Angel Season 5, Episode 11: "Damage"
Tara I. – TwoCents Staff Reviewer
tara@thetwocentscorp.com
Angel Broodometer: 7
What happens when all the potential Slayers in the world wake up with the power of the Slayer? For a specific answer, read the Buffy comics, but this episode gives us a few answers as a girl who has been traumatized by a serial killer gains her Slayer powers. We also learn that Buffy doesn't trust Angel anymore. Shocking! Oh, and Andrew (Tom Lenk) comes to call!
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ReplyDeleteSeason 5, Episode 11: "Damage"
Tara I. – TwoCents Staff Reviewer
tara@thetwocentscorp.com
Angel Broodometer: 7
What happens when all the potential Slayers in the world wake up with the power of the Slayer? For a specific answer, read the Buffy comics, but this episode gives us a few answers as a girl who has been traumatized by a serial killer gains her Slayer powers. We also learn that Buffy doesn't trust Angel anymore. Shocking! Oh, and Andrew (Tom Lenk) comes to call!
The episode starts with a young girl, Dana (Navi Rawat) escaping from a mental facility with much icky hacking of bodies. It looks like Dana gets cranky without her Thorazine and that she's really, really strong.
Back at W&H, the unending debate about working for W&H continues with Gunn concluding that they're doing some good and Angel contending that it might have been a mistake to take the job. They discuss what to do with Eve post-parasite, but conclude that caution is the way to go until they know more. Just as they've decided to do nothing, again, Harmony informs them that a possessed girl (Dana) has escaped from a mental institution. Angel decides to handle the case himself and arrives at the mental institution just in time to meet up with Spike who is continuing his “Hero of the People” plan.
It turns out that Dana's family was murdered when she was a child and Dana was kidnapped and tortured for weeks. The result: a psychotic Dana who suddenly became very strong a few months ago. Spike assumes that she is possessed after looking at the drawings of demons on her walls and goes to bring Dana in. Angel sticks around to question a nurse at the hospital and manages to see a tape of Dana shouting about being chosen in Romanian. A surprised Angel realizes that Dana is a Slayer.
Unfortunately, Dana is more about the slay and less about the protection portion of the Slayer gig especially when she's confronted by a clueless Spike. Spike gets thrown out of a window just in time for Angel to arrive and fill Spike in on the Slayer aspect of the case.
Wes contacts Giles (!) who sends his “Top Guy” aka Andrew to deal with Dana. Yay! Andrew, dressed like a very poor man's Rupert Giles, immediately hugs Spike and cries on him with appropriate Lord of the Rings style references. Andrew recaps the Vampyre Slayer mythology and the spell Willow did in the Buffy series finale that gave all the potential Slayers the power of the Slayer.
Okay...this is news to Angel? You'd think Buffy would have shared that with him, if only in an e-mail. And, if he didn't know before, shouldn't he have been a little bit more concerned about finding another Slayer, since that would mean that Faith was dead?
Spike leaves to go after Dana over Angel's objections. Unfortunately, for Spike, Andrew decides to tag along. We learn that Spike has no intention of telling Buffy that he's alive. Is it just me or could these people really use some communication help? Maybe a blog? Just to catch up occasionally?
Dana starts to hallucinate that Spike is the man who killed her family and tortured her. This is bad news for a newly captured Spike who gets drugged by a very confused Dana. He tries to plead innocence, but her head is full of Slayer memories of his time as William the Bloody. Uh oh. Fortunately for Spike, Angel arrives to capture Dana.
Angel plans to take Dana to W&H, but surprise, surprise, Andrew has other orders: Buffy's orders. He informs Angel that none of the Scooby Gang, including Buffy, trusts him and that Andrew will be taking charge of Dana. Angel decides to object, but is awesomely stopped by an army of Slayers. Andrew wins the day. You know...I never really thought I'd write those words.
Recovering from the results of a torture session with Dana, Spike is having some qualms about his past actions. Angel and Spike bond over their monstrous pasts concluding that they were both once innocent victims like Dana, but that that time is long past.
This was a fabulous episode—the weirdness of Angel not knowing about the Slayer spell aside. The Andrew and Spike interaction was hilarious, and it was great for the Buffy and Angel verses to finally cross. The Broodometer is at 7 for much Buffy brooding.
What did you think of the episode? Was the Scooby Gang right to send in the army of Slayers or should they have had more faith in Angel? Do you have any faith in Angel at this point? Write your Two Cents below.