Angel: Underneath

"This isn't Hell. It's the 'burbs."

This is an excellent finely crafted piece of television drama. The script is superb; I feel I haven’t praised Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft highly enough so here’s me doing it now. They are brilliant, whether it’s characterisation or plot, and their dialogue may not have the playfulness of a Joss Whedon but has a delightfully wry wit. I’ll miss them, and am puzzled at how little else they seem to have written.

This is a pivotal arc episode, of course; Lindsey is rescued so he can tell Angel what the Senior Partners are up to, namely corrupting him and his friends to keep the distracted from “the” Apocalypse, which is apparently the actual one and not one of those common or garden apocalypses that happen at the end of most Buffyverse seasons. It also sees Eve sign away her job, and her immortality, to a new liaison from the Senior Partners played by none other than Adam Baldwin, another Firefly alumnus. It’s cleverly done how he’s presented as an unstoppable threat who arrives implacably in front of Eve and produces... a pen.

Lindsey’s “holding dimension” is fascinating, reached by a magical car that evokes KITT from Knight Rider- we are primed to expect a Hell yet our first sight of him he looks very post-coital with his beautiful wife. Lindsey has a beautiful family in an enormous picket fence house but he seems to be afraid of the cellar. Only later do we find that he’s tortured there daily.

And here, of course, lies Gunn’s redemption. I love Angel’s pep talk to him as one who should know- yes, Gunn will forever be tormented by what he has done and yes, he should be. But he’s a good man and needs to atone. And that’s what he does- by taking Lindsey’s place in full knowledge that means daily torture. Redemption indeed.

But Lorne is headed in no such direction. Having run away unable to face Fred’s death he’s been drinking himself silly, depressed and disillusioned. He may have decided to  return and pretend to be functioning but he’s clearly shocked to see Angel and Spike without Gunn.

All this and we get done nicely scripted interplay between a very grim Wesley and an Illyria horrified at her relative weakness. We still don’t like her yet, but the script is gamely trying.

Absolutely first class telly.