Angel, "Blood Money" Review (2x12)

Brief Synopsis: “Angel, who is still distracted from fighting the good fight by his hatred of Wolfram & Hart, threatens to expose Wolfram & Hart’s criminal activities after he discovers that they’re stealing large sums of money that were donated to a homeless shelter. However, an old enemy of Angel’s has arrived in Los Angeles and has other plans.”


"Redefinition" (2x11) quick link here                                                                                                           "Happy Anniversary" (2x13) quick link here

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With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?



For the past three episodes now, I’ve been blown away by the strength of writing of Angel’s character. What makes this work is that the show has spent the first nine episodes of the season explaining and dissecting Angel’s mental state before tearing it apart at the conclusion of “The Trial”. They needed to show the audience why Angel was about to turn dark so that when he eventually pulled out of his darkness, we’d forgive him and still root for him. In the interim, Angel’s character is simply delicious. The decision to turn Angel dark rather than bring Angelus forth was masterful. It’s not like when Joss decided to turn Faith dark after she killed Allan Finch. Angel is a leading character! Angel is supposed to be the primary reason we tune into the show and the person who we cheer for above all other characters! THE SHOW IS EVEN NAMED AFTER HIM! Yet, the show has systematically turned him into an unlikeable character. In this episode, Angel acts completely out of his own best interests for ruining Wolfram & Hart’s reputation and he doesn’t care who gets hurt in the crossfire. He uses Anne and jeopardises her homeless shelter just to get back at Wolfram & Hart. Angel is obsessed with Wolfram & Hart, but who can blame him! I’ve made this point before, but Wolfram & Hart have been dedicated to destroying Angel’s life for a year now! They brought Darla, his sire and former-lover, back from the dead as a dying human just to mess with him! Is it any wonder that he wants a little revenge? I know I would want some! There are only two other shows I can think of off of the top of my head that make their lead character a borderline villain (or straight up villain)...“Dexter” and “Breaking Bad”, both of which I will review at some point. In the case of Dexter Morgan, he’s a ‘villain’ because he kills people and has a ‘dark passenger’, but he’s also moral and only kills people who deserve it. As the show goes on, he becomes more and more human. The greatest example of taking a leading character and turning him into a legitimate villain is Breaking Bad’s Walter White, without a shadow of a doubt. Walter White is one of the most fascinating television characters of all-time and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Vince Gilligan took a touch of inspiration from Angel’s characterisation here. Like Walter White, Angel’s behaviour starts off as understandable, but morphs into something downright disturbing. He’s far removed from the character that we’ve grown to know and love over the past five years.

While Angel is off fighting his own war, Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn are trying to establish their own identity with Angel Investigations away from Angel himself being their leader. They start exploring the possibility of new premises to work out of and even take on (and defeat) a two-headed, fire-breathing demon! I had no idea they were so skilled! Before that, however, the episode opens with the remaining members of Angel Investigations being rather bored at Cordelia’s apartment. By ‘bored’, I mean Cordelia. Wesley and Gunn are having the time of their lives playing board games against each other. In my reviews of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, I’ve often mentioned how much I enjoy it when the Scoobies are just hanging out together and getting a rare opportunity to live like regular people. This is doubly true for “Angel” because the amount of socialising and relaxing time they have is even less than the Scoobies get in Sunnydale. Watching Gunn and Wesley bonding over board games is oddly adorable, isn’t it? Interestingly, in season one’s “Expecting”, Wesley is begging for Cordy or Angel to play ‘Word Puzzle 3D’ against him, but both decline. Who knew that Wesley’s gaming partner would turn out to be Gunn, former street gang leader and all-round badass? For some reason this discovery leaves me in a giggling fit. The homoeroticism radiating off of Wesley and Gunn during this ‘battle’ is also apparent...

Gunn: “And now I rule Europe, Australia, and South America!”
Wesley: “I’ve still got Kamchatka!”
Gunn: “Three-fifths of the world covered in water, the rest covered in me!”
Wesley: “...Shut up.”
Gunn: “Who’s your ruler, baby? What’s my name? Come on, English, say it...‘Gunn’.”
Cordy: “Fun as it is having you guys over day and night, it’s getting kind of late.”
Wesley: “It’s only seven thirty.”
Cordy: “Really? Oh. In that case, GET OUT!”

What a party pooper! I love that Gunn thinks the Angel Investigations logo is a lobster or a growth. It’s a nice call-back to nobody knowing what the hell the logo was when Cordy first ‘designed’ it. A growth? Why would you put a growth on a business card? What would your tagline be? ‘We help the helpless remove their warts’?

The first we see of Angel in this episode, he’s ‘accidentally’ bumping into a woman...then it’s revealed that Angel stole her purse and has been stalking her and taking photos of her obsessively because she’s connected to Wolfram & Hart. SO. CREEPY. It appears that Angel’s stalking of women isn’t just confined to Angelus. What is it with the leading vampires in the Buffyverse being creepy stalkers? Both Angel and Spike have extreme stalking tendencies. Have I been wasting my time buying girls flowers and chocolates all my life? Is stalking a woman the way to her heart? Robyn, you may want to start closing your curtains at night...

Speaking of women, it’s the return of the woman with too many names, Anne! A.K.A., Lily! A.K.A., Chanterelle! What a wonderful slice of continuity to bring Anne back into the Buffyverse family. The last we saw of her she was living on the streets of Los Angeles. She bumped into Buffy, Buffy helped save her life, she adopted Buffy’s middle name and alias in L.A., ‘Anne’, and Buffy left her rented apartment to Anne before disappearing back to Sunnydale. Everyone caught up? I love that they use her backstory constructively and show that humans and humanity can be much worse than vampires and monsters. Anne is helping the homeless people of Los Angeles because she used to be one! She lost her boyfriend to a demon while she was living on the streets of Los Angeles! Also, her tattoo is gone! Was the memory of Ricky too painful for her to bear looking at his name on her forearm?

Angel and Wolfram & Hart are waging war on each other, and this episode explores some of the innocent people that are being caught in the crossfire...a human Darla that was torn out of her afterlife, Anne, and the homeless people of Los Angeles that Anne is trying to help. Angel uses Anne and her good intentions to get back at Wolfram & Hart. His only saving grace in this episode is that he ultimately gives money to Anne that she otherwise wouldn’t have received because Wolfram & Hart would have stolen it. Does that negate his arrogant, selfish behaviour before this act? Certainly not. Anne’s homeless shelter is about to make a significant amount of money through a fundraiser being orchestrated by Wolfram & Hart, which is why Angel started stalking Anne in the first place. The only problem is that Wolfram & Hart are secretly going to keep 95% of the profits for themselves. Anne doesn’t care too much about this because the 5% she’ll be receiving is still more money than she could make on her own in two years ($100,000). However, Angel won’t let this injustice stand because he hates Wolfram & Hart so much. So what if the innocent party in this scam, Anne, is okay with it? Angel’s too obsessed with Wolfram & Hart to care by this point. Angel does raise a good point though...the 95% that Wolfram & Hart is making off of this fundraiser will probably go towards hurting people, as that’s Wolfram & Hart’s agenda. The 5% that Anne receives will be metaphorically stained with the blood of the innocent people that Wolfram & Hart will ultimately hurt with the rest of the money.  Simply, it’s blood money (hence the episode title). Anne, like Angel, has seen too much of the dark side of Los Angeles, so she can’t afford to care that it’s blood money. She needs that money to help the wounded, troubled, homeless people of Los Angeles.

(the evolution of 'Anne'...Chanterelle, Lily, and Anne)

Anne: “I thought vampires were the coolest.”
Angel: “What happened?”
Anne: “I met one.”
Angel: “You’re not afraid of me.”
Anne: “I’ve seen worse things since. A fourteen-year-old girl sitting in her own blood after a rough trick and dozens of people just walking right by. So, no, vampires, demons, even lawyers pretty much don’t impress me. Maybe you had a good reason for cutting off Lindsey’s hand, I don’t care. I care about the shelter.”
------------------------------------
Angel: “There’s blood on that money, Anne. Are you the person who can ignore that? Have you become that yet?”

Is Anne the most underrated recurring character on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”? For a character that appears in just five episodes of the show, she goes through an incredible amount of character development and transformation...plus, you know, three names. She goes from a vampire groupie who’s obsessed with becoming one, to being homeless on the streets of Los Angeles, to losing her boyfriend, to opening a homeless shelter because through her own experiences she’s realised that there are far worse evils in the world than vampires. Poverty, depression, abuse, violence...she’s lived through it all and feels inclined to do something about it and make a difference. That’s why Angel’s using of her in this episode is all the more despicable! This isn’t some random character-of-the-episode, we’ve seen Anne grow and evolve into a better person. What Angel is telling Anne here is true, Wolfram & Hart’s money is blood money. However, he’s not helping Anne for this reason, as we discover when the tape Angel gives to Anne contains nothing more than Cordy and Wesley messing around. He was doing it to get back at Wolfram & Hart and mess with Lindsey and Lilah. It’s petty payback for all they’ve put him through recently, which is understandable, but it’s yet again at the expense of Anne. He was being selfish. I wish Anne/Lily/Chanterelle appeared in more than three episodes of “Angel” because she was such a fascinating character. Plus, Julia Lee is a terrific actress and really helps bring Anne to life. There’s so much more mileage to this character than just two more episodes!

Angel, while trying to befriend Anne to use her for his own agenda, gives away some of Cordelia’s clothes that were at the hotel! Stakeable offence! Hilariously, after Angel rejoins Angel Investigations later in the season, this is the emphatic point that Cordy uses for why Angel was such an ass during his darkness!...“you didn’t just betray me, Angel.  You didn’t just hurt me. You gave away my clothes!”, “to the needy!”, “I AM THE NEEDY!”

In stark contrast to all of this is the rest of the gang. As Angel turns darker and more distant from humanity, Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn grow closer and stronger from the fallout of Angel’s abandonment. Neither Wesley nor Gunn have Angel’s strength or abilities, so they’re forced to work as a cohesive unit in order to take down a fire-breathing demon. They need to be a team in order to survive, which results in them growing closer than ever during Angel’s absence. When Angel eventually rejoins the group, he has a tough time breaking into this newfound bond between Wesley, Gunn, and Cordy. Due to the team not being able to settle on a new name (they all want to name the business after themselves), they ultimately decide to keep the name ‘Angel Investigations’. The name is simply just that to them now, a name.

The inclusion of the demon ‘Boone’ in this episode is frankly a wasted opportunity for the most part. I needed the backstory on Boone and Angel to fully appreciate Boone’s appearance on the show. We get given snippets of information, but nothing substantial. Therefore, I find him to be unnecessary and kind of underwhelming, even though he’s quite likeable and charming. He’s oddly noble for a demon too. He wouldn’t kill Angel when they had their big fight many years ago because the sun was coming up and it would have been dishonourable to kill Angel in such a cowardly way! Who knew demons had morals! Why did Angel and Boone have a disagreement over a ‘senorita’? Was Angel protecting this lady in question from Boone? Were they both pursuing her? They met in the 1920s, so Angel being romantically linked to this senorita wouldn’t track with his history at all. I also wish to know more about Boone’s cool metal coil hand-wraps that pop out when he’s about to fight. Those things are snazzy! Was Boone in cahoots with Angel before their first fight in front of Lindsey and Anne or did Angel go to Boone after this first fight and get Boone on side? Ugh, there’re too many pieces of missing information about Boone in this episode for me to get invested in the story.

(Boone is played by Mark Rolston, who also plays Alastair in "Supernatural")

Seeing Holland on-screen in this episode makes me realise just how much I miss him as a villain on this show, even though he’s only been dead for 2 episodes. Both Lindsey and Lilah pale in comparison to Holland as a bona fide villain, in my opinion. Lindsey is a more interesting character than Holland and Lilah is someone that you love to hate. Holland is just straight-up hateable, which is always a great thing to watch on television. I always wondered why Holland was killed so early in this season. Was Sam Anderson unavailable past “Reunion” for the most part or did the show need Holland gone in order to give Lindsey and Lilah a larger story? Either way, his commanding presence is truly missed.

Anne: “How dare you! I risked everything in there! I risked my kids! You never even planned to expose the scheme!”
Angel: “They would have covered it up. I just wanted to shake them up a bit. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
Anne: “And the money?”
Angel: “The money was tainted.”
Anne: “I don’t even care about...”
Angel: “Yes, you do. That’s the difference between us...you still care.”

What a broody asshat. I understand everything that Angel is doing and I can empathise with his situation a great deal, but damn it! Does he have to be such a prick to innocent people that are getting caught up in his mind games with Wolfram & Hart?!

Lindsey: “How do you expect us to succeed when you handcuff us with these idiotic rules protecting Angel?”
Nathan: “I'm sorry, did you say something?”
Lindsey: “Angel is an obstacle to everything that we do. Give me one good reason why we can't just kill him!”
Nathan: “Because Angel is a major player.”
Lilah: “In business?”
Nathan: “In the apocalypse.”
Lilah: “Oh. That.”
Nathan: “The prophecies all agree that when the final battle is waged, he plays a key role.”
Lindsey: “Good for him.”
Nathan: “Which side he's on is the grey area and we're gonna continue making it as grey as possible.”
Lilah: “Works for me.”
Nathan: “Until then, his growing obsession with the two of you, the increasing possibility that to scratch that itch he'll go so far as to kill you...well, that could actually play in the firm's favour. It would be a sign that Angel is on the path to joining our team. And as hard as it is to lose good attorneys, well, the truth is, you’re both expendable. Angel isn't.”

After all of Angel’s bad decisions in this episode, after using Anne and manipulating her, he does give her all of the money from the fundraiser after defeating Boone for it. Anne doesn’t just receive $100,000, she inherits the full $2,000,000. Did Angel kill Boone to get that money? Probably. Now, the blood money that Angel warned Anne about literally has blood splattered all over it...

Anne: “It’ll wash.”

Anne has learned a valuable lesson in this episode. She’s doing what she has to do in order to protect the people around her...just like Angel used to do before he turned dark. Angel giving Anne the money shows that somewhere deep down he still has a spark of decency left in him. He hasn’t completely turned to darkness. Somewhere underneath all of that hurt is the desire to do the right thing. There is a moral compass hidden behind all of that pain. Over the course of the next few episodes, this spark will slowly grow larger.


Quote Of The Episode

Wesley: “And Gunn is running him through, pulling out intestines the size of your leg!”

Gunn: “We turned him inside out!”

Cordy: “You weren’t scared?”

Wesley: “...Oh, mother in Heaven!”

Gunn: “Pants-wetting, praising the Lord to save me kind of scared.”


FINAL SCORE: 5.5/10

What are your thoughts on "Blood Money"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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