2004-01-29 4:13 p.m.

But before I dive into Angelverse, here's the other 1% - the Tarheels beat NC State!! Good game.

Last night's Angel was pretty well written, well directed & highly disturbing in some ways and highly amusing in others. And given the fact that my man Drew was co-writer, with the other Angel hottie-writer, Steven DeKnight, I feel moved to be detailed. Also there's too much update/tie in on the Buffyverse to not... So this may end up being in two parts.

Damage 5.11

written by Drew Goddard & Steven DeKnight

Teaser:

Normal day in the psyc ward at a random hospital. The doc is on his rounds. He stops by the nurse's station where she's doing the crossword. Doc: Give me one. Nurse: In a mellifluous maner, 7 letters ends in a Y. Doc: Give me another one. (funny :-) But alas, seems two patients meds got mixed up. "who didn't get their Thorazine?" is followed by an ominous pounding. "Oh God..." Doc and two beefy orderlies walk slowly towards the pounding..... which stops. Then the door flies off a la Glory S5. Out walks a young girl, messy hair, scary stance. Doc tries to calm her down, calls her Dana. Then she sees the doc's Hypodermic and goes ape shit. She beats the crap out of the orderlies, grabs a bone saw (which why in the hell would that me lying around in a mental ward?) and slits the guys' throat. Nice. Even nicer, after the Doc runs off like a little girly man, the chick, bends down, we hear some bones grinding & flesh tearing & she pops back up with the dead guy's blood wiped down her face. Fade to opening credits.

Act 1-

Starts off with Charles on an obviously placed phone call to remind us once again he had info crammed in his head by W&H. Then he gets off the phone and talks about the head-cram with Fred. Again. {sigh} Can we move on please?

Into Angel's office where they're discussing that skank Eve. Angel wants to off her, Gunn advises against, Harm comes in & uses great cultural references to let us know about Dana. Angel heads off to handle it and gets off the elevator the exact same time as Spike's getting off the other one. For the I-Need-The-Obvious-Restated-1000-Times, it was a good shot. Angel vs Spike & Angel vs Himself w/ Spike as his kinda kid brother kinda reflection. We get it.

Anyway, convo with the doc tells us that 15 years ago Dana was found alone, naked, wandering the streets. Her family had been murdered & the guy who did it had held her captive and tortured her for weeks. She was 10 years old. Since then, she's been basicly catatonic. Then boom, she has "inhuman strength". She's also been making hundreds of child-like drawings of monsters & a girl. Spike assumes Demon Possession. Angel reminds open minded but lets Spike chase off anyway. The Doc tells Angel that Dana will kill Spike. Angel: "Yeah, but he'll just end up coming back". *lol*

The next few minutes were so well cut, to watch, so very hard to describe. There's Angel doing his thing, and Dana doing hers, and Spike following Dana & the shots are all mixed together w/ Angel sometimes off camara but his voice is still heard. Very well done, but I'm not going to try and type it out that way, just character by character.

Angel gets the nurse to show him the videotapes of Dana's sessions w/ the Doc, and they all think she's talking gibberish. Turns out she's talking in a bunch of different languages, one being Romanian, which Angel recogonizes (Buffy-note: Angel got his soul by being cursed by Gypsies in Romania). Angel seems upset by what he hears her saying.

Meanwhile Dana desides to head to the market for some food and some clothes. She breaks the arm of some clerk who tries to stop her from eating the food, then while looking at the clothes she has a flash back to her abuser walking towards her. Next cut we see her walking out of the store looking quite a lot like Faith when she was in her psyco phase.

As Angel is talking to Wes about Dana, Spike finds Dana in an abandoned building. She turns around and give Spike a wicked grin, just as we hear Angel say "She's not a demon Wes, she's a Vampire Slayer." Yeah, Spike's gonna get his ass kicked.

Act 2:

Spike obviously thinks the chick is possessed and he's talking to the "demon" about messing with little girls & thinks he has the upper hand. Unitl Dana does some ass kicking & Spike ends up almost dusted. Then Dana yells at him in some other language.... to which Spike replies: "Sorry Luv, I don't speak Chinese". (Buffy, S6, Fool For Love) So she promptly throws Spike out the window. Angel drive up and Spike tells Angel she's possesed by a Chinese demon "maybe one of those elemental things".

Back at W&H, Angel's filled Spike in on the Slayer thing but tells him to back off. A: "Wes contacted Rupert Giles. He's sending his top guy to retrieve her." Surprise surprise when Angel opens the boardroom door and there sits.... Andrew? Top Guy. Right.

Seems Andy has quite the little Hero-Worship thing with Spike. He's hugging him, crying, "I knew you'd come back! My therapist told me I was holding on to false hope, but I knew it!" Too funny. Then comes the exposition. Andrew fills the W&H crew in on Slayer Mythology, a little tale he like to call "Slayer of the Vam-pi-ers" (Buffy, S7, Storyteller) he tells the usual "one girl in each generation" deal but then gets to the part where Willow made all the potentials into Slayers (Buffy, S7, Chosen). {{Odd, you'd think W&H being up on the Uber-Evil would know about Uber-Good. But seems they didn't.}} Also, with some interesting continuity, Andrew tells us that all Potentials (and I guess Slayers) have dreams of the lives of the previous (and dead) Slayers. That was never mentioned in Buffy the series, but was part of the mythology in the movie. Kinda neat. Cute moment? Andrew has is lunch in a brown paper bag with his name on it. I love Andrew.

Spike's all for going out and finding Dana & Angel tries to stop him, with no luck. Spike: "you corporate guys do your talky-talk. I'll be out doing his job"

More Boardroom blah-blah-blah and Angel & crew try to work out how to find Dana.

cut to Dana sitting alone on the docks. Some poor dude tries to help her. "Are you hurt?" Yeah, that's not going to go well.

As Angel & Lorne decide to check out the house Dana was adopted from, Spike is out of the Docks with Andrew following close behind. Spike calls him out & Andy does some bragging. He's carrying, plus Giles has been training him. Andrew: "I'm 82% more manly than the last time we....." as he trips and falls over Helper-Dude's dead body. Then he screams like a girl :-)

Angel/Lorne/psycic are in Dana's house. The lowdown: fear, anguish, pain. Flashbacks, Mom & Dad killed, empty baby crib with bloody sheets. Little girl hiding under the bed when the bad guy takes her. Psycic can't see anymore but he senses Dana was taken to someplace "dark, the floors are cold, the air smells sickly sweet, like molasses. A basement."

Fade to Dana walking down some creepy stairs to the place where she was tortured. As she walks she has more flashbacks. She looks and sees chains, flash to her as a child being chained there. She pulls a grate off the wall and we see a man (can't see his face) doing the same. He pulls out a box, she pulls out a cane, and a pipe. He turns towards the girl with the box in his hand, she pulls the box out & opens it. Its filled with instruments, sharp ones, for cutting & some bottles & needles. The last flash is of Dana as a small girl & we here a voice saying "let's try the blue one", and we see Spike filling up the hypdermic..... end act 2.

to be continued tomorrow. My fingers need a break.