Angel: Habeas Corpses

Habeas Corpses
Written by Jeffrey Bell
Directed by Skip Schoolnik

Original Airdate: January 15, 2003

Plot: After their battle with the Destroyer, Angel and company return to the hotel to try and find a way to combat the evil. Meanwhile, Cordelia's reaction to her night with Connor sends Connor looking for a link between himself and the Destroyer--a search that leads him right to Wolfram and Hart. But before he can find the link, the Destroyer shows up on a murderous rampage, trapping Connor within the Wolfram and Hart building and leaving Angel to somehow try and find way to rescue him...

Review

Warning: Even if you manage to avoid the first set of SPOILERS for the latest episode of Angel, "Habeas Corpses" they are likely to rise again and puruse you. If you've not yet seen the episode, I strongly suggest you turn back now...

In short: Interesting in spots.

Two seasons ago, Angel was struggling with forgiveness from his friends and family at Angel Investigatons. Last year, the show made long strides toward healing the breach, only to see the new trust and acceptance slowly torn down by circumstances. Now, Angel is struggling with forgiveness again--but not in getting it, but in giving it.

Let's face it--Angel is not a guy you really want to cross. He's immortal and can hold a grudge for a really, really long time. Add to that Angelus's almost vindictive nature in not letting go of something (a tendenacy that shows up in Angel from time to time) and you've got a really dark bad side to get on. But one good things about Angel's bad side--it appears there's only room for one or two people at a time to be there. At least of those people who are closet to him.

From the mid point of season three to early this year, Wesley was there. Wes had betrayed Angel--taken his son, given him to the enemy, robbed Angel of the one thing in his life that brought him joy. Wes has slowly worked his way back into Angel's good graces (though I'd still argue that Wes deserves a heart-felt apology from our favorite undead vampire...that soul has to be good for something, doesn't it? over the course of this season. Part of that is that Angel needs Wesley--he needs the skills and knowledge Wesley brings to the table.

And now that Wes has worked his way back into Angel's good graces, it appears that Cordelia has fallen from them--as has Connor. Angel's knowledge of their night together--and what they did, grates on him. Angel can't let it go. It's understandable on some levels. Cordelia just rejected him and then turns around and makes love to his son. It's creepy on a whole lot of levels--most of them because Cordelia was like a mother to Connor when he was young. (I don't know about you guys, but I don't find the thought of someone who changed my diapers to be all that much of a turn-on. Of course, I've never been to a hell dimension for 17 plus years). It's obvious that Angel still has some feelings for Cordelia and that he still loves Connor. After all, if he didn't love Connor why would he risk life and limb to save him from the Destroyer over at Wolfram and Hart. But how soon Angel is willing to offer forgiveness to these two is something that will have to play out over the course of the rest of the season--if we ever see it really addressed.

Now, most of you know that back in November, the scene were Connor and Cordy got together was enough to make me want to gouge my eyes out and scream "You've got to be kidding me!" Well, I will be the first to admit that nothing in the past six or so weeks has done anything to convince me that this was, in any way, a good idea at all. Certainly we got very little here to convince me this was a good idea--with the exception of the scene where Cordy wakes up the next day and realizes a)the world hasn't ended and b)she's slept with Connor. I liked that scene a great deal because it was exactly the sort of thing we need to see.

As for the rest of this plotline, I'm not sure I like it. Part of it is that it's way, way too soap-opera-ish for my liking. Angel's anger, the wacky misunderstandings, the tension so thick you can cut it with a knife between the characters. All of it just felt very cliched and overdone. It never felt real and that really hurts. Again, part of it is my disguist with this development (I still can't believe a normally sane woman like Cordelia would toss it all to the wind because the world might end. In fact, this reminds me very much of an old Mad Magazine parody from years ago--what would the covers of magazines look like if a nuclear war happened. One was for Playboy and it said, "Well, the world's ending...why not?" and other ways to get her in bed") Connor and Cordelia was something that worked when she didn't have back her full memory and trusted him. But now it just feels like the writing staff isn't so much interesting in paying off the promise of Angel and Cordy together, but instead wants to find obstacles to keep them apart.

And if I were Angel, I am not sure I'd ever romantically link up with Cordelia. It would just be way, way too weird.

Meanwhile, Cordy's reaction to Connor sets off a massive "it's all about me" complex in Connor. I can buy this since he's really only 18 and at the age, the whole world is all about you. To see him try to find his place in the world--after he thought he found it--was interesting enough. His thinking he's linked to the Destroyer was interesting enough to watch as it unfolded, even if it felt like a way to force some tension into the final act by having the gang go to rescue him.

And boy, did he ever need rescuing.

The Destroyer pretty much tore up Wolfram and Hart. This leads to a lot of questions. For one, is this the end of Wolfram and Hart? It looked pretty brutal in there. And how do you explain to future prospects that the entire firm was killed by a demon who wanted to bring about the apocolype? All I can say is they'd better have one heck of a benefits package before I'd think about working there.

Seeing Lillah's attempts to barter some kind of deal with the demon worked well. And to see how security conscious the firm was worked well and was in keeping with what we've seen and heard about them. One thing I wondered about though--why the zombie clause for the workers? And is that confined to just the building? Let's say Gavin died elsewhere..would he re-animate and them report back to work? Kind of taking the whole idea of a non-disclosure agreement to the next level, really, I suppose. (And this makes me realize I've got way, way too much free time on my hands to think about these things.)

Maybe it's that the powers that run Wolfram and Hart just don't trust anyone.

There's a lot of that going around these days on the show.

We've seen that Gunn and Fred are having some problems as well. Part of these are internal, but a lot of it is that Gunn doesn't trust Fred around Wes. And maybe with good reason. After all, Wes breaks up with Lillah now that Fred is back in his life. Has Wes gone to the dark side enough to steal Fred away or is he just playing for his opportunity as he sees Gunn and Fred start to crumble? This could be a very interesting story arc for Wes--to see how he continues from here, especially after having fallen so far in everyone's eyes.

And speaking of forgiveness, Gunn really needs to get over himself and work with Wes. Yes, he may not trust him, but the constant barrage of insults and pettiness is wearing very thin. I like that Angel stepped in like a school teacher and told them to back off, but I want to see this dropped. I know it will take some time for these two to get back to being friends, but I'd like to see that journey actually begin. I have enjoyed the conflict and tension between them, but it's just getting a bit old now.

So, I guess that's about it for now, except a few small things...

--When Angel and company went into the White Room and saw the Destroyer, did anyone else somehow get the feeling it would walk up to him and say, "Angelus, how you doing?" I don't know why but it just seemed like that should happen. It's probably just me.

--I liked that while he breaks up with Lillah, Wes is there to help her out in her time of need. And leave it Lillah to have an escape route. (Which when we first saw Gavin in there, I remarked sarcastically that yes, as long as we had plenty of toliet paper, the apocolypse could not come).

--I can't wait to see the conversation that takes place now that Cordy knows that Angel knows about she and Connor.

--Gunn got away from that whole room full of zombies a little too easily for my liking. Is that possibly going to come up again in the future?

--OK, this next comment is definitely going to go a bit PG-13 so if you're concerned about such things, just skip this one. OK, so it's Connor's first time when he and Cordelia...well, you know. He seems rather adept at it and to last a lot longer than most typical first-timers. Did anyone else feel this way or do I just need some serious help?

So, that's it for now. We've got six more new episodes of Angel in this batch of episodes and I have to say that I'm looking forward to them. I think we've got some good set-up for what's coming even if the way it was set-up here was't all that I'd hoped for.

My rating: 7.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Gwen, the lightning girl is back...dang nabbit, I was hoping she'd turn out like the girl from "She" and just go away and never be heard from again...