Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been

Written by Tim Minear
Directed by David Semel

Dianne's Synopsis | Celli's Review | SunSpeak

We open on an old black-and-white photograph of an old hotel -- The Hyperion. Westley and Angel are discussing it: in what was once the heart of Hollywood, it has apparently been abandoned for years ("68 rooms, 68 vacancies"). Cordelia joins the group with drinks for all ("English Breakfast... Coffee... O Pos!"). No one takes any notice until Angel pauses before drinking -- he thinks the blood's turned, but Cordelia just added some cinnamon ("What? I can't try something?" *g*)

Angel puts the two on research duty: Find a reason for the hotel's abandonment, and who owns it now. In response to Westley's query he will only say that there is no client, and that they should look into police records of homicides and the like for the hotel's entire history. He leaves them without further explanation.

Cut to the photo again. As we zoom in, it slowly fades into a color, moving image of the hotel itself. Cars in the street indicate this is maybe the 1950s. A uniformed bell-hop opens the door for us and we proceed through a busy lobby to the main desk, where the concierge (John Kapelos, for all you FK fans ;-) and another bell-hop are sorting the mail. They know the residents, many of whom obviously have lived there for some time, so when the concierge tells the bell-hop to present the weekly bill to #217, the bell-hop balks. The resident of #217 gives him "the heebie-jeebies", and we see his trepidation as he manages to leave the bill on the floor outside the door to the room and run for the elevator before the door is answered.

We pan up the figure standing in the doorway. It's Angel.

Angel is exploring the same lobby in the present day -- furniture covered in sheets and dust... when the camera pans left into the past. The lobby seems constantly busy -- and completely Caucasian -- the concierge settles a new resident, while simultaneously turning away a Black family ("I know what the sign says, but it's wrong. No vacancy."). We follow Angel to his room... past a shifty-looking guy hanging around the elevator... and a gay couple saying goodbye in the hallway (then obviously uncomfortable that they've been seen). He goes back out to get ice for the bottle of blood he's just brought home and sees a businessman having a quiet conversation with someone we can't see in one of the rooms... and the shifty guy knocking futilely on another door at the end of the hall. When he gets back he locks the door behind him, only to find a woman in the room. She tries to pretend that she's a maid, but he isn't buying it. She swears she's not there to steal anything, but he doesn't care and tells her so. He's escorting her towards the door -- uncaring to her pleas for shelter from an abusive boyfriend... when someone tries to break in.

It's Shifty Guy, trying to pick the lock. He insists on knowing where "she" is, refuses to leave, and displays the gun holstered at his side. Angel whacks him in the face with the door, grabs an ear, twists his arm up over his head, and unceremoniously dumps him in the elevator, where he simply tells Freaked Bell-hop "he's going down". The woman is impressed and tries to introduce herself, but Angel simply walks by her, back into the room, and closes the door behind him....

...shift on the image of the door back to Angel standing in the debris-filled hallway of the present-day building.

Cut to the research team back at Cordelia's. The hotel closed 12/16/79, "when the concierge made his morning rounds with a 12-gauge shotgun, door-to-door," and has been vacant ever since. It's a protected landmark, and has been on the market for ten years without a buyer. The history of "murder and mayhem" at the place started with its opening in 1928 when a roofer jumped to his death, taking two others with him.

While bemoaning the lack of an evident point to their research, Cordelia spots Angel in one of the old photographs and they realize he has a personal connection to the hotel that he is apparently too ashamed to acknowledge to them.

Cut to Angel in the past, smoking in his room and drinking his now-chilled dinner. We hear a truly awful bouncy polka-something tune coming from an adjoining room... and we move to it, to find the businessman there playing his phonograph. Whispers seem to surround him, and he responds back to them quite normally. He picks up his gun, sits with his back to the bed, and puts a pillow to the side of his head. We are watching Angel again when we hear the muffled gunshot.

A quick flash of Angel prowling the abandoned hotel in the present cuts to the past, with the concierge and bell-hop going to deal with the businessman's body. While the bell-hop babbles on about how well suicides usually tip, the concierge is surrounded by the whispering voices. This time we can hear: they are warning him that -- with three suicides in as many months -- the hotel will be shut down. He agrees and tells the startled bell-hop not to call anyone and to store the body in the meat locker.

In the lobby residents -- the closeted gay actor, a prostitute, and a screenwriter -- are gossiping about the suicide ("the candle seller in 215"), while a bystander hears the whispers warning him that it might not have been a suicide, and that he may not be safe.

Angel and Judy run into each other outside the Griffith Observatory. She tries to strike up conversation, but he's not really interested. She thanks him for his previous help, then gives up.

In the present, Cordelia and Westley are filling the bits of info they've found -- one of which is a photo of the freaked bell-hop, who was apparently executed two years afterwards for the 'murder' of the salesman and the hiding of the body.

Past again: The bystander has joined the lobby gossipers and they're slowly convincing themselves that it wasn't suicide at all. As Angel walks past Judy calls him into her room (apparently she's on his other side -- #219, apparently). She tells him it's being called a murder, which means police will be coming around. She wanted to warn him because, as he points out "everyone here has something to hide". He asks if her secret involves the PI he threw out earlier. She confesses that he probably works for the Kansas bank she was a teller at -- while pulling a satchel full of cash from under her bed.

[Ed. -- Ooops! Those are all *new* $20 bills! Celli noticed that the font was too new, I noticed the portraits (or the circles around them that you can see around the bands) are far too big. Simultaneous "Wait! Rewind that!" moments. *g* Either way, big goof by the props department, who apparently weren't told we were doing a flashback ep! ;-]

Judy says she hasn't spent any of it, and doesn't know why she stole it except that she was angry -- she's had a great job and a great fiancé... but she was fired and her fiancé left her when they found out that her mother was Black and she was "only passing" for white herself. While Angel insists "it's all just blood", she points out that neither race will accept her.

Back in the present: An old news clipping says Judy apparently disappeared without a trace.

<<commercial break>>

Angel relates to her "neither one nor the other" situation and helps her hide the money in the basement. While she babbles on about being terrified of being "trapped" by jail, Angel hears some stray whispers and realizes something supernatural is at work in the hotel.

Present: ["In the present he just prowls. They told David 'unless you're in the 50s, you don't say anything'." -- Celli "It's just flashes: He's prowling and *flash*, we're in the past! He prowls some more and... we're-in-the-past!" -- me] Angel prowls his way to the basement and recovers the money, intact [and _current_, even! *g*].

Westley is mulling over the patterns when Cordelia walks up and announces that the culprit is a Hethesulak -- a paranoia demon that feeds on people's innate insecurities. After an appropriate pause for Westley to gape at her like she just grew another head, she brings the portable phone out from behind her back and tells him Angel wants to talk to him.

Angel has given up prowling and is now messing with the electrical system. The demon moved in even before they finished building the hotel, and Angel was hoping their research would help track it in the present, but he has realized that it never left the building. He tells Westley to get Gunn and bring everyone down to help raise -- and slay the demon.

Past: Angel is at a bookstore, looking for demonology books. The proprietor deliberately tosses him a Bible to "out" him, then starts ranting about how he's sick of demons showing up and is going to bring his bedroll to the shop so vampires can't just walk in all the time. Angel grabs him from the back and threatens to open a vein if the guy doesn't just calm down and show him the books in the back.

Back at the old hotel, the paranoia quartet in the lobby are starting to turn on each other... the screenwriter threatening to expose the actors "peccadilloes" to the studio, the actor calling the out-of-work screenwriter "comrade". In her room Judy is starting to hear the whispers ("they know about you... they'll turn you in... you'll go to prison...").

At the bookstore, Angel is researching ways to kill the demon. Per the owner, it has to be corporeal... which happens after either a big feed or a dangerous ritual using an orb of something-or-other, some herbs, and "a big heavy thing to hit it with". The bookseller can't figure out why a vampire would want to slay a demon to save some "grubby humans"... and Angel admits it doesn't make sense to him either.

In the lobby the concierge and bell-hop join the escalating finger-pointing and general rising mob mentality... which is interrupted by the arrival of the PI, with cops in tow, looking for Judy.

Angel gets back from the bookstore to find the lobby completely deserted... cut to Cordy, Westley, and Gunn arriving through the front door... cut back to Angel in the present. They begin the ritual to raise the demon. Westley and Gunn snipe at each other and Angel cautions them not to listen to anything the demon whispers. (Then Cordelia tells him they were like this all the way over in the car. ;) They finish the ritual and something begins to materialize...

...cut to Angel coming out of the elevator in the past, finding all the usual lobby residents there, dragging a protesting Judy with them down the hall. Angel sets down his supplies and steps forward to help her, when she panics and points the finger at him ("He did it, he has blood, he's a monster!"). The PI picks up the big battle axe Angel set down and uses the butt of it to knock Angel to the ground. As he glimpses her through the crowd now beating him to a bloody pulp, Judy is just standing there watching.

<<commercial break>>

The raucous mob drags Angel to the second floor balcony overlooking the lobby, where someone conveniently finds a rope and they string up a noose. As they put it around his neck he once again sees Judy watching, obviously upset, but unable to do anything. The cheering crowd hangs him... but as soon as he hangs there, a suddenly hush falls over the crowd. There are stunned and disturbed faces all around as the mob silently backs away and one- by-one disappears back into the rooms. The bell-hop is the only one still cheering and yelling, but after the concierge asks "What have we done?" in a shocked voice, even he quiets and leaves.

After a moment Angel's eyes open, and he pulls himself out of the noose [nice detail: you can see the rope burn along his throat for the rest of the scene] and drops to the floor. The demon materializes -- 10-feet tall, with a standard monster-issue face and lots of little tentacles peaking out of the bottom of his long hooded robe, and sounding for all the world like Audrey II ["Little Shop of Horrors", guys... if you haven't seen it, stop reading and hit the video store _now_! *g*]. He's just delighting in the full meal of hate and fear he cooked up for himself. And he tells Angel that Judy was the best of all, "a meal that will last him a lifetime", because he _had_ gotten through to her, made her believe in people, and she had been a real friend... which made turning her anyway the demon's crowning glory.

Then the demon points out to Angel: "There's a whole hotel full of tortured souls back there that could really use your help. Whaddya say?" Angel's response: "Take them all."

Cut to the demon in present day, where he has materialized in front of the group. The demon delights in the paranoia he can see in them ("Especially _that_ one!" Westley: "What does he mean by that?!?" *g*). When the demon says he hasn't left because the paranoia in the hotel "is like fine wine", Angel realizes he's still there because he's still feeding.

The team attacks, Gunn gets thrown around, then Angel grabs a tentacle and sticks it in the open electrical wiring [Yup, whoever wrote this watched "Little Shop of Horrors" too much! ;] and the demon blows up.

Angel goes upstairs alone to #214 to find Judy there, 50 years older. She says the whispers have finally stopped, and she recognizes Angel. ("You look the same" "I'm not.") The demon "kept them from the door", she says; it told her she would be safe. For fifty years the demon's managed to trap her in that single room by using her fear that the mob and/or the police would find her.

She wants to go out now, but needs to "take a little rest first", so Angel helps her frail form to the bed. She apologizes for having killed him and asks for forgiveness (which he gives)... then closes her eyes and dies.

Downstairs Westley is still fretting over what the paranoia demon meant about him being "especially paranoid"; Cordelia and Gunn just exchange looks and let him rant. Angel comes down the stairs and everyone is relieved that they can get out of the place (Cordelia: "It gives me the heebie-jeebies!")... until Angel announces that they're moving in (Cordelia: "A few throw pillows -- what's not to love?"). Westley protests that the sheer amount of bad vibes in the place by now make it a "house of evil" -- Angel: "Not anymore."

<<end credits>>

Celli's Review

I enjoyed this episode because, even though it was about LA in the 50s, it was very much about LA. The place everyone goes to find themselves, or just hide. The Greek chorus of the screenwriter, the actor, and the hooker made it easy to follow the emotions of everyone else in the hotel, versus Angel and Judy.

Poor Judy. I got the impression that when everyone started screaming at her, the demon really started pounding on her brain. That whole scene made me think of episodes of "air rage" I've read about, where one person threatened the safety of a plane and the other passengers killed him. These people knew they had to get away from something...they just picked the wrong something.

Continuity: Well, they're going to work out of the hotel now, does that count? And it gives us another hint about Angel's path from damnation (Darla) to redemption (Whistler).

Characters: Well, this is a big Angel ep, even if he talks less than usual throughout the whole thing. :) I had often wondered how he managed to wallow for decades. This episode fills in part of that answer. He was starting to get it together, managed to take one peek out into the world--and had the door slammed flat on his nose, so to speak. Not only did he not save Judy, he didn't want to anymore.

We also saw yet another example of one of Angel's biggest flaws. He just does not think. Deciding on impulse to save somebody is nice (although I wanted to ask him "What's your plan? You have to have a plan!" I have an inner Wesley, okay?); deciding on impulse to doom several dozen people is a problem. (And nice foreshadowing for Reunion, by-the-by.)

Wesley's paranoid. Did I need to point that out?

Cordy's flip-flop right there at the end ("a few throw pillows...") was mostly just a funny line, but it was nice to see her back Angel up.

Gunn was there to get tossed against a wall. Ow. And sigh.

The rest of the characters were all one-shot wonders, created just for this episode. And they were fun, as I may have mentioned before. (Nice to see John Kapelos again doing anything, let alone one of my favorite shows.) The bellhop in particular was fun--interesting that he was less affected than everyone else at first ("But he shot himself!") and stayed mad at Angel after everyone else had reacted with Ye Olde Shock and Horror.

Relationships: Employees or not, it's still obviously Angel...and everyone else. They even have to find out why he's interested in the place from their own research.

Cordy and Wes have a great working relationship, though. Always nice to see them having fun with newspaper clippings.

Wesley and Gunn don't need no demon to irritate each other. <g>

Comments and Questions: I'm sure everyone else already thought of this, but how did Judy survive fifty-some years with no food? She couldn't actually be in suspended paranoid animation, because she was wearing a different dress. Someone explain this to me.

What made Angel think of the Hyperion after all this time? Did he drive past it and get a creepy feeling, or what?

From the Brown University Greek Mythology site:

"Hyperion has been identified with the sun. He is said to have been the first to understand the movement of the sun, moon and stars. His offspring is remarkable but no myths are attached to him. He shares the common fate of all of his race [defeated by Zeus and imprisoned under the earth]. He is father, by Thia, of Eos (Dawn), Helius (Sun), Selene (Moon), and Titan."

Best Bits:

"Don't you dare use alliteration with me, you hack!"

Lots of great little moments, especially with the 50s side of the ep.

Angel and Judy's scene at the end, where he gets to forgive someone else.

Rating: 4 out of 5. Good stuff, especially for a flashback-heavy ep.

SunSpeak

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