“Harm’s Way”
Written by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain Directed by Vern Gillum The Story We open on a hilarious ‘50s style commercial about W&H’s current business plan. There’s a zero-tolerance policy for killing now! No more employee sacrifices! Angel is super awkward in the commercial, which is great. I love this thing. An alarm goes off, and Harmony stops it. We se her morning routine, which includes cutesy sayings on the mirror that does nothing for her, brushing both her teeth and her fangs with an electric toothbrush, and lifting up her dresser to get her other shoe out from under it. Super strength is pretty handy. When she leaves, she tries to get a smile out of her cranky elderly neighbor and fails. Then she arrives at work with Angel’s dry cleaning and goes to get him some blood. In the break room, she bonks into another employee, making her spill her coffee on her shirt. Two other ladies are chatting, and she tries to talk to them, but they bluntly cut her out of the conversation. She takes someone else’s stuff out of the microwave so she can microwave Angel’s blood. *record scratch* Okay, I can’t remember if I already did this rant, but I really never get tired of doing it. I’ve incorporated it into at least two fanfics by now and people who write vampire fiction NEED TO KNOW. You CANNOT microwave blood! It’s not coffee! It has live cells in it, and I assume the structural integrity of those cells is important for vampire nutrition. If you heat blood up too fast or unevenly, which is what happens in the microwave, a large majority of the cells will explode (it’s called hemolysis) and many of the proteins that make them up will denature, becoming useless. At least one blood transfusion patient in real life has died because the blood was microwaved first. No matter what, you’re going to lose a few cells when you heat blood, but the best way to do it is in a hot water bath over a period of at least twenty minutes, where you only get it back to about 94°F. If you go all the way back to 98.6°F, more cells will burst, so it’s best to stop a few degrees lower. I know it’s supposed to be some kind of morbid analogy to drinking coffee at work, but again, it’s not freaking coffee! So there’s no way that blood Harmony just stuck in the microwave on high power for thirty seconds is still alive. Actually, this just gave me an idea as to Angel and Spike’s fight last episode. If Angel’s been drinking cooked microwave blood for months now, then he’s probably a lot weaker than he would be normally. Spike would have had an edge in the fight by simple virtue of not being malnourished. The malnutrition from the cooked blood might even be contributing to his depression and general listlessness. I know I feel better when I’ve had some good, hearty food. Okay, rant over. (Although, if Angel lives in the penthouse, why would he store his blood in the break room fridge? Wouldn’t the CEO at least have a mini-fridge in his office?) The dude whose stuff she took out of the microwave is annoyed, but she just shrugs and says Angel’s stuff has dibs. Then she takes the mug back to her desk and gives it to Angel before going over his appointments for the day. It turns out he’s not even listening to her. He’s talking to someone on an earpiece. Ouch. Before she can repeat herself about all the work she did for the catering on some big demon summit meeting, Angel and Gunn go back to her office. The blood test dude comes around to check Harmony for human blood. She’s clean. A demon lawyer who clearly doesn’t know her name stops to chat before a big meeting with Angel, about which he feels very optimistic. Harmony notices Angel left the mug of blood on her desk, so she sighs and goes to take it to him, only to find him beheading the demon lawyer. Janitors take the demon lawyer’s body away while Angel and Gunn explain that the dude was dismembering virgins in his downtime. Hence the decapitation. Harmony still feels like they were harsh, but this is a zero-tolerance policy. Fred, Lorne, Wes, and Spike all wander up. This is the first time Spike has been in the building for days. He hasn’t had any complications from becoming corporeal again. He’s here to say goodbye before skipping off to Europe to find Buffy. And he’s no longer interested in the Shanshu, so Angel can have it. Well that’s...annoying. Does that mean he really was just going for it to take it away from Angel, or is he just pretending he doesn’t care because the Cup turned out to be a fake? Wes doesn’t think Spike should go until they’re sure the matter is resolved. Spike doesn’t care. Also he wants to mooch a few hundred bucks off Angel, who refuses because why does Spike think he owes him anything? Angel will give him a car to facilitate his more rapid departure. Spike decides to take Angel’s favorite one just out of spite. Ugh. The nicest goodbye for Spike is the one from Fred. He very much appreciates her efforts and her emotional support. Wait are they not going to hug? I mean, he probably smells like booze and cigarettes by now, so that might be gross for her, but I’m a fan of hugs, dang it! Even when half of it is a character I dislike! Harmony is hurt and indignant that Spike doesn’t seem to feel the need to say goodbye to her. He leaves her on the verge of tears. The team discusses what to do about this demon summit thing. Gunn goes over the history of the feud between the two clans. They’ll be negotiating a truce there at W&H. Wes thinks the better plan might be letting the clans kill each other off, but Gunn feels that establishing peace will do wonders for their reputation with demons. They’ll have to be extremely careful because both clans are very twitchy about the slightest details of etiquette. The guy from the microwave earlier brings Lorne the seating chart. Gunn will be able to talk to the demons because he knows their languages. Part of the upgrade. That’s handy. Harmony tries to contribute some of the information she’s learned about these demons, but they just have her get them lunch. Later, Harmony is drinking her lunch in the break room, eavesdropping on those two girls’ conversation again. They’re gossiping about Fred and her love interests. They think Gunn and Knox are the main contenders. Harmony points out that there’s also Wesley, who’s totally in love with her. The girls sneer at that idea. Microwave guy brings in a basket of muffins for everyone, courtesy of Lorne. Harmony tries to insist that she’s super tight with Angel, but then he calls her, very angry. She tries to play it off, then leaves. Angel is angry because there’s a live camel in the lobby. It’s from the caterers, and it wasn’t supposed to be delivered until the next day. She tries to explain that camel meat is considered a delicacy with those demons. I get the impression that the whole team is so used to all of Harmony’s dialogue being incredibly inane that they automatically stop listening whenever she speaks, because Angel and Fred both don’t appreciate her hard work at all. Angel only wanted her to do generic assistant stuff. He tells her to get rid of the camel and leaves. She starts crying. Fred tries to cheer her up. She’s convinced Angel hates her and that everyone else does too. Fred says she doesn’t! Harmony immediately invites her for a girls’ night. Harmony and Fred are at a bar somewhere. Harmony unloads on Fred about how it’s been really hard for her to make it on her own as an evil vampire. Fred tries to help her see that it’s a good thing that she sucks at being evil. She’s mostly just bummed that Angel thinks she’s useless. Harmony’s a bit envious of Fred because of how tight she is with Angel and because she’s got two hunks wrapped around her finger. Fred seems either surprised or confused about the idea that Wes is into her. Harmony gets excited because they’re bonding, but she keeps ruining it by being a condescending airhead about Fred’s interests and taste in clothing. Fred’s also confused about why everyone’s gossiping about her love life. Harmony explains it’s because she’s at the top of the corporate ladder. Meanwhile, there Harmony is, basically friendless. Fred advises her to put herself out there. Mingle! And not just with other vampires. She’s nervous, but she likes this idea. Particularly because there’s a cute guy at the bar checking her out. She hesitates for all of two seconds to ditch Fred to pursue him. Fred gives her some tips on small talk, and she heads over there. Then Fred awkwardly leaves, since Harmony left her alone. Harmony does manage to hit it off with the guy even though she’s very bad at small talk. Cut to her alarm going off the next morning. She stops it, then rolls over to see the guy in her bed. She grimaces; she’s hungover and doesn’t remember his name. She tries to kick him out so she can go to work, but he’s unresponsive, so she shoves him. He rolls over, revealing bite marks on his neck. Yeah, he’s dead. Harmony sneaks out of her apartment with his body in a laundry bag or something. The cranky neighbor comes out of her apartment as Harmony is struggling to shove the bag down the garbage chute. She finally gets it down, but it bounces off the edge of the dumpster and lands on the ground. She goes downstairs and heaves the body and a bag of trash that got tossed down after into the dumpster. She gets to work and does a very bad job of keeping a low profile. Also, the blood test guy is coming around. She tries to sit low enough in her chair that he can’t see her, but then Angel comes over to demand his mug of blood, which she has not yet prepared. She claims she’s doing desk crunches, then leaves to go get blood. He’s super on edge. In the break room, she puts Angel’s mug in the microwave instead of the other guy’s bowl of food again, still trying to work out what happened the previous night. She decides it’s all Fred’s fault for encouraging her to talk to the guy. Microwave guy is all annoyed again, but she brushes him off and grabs her own thermos, which is covered in sparkly unicorn stickers. She chugs the contents with enthusiasm that attracts a lot of attention. Angel calls her to ask what’s taking her so long with his blood. Back at her desk, she’s trying to sort out the catering situation over the phone. She’s decided to play it safe because Angel clearly doesn’t appreciate it when she tries to go above and beyond. She gets distracted by her appetizing human coworkers. Then one Detective Griffin calls. Harmony patches him over to Angel but stays on the line. Angel can see her still listening and tells her to hang up. This would be the detective who found the body in her dumpster. Harmony starts to completely panic, especially because Gunn and Wes are heading over to Angel’s office. The reason the detective called W&H is because apparently W&H owns the LAPD. Well that’s terrifying. How long has that been the case? Because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t back in S1, or else Kate would’ve lost her job much faster for not cooperating with W&H’s people. Turns out the dead guy was the liaison to the feuding demon clans, which means this summit just got a whole lot more unwieldy. Harmony is eavesdropping on their conversation, annoyed because the liaison guy told her he was an astronaut. *snort* Later, Angel, Gunn, and Wes are in the office, Gunn talking to the demons on the phone, trying to run damage control for the liaison’s death. Angel tries to help because he’s been learning this language, but he makes it worse. Angel mentions that the dude’s corpse will be in Fred’s lab by now, so Harmony hurries off to find Fred. Fred thinks Angel sent Harmony to rush her. Harmony pretends that’s true, then starts asking about the body and the possibility that the killer might’ve blacked out and done it by accident. Fred tells her she enjoyed their night out. Fred determines from the size and depth of the bite marks that the killer was a female vampire. Fred wants Harmony to tell her how things went with the guy at the bar. Harmony pretends it went badly, and then she heads out. She thinks she should probably flee the country now. She babbles to herself about fleeing to Mexico until she remembers that the dead guy was bitten on the right. This makes her very excited, because it couldn’t have been her. She’s so happy that she kisses the blood test guy on the nose. He’s not impressed, and he checks her finger. Her test comes up positive. She punches him out and hides him in a closet. Then she runs into Lorne, who asks her about Danny, the blood test guy. She asks him where the results of the blood tests go. The lab! Danny starts groaning in the closet, so Harmony knocks Lorne out and sticks him in there too. Next, she races back to the lab to explain to Fred, who seems very jumpy around her. However, she doesn’t seem like she’s about to order Harmony dusted. Maybe she has human blood in her system because the guy wanted her to bite him. She still hasn’t put the dead body together with Harmony’s situation. Harmony tells her she thinks she was drugged, because she remembers nothing and then woke up with the dead guy in her bed. She shows Fred that she’s a right-biter. When she goes to bite people, she leans right and bites her victims on the left. The dead guy was bitten on the right, so it can’t be Harmony! And maybe she has human blood in her system because her thermos got spiked! Fred is very skeptical and increasingly nervous. She wants to call Angel and explain. Harmony reminds her of Angel’s zero-tolerance policy. She’s been clean for eight months! Fred assures her everything will be fine and tries again to make the call. She ends up in the closet with Lorne and Danny, bound and gagged. Harmony promises to get them all dinner. She walks down the hall, trying to work out what to do. Her thermos! She needs to check her thermos. In the lobby, the two clans are there, and they’re kind of screaming at each other. They want the blood of the one who murdered the liaison, and they won’t talk peace until they have it. Angel yells for Harmony to go get Fred. She instead goes to get her thermos. Microwave guy is moving it to get Lorne’s stuff, and Harmony thinks he’s the culprit. She screams that he spiked her thermos with human blood, so now everyone in the break room knows. She shoves him against the fridge and yells at him. One of the gossipy girls tries to stop her, but she vamps out. Microwave guy starts crying. He has no idea what she’s talking about. Then someone smashes a glass over his head. It’s the chick Harmony spilled coffee on at the beginning of the episode. Harmony doesn’t even remember this chick’s name. Harmony realizes (very slowly) that this is the person who’s been setting her up the whole time. Her name is Tamika. She’s been angling for Harmony’s job for five years, and it went to Harmony because of her connections. She’s bitter and jealous. They both vamp out and start fighting. Harmony has come a long way since her slap fight with Xander. Tamika tells her what she did, drugging Harmony and killing the guy. They end up facing off with chopsticks. Bahaha. Tamika’s fatal mistake is telling Harmony that she’s going to smash all her unicorns once she gets her desk. Harmony drags her by the hair towards Angel’s office, informing her she will tell Angel the truth. Tamika gets loose and the fight resumes. In Angel’s office (or a conference room?) the summit is taking place. Or still on hold, because they haven’t avenged the liaison’s death yet. Things are not going well. They demand a sacrifice! Cue Harmony and Tamika smashing through the glass wall. Harmony throws Tamika on the conference table and stakes her, then realizes she forgot she was going to make her tell Angel the truth first. But the demons are fine with it! Sacrifice accepted. They sit down politely for the summit. Later, Angel and everyone Harmony stashed in the closet are sitting in his office with Harmony. He’s annoyed Harmony didn’t just talk to him. She’s sorry for everything but she was scared Angel would kill her if there was even a hint that she’d killed someone. She starts crying because it’s extra hard for her to be on her best behavior without a soul. She assumes she’s fired. Angel tells her to bring them coffee instead, and she’s kind of grumpy about it. She goes to the bar that night and complains to the bartender about how the only thanks she got for all her hard work and proving her innocence was a coffee order. Spike walks up. She asks him why he’s not in Europe. He thought about it and feels like it would be really anticlimactic or something if he just showed up at Buffy’s door after the way he went out in “Chosen.” Seriously? That’s idiotic. Even Harmony thinks so. She tells him how easy it would be to get past all the unpleasantness and have her welcome him back. Only she’s not talking about Buffy, she’s talking about herself. For the first time ever, it occurs to Spike that he’s been rather a cad to Harmony. No, wait, he’s still going on about how he can’t face Buffy again. Harmony feels like she doesn’t matter. Spike disagrees. She mattered a lot to the chick who tried to frame her and get her killed! Well, when he puts it that way, Harmony feels pretty dang good about herself. Ugggggh, when I said I wanted character episodes (particularly ones not focused on Spike), I meant I wanted episodes about Angel, Fred, Wes, Gunn, and Lorne. Not freaking Harmony. Yes, she’s funny (I never particularly appreciated the humor she provided before, but I can see it now), but it doesn’t matter, because she should have been dust FOUR SEASONS AGO. Get a different comic relief character who isn’t an ex-weaksauce villain. It’s an issue that soured Spike’s humor for me in Buffy S4-6, Andrew’s in S7, and now it’s doing the same thing for Harmony’s. It’s much easier to tolerate when she doesn’t get entire episodes dedicated to her, even if her name does make amusing title puns. This could have been a perfectly good genre mashup of urban fantasy and workplace comedy, but it’s just too hard for me to suspend my disbelief on the matter of the Scoobies AND the A.I. team letting Harmony live long enough to make it here. Oh, and side-note, Spike said it had only been three months since “Chosen,” but earlier, Harmony said she’d been clean for eight months. Which is it? Because there’s no way Harmony was just not killing people before it was a rule she had to abide by in order to stay alive. Continuity, people! The Characters Angel’s mood is getting worse and worse this season, but it kind of seems like he was deliberately written as a jerk boss in this one because the episode is pretty much from Harmony’s point of view, and her point of view is exceptionally shallow. I do think he’s grumpy and impatient as he cracks down on evil employees and tries to negotiate demonic high society, but I don’t think he’s actually being as rude as Harmony perceives him to be. Spike’s treatment of Harmony puts me in a similar position as when Buffy was using Spike as a sexual object. Just because Harmony is automatically evil because soulless, it doesn’t mean it’s okay for him to treat her like crap. He (or anyone else) should be staking her. In a way, that feels like a bizarre stance to take, but I’m sticking to it. Also, his reasoning behind not going to find Buffy is just nonsense. Is he afraid that she won’t be as happy to see him as he wants her to be? Is he really willing to give up on any chance with her because of that fear? I mean, I hate the Buffy/Spike pairing more than literally anything else in the Buffyverse, but I’m still annoyed at him for sabotaging himself like this, particularly after all the crass gloating he did at Angel about him and Buffy. Okay, I can really see why Gunn feels so good about himself and happy with his work because of that upgrade. I mean, dang, he even got languages? Fred, quit being so friendly with your evil coworkers! First Eve, now Harmony? Oh, and also Knox, but we don’t have a reason to suspect him yet, aside from the fact that he works at W&H. It’s actually really unfortunate that this is the first season she’s interacting with people not in the A.I. team, and it’s going to lead to her horrible death. Lorne continues to do all his work while on the move, even though he has his sleep back. What’s up with that? Does he just hate sitting at a desk? Does he always have meetings and we just catch glimpses of him between them? He’s very nice to his assistant, who is not the same assistant from a few episodes ago. Was that one evil? Wesley continues, subtly, to be the member of the team (aside from Angel) who is most reluctant to do things the W&H way. His first instinct with the warring demon clans is to let them kill each other rather than doing what’s most beneficial to W&H. Favorite Quotes “Any message for Buffy?” “Tell her you’re a moron.”
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In this blog, I'll be reviewing, analyzing, and generally fangirling over excellent television. Exhibit A: the Whedonverse. Archives
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