Angel, "The Shroud Of Rahmon" Review (2x08)

Brief Synopsis: “Gunn brings a new case to Angel Investigations as his cousin has been caught up in a robbery attempt that’s going to take place the next day. Angel and Gunn pose as members that are going to be involved in the robbery in order to stop it. However, the shroud that is being stolen has mind-altering powers...can Angel and Gunn keep the shroud from falling into the wrong hands before they lose their minds?”


"Darla" (2x07) quick link here                                                                                                                                                    "The Trial" (2x09) quick link here

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



When people talk about the strongest episodes of this season, “The Shroud Of Rahmon” is often forgotten about. This is understandable, as it certainly doesn’t live up to the likes of “The Trial”, “Reunion”, “Reprise”, or “Epiphany”. However, “The Shroud Of Rahmon” is a very strong contribution to this incredible season in its own right. I will happily admit that I adore heist plots. I love heist movies, I love heist television episodes, I love heist books...I even love the word ‘heist’. Heist, heist, baby. As you can imagine, this episode was a hit with me for this very reason. Outside of the heistiness, this episode has a lot more left to offer. The character exploration for Angel, Gunn, and Kate is superb even before the mystical affect of the shroud starts coming into play. All three of these characters receive the spotlight in this episode and all three of them shine. Jim Kouf does a great job of blending together drama, action, humour, and character dissection so seamlessly (he also co-created “Grimm” with David Greenwalt. Go watch). This is an almost Whedon-level quality here as far as those transitions go. I found myself laughing my ass off (where does that expression even come from?) one minute and then jumping with surprise and shock a few seconds later, only to be laughing my ass off again shortly afterwards (how can I laugh it off twice? Does it reattach with Velcro?). I love it when a show is able to hold my interest for the entire episode. It’s rarer than you’d think in this day and age. I’m from the technology era, where people frequently do more than one thing at the same time...playing a video game while having a TV show on in the background, checking your phone while watching something, etc. Holding the entirety of someone’s attention for 42 minutes isn’t easy with my generation, but “The Shroud Of Rahmon” was able to do that with me. Kudos. More importantly than all of this, “The Shroud Of Rahmon” gives us an insight into the mindset of Angel after all the Darla drama that’s surrounded him for the past few episodes.

Just after finishing an episode, I like to sit down for a minute and think about the major theme. What was the episode trying to tell us? What was the primary point they were trying to emphasise? In this episode, like many in season two thus far, the primary objective was reiterating that Angel’s vicious demon side is closer to the surface of Angel than Angel or anyone else cares to admit. A little Darla drama here, a little shroud mind-altering there, and Angel is biting humans again. Yes, he does it to save Kate, but would the Angel of season one have saved Kate in this way or would he have found another way? Has all this Darla drama made him darker than he was before? Has it slowly been bringing out Angel’s darker personality traits? Is Angel falling into Wolfram & Hart’s trap of making him dark, not soulless? With Darla being re-sired at the conclusion of the next episode, the placement of “The Shroud Of Rahmon” is no coincidence. The show wants you to remember that Angel is capable of being dark. They’ve been reminding you of it all season! Over the course of the next four or five episodes, we’re finally going to witness this firsthand so it’s imperative that we’re reminded of Angel’s darkness visually here with Angel biting Kate.

The episode opens with the Los Angeles Police Department interviewing someone about a murder. The suspect has his head down on the desk and isn’t responding to what the police are asking him. Suddenly the suspect looks up and IT’S WESLEY?! Why is Wesley a murder suspect? Who’s dead?! Why did the murder take place off-screen?! Why is he acting so crazy and unstable?! WHAT’S GOING ON, DAMMIT?! Suddenly, the episode flashes back to fill in the blanks before my head explodes from all the questions that are zipping around inside of it. It flashes back to land on Angel, who’s dressed in a ridiculous suit that he clearly borrowed from Lorne (green shirt, blue jacket), drinking blood from the neck of a human blonde woman. Upon first viewing this episode, I was under the impression that Angel had finally snapped and killed Darla or possibly turned her into a vampire again like she requested of him at the conclusion of the last episode, “Darla”. In hindsight, it was an obvious red herring and my first impression was exactly what we were supposed to think...those sneaky bastards.

The episode then flashes further backwards to show how Angel ended up draining a blonde woman. All this backtracking is making me dizzy, but thoroughly excited at the prospect of Angel becoming Darth Angel. Cordelia’s hair is all different and short and black and shiny! This is a completely different look for Cordelia than we’ve ever seen her have before, but it oddly works. I prefer her longer, lighter hair personally, but both look pretty badass. Of course, neither Wesley nor Angel notices that anything is different for 10 days because they’re oblivious men from the England/Ireland region and we’re not the most observant bunch.

Wesley: “You don’t tell him what to do, he’s the boss.”

This statement from Wesley is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, it shows you how Wesley views authority and leadership because of his time at the Watcher’s Council. Wesley is a follower at this point, not a leader. That will soon change. Furthermore, this sentence sums up Angel’s attitude since discovering that Darla has been brought back from the dead. Angel has been taking charge more and more than usual at the expense of not listening to his friends’ advice or fears. Time and time again Angel has ignored his friends’ pleas and done something stupid or dangerous in relation to Darla. As a fan of Angel’s character it’s incredibly frustrating to watch him go down this path because we all know where it leads. We all know that it’s going to end with Angel turning darker because all the clues have been there since the season opener. However, how awesome is it that the show allows their lead character and hero to be so flawed?! It’s a bold move to make their poster child dislikeable for a short period of time. Very few television shows would do it and it makes Angel all the more realistic and likeable in the long run.

I really enjoy Kate and Angel’s dynamic even more now that they’re enemies. They worked well as friends and potential love interests, but they’re so much better as enemies. They’re not really ‘enemies’ so much as Kate resenting Angel for introducing her to the supernatural world and blaming him for her father’s death, but their interactions are vastly more interesting in season two. Angel warns Kate to stay out of his business or she may end up getting hurt. Note that Angel doesn’t say this in a threatening way, it’s more concerned. A little shroud mind-altering will change that from ‘concerned’ to ‘threatening’ and then some. Kate does get hurt by sticking her nose into Angel’s business one too many times...and it’s at the hands of Angel himself later in the episode. Even before the shroud’s affect takes hold of Angel, he does grab Kate and warn her. It doesn’t compare to Angel’s words and actions later, but it does show what a dark place Angel is in since Darla was reintroduced into his life. With Darla back, Angel can’t think straight and he’s acting like an entirely different person...just like Wolfram & Hart intended. 

To stop the heist and save Gunn’s cousin, Angel decides that he needs to take the place of Jay-Don, a flashy, charismatic vampire who’s flying in from Vegas to partake...

Wesley: “I’m sure you can pull it off. You’re...colourful...”

I get a huge kick out of the fact that neither Wesley nor Cordelia thinks that Angel can pull off being loud and flashy. When I first heard that Angel was getting his own spinoff show, I was sceptical. Very sceptical. In Sunnydale, Angel didn’t have much of a personality outside of ‘brood’ for the most part. He had moments during the third season, but he spent most of his time playing a brooding character with very little charisma or substance outside of his relationship with Buffy. After moving to Los Angeles, Angel was allowed to develop a personality. He was allowed to develop a richer backstory. He was allowed to show emotions other than brooding when he was Angel and not Angelus. He was allowed to pretend to be Herb Saunders and wear a Hawaiian shirt. He was allowed to get infected by the magical staff in “Sense & Sensitivity” and be opposed to vandalism and Cordelia not saying ‘please’. He was allowed to sing Barry Manilow. He was allowed to dance like an idiot. Now, he’s allowed to pretend to be Jay-Don. That’s comedy, right there. The funny thing is that these things work because he’s so broody and self-hatey normally. A lot of people find Angel too wooden (pun-believable!) and broody to be likeable, but that broodiness allows Angel to thrive when he’s not brooding, which happens a lot during “Angel”. In fact, as the years go on, he smiles a lot. He spends most of season three with a big grin on his face...until Connor was stolen. Angel staking Jay-Don and removing his sunglasses as Jay-Don is turning to dust is a wonderful visual.

After Angel arrives at the heist meeting (trying to be flashy and over-the-top), he discovers that Gunn is also a part of the heist and is also pretending to be someone else (Lester). One of my favourite things about “The Shroud Of Rahmon” is the dissection of the Angel-Gunn relationship. Outside of season three’s “That Old Gang Of Mine”, this episode might be the closest we come to understanding the interesting, unique relationship between these two characters. Since debuting in “War Zone”, Gunn has stated repeatedly that he despises vampires. All vampires. He says repeatedly that Angel and himself can never be friends because Angel is a vampire. Gunn has been raised to hate vampires and has spent his life fighting them. He knows that Angel is a vampire with a soul and is a ‘good’ vampire, but what does that mean? Gunn knows that Angel could easily lose his soul and become evil again. Cordy and Wesley care about Angel enough to look past this and be friends with Angel anyway, but Gunn doesn’t. He likes Angel, but he’s also prepared to kill Angel if he has to. For that reason Gunn never allows himself and Angel to become too close. Furthermore, Angel is a leader and Gunn is also a leader. Gunn grew up leading his own street gang and helping to keep everyone safe. It makes sense that Gunn wouldn’t like or be used to taking orders and that Gunn and Angel would clash for a while...which is exactly what happens in this episode.

Tony Todd is in this episode! He plays the spiny demon, Vyasa. I love him. He’s in everything I ever watch ever.

(Vyasa)

One of the reasons why this episode is successful is because we already know the end game (or think we do). Now all we have to establish is how it all fell apart, who Angel is draining at the end of the episode, why he’s draining them, and how Wesley is involved and why he was arrested. Sometimes playing an episode outside of chronological order can be a beautiful thing...BUT ONLY IF IT’S DONE RIGHT! I cannot emphasise that point enough.

There’s a ridiculously funny outtake from this episode that all of you should go out of your way to find and watch if you haven’t already. When the group get to the vault, Vyasa bellows, “come on, come on, hurry up and blow it!”...during the first take of that, David Boreanaz bursts into fits of laughter at “hurry up and blow it!” because he’s juvenile and silly...a man after my own heart.

My only major criticism of this episode is that it doesn’t go into enough detail about the shroud itself. I understand that the episode isn’t about the shroud. The shroud is merely a plot device to help further the other stories that are going on, but it still would have been nice to have a deeper explanation of the shroud because there was a lot of story to be told there. An extra minute of explanation and backstory on the shroud and its powers would have worked wonders.

Cordelia: “I think it’s the altitude.”
Wesley: “Right, the altitude here at sea level...”

C’mon, be honest, was anyone surprised that the heist descended into chaos? ANYONE?! I do enjoy that the shroud affects everyone differently. In the case of Gunn, it brings his thoughts about vampires to the forefront. Around Angel he usually holds his tongue to a certain extent, but the shroud removes the filters. He despises supernatural creatures and isn’t afraid to let everyone know that...even though he’s surrounded by them at the time. For Angel, it brings the darker parts of his personality to the forefront and helps enforce that Angelus is never far away from Angel’s thoughts or actions. In the cases of Wesley and Cordy, it explores the more juvenile, silly aspects of their personalities, which was a wise choice to break up some of the tension and drama before the explosive ending to the heist. It only took Wesley a year to realise that Kate’s hair is blonde. It only took Wesley ten days to realise that Cordy’s hair was a different colour, length, and style. He shall be winning no medals for his observation skills anytime soon.

Vyasa killing Bob was brutal. He literally twisted and tore Bob’s head from his shoulders! I was expecting Bob to die due to the shroud’s case being broken, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so vicious and spectacular. Very rarely does “Angel” or “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” kill a human so casually. Also, did anyone else notice that Menlo is putting his hand all over the elevator while using his other hand to wipe away fingerprints? He’s creating more fingerprints than he’s eliminating! ISN’T HE SUPPOSED TO BE THE HEIST EXPERT?!

At this point of the heist, Kate interrupts. Angel, who is acting just like Angelus in his sentence structure and demeanour, drinks Kate. At first, I thought Angel had killed Kate and it was going to add to his path to darkness that’s been looming all season. I was happily surprised to see that Kate survived because her redemption story later in the season is one of the very best things about this season. Seeing Angel act as brutally honest and rude as Angelus was an interesting thing to behold because it’s been a while since we saw Angel act like such an ass. Yet again, it’s reminding the audience that the demon inside of Angel is never far from the surface. He belittles Kate for obsessing over her father’s murder and tells Kate that he’s sick of her interfering in his life and blaming him for everything that she’s unable to handle. As I’ve mentioned before, Angel introduced Kate to this darker world. Every single person that Kate sees suffer or die in this dark new world is Angel’s fault by extension in her eyes.

Gunn trusted Angel enough to allow him to destroy the shroud. My faith in humanity has been restored.

Then comes the big reveal that Angel drained Kate in order to save her life. I didn’t see that coming. It makes for the perfect ending to this episode because it gives us two more important pieces of information that will be useful over the next few episodes...

1) Kate has just been saved by Angel, which forces her to reassess her views that all vampires are evil without exception. It’s no longer a black and white issue for her, which actually makes things worse for her, not better. Now she has to worry about who to blame and who is worth killing instead of just living by the mentality that humans are good and supernatural creatures are bad. I think this moment plays a vital role in her attempted suicide later in the season. Since her father’s death she’s viewed Angel as a villain, as a monster. Deep down she knows he’s not as she’s witnessed him achieve great, positive things and save lives before her father was murdered. However, it’s easier for Kate to deal with her father’s death if she can paint Angel as a monster and force the blame on him. It’s a survival and coping technique. After all the hostility and prejudice that Kate has thrown Angel’s way since “The Prodigal”, Angel still chose to save her. He still chose to risk his life for hers. This helps to explain why Kate demands that the police let Wesley go without charges.
2) Angel just drank human blood again for the first time in a long time and it’s reawakened his bloodlust. He sits in his bedroom at the conclusion of the episode reliving the moment that Kate’s blood touched his lips. It just adds to the list of things that shows that Angel is becoming darker and more unstable. A few months previous, Angel would arguably have saved Kate using a different method...perhaps by trying to kill the demons. Now, he saved Kate by almost killing her. You could argue that the shroud played a part, but if Angel was sane enough to save Kate and tell her to play dead, he was sane enough to be thinking relatively clearly. I think the fake T’ish Magev’s words to Angel in “Guise Will Be Guise” certainly played a part here. The T’ish Magev told Angel that in order to take control of his life, he had to stop fighting himself. He had to stop seeing himself as a man with a demon inside of him and to start viewing himself as a person with aspects of both goodness and darkness within him. Aspects of both Liam and Angelus, if you will. Angel drank Kate to save her, but he also let off a little steam and frustration towards her at the same time with his dialogue. This is the perfect embodiment of Angel accepting both the good and dark that’s contained within him just below the surface. The episode fades to black on Angel reliving his biting of Kate. This season is about to get very good and very, very dark...


Quote Of The Episode

Wesley: “What happened to your head?!”

Cordelia: “Excuse me?”

Wesley: “Your hair. It’s...new. It’s great! When did this happen?”

Cordelia: “Ten days ago.”


FINAL SCORE: 7/10

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

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