I've Got You under My Skin • S01e14 • Tpn’s Angel Guide

I’m regularly surprised by how often writing a video script alters my feelings about a particular episode. At first glance, I’ve Got You Under My Skin might seem like a relatively conventional Exorcist knockoff. A bit clunky and rote. But, borrowing a page from Buffy’s first season, the episode uses its structure to reveal something...far more interesting. Angel and company are hanging out in his basement. This is a fun a little scene as they snipe at each other and Angel smiles affectionately, attempting to keep the peace. “Cordelia, Doyle…” OOooooo I love that. The acknowledgment that Wesley is still new and there are some painful memories not quite behind everyone. What a great little scene. Across town a family is putting their kids to bed with...unusual practices depending on how you feel about kids I guess but I wondered if the writer of this one might not be a frustrated parent looking for some wish fulfillment. Cordy therapizes Angel in another scene I really enjoy. Cordy digs in on Angel to get him to talk about what he’s dealing with over Doyle’s death. Mid-session Cordy has a vision of children somewhere and their father. At the house Angel rescues the child from being run over. The kids parent’s run out and seem strangely high anxiety about the whole thing. Angel uses the word scamp “Scamp isn’t he” And is invited in for a patch job. So...because of the wife's exuberance at Angel's presence and the husband's unflinching stare and desire to get Angel out, the writing is clearly setting up to make it LOOK like the Dad is abusive/demony. Which then...just...turns out...not true? Weird red herring choice. The mom does seem a bit at the end of her tether as, upon finding out Angel’s name: 12:00 “Something’s wrong in that house.” I’ll say. Wesley walks the grounds and discovers a residue which suggests that someone in the house is possessed by a demon. What is the residue? 13:51 “No one could have said demon poo before I touched it?” X-Files “Is there any way I can get this off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior?” The team decides that an exorcism is in order and Angel sets out to dinner with a dish the demon will find particularly repellant. At the table the demon is revealed in an effect I find both a little disturbing and a little hilarious. After feeding him the demon brownie the parents attitudes pivot. Mom now wants Angel to leave. Dad wants the help. Back in Angel’s bedroom they setup the exorcism but need to get items. Angel and Wesley head to church and Angel appears nervous. The nun recognizes Angel for what he is: “You would come into a place of worship?” This is one of the few episodes where they really dally with religious mythology and I kind like it. This bit between them is very Constantine or Supernatural and even though it’s not a direction the writer’s took the lore it’s fun to watch them toy with it. Angel inadvertently strikes at Wesley’s confidence. You don’t even have sales resistance. How many thigh masters do you own? The second one was a free gift. That's an oddly mean and specific way to cut a guy down. But maybe it isn’t so inadvertent. Angel clearly likes Wesley but most of his experience with him so far has been with his inept management of Buffy and his capturing Faith just before Angel might’ve been able to get through to her. The boy taunts the mother across the line. Well what did you THINK was going to happen. The horror of the sequence is severely undermined when the telegraph it for 15 minutes. Angel and Wesley return and as Angel seeks a mythical item to capture the demon, Wesley performs the initial rites of the ritual. The demon reaches into his mind to defend itself 201 30:52 “All those hours under the stairs and you were still not good enough. Not good enough for Daddy. Not good enough for the council.” The mention of Wesley’s father causes him to lose his place. Angel performs the rest of the ceremony and Cordy’s discount Ethros box breaks in half. Angel tracks down the demon in corporeal form who reveals a nice twist in the episode. 36:30 “You didn’t get that boy’s soul.” - “...what soul?” This is really a nicely delivered little twist. The boy is devoid of soul and, because of that, actually terrifies a demon. Unlike the bit of misdirection with the father I really liked this one, and it made the kid uber terrifying. I know you bring death. I do not fear it. The only thing I fear is in that house. The rest of the episode is a little rote. Ryan turns into the Good Son “If I let you go, do you think you could fly?” Sets the house on fire. Angel rescues everyone. The end. At first glance this might seem like a relatively pedestrian Exorcist episode but it’s actually executed with some very Buffy style subversiveness which also raises some fun questions about our protagonist and his new hire. This is the greatest bit of character development that Wesley has received in his Buffyverse tenure, and his interactions with the demon are the best parts of the episode. As I mentioned in Parting Gifts, the fear the demons have of Wesley suggest that he is more than a capable foe. And in Expecting Angel demonstrates a surprising amount of confidence in Wesley’s abilities, as he takes him along to fight the baby demon in the opening and sends Wesley in against the giant demon daddy. Wesley’s issues then are not a lack of training but a total deficit of self-confidence, even in the face of any of his successes. He’s slapstick *** at time yes, something I’ve said kind of sells his character short and starts to dissipate as the show goes on, but really his crisis is completely internal. “The council was right to sack me.” And in this episode, as the demon pokes at his vulnerabilities through a psychic scan we start to get a sense of what happened. I also love how the demon attempts to dismantle the team by calling out Wesley’s plan to put Angel down. Angel’s reaction turns the reveal into a cute little moment of bonding between them. 301 36:00 “I know you’re not planning to kill me Wesley. But you’re willing to. And that's good.” As agentm83 on Twitter phrased it, Angel’s real friends are the ones willing to take him down. Interesting that when the demon’s manipulations finally work and Wesley acts out of impulse...he uhh...gets it in the throat? The episode is bookended by Angel having to process his own guilt over Doyle’s death. His calling Wesley, Doyle is a heartbreaking little moment that also manages to cleverly play with each character’s issues in one single swoop. Wesley is put in doubt of his contributions, Cordy is reminded of what might have been, and Angel’s actual suffering is revealed. Obviously Captain Guilt Complex would make everything his fault, and Cordy therapizing Angel is a nice dynamic that was setup in Somnambulist. Within the recovering alcoholic metaphor Cordy has spent the past few episodes in the role of Angel’s sponsor. And it makes sense that the queen of: “Tact is just not saying true stuff” Wouldn’t stand for people who aren’t speaking their feelings, especially not the people she loves and cares about. The episode liken’s Angel’s struggle to keep the team together with Seth’s to keep his family together, in the face of horror and loss. And Angel is one step closer by the end to understanding that, though the reason he fights still seems in doubt. Especially in the face of so much loss. Ryan the soulless possessed acts as an interesting prism into Angel’s own guilt, though I’m not sure the episode offers any conclusions. A vampire is a human, soul expelled, inhabited by a demon. Ryan is a soulless human, inhabited by a demon, and the episode suggests that it is Ryan’s soulless human side that is more terrifying and responsible for his evil than the demon itself. Which is probably a reflection of how Angel feels for himself. “It’s not the demon in me that needs killing Buffy. It’s the man.” It’s easy to look at Angel’s journey and say that he has nothing to be ashamed of because he was without soul as Angelus, but Angel cannot separate himself from the deeds of Angelus. He experienced them as though he himself did them, and making matters worse the actions of the vampire are at least partially dictated by the impulses of the human, free from conscience. It doesn’t really matter whether Angel’s pursuit of redemption makes logical sense from the outside so much as we understand it makes perfect emotional sense to Angel. Angel’s reaching for redemption is his own emotional journey to give his life meaning - which is the case for many of the character’s on Angel the Series “We all got something to atone for.” In that way, Angel’s show might be more about the pursuit of living meaningfully than Buffy, even Angel’s plots occasionally have more thematic contradictions - when the writer’s occasionally write themselves into corners and grapple for way’s out. It’s definitely a first season episode. In fact it feels very much like a blueprint borrowed from the first season of Buffy where a common horror trope is used to explore various facets of our characters hearts. The two shows have very different driving mechanisms behind them though. The monster metaphors in Buffy’s first season were all driven by the theme of growing up. Angel’s are mostly a way of exploring his pathology. You can see the writer’s trying to work out what drives him through parallel storytelling. And I think I like that. The path to adulthood is inescapable. Angel’s is a more nebulous path and some exploration is necessary. But the seams are still there. The dialogue in this one is pretty clunky. Partially that works in aid of setting up the Dad red herring but even in times where the oddness fits the context it makes no sense. “Little scamp” “That was vulgar.” - “Apparently I made my point.” The episodes attempt to subvert its horror trope doesn’t quite feel like a subversion so much as a last minute twist. In my opinion children are already terrifying enough and don’t need to be used as horror devices. Though, maybe as a manifestation of parental anxiety they’re kind of interesting. Still, I like this one. After the faceplant in She and Expecting, the focus shifts back to character development which is the reason I love the Buffyverse as much as I do. And I’ve Got You Under My Skin is a nice step in the direction towards the ensemble masterpiece the show is at its pinnacle.