Angel/Time Bomb

Time Bomb
Season 5, Episode 19
Airdate	April 28, 2004
Production Number	5ADH19
Written by	Ben Edlund
Directed by	Vern Gillum
← 5x18 Origin	5x20 → The Girl in Question
Angel — Season Five

Time Bomb is the nineteenth episode of the fifth season of Angel, and the one-hundred and seventh episode overall. Illyria's powers become wildly unstable as she jumps through time, leaking energy. Angel, Spike and Wesley must figure a way to stop her before she explodes, taking a chunk of the planet with her.

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)

Guest Starring: Jaime Bergman (Amanda), Jeff Yagher (Fell Leader)

and Adam Baldwin (Marcus Hamilton)

Co-Starring: Nick Gilhool (Fell Brother #1)

Plot Overview

As Gunn returns to Wolfram & Hart, Angel grows more concerned about Illyria. She finds herself uncontrollably skip about in time, which proves to be a symptom of a larger problem with her powers.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Fell Brethren: The Fell Brethren are a race of demons that also act as something of a cult. They adopt human children and pamper them as if they were saviors until the child turns 13. At that point it is killed in ritualistic sacrifice for an unknown reason.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Spike	Illyria	Staked	Training Room
2	Wesley	Illyria	Impaled	Training Room
3	Lorne	Illyria	Impaled	Training Room
4	Angel	Illyria	Decapitated	Training Room
5	Illyria	—	Exploded	Training Room

• Note: All the deaths occur in an alternate timeline.

Music

No original music was used in this episode.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Gunn: Gunn is rescued from the Wolfram & Hart holding dimension by Illyria. She puts the necklace on the torture demon to fill the space.

• Illyria: Several of Illyria's powers are taken away in this episode due to the siphoning of her energy out of her body before it exploded. She can no longer slow time or walk through alternate dimensions and her physical strength has decreased some.

Trivia

The Show

• Dead Means Dead: As of this episode, every billed cast member of the series has been killed at least once in either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, including Gunn's brief death in "Ground State", Harmony being turned in "Graduation Day" (2) and Connor's metaphysical death in "Home".

Cameo: The woman who plays Amanda in this episode is actually the wife of David Boreanaz.

Behind the Scenes

• Ratings: On its first airing, this episode scored a 3.8/5 in the overnight Nielsen ratings. This episode was watched by approximately 4.2 million viewers.

Allusions and References

• Poseiden Adventure: Gunn refers to a 1970s disaster movie called Poseiden Adventure. In the movie, a luxury cruise ship is struck by a massive tidal wave and capsized. The survivors of the initial wave (including Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine) must find a way to get out of the upside down ship before they're trapped. The movie was later remade in 2006 under the name Poseiden with Richard Dreyfuss.

Gunn: This place just went Poseidon on my ass. I don't know which way is up.

• Penthouse: Penthouse is a men's magazine focusing on urban lifestyle articles and pornographic pictorials. One of the magazine's staples is a letters section in which stories (often ones that were made up) are printed from letters written in by readers. Many of these stories start with a variation of "I never thought something like this would happen to me."

Spike: "Dear Penthouse, I don't normally write letters like this, but—"

• Babe the Blue Ox: Babe the Blue Ox is the companion of Paul Bunyan, an American folklore hero who was said to be a gigantic mountainman. The equally large Ox and Bunyan were credited for the creation of the Grand Canyon and Mount Hood in the myths surrounding them.

Spike: Ok, the upshot is you don't like Babe the Blue Ox in your house, and you want to get rid of her.

• Jim Jones: Jim Jones was the leader of the Peoples Temple cult between 1953 and 1978. Although initially the cult's intentions were well meaning and went to great lengths to help the impoverished and disadvantaged, Jones became more and more unhinged once they moved the bulk of the congregation from San Francisco to Guyana. In 1978, he and 912 others committed mass suicide when his colony came under investigation by a Congressman (who was also killed).

Gunn: Amanda, the Fell Brethren leader makes Jim Jones look like a Sunday school teacher.

• Chernobyl: On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Prypiat, Ukraine, suffered a catastrophic explosion that resulted in a nuclear meltdown in the reactor room. Because there was not a containment building, the fallout reached as far as eastern North America and forced over 336,000 people to relocate for fear of radiation poisoning.

Spike: So what sort of damage are we lookin' at if Illyria Chernobyls on us?

• Rand and McNally: Rand McNally is a map publishing company first established in 1856 by William H. Rand, who later partnered with Andrew McNally. The company is the most well known American map and travel guide manufacturer and are credited for the quality of their maps and globes.

Wesley: Rand and McNally will have to redraw their maps.

Quotes

• Wesley Gunn. First day back?

Gunn: Yeah.

Wesley: I stabbed you. I should apologise for that. But I'm honestly not sure how. I think it'll just be awkward.

Gunn: Good call.

• Wesley: She still thinks she's the god-king of the universe.

Gunn: So she's like a TV star?

Wesley: No, nothing that bad. Bit more violent though.

• Illyria: When the world met me, it shuddered, groaned. It knelt at my feet!

Spike: "Dear Penthouse, I don't normally write letters like this, but—"

• Lorne: (about Hamilton) Well, tell you what. Still like him better then Eve.

• Gunn: I turned him down. Not into making deals. Not anymore.

Angel: Well, that's gonna make it tough to be a lawyer.

• Gunn: How much do you know about the Fell brethren?

Amanda: Well, they're really religious. I mean, their religion; not the God one.

• Hamilton: Curing cancer, Mr Wyndam-Pryce?

Wesley: Wouldn't be cost-effective. I'm sure we make a lot from cancer.

Hamilton: Yes. The patent holder is a client.

• Angel: Illyria's blown all her gaskets, man. She's outta her mind!

Spike: How can you tell? Yesterday she spent two hours mind-melding with a potted fern.

• Illyria: A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane. Empty but for the force of his gale.

• Illyria: You ask me to allow you to murder me?

Spike: It's not murder if you say "yes."

• Wesley: Illyria?

Illyria: Touch me and die, vermin.

Spike: Not a very dramatic difference, really.