Disharmony
| At Angel Investigations, everyone is still getting used to Angel being
back in the mix. As Angel is no longer the boss, all have to adjust their new roles. At
Angel’s insistence, Wesley has taken over the office that used to belong to Angel.
Since he’s no longer the boss, Angel reasons, he no longer needs to be in that
office. Still, it takes some getting used to and he’s quite awkward. He slowly
realizes that making up for his betrayal of his friends is going to be much harder than he
expected. Elsewhere, a couple is making out in a park at night. Hooded figures, dressed in blue, attack the couple in their car. The figures drag the screaming couple out of the car. Back at the Hyperion, the gang continues to settle back into the hotel. They take inventory and put things back into the places where they belong. Angel attempts to make small talk with Cordelia but she’s not having it. She makes it clear that although she’s excited to be starting their business up again, she has not interest in being friends with Angel. During their conversation (which Gunn witnesses), Cordy has a vision of the couple in the park. She sees a girl screaming and being dragged from a car. There are guys in robes, blue robes, taking the girl and a guy away. She also gets glimpses of many people in a cage and a giant stone bird that appears to have a red glow. She relates that the car is in Lafayette Park on the South-East corner, near a fountain. After checking to make certain Cordy is okay, Angel, Wesley, and Gunn take off to Lafayette Park. On his way out, Angel tells Cordelia she should take the day off (it’s quite obvious that he’s trying to make things up to her/kiss ass). Cordy takes his advice but as she’s leaving the hotel, she’s waylaid by an old friend…Harmony. After some small talk, in which Harmony tells her that she's in town to "check out the L.A. nightlife," Cordy invites her to stay at her apartment and the two leave the hotel. At the park, Angel, Wesley and Gunn find the car that Cordelia saw in her vision. As they discuss searching the park, a woman’s scream pierces the night. They head off in the direction the scream came from. They find a homeless woman being attacked by a man in a green robe. It looks similar to the one in Cordy’s vision, just a different color. They soon discover that underneath the robe is a vampire. Gunn begins the fight but it's Angel who dusts him. They argue for a moment over why the color of the robes was the wrong color in Cordy’s vision. Angel leaps to her defence, the guys look at him a bit strangely. Wesley says they should talk to her and question her about the vision. Angel is forced to admit that he told her to take the rest of the night off. Wesley and Gunn are getting a bit irritated with Angel’s preferential treatment to Cordy. Angel just feels bad because she seems so tired after the visions. He wonders if he should send her flowers so that she'll know that he appreciates her. Wesley cracks that he would appreciate a "Sorry You Were Shot In The Gut" bouquet as well. Angel gets Wesley's point, he can't buy his way back into her good graces. But he's still bothered - Cordelia told him they were not friends anymore. Wesley advises him to give her time - she's going through a hard time. Cordelia and Harmony, however, seem to be feeling no pain. They’re hanging out at Cordelia’s apartment in their bathrobes, drinking wine. They reminisce about the old days in high school when they ruled the school. Cordelia says that her life is better now, though, she’s happier. She gets a bit mushy about finding herself and attributes it to the wine. She asks how Harmony is doing, who replies vaguely that she’s great. She is a bit hungry, however. Cordy has the solution to that…pizza! Cordelia goes off to order the pizza and Harmony eyes her hungrily - pizza isn’t what’s appetising to her. Later that night, as Cordelia is sleeping, Harmony creeps into her room and watches her sleep. Phantom Dennis slams the door of Cordelia’s room, waking her up. Cordelia is surprised to see Harmony in the room, staring at her. Harmony apologizes in what sounds to Cordelia like a come on. While Harmony is actually talking about being a vampire and not having eaten in a while - Cordy thinks that Harmony is GAY and that she hasn’t "had any" for awhile. Harmony again apologizes, she didn’t tell Cordy (that she was a vamp) because she thought Cordy would kill her. Cordelia is surprised by this - she’s not that narrow minded (to kill someone who is gay) and as long as Harmony is happy… Well the whole conversation is basically two people THINKING they’re talking about the same thing when in reality they’re not. The next morning, Cordelia calls Willow to complain about not being told about Harmony. Willow’s a bit taken aback that Harmony has relocated to Los Angeles. In another crossed-signals conversation, Cordelia and Willow discuss Harmony being in Los Angeles and the events of the night before. Willow begins to realize that something is off and asks Cordelia if she's clear that Harmony is a vampire. Cordelia is shocked, then embarrassed. She just thought Harmony was a "great, big lesbo." She's then further embarrassed when Willow tells her that she (Willow) is a lesbian. Willow tells Cordy that she’s in danger and that she’d better get out of there. Cordy tells her she’ll call her when she’s somewhere safe. She turns around and sees Harmony standing behind her. Harmony wants to know where she’s going. Back at the hotel, Angel and Wesley are researching the robes they found on the vampire in the park. Well, Wesley is researching and Angel is restless. He can’t go out to see his contacts in the street because it’s daytime. When the phone rings, Wesley tells Angel to answer it. It’s Willow who has called them to warn them that Cordelia’s in danger of being killed by Harmony. Angel and Wesley charge over to Cordy’s apartment and burst in, wielding stake and cross. There they find Cordy and Harmony calmly sitting on the couch, while Harmony paints Cordy’s toenails. Not the danger infested scene they expected. Cordelia wants to know what the hell they thing they’re doing. They announce that they’re here to save her from Harmony. Cordy’s offended that they’d barge into her place and attack her friend without even finding out why Harmony’s there. She also tells them that she knows that Harmony’s a vampire and that she’s here for their help. Isn’t that what they do? As an obvious attempt to continue sucking up (pardon the term), Angel agrees with Cordelia. If Cordelia trusts her friend, then they should, too. Wesley tells Cordy that they need her at the office. When Cordy prepares to go back to the hotel with them, Wesley incredulously asks if she intends to leave Harmony there alone in her apartment. Cordy says yes and repeats that she trusts Harmony. Harmony, however, doesn’t want to be left alone in Cordy’s place if she has a ghost. Back at the hotel, they continue to research Cordelia’s vision. Harmony generally gets in the way, popping her gum and driving Wesley batty. It all comes to a head when Cordy asks her to get rid of said gum and Harmony tears a page out of a twelve century old book to wad her gum in. Wesley is about apoplectic by now and looks as if he’s going to stake Harmony himself. Angel intervenes by steering Harmony to the refrigerator, where he’s got some blood stored. She doesn’t care for the pig blood that he has though and wants to know how Angel can stand it. He wants to know what she means, he got used to the pig blood. Harmony continues, wanting to know how he stands everything when he's a vampire. She goes into a sensual description of human blood that seems to stir Angel. Luckily, Gunn comes in, interrupting the moment and Angel breaks away from her to rejoin the rest of the group. Gunn notices Harmony and smiles over at her - Harmony, dumping lots of sugar into her mug-o-blood, smiles flirtatiously back at him. Cordelia introduces them and Wesley snidely says that he should feel free to talk in front of Harmony - she’s a vampire. Gunn wants to know if they even kill ANY vampires anymore. Gunn has found out that robed vampires have been grabbing people off the street for about a month now. They’re all surprised they haven’t heard about it by now. Gunn surmises it’s because there hasn’t been any bodies turning up. Perhaps they’re not killing them, but turning them. Maybe someone’s recruiting an army. Meanwhile, in an abandoned movie theater, the robed vamps (in different colored robes: blue, green, white…) are gathered listening to a speaker talk. The speaker, whose name is Doug, turns out to be of the motivational variety. He wants to maximize their potential with his pyramid scheme (as he puts it, his "multi-level, exponential flow co-operative"). One vamp turns two, those two turn another two, so on and so forth. All they have to do to buy into the cooperative is deposit one human in the food bank. As they put it "Turn two, the rest is food." The assembled vamps love it and soon join him in chanting "turn two, the rest is food." Back at the hotel, Harmony watches while Cordelia searches for the symbol on the robes on the Internet. She laments to Cordy how their lives have not turned out as expected: Cordy’s an office manager and Harmony’s dead. Just then, Cordy finds something that looks like the symbol. It’s not mystical at all. She found a symbol just like it (except for a 2 is where the snake is) on the Department of Justice website. It’s a symbol for a defunct pyramid scheme. Apparently the leader of the scheme, Doug Sanders, disappeared and is still at large. When they try to download a picture of Doug, Harmony accidentally spills her mug-o-blood on Cordy’s computer, effectively crashing it. Wesley orders Cordelia to get her friend out of there immediately. Cordy takes her to Caritas so she can sing for The Host. Perhaps she can find out what her destiny is there. Harmony sings "The Way We Were" somewhat tunelessly as Cordy sits with The Host. When she’s done, Harmony bounces back to the table, pleased with herself. The Host thinks that Harmony is quite plucky and sees that she's looking for guidance. He can't help her though - he tells her that she's on the right path, but Cordelia is the one who's going to show her the way. Angel, Wesley and Gunn show up at Caritas to gather Cordelia. They’ve discovered that all the attacks have occurred around the same area. They want to drive around to see if Cordy can recognize the bird from her vision. They decide to leave Harmony at Caritas and take off for the car. As they’re walking down the street towards the car, suddenly Harmony joins them. She knows what The Host meant, she’s supposed to join Angel Investigations. The rest of the members of Angel Investigations are less than thrilled with that prospect. They drive around the city, with Harmony chatting up a storm and irritating just about everybody. Cordelia concentrates on the buildings, looking for the bird in her vision. Wesley tells Angel that someone needs to talk to Cordy about Harmony. Angel tells him that it’s Wesley’s job now. Cordelia abruptly yells at Angel to stop the car. There’s a building across the street with a Phoenix jutting from it. But it’s not a red bird. As they argue about it, Angel jets across the street talks to the building next door. They forgot to turn on their neon sign and as they fire it up, the Phoenix begins to glow red. As they decide what to do, Angel pulls Cordelia aside and tells her that they cannot continue to work with Harmony. He tells her that she’s allowing her judgment to be impaired because Harmony was a friend. Cordy doesn’t take that well. She thinks he's being hypocritcal. He knows that he screwed up, but he never lost sight of what Darla was. He warns her that Harmony will turn on her. She says that he and Harmony are the same, but Angel points out that he has a soul. Cordelia cracks that he thinks that makes him better than Harmony, doesn't he? Angel says it's true, he is better than Harmony. Cordy remarks that his soul didn't get in the way of his betraying his friends. She's royally pissed - he hurt her and he gave away her clothes. Not only that, but she was positive he was going to turn into Angelus again. She wonders what would have happened if he'd slept with Darla. Angel lies to her convincingly that he would never do that. Gunn and Wesley return from checking out the place and say it’s impossible to see what’s inside. Angel volunteers to go inside, pretend like he’s joining up and get a lay of the land. Gunn and Wesley disagree, he’s to well known and will be spotted immediately. Cordy comes up with the idea to send Harmony in - she doesn’t have a soul and isn’t well known around Los Angeles. Harmony was more excited about the prospect of watching the car, but decides to go anyway. While the others wait in the back alley to be let in, Harmony goes into the theater. There, she witnesses a vampire being graduated to the next level. He gets a yellow robe now and he also gets to feed off one of the humans in the "food bank." Cordy, Wes, Angel and Gunn wait in the alley to be let in by Harmony. She’s taken quite a long time and they think maybe she ran into trouble. Finally, she lets them in, telling them there’s about 100 vamps and maybe 12 people in a cage. As they enter the theater, Harmony babbles on about how grateful she is to them, she never felt like she belonged anywhere before. When they get in to the abandoned theater, they ask where the vamps are. Harmony offhandedly says that the vamps are right behind them. The lights in the theater crash on to reveal that they’re on the stage. Harmony has tricked them and turned them into Doug and his scheme. Cordelia’s pissed that Harmony would betray them like this. Doug is so pleased with Harmony for delivering the infamous Angel to him that he elevates her to blue robe status immediately. Doug tells Angel that the odds are impossible. Might as well give up. Angel replies that they’re a team - Wesley agrees and then barks out the order "Kill ‘em all!" The fight ensues - Wesley works on freeing the people from the cage as Cordy goes after Harmony. All fight and eventually Angel beheads Doug. With their leader gone, the other vamps begin to flee. Cordy has Harmony cornered, cross bow pointed at her throat. Harmony taunts her, the crossbow won’t kill her - it’s aimed at her throat. Cordy calmly brings up another crossbow that she jabs into Harmony’s chest - this one will kill her, though. Harmony begins to beg for her life. Cordy eventually lets her go, but tells her that they’re no longer friends. Angel watches this exchange and Cordy tells him not to say a word to her. Later, back at the hotel, Wesley lectures Angel on allowing Cordelia to have the time to forgive him. He can’t force Cordy to forgive him - Angel agrees. Wesley’s a bit surprised that it was so easy to convince him. Suddenly the door bursts open and Cordy enters, arms full of new outfits and shopping bags/boxes. She's ecstatic and bouncing around the room. She exclaims to Angel that she loves the new clothes and that he has a gay man's taste. She hugs him and kisses him on the cheek. Wesley looks out through the doorway and spies more gifts on Cordy's desk. Angel, pleased with himself, follows the singing Cordy out of Wesley’s office. Wesley calls out to Angel that he could use a new DVD player. Things are back to what passes for normal at Angel Investigations.
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| Rating and Comments: This week's plot was only so-so, but there was some great interaction between Angel, Wes, Cordy and the gang. Harmony continues to grate on my nerves, but at least we had some Willow to balance that out. |
| Rating: 7 out of 10 |
| Written by: Staff Writer - Christine |