EPIPHANY; he was a lonely, drunken, teenage buck....

[saturn5]

EPIPHANY

The Good;
All of it, just magnificent, especially love the Lindsey/Angel fight and the truck crashing through the window.

The Bad;
Anyone?

Best line:
Gunn; "So what, you had a epiphany? Just wake up and bang?"
Angel; "Sort of the other way around"

Jeez, how did they get away with that?
Even though it's just plastic you wince when Angel smashes Lindsey's hand

Apocalypses: 5

Angel Cliches

Damsel in distress; 18 Cordy this time around

Inverting the Hollywood cliche;
We all expect Angel to lose his soul but he doesn't only Buffy can do that to him

In disguise; 8

DB get's his shirt off; still off from last week so yes
12

Cordy's tattoo;4

Cheap Angel;
6

Fang Gang in bondage: Wes and Gunn at the house
Cordy: 5
Angel: 9
Wes: 4
Gunn; 1

Fang gang knocked out: Cordy post-impregnation
Cordy: 11
Angel: 12
Wes: 5
Doyle; 1
Gunn; 1
Lorne; 1

Kills: 1 demon for Angel and one for Wes
Cordy: 5 vamps, 1½ demons
Angel; 22 vamps, 32 and 1/2 demons, 3 humans
Doyle; 1 vamp
Wes; 2 demon
Kate; 3 vamps
Faith; 16 vamps, 6 demons, 3 humans.
Gunn; 5 vamps+ 2 demons.
Fang Gang go evil:
Cordy: 2
Angel: 2

Alternate Fang Gang:
Cordy: 2
Angel: 6

Characters killed:
35

Recurring characters killed;
5;

Total number of Angel Investigations:
4, Angel, Cordy, Wes and Gunn

Angel Investigations shot:
Angel: 10
Wes; 1

Packing heat; Wes for the third time with his shotgun
Wes; 3
Doyle; 1
Angel; 1

Notches on Fang Gang bedpost:
Cordy: 2 ?+Wilson/Hacksaw Beast
Angel: 2; Buffy and Darla
Wes; 2; Virginia and the bleached blonde

Kinky dinky:
Darla and Angel have sex three times. Darla considers herself very good in the sack as she's been doing it for 400years and used to be a professional. She asks Angel was she "Not good?" which is exactly what Buffy says in Innocence. Lorne suggests that Angel give Darla cab fare (I had a friend who always said that if a guy does that/cooks you breakfast afterwards it made you a prostitute. Strangely she is now an unmarried mother). On that topic Cordy impregnated by a demon against her will for the second time. And we always thought Xander was the demon magnet?

Captain Subtext;
Apparently the way to tell Angel and Angelus apart is that Angelus wears leather pants? Keith Topping suggests that at the end of the ep Lindsey is 'struggling with his sexuality' but I'm not so sure?

Know the face, different character; 2

Parking garages;
5,

Guantanamo Bay;

Buffy characters on Angel; 14
Wetherby, Collins and Smith. Angel, Cordy, Oz, Spike, Buffy, Wes, Faith, Darla, Dru, Master, Anne

Questions and observations;
The PTB decide to save Kate, well you would, wouldn't you? How much do I love Lindsey as a lonely drunken teenage buck with a pink carnation, pick up truck, cowboy boots and sledgehammer? Angel uses the 70s term 'pad', well he was about back then, a groovy cat if there ever was one. Angel smashing Lindsey's hand is SUCH a powerful moment, even when you know it's plastic it still makes you wince. Goodbye to Kate who leaves LA, changes her identity and becomes a district attorney in New York before returning to Angel in season 6. Girl's Night Out, an Angel fanfic - FanFiction.Net is interesting. Angels observation that if it all means nothing then the smallest act of kindness means everything is just wonderful. Lovely ending too with Cordy being caught by Angel, the gang is back together.

Marks out of 10; 10/10

 

[GrrArghx]

This is my favorite episode of Season 2 so far. Really good. Not only did Angel smashing Lindsay's hand make me wince... but the entire fight did. Something about smacking someone with a sledge hammer just has that effect on a person 😛

 

[Wishing Oceans]

Great episode. 😀 I loved the little Angel/ Gunn/ Wes fight, IMO it was pretty funny. 😀 I also loved the Lindsey/ Angel fight, although I found it odd that Lindsey had such an upper hand in the beginning. His jealousy was kinda pathetic though, he didn't mind Darla and Angel together when he was dreaming and she was human, OR when they were both soulless, but he does now? Was he hinting that Darla told him the gist of it, but he was out searching for details? Hm... 😀

That Cordy/ Demon thing was pretty freaky, it was like watching her get raped. And how did they get her hair to grow back so quickly?

Overall, good episode. 😀

 

[saturn5]

Great episode. 😀 I loved the little Angel/ Gunn/ Wes fight, IMO it was pretty funny. 😀 I also loved the Lindsey/ Angel fight, although I found it odd that Lindsey had such an upper hand in the beginning. His jealousy was kinda pathetic though, he didn't mind Darla and Angel together when he was dreaming and she was human, OR when they were both soulless, but he does now? Was he hinting that Darla told him the gist of it, but he was out searching for details? Hm... 😀

That Cordy/ Demon thing was pretty freaky, it was like watching her get raped. And how did they get her hair to grow back so quickly?

Overall, good episode. 😀

Yeah Cordy really does seem to send out this 'come-shuk me' vibe, she get's impregnated by demons 3 times over the course of the series.
As for Lindsey and Darla what is interesting to me is her attitude to him, she actually seems to care for him, just check out the scene when they're sitting on the couch together just before he goes off to vent on Angel. I always had this theory that Dru and those she sired retained their humanity to a degree because of her link to the PTB's, (hence Spike falling in love with Buffy, James mourning his beloved in Heart-throb) is that why Darla genuinely seems to feel for him?

 

[ToShanshuInLA]

Dru sired James? I didn't remember that.

Anyway, I enjoyed this episode. My favorite funny part was Cordelia's vision. Were The Powers just phucking with her then? Worst. Vision. Ever. haha.

 

[Sunnydale Siren]

Dru sired James? I didn't remember that.

Anyway, I enjoyed this episode. My favorite funny part was Cordelia's vision. Were The Powers just phucking with her then? Worst. Vision. Ever. haha.

I don't recall any mention of who sired James or his beloved either.

Just assumed it was Angelus or maybe Darla.


Or

They were some Vamps who met up with them at some point back then.

 

[saturn5]

I don't recall any mention of who sired James or his beloved either.

Just assumed it was Angelus or maybe Darla.


Or

They were some Vamps who met up with them at some point back then.

That's just my personal theory, Dru's victims retain some of their humanity due to her link with the PTBs

 

[Wesley]

That's just my personal theory, Dru's victims retain some of their humanity due to her link with the PTBs

Nice theory. We see that people sired from strange masters do strange thing (Spike with Dru, the one WW2 guy from souledAngel).

I like it.

 

[crazysoulless]

It is sad that it was the third demon pregnancy that did her in. I guess "three times the charm" is true.

I loved that Buffy and Darla uttered the same line but in a completely different way. Darla said it in an "I'm over 400 yrs old and used to be a prostitute. I know I'm good in the sack" kind of way while Buffy said it in an innocent "All I want is to please you" kind of way.

Buffy = perfect happiness
Darla = perfect despair

This is the episode that Angel realizes Perfect Happiness clause and Perfect Orgasm clause, two different things. ha ha

 

[TaylorSwift]

Finally Angel coming to his senses, I was so waiting for this. I like how he went to Kate and their conversation at the end of the episode..I've always liked her. I loved when Angel goes to Wesley to save him and afterwards he's smiling at him but stops immediately because he's supposed to be mad at him LOL..anyway, really liked this episode, more than the previous one.

 

[VisionGirl]

Loved the opening scene, it completely mirrored the scene in Innocence after Buffy & Angel had sex & he lost his soul: the lightning, the rain, etc. You really expect it to happen.

Wow, look at Lindsey & his bad-ass redneck self! It's hard to tell whether he's jealous of Angel...or Darla LOL!

Cordy being impregnanted...just eww. Definitely rape-like qualities there with the demon's big, er, tongue. Gross!

Hmm, interesting how in the Buffyverse the women are always blaming their sexual performance when something goes wrong. Buffy did it, Darla did it, I know there are other incidents, just can't come up with them right now.

This episode is where I first started thinking about Joss' belief system and how it comes through in the series. He has stated he is an agnostic & humanist, and Angel's statement is an existentialist manifesto if I've ever heard one: "If there is no great glorious end to all this, if - nothing we do matters, - then all that matters is what we do. 'cause that's all there is. What we do, now, today."

While I have really, really enjoyed the highs and lows of the Darla arc in this season, I have to say that I am glad it's over (for now), and that Angel is back. It was a long time coming.

And nice resolution to the Kate/Angel relationship, I always disliked that they were never really able to be friends and/or allies.

 

[NL197]

If you check out my post in the season 3 "That Old Gang of Mine" thread, you'll see that a major scene from this episode was used to set that episode's opening scene up, but Americans / Canadians with the DVD sets would never have known about it unless they saw it originally or in reruns on television.

 

[white avenger]

EPIPHANY

Inverting the Hollywood cliche;
We all expect Angel to lose his soul but he doesn't only Buffy can do that to him

No, only a "moment of perfect happiness" can do that to him. The fact that Buffy managed to share that moment with him once in no way proves or even implies that she is the only source of perfect happiness in the universe as far as Angel is concerned, or, for that matter, that even she would be able to do it for him a second time. (Just the dread of the consequences would probably serve to lessen the joy of the moment, however slightly, detracting from the prerequisite "perfection.") Quite possibly if the joy of Connor's birth hadn't been somewhat dampened by the loss of Darla (okay, maybe she wasn't his one true love, but he still genuinely cared for her, she was the mother of his child, and he HAD to take her death as a failure on his part, however small. Angel considered Darla as being under his protection, and he failed her. Her death HAD to lessen the happiness of the moment) we might have seen Angelus rear his evil head right there and then.

There are all kinds of opportunities in the world for a moment of perfect happiness. They don't have to depend on any single person or event.

 

[VisionGirl]

If you check out my post in the season 3 "That Old Gang of Mine" thread, you'll see that a major scene from this episode was used to set that episode's opening scene up, but Americans / Canadians with the DVD sets would never have known about it unless they saw it originally or in reruns on television.

So, it's a missing scene from this ep, or That Old Gang of Mine?

 

[NL197]

So, it's a missing scene from this ep, or That Old Gang of Mine?

"That Old Gang of Mine". A scene from "Epiphany" - this episode, was used as a setup for "That Old Gang of Mine", but it's missing in that episode on DVD. It's better explained in my post there, than here. 🙂

 

[FetalPig]

saturn5 (wherever you are) - I like that Dru theory as well .. it ties things together nicely.

With regards to Lindsey it looks to me like Darla told him nothing and he thinks that Angel has done something to her to estrange her to him (Lindsey). He suspects she was forced to cut some kind of deal - the ring was 'payment' - and that she's been hurt in some unfathomable way. He is out for vengeance that is fueled by his fear of losing Darla. He expects her to be there when he gets back.

I love the lines:
"Does it make sense that she would go there in the middle of the night without calling either one of you?"
"They owe us money!"
"Let's go!"

And as for wincing, Angel getting sledge-hammered was more shocking than Lindsey's hand for me. Vampire or not he should have been a floppy screamy bag of grinding bone-shards anytime he tried to move after that work-over. Ouch x 10ˆ97


And Lorne had some great lines:

Lorne: "I'm not deaf, you know? Jeez, keep your pants on!"
Angel walks in.
Lorne: "Well, I see we're a little late with that advice."

and

"No, actually it depends on whether they live through the night."

I'd totally forgotten where Cordy was!

 

[Christopher]

I really didn't approve of the fake out at the beginning of this episode, usually when one of Joss' shows does this I find it amusing but in this instance I found it incredibly annoying. It's good that it didn't devalue the Buffy relationship but I guess I felt gypped out of some Angelus fun. Apart from that though, what an episode. The Lindsey scene has always stuck in my mind as one of the most brutal in the entire Buffyverse.

 

[VisionGirl]

The Lindsey scene has always stuck in my mind as one of the most brutal in the entire Buffyverse.

I agree... Christian Kane is at his best when Lindsey is losing it!

 

[Christopher]

I agree... Christian Kane is at his best when Lindsey is losing it!

Agreed, he's a fantastic actor and Lindsey is a brilliant character. If I was a female I'd be totally wet for him! He acted the hell out of that scene, and who didn't wince every time the sledge hammer slammed into Angel? Awesome 🙂

 

[VisionGirl]

But Lindsey is the one who ended up getting the hammer! Angel: "Could have been the other one. Just be glad I had an epiphany."