Angel

Somnambulist
The Good;
Very good ep, we geninely suspect that Angel might be going bad, Penn gives a real sense of menace and some lovely stuff with Kate
The Bad;
Penn's haircut but apart from that not much. Would the police really let Kate go in by herself?
Best line:
Penn; "You know you'll never get to it the exit before I..."
Cordy (opening blinds letting the daylight pour in) "...go up like a match?"
(nothing more satisfying than seeing arrogance shot down)
Jeez, how did they get away with that?
Penn kills his sister and presumably goes on to massacre his family as Angelus did
Apocalypses: 4
Angel Cliches
Damsel in distress; nope, 2.
Inverting the Hollywood cliche;
In disguise; 3
DB get's his shirt off; 3
Cordy's tattoo;3
Cheap Angel; 2
Fang Gang in bondage: Angel
Cordy: 5
Angel: 5
Wes: 1

Fang gang knocked out:
Cordy: 8
Angel: 7
Wes: 1
Doyle; 1

Kills:
Cordy: 3 vamps, a demon from her time in Sunnydale
Angel: 8 vamps, 4 demons, 2 humans.
Doyle; 1 vamp
Kate; 1 vamp

Fang Gang go evil:
Cordy: 1
Angel: 1

Alternate Fang Gang:
Cordy: 2
Angel: 5

Characters killed: Penn's victims
20
Recurring characters killed;
1;

Total number of Angel Investigations:
2, Angel and Cordy

Angel Investigations shot:
Angel: 5,
Packing heat;
Doyle; 1

Notches on Fang Gang bedpost:
Cordy: 1?
Angel: 1;Buffy

Kinky dinky:
Cordy comments that she makes the coffee and gets to chain the boss to the bed. The everyday life of a Hollywood assistant.
Captain Subtext;
Angel(us) is obviously Penn's father figure. Angel(us) is also obsessed with his father
Know the face, different character; 2
Parking garages;
3, once again, Angel and Wes just seem to be able to drive into the police station.
Guantanamo Bay;
Buffy characters appearing in Angel; (unless someone can correct me no original Angel character ever appears on Buffy?)
6; Angel, Cordy, Oz, Spike, Buffy, Wes
Questions and observations;
Very nice reminder from Angel(us) past and the beginning of the real tension between Kate and Angel. Another hint that vamps share some link with those they sired. Love Kate's white sweater. Wes is now in the title sequence. Angel Investigations has a runaway case so they're obviously taking ordinary PI cases in addition to their supernatural work. Does Angel figure out Penn's plan because he knows him? Or is he heading to the police station to speak to Kate over the school bus plan? Or do Wes and he just overhear what's going on at the station with their police scanner? Penn in some ways is reminiscent of Scorpio in Dirty Harry (who also hijacks a school bus).
Met Jeremy Renner at a convention and a fascinating guy, plays in a band, old friend of DB's from their acting classes, went on to star in 28 Weeks Later (as a character called Doyle?), SWAT, The Hurt Locker and Jesse James with Brad Pitt. And of course Hawkeye in Joss Whedon's The Avengers
Marks out of 10; 9/10 would be 10/10 if it had more arc.

Underrated. It is the only word I can think of to describe this overlooked yet very good episode. Yes Virginia, the plot isn't that complex or compelling but the dialogue is just so top notch that everything else can be forgiven. And is...by me, because that's just the type of person I am.



I also think one thing that helped this episode from being just another story is that the writers don't introduce the actual killer until well into the episode. It's always good to wonder if your hero has gone back to his killing ways while he's grabbing some Z's. And besides, without that Cordelia wouldn't have been able to chain Angel to his bed-- rowr. A job perk? Yes, Cordelia, yes it most certainly is.

‘Somnambulist’ is exactly the reason why this show is so amazing. The episode managed to be dark, funny and just simply amazing. The filming and everything was very impressive. After Doyle’s death it wasn’t sure if it was going to affect the show a lot, Wesley is far from as lovable but the show just can’t go wrong.



The episode begins with a girl running down an alley, Angel catches up to her and drains her. Angel then wakes up but meanwhile detective Kate finds the body of the girl that Angel dreamed of killing, was it a dream or was it real?



Next day Wesley comes to the office because he doesn’t have anything better to do. And Angel is looking very bad, older than he is. Wesley thinks Angel is gone evil after reading the news paper about the dead bodies. Angel tells Wes that he might be right because he doesn’t remember any of it.



So that night they put Angel tight on the bed and next day he’s still there and there is another murder so he wasn’t the killer but he was. He trained a vampire named Penn to kill and now he’s killing his family over and over and over and the dreams are from what Penn is doing and Angel is enjoying them.



Angel knows what Penn is going to do next so he informs Kate and who he’s going to kill next. Penn picks up a young man that reminds him of his brother and when he tries to kill him he gets caught by the police, he jumps into a building and when Kate goes there to arrest him she shoots because he moves but he doesn’t die and tries to kill her but Angel comes there to rescue her and he shows his vampire face to her.



Penn is able to escape and Angel tries to talk to Kate but she doesn’t seem to like him anymore. She reads in books about Angelus and now doesn’t trust him anymore because she read that he was a badass vampire.



Meanwhile Penn goes to Cordy and she realised he’s the guy and when he wants to kill her she opens the curtains which save her. Then Angel arrives and says that Penn is very predictable so he says that he’s going after a bus filled with school children but Angel thinks that’s too original for Penn.



Penn infact grabs Kate to make Angel kill her but Angel isn’t going to kill her and Penn almost defeats him, Kate grabs a big stick and she puts it through Angel’s stomach into Penn’s heart and thereby killing Penn and saving Angel.



‘Somnambulist’ was an amazing episode, the special effects were fantastic and so were the writing and acting. A pure good vampire episode. Kate will sadly never really trust Angel. Angel has a sweet conversation with Cordelia at the end of the episode and she tells him that she will kill him when he becomes evil because that’s what friends are for.

the past wil bite you in the ass. this episode is fab all around! it explores the vampire mythology more and the writing was excellent!



i really liked the penn charcater and he should not have died so early. wesley was not so annoying anymore and angel is so cool when hes a bad boy and grounded penn. i also really liked kate and she finally sees that angel is a vampire. very cool episode and well done.

I really enjoyed this episode. We get to see a little more into Angels past when we are introduced to a vampire who Angel sired back in the day. Seems Penn (the vamp) has made a re-appearance and is killing in the same pattern Angel taught him so many years ago. Angel figures this out pretty early on, but Cordy and Wes are worried Angel is the one doing the killing. (Oh such little faith!) Kate is in charge of the investigation of the victims and whoops, she finds out Angel is a vamp. She is through being nice to Angel after this. I think this ep was pivotal because it changes the dynamic of the Kate/Angel relationship. She was actually (IMO) pretty close to falling for him until she found out he was a vamp.

Fun words to learn and know: Cordelia: “The glamorous LA life. I get to make the coffee and chain the boss to the bed. Gotta join a union.”



Dialogue to lose inside the sofa in Hell: Penn: “You're my real father, Angelus.”

“Angel: Fine! You're grounded.”

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times; there is absolutely no excusing bad puns. *shakes head sadly*



Once again, I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed this episode upon re-watching it. Generally speaking, prolonged inclusion of Kate makes me go “bleh,” and I suppose I end up failing to give the episode the benefit of the doubt. When viewed objectively, I can see that this one is actually quite good. Angel is forced to confront a ghost from his past and, in so doing, reveals his true nature to Kate. Our villain of the week, Penn, scores major points by being the first baddie in the history of television not to waste time giving away his plan to the good guys. <sarcasm>“Well, first I thought I’d stop everything and tell you my plan.”</sarcasm> I’m sure the writers are well aware of the joke inherent in the line. Bad pun aside, there's good dialogue all around, which always raises the show's standards. Wesley continues to gel; in my ever so humble opinion he fits the show’s dynamic more readily and believably than Doyle did. Here’s where I jump of the Joy Train, though. What kind of maladjusted freak is Kate to hold a grudge against Angel for something he did at least a hundred years ago, at which point he was a completely different person (or soulless demon, as the case may be)? She knows Angel and has fought by his side on numerous occasions. Are all of Angel’s good deeds magically erased simply because he sired Penn and showed him the ropes umpteen years ago? What happened to the trust she felt toward Angel at the beginning of the episode? That’s all been washed away? Angel is more acutely aware of his sins than anyone, and the last thing he needs is some holier than thou cop adding to the guilt he already feels. (Upon further thought, I suppose this isn't such a huge negative as all it's done is reinforce the contempt I feel for Kate and actually does nothing to diminish my appreciation of the episode).

Over the course of his existence Angel/Angelus has sired many and kept the company of many other vampires, training and teaching most to be just as evil and horrifying as he. In this episode we meet one of his pupils, Ben. Throughout Angel's persuit of him Kate, our favorite polic officer, comes to the realization that something more is going on with Angel. At first collaring him as a suspect in the string of recent murders, actually being committed by Ben, but then witnessing a smack down between Ben and Angel comes to real truth about what goes bump in the night.

In my opinion with that episode the writers wanted a change in the relationship between Kate and Angel. All the fans thought there would be a love interest between them, but after this episode where Kate finds out about Angelus she wasn't interested anymore.



It was great to show up the whole history about Angelus again and everybody could learn that stuff about him.



It will be getting worse laterbetween both of them, but this time it was great to watch Kate kill this stupid vampire by just hurting Angel!



It was fun too to see Cordelia jumping sides in a second after she found out that Angel dreamt of all the murders. Cordelia is always fun to watch and Wesley was in his watcher mood again.



Great episode!

Another fine episode that I do not remember seeing. I really enjoyed the mystery surrounding Angelus' sire and the anguish that Angel now feels for having created him in the first place.



The past couple of nights of sleep, Angel has been having very lucid dreams of killing. Wesley shows up to compare information about the goings on in the city, but leaves abruptly when he sees a newspaper article about a series of murders. Angel goes to see Kate for some help with a case, but ends up seeing crime scene photos from the murders. When he returns to his office, Cordelia and Wesley are waiting with accusations, which he doesn't deny. They chain him up for the night and, after another murder happens, they figure out that the real killer is a former sire of Angelus'. Angel then goes and tells Kate the identity of the killer without giving away his secret. That evening during a pursuit, Angel fights Ben in front of Kate, revealing his vamp face. After Ben escapes and taunts Angel the next morning, Kate researches who both of them are and warns Angel to stay away. As Kate briefs her officers about Ben, it turns out that Ben is right in the room and takes Kate to the sewers. Here, Angel and Ben fight again. This comes to a climax when Kate takes a small beam of wood and stabs through Angel to kill Ben. The episode ends with Angel on the roof being consoled by Cordelia that he is now Angel and not Angelus, which the PTB are able to distinguish.



Like I said this was a really good episode and an inevitable one where Kate finds out Angel's true nature. I think it is good that he tells her, because once she comes to terms with this revelation, she may be able to help Angel more be sending him the "weird" cases. As always, David Boreanz's acting is top notch, as well as the guest star who plays Ben.

Somnambulist-Angel’s past deeds come back to haunt him as he dreams about killing again but when the dreams become identical to a number of murders in the area Angel fears that he is killing in his sleep.



An episode which features a dark character from Angel's past and the final revelation to Kate that Angel's a vampire. Penn, is an eerie and creepy character. Though it feels random that we've never heard of him before now on Buffy, but never the less still is an intriguing character. There could have been more flashbacks as we just have one where Angelus is teaching Penn his killing techniques. But I would have liked to have know more about Penn, why Angel chose him to be a vampire like him, why was he physically linked to Penn? But enough with the picky, the best scenes of the episode are with Angel and Kate, which Elizabeth does a great job at conveying her shock and disbelief at the demonic world that has been revealed to her. The episode has a superb conclusion with a great fight between Penn and Angel, not to mention an impressive staking maneuver Kate uses to kill Penn. All in All, a good episode that goes into a part of Angel's past but could have been better.

This is a great episode and is one of my favorites in season 1. We get to Angel as he was prior to regaining a soul. It is also revealed to Kate Angels' exact nature. Will she accept him after this? Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is also great in this episode; he is not Doyle, but becomes a very important part of the team. When Angel is dreaming of killing someone, it is pretty cool the way the scenes phase from the killing scene to where he is sleeping. It is pretty obvious that Angel is not the killer, but a total mystery until the dream of his prior life. I wonder what will happen to Kate, now that she knows about Angel? Will she embrace his nature or will she crusade against him? Only more episodes will tell.

Most Angel episodes have been light and frothy, but "Somnambulist" is a grande black coffee (the kind I imagine Angel drinks). Normally Angel saves the person in need by the end of the episode and all is hunky-dory in Angelville. We are reminded that Angel was a monster. He murdered and pillaged for the sheer pleasure of it.



This episode presents a challenge Christians should pay attention to: knowing the horrible sins a person committed, could you still forgive that person? It is all too easy to become judgmental. Cordelia offers forgiveness to Angel. Kate, not the most awe-inspiring of Angel's reoccurring characters, makes the inevitable discovery of Angel's undeadness. At first, she has the natural reaction of anger, but she too eventually brings herself to forgive Angel (if that is what you call staking him through the stomach rather than the heart).



This episode included all the stylistic elements of Angel that I love: silhouettes running up and down an alley, dark, grainy photography, and flashy editing. The theme was powerful and the climax was creative, but the story itself did not inspire enough interest to earn more than a 7 out of 10.



-Matthew Miller

Find this review and more at tv.swingthesickle.com

Somnabulist is an intense, dark episode that give us our first taste (on Angel) of what Angelus is like. It has a great storyline and top notch performances from everyone, especially David Boreanaz. The story begins very creepily with a young girl being chased through a dark, haunting alley and then being brutally murdered by a vampire. As the vampire lifts his head up- we see its Angel. Then he wakes up. Was it a dream? In short- yes. But the plot is cunning and makes you think it wasn't, making us fear that Angelus has returned to wreak havoc with our hero's life. Wesley was put to good use this episode, as his extensive knowledge on well, everything, sets up the Plot Device, along with Cordy's visions so if the writers can't think of a plot they can put on a Monster of the Week fairly quickly and have Wesley be able to find everything on it in minutes :D



Kate was also back which is a good thing in my book because I like her. She's an interesting character and I'm glad she found out about the supernatural side of things (finally). Her reaction was good and she seems to be blaming Angel for it all, as if he's responsible for vampires and demons. Penn was good, albeit a little rushed, I think he should have been show earlier in the episode.



Somnambulist was one of the better episodes of Season One and a great standalone.



Line of the episode:



Cordelia: OK you stake him and I'll cut his head off.

I actually really liked this episode. It was well written with a really good plot.

I love the opening, making the audience think that Angel is killing again in a dream sequence was well done.

It was really nice to see more of Angel's history, especially as Angelus. He is just so creepy that you have to love him.

Angel's fights with Penn were great, really well choreographed, which was well complemented with Angel's taunting.

It was interesting to see Kate interact with Angel now that she knows all about his past, her reaction of blaming everything on Angel was great. She makes for a really interesting character and it will be good to see how she continues to interact with him.

A great episode, that shouldn't be missed. Watch for Angel being chained to his bed.

Somnambulist was a great episode that flashed back from Angel's past. It was a very entertaining episode where we learned a little more about Angel and his past through this crazy killer he created. I was very intrigued by the story and excited about the action that played out. I think this episode had a lot of character building for Angel. This episode had Angel helping Kate to locate the killer, though he was a vampire. It was a revealing episode as Kate saw what Angel really is when he protected her. I can't wait to see what happens in the next episode!!!!!