Angel/Power Play

Power Play
Season 5, Episode 21
Airdate	May 12, 2004
Production Number	5ADH21
Written by	David Fury
Directed by	James A. Contner
← 5x20 The Girl in Question	5x22 → Not Fade Away
Angel — Season Five

Power Play is the twenty-first episode of the fifth season of Angel, and the one-hundred and ninth episode overall. When Angel begins to act unusually, his friends begin to believe that he has been corrupted by Wolfram & Hart's power.

David Boreanaz (Angel), James Marsters (Spike), J. August Richards (Charles Gunn), Amy Acker (Illyria), Andy Hallett (Lorne), Mercedes McNab (Harmony Kendall)

and Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce)

Special Guest Star: Christian Kane (Lindsey McDonald)

Guest Starring: Dennis Christopher (Cyvus Vail), Alec Newman (Drogyn), Jenny Mollen (Nina Ash), Leland Crooke (Sebassis), Stacey Travis (Senator Bruckner)

and Adam Baldwin (Marcus Hamilton)

Co-Starring: Mark Colson (Izzy), Elimu Nelson (Ernesto)

Plot Overview

When Drogyn resurfaces, everyone seems to be confirmed that Angel has given in to Wolfram & Hart's power pull and soon learn that this involves a secret society called Circle of the Black Thorn.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Boretz: The demon that attacks Spike and Illyria at Funville is a Boretz demon. They're notoriously ruthless killers who tear their victims apart. The demons have a poisonous bite that is also fatal to those who suffer it.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Boretz	Illyria	Kicked Really Hard?	Funville
2	Drogyn	Angel	Snapped Neck	Black Thorn Initiation

Music

No licensed music was used in this episode.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• The Circle of the Black Thorn: The direct agents of the senior partners are introduced in this episode. They're the ones that Angel has been angling to fight with since he received a vision from Cordelia. They include Izzy, Archduke Sebasis, the Fell Brethern Leader, Cyvus Vail and Senator Bruckner.

Characters

• Angel and Nina: Angel and Nina apparently break off their relationship when he gives her three plane tickets to get her and her family far away from him and the actions that will soon occur.

• Angel: Angel is accepted into the Circle of the Black Thorn after proving himself to the Senior Partners.

Referbacks

• 5x15 - You're Welcome: Several references are made to the episode in which Cordelia briefly returned to the show. Most notably are the clips of Cordelia kissing Angel at the end of that episode in order to pass on the vision. A more minor reference is Angel playing raquetball with Izzy, who mentioned playing the game to him in the same episode.

Wesley: Cordelia gave you her visions?

• 5x19 - Time Bomb: Wesley shot Illyria with a "ray gun" which siphoned off her excess energy in order to prevent her from exploding and taking most of the world with her. This greatly weakened her, although she is still at a high level of power.

Hamilton: Or maybe it's that ray gun they shot you with to keep you from exploding.

Trivia

The Show

• Musical Cue: The song that plays at the end of the episode while Hamilton watches Angel and the others fighting is the same musical cue that played when Doyle sacrificed himself to stop the Scourge in "Hero".

Behind the Scenes

• Ratings: On its first airing, this episode scored a 3.9/5 in the overnight Nielsen ratings. This episode was watched by approximately 4.1 million viewers.

Allusions and References

• The Blue Meanie: The Blue Meanies are the antagonists in the Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine. They hate music and, in the movie, attempt to cease all music by capturing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in a bubble and turning the citizens of Pepperland into stone. One of the lone survivors makes his way to Liverpool where he enlists the Beatles to help against the Meanies.

Spike: I haven't had a decent tussle since the Blue Meanie and I stopped sparring.

• Keeblers: The Keebler Elves are the mascots of the Keebler Company, which is the second largest cookie and cracker producer in the United States. Their advertising campaigns often center around a group of elves who live in a tree where they invent new kinds of cookies.

Spike: Oh, so you tacked up a sign on your tree, waved bye to the Keeblers, hopped the puddle, and somehow managed to sniff me out in a city of ten million?

• Leona Helmsley: Leona Helmsley is a real estate mogul and owner of several hotels in the New York area. She is notoriously mean-spirited and is known for firing employees with no notice for very little offense. She has previously been referenced when Angel fired Wesley, Cordelia and Gunn in the second season.

Lorne: It's like Angel suddenly started channeling Leona Helmsley.

• Aragorn: Aragorn is one of the main characters from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings saga. In the novels, he is the king of Gondor and was part of the Fellowship created in order to protect Frodo from Sauron's forces as he journeyed to Mount Doom. He was portrayed in the 2001–03 film trilogy by Viggo Mortensen.

Gunn: Then you're the liar, Aragorn.

• Crash Bandicoot: Arguably Sony's "mascot" for the Playstation in the way that Sonic and Mario are mascots for Sega and Nintendo, Crash Bandicoot is the title character in a series of platforming games originally published by Naughty Dog. The game that Illyria and Drogyn are playing in this episode is likely "Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex," the first proper Crash game to be released on the X-Box.

Spike: And, uh, feel free to play a little Crash Bandicoot.

Quotes

• Spike: Anyhow, I though Wesley was giving you a primer on all things human.

Illyria: He and I are no longer having intercourse.

Spike: Yeah. You're what? What?

Illyria: He has ceased communication with me.

Spike: Oh! Oh! Communi--

Illyria: My recent reversion to the Burkle persona disturbed him. And he will not tell me why.

Spike: You don't know? You may not think you're as powerful as you were, Highness, but looking like Fred, for some of us, is the most devastating power you have.

• Angel: You wanna know the truth? The truth is there's only one of us who ever understood how things really work. Lorne.

Lorne: Whoa. Hey, hey, hey. Can I not be the poster child for your nervous breakdown here?

• Wesley: The small stuff that you can't worry about. Would that include Fred?

Angel: I loved Fred.

Wesley: That's not an answer.

Angel: Then I guess you don't get one.

• Lindsey: It's a secret society.

Gunn: Never heard of them.

Lindsey: That's 'cause they're secret.

• Spike: There's plenty of these cabals about. They usually spend a lot of time in basements paddling one anothers bums to prove their manhood.

• Angel: The powerful control everything, except our will to choose.

• Angel: This isn't a keep-fighting-the-good-fight kind of deal. Let's be clear. I'm talking about killing every... single... member... of the Black Thorn. We don't walk away from that.

Lorne: Do we crawl away at least?

Angel: We do this, the Senior Partners will rain their full wrath. They'll make an example of us. I'm talkin' full-on hell, not the basic fire-and-brimstone kind that we're used to.

Gunn: We know the drill.

Angel: No, you don't. Ten to one, we're gone when the smoke clears. They will do everything in their power to destroy us. So I need you to be sure. Power endures. We can't bring down the Senior Partners, but for one bright, shining moment we can show them that they don't own us. You need to decide for yourselves, if that's worth dying for. I can't order you to do this. Can't do it without you. So we'll vote, as a team. Think about what I'm asking you to do. Think about what I'm asking you to give.

Spike: Kill 'em all. Burn the house down while we're still in it.

Angel: Something like that.