Angel/Couplet

Couplet
Season 3, Episode 14
Airdate	February 18, 2002
Production Number	3ADH14
Written by	Tim Minear & Jeffrey Bell
Directed by	Tim Minear
← 3x13 Waiting in the Wings	3x15 → Loyalty
Angel — Season Three

Couplet is the fourteenth episode of the third season of Angel, and the fifty-eighth episode overall. Angel attempts to cope with the return of the Groosalugg and his feelings of being rendered useless.

David Boreanaz (Angel), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase), Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce), J. August Richards (Charles Gunn), Amy Acker (Winifred "Fred" Burkle)

Guest Starring: Andy Hallett (Lorne), Mark Lutz (Groosalugg)

Co-Starring: Bernard K. Addison (Monster), Steven Hack (Lionel), Fanshen Cox (Anita), Marisa Matarazzo (Susan), Scott Donovan (Jerry), Bob Rumnock (Business Man), Vanie Poyey (Pillow Fight Woman), Michael Otis (Pillow Fight Man)

Plot Overview

Not only does the Groosalugg’s sudden appearance take Angel out of any potential romance with Cordelia, but soon begins to feel that he has become replaceable.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Senih'd: The Senih'd is a strong, spiny demon that only manifests in its physical form to feed—apparently on human victims. It resembles the Bleaucha, which nests in the Scum Pits of Ur and is easy to track, but harder to kill, according to Groo's experience.

• Tree Monster: This unnamed "root-crazy-treelike-demony thing" chats up lonely hearts online, lures them to the park, then sucks them down into its underground cave where it binds them with tentacle-like roots and sucks out their life force. When it taps a vampire, the flow is reversed, though, and it bleeds away its own life force.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Senih'd	Groo	Stabbed	Park
2	Tree Monster	Angel	Sapped Life Force	Root Cave

Music

Music is listed in order of appearance in the episode:

• Afterlife - "Dub in Ya Mind"

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• The Prophecy: Wesley finds a Greek volume that translated the prophecy in a bookstore. From that tome, he translated a phrase that says "The father will kill the son."

Characters

• Cordelia: Angel sends Cordelia away for a couple weeks with a fistful of cash. Because of this, it seems likely that she won't be showing up in the next couple of episodes.

Trivia

The Show

• Bookshelf: Among the books in the bookstore was a volume of the Wolf book from the "Wolf, Ram and Hart" series of tomes.

• Guest star Bernard K. Addison also appeared in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Dead Things", which aired a couple of weeks earlier than this episode.

Behind the Scenes

• Ratings: On its first airing, this episode scored a 3.4/5 in the overnight Nielsen ratings. It was ranked 3rd out of the 16 WB shows which aired that week.

Allusions and References

• Grand Hotel: Lorne refers to a film based on a 1930 Austrian play called "Grand Hotel" in which the viewer is given a fly on the wall perspective on the goings on in a five-star hotel. In one of the scenes in the movie, Greta Garbo melodramatically utters "I want to be alone," a line which she would become well known for.

Lorne: Fine, Miss Garbo. Have it your way. Be alone.

• Battlefield Earth: Battlefield Earth is a novel written by science fiction author and Scientology creator, L. Ron Hubbard. The novel was adapted into a film starring John Travolta, which turned out to be both a massive failure at the box office and with critics, who found the alien invasion movie to be boring and overly complicated. In the movie, Travolta's character had hair resembling Groo's after returning from Pylea.

Cordelia: So, we lose the "Battlefield Earth" hair, and get you out of these animal skins, and it'll be a whole new you!

• Samson: The Book of Judges in the Bible recounts the story of Samson and Delilah during the war between this Israelite and Philistines. Samson was a great warrior for Israel, but when he fell in love with Delilah, she was bribed to find out his source of power. She cut off his hair while he slept and delivered him, weakened, to the Philistines.

Cordelia: It's not like your strength is in your hair, right?

Quotes

• Angel: (talking about Groosalugg) He seemed... uh, I don't know, uh... short?

Lorne: Oh absolutely. Clearly the guy shrank. All over, probably. Why he's nothing but a muscle-y midget. I'm sure once Cordelia gets him home she'll just pop him in a smallish drawer and that'll be that.

• Wesley: You should have called one of us.

Cordelia: Oh please, like I'm going to bother you guys in the middle of the night because I want sex and can't have it.

Wesley: Actually, I meant the vision.

• Wesley: Why can't you have sex?

Cordelia: I could lose my visionity.

Wesley: If you want to play it that way...

Cordelia: Vision-ity.

• Cordelia: I guess we could probably "Com" without actually "Shuking".

• Groosalugg: I shall present this beast's head to my princess as a token.

Angel: Right, because she'd love that.

• Wesley: Angel... you're the reason we've all come together. It's your mission which animates us. We each contribute, it's true, but you... you're unique. You're like one of these rare volumes - one of a kind.

Lionel: (returning with rare volumes) I got three of ‘em.

• Angel: I think he’s happy there.

Groosalugg: As a slave?

Business Man: Don’t judge me.

• Groosalugg: (hearing cellphone ring) Angel, your coat is singing.