Angel

Unleashed

"If you separate yourself from the ones you love, the monster wins."

Angel and the gang have taken to holding clandestine meetings in parks, fearful that that the Yikes ! crowd at Wolfram & Hart might be spying on them. During one of these meetings, Angel hears a commotion nearby, and discovers a werewolf attacking a young woman. Angel kills the wolf (with Wesley’s new silver engraved pen), but the woman has been bitten. Before he can help her, she runs away.

They take the werewolf (now back in human form) to the W&H building, where they dig up information on his identity. He’s a different breed of werewolf than is usually found in North America, and the resident cryptozoologist, Dr. Phlox....er, Royce, finds him very interesting.

They eventually track down the woman who was attacked. Her name is Nina Ash, and she lives with her sister and young niece, who have noticed strange bruises and general oddness about her since she got home.

That night, she babysits her niece, and starts to wolf out. The kid doesn’t see her (Nina hides in a bedroom), but Angel and Wesley get there just in time to tranq WolfNina and get her to W&H before she can hurt anyone.

The next morning, Nina wakes up in a cage, absolutely terrified. Angel explains to her what’s happened, and assures her that she can learn to control her animal side, just as he has learned to control his. Dr. Royce suggests that it might help if Nina could get some personal items from home, to give her something familiar and comforting as she deals with her transformations.

Fred takes Nina (with a security team) back to the house, and as they’re leaving with Nina’s stuff, Fred discovers that their bodyguards have been hurt. Out of nowhere, a group of commando types jump them, knocking Fred out and kidnapping Nina.

Turns out that they work for a guy named Jacob Crane, who owns a specialty restaurant. He likes to serve "exotic" meals, made from, say, werewolf meat.

As nighttime approaches, our heroes figure out that Dr. Royce is on Crane’s payroll, and was the person who ratted (or wolfed ?) them out. Angel intimidates him into taking them to Crane’s restaurant, where Nina is on a table, ready to made into a meal when the full moon rises. She’s actually reluctant to be rescued, thinking that dying is probably her best option right now, but Angel is determined to save her.

During the fight with the bad guys, Nina wolfs out, killing one attendee and biting Dr. Royce. Crane allows Angel to take a tranqulized Nina away, now that Royce has been bitten and can be the main course in a month or so. A terrified Royce is dragged away by Crane’s henchmen.

Angel takes Nina back to her home, where she reunites with her sister and niece. She isn’t sure what to tell them (if anything), and she’s still very worried about the violent creature that now lives inside her. Angel tries to reassure her, not by saying that it’ll be easy, but by pointing out how hard it is. He also reminds her - and himself - that our loved ones are the ones who keep us from falling apart, no matter the circumstances.

You might be asking yourself : Where was Spike in all this ? Mostly popping in and out, making snide comments, the usual. His condition is getting worse, though - he’s disappearing for longer stretches, and having a harder time rematerializing when he does come back. He’s also convinced that something wants to hang onto him when he makes his visits to the next world. Fred has been distracted by the Nina situation (much to Spike’s annoyance), but she promises to redouble her efforts on his behalf. She wants to tell the others and seek their help, but Spike insists that it be kept quiet.

Later, Angel decides to have his friends over to the new apartment. It’s a nice social gathering, where everyone has drinks and Chinese food and talks about how they shut down Crane’s operation successfully. Angel also claims that Nina gave him a "look," so I’m sure he’s hoping to see her again.

Preferably not with fangs and claws.

This episode is kind of a mixed bag for me. In the Stuff I Like category is the way Angel goes about helping Nina. He understands what it’s like to wake up and discover that you’re a monster, having to suppress those primal, destructive urges every day. He’s very honest with her about how difficult it is, but he’s also completely encouraging. He offers sympathy with a healthy dose of reality, and that’s exactly what someone in Nina’s position needs to hear. She also helps him, by reminding him (albeit unintentionally) of how important it is to stay close to your loved ones, even when you want to run away from them. Like Nina, Angel initially just hid and isolated himself when he was "turned," but he eventually came out of his shell and started forming connections again. He’s slipping back into his loner habits, though, and his insistence that Nina should remain alive and with her family kind of turns back on him. That, coupled with a good wake-up lecture from Lorne, leads to a re-opening of Casa de Angel and a renewed sense of commitment to his friends. I’m bothered about his willingness to let Royce get taken away by Crane, but since Crane got shut down pretty soon after that, I’ll go ahead and assume that Royce was spared his disgusting fate.

I’m also intrigued by the tidbits we’re getting about Spike. At first, he seems awfully selfish, but when you think about what he’s experiencing, his sense of urgency is more than understandable. Something horrible is not only waiting for him on the other side, it’s trying to pull him in. I wish he’d swallow his considerable pride and let someone besides Fred help him, but that’s not too likely. This being Joss Whedon’s universe, though, the others are bound to find out, in the worst possible time and in the worst possible way.

In the Stuff I Don’t Like column is the whole restaurant subplot. Aside from the yick factor, it just seems arbitrary. Having a werewolf chick out there trying to cope with her condition is interesting by itself - it doesn’t need to be padded out with an extra plot twist. That story time could have been used for something more productive, like added Spike material or something.

I’m also a little concerned that if Nina becomes a recurring character, we’ll start seeing a rehash of the Oz storylines from Buffy. I’d like to see her again, if only because one appearance isn’t really enough to make you care about her, but it will only work if the writers come up with something new to do with her.

And I’m not on board with the whole idea of her and Angel maybe developing an interest in each other. Sorry, but there’s no chemistry there, and the last thing Angel needs is another forced "gotta have a relationship" relationship. So let’s pray to the Great and Mighty Joss that this does not occur.

But that’s all future doings, and it’s very possible that none of it will happen. In which case, forget I mentioned it. Focusing on the here and now, this is a decent stand-alone episode, but nothing special. It doesn’t have quite the zing of the first two this season. When I react to an Angel episode with a shrug, that’s not a good sign.

7 out of 10.