Waiting in the Wings

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon

Lizbet's Synopsis | Lizbet's Review

"Honestly, have you ever seen anything lovelier?"

Since what we're looking at is a woodcut of a really ugly -- but undeniably female -- demon, I can safely say that yes, I have seen something lovelier. Wesley continues to rhapsodize about the wonders of his beloved, but is pulled up short by Cordelia pointing out that, on top of everything else, she has six breasts. Wes snaps out of it and they discuss a vision that Cordelia had that isn't due to hit for another month or so. Since Sorialus the Ravanger (and Six-Breasted) is filed under "Pending", Cordelia is branching out into romantic advice. Of course, it is Cordelia-typical advice to go full speed ahead. Cordy mourns for a moment that she never gets a date nowadays, and her only action is a ghost with a loofah. Realizing what she's said, she looks up, and Wesley immediately looks down, blandly murmuring that he didn't get that last part. "You *are* a gentleman," Cordelia marvels. "Who's doing what with the Loofah?" Angel demands. He isn't really that curious, though, because he's smiling. Like, actually smiling. And holding tickets.

Meanwhile, Gunn and Fred are evidentially returning from breakfast, and Gunn is teasing Fred about the amounts she eats and the fact that it never seems to stay on her body. (Definite proof that this show is a complete and total fantasy.) He calls her gorgeous as they enter the Hyperion lobby. Gunn immediately pounces on Angel holding the tickets, raving that Mara Hari is the hottest band in LA and everyone's going to love them. He doesn't let Angel get a word in edgewise, until he reads the actual tickets and realizes that they are for the Blinnikov World Ballet. There is a basic incompatibility between Angel's happiness over the ballet and Gunn's, "But... Mara Hari" that Angel, not surprisingly, doesn't notice. Gunn, who is feeling very betrayed, acquiesces as everyone else plans their dress-up night.

At the theater, the manager is gushing to the director of the ballet company, who is extremely Count Dracula like in his black and white formal attire and a gothic cross with a red stone in the center. The manager is thrilled and impressed and honored and... Above the on the catwalks, a hand in a white glove rests on a railing and a maniacal giggle is heard.

Fred and Cordy are shopping. Fred seems a bit nervous and out of place, but Cordelia is in her element -- or, at least, was her element. Cordy seems to have adapted, though. Instead of buying the most expensive gown in the store, Cordy is planning on buying it, wearing it once, and returning it the next day. The plan depends on the ability to tug tags in well. (Which is why most special occasion stores fasten the tags in a place where it's impossible to tuck them on... sorry, did I mention I worked for three years in a fancy department store?) Cordy holds a pastel pink dress up to Fred that completely washes her out and makes her look about twelve, and then wisely puts it back. Fred asks if she can ask something. With a knowing smile, Cordy says that she thinks that the two of them are perfect for each other. When Fred is astonished that Cordy knows what she's talking about, she points out that she has magical powers. (Apparently, not magical enough to realize that Fred is talking about Gunn and Cordy is talking about Wesley.) They plan on finding a dress that will make 'him' act on those feelings. Fred reciprocates by trying to find a dress that will drive Angel crazy. Cordy and I both say that Angel is already crazy, and Cordy scoffs at the idea of the Champion worrying about his outfit.

Since said champion is having baby spit-up removed from the back of his tux jacket and anxiously asking if it is okay, it isn't such a strange thought. Lorne, who apparently is Heloise, is sponging it off with club soda. Apparently Angel just sang Connor to sleep (the horrors -- Angel singing) and Lorne is taking advantage of Angel's crooning to read him, and poke him about his feelings for Cordelia. Lorne declaims for the first time the powers of kyrumption (which we will all get sick of hearing about in the next ten episodes) and argues that kyrumption is fate, but Angel doesn't want to hear it. In the middle of this argument, Cordelia poses herself in the doorway, dressed to kill. Lorne decides that his chances are quite good enough with Cordelia and tells Angel to forget all about it, but Angel is too busy filling his eyeballs with Cordelia to notice or care.

Downstairs, Gunn is having issues with his monkey suit. As in, he's afraid he looks like an idiot. Fred is in a gorgeous dark ruby dress with a flared skirt of which the only unfortunate thing is the strapless neckline which looks good on no woman whatsoever and creates unsightly little bulges in unfortunate places (and if it creates bulges on *Amy* then it just isn't going to look good on anyone), and promises not to laugh (betcha thought I'd lost that sentence somewhere). Gunn steps out into her view, and Fred gasps and holds her hands to her mouth. Gunn sulks that he can't trust anyone, and Fred assures him that it's just that he's so pretty. Final proof that Gunn is completely over the moon about this woman comes when that compliment actually pleases him.

Wesley comes in and drapes a shawl around Fred's shoulders, and he and Gunn admire Fred. But Gunn isn't so distracted as to not notice Cordelia coming down the main stairs on Angel's arm. As Wesley helps Cordelia into her own wrap, she tells him out of the corner of her mouth that it's time to strike while the iron is hot.

They walk through a gorgeous ornate lobby to get to their seats, which are regrettably nosebleed and staggered, three together and then two together in the row behind. Angel reminisces about how he'd always get box seats... or just eat the people in the boxes and take their seats.

The ballet begins with Giselle as a simple peasant girl with a basket of flowers. The camera pans up to the company director in a box.

Cordelia isn't terribly enthralled with the ballet. Cordelia, unfortunately, is slumped over and snoring. She twitches, turns, and tucks herself against Angel's shoulder, and continues snoring. In front of them, Gunn is leaning forward avidly, his entire face reflecting wonder at the performance in front of him. Fred grins at him. Angel is watching as intently as Gunn, but is frowning instead of smiling.

When the act ends, the applause brings Cordelia awake and she immediately begins applauding wildly. Angel assures her that it's just the intermission, as Gunn in front of them is calling, "Bravo! Bravo!" They gather in the lobby and Gunn is just adoring the ballet. Angel says that nothing at all has changed since he saw the company a hundred and twelve years before. It's the same choreography and the same *dancers*. Cordelia, is aggressively taking a Night. Off. From. WORK. She acknowledges that it's a puzzle, and then brightly asks, "Snacks?"

No one is letting her take a night off, though, as they continue to try to figure it out. Angel vetoes the option that they are vampires, as he would 'sense' it, even though Gunn thinks that would explain their athleticism and precision and wanders off into raptures about their jumps. "You know, I was cool before I met you all." Poor Gunn. Snicker. Fred suggests that after the show they should snoop backstage, and Angel and Cordelia volunteer to do it now.

They sneak down to the basement and spot a really burly security guard blocking a door handily marked: Backstage, Absolutely *No* Admittance! Cordy offers to distract him by flirting with him, but Angel absentmindedly says that the most beautiful woman in the world coming on to a guy like that would be obviously a scam. Cordy, not believing what she is hearing, asks him for a repeat, but Angel is planning violence instead. Cordy has a (slightly) more subtle plan, and pops up in front of the guard holding a twenty. When the guard points out that a twenty is more of a tip than a bribe, Angel punches him out, and he and Cordy head backstage. Which turns into the Endless Tunnel -- and no way out.

Angel and Cordy find a room and enter it. It is the prima ballerina's dressing room. Cordy crosses to her dressing table and picks up a cross on a chain, murmuring that she would wait for 'him' here. Both Angel and Cordy sense that there is something happening -- or something that *had* happened -- here. Cordy goes to Angel and asks him to undress her -- calling him Angel. She claims that it's just another costume and that she wants him to see who she really is. Angel is still trying to shake this off, and Cordy comes out of it with a snap just as Angel succumbs and steps closer. Which is enough to pull her back into it. They begin kissing and don't break off until Cordy brings her hand -- still holding the cross on the chain -- up to his face and it burns him.

That breaks the spell on both of them and they jump back. Angel apologizes but Cordy typically cuts to the chase and says they have to get out of there. They start invading each other's personal space and Cordy breathlessly says that this isn't out of here. They finally get the door open and tumble out into the hallway. They deduce like good little detectives that there are spirits in there and they picked up on the energy. While Cordy is relieved that it wears off quickly, Angel takes off his tux jacket and drapes it over a particular part of his anatomy.

Back at the Hyperion, Lorne is singing a lullaby to Connor about how he doesn't resent not getting asked to go to the ballet, no, not at all, and he would never, ever sell Connor to a vampire cult that made him a decent offer. As he sings, we track someone coming into the Hyperion and up the stairs to the room where Lorne is with Connor. Hearing a noise, Lorne picks up an axe that is leaning next to a rubber ducky and checks it out. Whatever he sees through the open door makes him gasp.

Back at the theater, Cordy has a thought. She remembers saying something while under the influence of a lustful ballerina that might prove to be significant -- something about being afraid someone would find them. Against Angel's better judgment, they return to the room to try to get more information. It takes a few seconds for the spirits to rev their engines again, but then they are off and... well, running is probably the wrong word. Cordy calls Angel "Stefan" and worries that "Kurskov," who owns the company, will use his power and do something worse than killing them. Angel as Stefan encourages her to come away with him, but they sink back down onto the couch.

Meanwhile, Gunn and Wesley, on either side of Fred, are simultaneously subtly moving to hold her hand. Which is forestalled when she suddenly gasps, "Angel! And Cordelia." She's worried about how long they've been gone, and over Gunn's protests that they're missing the end, they leave to go look for them. From a distance they hear Angel and Cordy, and Wesley thinks it's someone in pain. "Or in fun," Fred points out.

As Angel kissing his way down Cordy's body, heading for parts that can't be shown on network television, Cordy sits up in time to alert Angel to an attack by guys wearing comedy and tragedy masks. (Although they don't look that much like the Gentlemen from Hush, one wonders what haunts Joss' nightmares that he keeps coming up with freaky guys wearing white masks.) Angel and Cordy fight off a few of what they presume are Kurskov's minions. Fred, Gunn and Wesley hear them fighting, but before they can get to them, they get jumped by a tragedy minion who stabs Gunn from behind. Fred screams his name as Wesley faces another pack of minions. Brave, noble Wes tells Fred to stay between himself and Gunn, and Fred ignores him and starts beating up on a minion with a large heavy wooden prop. She calls Wesley's name and tosses him a sword, and Wesley fights the last minion with some seriously cool swordwork and a curtain wrapped around his arm as a distraction.

Back in the dressing room, Cordy is lacking a weapon to fight off their pack of minions, and calls for Angel to help her. A minion stabs Angel in the heart with a stiletto, and Angel uses his distraction to stab his minion with a sword, and then send the stiletto across the room into the neck of the one attacking Cordy. She says they have to get out of the room really fast, not because the minions aren't dead, but because Angel looked really hot. (She's not wrong.)

Fred is binding Gunn's wound as well as she can, and scolds him when he dramatically says that he's dying and just wishes for one kiss. He takes her passionate objection in exactly the right way, and they share their first kiss and the synopsizer falls head over heels in love with Gunn/Fred. As they kiss, Wesley comes back from defeating the minion and sees them there, in an unutterably gorgeous shot where you see Wesley's face reflected in a brass plate. He turns and staggers away, falling to his knees.

Angel and Cordy catch up with Gunn and Fred, and they share information (and Fred tucks Cordy's tags back into her dress, since they somehow got disarranged). Cordy hits the high points of ballerina, lover, jealous controlling dude, and Wesley very quietly and very calmly and very creepily informs them that Kurskov is a wizard who was obsessed with the girl and took her out of time to keep for himself. He gathered all of this from a psychic hotspot, rather like Angel and Cordy, but seems to have shaken if off, even though it tracks rather nicely with what he himself was feeling.

The good news is that it takes a great deal of energy to maintain a space-out-of-time like this -- and it keeps flickering around them. If they make Kurskov expend enough energy to wear himself out, then they can escape. The best way to do that is to make him keep animating and reanimating the minions. And the more they kill off the more Kurskov makes, and the more they have to fight. Wesley tells Angel to try to get to the stage, and Kurskov, and most particularly his power center, and they'll stay and fight the minions. As Angel leaves, they retreat to a corner where they can't be snuck up on, and Cordelia says she hopes Wesley is in a killing mood. Not a problem.

Angel manages to break through one of the shifting walls to emerge backstage, where the prima ballerina is watching the corps dance out on the stage. A dancer exits the stage and disappears into nothingness beside Angel, and the ballerina is shocked to see Angel standing there. Angel tells her what they've pieced together of the story, and she wearily says that Kurskov owns her, and that she has no hope of escape. She waited too long to leave, and now she's trapped. She doesn't even really have the dancing that she was loathe to lose; every night is an exact duplicate of one particular performance. She doesn't create, she echoes. She begs for Angel's help. Angel tells her that she has to change something, dance something new.

The ballerina dances onto the stage on her cue, and begins to dance around the body of the prince on the ground. She looks up and meets Angel's eyes off stage, and then steps back, breaking the pattern. She dances off at an angle towards Kurskov's box, as he rises to his feet in startlement. As she does so, the other dancers fade away.

Angel takes advantage to jump out onto the stage, then up to Kurskov's box. He smashes the gem around Kurskov's neck, and a flare of light makes the ballerina step back. At the same moment, the minions that the gang is fighting backstage disappear, along with their weapons and the backstage itself is replaced with its modern day self.

The ballerina looks up at Angel, then drops into a graceful bow, which she holds as her body disappears. The audience, who apparently saw nothing out of the ordinary, begins to clap. Kurskov protests that Angel had no right, she was his love, she danced for him. Angel punches him out and tells him to start a website.

Back at the Hyperion, Wesley is patching Gunn up. Gunn and Fred have their eyes locked, and Gunn is feeling no pain. Cordy is brushing off her gown and worrying about whether the store will take it back, and Angel tries to talk to her about what happened to them backstage. Cordy thinks that he's disgusted by having to kiss her (work those denial muscles, girl) but Angel explains that if they were to be anything, he doesn't want to start in the middle. He wants to start at the beginning with her.

Cordy, looking over his shoulder, says, "Grew?" Puzzled, Angel says yes, they grew closer over the years. But Cordy was actually saying, "Groo?" as in Groosalug, as in beefcake from Pylea. She tosses herself into Groo's arms as Lorne explains that Groo is a political refuge from Pylea, and came looking for his princess. Angel retreats to look in on Connor, and Fred goes over to Wesley, saying that she expected Angel and Cordy to get together, but you never can tell about love. After a moment, Wesley smiles sadly and agrees with her.

END

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