Angel 2.2: "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been"

Written by Tim Minear
Directed by David Semel

In which Angel returns to one of his old haunts to right one of the wrongs of his past, when he was the resident of a hotel where everyone had a secret and sought to protect it…


Status Report

Part of the challenge of the second season was setting up a new base of operations. Angel’s apartment had a certain style and tone to it, but this was a new chapter with more demanding scope. It would have been easy enough to introduce a new apartment or office building and be done with it, but the writers had other fish to fry as well. Setting up the base of operations was also a chance to establish the evolving tone of the series as a whole.

As a result, it’s not about finding the hotel; Angel already knows about it and has a personal interest in it. That personal interest is the entrance to the story, and the fact that it eventually becomes a new home is beside the point. Angel’s psychology of the past and present intertwine to drive the emotional core of the tale, which presages the journey through past and present that will define the second season arc.

No discussion on this episode is complete without a comment on the production values. More than the story itself, the presentation is leaps and bounds beyond the somewhat tentative first season. The shifting time periods could have fallen prey to visual cliché, but the direction and cinematography mesh to give the episode a fresh style. It’s quite possible to spend entire stretches of the episode watching nothing but the backgrounds. Considering the scheduling challenges that had to be overcome to make this happen on a television budget and timetable, it’s very impressive.

It’s easy to forget that Angel went through a long and tortured self-imposed process of isolation until Whistler gave him a reason to change. Every time they peel back the layers of the past, Angel’s introduction in the first season of “Buffy” seems more and more of a show. His cool semi-Goth look just doesn’t ring true, and based on his history, it shouldn’t. It’s an affectation designed to fit into Buffy’s world.

Most of his cursed years were spent in self-loathing, as seen in this episode. He inhabits the Hyperion like a ghost, just one of many people with something to hide and a past to be avoided. The episode immediately steps into a time when McCarthyism was rampant and overt racism was still the order of the day. For many in the audience, this had to have been culture shock. It’s hard to imagine that such an America existed only 50 years ago; the episode touches on the paranoia of the times very well, if in an admittedly “television” way.

What this establishes is an atmosphere that feeds into Angel’s desire and need to keep away from human affairs. If the “present day” Angel needs to find a connection to humanity, then the “past” Angel had the exact opposite need. He didn’t want to deal with anyone else, and the world around him punished anyone for getting involved and sticking out one’s neck for a stranger. So a suicide next door barely registers a reaction, and certainly doesn’t warrant investigation.

It’s little surprise that a den of paranoia like the Hyperion would find itself inhabited by a demon that uses that paranoia to sate its appetites. The episode strings out the particulars slowly but surely as the episode progresses, letting the paranoia rise so that Angel is put to the test. It’s an interesting and relevant question: how long can Angel maintain this isolation and ignore the suffering of others? And doesn’t the fact that he could do so at all say a great deal about the darkness that was already within Liam before he was turned? This plants important seeds for the direction the second season would take, plumbing the depths of Angel’s inherent dark side.

Angel apparently chooses to help Judy because he can relate to her status. Angel is shunned by other vampires who are sickened by his soul; humans fear him because he’s a vampire. He has no purpose and no direction. Judy is essentially in the same position. But this also places Angel in a risky position, because he wants to help Judy without exposing himself in the process. The writers are clever in establishing, before this choice is made, that Angel made a mistake.

The episode sets up the conflict within Angel very clearly. Taking Angelus out of the equation, there’s still a struggle within Angel between the light and darkness. Part of him is ready to become a Champion, to fight for humans because he has the ability to do so. It often becomes something of a martyr complex, but it’s still on the side of the angels (no pun intended). His dark side is ready to leave humans to their own fate, if he has reason to believe that they have earned it. Angel will be torn between those impulses by a concentrated attack on his moral compass throughout the season. His decision to let the Thesulac have the inhabitants of the Hyperion is direct foreshadowing of what Angel would do later in the season.

There’s also a nice throwaway line regarding Wesley. Indeed, Wesley is the most paranoid of the bunch, and that very paranoia comes back to haunt him on a number of occasions. Most tellingly, it plays a major part in the third season, when he allows his paranoia over Sahjahn’s prophecy to rule over his better judgment. All of that points back to his relationship with his father, which is another example of the strong characterization in the Buffyverse.

Angel’s decision to take residence in the Hyperion is almost an afterthought, but it really serves as a metaphor for his own intentions. Angel intends to take the hotel and “redeem” it. Taking that metaphor and extending it, Angel’s next three years or so, while living in the hotel, turn out to be a long descent into temptation, personal issues, and anything but finding redemption. And the hotel is effective taken over in the fourth season by a being that feeds on human souls. All in all, the hotel itself becomes a barometer of Angel’s progress, and it’s not pretty.

More than the season premiere, this episode sets the tone and scope for the second season. While the season premiere had Angel dealing with the consequences of failure and assumption, this episode showed how dark Angel could be on his own, without the overt influence of Angelus. Shortly after this episode, the writers would begin to introduce Wolfram and Hart’s plan to bring out the darkness in Angel, and thanks to this episode, the audience is already well aware of how far he can fall.


Memorable Quotes

WESLEY: “Well, now we know one thing for certain.”
CORDELIA: “Yup…it’s not that vampires don’t photograph. It’s just that they don’t photograph well.”

JUDY: “Can you imagine that wallpaper being the last thing you see before you go?”
ANGEL: “Maybe it was the wallpaper that drove him to it.”

CORDELIA: “70 years of violence, mayhem, and paranoia…bad vibes.”
ANGEL: “We’re moving in.”
CORDELIA: “I mean, a few throw pillows…what’s not to love?”

WESLEY: “Angel. You don’t fine me especially paranoid, do you?”
ANGEL: “Not especially.”
WESLEY: “Oh, thank God…I was worried…”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was far more effective in establishing the tone and scope of the second season than the actual season premiere. While the story itself works well on its own, the production values add a substantial weight to the story. In many ways, this is a mission statement for the series moving forward, promising a darker and more mature look at the struggle for redemption.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4

Final Rating: 9/10