Angel, "That Vision Thing" Review (3x02)

Brief Synopsis: “When Cordelia’s visions start manifesting as painful physical wounds, Lorne uses telepathy to discover why this is happening to her and how it can be stopped. It appears that Wolfram & Hart are behind the violent visions and Lilah won’t stop them until Angel breaks a vicious criminal out of a Hell dimension for her.”


"Heartthrob" (3x01) quick link here                                                                                                "That Old Gang Of Mine" (3x03) quick link here

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1) This review will almost definitely contain spoilers for episodes after this one.

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



Does anyone else feel like this episode is 50% owwey visions and 50% ‘look how close Angel and Cordy have grown, nawww’? Angel and Cordelia’s relationship shifted in its undercurrents and I’m not entirely sure when it happened because it was so subtle. These two characters, these two champions started off in Sunnydale as very superficial friends. Cordy was attracted to Angel and Angel had a few conversations with her, but they were far from close. After both moving to Los Angeles they grew closer, but there were no waves of attraction from either of them in the first season. Before Angel fired his friends and abandoned them there was, yet again, no signs of attraction between the two. Somewhere around “Belonging”, just after Angel returned to his former business, his feelings for Cordy seemed to spring into life (before hers did). When a director viciously insulted Cordelia, Angel’s reaction came across as more than simply defending a friend and this was the first sign that more could be brewing. There have been a few instances since then as well. Whether you’re a fan of Angel and Cordy’s looming romantic feelings or not, there’s no denying that they make a great team and understand each other incredibly well. One could argue that Cordelia knows Angel better than anyone else in the world. An argument could be made for Buffy or Darla, but I feel that on a deep, subconscious level, Cordy just gets Angel. This was never more apparent than in the conclusion of the last episode, “Heartthrob”. The thing that I really enjoy about their relationship is how subtly it’s shifted over the past few episodes. I will admit, when I first watched “Angel”, I despised the Angel-Cordy relationship after it transitioned to romantic. My twelve-year-old self was ‘Team Bangel’ through and through and I hated the idea that Cordelia could swoop in and take Buffy’s place. However, watching the series and the progression as an adult with relationship experience, it’s a completely natural progression and comes across as both realistic and terrific.

Perhaps part of the reason for this evolution is that Angel subconsciously views Cordelia as more of an equal now. When they first became good friends in Los Angeles, Angel was the champion and Cordelia was the sassy, sarcastic one that had just graduated from high school. Fast forward two years and Cordelia is every bit the champion that Angel is. She might not be as physically strong as Angel, but she’s just as empathetic, just as committed, just as selfless, and just as heroic by this point. In Pylea, Cordelia chose to keep the visions at the expense of her physical and mental health because she was desperate to keep helping the helpless. What’s a few headaches and the potential for catastrophic brain deterioration down the line when compared with saving hundreds of souls in the meantime? When you compare this behaviour with the Cordelia of Sunnydale High, the transformation has been one of the greatest I’ve seen on television. Best of all, this transformation has never felt forced, unnatural, or unrealistic. Cordelia knows she was a bitch in Sunnydale High, as a lot of people are when they’re young and immature. In fact, this gets addressed in this episode as Cordelia feels she’s being punished by the Powers That Be for the way she acted in school and when her parents were wealthy. This ties into the theme of the week for this episode...responsibility and the moral dilemmas that often accompany that responsibility. To save Cordelia from physically painful visions, Angel releases a murderer from prison and back into Wolfram & Hart’s clutches. Was this a morally just decision? Was saving Cordelia, one person, worth unleashing this monster back into the world? Should Angel’s responsibility be to protecting the world or protecting one person that resides in it? These questions are not easy to answer because there are so many variables. We don’t know who Billy is or what he’s done, although we know it must have been something particularly brutal for him to end up there with the loveable Skip guarding him. Also, who gives a shit about the nameless faces that will be mutilated down the line? This is Cordelia, Angel’s best friend and soon-to-be love interest.

Almost as soon as the episode starts, the drama begins. The visions have been taking their toll on Cordelia for a while now physically and ever since “Dead End” it’s been apparent that something in seriously wrong. Later in the season (“Birthday”), we discover that Cordelia has been having secret MRIs and popping powerful painkillers for a year. It’s not just that the visions have become harder to manage, but they’re also staying with Cordelia for longer. In “Dead End”, the vision kept replaying in her head for days after she received it. The visions are also becoming more dimensional. Cordelia can often smell things now or taste things, which isn’t something that she used to mention when she first inherited them from Doyle. Yet, even armed with this knowledge, Cordelia decided to keep them in “There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb”. In her most selfless act thus far, Cordelia gives up her own health to save souls and lives. Remember, when Cordelia first received these visions, she hated them. SHE KISSED BARNEY IN “PARTING GIFTS” TO TRY TO GET RID OF THEM! The visions started to take on a different meaning for Cordelia in “To Shanshu In L.A.”, the season one finale, when Vocah opened Cordelia’s mind up to all of the heartache and pain in the world. When compared with that, so what if Cordelia is struggling to land an acting job or having a few more migraines than usual? Also, the visions give Cordelia an identity and a purpose, which shouldn’t be casually brushed aside. For the first time in her life she feels needed and important. She serves a purpose in Angel Investigations. If you strip that away from her, who is she? What can she contribute? Of course, we all know how useful Cordelia is without the visions by this point, but Cordelia doesn’t feel it herself yet. She needs the visions to validate herself and give her some self-esteem and self-worth. Cordelia isn’t the only woman at Angel Investigations that’s getting some character development...

Angel: “Fred! Good to see you out and about.”
Fred: “It is, isn’t it? Out and about...I’ve been forking with Gunn.”

...By the end of this season they’ll be ‘forking’ for real.

After spending the vast majority of the past episode in her bedroom, Fred has ventured out into the land of the living...well, except Angel, I suppose. However, before Angel gets home, it’s Fred and the colourful land of the living. I just can’t get over how cute and normal the scene is...except a green-skinned demon, but you know what I mean! Just a group of close friends hanging out and eating together. No world in peril, no drama...oh, nevermind, Cordy’s visions are now physical. That ‘no drama’ lasted for about five minutes. Even though Angel had rescued Fred from Pylea and she was living at the Hyperion, I wasn’t sure if she was going to stick around or not for the long-term. What role could she play in the group that Wesley wasn’t covering already? What does she have to offer? At the moment, all we know about Fred is that she’s uber clever and cute as a button (where does that expression come from? HOW ARE BUTTONS CUTE?!). This episode gives us the start of Fred’s usefulness to Angel Investigations. While Fred and Wesley share some similarities and will continue to do so (Team Fresley, bitches!), they have very different approaches and therefore see things that the other wouldn’t. Wesley has been groomed for the Watcher’s Council his entire life. His intelligence and skills come through being able to identify demons and knowing how to kill them. Fred, however, is a scientist. She sees the world through a scientist’s eyes. When Cordy’s visions turn physical and Lorne cannot locate their origin (only the fact that they’re not coming from the P.T.B.), it’s Fred who comes up with the idea of tracing the origin of the visions back to the culprit. It’s a very scientific thing to say and it leads Angel to Wolfram & Hart...what a shock that it was their fault.

Speaking of the wolf, the ram, and the hart, Gavin is a poor substitute for Lindsey. I adore Daniel Dae Kim and he’s a terrific actor, but what legacy does Gavin leave behind on the show? What does he accomplish that Lilah couldn’t have done by herself? Not a whole lot. However, with that being said, I’m glad that the writers went for a different approach with Gavin than they did with Lindsey. Lilah and Lindsey shared a great deal of similarities and the fun of those two together was watching them trying to out-do each other. Gavin is  a different kind of animal. While Lilah is turning Cordy’s visions against her, Gavin is slapping Angel with building code violations. That’s a whole new level of rude. He does do something in this episode that will be more important later in the season...he bugs the Hyperion. When Gunn and Fred return home to find the exterminators fumigating the lobby, what they’re actually doing is installing cameras and audio recording devices. Gavin uses these to monitor everything that goes on at the hotel and even keeps transcripts. Stalking level: advanced. I wonder if he kept records of how frequently they went to the bathroom and would send medication to the hotel anonymously if someone had diarrhoea...okay, I just grossed myself out. How does one scrub the inside of their mind clean again?

(...Did I fall asleep?...)

While this episode has some nice moments for Fred and Wesley, it’s all about Angel and Cordy. The consequences of Cordy’s decision in “There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb” are already coming to the forefront of the show and will continue to do so for the rest of the season. The only character that hasn’t had their Pylea fears addressed is Gunn and that’s coming up in the next episode. Before the reveal that the visions weren’t coming from the P.T.B. I was left asking myself why the P.T.B. would turn on Cordelia so savagely. Cordelia has proven herself a selfless, worthy person to take over from Doyle, so why would the P.T.B. chastise her for caring and wanting to help? Angel tasks Fred with taking Cordelia home and looking after her while she’s trying to recover from her painful vision claw marks...

Fred: “Has anyone ever told you you’re exactly like Lassie? Yeah, you’re like Angel’s Lassie. Sure, he does most of the saving, but it’s your visions that tell him that Timmy’s trapped in the well or the robbers are hiding in the barn. He really needs and depends on you.”
Cordy: “Well, thanks. I’d be flattered except for the Lassie being a dog part.”

Isn’t it nice to see the only two major female characters on “Angel” bonding and becoming friends so soon? Who wouldn’t feel complimented at being compared to a dog? The visions turning against Cordelia makes Cordelia address her previous behaviour and gives us an insight into her mental state. As I mentioned earlier, Cordy is left asking herself what she can contribute to Angel Investigations and Angel himself if she gives up the visions. Who is she without them? For two years now they’ve completely consumed her life. She’s gone from hating them to appreciating them and refusing to give them up when she had the chance. Let’s not forget, this rowdy group of misfits came together because they didn’t have a place in the real world. Angel was a broody loner, Wesley was fired and travelling the United States by himself, and Cordelia was a starving, failing actress. She feels that if she loses the visions, she’ll regress back to being that person who she considered a failure. By the end of this episode, Angel will have informed Cordelia that he needs her for more than just her visions. He needs her because she’s Cordelia. Cordelia was useful to the group in some way before Doyle passed the visions to her. She is Angel’s link to the human world. Even now, Angel has trouble getting through to people and relating to people. Cordelia keeps him grounded and keeps him human, so to speak.

Cordy: “Am I a bad person? Am I just a horrible person? Because I know I can be snippy sometimes.”
Angel: “This isn’t happening because you’re bad. If anything it’s because you’re strong. Stronger than you realise.”
Cordy: “I’m not. I know what I said earlier, but I don’t want the visions anymore. I tried to be brave, I did, but I’m just scared now. I’m scared all the time. I mean, look at me! What could be so important that the Powers would do this? I don’t understand.”

Heart = broken. When have we ever seen Cordelia so emotionally vulnerable? Cordy knows she was a bitch at Sunnydale High a lot of the time. She’s realised the error of her ways and she’s trying to make amends, but how can she do that when the P.T.B. are stripping away her ability to? Are the P.T.B. punishing her for being a bad person before joining Angel Investigations? After a few more visions turn physical, Angel is desperate to discover where the visions are coming from because they are genuinely killing Cordelia with each passing one (which later Lilah claims wasn’t her intention, but was merely a side-effect). Thanks to Fred’s genius trace idea, the gang discover that the P.T.B. aren’t sending Cordy the visions, Lilah and a young man who’s hilariously labelled ‘Fez Guy’ are. ‘Fez Guy’ is played by Kal Penn, who also plays Hunt in Buffy’s “Beer Bad”. Therefore, in my head-canon, Hunt graduated from college and moved to Los Angeles, where he discovered that the top of his head is removable and that he has telepathic abilities. He met up with Lilah and the rest is history. Awesomely, Kal actually works in the White House now as an Associate Director for Barack Obama. Buffyverse actors in the White House!

Angel traces the visions back to Lilah and she bitch-slaps Angel with a moral dilemma...either save Cordelia and release someone from prison or leave Cordelia to die, but save people from this monster in the process. There’s no right or wrong decision here in my eyes. Either Angel watches his friend die or he runs the risk of innocent people dying in the future because of the man he releases from prison. These are the types of choices that a champion in the Buffyverse has to face. How is Angel supposed to make that choice? We don’t know who Billy is or what he’s been imprisoned for (yet), but we know that it must have been something horrific for him to be placed in the magical torture cage of fire for eternity and to be guarded by Skip. Let’s talk about how sassy and wonderful Skip is. Well, until season four, but that’s a story for another day. Is it wrong that I wanted Skip to leave with Angel and join Angel Investigations? I know the team already has a sassy demon in the mix, but you can never have too many!

 
Wesley: “Just because Lilah tells you that this man is wrongly imprisoned, it doesn’t make it so.”
Angel: “You’re right.”
Wesley: “Nor do I have to explain to you that helping them violates everything you stand for.”
Angel: “Right again.”
Wesley: “Good. Then I don’t need to convince you to let me go with you.”

It’s not just Angel who’s willing to free Billy from prison in order to save Cordelia, Wesley is too. This is very out of character for Wesley, who’s usually the member of the team that’s talking about the ‘greater good’ and willing to make the difficult decisions. Remember, back in “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” season three’s “Choices”, Wesley wasn’t willing to exchange the Box of Gavrok for Willow because of the innocent people that would die if Mayor Wilkins ascended. Now, three years later, Wesley finds himself in a similar situation, yet he’s making the opposite decision. Does this mean that Wesley has grown to care for Cordelia as a friend beyond rational thought? I think so. Remember, after Angel walked out on Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn in the last season, they bonded in a big way. Cordy and Wesley went from bickering all the time to becoming genuinely close friends. Like Angel, Wesley’s willing to risk the potential devastation down the line in order to save his friend. This is an interesting parallel to Wesley stealing baby Connor later in the season, but I’ll get to that as it transpires.

It’s also interesting to see Angel make this decision after his journey in the last season. Angel spiralled into such a dark, depressed place that after he crawled his way out of it, he views the world differently. He loves and appreciates his friends more and their safety is his first priority. Plus, Cordy’s visions give him the ability to help the helpless on a much larger scale than he could otherwise, so he needs her for both selfish and selfless reasons. I feel that the bigger of these two reasons is the love that he has for Cordelia. As I mentioned earlier, Cordy and Doyle helped Angel at a time where he’d given up on humanity and happiness. They dragged him out of the darkness and into the metaphorical light. These two characters have been through more together than anyone else on the show. When Wesley was willing to believe that Angelus was back in “Somnambulist”, Cordy defended him. She’s his biggest supporter and closest friend, of course he’s going to try to save her, regardless of the cost! I would too! If this episode had taken place in the first or even the second season, it wouldn’t mean so much. If it took place before “Heartthrob”, it wouldn’t mean so much. This episode works because of the bond that has been built up over time between Angel and Cordy. Every time they’ve defended each other, every time they’ve had emotional, heartfelt conversations, it’s all added to this moment. Angel knocks out Skip, frees Billy, and exchanges Billy for Lilah making Cordy’s physical visions disappear. Angel warns Lilah that if she tries to get to him through his friends again, he’ll kill her. To ensure that Lilah can’t use ‘Fez Guy’ again, he throws a metal bar through the window of Lilah’s limo and it flies through Fez Guy’s brain, which is ironically beautiful when you think about it.

Cordy: “What if that guy you freed is someone or something that’s truly terrible? Wolfram & Hart won this time and it’s all my fault.”
Angel: “It’s not about winning, Cordelia, it’s about what’s at stake, and in this particular scenario you were way more important than winning. I can’t worry about that guy I set free. I did what I had to do. I’ll just deal with the consequences when they happen.”

Those consequences are coming in four episodes (“Billy”), by the way, kiddies. I can’t wait to review that delicious, chilling episode.

Just when things look as though they can’t get any worse, the episode cuts to Darla to close out the second episode of the past two...

Darla: “I guess there’s only one thing left to do...time to go visit daddy.”

Yay! Darla’s coming back to Los Angeles!


Quote Of The Episode

Gunn: “I had this auntie who used to get this nasty crusty stuff on the back of her neck every summer. Turns out she was allergic to shellfish.”

Angel: “...That was helpful.” 


FINAL SCORE: 7/10

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

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