Angel
"Blind Date"

Airdate: May 16, 2000

In the past, I've been known to do a little Angel-bashing, and offered more than a little effusive praise. In this series' first season, it's gone from great to bad and back again, so it's difficult to judge just where it's going to land. But if there's one thing that will pull any show from the doldrums, it's a really hot guy.

Now, don't be fooled by that blanket statement. If you'd replaced Owen Wilson in The Haunting with, say, Vin Diesel, that movie still would've sucked beyond belief. A hot guy can't really save something that's crappy in every other respect. But he can give a lift to a show that's in a bit of a rut, and he can add a little spice where the ocean fresh scent was fading. This works especially well with a combination of other factors, hereby listed as The Rules Of Ideal Hot Guy Use:

1. The Hot Guy should have witty lines.
2. The Hot Guy should be morally ambiguous. Sometimes downright evil helps, as this may lend a good opportunity to show the Hot Guy in leather pants.
3. The Hot Guy should preferably remove some clothing at some point.

So far, Wolfram & Hart lawyer Lindsey McDonald (super-do-able Christian Kane) is proceeding well on all counts. We've seen him from early in the season as a peon in the firm, but he's got drive and ambition and talent and in "Blind Date", the first really Lindsey-heavy episode, it's evident that he's working his way toward the top. In this episode, he's faced with a crisis: though he wants to succeed in the firm, his newest assignment involves a very creepy blind assassin who's being sent by the firm to kill a group of children. Lindsey experiences a moral crisis (and for a lawyer, that's a pretty big deal) and ends up going to Angel, his arch-nemesis, to ask for his help in saving the children.

To get the information on where the hit will happen, Lindsey and Angel plan an elaborate scheme to get Angel into the Wolfram & Hart vault, and then the beatings and other fun proceed. Needless to say, the assassin is thwarted and the children saved. The strength of this episode, though, lies in the little things.

There's a scene in which Gunn, helping Angel to get past Wolfram & Hart's vampire-detection magics, saunters into the lobby in all his chocolatey-good glory. He brings a vampire with him and sets it loose like a bull in a china shop. Suspecting foul play, the firm brings in some eerie-ass mind-readers to see who's been naughty and who's been nice, and their ruthless execution of one hapless lawyer is just another sign to show us how damn evil these guys are. Wolfram & Hart, once a vaguely sinister enemy, are brought into sharp focus as the very big evil that they are, and I can scarcely wait for more development of this, the best villain since Sunnydale's Mayor.

One of the episode's finest moments, though, is when Lindsey's boss, aware of his subordinate's betrayal, still offers the younger man a place in the firm. Though obviously we're meant to hope for Lindsey to choose his soul over his success, he takes the promotion he's offered, and our last glimpse of him is as he sits in his comfy new chair, taking in the great view from the windows of his new office.

Corporate America's sinister, but if you think Bill Gates is scary, just take a look at our boy Lindsey and shiver in fear. And, okay, probably lust too.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Angel airs at 9pm EST, Tuesdays on the WB.

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