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Angel
Episode 4.04, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"
Written by Jeffrey Bell
Directed by Skip Schoolnik
It's pretty common for an episode to pick up exactly where the last one left off. "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" picks up at least a few minutes before that, with Connor aiding a family beset by vampire Triple-A guys. There's actually something pretty scary about vampire service/repair guys. I'm not sure why. it's probably the uniform. Connor isn't scared though, and kicks its half-demon ass. Afterwards, however, he notes how close the family he has saved is, and decides for reasons not quite known to check back with his pseudo-surrogate/literal family. He arrives just in time to witness that last moment of "The House Always Wins" - the return of Cordelia. And she's gone all D.A.R.Y.L. on us. (Except for the whole light speed Pole Position thing.)
After establishing that this is probably not just some kind of shock, Angel decides that given Cordelia's now blank mental state, telling her the whole "vampire, demon, evil lawyers, apocalypse, son's from a hell dimension" thing might be too much for her. In keeping this information from her, however, it sets the poor girl up for a startling revelation, precipitated by a misunderstood but hilarious exchange between Fred and Gunn about killing babies. They meant demon babies. Demon babies. Cordelia has a hard time grasping that, but after getting attacked by evil lawyers, she starts picking up on it. Of course, in this explanation he neglects to tell her that he's a vampire, which sets her up for yet another startling revelation when she asks him why she has so many crucifixes, as she sets a pile of them in his lap. Although his rationale is more than understandable, it becomes readily apparent that Angel hasn't handled this situation very well.
After what is apparently the whole truth, mostly, Cordelia agrees to let Lorne read her. What he sees, however, is heavy apocalypse type stuff. "Slouching towards Bethlehem" is a phrase he uses (hence the ominous title) - what that refers to, exactly, is beyond me because I haven't been to Sunday school since. ever. But clearly it's apocalypse stuff (anyone who wants to send me the exact quote is welcome, of course). As Angel is taking care of the rattled Lorne, Cordelia finds herself almost eaten by a vagina demon of some kind. Well, not really, but he sure as hell looked like a less threatening version of Blade 2's reapers, didn't he? Connor saves her, and takes her back to his very humble abode.
Meanwhile, Lilah and Wesley have been doing quite the nasty, and it becomes obvious that the two are actually starting to feel like they're in a real relationship. That relationship is tested, however, when Lilah discovers Cordelia's return. She orders Cordelia to be "extracted." Wesley overhears this and tells Angel, who along with Fred and Gunn rush to Connor's to fight off evil lawyers. (Actually, I doubt that all of these guys getting their asses kicked all went to law school, but they work for lawyers so I suppose the term works through osmosis at the least.) Cordelia is saved, but decides to stay with Connor for the time being because he was honest with her from the beginning, something she feels she needs right now. Angel & Company go back to the hotel to discover that the attack on Cordelia was merely a distraction for the champions while they went to work on Lorne. They literally sucked the information out of the guy's head. Poor Lorne. First he has to give up being a headliner, now this. Now, of course, Angel has yet another reason to mistrust Wesley, since he was the one who mislead the team in the first place. Wesley is understandably pissed, and the episode ends with whatever relationship he had with Lilah decidedly on the rocks.
Let's be honest here. the amnesia thing is played out. I was more a fan of last season's "Tabula Rasa" episode of Buffy than probably anyone, but the plot twist gets really old. That said, the moments in "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" in which truths were finally revealed to Cordelia were pretty funny. It's just that there were so many of them that the plot device lost its novelty very quickly. Smaller moments, like Cordelia searching through old photographs of herself, noting her many hairstyles and hypothesizing that she must have been a spy, were an amusing nod of the hat to Alias, which I haven't seen a single episode of. (Three shows a week is enough for me, thank you very much.) But while there wasn't any particular work in "Slouching" that was bad, per se, it just felt played out. It's almost like it existed to finally film unused ideas from better episodes that came before. They're good ideas, but on the whole it just felt like this episode existed to set up plot points for better episodes to come, rather than exist on its own.
A note about Angel's tendency to show Angel in photographs: I was under the impression that vampires don't photograph. It's a generally accepted aspect of vampire lore (not all of which, of course, the Buffyverse adheres to) that they just don't photograph. It goes along with the lack of reflection. An extended conversation was had at the TNMC forums as to whether this holds true on these shows, and the general consensus was that it obviously doesn't.
BUT
Remember the ending of Season 2, which featured our heroes' travels in Pylea? There was a minor fan uproar that Angel appeared in a photograph in those episodes. They, like me, were under the impression that vampires don't photograph. That summer, I attended the San Diego Comic Con 2000, where Joss Whedon fielded questions about his shows. One of them was about this photograph. And do you know what he said? "Whoops." So I was at least partially right. It may have begun as a mistake, but it seems to have been embraced as a fact, recently at least, that vampires do photograph.
Yeah, I'm a geek, but a geek who gives "Slouching Towards Bethlehem":
Episode Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Hollyfeld would like to offer his vampire photos for sale to the Enquirer.
