Conviction (Angel)

Last updated
"Conviction"
Angel episode
Episode no.Season 5
Episode 1
Directed by Joss Whedon
Written byJoss Whedon
Production code5ADH01
Original air dateOctober 1, 2003 (2003-10-01)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
 Previous
"Home"
Next 
"Just Rewards"
Angel season 5
List of episodes

"Conviction" is the first episode of the fifth season of the American television series Angel , originally broadcast on The WB network. In this episode, Wolfram & Hart C.E.O. Angel and the rest of the group cope with their new, morally ambiguous lifestyle. Their client - an unsavory, violent gangster - threatens to unleash a virus if they fail to keep him out of jail. Biological warfare is averted when Gunn uses the knowledge of the law that Wolfram & Hart mystically bestowed upon him to prevent the gangster from being incarcerated.

Contents

Plot

Angel saves a woman from a vampire in an alley; however, thanks to a tracking device, Wolfram & Hart lawyers surround the scene. Angel is admonished because the dead vampire worked for the firm's clients.

At Wolfram & Hart, Fred gets lost en route to her office. Wesley finds her and she tells him that her lab is “giganamous” and she's unsure of the function of most of the machines in it. Her assistant Knox catches up to Fred; Wesley tries to make conversation by asking him how long he's been evil. After Knox leads Fred to her office, Gunn meets up with Wesley, who complains that Fred called her lab assistant “Knoxy”. Gunn admits that though he doesn't belong there, they can turn things around and make them better. Lorne passes by, proving that he's extremely comfortable in this new setting. Meanwhile, Angel's liaison to the Senior Partners introduces herself as Eve; she tosses him an apple to drive home the irony of her name. She points out that if he wants to use Wolfram & Hart's power to do good in L.A., he will have to be prepared to do some bad too, saying, "In order to keep this place running, you have to keep it, well, running." Angel responds with a simple bite of the apple.

In his office, Gunn encounters Eve, who says that things were a lot simpler when he was just hunting vamps on the street with his gang. She wonders if he's ready for “the next step” and he confirms that he is; she hands him a business card and says, “You’ll feel like a new man.”

The next day, Angel is unhappy to learn his new secretary is ditzy vampire Harmony Kendall (last seen on Angel in "Disharmony" and on Buffy in "Crush"); she tells him, “I’m strong, I’m quick, I’m incredibly sycophantic - if that means what that guy said - and I type like a superhero…if there was a superhero whose power was typing.” Angel notes that the blood she's brought him tastes good; she tells him that the secret ingredient is otter. Wesley arrives, explaining he picked Harmony from the pool because he thought he would like having someone familiar around. “You turned evil a lot faster than I thought you would,” Angel replies. Harmony's happy to be reunited with the group, especially Cordelia, until Angel breaks the news that Cordelia is in a coma.

Harmony brings in client Corbin Fries, on trial for smuggling in girls for prostitution and cheap labor. He readily admits he's guilty; when Angel says he has no incentive to keep him out of jail, Fries says, “Either you get me off, or I drop the bomb."

In a conference room, Lorne has each employee sing so he can read them for potential evil. In the science lab, Fred explains Lorne's skills to Knox; Knox tells her that if she wants him to, he'll go up and get read so that she can be sure he's not evil. Fred is still unsure that she'll be capable of running the whole lab. In Angel's office, the gang wonders if the bomb Fries threatened is mystical. Harmony says she has the address for a guy named Spanky, a “freelance mystic” whose name has shown up in Fries’ file. Angel heads to the garage, which houses a fleet of expensive corporate cars, and takes one out to pay Spanky a visit. Spanky reveals he built a mystical container which can hold anything, until the container is dissolved by a magic word. Back in the science lab, Fred and Knox look through Fries’ file and discover he is linked to a cult which specializes in “quick-fire disease scenarios.” When Fred tells him that Fries may be messing with a virus, Angel says that he knows where the bomb is: inside Fries’ son's heart.

Meanwhile, Gunn is enduring a stressful procedure at the doctor's office. Back at the firm, Fred tells Wesley that they've had no luck figuring out what virus Fries might be using. Eve pays Angel a visit in his office; she finds it ironic that Angel's dealing with a guy who put a virus in his own son when Angel just lost his son. She reminds him that Connor is happy and he's the only one who remembers him. Angel tells her that he doesn't want her to say Connor's name, and Eve says that if he takes every case this personally, he won't last long. Fred and Knox spend the night looking over files and photos while eating Chinese takeout. Frustrated, Fred accuses her crew of not working hard enough to save people. The next day, Fries’ trial continues; Lorne calls Angel from the trial and says that he thinks they should isolate Matthew (Fries' son); as Agent Hauser listens in, Lorne tells Angel that Fries has no chance of getting off. Hauser tells his agents to go after the kid and anyone within 50 yards of him, and as Angel heads for Matthew's school Harmony tells him that the special ops team are already on their way. However, when the special ops team gases Matthew's classroom, they realize it's empty except for Angel. “So it turns out,” he says, “with this new deal and all, I own a helicopter.”

As Fries’ trial heads into final summations, Gunn arrives in a nice suit and gets Keel to cede to him. Gunn moves for a mistrial and announces that the judge should remove herself from the case because according to the judge's tax records, she holds stock in a company owned by a company owned by Fries’. The judge claims not to know about the connection, but Gunn says he discovered it in only six hours. As Angel and the agents fight, Hauser calls him a “pathetic little fairy” who lacks the most powerful thing - conviction. Angel replies that there is something more powerful than that - mercy. He causes Hauser to shoot himself, and to a remaining guard's query about what happened to mercy, he replies that they've seen the last of his. Later, Eve explains to the group that Gunn agreed to let the firm “enhance” him with legal knowledge (and Gilbert and Sullivan for elocution). Angel wonders how Gunn knows for sure that nothing else was done; he said that he was in the White Room and is sure. Eve tells the group that they needed a lawyer, and Gunn had “the most unused potential” - and he just saved the day without using violence. Wesley notes that they did disable the vessel and Gunn says that Fries has to lie low until the trial comes up again, and when it does, he can drag it out for a long time. Fred wonders if they're actually going to do good while they're there, and Angel thinks that they are. He opens an envelope he received earlier and the amulet he brought to Buffy in “Chosen” drops out. The amulet activates and a familiar face, Spike materializes in the office.

Production details

This episode begins the same way "City of" - the series premiere of Angel - began: "Angel in a dark alley saving a damsel in distress from a vampire," Joss Whedon says. "We did this deliberately because we really wanted to call back what the essence of the show was. Angel is the kind of guy who goes into a dark alley, saves the woman, doesn't say what his name is and takes off." However, the new structure of the show means that, as Whedon says, "all of his heroism is falling by the wayside and he's a little bit pathetic." [1] Production designer Stuart Blatt says Whedon asked him to build the new Wolfram & Hart large enough so that he could "walk all around with a Steadicam and never have to cut" [2] then did exactly that; the second scene after the credits is a single, 3 minute, 45 second shot introducing all the main characters in their new setting. According to Whedon's DVD commentary, it took 27 takes to get this one long shot because "inevitably one actor is always going to have trouble with their lines, and it's usually going to be the one who's at the end of the take, because that's just my fate," Whedon says. [3] Set designer Andrew Reeder was pleased to explore a different architectural style from the previous season's Art Deco hotel, saying, "it's contemporary, it's sleek... much more about someone like Charles Eames. Simple shapes, proportions, space light and form: it was very Japanese in the approach." [2]

In the DVD commentary, Joss Whedon reveals that Alexis Denisof had a case of Bell's Palsy that caused the left side of his face to be paralyzed. Almost all the shots in this episode show Wesley from the right side or a three-quarters right shot. [3]

Arc significance

Acting

James Marsters joins the regular cast as of this episode, replacing Charisma Carpenter and Vincent Kartheiser in the opening credits. Creator Joss Whedon explains the decision to bring in Mercedes McNab as Harmony - who has "worked for us for as long as I've worked on the show" - was because "she has been tirelessly funny, and engaging, and sexy, and delightful and it was very nice to bring her into the fold. She was long overdue to get into the mix, and we needed a blond, let's face it." [1]

T. J. Thyne, who has a minor role in this and two other episodes as a lawyer, went on to star as Hodgins in Bones alongside David Boreanaz.

Continuity

Writing

Joss Whedon, a fan of Law & Order , wrote Gunn's court scene using made-up legal jargon. However, when the scene was sent to a legal consultant they only made a few tweaks. "We didn't often know what to do with J.'s character," Whedon confessed. "He had a real sense of feeling out of place, so I wanted to show something from J. that people hadn't seen. Plus he looks really good in a suit." [1] Coincidentally, J. August Richards starred three years later in a Law & Order spin-off series titled Conviction .

Related Research Articles

Angel is an American supernatural television series, a spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffy's creator, writer and director Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt. It aired on The WB from October 5, 1999, to May 19, 2004, consisting of five seasons and 110 episodes. Like Buffy, it was produced by Whedon's production company, Mutant Enemy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wesley Wyndam-Pryce</span> Character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Played by Alexis Denisof, Wesley first appeared in the fourteenth episode of Buffy's third season in 1999, appearing in nine episodes before moving over to spin-off series Angel where he became a main character for all five seasons. Following Angel's final season, the character's story is continued in the 2007 canonical comic book series Angel: After the Fall.

Charles Gunn (<i>Angel</i>) Fictional character

Charles Gunn is a character in the television series Angel, created by Joss Whedon and first introduced by writer Gary Campbell in the episode "War Zone". The character is portrayed by J. August Richards and named by Whedon after filmmaker James Gunn and actor Sean Gunn, both of whom had worked with Whedon. Gunn is initially presented as the leader of a street gang that defends its neighborhood from vampires.

Illyria (<i>Angel</i>) Fictional character from the television series Angel

Illyria is a fictional recurring character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Angel, portrayed by Amy Acker. She is credited as a main character in the last third of season five.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harmony Kendall</span> Character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel

Harmony Kendall is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. The character is portrayed by Mercedes McNab. Originally cast as a minor character, McNab's credited status elevated to guest star and ultimately series regular over the course of her tenure in Buffy and Angel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winifred Burkle</span> Fictional character

Winifred "Fred" Burkle is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and introduced by Shawn Ryan and Mere Smith on the television series Angel. The character is portrayed by Amy Acker.

"Not Fade Away" is the 22nd and final episode of the fifth season and the series finale of the American television series Angel. Written by series creator Joss Whedon and directed and co-written by Jeffrey Bell, it was originally broadcast on May 19, 2004 on the WB network. In "Not Fade Away", Angel convinces his team that they must take out every member of the Circle of the Black Thorn in a defiant and probably futile stand against the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart. He tells his team to make the most of what may be their last day on Earth: Gunn visits his old neighborhood; Wesley tends to the wounded Illyria; Lorne spends some time onstage; Spike performs poetry at an open mic, and Angel visits his son. When night falls, the team divides and sets out to eliminate the members of the Black Thorn, incurring the wrath of the armies of hell.

"Soul Purpose" is the 10th episode of the fifth season of the American television series Angel. Written by Brent Fletcher and it was the directorial debut of David Boreanaz, who plays Angel, and was originally broadcast on January 21, 2004, on the WB network. In "Soul Purpose", guest star Christian Kane returns as Lindsey McDonald, taking on the deceased Doyle's name in an attempt to convince Spike that he is the vampire champion mentioned in the Shanshu Prophecy. Meanwhile, Angel slips into a feverish hallucinative state in which he dreams that his destiny of redemption is claimed by Spike.

"Reprise" is the 15th episode of the second season of the American television series Angel. Written by Tim Minear and directed by James Whitmore, Jr., it was originally broadcast on February 20, 2001 on the WB network. In this episode, Angel learns that during the impending Wolfram & Hart 75-Year Review, the firm is visited by one of the demonic Senior Partners. The demon wears a ring with the power to transport to the firm’s hellish Home Office, which Angel steals with the aid of a magically protective glove. Angel travels to the Home Office and learns it is on Earth. Depressed, Angel seeks solace in Darla's arms. Meanwhile, Kate's life falls apart when she is fired from the police force.

"Through the Looking Glass" is the 21st episode of the second season of the American television series Angel. Written and directed by Tim Minear, it was originally broadcast on May 15, 2001 on the WB network. It is the second episode in a three-part arc.

"Spin the Bottle" is the 6th episode of the fourth season of the American television series Angel. Written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon, it was originally broadcast on November 10, 2002 on the WB television network. In "Spin the Bottle", Lorne performs a magic spell on Cordelia to help her regain her memory, but instead the spell causes all the Angel Investigations members to revert to their teenage personae.

"Slouching Toward Bethlehem" is the 4th episode of the fourth season of the American television series Angel. Its title derives from a line from the W. B. Yeats poem "The Second Coming".

"Home" is the 22nd episode of the fourth season of the American television series Angel. Written and directed by Tim Minear, it was originally broadcast on May 7, 2003 on the WB network. In the Season Four finale, Connor – having defeated Jasmine in the previous episode – plans to blow himself up with a comatose Cordelia and other hostages, while an undead Lilah Morgan offers Angel Investigations control of the Wolfram & Hart L.A. branch.

"Hell Bound" is the 4th episode of the fifth season of the American television series Angel, originally broadcast on the WB network. It was the only Angel episode to carry a warning of graphic violence before it was first aired. In this episode, the spirit of Pavayne – a brutal surgeon who uses magic to send the loose spirits of Wolfram & Hart to Hell in his place – torments Spike. Fred invents a one-time use machine to make Spike corporeal, but Spike ends up pushing Pavayne into the machine to protect Fred.

"Lineage" is the 7th episode of the fifth season of the American television series Angel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smile Time</span> 14th episode of the 5th season of Angel

"Smile Time" is the 14th episode of the fifth season of the American television series Angel. Written and directed by Ben Edlund, with story by series creator Joss Whedon, it was originally broadcast on February 18, 2004, on the WB network. It was nominated for and won several honors and spawned its own toy line.

"A Hole in the World" is the 15th episode of the fifth season of the American television series Angel. Written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon, it was originally broadcast on February 25, 2004 on the WB television network. In this episode, Fred is infected by the spirit of Illyria, an ancient demon who existed before recorded time. The entire crew searches for a cure, but give up hope when Spike and Angel discover that the only way to save Fred's life would kill thousands of people. Wesley comforts Fred as she dies and witnesses the emergence of Illyria.

"Underneath" is the 17th episode of the fifth season of the American television series Angel. Written by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain and directed by Skip Schoolnik, it was originally broadcast on April 14, 2004 on the WB television network.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Bratton, Kristy, ANGEL Season Five DVD Collection REVIEW, archived from the original on 2007-10-18, retrieved 2007-10-16
  2. 1 2 Ritchie, Jeff, Angelic Designs for the Undead: an Exclusive Interview with Stuart Blatt and featuring Andrew Reeder, archived from the original on 2007-10-12, retrieved 2007-10-16
  3. 1 2 Whedon, Joss. "Conviction" (Commentary with Joss Whedon), Angel: Season Five on DVD, Twentieth Century Fox, 2004.

Further reading