Angel--Deep Down

Deep Down
Written by Stephen DeKnight
Directed by Terence O'Hara

Original Airdate: October 6, 2002

Plot: The fourth season opener picks up three months after "Tomorrow" with Gunn, Fred and Connor attempting to keep Angel Investigations afloat while trying to find a scrap of evidence that might indicate what happened to both Angel and Cordelia. But Gunn and Fred don't realize that Connor is sabotaging their attempts to find his father, who is still trapped at the bottom of the ocean and slowly going mad with hunger. Wes institutes a search of his own, using Justine to help him trace the whereabouts of his former boss. Meanwhile, Lillah feels pressures from within Wolfram and Hart on a variety of fronts...

Review

Warning: This is not a set-up or an ambush. There are major SPOILERS just ahead for the fourth-season premier of Angel, "Deep Down." If you've not yet seen the episode and seeing SPOILERS for it would make you lay want to cut my head off, then I strongly suggest you turn back now...

In short: Busy but effective.

When I was a little boy, there were a lot of words and phrased I dreaded hearing. Probably the biggest of these was "Just wait until your father gets home" because I knew that meant I was in big, big trouble. There was that sinking dread as time slowed to a crawl and I waited on dad to get home and issue out whatever punishment I'd earned for my transgressions. In a lot of ways, I dreaded hearing my father pull up on the driveway but I also looked forward to it--just to get the incident over with so I could not live in dread, fear and nervous anticipation anymore.

The good thing for me was that, usually, it was only a few hours at most before my father got home and the suspense could end.

For Conner, it's been three months of that feeling. For three months, Conner has done everything in his power to insure that Gunn and Fred don't find out where Angel went and open up the door to whatever punishment Angel has in store for his son. Indeed, based on what Conner must have learned from Holtz about Angel in his years in the demon dimension, I can imagine he was probably pretty worried about his father turning up and issuing a punishment to him.

But unlike when I was little and sort of glad to see my father come home to get the punishment over with, Conner wasn't. He was doing everything in his power to manipulate the situation and keep Angel out of the picture. It's interesting to see that Conner is so focused on keeping Fred and Gunn in the dark that he fails to imagine that Wes might somehow try to find Angel or that Cordelia might still be out there and looking for the vampire.

Indeed, if I knew my father had three months in a box at the bottom of the ocean with little else to think about besides my punishment for betraying him so, I might work a bit harder to cover all my bases. Of course, Conner is younger than I am and was raised in a demon dimension, so I can understand why he might not think about covering all his bases that way.

Of course, Conner could have figured that Janine would run interference with Wesley--after all, the woman did slit Wes's throat last year and leave him for dead. This would make a great deal of sense, given their apparently teaming-up to send Angel to his watery slumber at the end of last season. But we never got any hints of this from the story and, thus, I think we were denied an interesting opportunity. After all, I would think both of them have a lot to lose should Angel resurface (pun fully intended here).

Indeed, if last year's storyline was about building family and then tearing it down, "Deep Down" was about what it means to add a wacky step-sibling to the bunch. The group is shattered--Angel is hallucinating on the ocean floor, Wes is estranged from the group and losing his sense of focus (this after stepping into the role as the moral center for the group last year), Fred and Gunn are hanging onto the dream--idealizing a family that can't be restored, Cordy is M.I.A. and the Host has turned into a "dead beat" Dad--running off to Vegas and leaving the family in the lurch. All of this was brought about because we introduced a new step-brother in the form of Conner. Conner's introduction has been a ticking time bomb to the family unit that was Angel Investigations. Angel lost focus, Lorne was run off by the new sibling, Gunn and Fred have tried to overcompensate and Wes tried to do the right thing but had it backfire in a huge way.

Indeed, watching the once tight family group of Angel Investigations be torn asunder at the end of last year and continue over to this year was a stark contrast to the opening scene. Everyone seated around the Thanksgiving table and laughing like old times was interesting. It was almost as if someone had wandered over with the giant reset button that is so often used on the more modern Star Trek shows and hit it until things went back to the way there were. The opening of this season was so odd, so quirky and so deftly well done that it was utterly compelling. I also found it extremely interesting that in the chairs normally associated with the "parents" we had Wes and Angel--both of whom have been authority figures at Angel Investigations. Angel started out, lost his way and then had to take the reigns back when Wes went off the deep end. Indeed, if anything else, you get the feeling that Wes's departure and subsequence taking up with Lillah is a bit more ominous since he's now betrayed the family unit in a lot of vital ways. He took Conner, he's now sleeping with the enemy--and is apparently enjoying it a lot more.

There was a lot more affection between Wes and Lillah in the bedroom scene to start the season off than there was last year. In "Tomorrow" we saw it almost being a calculated move with no emotion behind it. It was a basic release of biological needs as it were and pretty much cold and dispassionate. There were still hints of that here (Lillah's comment that "That didn't suck" covered a lot of that ground) but there was a bit more of a connection there--from their kissing when it was over and not exchanging bitter words. Indeed, the banter between Wes and Lillah about there being a next time was almost playful.

Also of interest was the fact that Wolfram and Hart found out about the situation and couldn't imagine is being about anything less than Wes or Lillah using each other for information. I loved the smug look on Gavin's face when he thought he's beaten Lillah at her own game--only to realize he's completely out of his league a few scenes later when Lillah insures not only her place at the company but also gets herself promoted to Gavin's new boss. The scene in the conference room where Lillah states that they've been too tentavitive in dealing with Angel and are afraid of him was one of the more "sit up and take notice" scenes of the episode. It was one of those moments that just commanded your attention and it captivated me. I only hope that we'll see a lot more of this plotline as the season progresses. Lillah is an adversary not to be underestimated because she will do whatever it takes to win and that could be hugely interesting as she now becomes the main adversary for Angel at Wolfram and Hart.

Indeed, it was interesting to see how various characters went about making their dreams reality in this episode. Lillah took extreme measures, while Wes did whatever it took to win back the friendship and respect of his former boss. And then, we had Angel and his visions.

All of Angel's visions, at first, were idealized. The dinner party, the meeting with Cordelia on the beach. But they slowly descending into less than ideal scenes--Lorne berating him, seeing Conner and saying he should have killed him when he had the chance. Indeed, seeing how Angel's idealized view of how life should have gone and then seeing the stark reality slowly coming together worked well--especially given his final speech to Conner about their about how the world should be. I liked all that--especially Angel's dark comment that he loved Conner but that Conner needed to leave his house.

So, overall, there was a whole lot going on here...maybe even a bit too much. One of my main complaints about "big" episodes of Angel is that there almost seems to be too much going on at times. Indeed, looking back on season three and when the show hit a good stride, it was when the shows took a step back and concentrated on two plotlines, possibly three tops. Or that a main plotline influenced the long-term story arc--I refer to "Billy" or "That Vision Thing" last year as very successful examples of this. Yes, we had a great main plot, but it also did some good things with the on-going subplots. It was once we had Holtz back and his training Justine plus Conner plus the entire what's up at Wolfram and Hart that we began to lose a lot of the season's focus and I think the storylines suffered. And I got a lot of that feeling here.

It felt like the Fred and Gunn scenes were out of place and disjointed--tacked on so we'd know they were still there. I didn't mind them or out and out hate them, but I wasn't enthralled either. I was far more interested in the Wes plot developments, what was up with Angel and the events at Wolfram and Hart than I really was in what was going on with Fred and Gunn. I think their scenes lacked a lot of the intensity that the others did. Perhaps this was by design, but I have to admit that these scenes never really reached out and grabbed my attention like they could have or should have.

Well, at least until Fred used the stun gun on Conner. Then it got interesting for a bit.

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

--Poor Wes. He tries so hard to do the right thing. Interesting how he was once the moral center of the group, thinking of others more than himself. Now he still thinks of helping others, but his methods are different--sleeping with Lillah, tying up Justine like a dog, ignoring the pleas for help from Gunn and Fred.

--So, what's up with the Host? Yes, I know that Conner was a little jerk to him, but does that really justify him acting like a prima-donna when they called to ask for his help? Mayhaps there's something up here.

--Wow, did Gavin ever more get the rug pulled out from under him. Again, loved the scene in the board room. That scene really MADE the episode.

--So, Conner is now estranged from his father and out on the streets. I wonder if he'll run to Justine.

So, overall, it was a good start to the season. Not as strong a kick-off as last year, but as I said before, there was so much to do here that it's not surprising that the story lacked the focus it needed. My rating: 7.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Angel meets a woman who makes his heart beat....

"I love you, Conner. Now get out of my house!"

--Angel