Soul Purpose (Angel episode)
Encyclopedia
"Soul Purpose" is episode 10 of season 5 in the television show 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.
that signifies he is the champion referred to by the Shanshu Prophecy
. In his dream, the cup isn't a fake, and radiance shines down on Spike, then incinerates Angel in the same way the amulet incinerated Spike when he sacrificed himself in Sunnydale
. Meanwhile, Lindsey
approaches Spike at a strip club, implying he was responsible for Spike's return from the dead and his subsequent return to corporeality. Introducing himself as Doyle
, Lindsey claims he has visions of people in trouble and that he had a vision of a girl who's about to get attacked in an alley. Spike tells him to go to Angel instead, but “Doyle” says that Angel is "working the other side of the tracks" now. Spike saves the girl, after which Lindsey suggests that Spike may be the new champion of The Powers That Be. The next night, Spike saves a couple from vampires, telling them, “I’m the hero.” Meanwhile at Wolfram & Hart
, Wesley and Gunn
present Angel with possible solutions to deal with an evil warlock, but Angel - weary of the "gray area" of morality in which he constantly finds himself - announces, “Let’s kill them all.” He then says that he’s just tired and the others tell him to go get some sleep.
In Angel's dream, Fred
says, "Let’s take a look under the hood.” She cuts open Angel’s chest and starts pulling out his internal organs, including his “dried-up little walnut” of a heart. Fred also pulls out a strand of beads (which she puts on), some raisins (which she eats), and a license plate (which causes her to ask, “Came up the gulf stream, huh?” a la Jaws
). She pulls out a fishbowl, calling the dead goldfish inside it Angel’s soul, and says that they’ll have to flush it and hands it to the bear standing next to her. Fred turns back to Angel and tells him that she can’t find anything wrong with him "...except that you’re empty. Just a shell. I think I can hear the ocean in there."
The next morning, Eve gives Wesley a fragment of a relic, saying the Senior Partners want to know what it is. Gunn arrives and announces that a vampire matching Spike's description has been out on the streets, saving people. Meanwhile, Angel is dreaming that Spike and Buffy
are having sex in his bed. He wakes up and goes downstairs, where Gunn tells him to hurry or he will “miss it.” Angel joins the group of people in his office, staring out the windows at L.A. as it burns. Angel realizes what’s going on and heads towards the windows. “You’re blocking the apocalypse,” Harmony
tells him. Wesley assures Angel that Spike will take care of it. Lorne suggests that Angel change his clothes, since there’s something on his shirt. Angel looks down to see a bloody stake sticking out of his heart. As Angel dreams in his room, a blue creature feeds off of his chest in the same spot as the stake in his dream. Fred holds out a cake with a picture of L.A. burning and the words “Way to go Spike!” written on it. Everyone sings, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and yells for Spike to give a speech. He talks about fulfilling his destiny to turn L.A. into utopia. A blue fairy floats in and sprinkles gold dust on Spike, making his heart beat again. As everyone cheers for Spike, Angel is suddenly a man staffing the mail cart.
In reality, Spike is at the spartan basement apartment
that Lindsey provided for him, when Gunn and Wesley stop by. They tell him that if he wants to rescue people, Wolfram & Hart has resources that can help him. Spike declines the offer, saying Wolfram & Hart is the same evil law firm it’s always been. At Eve's apartment, Lindsey reminds Eve if the Senior Partners find out what they’re up to, they’ll kill him. Eve assures him that thanks to his tattoos, they won’t find him. Wesley and Gunn head back to Wolfram & Hart and tell Fred that Spike thinks they’ve sold out. Fred starts to go up to check on Angel, until Eve arrives, reminding her she is supposed to be testing the relic.
Angel is dreaming of Lorne dressed Old West-style, playing “My Darling Clementine” on a piano in Angel’s room. As Harmony (dressed like a Copacabana
waitress) serves him a drink, Angel tells Lorne that everything hurts. "That’s life," Lorne says, "everything hurts, and then we die," though in Angel’s case, everything hurts and he lives forever. Lorne tells Angel to sing, but Angel can’t. Nearby, Fred, who’s at a table with Wesley and Gunn, says, “I told you he was empty.” Lorne tells Angel that the crowd is turning on him as Gunn snarls and hisses at Angel. Eve appears, noting that Angel is suffering. Lorne says that Angel still has something on his shirt, and Angel looks down to see the blue creature on his chest. He pulls it off, wakes up, and kills it. Eve tells him that he’s still dreaming but it’s almost over. She pulls a bigger blue creature out of the box she's holding and puts it on him. She watches while he struggles against it, then leaves. At Spike's apartment, Lindsey pretends to have a vision and tells Spike that he should take care of it.
Angel sits in a chair in the middle of a sunny field as the gang approach him. “You can stay as long as you like,” Wesley says. “Stay forever.” Angel says he’s not done with his job, but Wesley says that he can be if he wants to. Fred says that he’ll be fine - he just has to stop caring. Suddenly, the four of them throw their heads back and scream.
In Angel’s room, Spike grabs the blue creature and kills it. “No need to thank me,” he tells Angel. “Just helping the helpless.” Later, the gang and Eve gather in Angel’s room and Wesley explains that the creature was a parasite which makes the host oblivious to its presence and causes hallucinations. If Spike hadn’t killed it, Angel might have been trapped in a vegetative state. Angel says Eve put the parasite on him - after Eve put the second parasite on him, she changed her clothes so that Angel wouldn’t remember her being there for real, but she didn’t change her earrings. He notes that Eve is playing her own game and wonders what the Senior Partners would say if they knew. Eve says that they’re all just blaming her for their problems when they should really be looking within the group. The group glares at her until she leaves.
, who plays Angel. Adam Ward, the first assistant/focus puller, says although Boreanaz "didn't have the cinematographer's vernacular", he was able to accurately describe how he wanted the scenes to look to director of photography Ross Berryman, doing a "phenomenal job" for his directorial debut. In an interview with Sci Fi Weekly, Boreanaz says some of his original ideas for this episode needed to be "toned down" by executive producer Jeffrey Bell: "I had to remind myself that I am shooting an Angel show and not this crazy, cinematic, swooping thing" although producer Kelly Manners "really allowed me the opportunity to do some things a first time director wouldn't normally be allowed to do." Of the experience, Boreanaz says, "I've always been fascinated with the camera and the movement and communicating with other actors. Directing is really about telling someone to put applesauce on the table...And some people know how to do it, and some people don't."
The dream scenes in this episode were filmed at high speed and then slowed down in post-production
. Boreanaz says, "It's pretty introspective of what's going on in Angel's mind...It's more of his perspective of what's going on, we don't know what's real and what's not real." The scene in which Fred performs surgery on Angel is done with a prosthetic torso; Amy Acker
says that scene was her personal "highlight of the season."
Boreanaz had just had reconstructive surgery on the ACL
of his left knee, which is why he spends most of this episode immobilized in bed.
According to the DVD commentary, the production of the "big parasite" cost $80,000.
. The dialogue is snippets taken from the Buffy episode "The Prom".
explains that they had anticipated this. While they were filming, Lindsey refers to himself as Shawn instead of Doyle; Kane re-dubbed his lines during ADR
. "If you watch my lips I’m not saying ’Doyle’", Kane says, "I’m saying Joey or whatever it was."
's absence from the show.
Angel (TV series)
Angel is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999...
. Written by Brent Fletcher
Brent Fletcher
Brent Fletcher is an American television writer. He has worked on television series such as Lost and Angel.He was a freelance writer for the first season of Lost...
and it was the directorial debut of David Boreanaz
David Boreanaz
David Boreanaz is an American actor, television producer, and director, known for his role as Angel on the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and as Special Agent Seeley Booth on the television crime drama Bones....
, who plays Angel, and was originally broadcast on January 21, 2004 on the WB network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
. In "Soul Purpose", guest star Christian Kane
Christian Kane
Christian Kane is an American actor and singer/songwriter of Native American descent. He currently stars as Eliot Spencer on the TNT series Leverage. He is best known for his roles in the television shows Angel and Into the West, and the movies Just Married and Secondhand Lions.He is the lead...
returns as Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald is a fictional character from the television series Angel. He first appeared in the series' first episode, "City of," and featured prominently in the story arcs of seasons one, two, and five. Lindsey is the only character besides Angel himself to appear in both the first and last...
, taking on the deceased Doyle
Allen Francis Doyle
Allen Francis Doyle is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television series, Angel. The character was portrayed by Glenn Quinn.-Character history:Doyle was born to a human mother and a Brachen demon father...
's name in an attempt to convince Spike that he is the vampire champion mentioned in the Shanshu Prophecy
Shanshu Prophecy
The Shanshu Prophecy is a prophecy that appears in the fictional universe of the television series Angel. Contained in the Scrolls of Aberjian, the prophecy first appears in the episode "Blind Date" and is more fully revealed in the season finale of the show's first season, "To Shanshu in L.A."...
. Meanwhile, Angel slips into a feverish hallucinative state in which he dreams that his destiny of redemption is claimed by Spike.
Plot
In Angel's dream, he relives the moment in which Spike drinks from the cupDestiny (Angel episode)
"Destiny" is episode 8 of season 5 in the television show Angel. Co-written by David Fury and Steven S. DeKnight and directed by Skip Schoolnik, it was originally broadcast on November 19, 2003 on the WB network...
that signifies he is the champion referred to by the Shanshu Prophecy
Shanshu Prophecy
The Shanshu Prophecy is a prophecy that appears in the fictional universe of the television series Angel. Contained in the Scrolls of Aberjian, the prophecy first appears in the episode "Blind Date" and is more fully revealed in the season finale of the show's first season, "To Shanshu in L.A."...
. In his dream, the cup isn't a fake, and radiance shines down on Spike, then incinerates Angel in the same way the amulet incinerated Spike when he sacrificed himself in Sunnydale
Sunnydale
Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...
. Meanwhile, Lindsey
Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald is a fictional character from the television series Angel. He first appeared in the series' first episode, "City of," and featured prominently in the story arcs of seasons one, two, and five. Lindsey is the only character besides Angel himself to appear in both the first and last...
approaches Spike at a strip club, implying he was responsible for Spike's return from the dead and his subsequent return to corporeality. Introducing himself as Doyle
Allen Francis Doyle
Allen Francis Doyle is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television series, Angel. The character was portrayed by Glenn Quinn.-Character history:Doyle was born to a human mother and a Brachen demon father...
, Lindsey claims he has visions of people in trouble and that he had a vision of a girl who's about to get attacked in an alley. Spike tells him to go to Angel instead, but “Doyle” says that Angel is "working the other side of the tracks" now. Spike saves the girl, after which Lindsey suggests that Spike may be the new champion of The Powers That Be. The next night, Spike saves a couple from vampires, telling them, “I’m the hero.” Meanwhile at Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart − Attorneys at Law is a fictional international, and interdimensional law firm featured in the television series Angel, as well as other extended materials in Joss Whedon's Buffyverse.-Fictional history:...
, Wesley and Gunn
Charles Gunn
Charles Gunn is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series, Angel. The character is portrayed by J. August Richards, and was named by Whedon after filmmaker James Gunn and actor Sean Gunn, both of whom had worked with Whedon...
present Angel with possible solutions to deal with an evil warlock, but Angel - weary of the "gray area" of morality in which he constantly finds himself - announces, “Let’s kill them all.” He then says that he’s just tired and the others tell him to go get some sleep.
In Angel's dream, Fred
Winifred Burkle
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.-Character history:...
says, "Let’s take a look under the hood.” She cuts open Angel’s chest and starts pulling out his internal organs, including his “dried-up little walnut” of a heart. Fred also pulls out a strand of beads (which she puts on), some raisins (which she eats), and a license plate (which causes her to ask, “Came up the gulf stream, huh?” a la Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
). She pulls out a fishbowl, calling the dead goldfish inside it Angel’s soul, and says that they’ll have to flush it and hands it to the bear standing next to her. Fred turns back to Angel and tells him that she can’t find anything wrong with him "...except that you’re empty. Just a shell. I think I can hear the ocean in there."
The next morning, Eve gives Wesley a fragment of a relic, saying the Senior Partners want to know what it is. Gunn arrives and announces that a vampire matching Spike's description has been out on the streets, saving people. Meanwhile, Angel is dreaming that Spike and Buffy
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers is a fictional character from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to appear in the television series and subsequent comic book of the same name...
are having sex in his bed. He wakes up and goes downstairs, where Gunn tells him to hurry or he will “miss it.” Angel joins the group of people in his office, staring out the windows at L.A. as it burns. Angel realizes what’s going on and heads towards the windows. “You’re blocking the apocalypse,” Harmony
Harmony Kendall
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...
tells him. Wesley assures Angel that Spike will take care of it. Lorne suggests that Angel change his clothes, since there’s something on his shirt. Angel looks down to see a bloody stake sticking out of his heart. As Angel dreams in his room, a blue creature feeds off of his chest in the same spot as the stake in his dream. Fred holds out a cake with a picture of L.A. burning and the words “Way to go Spike!” written on it. Everyone sings, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and yells for Spike to give a speech. He talks about fulfilling his destiny to turn L.A. into utopia. A blue fairy floats in and sprinkles gold dust on Spike, making his heart beat again. As everyone cheers for Spike, Angel is suddenly a man staffing the mail cart.
In reality, Spike is at the spartan basement apartment
Basement apartment
A basement apartment is an apartment located below street level, underneath another structure—usually an apartment building, but possibly a house or a business. Rent in basement apartments is usually much lower than it is in above-ground units, due to a number of deficiencies common to basement...
that Lindsey provided for him, when Gunn and Wesley stop by. They tell him that if he wants to rescue people, Wolfram & Hart has resources that can help him. Spike declines the offer, saying Wolfram & Hart is the same evil law firm it’s always been. At Eve's apartment, Lindsey reminds Eve if the Senior Partners find out what they’re up to, they’ll kill him. Eve assures him that thanks to his tattoos, they won’t find him. Wesley and Gunn head back to Wolfram & Hart and tell Fred that Spike thinks they’ve sold out. Fred starts to go up to check on Angel, until Eve arrives, reminding her she is supposed to be testing the relic.
Angel is dreaming of Lorne dressed Old West-style, playing “My Darling Clementine” on a piano in Angel’s room. As Harmony (dressed like a Copacabana
Copacabana (nightclub)
The Copacabana is a famous New York City nightclub. Many entertainers, among them Danny Thomas, Pat Cooper and the comedy team of Martin and Lewis, made their debuts at the Copacabana. The 1978 Barry Manilow song "Copacabana" is named after, and is about the nightclub. Part of the 2003 Yerba...
waitress) serves him a drink, Angel tells Lorne that everything hurts. "That’s life," Lorne says, "everything hurts, and then we die," though in Angel’s case, everything hurts and he lives forever. Lorne tells Angel to sing, but Angel can’t. Nearby, Fred, who’s at a table with Wesley and Gunn, says, “I told you he was empty.” Lorne tells Angel that the crowd is turning on him as Gunn snarls and hisses at Angel. Eve appears, noting that Angel is suffering. Lorne says that Angel still has something on his shirt, and Angel looks down to see the blue creature on his chest. He pulls it off, wakes up, and kills it. Eve tells him that he’s still dreaming but it’s almost over. She pulls a bigger blue creature out of the box she's holding and puts it on him. She watches while he struggles against it, then leaves. At Spike's apartment, Lindsey pretends to have a vision and tells Spike that he should take care of it.
Angel sits in a chair in the middle of a sunny field as the gang approach him. “You can stay as long as you like,” Wesley says. “Stay forever.” Angel says he’s not done with his job, but Wesley says that he can be if he wants to. Fred says that he’ll be fine - he just has to stop caring. Suddenly, the four of them throw their heads back and scream.
In Angel’s room, Spike grabs the blue creature and kills it. “No need to thank me,” he tells Angel. “Just helping the helpless.” Later, the gang and Eve gather in Angel’s room and Wesley explains that the creature was a parasite which makes the host oblivious to its presence and causes hallucinations. If Spike hadn’t killed it, Angel might have been trapped in a vegetative state. Angel says Eve put the parasite on him - after Eve put the second parasite on him, she changed her clothes so that Angel wouldn’t remember her being there for real, but she didn’t change her earrings. He notes that Eve is playing her own game and wonders what the Senior Partners would say if they knew. Eve says that they’re all just blaming her for their problems when they should really be looking within the group. The group glares at her until she leaves.
Production details
This episode was directed by actor David BoreanazDavid Boreanaz
David Boreanaz is an American actor, television producer, and director, known for his role as Angel on the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and as Special Agent Seeley Booth on the television crime drama Bones....
, who plays Angel. Adam Ward, the first assistant/focus puller, says although Boreanaz "didn't have the cinematographer's vernacular", he was able to accurately describe how he wanted the scenes to look to director of photography Ross Berryman, doing a "phenomenal job" for his directorial debut. In an interview with Sci Fi Weekly, Boreanaz says some of his original ideas for this episode needed to be "toned down" by executive producer Jeffrey Bell: "I had to remind myself that I am shooting an Angel show and not this crazy, cinematic, swooping thing" although producer Kelly Manners "really allowed me the opportunity to do some things a first time director wouldn't normally be allowed to do." Of the experience, Boreanaz says, "I've always been fascinated with the camera and the movement and communicating with other actors. Directing is really about telling someone to put applesauce on the table...And some people know how to do it, and some people don't."
The dream scenes in this episode were filmed at high speed and then slowed down in post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
. Boreanaz says, "It's pretty introspective of what's going on in Angel's mind...It's more of his perspective of what's going on, we don't know what's real and what's not real." The scene in which Fred performs surgery on Angel is done with a prosthetic torso; Amy Acker
Amy Acker
Amy Louise Acker is an American actress. She is best known for her roles on the television series Angel as Winifred Burkle and Illyria and on Alias as Kelly Peyton. She is also known for her role as Dr. Claire Saunders/Whiskey on Dollhouse.-Early life:Acker was born and raised in Dallas, where she...
says that scene was her personal "highlight of the season."
Boreanaz had just had reconstructive surgery on the ACL
Anterior cruciate ligament
The anterior cruciate ligament is a cruciate ligament which is one of the four major ligaments of the human knee. In the quadruped stifle , based on its anatomical position, it is referred to as the cranial cruciate ligament.The ACL originates from deep within the notch of the distal femur...
of his left knee, which is why he spends most of this episode immobilized in bed.
According to the DVD commentary, the production of the "big parasite" cost $80,000.
Acting
Although Angel dreams about Buffy, the actress who portrays her is not Sarah Michelle GellarSarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
. The dialogue is snippets taken from the Buffy episode "The Prom".
Writing
News of Christian Kane's return was leaked over the internet before this episode aired, but writer Brent FletcherBrent Fletcher
Brent Fletcher is an American television writer. He has worked on television series such as Lost and Angel.He was a freelance writer for the first season of Lost...
explains that they had anticipated this. While they were filming, Lindsey refers to himself as Shawn instead of Doyle; Kane re-dubbed his lines during ADR
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
. "If you watch my lips I’m not saying ’Doyle’", Kane says, "I’m saying Joey or whatever it was."
Cultural references
- JawsJaws (film)Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
: In a nightmare scene, Fred extracts a license plate from Angel's chest, a reference to this film. - Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd song)Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd song)"Wish You Were Here" is the title track on Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. The song's lyrics encompass writer Roger Waters' feelings of alienation from other people. Like most of the album, it refers to former Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett and his breakdown...
: In the same nightmare scene, Fred extracts angels soul represented as a dead goldfish in a fishbowl. - Pinocchio: In another nightmare scene, Spike is transformed into a "real boy" by a blue fairy, as in Disney's version of the fairy tale.
- Miami ViceMiami ViceMiami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
: Spike calls Wesley and Gunn "Crockett and Tubbs", the main characters from this 1980s television series. - Star WarsStar WarsStar Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
: Spike responds to Wesley's request to join them by calling him 'Mr Vader' and saying that he will not ' join the evil empire' - SupermanSupermanSuperman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
: Lindsey says that Spike hasn't "sewn a big red S on his chest, but he's getting there." Angel's predicament in this episode is similar to Superman's in the comic book story For the Man Who Has EverythingFor the Man Who Has Everything"For the Man Who Has Everything" is a comic book story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, first published in Superman Annual #11 and later adapted into a Justice League Unlimited episode in 2004.-Plot:...
. - GypsyGypsy: A Musical FableGypsy is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business...
: Lorne tells Angel to 'sing out, Louise'.
Reception
Angel's dream in which he sees Spike making love to Buffy was "so fake it's embarrassing they even tried it," an Angel guidebook complains; the obvious stunt double and use of overdubbing emphasizes rather than masks Sarah Michelle GellarSarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
's absence from the show.