Ground State

Ground State
Written Mere Smith
Directed by Michael Grossman

Original Airdate: October 13, 2002

Plot: Angel's search for Cordelia leads him to Wesley, who gives him the name of a demon who might be able to help him. There Angel learns he needs the mystical antiquity that can locate souls across dimensions. But in order to get it, Angel and company must break-in through an elaborate security system. Also standing in their way is a mysterious cat burglar name Gwen who has the power to control electricity.

Review

Warning: This is your warning that if you want to stay at least 50-feet away from SPOILERS for the latest episode of Angel "Ground State" I strongly suggest you turn back now. There are major SPOILERS For the entire episode just ahead...

In short: Overall, unsatisfying.

Joss Whedon's love of X-Men is fairly well known--he did, in fact, work on one of the multitude of revisions to the big-screen spectacular. And we saw large portions of his love for X-Men mirrored in Buffy last year with the entire Dark Willow saga. So, it's not really all that surprising that we, once again, get echoes of some of the themes and storylines that the X-Men comics, movie and cartoon shows regularly deal with here.

"Ground State" introduced us to Gwen at an early age--and there's something apparently not quite right about her. Indeed, the opening scene of this episode almost made me wonder if there weren't some kind of mutant academy out there in the Joss universe where poor little Gwen would fit in and learn to control and use her powers. Instead, we saw her dumped at the school after mom and dad are unsure what to do with her and feel they can buy their way out of this problem and then get an idea of just why Gwen would feel a bit skittish about being around people.

We then meet her years later, apparently a bit more confident and assured about her power. I found the change in her character a bit jarring, honestly. I'd imagine the scenes at the private school would be a bit traumatizing to Gwen and might lead to her being a bit more introverted than we saw here. Instead here, we got a woman who knows how to use her sexuality to her advantage and how to fight hand-to-hand in a rather brutal and lethal manner. That seemed a bit jarring based on what we learned about her in the early scene and I can only trust that Joss and company will fill in the details from 1985 to today as the season progresses--that is, assuming that Gwen is to be the main antagonist for the season.

If she is, I don't really see it. Honestly, she's interesting once and sure there's a lot you can do with her back story, but overall I am not really intrigued by her. She doesn't have the hook or connection that Holtz did nor is she anywhere near as compelling an unknown as the current Big Bad developing over on Buffy. Yes, she has some type of chemistry with Angel and can apparently make his heart beat yet again, but beyond that she doesn't seem like much of an adversary for us to watch week in and week out.

Just as I said all last year about the Cordy/Angel relationship, they're going to have to really work hard to sell me on whether or not Gwen is a good idea for the show. Honestly, with the cast getting as large as it is, I'm not sure we really have that much more time for any new members without short changing the already established cast that we've seen up until now. Or even getting back to the basic mission statement of what Angel Investigations is all about--helping the helpless and fighting the good fight for Angel's eventual goal of becoming human again. (Anyone else remember the whiteboard from the start of season two?)

In a lot of ways, the Gwen plotline was pretty much a paint by the numbers things. We saw her introduced, we see that she is competing with the AI group for the artifact, she gets doubled crossed and ends up giving it back to Angel. Oh yeah, and along the way, they have a royal battle and end up kissing. I guess I was reminded a lot of the scene on Northern Exposure years ago when Fleisman and O'Connoll had the huge fight and then next thing you know--they're kissing and rolling in the hay (both literally and figuratively) Once again, the verbal and physical sparring leads to something else. It's not exactly new--and I don't mind it not being new, provided there's some new way of looking at it. And that's what Buffy and Angel usually do so well--take what's old and put a new twist on it. I kept waiting for the twist and there wasn't one that really interested me. The fact that she could make Angel's heart beat once again could have been interesting, but I'm not sure if it's anything more than Angel being on life-support--a machine keeps the heart going, but it doesn't necessarily mean that he's alive again.

Now, all that said, there were some things to the Gwen plotline that did work. Her "killing" of Gunn and then Fred's reaction to it certainly worked well. Indeed, after all we've seen of Fred lately is her being chipper and upbeat, it was nice to see that there's another side to it. And seeing that she is keeping up a big appearance for everyone's sake to hold everyone together was nicely done. Indeed, the poor girl has been through a lot. It almost made me wonder if this pressure might cause her to crack once again and revert back to the state we saw her in when we first met her over in Pylea all those episodes ago. That would be interesting to see--especially how Gunn deals with Fred's slowly devolving mental status. But the scene with her breakdown to Gunn about his dying and leaving her there all alone was very nicely done and worked fairly well.

Also of interest this week was the continuation of the Wesley plot. I heard a lot of discussion last week that it wasn't Wes who was ungrateful but it was Fred and Gunn who were, since they pretty much gave Wes no credit for spending three months to find Angel. Indeed, I wonder if those comments might have sent him on this spiral that he's in now in. The scenes between Wes and Angel worked very well--seeing Angel forgiving Wes and Wes's pretty much rejecting the apology worked very well. I liked seeing how far down the path Wes is willing to go. And the idea that he's created a competition demon slaying firm in town could be interesting as the season progresses. Also, I really got the feeling that Wes is the brains that could keep such a firm going--because of his training as a Watcher and his research skills. While I like Fred and Gunn, I just don't see them being the same crack research staff that was Wes and Cordy, at least based on their experience.

Also, the scene with Wes and Lillah's seduction was pretty creepy and over the top. I think that was fully the intention of the scene and, if so, it worked very well. Seeing Lillah suddenly try to pump Wes for information about Angel and his activities was interesting--esp. based on the comments Gavin made to her last week.

I also liked the end of the scene with Lillah and Angel while they discuss her being close to Conner--about how Angel could smell them all over each other. The look on Lillah's face alone made that worth sitting through what was, otherwise, a fairly useless scenes. Indeed, that scene felt like it was tacked into the script simply to put Conner into the story since he's now part of the official cast. Sorry, but I didn't really buy the scene, not could I feel much sympathy for Connner at having to sleep outside or the life he's chosen for himself. I guess maybe I'm heartless, but I think a lot more of it was that the scene felt so clichéd and over-angsted that it just didn't really ring true.

Indeed, that's how I pretty much felt about the entire episode itself. I usually enjoy Mere Smith's work on the show, but here I found it to not be compelling. I kept waiting for a twist or a hook to come along and really compel me to keep watching and it never did. Unlike last week when there were at least isolated plotlines to keep my interest up, here none of them ever got to that level.

I think part of it may be that there doesn't seem to be an urgency to anything--even to finding to Cordelia. I get the feeling that Angel wants to find her, but I don't detect any urgency to it. He seems rather laid back about the whole thing really, which is at odds with the urgency that he seemed to have last year about the whole thing.

Maybe that whole being in a box at the bottom of the ocean mellowed him out a bit too much.

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

--I liked seeing them climb up the outside of the building. That worked pretty well, as did Gunn's comments about Batman. (It's been a long time since we saw any of those sorts of parallels).

--The demon that Angel talks to about finding the mystical artificat was extremely well done. I wonder if we'll see her again.

--No Gavin or Lorne. I missed them, but then again, we had a lot of bases to cover here.

--So now it's Wes keeping himself apart from the gang. I have to wonder how much longer that can last. As I said before, they need him desperately.

So, that's it for now. Overall, I'd have to say this one wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't all that good either. It was just OK. And for those of you who remember how well season three started off, that's a shame. Of course, season two started off slowly and picked up steam quickly. I only hope it picks up soon.

My rating: 6.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Angel and company head out to Vegas and gamble with his soul....does anyone else get the "been there, done that" feeling from the preview?

"This always looks so easy on Batman."

--Gunn.