Buffy, Season 7 Disc 6

7x20 Touched

Random styling comment... the beginning scene where all the girls, sans Buffy, are all talking over each other is filmed all NYPD Blue-like -- super shaky handheld camera work. I dunno if that was about trying to make the audience feel as lost as they were or what. It just seemed odd, and it stuck out.

After being kicked out of her own house, Buffy walks alone amidst the paniced evacuees and looters. She breaks into someone else's house to get some sleep. Spike and Andrew return with news about the Caleb and the vineyard. He quickly finds out what happened with Buffy and he's off trying to pick up her scent. He finds her quickly. They talk about the difference between quitting and being rejected. The power is still in her hands. She just has to take it back.But still feeling the hit of rejection, Buffy just wants to sleep, and she asks Spike to hold her. So he does, and they fall asleep in each other's arms. *sigh* So sweet.

Spike: You listen to me. I've been alive a bit longer than you, and dead a lot longer than that. I've seen things you couldn't imagine, and done things I prefer you didn't. I don't exactly have a reputation for being a thinker. I follow my blood, which doesn't exactly rush in the direction of my brain. So I make a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong bloody calls. A hundred plus years, and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of: you. Hey, look at me. I'm not asking you for anything. When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the one, Buffy.

The First visits Faith in the form of the Mayor, he once quasi-father figure. He taunts her and tries to unbalance her by telling her that Buffy only thinks of her as a killer, and that's all Buffy will ever consider her. Robin Wood finds her and they discuss the First and how it showed itself to Robin. They share a moment or something, and since this is the night before the end of the world... there's only one thing left to do. Yup, SEX. Then later on there is this great scene with them discussing quality of said encounter. She thinks it was stellar, he says it was a'ight. She says she's gorgeous, and he tells her he's far prettier than she is. Which is kinda true. D.B. Woodside is a very beautiful man. The eyes alone. Good stuff.

It really ends up being quite the night for the lovin'. Kennedy and Willow get it on upstairs. Xander and Anya seem pissy at all the moaning and groaning from upstairs, and eventually scratch their jealous  itches on the kitchen floor. I guess impending death will do that to ya.

The next morning Buffy goes to visit her bud Caleb at the vineyard. This time she's much more prepared for what he's capable of and she keeps making him miss. Quite cute really. It starts with a very Matrix-esque lean back scene, then proceeds to her being super fast and tiny and all avoidy. They do this for a bit, and Buffy eventually discovers a hidden room containing a weapon.

Faith and the Potentials are in the sewers, thanks to some information they managed to squeeze out of a captured Bringer. After a wee skirmish there, they realize there's not much going on down there, until Faith discovers a bomb about to explode.

Ugh. It's really started to set in. There's only 2 more episodes left. It's so sad :(

7x21 End of Days

Buffy has found what The First was keeping from her and what Caleb was taunting her about having -- a weapon. They keep referring to it as a scythe, but it doesn't really look like one I'm familiar with. Whatever it is, it's wicked cool. It's supposed to be some ancient tool, but it looks awfully new to me. It's got clean sparkly chrome looking stuff on it. Could they achieve chrome way back when? Just a thought.

Guardian: I'm sorry, what was your name?
Buffy: Buffy.
Guardian: No, really...

So, she must be like King Arthur or something, cuz she just pries the weapon out of stone where Caleb and his blind buddies have been trying to get it out of. Caleb looks quite exasperated when she manages to pick it up like any other daily household object.

Over in the bomb-land with Faith and Potentials, well, the bomb went off. It killed quite a few and left Faith unconscious. So unconscious in fact, she could go off and film her new show at the time -- Tru Calling. Decent show, but it didn't fare well. So, bomb goes off, ubervamps come out of the woodwork to attack, Buffy comes by to save the day with her new shiny weapon. I think it may have even matched her outfit. Our Buffy, always about the style.

Buffy gives Xander a task that he's most de-balled by. She wants him to run and take Dawn with him. Dawn's a slick one, so he has to knock her out to do it. Once she comes to and finds out what's going on, she manages to turn things around on Xander, what with the one eye and all, and head back to Sunnydale.

I forget what lead her there, but Buffy ends up at this tomb in the graveyard that we've never ever noticed before. It has all kinds of ancient design stuff on it, and no one ever noticed it. Hmm. In the tomb, she finds an old woman who tells her the story of the scythe and why it was created. It was made in secret and kept from the shadowmen. Just as she's reallly relaying the info, Caleb comes and snaps her neck. Oh snap, indeed.

As the two of them tussle about, Caleb appears to get the upperhand, until Angel arrives and knocks him down. But, this is Buffy's thing and Angel knows this, so he steps aside and lets her finish it. She ends up doing a nice gut move on Caleb then gives Angel a luscious liplock worthy of any hello. Well, no hello I've ever been a part of, but I'm betting I'm just weird.

Nearby, Spike is watching with a look of either disappointment or total broken heart. Sometimes it's just hard to tell. The First visits him as Buffy. Man, when they are down, the First is always just right there. Oh right, original pure evil... sounds about right.

7x22 Chosen

Buffy and Angel's reunion of the lips is interrupted by Caleb. Guess that gut-check wasn't the end-all after all. Buffy quickly dispatches him with a good slice with the scythe - starting at the man melons and goes straight up. That should take care of him now, I'm thinking. Buffy goes back to Angel to get some more lip action, but then Angel brings up the fact that he can smell Spike all over her. Buffy tells him that Spike has a soul now. This scene gets so cute, cuz Angel actually gets jealous.

Angel: That's great. Everyone's got a soul now.
Buffy: He'll make a difference.
Angel: You know, I started it. The whole having a soul. Before it was all the cool new thing.
Buffy: Oh, my God. Are you twelve?

After their cute tete-a-tete, Buffy asks Angel to go back to LA. She needs him there in case she's not successful in Sunnydale. He can be her next line of defense. Oh, he also came with an amulet that Wolfram & Hart gave him, and he thought it was meant for him cuz they said for something ensouled that wasn't human. So, I guess having that Spike around is a bit handy in those situations where you'd rather not be the one helping. Anyway, he does like his woman tells him and he leaves.

Later, Buffy comes to the conclusion that she can use the scythe to access crazy awesome power to give to all the Potentials. However, Willow is going to have to access those wicked powers that made her all evil last time. So, she's a bit worried about that. Everyone heads to the school, to the seal which they intend to open. They are taking the fight to the ubervamps. The fight ends up starting a tad early, but they manage to hold on... then pooof, Willow's magic works and all the Potentials around the globe get their powers. So, now the Potentials in Sunnydale can start kicking ass, Buffy-style. Willow didn't do all dark and veiny either. Her hair actually got super white and Kennedy called her a goddess. Guess she's learned that just cuz she has power, doesn't mean it always has to be a bad thing. Her hair quickly goes back to red though, in case you were wondering.

Buffy: I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there's evil. And that I was chosen to fight it. I wish a whole lot of the time that I hadn't been. I know a lot of you wish I hadn't been either. But this isn't about wishes. This is about choices. I believe we can beat this evil. Not when it comes, not when its army's ready, now. Tomorrow morning, I'm opening the seal. I'm going down into the Hellmouth and I am finishing this once and for all. Right now you're asking yourselves what makes this different. What makes us any more than a bunch of girls getting picked off one by one. That's true. None of you have the power that Faith and I do. So here's the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power... now? In every generation, one slayer is born... because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman is more powerful than all of them combined. So I say we change the rule. I say my power... should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of the scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a slayer... will be a slayer. Every girl who could have the power... will have the power... can stand up, will stand up. Slayers... every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?

So, as they fight the ubervamps, they just keep coming. At one point they realize they can't take 'em all. They've lost a lot of Potentials and Anya has even died -- sliced from shoulder to waist, it was wicked gross. As they start to realize they are outnumbered, a big chunk of sun or something hids Spike who is wearing the amulet. He doesn't burn up though. The amulet sends numerous rays of sunshine into the ubervamp cavern which incinerates them. Only thing is, he must stay there to make sure they all get gone. Buffy and Spike have a small moment and she heads off to catch up with everyone else who's already left via school bus. Spike stays until all the ubervamps are dead, and then he is finally incinerated himself -- going out a champion. Who'da thunk?

Buffy: I love you.
Spike: No you don't, but thanks for saying it.

Buffy has to run like mad though cuz the town seems to be caving in from the school outwards. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Buffy manages to catch up with the bus. They stop once they get clear of the town, and when they turn back, it's just a huge crater. No more town.

The show ends with Buffy starting a bit of a smile, when she realizes that she's not the only Slayer anymore. She might even be able to step back and have a bit of a life. That is something for our Ms. Summers to smile about... it's only what she's wanted from the beginning.

Angel, Season 4 Disc 6

4x20 Sacrifice

Hiding from Jasmine in the sewers, Angel, Fred, Wes, Lorne, and Gunn run into a strange creature who claims that the beings of his world loved and worshipped Jasmine first. As Jasmine's forces close in, Angel realizes that he must travel to this other dimension to find the key to defeating her.

Lorne: I really hate today.
Gunn: I'm worried about tomorrow myself.

Ugh. Just a bad episode. Ok, the alternate universe where Angel goes to get more info was kind of cool, but other than that... bleh. There must be something about 4th seasons in the Joss-Verse. Cuz Buffy's 4th season sucked and it's happening with Angel as well.

For later reference, he finds out a dude called the Keeper of the Word seems to hold Jasmine's true name. Now he just needs to get the guy to talk... which is kind of hard with the dude's mouth sewn shut.

4x21 Peace Out

Angel comes back from that other world or dimension or whatever with the head of the Keeper of the Word. The word in this case is Jasmine's true name. He cuts the sewn-shut mouth and out the name is whispered.  As soon as that happens, Jasmine loses her power. People also start to see that same maggot-y face that I guess is her true face. So, they start running scared.

He and Angel end up having a big fight. She tries to throw a car on him. Guess her strength is still around. Connor saves the day by coming up behind her and punching her through the back of her head. It was gross. He then just walks away all mopily in true teenager fashion.

Jasmine: Why do you hate me so much?
Angel: Let's run down the list, huh? Rain of fire, blotting out the sun, enslaving mankind, and yeah, oh yeah. Hey! You eat people!
Jasmine: Like you never have?

Angel returns to the hotel, and the gang look beyond spooked. Just as Angel catches their vibes, Lilah walks out of the office.

This could be a good episode, I don't know. I just really really really REALLY hate season 4. It's just so hard to be unbiased.

4x22 Home

So, Lilah is back. And she's sporting a real nifty scarf thing. Wonder why? Oh, yah, that's right. Wesley cut her head off after she died. Silly Wesley. Since Lilah does work for the law firm from hell, death does not necessarily mean the end of her contract with them. She's been brought back to offer the gang Wolfram & Hart, LA Division. Yup, the whole shebang. They get to take over W&H and do whatever they like. They ask why, and she says cuz they just ended world peace, and that's just bad for business. They take a bit of offense to that, but ultimately realize that yes, they did indeed end world peace. Hard to argue with.

She says they just have to be outside the hotel at dawn, and there will be a limo waiting for them. They all act completely put out, and yet all of them end up out there waiting for the limo. They figure they will just see what's going on. Oh, and Connor is out wandering the streets being all emo and shit.

As they arrive at W&H, everyone greets "Mr. Angel". That was kind of humorous. Lilah greets them and wants to split them all up to see the various departments they would be working in. After some initial suspicion, they end up going. Looks like Lorne will head the Entertainment Division, Fred would be in the Science Division, Wesley would be an uber-librarian. Charles thinks he's being taken to security cuz all he ever seems to be good for is muscle. Seems like he is being taken up into that freaky White Room. Wonder what that's about.

Angel: I'm not bursting into flames.
Lilah: Necro-tempered glass. The whole building's fitted with it. Helps keep those uplifting, wholesome, rays from charbroiling the boss...and 30% more energy efficient.

Angel is shown his office, with his fancy new glass, and also told they have an amulet that will help Buffy with her current apocalypse. He can have it, if he agrees to takeover the firm. He seems completely bored until she shows him his big screen TV in his office, until he sees Connor on the news. He has taken families hostage from a nearby mall or sporting goods store or something. So, off he goes to rescue him, of course.

Back at W&H, Lilah finds Wes in the archives looking for something. He finds her contract and burns it, but it just appears in the file again. Lilah actually seems a bit moved by the gesture.

Back at the store, Connor is doing bomb-y things with batteries and such. Cordelia is there, still in a coma, and strapped up with a bomb too. He's mad at Angel for letting Holtz get him. Well, actually he's just mad about anything and everything. He did grow up in a hell dimension, so maybe that's natural. Connor goes to turn on his bomb, but Angel punches him and they fight. Angel frees everyone in the store, throws knife in Connor's leg, tells Connor he really loves him. Typical family issues.

Everyone returns from their tours and they look very impressed and wide-eyed. Angel enters and tells them all he took the deal. Lilah says they will take care of Cordelia, and try to find out how to get her out of the coma. She gives him the amulet, and mentions something about taking him to see Connor. The rest of the Gang don't seem to know who Connor is.

Angel's limo arrives in woods. He's looking at a nice big log cabin-y type house. He looks in the windows, and sees Connor at a table with a family eating dinner. They are talking about college and how well he did in high school. This is his family now, apparently.

Angel takes his amulet package and heads out... to Sunnydale.

Random observation. It's just weird that he's all about Cordy, "The woman he loves"... but he goes to Sunnydale and talks about his possible future with Buffy. He's a SLUT HO BAG. I'm just sayin'.

Angel, Season 4 Disc 5

4x16 Players

After discovering that Cordelia is pregnant, the gang go into research mode trying to determine what type of demon the offspring could be. It does seem to be their experience when women, namely Cordelia, get super preggers super fast. So, it has to be a demon of sort. Connor is taking the whole father thing to a creepy weird level. He's being super protective. There's even this really disgusting scene where the baby or whatever it is is poking and grinding all up in Cordy's belly. It's beyond hurlable.

Meanwhile, our rather electric girl Gwen is back in the picture. She's requesting Gunn's suave nature. Cuz when I think of Gunn, I think suave. No, not really. They end up at this uber-fancy party where Gwen tells Gunn they are trying to rescue a little girl from her kidnappers. Of course, since Gwen has never really been the 100% truthful sort, we find this isn't in fact, true. She used that to get Gunn there as her muscle. She's really looking for the plans for some government whosawhatsit that will allow her to not be quite so electrical.

Since Angel is now fully restore with his soul, he informs the gang that Angelus did not kill Lilah. He stumbled on an already dead Lilah and just took advantage of the available niblets. Lorne gets a spell together to clear up his mojo. He's worried about the fact that he couldn't tell Angel was really Angelus before. Our Evil Cordy is quite worried herself since she knows if Lorne gets his mojo back he'll probably realize she's not all she's cracked up to be. While she's busy trying to quietly creep up on Lorne during his spell casting, all the lights in the room get turned on and we see the whole Gang there watching Evil Cordy approaching Lorne with her very evil looking knife. Looks like they aren't as clueless as she was assuming.

Angel: Try this one.
Wesley: Something about strangling poultry.

Okay that is just funny cuz of the whole "choking chicken" reference.

4x17 Inside Out

Angel realized Cordy was the Beast boss cuz of some of the phrasing she used in his head and how she referred to her coming spawn. Angel wants to know where the real Cordelia is. While the Gang is trying to get answers from Evil Cordy, Connor comes in for the rescue and tranqs everyone, takes Cordy off to some romantic old meat processing warehouse. Evil Cordy keeps taking advantage of Connor's mushy pliable gray matter, and keeps telling him how much Angel hates Connor cuz of the love Connor and Cordy share. Gaw... worse storyline ever. Surely they could have come up with another way to work Charisma's pregnancy into the story.

Angel goes to visit skip since he Cordelia mentioned him as her spirit guide when she was in that quasi-coma before. Skip must not be so wonderfully perfect and gleeful as he comes across, cuz they end up in a big ol' fight. Skip admits to taking a dive the last time they fought cuz this was all planned from WAY back when. During the fight, Angel manages to break off some of Skip's horn thing and other bony parts. Somehow they end up back in the hotel lobby and they manage to bind Skip to this dimension while they get some more info. He finally ends up telling them that the demon possessing Cordy is going to give birth to itself essentially. That seems all kinds of wrong, even on top of the whole Oedipal Cordy/Connor thing.

Skip: It's going to be really hard for you to accept, but Cordelia has ascended to a higher plane.
Angel: I know. She's back.
Skip: Back?
Angel: Or at least something that looks like her.
Skip: Woah, wait. Nobody comes back from paradise. (pause) Okay, a Slayer once, but...

Cordelia has asked Connor to gather some things for her so that she can have her baby before anyone can get a hold of her. She wants her baby to be born free. One of the ingredients is the blood of a virgin, so off he goes to get him one. After he gets one off the street, cuz they are so readily available these days? As if. He has a bit of an internal struggle of the right/wrong issue with killing someone that isn't evil. He sees Darla as his little angel on the shoulder, or maybe it is really Darla showing up to lead him the way. Whatever. She's trying to persuade him to not kill her. In the end, Connor is about to set the girl free but Cordy interrupts and slices the girls throat. For a moment we see the Darla apparition dressed in all white, while Evil Cordy is dressed in all black. Interesting, and yet painfully obvious.

So, she gets her virgin blood, makes Connor get his hand all bloody and slap of that gooey liquid on her belly. And boom... looks like baby is on it's way. World is a-shaking', Skip manages to get away and then Wes kills him, Angel finds Connor & Cordelia and fighting ensues. Just as everything is coming to a head, big burst of light shoots out of Cordy's belly and then that light turns into a woman. Suddenly, Angel is quite bespelled.

4x18 Shiny Happy People

Cordelia's "child" is a fully grown woman, and everyone who sees or hears her instantly and rapturously begins to worship her.  The first who experience this are Angel and Connor. Now they are united in their disgusting adoration of the new lady.

Angel brings Cordy back to the hotel, and as the new lady comes into the hotel everyone bows to her in awe. Really this isn't new. I experience this every where I go. It is rough, but I accept the responsibility that comes with such reverence.

Angel: They don't understand.
Conner: No.
Angel: We don't want to kill her. We just... want to find her, so we can worship her.

Once the lady finds out what has happened in the area because of her birth, she wants to go out and have the Gang help fix as much as they can. They go off and attack vamps, and she and Fred sit on the sidelines. The lady wants them to come up with a name for her. This will obviously mean something. It just has that ring to it. Foreshadowing or something.

Everywhere she goes she keeps getting adored. She catches on to this quickly and makes nice little speeches to everyone about love, and goodness and blahblahblah. While she's giving a nice little speech someone in the crowd tries to attack her, calling her a monster, and he sees her face as all maggoty and decayed. She does get a bit of a cut and her shirt is cut and has blood. In Fred's complete devotion, she takes on the task of getting the shirt clean again. In what seems like days, she finally admits she can't get it clean and she bought a new one. When she finally sees the lady again, she sees the same maggoty face that the attacking guy did.

Later, Angel admits to the lady he's afraid that she could make him too happy and bring out Angelus again.

Everyone realizes that Fred isn't good anymore. She's evil cuz she can't see what they all see. Once Fred realizes that this isn't a good thing, she has to leave town. On her way out, she sees the lady, now named Jasmine, on TV sending her message to all of LA. Everyone watching the TV show gets just as awe-full.

4x19 The Magic Bullet

It's like a wonderful Beach Boy scored utopia. Everyone is so wonderful and happy and being nice to each other. Well, except Fred. She's busy getting chased by Wes and Gunn. She manages to get away in the sewers.

The hotel is now Jasmine central where all the devotees are gathering to just get a glimpse of their most wonderful lady of the perfectness.  After she addresses her followers, she grants two people with the ultimate privilege of visiting with her upstairs. This can't be good.

Random fact, we learn Lorne's heart is physiologically in his ass. Interesting.

Random observation... Gina Torres' lips are gigantic. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it's really hard to stop looking at them anytime they are on screen. HUGE.

As Jasmine is getting stronger it seems like she is getting more powers. She is able to use all her followers minds like cameras and track Fred down. She can even talk through them. She's finally tracked down and her and Angel go to her to get her back. During a little tussle, Fred gets a hold of a gun and shoots through Jasmine into Angel. She does this intentionally because she realizes that it was Jasmine's bloody shirt that made her see Jasmine differently. Once Jasmine's blood gets into Angel he sees Jasmine the same as Fred. It seems like one of the greatest things he's ever experienced has just been ripped from him. That has to suck.

After Jasmine gets all shot up by Fred she realizes what her blood does. She tells the store owner where Fred was tracked to to burn his store down so no one can get tainted by her blood. And so he does.

Back at the hotel, Jasmine tells everyone else that Angel is now lost too. And she continues to take followers up to her room. She then tells the people to take off their clothes.  We see glowing coming from her room and then she comes out and tells Connor she ate the people. She uses the energy to heal all her bullet wounds.

Fred & Angel break into Cordy's room at the hotel and they cut Cordy to get her blood. They figure that since she gave birth to Jasmine that her blood will also do the trick. They grab Lorne, then Wes & Gunn and expose them to the reality. No one seems happy about it. They seemed to miss their utopian version of things. They all finally get Connor and cut him and place Cordy's blood in the wound. Doesn't seem to work cuz he calls on Jasmine's security to get them all.

Connor: I'll kill you!
Angel: It'll pass.
Lorne: Yeah, right, 'cause Lord knows he's never tried that before.

Buffy, Season 7 Disc 5

7x16 Storyteller

Andrew creates a documentary called Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres, a record of the current situation in Sunnydale to show to future generations. He manages to capture many important moments, and to annoy almost everyone in the house. But Buffy needs to tear him away from his filmmaking because the Seal of Danzalthar is active and Andrew may hold the key to closing it before it destroys the town.

Andrew: Come with me now, if you will, gentle viewers. Join me on a new voyage of the mind...a little tale, I like to call, Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres.

This episode goes from making me laugh my ass off, to almost crying. It starts very tongue-in-cheek, with Andrew's documentary. The high school is experiencing an increase in hormonal teenage issues. Riots among cliques are starting, and the kids are just in general wanting to fight. The First manages to get some kids in the basement to start boogety-boogety chanting to open up the seal. It starts to glow... then Buffy interrupts.

So, maybe the funny stuff died off quick... but it was really funny when it was. Anyway, we then get to a point where Buffy has Andrew over the seal in the high school basement and making him admit that he did kill his friend Jonathan knowingly. He wasn't possessed by the First, he simply killed his friend. As he finally admits his part in Jonathan's death, he starts to cry. His tears drip on the seal causing it to stop glowing.

7x17 Lies My Parents Told Me

Buffy, Spike, and Wood seem to be fighting side by side quite often these days. Doesn't seem to make the evil stares Wood gives Spike any less ominous.

Giles meets Wood and Buffy at the High School. Giles insists that they have to do something to fix Spike... or get rid of him. He's too much of a liability. He has a weird stone thing that is supposed to be able to go through Spike's brain to find the trigger the First has put there. Once they find it, maybe they can deactivate it. Once they get it in his brain via his eyeball. Spike flashes back to when he was human and living with his ailing mother. He recites a poem he wrote for a girl to his mother. His mother goes into a coughing fit, coughing up blood. Poor William loves his mother so, and he hates to see her so sick. Once she stops coughing, she starts singing "Early One Morning" to him. A song that she has sang to him since he was a wee lad. He comes out of his weird flashback and tells everyone what he saw. He says he's fixed and all better now.

Another flashback shows Spike with Drusilla after she's changed him to a vampire. He now wants to make his mother a vampire so she won't be sick anymore. She doesn't seem very happy about it, but he does it anyway.

Wood and Giles have a conversation about Spike. They both still think he's very dangerous and he has to be taken care of. Buffy doesn't seem to be willing to admit what has to be done, so it falls to them to take care of the necessary.

Giles takes Buffy out to the graveyard to train and go back to the basics. A vampire attacks, and he won't let her kill it. She has to just keep fighting it while he is asking her questions and basically preaching. After quite awhile, and Giles continuing to rant about Spike, Buffy realizes Giles has been stalling her. Giles admits that Wood is off right now taking care of the Spike problem.

Wood takes Spike to his garage, and it just so happens to be covered with crosses on every surface. Well, except the floor. Wood starts up some iTunes and starts to play "Early One Morning". Spike goes all vamp. They fight, and we see another Spike flashback. His mother shows up and she looks significantly healthier than we last saw her. And, she's suddenly a mega bitch. Spike wanted to take her around the world with him and Dru, and she says she wants to finally be rid of his sniveling loser ass. Poor Spike is so sad.  He stakes her.

Back in the fight, Spike's face goes back to normal. Wood keeps beating the crap out of Spike, but it seems Spike's heart is no longer in it. He's not trying to hurt Wood, much. But he does look like he's about to bite him.

Buffy shows up at Wood's garage, and Spike is just leaving. Spike tells her that he didn't kill Wood, but if he tries that crap again, he won't hold back. Back at the house, Buffy tells Giles that Spike is alive and shuts the door on his face.

Buffy: (to Wood) You try anything again, and he'll kill you. And more importantly... I'll let him.

7x18 Dirty Girls

Willow comes back from Angel's 4x15 Orpheus episode. With her she's toting a powerful ally, Faith. However, the First has a new piece on the board as well. A misogynistic "preacher" named Caleb has come to town, and he throws down the gauntlet as soon as he enters Sunnydale. Turns out he is the one responsible for bombing the Watchers Council and the Bringers or "Ray Charles Brigade" as he calls it.  Buffy and Faith follow a Bringer straight to where Caleb's crashing, which happens to be a vineyard. With this bit of info, Buffy takes everyone there to confront him, and she ends up getting her ass knocked unconscious with one punch. Obviously, Caleb is a bit more than meets the eye. Oh, and I did not even intend for that slight pun. During the big fight, after Buffy is unconscious, Caleb pokes out Xander's left eye. Brutal. Looked cool in a really disgusting ooey gooey way.

Spike: Let me guess -- leather pants, nice right cross, doe eyes, holier-than-thou glower -- you must be Faith.

There is this really random scene in the beginning of the episode. I guess it's not that crazy, but it's a dream that Xander has of two of the potentials and he's giving them advise in his bedroom. This of course turns into a naughty dream. We then see the rest of the girls staying at his place in a big pillow fight. I guess it makes sense. Xander is around all these girls all the time, and it's not like he has much time for dating. I just thought it was odd.

Also, a not awful scene with Faith and Spike. He's shirtless! Hello, this never gets old. And their topic of conversation is sex. Wuh? Yah. Mmm. Not sex with each other, not really, but just sex in general. But who cares... Spike's partially nekkid. Woot. That's all you need to know about the episode.

7x19 Empty Places

After Buffy realizes what Caleb is capable of, she's walking around town. Looks like the entire town knows something big is happening and they are evacuating. As she's walking through the standstill traffic, she sees Clem leaving and he tells her he doesn't think anyone will be able to stop the impending doom. He tells her she should get out of town too.

Giles and Willow also see the mass exodus, and notice that everyone is acting rather odd. Especially the cops, who they manage to magick a file away from. The cops seem very eager to see justice done, for anything and everything, and then they talk of a fugitive that may be in town. Ooooh, I wonder who they could possibly be talking about?

The file they snagged from the cops is on Caleb, somehow, and they start combing through it to find out anything that will help them. They found out something about a mission, so they send Andrew and Spike to go check it out. The scene with Andrew and Spike on his motorcycle was just so funny.

Andrew: I-I bet even covert operatives eat curly fries. They're really good.
Spike: Not as good as those onion blossom things.
Andrew: Ooh, I love those.
Spike: Yeah, me too.
Andrew: It's an onion and it's a flower. I-I don't understand how such a thing is possible.
Spike: Oh, see, the genius of it is, you soak it in ice water for an hour so it holds its shape. Then you deep-fry it, root-side up, for about five minutes.
Andrew: Masterful.
Spike: Yeah. Tell anyone we had this conversation, I'll bite you.
Andrew: Right.

Faith takes the Potentials for a bit of drinking and dancing at the Bronze. However, while she's there, the cops find her. Tsktsk. When you escape prison, you can't just go being in public all willy-nilly. Even in an apocalyptic town apparently. With the help of the Potentials, Faith gets away.

Andrew: Can't? Can't is a four-letter word! I'm Andrew, I'll be your bad cop for the evening.

In a very strange move, everyone (except absent Spike & Andrew) go against Buffy and tell her she's just throwing them into the fire. They aren't ready, but she doesn't seem to care. And well, she doesn't seem to care, but she also seems to realize it's now or never and pussyfooting around the issue isn't going to do anything. But everyone basically throws her out, and tells her they want Faith in charge. Of course, this happens after Faith's field trip. She's like the cool aunt, and they like her more. Doesn't matter that she might not know what the hell she's doing, they just like her better. And in a move that truly baffles me, Giles, Xander, Anya, Willow, and Dawn all seem to support her stepping down. Dawn even tells her it would be best if she didn't stay at the house. How fuqd up is that? Seems so random to me.

Angel, Season 4 Disc 4

4x12 Calvary

While the gang is busy with other things, Lilah is able to sneak into the hotel basement to talk to Angelus.  She's interested in saving her own ass from the Beast and thinks Angel knows how she can do that. They get quite close to striking a deal, but then the rest of the Gang discover her presence. Wesley chases her through the sewers and manages to catch her. She tells him that she didn't seal Angel's missing soul and he, oddly enough, believes her. I guess wettin' your willy in someone makes you like a lie detector with them.  Wesley also discovers she has a book with her that talk specifically about the Beast. His copy of the same book doesn't have the passages because hers is from another dimension.

He figures out in true convenient nerd fashion that the reason there's no mention of the Beast or memories of the Beast is cuz all traces of his existence have been wiped out. And since Angelus' mind wasn't around when the spell was cast. He does have memories.

Angelus is having fun with the moron Gang cuz they didn't figure out that the Beast isn't the one calling the shots. He's a flunky, not the boss. This is later shown to be true when the Beast offers up a weapon fashioned from his own bones to someone.

Gunn and Fred are busy breaking up, and Wes almost gets a chance to declare his love for Fred. But then Angelus has to go and reveal the fact that Wes has been sleeping with Lilah. Tsktsk. Evil sex can come back to haunt.

Angelus: Hmm, I'm telling ya, man if I swung that way -- look at him. All rugged and handsome. And brains! Man, he's damn near perfect.
Wesley: Thank you.
Angelus: Except the part about banging Lilah for the past 6 months. Kinda takes the shine off.

Cordelia has a vision that shows her a spell that will restore Angel's soul. Once she gets the ingredients she needs, they all perform the spell and it appears to be a success. To test this, they have Angel sing and Lorne says that it's really Angel and he's back to his old brooding self. Angel insists he be kept in the prison though just in case the spell is only temporary. He orders everyone else about, but Cordelia stays behind. She accuses him of being a wuss and embarrassed by everything Angelus said. With Cordelia's continued prodding, he agrees to leave the cage. Cordy goes to set him free, and he knocks her out. Guess that's not Angel after all. He tells everyone he's got some plans and heads out.

Cordelia gains consciousness and tells everyone what happened. They take off after Angelus, but Cordelia and Lilah stay behind. Because of all the vampires out on the street feeding willy-nilly, Angelus heads back to the hotel to get his slurpslurp on.  There's a little chase between Angelus/Cordelia/Lilah. Lilah eludes Angelus, but then gets poked in the neck with a big weapon by Cordelia. Wait, isn't that the weapon from the Beast? mmmhmmmm.

4x13 Salvage

Like the old adage - waste not, want not - Angelus grabs him up some dead and still bleeding Lilah. He gets his slurp on. Connor, Gunn and Wes walk in on this and of course think Angelus has killed Lilah.

In an effort to be thorough, Wesley realizes he's going to have to behead Lilah so she doesn't come back as a vampire. Cuz she was so much better than that pre-death? Bah. But of course he can't just go and chop that noggin' off. He has to have a weird ghost-y conversation with Lilah. All about his time with her and blahblahblah.

Lorne is trying to get his Furies friends to put that anti-demon attacking spell on at the hotel. They eventually get that working.

Angelus is off talking to the Beast and letting him know he's definitely not up to taking orders from a peon like the Beast. he wants to talk to the main man/person/demon/it.

Angelus: That's right, brothers and sisters - the rumors are true. Angel has left the building and I am back. But hey, I'm no different from the next guy. I put my victim's skin on one leg at a time.

Cordelia is busy acting all injured and fainty. But, we see her reprimand her monster Beast-y minion too.

We get a bit of an update on Faith, the "other" Slayer. She's being all butch and macho in prison. And she's also busy almost getting killed by fellow prison mates with very nice ceremonial knives. Wes goes to visit her, once he realizes he's going to need all the help he can get to put Angelus in his place. When Faith realizes what Wes is asking, Faith immediately breaks through the glass at the visiting booths and escapes out with Wes. Guess only Faith was keeping Faith in prison. Maybe she has learned.

Faith goes in search of Angelus, and since he knows she's coming, he lets her find him. She ends up finding the Beast and Angelus, and starts in on the Beast. The Beast is very good at handing her ass to her. However, Angelus steps in and uses that bone weapon to kill the Beast. However, as soon as he does, the sun comes back out. He wasn't thinking too far ahead apparently. With the help of the sun and a big window breaking, Faith escapes.

Meanwhile, Cordelia tells Connor she's pregnant. I think I'm gonna hurl... again.

4x14 Release

Faith is quite beat up. Wesley takes her to his house to clean up, and she goes a bit psycho on his shower's tiled walls.

Angelus is at a bar drinking and bragging and then he suddenly starts hearing a voice that no one else is hearing. Turns out it's the Beast's master talking to him. However, we see that it's Cordelia speaking through some spelled stone or something in her room at the hotel. The same room she's been hiding out in cuz she doesn't want anyone other than Connor to know she's preggers quite yet.

Angelus: Now this is disappointing. You never used to bleed so easy.
Faith: Screw you!
Angelus: Mmmm. Maybe after. I like my girls to lie still.

Angelus heads over to the hotel to do the usual threatening, witty ridicule, and trying to figure out who the Big Boss is. They all try to attack him, but just as Connor is about to really get at him, the Furies' spell kicks in and Connor isn't able to hit Angelus. Oooops. Does that mean our precious boy is part demon as well as fully annoying whiny brat?

Faith and Wesley are out trying to track Angelus down, and they stumble on the bar he was at earlier. They get some information from a junkie in the back of the bar. A junkie that gets high, then vamps bite on her so they can get high too. K.

Faith & Angelus find each other and duke it out. Very nice looking fight. Great wire work and camera work. Very elegant looking.

In the end, he gets the upperhand and grabs at Faith and bites down on her.

4x15 Orpheus

Shortly after Angelus bites down on Faithy he stumbles back and looks at her in confusion. Looks like Faith learned a little something from those junkies at the bar. Just as the fight started, she drugged herself so that she could incapacitate Angelus. Of course, Wesley had something to do with it. he's not above hurting and using others to get to the end goal these days.

Angelus and Faith are both brought back to the hotel in pretty similar states. They both appear to be dreaming and they happen to be dreaming together. Or rather, Angelus is reliving Angel's past, and Faith is there for the ride.  This must be Angelus' version of hell, according to Faith, cuz he's seeing things like Angel saving puppies.

Wesley knows he needs some serious mojo help, so he calls on dear Willow from the other show on  that other network. Willow figures out a way to get Angel his soul back without necessarily finding the jar it's in. She'll have to break the jar, and immediately have it find Angelus or something like that.

Wesley: A lot has happened, not just Angelus. I've been... I've changed. I've seen the darkness in myself. I'm not sure you would even begin to understand.
Willow: I flayed a guy alive and tried to destroy the world.
Wesley: Oh. Well . . . I never flayed anyone . . . I did keep a woman chained in a closet. (pause) I know, it's not the same.
Willow: No, no, that's dark. You've been to a place.

Cordy, let's call her Evil Cordy, is really pissed about Willow's presence. She tries everything to get in Willow's way.

Faith and Angelus still stuck in Angel flashbacks. I thought the hair from the 1800s was bad. It has nothing on Angel's hair in the 1970s. Oh goodgawd it's awful. Really not flattering. Actually makes him look way chubbier.

As they continue to do the mystical dreamy mind tripping, Willow starts to get her spell on. The boss, aka Evil Cordy, slams some magic back at Willow. Don't think she/it realizes how awesome Willow is, cuz she gets past all that. Evil Cordy has also told Connor that it is necessary to kill Angelus, and him being the stupid feeble-minded teenager with hormones, says 'kay.  Just as he's about to do the deed, Angel gets his soul back and Faith wakes up.

Willow takes Faith back to Sunnydale to help with their apocalypse there, and Cordelia walks down the stairs with belly just a-showing. From this point on, Cordelia has some of the most hideous wardrobe. Is it like payment for having gotten pregnant while the show was going on? Or is it like payment for ballooning to three times her size in the first few months. Either way, I can only imagine that it's payment for something bad. Cuz the clothes are just beyond hideous.

Buffy, Season 7 Disc 4

7x12 Potential

Buffy and Spike begin to train the Potential Slayers. While Spike and Buffy are illustrating what a Potential should do in an attack with a vampire, Buffy realizes Spike is still hurt. They share quite the meaningful brief handholding and luscious look. Ok, maybe it wasn't luscious... but I found it to be. The lesson Buffy is trying to instill in the girls is "Know their instincts, trust yours". Good lesson. Yay Slayer teacher. As the girls are then getting a lesson in the Summers' house basement, Dawn looks in from the outside. She appears to be longing to be part of this group of special individuals.

Willow informs everyone that Giles' seers have found there is another Potential right there in Sunnydale. In an attempt to narrow down the search, Willow casts a locator spell. It appears to go straight at Dawn, and for a brief moment she believes she is a Potential. When she's out walking to get away from everything, she runs into Amanda, a girl Buffy has counseled at the high school. Amanda tells her about a weird bumpy-headed dude that attacked her at school. Dawn goes back to the school with her to help. We find out that Dawn isn't the Potential, but Amanda is. Dawn relinquishes her title with grace.

Xander: They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary.

Xander tells Dawn he knows what it's like to be in a group full of people that are different and special. Sometimes it's just as tough, if not tougher, to be normal around such a group. One of the few episodes where I feel for Dawn. She actually showed quite a bit of inner strength that she doesn't usually seem to possess.

7x13 The Killer in Me

Just a random bit of info... I've noticed that Spike has not worn his big long black leather coat since his soul was returned to him. He did kill a Slayer to get that coat, so maybe that weighs heavily on his soul.

Giles takes the Potentials out on a retreat. I guess it's meant to be like the one Buffy went on when she saw the First Slayer. Kennedy stays behind faking the flu. She really just stays behind to spend more time with Willow. They eventually kiss. It wasn't earth-shattering, but when Kennedy pulls back from the kiss, Willow is now looking an awful lot like Warren. It's still Willow in there, but the surface looks like Warren. She has no one to ask for help, so she goes to the local college Wiccan group she was once a part of. While there, she finds Amy aka Amy the Rat. She says she's realized how bad she got with the magicks and she's getting better. Amy says she will try to help Willow.

Buffy: Remember when things used to be nice and boring?
Willow: (thinks) No.

Spike is chained to the basement wall cuz they still don't know if the First can control him. While Buffy and Spike are talking, his head starts to hurt, and he manages to yell out that it's the chip causing the pain, not the First. The chip keeps firing for no reason, and Buffy realizes the only people that can help are the old Initiative military group. Buffy starts a search for them, including going to their old underground facilities. While searching in the dark gloomy-ness, Buffy and Spike are attacked by a weird demon thing that is curiously wearing fatigues. Anyway, while fighting it, it is mysteriously killed and the lights in the place are all turned on. They look above them and see a slew of army guys. They've been sent by Riley Finn to help Buffy in any way she needs where it concerns "Assface". Riley's apparent name for Spike. They give her the choice of fixing the chip or removing it.

The longer Willow looks like Warren, the more she starts to become him. She even goes to buy a gun and replay the day's events when Warren killed Tara. While Kennedy is with Amy as she is performing a spell, it becomes clear that something is up with Amy. Turns out Amy is responsible for what is happening to Willow. She's put a hex on her. The punishment was up to Willow's subconscious, and Warren was the form it seems. Kennedy runs off to find Willow/Warren, and  finally clues in and kisses Warren/Willow. This returns Warren/Willow back to Willow.

The rest of the Gang -- Anya, Dawn, Andrew, and Xander -- suddenly suspect that Giles could be the First after a phone call they receive from England. The Watcher that Giles came in on almost dead a couple eps back, says the only thing he remembers was Giles about to lose his head by one of the First's Bringers. There was no body though. Still very suspicious, they drive out to the retreat the girls are on with Giles, afraid since no one can remember him touching anything or anyone. Once they arrive, they all tackle him where he sits by a fire. That obviously means he's corporeal, so he's ok then.

This is all happening so fast. I don't want the end to come! Why did this show have to end so early? Seven years seems like nothing. Fourteen could have worked for me :D

7x14 First Date

This starts at the exact moment 7x08 Sleeper left off. Giles is in the graveyard with all the girls, telling everyone the story of how he escaped the axe-thing at the head from the Bringer in England. The gist -- he survived. Got it. In the middle of the story, Spike comes from out of nowhere and tackles Giles. He was still thinking he could be the First. Then Giles realizes that Spike's chip didn't go off. Buffy explains that she had a choice about his chip and she chose to have it removed. Giles is REALLY not happy about that. Giles reprimands Buffy about it, and the fact that he thinks she is letting her feelings for Spike get in the way of the decisions she should be making where he is concerned.

The next day, Xander is in a hardware store watching a demonstration of some kind. That just seems weird that Xander would be off living a normal life while the end of the world is coming. But I guess it's not like this is his first apocalypse. One gets jaded after the first couple, I suppose. While there, he sees a very beautiful young lady looking baffled at a display of rope. So, that is obviously a good moment to make your move. Her name is Lissa, and she's being played by Ashanti. He asks her if she needs help and they get to talking. They end up with plans for a wee coffee date later. Let us remember something here. If something seems entirely too good to be true in Buffyverse. IT IS.  Yah, she turns out to be evil, strings Xander up over that weird seal in the high school basement and tries to get his blood all over the seal to free some more of those Ubervamps.

Buffy: There he is, on the Hellmouth, all day every day. That's gotta be like being showered with evil. Only from underneath.
Willow: Not really a shower.
Buffy: A bidet. Like a bidet of evil.

Buffy is busy getting a date invitation herself. Principal Wood asks her out, and she accepts. She doesn't know if it's an evil date, a work date, or a sexy date. So she tries to plan to accomodate all three. Total weird side note... I really love the outfit she wears on her date. It's jeans, this weird lacy black sort of skirt or long jacket with a white shirt and a leather jacket. Hard to really explain properly. It's just really cute. Thought I'd share. On their way to the restaurant, that is quite handily located in the back of a creepy dark alley, they get attacked by five vampires. Buffy goes into Slayer mode, and oddly enough, so does Wood. He has a stake and everything too. They continue on their date, talk all about the fact that Wood is the son of a former Slayer and Buffy seems pretty super pumped to share her stuff with someone kinda normal. I'm sure it helps that D.B. Woodside is quite a beautiful man. He's got great eyes. You might know him from 24. He played David Palmer's brother, who then turned into the president too I think.

Andrew sees Jonathan, but duh, of course it's the First. The First wants him to kill all the Potentials. Turns out maybe he's not evil after all. He acts like he's in on it, all the while he's just stringing the First along. Willow has Andrew wired and they are trying to find out more information through what the First tells Andrew. The First finally catches on and gets super pissy.

Wow... long one here. Sorry about that. Eventually everyone finds out that Xander is in trouble. They all go to save him. In the end, the First shows itself to Wood again. He also informs Wood that Spike is the responsible vampire for his mother's death. Yow.

7x15 Get It Done

Buffy dreams of the First Slayer and she tells Buffy "It's not enough".  The house full of women is getting to be a bit much, so Anya and Spike go off to get drunk at a bar. They get attacked by a demon that says it was sent by D'Hoffryn to kill Anya I guess.

Principal Wood gives Buffy a bag of items that used to belong to his mother, the Slayer Nikki Wood. The bag contains various items including weapons, a book, and a strange sealed box. She gives Principal Wood a tour of the house. They then go into the backyard where all the Potentials are training, or doing a very bad imitation of a tai chi bootcamp. Lastly, they visit Spike's basement, and Wood is very obvious with his dislike of Spike.

One of the Potentials, Chloe, seems to be having a very hard time coping with being a Potential and the fact that the world is probably going to be ending soon. So, the First is able to convince her to hang herself. Dawn and Buffy are the ones to find her. The First, in the form of Chloe, gives all the girls another warning... "I'm coming, you're going".  Buffy buries Chloe. Question here is does Chloe not have any parents that would want to know about her death and want to bury her themselves? Just an observation. Anyway, Chloe's death actually makes Buffy very mad. She says Chloe was weak, and they can't afford to have weak people among them. She even goes off on Xander and Spike. With Spike, she tells him she wants the old Spike back. He used to be a better fighter, but now he's just being a wuss. She's very harsh, our commanding Watcher-esque Buffy.

Buffy: What I want is the Spike that's dangerous. The Spike that tried to kill me when we met.
Spike: Oh, you don't know how close you are to bringing him out.
Buffy: I'm nowhere near him.

Opening the box leads to enchanted shadow puppets that open some sort of portal. This has to be the worst looking portal ever. It looks like a big box of tv static that glows a bit more than normal. It just looked so half-ass. I guess in the scheme of things, that's not so important though. So, she goes through tacky cheesy portal and arrives in a desert area.  She runs into a few tribe men, called Shadowmen. Oh, there had to be a trade for the whole portal entrance, so a big ugly demon came through on the earth side. It attacks Spike so hard it throws him up against the ceiling so hard he goes through it to land on the second floor of the house. Neat. The demon gets away, but they know they have to have it to return in order to get Buffy back. If they can get Buffy back.

Spike is busy digging around his old digs at the high school basement. Seems he finds what he's looking for... his old leather jacket. Guess his power is in his "cape". He goes and retrieves the demon, brings it back to the house. Wood notices Spike's new attire and looks mega-pissed.

The Shadowmen are the men that created the original Slayer, and have chained Buffy to the Earth to get her more power. Seems like there is a steep price for that though. There won't be much human left in her afterwards. This price proves to be too steep for Buffy, and she refuses and kicks all the Shadowmen's asses.

Over on the other side, Willow is busy trying to get her spell on. Doing her spell, she ends up sucking energy from Kennedy cuz she's the strongest and closest person around. This completely freaks Kennedy out. Willow opens the portal, gets Buffy back. Before she left the desert alt-verse, the eldest tribe men touches her face. He gave her a glance at what she has to face... we see 100s of those Ubervamp Turok-Han under that seal in the high school just itchin' to get out.

Angel, Season 4 Disc 3

4x09 Long Day's Journey

The gang learns that the Beast is planning to rip five magickal totems from the bodies of the beings who are protecting them. If he gets them all, then he will be able to blot out the sun forever. When they learn that the Beast already has four of the five, they plan to protect the final one with the help of the electrifying cat-burglar Gwen Raiden. And I love me some Gwen. Although, she does resemble the villain Glory from Buffy Season 6, and I didn't like her much, look-wise. But, Gwen's definitely a hottie. She wears great leather, maybe that helps.

Gwen: Let's take turns guarding Manny. Angel you take Cordelia and I'll take Denzel here.
Gunn: Actually my name's Gunn. Not that that I mind the freakishly accurate description.

Lorne tells Angel he knows about Connor and Cordy. *shudder* But now he has someone to share that gross information with. Cordy tells Connor that Angel knows about them, and he doesn't seem phased really. Well, except for the fact that he's not really welcome at the hotel for the moment.

Oh, the protecting of the final totem doesn't go so well. They go to Gwen's manse and use this killer panic room to protect him and still they lose him. Tsktsk.

Also, they realize that the Beast knows Angelus. Angel can't seem to remember anything about him though.

4x10 Awakening

Cordelia has a vision, which reveals that the Beast once knew Angelus. Since Angel has no memory of this, the gang realizes that there is only one thing to do. They must find a way to bring forth Angelus. Ahhh, true friends. Let's take his soul! Sheeesh.

Wes goes out to find someone that can take Angel's soul, but also be able to return it to him once they get what they need. After much brouhaha, Angel agrees. He wants them to build this big super cage for him though. So they do.

Connor: You're the reason my life sucks.
Angel: Get over it.

Mystical ninja dude comes over to do the spell. He's in the cage with Angel. Angel is tied to a table. Right as ninja dude is about to do the spell, he goes to try to kill Angel. So, they have to kill him. Oh, ninja dude's name is Wu Pang I think. They pull Wu Pang's mask off and realize he has writing all over his body. It's all symbols, but of course Wesley can read it very well.

As they area reading through it, Cordelia gets white eyes and says something about a magical sword that can kill the Beast. They go through all these Indiana Jones-type puzzle/maze things but eventually get the sword.

When Angel and Cordy finally get a moment alone, Cordy tells Angel that she's sorry for the Connor boinking. She thought the world was ending, and she wanted to be with Angel. Since she couldn't, she sought comfort with whatever was nearby. Ew. They kiss. And for whatever reason, it's just not doing much for me. Leaving me cold here folks. Connor and Wes walk in as they are kissing. Connor goes pouty runs off. Angel and him fight, like fight-fight. Cordy then breaks up the fight and tells Connor that she was never his and he needs to understand that.

They go back to the hotel with the special sword. Beast shows up, big fight, sword breaks... but then Angel uses the broken pointy end to pierce the Beasts brain. Yay!

Random question... How many leather jackets must Angel own? He seems to get staked through them alot, and yet it always looks like the same jacket. hmmm.

The sun shines again, and everyone is happy. Even Angel cuz he has his Cordy. They get all smoochiesmoochie in his room and then start stripping each other. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. He's not supposed to be allowed to get too happy. Hmmm.

They are actually doing it, and they both appear to be very much into it, and then he starts to look pained. He yells out "Buffy!", aw snap, and rolls over on the bed. The next thing we see is his eyes open up and he's on the table in the cage, and he has quite the look about him. Oh, that look... that's Angelus.

How harsh is that? He has to go through all that, really feel like he's getting everything he wants and experience happiness to get his soul taken out. Cruel and unusual, man. Oh, so basically this whole episode didn't happen. Lame.

4x11 Soulless

Angel's soul has been removed, placed in a safe even, and Angelus has come to the fore. Wes tries to prep everyone for dealing with Angelus. He's gonna be sly that mean guy. Be careful. But, they have to go about interrogating him to find out what he knows about the Beast. Wes begins. The Gang looks on in the lobby via closed circuit camera.

One thing you have to say about Angelus. He's a lot of fun really. Well, dialogue-wise. He's snarky, mean, and just entertaining. Gotta love the wit, even if it is evil wit.

While everyone is watching on the monitor, Angel starts to pick at Wesley. He mentions things like being a bad watcher to Faith and stuff about him being a dork and all that. He also teases him about his ongoing Fred crush. And at one point he even starts to talk about Cordelia, and even brings up the Connor situation. Now everyone knows what went down.

Then Fred & Gunn go down there and feed him. He messes with their heads too, and almost gets a hold of Fred when she gets too close. Gunn manages to get her free with his handy threatening crossbow.

When Fred gets back upstairs, she's thoroughly freaked, but she does go talk to Wesley. Who then proceeds to kiss her like he's hungry for her lips. However, Gunn walks in on the tail end of this. He doesn't really see it, but he knows something went down. He gets very angry and loud. Angelus is down in his cell hearing the yelling and looking very smug.

He talks to Connor, and Connor thinks that Angelus is his real father and Angel is just a part he plays. Interesting.

Angelus: Doesn't it freak you out at all that she used to change your diapers? I mean, when you think about it, the first woman you boned is the closest thing you’ve ever had to a mother. Doing your mom and trying to kill your dad… hmm, there should be a play.

Cordelia finally comes down to talk to him. She unplugs the camera and she makes a deal with him. If he talks, and they save the world, he gets to have her. Do whatever he wants with her. He actually takes the deal. Yikes.

Angelus: You want to know about the Beast.
Cordelia: Everything you know.
Angelus: Oh...and in return I get what? Wouldn't mind a car, I hear the new mustang is nice.
Cordelia: Something better.
Angelus: What's a better ride than a mustang?
Cordelia: Me.

He gives up some info, they go out looking for some priestess but all they find is a house full of a dead family. This hits Connor hard for some reason and he goes outside to spew chunks.

Back at the hotel, Cordy goes back down to Angelus in his cell and tells him the deal is off. They didn't get anything and now they are going to put his soul back. When they go into the safe to get it... That's right... it's not there.

Buffy, Season 7 Disc 3

7x09 Never Leave Me

Spike is held captive in the Summers home while the Scoobies ponder their options in the aftermath of his murder spree. Willow finds Andrew buying blood, while she is out to buy blood for Spike. She decides to take him prisoner also. Andrew is a much more talkative captive than Spike oddly enough. They eventually have to gag him to shut him up. Nerds do tend to be quite chatty. What with the whole not getting out much thing. Not that I'm speaking from total experience here. Nope, not at all. Not a clue what that's all about.

Willow: I'm talking! Don't interrupt me! Insignificant man. I am Willow. I am death. If you dare defy me, I will call down my fury, exact fresh vengeance, and make your worst fears come true. Okay?

Just as Buffy comes back in to check on how Spike's doing, she hears him talking to someone. She also hears him singing a tune. When she goes in, she finds him going total vamp, but he's not after her. He rips Andrew out from the other room and starts sucking on his neck. Then, they chain him up in the basement with metal chains. Cuz rope on a wooden chair seemed so useful before I guess.

As Buffy is talking to Spike in the basement, the whole house is invaded by the mysterious hooded figures called "Harbingers" or "Bringers" - the minions of the First Evil. Buffy and entourage manage to take care of them, but they realize too late that Spike has been taken. I'm really quite curious as to why the First feels Spike is so important. Does he really think that if "it" can manage to beat Spike down he'll be some awesome ally? Or is it just more about getting Buffy to come to "it" by way of rescuing Spike. Just an interesting side thought there.

Oh, and the Watcher's council was blown up. All the people, all the books and papers and research. Bummer.

I think the rest of the season happens in what is supposed to be a matter of days. It's full speed ahead from this point forward.

7x10 Bring on the Night

With Spike now missing, the gang tries to regroup and clear the damage done to the Summers home. This house will just never get a break. I mean, it's a good thing that Xander is this awesome carpenter/construction dude now. But really, I'd just make an abode out of cinder blocks and call it a day. Seems safer.

Giles arrives and reveals that the First Evil is trying to destroy the Slayer line by killing all the Potential Slayers. So he comes with three of the Potentials himself and he says more are on their way.

Giles: Sorry to barge in, I'm afraid we have a slight... apocalypse.

Buffy and Giles search the Christmas tree lot where she last faced the First (waaaaay back in Season 3)  and she encounters a creature out of nightmares called a Turok-Han. Now, I say nightmare loosely. Cuz I wasn't really all that scared of it. It's supposed to be the vampire version of a neanderthal and a spooky boogy-vamp. I get more scared at some of the more recent day vamps, myself. But, whatever, we'll pretend... Turok-Han, super scary.

Spike is busy in a deep dark cave with the First getting tortured by the Turok-Han, since the First can't be corporeal. So, you've got the physical thing of trying to drown a vamp... which really baffles me cuz they've said on more than one occasion that vamps don't need to breathe... and the psychological torture the First does on him by becoming people he loves. Oh, it just dawned on me that the First can become Buffy cuz she's died twice. Duh, that had me scratching my head for a second. See, the First can only become people that have died. I guess that doesn't include those that died and are still around. Mind boggling... no, not really.

7x11 Showtime

More Potential Slayers are arriving from around the world, seeking shelter in Sunnydale with the Slayer. One of them, Eve, starts to create tension among the young girls as she voices fear that Buffy isn't strong enough to save them by herself. And there doesn't appear to be anyone else to help her.

Through some witchy sources, Giles finds out that a Potential has come into town and is staying at a hotel. Xander and Buffy go to find her to bring her back, and discover her body instead. Big problem though.. it's Eve, the real one. They quickly head home and confront the First, masquerading as Eve. All the First does is laugh and smile and tell them that the Turok-Han will be coming for them at sundown. Then she goes poof, like an old school tv set. You have to see it to understand I guess. Problem I have here is why would you warn your enemies what your plans are? I guess it's one of those cocky confidence type things. But still... silly!

Willow: I felt it just surging through me, every fiber of my being. Pure, undiluted evil. I could taste it.
Kennedy: How does evil taste?
Willow: A little chalky.

Giles and Anya visit the most gawd awful looking excuse for an Oracle ever. It's like a ginormous eyeball (with eye socket too, natch) that then itself has hundreds of eyes. Yeeesh. They learn from it that the reason for all this is a vulnerability in the Slayer chain cuz of Buffy being resurrected. The First is just exploiting what is already there. Since Buffy was brought back once, at the end of the first season, her successor had already been called, and killed, and that then brought Faith into the picture. Faith is over in prison, so if Buffy dies, there is no one to succeed her. Faith would have to die for anyone to be called. But then there's the whole thing that if all the Potential Slayers are dead, who's there to activate anyway?

Without much more to aide them than a wee bit of muscle, Buffy asks if Willow can manage creating a barrier for the house. When the time comes, the barrier doesn't hold. Everyone starts to run. Buffy goes one way, the others go another way. She fights with the Turok-Han and leads him to where the rest of the gang is just waiting, Xander's current construction site. As she's fighting the Turok-Han we see flashbacks to an earlier conversation we didn't quite see, cuz it was all happening in Willow, Buffy, and Xander's minds. Willow has that power yanno, to be a mystical telephone company I guess. They had planned this whole thing. Buffy needs to instill confidence in the Potentials and this was their way. And of course, she beats it's ass, and finishes with a nice beheading via barbed wire garrote.

We see Spike in the First's cave again, and it looks like the First is messing with him again in the form of Buffy. But this time it's the real Buffy, and she's come to save Spike and take him home.

Angel, Season 4 Disc 2

4x05 Supersymmetry

Fred is super excited it would seem. She's jumping and yelling and hootin' and hollerin'.  Turns out a physics article of Fred's has been published in a nerdy mag. She is then invited to speak at a symposium. Angel and Gunn go to support her, but feel quite clueless about the advanced subject matter.

Lilah gives Wesley a really expensive gift of a knight's helmet or something. He's deeply touched, but he has to go. Bye! He could almost create his own wind tunnel with that exist. Lilah sees Fred's article on Wes' coffee table and gets those jealous eyes that women are known to get from time to time with someone they are boinking. Hey, I guess evil chicks aren't immune to the power of the penis.

So, with the gang all there.. including an evil eye giving Lilah.. Fred starts her lecture. Just as she's really getting into it, a portal opens, bringing her face to face with a demon that looks like a paranormal octopus. They rescue her, and Angel thinks it's Lilah, so he immediately goes after her. He quickly realizes that she didn't do it, and starts to think of who all was there.

During his investigation, Angel goes to a comic book store to visit one of the lecture attendants that seemed a bit out of place. I would say so. If he's to be found at a comic book shop, who is he kidding thinking he can hang with the mensa crowd. Just kidding... cute little scene in the comic shop where the guy tells them he knows all about Angel and his peeps. Ah, gotta love the cybernerds.

Angel: They talk about me in the chatty rooms?

Blahdy-Blah.. turns out it was Fred's ex-professor doing the portal opening. He also was responsible for sending her to Pylea. See, he was getting jealous of his really smart students so he would steal their work and send them away... far, far away. Fred wants some seriously major vengeance, and Gunn doesn't want to help her get all dark. She goes to Wes, who does help her. Then as she is about to throw her professor into a portal she opens, Gunn grabs the guy and throws him in it instead. That way Fred isn't a murderer. I guess that's sweet.

Cordelia visits Angel and they sit down and have a talk. She wants to know if they were in love. He doesn't really know the full answer to that question. Charisma Carpenter is pregnant during this particular season, and she is already filling out. Not really in the tummy area at the moment, but her boobs are really getting out there. And it's not like she had small ones in the first place. Connor is busy checking out her tatas too. Teenagers.

4x06 Spin the Bottle

This is an odd structured episode. It all kinda takes place as Lorne is telling the story of it on a performing stage. Seems like a weird thing to talk to an audience about... but that's a different story really. Ok, so he's telling the story of trying to get Cordelia's memory back. He stumbles upon a perfect spell, CLUE!, and gets everyone together to do it. Of course the spell does not go as intended. Everyone seems to revert back to their high school personas, which means they don't have any memories of each other.

Wesley: The cross obviously doesn't affect me, or our friend, the pugilist.
Gunn: Oh, your ass better pray I don't look that word up.

Eventually, Wesley-the-teenage-Watcher-in-training, theorizes that the only way to reverse the spell may be to kill a vampire. This is also about the same time that Angel realizes he is one.

Oh, Lorne got knocked out from the spell, so when they stumble upon him they think he's some sort of devil, so they tie him up.

Connor is out fighting and saving those distressed damsels. Turns out one wants to reward him for his bravery, but it'll cost him 50 bucks. Heh.

Lorne eventually wakes up, Fred unties him while everyone else is off doing other stuff, and Lorne figures out something to reverse the spell. It works. Cordy sees some weird demony thing in a vision/memory and wants to be left alone. Actually, she gets ALL her memories back, so Angel asks her the same question she asked him last episode. Guess she had the answer after all.

Angel: Cordelia - Were we in love?
Cordelia: We were.

Lorne finishes his tale on the stage, and he walks off the stage, and we just see an empty club/bar. See... Odd.

4x07 Apocalypse, Nowish

Cordelia's fragmented memories from the higher plane tell her that a horrific beast is coming, and that it will bring about the end of the world. Naturally.

Connor is always there to comfort her now when she wakes from her evil demony apocalyptic nightmares. I think I'm gonna hurl.

Later, Cordelia goes to talk to Angel and she tells him that she loves him, but she knows they can't be together. This poor guy will never catch a break, huh? Maybe it's written somewhere in the bylaws for champions that they can't know happiness or love. But they can know cheap sex (like when Angel slept with Darla).  Hmmm... I'm really not seeing anything wrong with this. Maybe they need to play up the cheap sex angle more often.

Connor and Cordelia are out trying to find out more information about this pending doom and gloom, when they happen upon Connor's birth place. A dirty alley among trash bins. At that same moment, in the same birthing spot, a big demony thing comes out of the ground. Connor tries to fight it, cuz he's an idiot. This sucker is HUGE and he looks like cooling lava, and he has hooves instead of feet. He's big, what can a wee Connor do. Connor takes his beating and the Beast shoots up into the air.

Lorne: I hate to be the little demon that cried "Apocalypse, Nowish," but..

Back at Angel Investigations, they are getting swamped with calls about the paranormal. Problem with what they do is, if business is good, things aren't so good. Paradoxical indeed.

Angel somehow gets some papers from Lilah at Wolfram & Hart. They are everything they got out of Lorne's head when they sucked him dry. heh. They can't make heads or tails of it, so they were just free with the sharing I guess. Eventually, they start to realize the papers are like a puzzle and put them together. It ends up making a big symbol with means something horrific I'm sure. Lorne's map of increased phonecalls appears to match their symbol.

Fred & Gunn are having issues in their relationship ever since Gunn killed that professor for her. Tension is thick, and Fred needs to think. She goes off to the diner they are always eating at.

All the mens figure out where the Beast is going with their weird maps, and they head off that way. They find the Beast and he's killed a bunch of folks. They try to attack, and the Beast just swats them around like flies. At the end of the fight, the Beast asks something like "Do you really think she's safe with him?" to Angel. Then the Beast punches the ground and fire starts shooting up into the sky. Thinks are looking very bleak.

So bleak in fact, that over with Cordy and Connor, she's decided to give him an end-of-the-world Oedipalesque boinking. This is where I truly want to hurl. Worst. Storyline. Ever.

Because of what the Beast says, Angel goes to check on them, and instead he gets an eyeful of virgin boy going at it with the woman he just realized he loves.

4x08 Habeas Corpses

Oooooh boy. Man, Angel is not taking kindly to that sight he had of his lady and his son going all horizontal. He is very angry. And really, aren't we all? Way to take a storyline and vomit on it, in it, under it, and through it. Yech.

Joining him in the miserable-about-a-lady realm, is Wesley. He's still crushin' hard on Fred.

And proving there is some slight sanity somewhere, Cordy is completely wigged out when she wakes up next to Connor. Connor gets the "happy puppy look", and Cordy tells him to quit it. She tries to tell him it was a one time thing, but he gets super pissy, like a teenager, and takes off.

After the evening's events, Lilah comes to check on Wesley to make sure he's alive and she actually seems super happy to see him. See, the power of the penis is strong in this one. However, Wesley doesn't appear to be as thrilled to see her. He breaks up with her, but she kinda begs. She tells him she could "wear the glasses again" and even that doesn't sway him. See, they did it once where she dressed up like Fred. It was totally Lilah's doing too. It just that Wesley seemed to REALLY enjoy it.

Cordy goes to find Angel, and she tells him about the Beast and the fact that it came out of the same spot Connor was born. Connor goes to W&H, Lilah specifically, and asks for her help. He wants to figure out what he is, and she's more than willing to open him up to figure that out for him. Good timing too, cuz the Beast is now at W&H and he's ripping heads off and wreaking all kinds of havoc. Somehow Wes is in W&H too. He manages to save Lilah and himself. He goes back to the hotel and tells everyone that the Beast is at W&H, and Connor is trapped in there with it too.

Oh, total sidebar here. Angel's old white trash orangey hair seems to be gone. It's much darker now, and he finally cut a cut. He was looking really shaggy there. Oh, and I've noticed they've slowly moved Cordelia's hair from nasty blonde back to a brunette that is more flattering.

Anyway, they all go to W&H, get Connor, and they go up to that secret special White Room that Angel visited once. They get there, and the Beast is already sucking the life out of the little girl that is usually in there. Right as the Beast comes towards them, the little girl reaches her hand out and the whole Gang just appears back at the hotel lobby.

First Angel seems really happy about this, then he sees Cordelia and the extra broody face comes back into place. She's excited to see everyone back and not hurt. Him, not so much.

Cordelia: I'm just glad everyone is back together.
Angel: Me too. Now take your new boyfriend and get the hell out of here.
Cordelia: Oh God.

Buffy, Season 7 Disc 2

7x05 Selfless

The episode starts out panning through what looks like a fraternity house. There are bodies everywhere. Looks like they all have holes in their chests too. There's blood everywhere, of course. Then we see Anya sitting there covered in blood. Elbows deep, even. She looks absolutely miserable too. She then goes and tries to wash some of the blood off. The next thing we see is Willow running into her on her way out of the frat house. Willow notices a bit of blood on her, so when Anya leaves, Willow goes in to check out the house. She finds the massacre, and also finds the girl who made the wish for it whimpering in a closet about wanting to take everything back. Willow almost gets attacked by the spider demon that was unleashed to do all that damage, but manages to throw it out of the house instead.

D'Hoffryn: (to Willow) The flaying of Warren Mears? Oh, truly inspired. That was water-cooler vengeance. Lloyd has a sketch of it on his wall.

Willow goes back to tell her pals about what she's seen and heard. Buffy and Xander go out to catch the spidery bugger pronto. During which, they have a conversation about how Buffy now has to kill Anya. Xander, being Anya's ex-fiance, takes issue with this. He wants her to find another way.

Throughout the episode, we see flashbacks to Anya's original past as a human and what drove her to become a vengeance demon in the first place. Her name was Aud back then and her man Olaf cheated on her. She cast some spell on him making him a troll, and then D'Hoffryn came a-knockin' cuz he was so impressed with her act of vengeance.

Back in the present, Buffy confronts Anya sword-style. They fight, Anya gets stabbed right through the chest. They show a weird flashback from the musical episode, but this was a song we didn't hear then. Something about her being excited to be a "Mrs."  She then wakes back up with the sword sticking out of her chest and then pulls it out. Guess it's not so easy to get rid of her. Then D'Hoffryn appears and Anya says she wants to take it all back. He tells her the price is the soul of a vengeance demon, and she says she's willing to pay. The problem here is he didn't say that she would be the one paying. He pops up her vengeance demon friend Hallie, and kills her, and everything returns to normal. Also because of this, D'Hoffryn doesn't want her as a vengeance demon anymore, and she's back to being human. And if she's human, Buffy don't kill that. So... she's off the hook now it would seem. Well, now she's all sad and remorseful though.

Not an awful episode. I really like the way the Aud flashbacks are filmed. Weird grainy thing going on and with subtitles. It just seemed very Anya. Very different from the usual Angel or Spike flashbacks. It was quite sad to see Anya be so miserable, but then again we really wouldn't have wanted her to continue on the show if she didn't show such remorse. I guess her (relatively) short stint as a human changed her to where she just couldn't bear the destruction she had to inflict on others.

7x06 Him

Ok, so we go from a kind of heavy episode, what with the attempt at killing Anya and at all that... and we move on to quite a funny episode. I was laughing my ass off during this episode. Hoooboy. So, Dawn gets what seems like a normal teenage crush on Sunnydale High's star quarterback, RJ Brooks. However, it then turns into something quite obsessive, which leads Buffy to investigate the boy herself. That turns out to be a problem too, cuz then Buffy starts to develop a thing for him. She's all over him in fact. Dawn witnesses how far it gets, and Xander manages to stop it before it goes too out of control. Dawn is crushed by Buffy's betrayal and with the man Dawn so deeply loves.. suddenly. As the Gang investigates, all the girls become quite enamored with RJ. So, it is then up to Spike and Xander to discover the source of this attraction.

Buffy: Willow, you're a gay woman. And he isn't!
Willow: This isn't about his physical presence. It's about his heart.
Anya: His physical presence has a penis!
Willow: I can work around it!

Turns out it is his letterman's jacket. It was passed to him from his older brother, who Xander had gone to school with in the past, and his older brother got it from their father. They didn't even seem to think anything was special about it. Only, that after the older brother no longer had it, the best thing that ever happened to him was getting in the manager program at the local pizzeria.

Ok, the really super funny bits was when all the girls are arguing about how much they love RJ and who loves him most. Then they decide they have to do something to prove how much they love RJ. It breaks down like so... Buffy says she'll kill the principal for him cuz he was giving RJ a hard time earlier... Willow is going to do a spell to make him a girl, cuz yanno, gay... Dawn is going to kill herself to prove for now and always she will have loved him most... and Anya just runs off and robs a few banks apparently. Not sure where the last one comes from, but whatever floats.

The really funny part was when Spike finds Buffy outside the principal's office with a bazooka. They have the shot from inside the principal's office, so we just see them through the blinds. Spike interrupts her, then we see her running away from him. Then we see her running back to try to do the deed, and that happens a couple times. Then Spike is finally able to tackle her. I just couldn't stop laughing. It's also quite funny that Buffy is able to believe that all the other girls are under a spell and she feels so sorry for them, cuz her love is so real for RJ. Just a really fun episode, that happens to be sandwiched between too very serious ones.

7x07 Conversation With Dead People

All the gang is confronted by deceased people of some degree or another. Buffy squares off, physically and mentally, against former classmate Holden Webster, who has just risen as a vampire. It ends up being this big psych session with Holden, as he was a psych major at Dartmouth or somewhere fancy schmancy like that. It was a very good way to get a lot of info about how Buffy feels. Also, the dialogue between them was awesome. They would go back and forth from shrink sessions to trying to kill each other and the juxtaposition was great. In the end, he tells her that Spike was her sire.

Back at the Summers house, Dawn is terrorized by an unseen force, while Willow is visited in the library by the ghost of Cassie Newton, who says she's been sent by Tara.

Holden: Oh, so I'm a vampire. How weird is that?
Buffy: Sorry.
Holden: No, no. Feels great. Strong. Like I'm connected to a powerful all-consuming evil that's gonna suck the world into a fiery oblivion. How 'bout you?

Back at the Summers house, Dawn is terrorized by an unseen force. She tries to do spells to cast it out, and otherwise get rid of it. She also suspects her mother is trying to get through to tell her something. In the end, her mother does show up and tell her that something big is coming and Buffy will not choose her in the end. That's just mean. What kind of mom would tell their daughter that? Dead or alive?

Willow is visited in the library by the ghost of Cassie Newton from a couple episodes back. She says she's been sent by Tara. Willow is so amazed and emotional about this encounter, until Cassie goes a little too far. She starts to try to convince Willow to never use any sort of magic ever again. She then goes a step further and says it would really be better for the world, for Willow, and for Tara if she were to just kill herself. Willow finally realizes something is not quite right here.

We also see Spike, sans dialogue, at a bar chatting up a girl. Then we see them walking the streets just lahdeedah-like. Then we see him get her to her door, but just before she goes in, he bites her, drinks her up, does the neck tango, etc. Then, we see him bury her somewhere. Uhoh. Maybe soulful Spike is not so good afterall... eeep.

7x08 Sleeper

After battling a new vampire who claimed to have been recently sired by Spike, Buffy warns the gang that they must keep a close eye on him. Since Spike is now living at Xander's place, Buffy keeps him in charge of Spike-watch. But since Xander has a job, where he's been dressing in a suit (!!!), he enlists Anya to stay at his apartment to make sure Spike doesn't do anything crazy. And since Anya is involved, we do get quite the hilarious scene here.

After a whole day of just sitting around, Anya finally gets curious and heads into Spike's room while he's sleeping. She's trying to find anything that might indicate he's gone bad. So, she starts going through his clothes, while holding a stake for protection of course. He finally wakes up while she's digging through his jacket, and she plays it off like she came in there looking for sex. I don't know what was funnier, Anya's hilarious attempt at seeming hot and bothered, or Spike's look of horror at the fact.

Anya: (to Spike) It's not like I'm snooping around for proof that you're some sort of whacked-out serial killer. I don't know why I said that. Forget I said that. It's craziness talking, it's just nerves. Nerves. Nerves and horniness. Oh, just shut up, William, and take me. Take me now.

Afterwards, Spike does go out but he seems to fall into a weird trance and then seduces and attacks a girl as the weird First Evil thing looks on. Then Spike starts to remember everything that's happened. He gets Buffy and takes her to where all the bodies are. Right after he gets her there, all the bodies he's buried suddenly and conveniently all rise together and start attacking her. He goes off to a corner to mutter to himself and cry. When Buffy finally slays all the vamps, she comes back to Spike looking ready to kill him. He also looks quite ready to be killed. But as he has a bit of a conversation with the First, she begins to see that he is being tormented by the thing that has been taunting all of them too.

Spike: You know I can't.
Buffy: Right. The Chip.
Spike: No, not the chip. Not the chip dammit. You honestly think I'd go to the end of the underworld and back to get my soul and then-- Buffy, I can barely live with what I did. It haunts me. All of it. If you think that I would add to the body count now, you're crazy.

Crazy Spike is not nearly as much fun as S&M Sexy Spike from last season, even if you just consider it all from a dialogue perspective. But of course, I'm also thinking of the fact that he was like half-naked half of the time in the previous season.

Back to the story... In London, Giles finds a young girl dead and a fellow watcher close to death. Just as the episode is ending we see one of those robed, hooded figures start to swing an ax thing at Giles' head. Cruel, cruel way to end an episode. Mean! Dammit!

Angel, Season 4 Disc 1

4x01 Deep Down

I remember SO hating the Season 3 cliffhanger ending at the time. Those kinds of cliffhangers are just so cruel to the viewer. But this time around, I can just pop the next disc in and go about my business without the 3-4 months of agony waiting to find out what happens. Yay.

This episode starts with a most beautiful scene. It appears to be Thanksgiving and the whole Gang is having dinner together all happy like. Even Wesley! So, of course it's not real. It's a hallucination/delusion that Angel is having while sitting in a box at the bottom of the ocean. He must be hungry, among other things.

Angel and Cordelia are still missing. Gunn and Fred are still looking for them, but not having much luck. Lilah and Wes still having the sexy time. The fact that they are always so sweaty when they show them as they are finishing the deed is kinda hawt. A little on the oh-so-kinky side... when Lilah leaves, Wesley opens a closet with a key and we see Justine bound and gagged in a big old cage. Man, that Wesley sure is going through some changes.

Lilah does a very Wolfram & Hart kind of thing, and goes over Linwood's head. Mostly cuz she gets the permission from the higher-ups to cut his off.

Back to Wes, turns out he knows what went down with Angel. He uses Justine, and they go out in the boat and bring him up. Wesley ends up having to give Angel some of his own blood to get him better. Such the sacrifice. He just wants to be back in the Gang, I'm sure.  Angel comes back to the hotel, where Connor has been fighting with a clued in Fred & Gunn. He seems very weak, but not too weak to put Connor in his place.

Angel: I love you, Connor. Now get out of my house.

Meanwhile, Cordelia is up in the clouds and she's apparently very bored.

4x02 Ground State

Wesley and Lilah are still heavy into the nekkid mambo. And, during a visit to Lilah, Angel tells her he can smell them all over each other. So, I guess that wee secret it out. Can't hide much from a vampire. Especially, when it involves odors.

Angel visits Dinza, a Goddess of the lost, who advises him that an item called the Axis of Pythia can help him find Cordelia. With Fred and Gunn, he breaks into a auction house to find the Axis, but a beautiful burglar with electrical powers seems to have had the same idea. She's like an X-men character actually. She can't touch anything without frying it with electricity.

Fred: I'm still working on a plan, but so far it involves being sent to prison and becoming somebody's bitch.

Oh, he name is Gwen Raiden. That totally sounds like something straight out of X-men. She even goes to a special boarding school as a kid cuz she's all weird and special. See... XMEN.

Anyway, Angel ends up with the device, and he sees Cordelia. He knows she's ascended and she looks happy. Cordelia is looking over them and seems far from happy. She's bored and she wants back on the mortal plane.

4x03 The House Always Wins

In a cute little scene, we see Connor on the street fighting vamps. Looking down at him from the roof of a nearby building, Angel is doing a running commentary on what Connor is doing wrong and right. Very father-like. Cordelia is up in the sky or whatever, looking down at both Angel and Connor commenting on the fact that no one is trying to get her out of her predicament.

Angel decides they need a break, so off to Vegas the three of them go. It'll also serve as an info gathering trip by seeing Lorne to see what he sees from their auras. They go to a very public show of Lorne's, very Liberace-esque, but he doesn't even acknowledge their presence.

It soon becomes clear that Lorne is being held against his will, and that his popular casino act is actually a way for his captor to read the futures of people in the crowd. Angel and the gang must find a way to help Lorne escape without sacrificing their own destinies in the process.

Angel: This place was so much friendlier when the mob ran it...

On the Gang's return to the hotel, they find Cordelia, but she's got a serious case of the amnesia. We're getting into major soap opera territory here.

Not the greatest episode, but it was interesting to see Angel dropping names, like Bugsy, Sammy, and Elvis. It was kinda cute.

4x04 Slouching Toward Bethlehem

Cordelia appears back at the hotel with no idea who she is or how she got there. She also cannot remember anything about her friends or her past. Worried that the full truth may scare her off, the gang attempts to hide the scarier parts of their lives from her until she is ready to deal with it. Things get even more complicated when Lorne reads her mind and sees a terrifying vision of the future.

Gunn: Well, how horrible is this thing?
Lorne: Well, I haven't read the Book of Revelations lately, but if I was searching for adjectives, I'd probably start there.

Connor is busy struggling to find his place in the world. He sees family, and you can see quite the yearning in him.

Cordy finally finds out the whole truth about them dealing with the demon world and creatures and monsters, and she gets pissed that they held the truth from her. It probably didn't help that one of Lorne's client tried to eat her.

Lilah gets a call while she's at Wesley's and he overhears. He finds out that Wolfram & Hart is after Cordelia, and he comes to warn them. However, after all is said and done, it turns out that W&H were after Lorne, and the readings he had of Cordelia. Sucked them right out of his head. Wes confronts Lilah, she intended for all that to happen as it did. He's not as bad as she thought he was.

After all the wiggy stuff going on, Cordy doesn't feel like she can trust the group, but she Connor seems very straight forward with her. So, she decides she would rather stay with Connor at his disgusting abandoned building than in the lush hotel with the Gang.

Ugh, memories of awful story line are hitting me. Gawd this gets so icky soon. You'll see what I mean soon enough. *HURL*

Buffy, Season 7 Disc 1

7x01 Lessons

We open the season with a scene in Istanbul. Yes, strange. We see a very frightened girl being chased by a couple of robed, hooded figureds. They eventually trap her, hold her down, and stab her with a really big ceremonial looking knife. Hmmm.

Next we see Buffy and Dawn in the cemetery. Looks like Buffy is keeping her word about showing Dawn the world, and that includes teaching her how to slay vamps. She doesn't do the greatest job, but she learns the lesson of the night. "It's about power", and Dawn doesn't have it.

It's a new year, which also means a new school year. In this case, it also means a brand spanking new Sunnydale High School. Since the old SHS did sit above the actual Hellmouth, Buffy and Gang realize they need to check out the new school to see how it's doing. Turns out the new principal's office is right over the sweet spot now.

Oh, and how did I forget about our evil witch Willow. Looks like she's been off in England with Giles in an evil magic rehab of sorts.

Willow: Is there anything you don't know everything about?
Giles: Synchronized swimming. Complete mystery to me.

So, back to the school. Buffy is checking out every square inch of the place to make sure the place is safe for Dawn and well, everyone else. She runs into the new principal, Robin Wood, and they get to talking. Mainly about why she's still around. They do also discuss Buffy's checkered, perhaps plaid, past at the High School. He doesn't seem too concerned with it though.  She continues her inspection, and she finds a weird doohickey in one of the bathrooms. Looks quite magical, in my opinion. Right as she picks it up, a ghost/zombie thing shows up and yells at her. Turns out that magical thing she found is a talisman. It's making some undead students and faculty rise up and blame Miss Summers for failing to protect them. The eventually figure out it's all connected to the talisman, so they destroy it. Makes everything better. Oh, and they had a couple of Dawn's new friends with them.

Later the principal sees Buffy talking to these new friends of Dawn's and he likes how she seems to get through to these trouble chillen'. So, he offers her a job as a guidance counselor of sorts. Guess no more Doublemeat Palace for her. Yay!

Oh, and during the whole thing, Buffy had stumbled onto Spike's new hangout in the school's basement. She seemed quite surprised to see him back in Sunnydale, and really quite baffled at the fact that he's now bat-shit insane.

I do like this episode, but it does make me miss Season 6. I know I'm a freak that way. Well, that might just be one of the ways I'm a freak. I'm sure the list is quite long.

7x02 Beneath You

We get another foreign scene, this time in Germany, with a scared girl being chased by robed, hooded dudes. This whole scene reminds me of an episode of Alias actually. What with the bright pink hair and fancy fighting moves. Anyway, she comes to the same end as the Istanbul girl. Stabbed and killed with a big shiny ceremonial knife/sword thing. This is obviously going to mean something in the future.

Buffy wakes from a bad dream with the warning, "From beneath you, it devours." This is probably going to be something big and something with the Hellmouth. I'm just guessing here. But I think it's a safe bet.

Buffy has her new job at the school, and before she starts her day, she goes to pay Spike a visit down in the school's basement. She doesn't find him though.

Xander meets a young woman, Nancy, who's dog was eaten by a large creature that burrowed up out of the ground. Spike mysteriously appears in a very blue shirt, and offers his assistance in dealing with the monster, but Buffy and the gang are still a little uneasy about having him around. He seems quite clear-headed this time around though.

In tracking down the monster, the Scoobies soon discover that Anya has definitely returned to her old ways. Seems like Nancy had a bit of a wish concerning her quasi ex-boyfriend. A vengeance-y type wish.

Dawn: Spike. You sleep, right? You, vampires? You sleep?
Spike: Yeah, what's your point?
Dawn: Well, I can't take you in a fight or anything, even with a chip in your head. But you do sleep. If you hurt my sister at all, touch her, you're gonna wake up on fire.

Over in England, Willow has some serious mixed emotions about returning home to Sunnydale.

Just as the big wormy creature is turning back into Nancy's boyfriend, Spike accidentally stabs him. This causes him to wig out again, and he runs off. After all is settled, Buffy goes to find Spike. She finds him in a church doing his random totally insane ramblings. As he mumbles on, she starts to catch on to the fact that he has his soul now. He wants it all to stop, and ends up hugging a cross... which of course makes his skin burn. But he looks quite peaceful while it's happening.

7x03 Same Time, Same Place

This is the episode that brings Willow back to Sunnydale. It's a really sucky episode. I'd like to think that Willow warrants a better episode for her return, but maybe it's the price she has to pay for going all dark and evil. Tsk tsk, you get a bad episode.

Anyway... Buffy, Xander, and Dawn are waiting at the airport for Willow. She never seems to get off the plane. However, same time same place, we see Willow arrive with no Gang to greet her. So, with a few more examples, we realize that they can't see each other.

While trying to find Willow, they stumble upon someone that has had their skin removed and their blood all gone too. They probably all think it, but Buffy is the first one to say it out loud. Willow is definitely capable of skinning people, isn't she? Willow sees the same skinned victim and tries to figure out what did it too. She seeks out Anya's help, which she reluctantly gets. They do a locator spell and find the cave where the thing is at. Buffy and friends also find the same cave, but with blood-sniffing Spike as their aide.

Xander: I saved the world with talking from my mouth. My mouth saved the world.

There's a fight and Dawn gets pegged by the demon which paralyzes her. Buffy and Xander take her home, then run into Anya too. Anya mentions that she helped Willow and that she was on her way to some cave. They realize that she's probably there now. They go back, with Anya in tow. She can see both parties and helps them save Willow, cuz she's been playing food to the demon while they were gone. Shortly after the demon is slain, they can suddenly see each other again. Willow realizes she may have accidentally put the spell in motion. She was so worried about seeing them again that she may have just put that out there.

7x04 Help

The day has arrived for Buffy to really do her counselor duties at the High School. She talks with some troubled teens and seems to be doing not bad. They all seem quite comfortable talking to her. Some just want to visit her cuz she's a hottie though. However, when a student named Cassie talks to Buffy, she calmly relays that she will die in a week. This appears to be one situation Buffy doesn't quite now how to address. At first she thinks she's suicidal, but that doesn't pan out. Then she thinks it might be due to her alcoholic father, and that doesn't seem likely either.

Willow: Have you googled her yet?
Xander: Willow! She's 17!

Buffy asks Dawn to befriend Cassie, and get to know her a bit better. Try to suss out what might be going on. With the help of some locker searches, Buffy finds a kid that has info about some ceremony some kids at the school are going to have. They plan on using Cassie as the sacrifice. Buffy and Spike save Cassie from the kids and the Demon they summoned. On their way out of the school, Cassie almost gets pegged by an arrow that was set as a booby trap on the door. Buffy catches the arrow in time. Right after that, Cassie falls down dead. Turns out it was her heart that was gonna be her end. Just an old-fashioned heart problem. Poor kid.

Now on the surface, I would think I wouldn't like this episode. But I did like it. I can't put my finger on why though. It definitely seems to fall into the monster-of-the-week category, and that usually just makes my skin crawl. Maybe it was that the Gang learned that they can't save everyone from everything.

Angel, Season 3 Disc 6

3x20 A New World

Yes, Angel's wittle baby is now like 18 years old. He's come back, and he doesn't look too happy to see dear old dad. He starts attacking immediately. The fight scene is really cool. Very theatrical with the slo-mo action and then sped up movements.  After big awesome fight, Connor runs out of the hotel, and with the help of some seriously lacking special effects, jumps on top of a bus and goes for a ride.

Over in Wesley land, Lilah is busy stopping by his place to offer him a job at Wolfram & Hart. He finds it a bit humorous, and denies.

Fred: Connor's new to this world, alone...probably scared.
Gunn: Yeah, he looked scared, kicking my ass!

The Gang can't find Connor, but he's busy finding a damsel in distress. He saves her, cuts off the ear of the guy that was giving her trouble and she lets him follow her to her homeless hovel. She shows him some food he's never experienced, and gets him out of his Peter Pan outfit. Later she goes off to do some drugs in the bathroom, and then Connor finds her dead.

Angel sniffs out Connor's location and they talk a bit. The main thing he seems to want Angel to understand that his name isn't Connor, it's Stephen. But for the purpose of not confusing you, we'll just keep calling him Connor. During their talk, the earless dude and his buds also find Connor, and big fight ensues. Cops also find the spot... geeez, it's a regular party. Angel and Connor eventually escape, but Connor doesn't want to go to the hotel with him. They seem like they are on ok terms, so Angel lets him go.

Yah, he goes running off and finds his other father, Holtz. Guess he got through the tear in time too.

Side note -- Groo has started this weird sudden jealousy of Angel where Cordelia is concerned. It just seems out of nowhere.

Angel's son Connor is brought back from the Hell dimension a feral teenage warrior, and is hellbent on vengeance against his father for Angel's bloody past. When he fails, the confused teen escapes to the mean streets of L.A. Determined to set things straight, Angel searches for his son, who in the interim befriends a troubled but kind homeless girl. Meanwhile, the dimensional rift through which the young man traveled continues to cause trouble at the hotel.

3x21 Benediction

Angel and Connor successfully engage in some much-needed father-son bonding when they find themselves fighting side-by-side. Then foster-father Holtz stirs things up by suggesting Connor should leave him to live with Angel. Meanwhile, Lilah continues to work on recruiting Wesley for the bad guys; and Cordelia's closeness with Angel causes a rift in her relationship with Groosalugg.

Cordy: Wait! Angel! Before you go, we have to do that thing.
Angel: What thing?
Cordy: That thing we do? You know, that thing where I say 'Are you sure you know what you're doing?' 'Angel, please think about this' and then you ignore me and rush headlong into trouble?
Angel: Right, that thing. (pauses) ...'Kay, we done?

Couple of random observations... Angel's hair seems really light color-wise, and shaggy as hell. Don't know if I noticed this before, but Cordelia has really great eyebrows. Hey, it's a girl thing, one appreciates good eyebrows.

So, Holtz seems like he's all RahRah Angel to Connor, but he obviously has a devious plan. Justine is with him and she's promised him she'll help him. We find out what her promise involved. She kills Holtz by poking two holes in his neck with an icepick. Guess he just has to have the last betrayal.

3x22 Tomorrow

Angel tries to make Connor feel at home in the Hyperion, he's even busy trying to find the perfect room for him in the hotel. However, Justine tries to convince him that Angel is guilty of murdering Holtz. And since he's grown up with nothing but hate his whole life it really doesn't take him long to go with that. Poor thing even cuts off Holtz's head so he won't turn into a vampire. Isn't that so sweet? Yech.

Connor comes back to the hotel like lah-dee-dah, nothing's happened, and Angel is his Papa. Angel wants to take his son to an action movie. With Fred & Gunn in tow, they all head out to a drive-in... cuz those are still so common.  During the movie a real helicopter shows up and military guys try to get Connor. They finish that fight, and Angel realizes the van in front of them houses W&H. He opens it and smacks 'em around.

Angel: I found Holtz.
Cordelia: And?
Angel: I didn't kill him.
Cordelia: Maybe you're growing as a person.

Meanwhile, Cordelia seems to be the only person who does not realize that she has fallen in love with Angel. When the light finally dawns, she decides that she must find a way to tell him. Well, right after Groo leaves her ass. I wonder where he goes to live? Does he go back to Pylea? Or has he been around long enough to go out, get a job, and pay rent. Hey, just thinking of the practicals here.

Cordelia calls Angel, says she has to talk to him about her feelings for him and he looks kinda cute with the smile he has. They agree to meet at some ocean side place that is pretty. I'm wondering, really? Let's meet somewhere instead of just doing this over the phone. You've already said like 49% of what you want, just go with it. But, that's just me.

She's running late to her own scheduled rendezvous and suddenly everything goes all bright and lighty and freeze frame. Except Cordy, and her demon guide Skip. He's come to tell her she's graduated and outgrown this particular plane of existence and she needs to ascend. Our Cordy has come so far huh? Total teenage rich bitch with 'tude, to angelic lovely. Who'da thunk?

She doesn't want to leave without telling Angel how she feels, but she doesn't really have a choice about that. She starts floating up into the sky in a really bad cheesy way and it takes far too long.. so it looks cheesy for a long time too.

Connor finds Angel where he's waiting for Cordelia, big fight ensues. Connor is actually able to get Angel knocked out with the help of taser and something else. He signals a boat, and it starts to head toward him. Then, on the boat, him and Justine are basically sealing Angel up in a big steel box. Guess what's gonna happen? Yup.

There was a really cool juxtaposition between Angel sinking down to the bottom of the ocean, while Cordelia is ascending to that other spiritual plane. Well, it could have been really cool if that ascension didn't look so "Touched by an Angel". Heh. That's actually kinda funny. Cuz she WISHES she could be touched by this Angel. Get it? OMG! I slay me.

Oh, Wes is now having hot, sweaty, mean, evil sex with Lilah. If you can't beat 'em, bang 'em.

Buffy, Season 6 Disc 6

6x20 Villains

The paramedics arrive at Buffy's house and try to save Buffy. While they are doing that, Willow is upstairs calling on Osiris to bring Tara back to life. He denies her because the dark magicks will not reverse a natural human death. She instantly becomes consumed with rage. Tara was her emotional anchor, and with her gone, she has gone straight back to the dark arts she had turned away from out of her love for Tara.

She goes straight to the Magic Box and absorbs all the information in all the dark magick books she finds there. The absorbing of all the information makes her eyes and her hair go black. Buffy and Xander find her, and they hunt Warren down on a bus heading out of Sunnydale. She goes to kill him, and they find out he's a robot. Buffy and Xander can't believe what she's willing to do, and they try to stop her. She blasts them with the dark magic and flees.

Back at the house, Dawn gets home from school and finds Tara's body.

With the help of Anya and the return of her vengeance demon powers, Buffy and Xander find Willow. Just as she's tortured Warren, skinned him alive, then burns him. Then she goes airborne...

Willow: One down...

6x21 Two To Go

After exacting revenge on Warren for Tara's death, an extremely powerful and vengeful Willow now vows to go after the other two members of the trio, Jonathan and Andrew.  After freeing the Duo from jail they have to escape a chasing Dark Willow. As she's chasing them with a semi, she starts to run out of magic energy. The Gang and duo escape her and they run to the Magic Box to find a protection spell. Of course, she finds them. She tries to attack the two dudes, but they've managed to get the protection spell up and running.

Willow: You're trying to sell me on the world? The one where you lie to your friends when you're not trying to kill them? And you screw a vampire just to feel? And insane asylums are the comfy alternative? This world? Buffy it's me. I know you were happier when you were in the ground. The only time you were ever at peace in your whole life was when you were dead. Until Willow brought you back...you know, with magick.

They manage to get the guys out of the shop, and distract her. Willow is willing to do just about anything to get what she wants, even if it means going through Buffy to do it. As they start battling it out, a bright green light sends Willow flying across the shop and Giles appears in the doorway.

While all this is going on in Sunnydale, Spike is undergoing a crazy harsh challenge given to him by an African demon. An Africa that looks like a California beach with a bonfire and some huts tossed on it. Very weak there. See, he's doing this challenge in hope of becoming what he once was. I'm sure we'll find out what this means in more detail later.

6x22 Grave

Giles has some new-found power given to him by a local coven to help him battle Willow. He is able to bind her, but only momentarily. She does some mind control on Anya who gets her free. Buffy and Giles go a few round with Willow, which destroys the magic shop, and weakens Giles. He still tries to get her to see her evil ways by talking about Tara, but that doesn't faze Miss Evil Thang. She sends a big magical fireball out into the world to find the nerd duo.

Xander: First day of kindergarten you cried 'cause you broke the yellow crayon and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You've come pretty far. Ending the world, not a terrific notion, but the thing is yeah, I love you. I loved crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I'm goin' out, it's here. You wanna kill the world? Well, then start with me. I've earned that.

Buffy races to save them and Xander from the fireball of death, and just barely makes it. However, she ends up trapped in a big while in the graveyard with Dawn while Xander has been knocked unconscious. The nerds take this opportunity to flee.

Willow is busy continuing her attack on Giles, and he tries to counter her, but no go. She sucks his energy out of him and into her, which hits her with a huge burst of emotion. She suddenly feel so much pain and hurt in the world and this just makes matters worse. Now she wants to end the whole world's pain. That's quite the burden there. But, she's gonna do it the easy way, by just ending the whole world. No world, no pain.

While Anya is helping Giles as he lay dying, she learns of Willow's world ending plans. She goes to find Buffy who is still stuck in the hole with Dawn. Anya gives her the lowdown on what's going on, then she goes back to Giles.

Willow speaks to Buffy telepathically and wants her to die fighting, so she makes a group of weird tree root and mud zombies from the hole they're in. Buffy is outnumbered, so enlists dawn to help. See, two swords had fallen down in the hole with them... can you say convenient? Gah. Dawn shows off some killer slayer-esque movies, and seems to impress her big sister.

Willow is busy up on the edge of a cliff bringing up an old satanic temple to help her destroy the world. However, Xander steps in her way to stop her. He starts to talk to her, trying to remind her of her past and how he will always love her. She uses magic to wound him, and he just keeps yelling at her that he loves her. The emotions he is bringing up drains her of her powers. She finally breaks down in his arms as the magic continues to drain from her. Finally making her hair red again, and the black veins disappear.

Once her powers are gone, Giles recovers. He tells Anya that the powers Willow took from him were a bit spiked. They were meant to allow her to tap into her emotions so Xander could reach her humanity. Meanwhile, back in Africa, Spike is told that he has indeed completed the challenges and has won his prize. But I'm thinking it wasn't what he was expecting. The demon slams his hand on Spike's chest and restores his soul.  Maybe he should have been more specific with the wording. Cuz he did say something like "restore me to my old self, so the slayer gets what she deserves". Oooh, next season could be very interesting.

Angel, Season 3 Disc 5

3x16 Sleep Tight

Wes is continuing with his depressing self. The dude is bring me down. Geeez. I think he doesn't ever go back to a happy-go-british Wes we've known and not hated to much. Bummer. He's seriously bringing me down! I know, I repeated myself. But only to indicate the level at which he's bringing me down. I think you've got the point by now. Good. With the continuing darkness, he goes and visits Holtz again. Talking about Angel and the baby... something something. His darkness was so overwhelming I forgot to pay too close attention to the scene.

Lorne has a client visiting him at the hotel to get a reading. She's human yet, when she is singing for him she goes all weird demon-like with green foaming spit. Wasn't very attractive.

Angel: Yeah and you look like hell. Not the fun one where they burn you with hot pokers for all eternity...but the hard-core one...you know, Nixon and Britney Spears?

On the complete opposite end of the Wesley spectrum, we have Angel. He seems a tad bit overly amped. And he's amped about anything and everything. But he's really pumped at the thought of going to find Lorne's client fellow band mates that are a problem. He even ends up tearing limbs off. But they're demons, so no biggie there I guess. When he gets home from the fight, he can't seem to get enough blood. He's been drinking quite a bit of it lately. More than usual. The team realizes this, and Fred goes to analyze his beverages. Turns out there is a bit of human blood in his pig's blood, Connor's blood to be specific. Angel realizes that's why Connor has been smelling like food lately. Ew. And we know who's done this, right? Yah, the douchey lawyers.

Angel goes to visit Lilah, where she sits alone at a bar. Her life must be awesome. While he's there, Sahjahn appears to have a chat with Lilah too and gets mad when he sees her chatting it up with Angel.  He ends up giving away more information that he should have and now Angel knows stuff.

Wesley is back at the hotel and getting Connor ready to take for an "overnight" with Uncle Wes. As he's humming to Connor to get him to calm down, Lorne reads him. Lorne obviously sees something he doesn't like, and Wesley realizes it. Wesley knocks Lorne out, Angel sees Wesley on his way out with Connor and okays the overnight.

Just after that, Holtz makes an appearance, and his people attack Angel and friends. Lorne finally wakes up and tells them about Wes and the reading he got from him. As Wesley is leaving his own house after packing up to take Connor away, Justine drops by, slits his throat, and takes the baby to Holtz. Angel finds Holtz, Justine, and Connor. Then Lilah and her military brigade find all of them. When given the choice, he tells Holtz to take the baby and run. He knows that he's the better of two evils. Sahjahn shows up, gets all pissy, and rips open a portal or tear in the fabric of time and space to some hellish looking place. Holtz & baby run through it, and it seals up. I don't think that was what Angel had in mind when he told Holtz to take the baby. Poor daddy Angel :(

3x17 Forgiving

Gunn and Fred are at Wesley's place searching for clues to where he would take Connor. Little do they know that Wesley is just laying with his throat cut in the park next to his house. They arrive back at the hotel only to find out about Holtz taking Connor. Fred goes off to search for info on the portal and where it was Holtz ran off to.

After the whole portal/tear opening thing, Justine goes back to their shoddy headquarters and tells the rest of the team it's time to get serious. It's time to kill Angelus. Yawn.

Random info... I should have realized this early, but the Angel/Buffyverse is very Mac-centric. Go Macs! These look so old though. They're just so 2002. How gauche.

Lorne comes back with info about the world Holtz went to -- Quortoth. Sounds like it's not a very nice place. Apparently Angel has W&H's main man Linwood in one of the hotel's rooms, where he's setting up a nice little torture area. Doesn't take much, well, just really a threat of torture, and he spills. Angel is to go to a W&H special room called "The White Room". Lilah accompanies him to this room, where they are both greeted by a girl that looks about 8 years old. She tells Angel about Sahjahn, specifically that W&H is responsible for making him non-corporeal, and she tells him how to get him otherwise. He goes back to the hotel, does a spell with the dark magicks, and nothing seems to happen. However, Sahjahn pops up in the middle of a road and then proceeds to get hit by a truck. Heh, guess it worked after all.

Angel: I tell you what, you take me to the Quortoth world, help me find my son, we'll call it even.
Sahjhan: Really? You and me, buddy cops, summer release? We iron out our wacky differences and bond? Don't think so.

Fred & Gunn have found Wesley's diaries and realize why Wesley had done what he did. "The Father will kill The Son". When Sahjahn finds everyone, it turns out that Sahjahn is responsible for the prophecies. He was able to travel through time, so when he saw that Connor was responsible for his own death, he went back and had the prophecies changed here and there. Justine brings in magic urn which sucks Sahjahn inside. Guess that problem is on hiatus. Justine finally tells them that she slit Wesley's throat. They find him in a hospital.

Angel actually goes to visit, and he looks really concerned. He tells Wesley that he wants him to know that he's not Angelus, he's Angel. Then he proceeds to try to suffocate him, but he's stopped by the orderlies. Wow, he's extremely mad.

3x18 Double or Nothing

Let's begin this with a side note. It seems to me that Lorne's wardrobe seems to be taming down. Or maybe now that he's not in the club, he's trying to not be so conspicuous. I mean, he's already green, don't want to add to that natural shade of obviousness. Ok, I can get that.

Cordelia and Groosalugg return from their Mexican vacation. She looks so happy to see everyone, but with the things that have been going down, this bunch can't remember what a smile is. Cordelia's hair has changed yet again, and this time is definitely not for the better. It makes her look so much older.

Then we see some ugly, and not very well done, demons in a casino. Sigh. I already know this is gonna be a very bad Monster-of-the-Week episode. Bleh. Anyway, main big casino guys says "It's time to collect a soul" while staring at an Angel Investigations business card. So, naturally, we're supposed to think Angel. So, naturally, that makes me think of anyone but Angel. Angel would just be too obvious.

Groo: He is very fortunate to have such a woman looking after his weapon.
Lorne: I'm not touching that one!

While Gunn is out on a case, one of the casino henchmen find him (with Groo's help), and tells him his marker is up. They got notice that his soul might be at risk because of his new found love, and so it's time for him to pay up. He seems devestated, but he also owns up to his word. He has 24 hours to report to Jenoffs Casino. He then starts the next day by delivering breakfast in bed to Fred. He spends the rest of his day trying to cram every little thing that Fred loves to do and eat. She gets wise that something is up, and instead of telling her the truth, he gets all asshole-ish and tells her it's another woman cuz she's too damn skinny for his liking. So weak.

The rest of the Angel gang find out what's going down, and head to the casino. Angel says "double or nothing" over a game of high-card wins. Bad guy draws a 9... everyone ooooohs. Angel draws a friggin' 3. Cordelia slams a stake into bad buys hand, and Angel then swings a big slice-y weapon and cuts the bad guys head off. Gunn just looks at him in dismay. If it were that easy, Gunn would have tried that. The dude's head starts growing back. But of course. Then Angel gets the crows to take care of him, surely other people in the room owe him too. Gunn and Fred are finding an oasis of happiness amidst the pain around them, but all of it may be lost when a repo-man shows up to collect on a bargain that Gunn made years before. In order to make good, Gunn must surrender his soul.

And what did dear old Gunn sell his soul for, back when he was 17? His truck. Yes, his POS truck without air conditioning. He just figured he didn't have much time left in life anyway, so it wasn't like he'd need it. LAME.

3x19 The Price

In previous episodes, and something I forgot to mention, Angel had been spending entirely too much time in his old room where the earthquake induced fire ruined his and Connor's living quarters. He would just sit in the charred room staring. Cordelia would sit with him. Anyway, at the end of the last episode I believe, he finally starting taking down Connor's fried crib. So, now in this episode, the whole Gang is busy in his room trying to clean it up and fix what they can. There's a bit where Groo is trying to convince Angel to go with a different shade of paint that was just beautiful. He feels very strongly against the current shade of Pomegranate Mist. Good stuff.

Gavin: You know, despite our differences...when a coworker tries to pat you on the back...
Lilah: I check for the knife.

The rest of the episode is meh. Angel wants to just dive into work to help him forget about how much missing Connor hurts. They end up finding their potential client in a smoothie shop across the street from the hotel. He's been drinking everything he can find and his skin is still drying and cracking. He calls talking about "We are thirsty". Turns out that dark magick spell that Angel did... this is part of the cosmic payback. It's these weird invisible-ish slugs all over the hotel. They get inside people and just dehydrate the crap out of them. Fred ends up getting one in her, and so Gunn goes off to find out if Wesley knows anything that will help. At first he won't do anything, then he finds out it's Fred that is in trouble and then hands Gunn a bottle of vodka. He takes it back to the hotel, forces her to guzzle it, and the slug thing comes out.

While Angel and Cordy are in the hotel kitchen surrounded by these slugs, Cordy suddenly emits crazy insane bright light. It kills off all the slugs in the hotel. Guess this is part of her new demoness powers. She seems thrilled actually. Better than horns and a tail she says.

One of the creatures spoke through Fred while she had it, and told them all "The Destroyer is coming". After everything is cleared up, they all ponder what that means. Just then, a bit portal opens in the lobby ceiling. A big big creature falls through and looks all scary. Before anyone can even react, a human pops through and destroys the creature. He turns to the Gang, and specifically Angel, and says "Hi, Dad."

Oh snap.