planned revenge, he had obviously made his mind up right from the start that a simple death for the beast would not be enough.  That was why, when Linwood’s men attacked, he was so solicitous for Angel’s survival.  As he told the lawyer:

Connor: "Stay away from my father."

It wasn’t so much that he wanted to execute revenge on Angel himself.  It was because he wanted that revenge to be telling.  So, when he eventually did have Angel at his mercy, he could at last explain things to him:

Angel: "That's why you wouldn't let them kill me at the drive-in. So you could."

Connor: "Killing is to good for you. You don't get to die. You get to live - forever."

Living forever, chained in a metal box at the bottom of the Ocean.  That’s some revenge.  And let’s not forget, this isn’t a stranger.  This is the person Connor knew was his biological father, the person he spent all that time and effort trying to get to see, the person with whom he had clearly bonded only a few short hours ago.  And despite all of that he is willing to dismiss his emphatic denials by calling him “the prince of lies” (a euphemism, I believe, for the Devil) and ignore the words of forgiveness that Angel utters.

The cold blooded calculation, the careful planning and execution, the self-control and the sheer cruelty to his own father do not strike me as being the result of a simple emotional outburst when confronted by some great grief.  The difference between Connor’s actions here and Angel’s own in “Forgiving” make that much obvious.  We are dealing here with someone who can, I think, be justly described as “the Destroyer”.  Connor himself says:

“I will cling to the good and I will lay waste to the evil.”

But the ruthlessness, cruelty and lack of humanity that we see in Connor means that his idea of clinging to the good is very different from Angel’s and is more like that of his other father.  This is someone who has taken Holtz’s parting benediction seriously.  In the Hyperion we saw him reading those words again especially the following:

"I'm comforted by that certainty and the knowledge that with him you will discover your true purpose and come to know who it is you are meant to be.  My only prayer is that I have prepared you well enough for whatever lies ahead."

It certainly seems that he has. 

I must confess that I am very much in two minds about this ending.  The tradition is for ME to wrap up each season with a natural end to the season’s storylines, so that things aren’t just left hanging.  They give us a resolution, a sense that we have followed the tale to its conclusion rather than of being continually strung along just to see what might happen next.  Here ME have done something quite different – they have given us a cliffhanger.  The advantage of the cliffhanger is that the audience will want to know what happens next and they will be drawn along by the continuing storyline rather than having to build the tension and suspense anew.  The disadvantage is that, whereas with a storyline neatly tied up at season end you get this satisfying sense of a journey completed and a challenge met, the cliffhanger becomes just another twist in a series of twists.   The viewer is robbed of the emotional satisfaction of the ending.

Having said that I really do like the direction the writers are taking Connor in.  It is true that his breach with Angel is based on a simple mistake on his part and that mistake can be rectified at almost any time.  The potential is there for the storyline to end in an anti-climax.  But because the writers are showing us that Connor’s reaction to Holtz death was not just another emotional outburst but was the result of something dark within him I somehow don’t think matters will be easily resolved.  Let us not forget the prophecy:

“It predicts the arrival or arising of the Tro-clan, the person or being that brings about the ruination of mankind. “

There were very clear echoes of the debate about Connor’s future and how he fitted into this prophecy in the conversation between Wesley and Lilah:

Lilah: "Okay.  The impossible is here. But what does it mean? Is it the herald of a new age, better things to come or  the mass-destruction of everything we hold dear?"

Wes: "Yes.  Every child born carries into the world the possibility of salvation - or slaughter."

Lilah: "And one born to two vampires carries it in spades.”

The real cliff-hanger here is not whether Angel will escape from the bottom of the Ocean.  We take it for granted that he will.  The real cliff-hanger concerns the nature of the relationship between himself and Connor when he does break out.  On a personal level we are left in no doubt but that Angel will readily forgive his son anything:

"Some day you'll learn the truth - and you'll hate yourself. Don't. It's not your fault.  I don't blame you."

But Angel has wider responsibilities.  The Tro-clan as we now know is a confluence of events, but one in which Connor has his part to play.  Holtz has already played his part; perhaps Wesley may play his own.  But one thing is for certain.  Connor’s actions here make it clear that even though he may think of himself as acting on the side of good, he is quite capable of becoming such an engine of destruction that it will force Angel’s hand against him.  And it is in that anticipation rather than the more mundane question of “will Angel ever escape” that the strength of this set up lies.

Wesley

In the previous two episodes we saw Lilah trying to tempt Wesley to throw his lot in with Wolfram and Hart.  In this Lilah’s strategy is clear.  She wants him to despair.  She wants him to abandon any hope of rejoining Angel Investigations and re-forging his friendships within that organization.  She wants him to abandon his own code of morality, to condone murder and revenge.  And above all she wants to stress to him that the only way he can achieve anything is through Wolfram and Hart.  There have been signs before that, in this, things weren't going her way.  But this episode makes it clear the extent to which her campaign was doomed before it began.  Wesley remains convinced that what he tried to do with Connor was right.  As far as he is concerned Angel and the others have no business judging him the way they have.  He  conspicuously failed to apologize or otherwise make things up with his former friends.  Instead he is the one who showed Gunn the door.  At the same time, he has refused to abandon any of his principles.  He would not condone Justine’s death.  And far from needing either Angel Investigations or Wolfram and Hart for that matter, Wesley seems to be very self-sufficient and very much the one in control of himself and the situation.  Lilah’s bosses are evidently as much in the dark about Connor as they ever were.  They actually need Wesley.  For his part, however, Wesley seems to retain a great deal of faith in himself to make sense out of Connor’s arrival.  Hence his reference to various mythologies supporting the arrival of what was once thought to be impossible.  Indeed, his whole attitude to Wolfram and Hart seems to be symbolized by his treatment of Lilah.  He simply uses her – cold bloodedly – and then discards her.  As Lilah herself admits:

“I'll give you this: you sure know how to channel your rage, frustration, and hate.”

Indeed such was the coldness and the calculation with which she was treated that she says to him:

"So, your former boss has a soul…and you're losing yours. Why, you're just new all over; aren't you?"

I do not think that Lilah meant that Wesley was losing his soul in the sense that he would now lose all sense of right and wrong.  However, this is the man who in Pylea ordered a suicide attack, sacrificing his men for tactical gain.  This is the man who stole a friend’s child and almost killed another friend in the process.  I think what Lilah is saying here is that in his pursuit of what he conceives to be right, Wesley is capable of anything.  Perhaps in his ruthlessness and calculation Wesley could teach Connor a thing or two.  And it is this thought that makes part of the conversation between Lilah and Wesley so intriguing.  Referring to Connor, Lilah says:

Lilah: “And your people... sorry - your former people, they won't know what to do if things turn sour."

Wes: "No."

Lilah: "So, if the kid's the next Stalin, do you kill him? You can't! He's Angel's son. But on the other hand, if you just watch while he up and kills Angel or somebody else - that cure girl from Texas, say? Wow, times like this? Glad I don't have a conscience."

In that sense I don’t think Wesley has one either.  I think he is perfectly capable of killing Connor, Angel’s son or not.  And this may be one more element in the set up for season 4:  a battle for Connor's soul between the members of  Angel Investigations and Wolfram and Hart with Wesley as the wild card.  So not only have the writers given us a very plausible piece of characterization, they have set up a very interesting plot scenario.   This stops short of making Wesley join Wolfram and Hart (which would have been hard to believe) but creates a very credible situation where nurturing his grievances and convinced of the rightness of his actions Wesley goes directly against Angel by threatening his son. There are very rich possibilities here for angst and drama.

Tinkerbelle Chase

In my review of “Birthday” I complained about two things.  First was the exaggeration and hyperbole that seemed to attend upon Cordelia Chase as a character.  There was the personal interest that TPTB seemed to show in her welfare and the golden future as a rich, famous and beloved television star that they wanted for her.  Worse still, that episode seemed to establish Cordelia as someone who wants nothing for herself but simply has an altruistic desire to help others and who is prepared to make any sacrifice necessary for the purpose.  So, she discards wealth, fame and material ambition without a second’s thought.  At first sight it may seem that her apotheosis in “Tomorrow” is simply the logical culmination of all that has gone before:

Skip: "You took on the visions, and even when you could have traded them in for a happy, normal life, even when they were killing you, you wouldn't let them go. The big test came when the Powers made you part demon. They bet the farm on you. Power corrupts. And they gave you a lot of power."

Cordelia: "The glowy thing."

Skip: "Which you used well - to fight evil, and heal Connor."

This implies that, if anything, she has proved she had even greater reserves of moral strength and character than she displayed in “Birthday”.  Indeed, she has now become such a saintly individual that she has too good for this world

“The battle that we're all a part of is fought on many different planes and dimensions. You've outgrown this one. You have become a higher being."

So, she was given a transformation that was appropriate to this exceptional moral character of hers.  She is transfigured by a dazzling white light and ascends gracefully into the heavens.

If I thought for a moment that this was to be taken at face value, it would have been my cue to restate the complaints I made in “Birthday”.  Indeed, if anything, those complaints would have had been sharpened, at least partly because the final sequences with Cordelia in them seemed so self-indulgent and frankly absurd as to make even me squirm.  And I am probably more tolerant of the “fantasy” element in series like ANGEL than most others.  More particularly, however, the assessment that Skip made of Cordelia is now completely implausible.  And this is what has given me pause for thought.

During the latter part of Season 2 and for most of the early part of season 3, it did seem as though the writers were heading towards the creation of Saint Cordelia. She was “vision girl” – the guardian of the mission.  She was “the most important person in the world” for Angel and someone who must be saved from harm regardless of all consequences.  Finally she was the person who understands Angel and dispenses sage advice to him.   “Birthday” was in many ways the culmination of this process.  There, her decision was broadly portrayed as one of noble self-sacrifice for the good of all.  However, since then there seems to have been a very clear shift in the portrayal of Cordelia Chase, a shift that is too pronounced and too consistent to be anything other than considered.  Let us look at some of the evidence.

The first clue comes in “Couplet”.  From the beginning of that episode, it was clear that she didn’t really love Groo.  She just wanted a human contact – or in Groo’s case a human looking contact.  This is why there was such a concentration on her part on “com-shucking like bunnies”  rather than on establishing a more meaningful relationship.  As far as she was concerned, there was nothing else between the two of them.   A very good example of this is to be found early in “Tomorrow”:

Groo: "And might I further relieve you by at first gently then more rapidly rubbing your Schlugtee?"

 Cordelia: "Ah, I don't really... uhm. Maybe, later at home. I don't feel comfortable doing *it* in the office, Groo."

Groo: "Doing it?'"

Cordelia: "Sex."

Groo: "Oh, you wish to have sex?"

Cordelia: "What? No! Shh!"

Groo: "I was proposing a massage of your Schlugtee, your tense neck muscle, but - it is always an honor to make sex with you. Later, at home. I understand perfectly."

Groo was trying to show Cordelia he cared…albeit in those awkward, inconsequential ways we usually think of in moments of stress.  But Cordelia was entirely oblivious to this.  For her Groo only meant anything to her because of the sex.  The problem is that Groo really did love her.  Cordelia realizes this almost straight away.  In “Couplet” she says:

“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.”

And admittedly she is never dishonest with him about this.   But she knew he had hopes and that those hopes were doomed.   She still kept him around because it suited her to do so.  And Groo probably realized this himself.  In “Benediction” when he asks Lorne to let Cordelia know he has gone for a walk, he adds the rider “if she asks.”  In those words he implicitly recognizes that she isn’t going to ask because she really doesn’t care that much where he is.  And in this he is proven correct.  When he returns, Cordelia mistakes him for Angel because it is Angel’s return she has been waiting for – not his.  Cordelia’s real attitude to Groo is best summed up in the following exchange between her and Fred in “The Price”:

Cordelia: "He is such a sweetie. So loyal and loving - like a puppy dog."

  Fred: "Cordy..."

  Cordelia: "I know that didn't sound very good, but he is. A puppy dog. A sexy, well-built, go-all-night puppy dog.

This is selfishness on Cordelia's part.  But in this episode there is an even clearer example of her attitude towards others:

Cordelia: "No. You want me to say something to Angel about Wesley. Sorry. Can't. Won't."

 Fred: "Why? Why can't won't you? You've known them both longer than anybody. Angel would listen to you."

  Cordelia: "Probably. But he doesn't wanna hear it - which is why I'm not gonna burden him."

  Fred: "Look. Whatever he did, he's Wesley. You care about him. I know. Can you imagine how much pain he's in? How horrible he must be feeling?"

Cordelia: "Angel's feelings are the only ones I care about. *He's* my priority. I got dosed with demon DNA for that man. I'm semi-demon and I still don't know what that means."

The first thing to note here is the new spin that Cordelia herself was putting on events in “Birthday”.  This strongly suggests that Cordelia’s whole attitude to the visions was conditioned by her need to be important to Angel.  So, when he appeared dismissive of her they ceased to have any meaning for her and she got rid of them.  But when it subsequently transpires that Angel would be the one to suffer unless she retained them, then she was prepared to do whatever it took, including getting the demon DNA.   So, it wasn’t to help a suffering humanity at all.  It wasn’t out of a sense of duty.  It was because she wanted and needed to mean something to Angel.

But even more instructive was her attitude to Wesley.  He was a friend, a comrade in arms.  Yes, he had acted wrongly.  But he had done so from the best of motives.  Does the past friendship then really count for nothing at all?  Have we really reached the stage where Cordelia can look at a photograph with Angel and Wesley framed on either side of her and think only of Angel?  And if she can what does that say about the value Cordelia placed on Wesley’s friendship.   And even if we dismiss all ideas of friendship, where was the compassion, the concern due to someone in trouble?  What did the Loa say about Wesley in “Loyalty”?

"Simple mortal, your pain is just beginning. Betrayal and agony lie in wait.”

Wesley’s case is the acid test for Cordelia’s compassion for other human beings.  Here we have someone who is need, someone who isn’t evil but has lost his way and may begin to do evil because of it.  Helping him is hard, not in the sense of having to face terrible dangers or overcoming great physical odds.  It is difficult because it asks a lot of a person’s moral fiber.  We now see the limitations on Cordelia’s oft repeated determination to “help the helpless”.  When the needs of others conflict with something that Cordelia cares more about – like Angel’s wishes – then they do not count.

And it’s not only basic considerations of compassion that are thrown overboard when they come into conflict with what Cordelia wants.  Even common sense is jettisoned.  Take the need to close the tear in reality that was opened in the hotel lobby.  Everyone was concerned that something nasty would come through it.  This was partly out of a sense that that whatever escaped from Quortoth could do terrible damage on Earth.  Indeed in ”the Price” we have a clear example of the potential for harm in the fate of poor Phil.  But aside from any other consideration you might think that a healthy sense of self preservation might lead Angel Investigations to explore any avenue that might show them how to close the tear.  But when Fred suggested contacting Wesley her reaction was:

“Oh. I don't think Angel's gonna go for that."

The inanity of this drove even that loyal puppy Groo to protest:

            "Yes. We must always consider Angel. Angel is our leader. We must obey his wishes."

It is hard to believe that in this behavior we witness someone who has the makings of a morally superior person.  Instead we see a very fallible human being.

Nor is Cordelia’s past behavior the only thing to give me some pause.  If we consider Skip’s own rationale for Cordelia’s apotheosis, it doesn’t actually make a whole lot of sense.   His first contention is that she chose her visions over a “happy normal life”.  But, as we have seen, that’s not Cordelia’s version of things.  She gave up the happy, normal life for Angel – to help him.  But, the main burden of Skip’s case lay in the use that Cordelia had made of the powers she had been given.  She wasn’t corrupted by them in the sense that she used them for her own benefit.   Instead she used them to fight evil and help Connor.  The problem is that she did no such thing.  First she had no control over her powers.  In “Provider” she actually tried to levitate herself largely for her own amusement and get nowhere.  She had no more control over her visions now than she ever had.  We see this from “Benediction”:

Cordelia: “After you left... I went back into my vision.

Angel: “You what?

Cordelia: “Don't ask me how. I don't know if it's part of my new semi-demon-ness or if, you know, they just let me...go back in.”

More to the point the only two occasions on which she actually used her new powers to do anything could not accurately be described as fighting evil.  On both occasions the powers kicked in to protect her from a fairly immediate threat, one from the sluks and the other from Connor.  The sluks weren’t actually evil.  Holtz referred to them as “frightened rats”.  And as we have already seen she was really no help to Connor at all.  Whatever there is inside him that makes him so dangerous, be it the influence of Holtz, his upbringing in the Quortoth dimension or the fact that he is genetically the son of two vampires, is still there untouched by her influence.  It does indeed seem that Cordelia’s use of her powers helped principally herself out.

So, why did she accept Skip’s words at face value?  And it is in answering this question that we see the  common thread that links Cordelia’s previous behavior with Skip’s rather implausible assessment of it.  Let us look at her reaction when Skip told her she was a higher being:

Cordy: "It's ridiculous. - I'm just a somewhat normal girl - who - has visions, glows, and occasionally blows things up with her crazy new power….I'm a higher being."

Skip: "Yes."

Cordy: "And when you say I've - outgrown this level, that sort of implies..."

Skip: "You're moving on to a new one."

Cordy: "Now I'm really scared."

Skip: "I know. But I also know you're ready."

Cordy: "Oh, no, I'm not."

Skip: "Ah, the universe begs to differ. And deep down inside, I think..."

Cordy: "Yes! All right? Stop saying I know!  Maybe I do know. Maybe, if given enough time, I might even get used to the idea, but…I don't have enough time, do I?"

Yes, deep down inside Cordelia has always believed that she was someone special, destined for higher things.  In Sunnydale she thought of that as marrying someone fabulously wealthy like the frat boy she had her eye on in “Reptile Boy”.  Later, in LA she thought of it as becoming a rich and successful actress.  And even inheriting Doyle’s visions doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference to this basic orientation. In “Birthday” what prompted her to give up the visions was the idea that she was weak and valueless to Angel.  What changed her mind was the idea that she was the most important thing in his life.  And that meant more to Cordelia than the needs of strangers.  Her attitudes to Groo and Wesley too were determined not by what they themselves deserved or needed but by what was important to Cordelia. That is not to say that she did not genuinely want to help others or that she did not make sacrifices to do so.  What it does mean is that she sees herself and what is important to her as having a “special place” in the Universe.  In this she really is the same Queen C that she was in Sunnydale High. 

So, when Skip comes along and confirms every suspicion she has ever had about herself, it is easy for her to believe him, even though what he actually said made no objective sense at all.  I must confess I did not want to take Cordelia’s apotheosis seriously.  But there is I think every reason here not to do so.  I am not sure what Skip’s game is.  Is he the same one who appeared in “Birthday” and is he really acting for TPTB?  If so what is their agenda?  If not then who is at work here?  I do not know the answers to any of these questions but if I am right they make for a much netter reason to take an interest in Cordelia’s fate than watching Tinkerbelle glow in the dark.

Plot

From the very beginning of this episode, indeed from the end of “Benediction”, it was clear that Connor would seek revenge on the creature he held responsible for Holtz’s death.  The only element of surprise lay in the fact that he did not try to do so immediately but pretended he had never found Holtz’s body.  And it is in this that we find the main source of tension in the drama.  Why was Connor going along with this charade?  What was he waiting for?  If death wasn’t what he sought for Angel what was?  And what would happen when Connor finally did confront his father?  Would he discover the truth or would one or other of them pay a heavy price for Holtz’s deception?  These questions were really only answered in the last few minutes when we saw the nature of Connor’s revenge and only then did it become possible to grasp just why he went along with the pretence.   This kept the audience in a state of some suspense throughout the episode.  But it wasn't only the fact that we couldn't really see where the storyline was going that created the sense of tension.   Because we knew Connor was acting out a charade, we were constantly looking for a sign that it would come to an end and Connor would reveal his true purpose.  And even when seemingly play fighting with Angel we got the distinct feeling that Connor was someone on edge, that suddenly violence could erupt out of no-where. 

And there is another point.  For most of this episode we were watching an Angel who was unusually happy.  He thought that now he had got back his son, his life was complete.  The importance of having Connor back was shown by the fact that he was so pathetically anxious to please him and to give him a normal life.  I was reminded of the way in which, just before Wesley kidnapped the baby, he bought Connor things like miniature hockey sticks.  And his contentment (we will shy away from the word happiness) at the prospect of having a normal life with his son spilled into every aspect of his life, including his work.  But at every step of the way there was Connor.  Angel didn’t know what he was really thinking but we did.  We knew his insincerity; we saw the hidden meaning in his anxiety to learn things from his “old man”.  We saw the disappointment that was coming.  And that added a great deal of genuine pathos as well as tension to the scenes between the two of them.   Above all it gave us reason to care about what happens next.  If you don’t care then no matter what the outcome it will make no impression on you at all.

Ultimately, however, the story is just a little too thin to occupy all the time available for it.  That is why I get the distinct feeling that the attack on the drive-in was padding.  First of all it makes no sense whatsoever from Wolfram and Hart’s point of view.  It is very hard to believe that this firm in particular would lay aside important policy guidelines for the sake of personal revenge.   And having labored for so long under the “No harm comes to the vampire with a soul” rule laid down by the Senior partners, I find it just as difficult to believe that someone like Linwood would risk his own life for that purpose.   Then there was the venue – a drive-in movie with lots of witnesses.  I think the writers have been a little careless recently in the setting of their fights.  Keeping quiet a vampire attack in a bar where any number of humans can see them dusted is hard to swallow.  Did no-one tell the police of the media?  But f you wanted to carry out a little murder and kidnapping at the hands of a private security force, where would you chose?  A public venue?  Then there is the attack itself.  This, and especially the way it was concluded, seemed both rushed and anticlimactic.

As for the rest, there was little enough in the episode to keep us interested.  The one major development that I have not discussed was on the romance front.  The writers have been signalling for some time that Angel and Cordelia would finally discover their love for one another.  I for one am only too glad that they did not do so on screen.  Arranging a meeting not on home territory but rather at a deserted beach where both could be ambushed before they met may have been implausible.   But I will forgive any plot device that sabotaged Angel and Cordeia coming together to declare their undying love for one another.  I have made no secret that romance for the sake of it has little appeal to me.  Well that is really what we were given here.  This in turn leads me to ask: am I the only one finding this pairing increasingly implausible?  At least the writers seem to have abandoned the idea of Kyrumption.  As I said before if that had any validity we would have seen Angel start to date Groo.  As it is, I just do not recognize the description of Angel and Cordelia as a couple that Lorne and Groo give.  They are very different people who think in very different ways.  As he continues to demonstrate Angel is a character that wears his heart on his sleeve; he is the king of emotional involvement and of taking things very much to heart.  Cordelia is much more practical and down to earth.  And they have very different sense of humor which more likely than not leave the other baffled.   In "Carpe Noctem" for example Angel did not appreciate being described in the following terms:

“You're handsome. And brave and heroic... emotionally stunted, erratic, prone to turning evil, and let's face it, a eunuch."

No, for me Angel and Cordelia as a couple have nothing going for them except writers' fiat.

Overview (B+)

 In many ways this episode reminds me of the season 1 finale “To Shanshu in LA”.  There is so much of this episode devoted to setting up season 4 that I think the early episodes of that season can only benefit from it.  With so much groundwork done here the writers can get off to a flying start.  And a lot of the set up has real promise.  Angel must now come to terms with his son being a mortal enemy and perhaps with the need to kill him before he does too much harm.  And as if this weren’t enough there is the unpredictable involvement of Wesley as well as the machinations of Wolfram and Hart in the background.  And then there is Cordelia.  I may be wrong here but it seems to me that her ascent is preparatory to a fall and I am anxious to see what form that takes.  The major difference between this episode and “To Shanshu in LA” is that the set-up was delivered in the context of a strong self-contained story which had a neat outcome both dramatically and thematically.  Dramatically we saw the defeat of Vocah and thematically we saw the promise of Angel’s humanity.  Here there is no corresponding sense of things in season 3 being brought to a resolution in preparation for the launch of season 4.  Instead season 3 just feeds directly into season 4 without a natural break.  And while this episode had a very strong story dramatic edge, I regret that missing sense of a chapter being concluded.