Angel
"The Shroud of Rahmon"

Airdate: November 21, 2000

In an effort to get his mind off Darla, Angel agrees to help Gunn's cousin out of a tight spot by posing as a Vegas vampire in a heist that's scheduled to take place in a museum. As this is, after all, Angel, the item being lifted is the shroud of a demon with super-magical-like powers and shit that makes people -- and vampires -- do the wacky.

Kate's angry detective routine begins to wear thin.

Only, it's not so wacky.

Gunn, posing as his cousin, gets all hyper-violent and sarcastic, as does Angel and the rest of the criminal -- and demony -- crew, only when Angel gets sarcastic and hyper-violent, it's grrr-face time and that is never good. Well, unless he's wearing leather pants... but since he does not don the trousers-of-badness in "The Shroud of Rahmon," it's all bad.

Well, okay, so not all bad.

The interplay between Gunn and Angel, both trying to be The Super-Badass of all Super-Badasses, is kind of amusing. And pretty much that's about it for the good stuff. Unless you like David Boreanaz acting like a goof. Which I do. So, I guess that's another good thing.

Including Detective Kate Lockley in this episode seems natural, as this is supposed to be a simple tale of a crime gone horribly wrong (with a supernatural twist, of course). But, much like her pallor, the character is a pale shadow of the once kick-ass cop we were introduced to early last season. Events have broken her, and not in an interesting way. The convoluted logic that allows her to continue to paint Angel as one of the bad guys has gone unchanged far too long. Yes, she was traumatized by her introduction to the really seamy side of Los Angeles, the death of her father at the hands of creatures of the night, and the knowledge that her beloved, adored, nearly-worshipped father was a flawed human being, but... dude, get her into therapy already!

Wesley and Cordelia are pretty much shuffled off to the back burner, being given the research part of the mission, but even when they do finally get into the game, it's highly disappointing. Instead of becoming all mean and nasty and getting into a bitch-slap fight like I'd hoped, Wesely's mind seems to go into some kind of fog and never recovers while Cordelia simply goes klepto on us. What? Were Charisma and Alexis' stunt doubles unavailable that week?

I don't even want to go into Charisma's new hair-don't.

"The Shroud of Rahmon" tries on some film noir trappings, but the conclusion would be obvious to a blind man. Plus, it leaves you feeling cheated and vaguely dirty (although maybe that last bit is just me). It's enough to make a girl wish that Darla -- and hence, Lindsey -- would magically appear.

Well, almost.

Still... it's better than Roswell.

-- Linda M. Najera

Angel airs at 9/8c, Tuesdays on the WB.

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