The voice of reason
There’s no worse person to give a little helping hand than well-intending guardian angel Amy in Angel From Hell.
Jane Lynch went from playing the gym coach from hell Sue Sylvester in the musical comedy Glee (20092015), to playing for the other side in comedy series Angel From Hell (20152016, season 1 is now on Showmax). She plays Amy Cass, the weird guardian angel to uptight Allison Fuller (Maggie Lawson). Amy has always watched over Allison from afar – and she has a host of humiliatingly intimate stories from Allison’s past to prove it. But when Amy realises that adult Allison is still an incredible amount of work and that she’s just not enjoying life the way she should, Amy steps in to guide Allison in person – with hilarious after- effects to boot. While suspicious Allison is taken aback and baffled by this stranger with the inside scoop on her life, we’re green with envy. What we wouldn’t give to have an angel in our lives to help us with all of this…
EXPOSING CHEATERS
In episode 1, Amy grabs Allison’s attention and reveals that her boyfriend Evan (David Denman) has been cheating with her best friend Jill (Liza Lapira). Evan and Jill can hide and lie like a couple of rugs, but once Allison has got the cue to start looking, all those signs that Amy is talking about keep popping into her attention. And even before exposing the cheaters, Amy deflates Evan’s arrogant view of himself as an app developer, exposing the fact that he’s just an unemployed loser with an unattractive beard.
VETTING ONLINE DATES
With Evan out the door, Allison has set up an online dating profile and is carefully going through guys’ profiles in episode 3 when Amy interrupts her to suggest that she just treat the guys like oysters at this stage – shuck them and chuck them unless she finds a pearl – instead of taking dating too seriously. She then convinces Allison to meet one of the guys at a club and get him to kiss her. As it turns out, the kiss reveals a fact that would have been heart-breaking if Allison had let herself get emotionally involved with the scoundrel. Well done, Amy!
PROTECTION FROM “NEGATITIS C”
In episode 7, Amy tells Allison that she is her perfect guardian angel because her own relentless positivity cancels out Allison’s negative inner voice and “crushing self- criticism”, which is reinforced by her loving but hypercritical dad Marv (Kevin Pollak). And when pep talks don’t cut it, Amy is prepared to strip down to her bare skin and get chased around a TV studio to help Allison get over her fear of speaking on camera. Bless her.
PERFECT PARTIES
Allison is whinging about the pressures of a traditional family Thanksgiving in episode 10 and the fact that everyone is expected to enjoy it – or else. Amy tells her to avoid the seasonal emotional meltdowns with her own alternative holiday. “Invite who you want, eat what you want and make it fun.” Replace cooking stress with alcohol, replace cleaning and decorating the house with throwing your hands up in the air and going to a bar where they serve alcohol. And replace fighting with family members with flirting with strangers. Finally, take a stranger home instead of leftovers. Delicious.
BUS TICKETS
Encouragement and a zest for life are wonderful things to give someone, but sometimes it’s the practical gifts that really hit the spot – like saving someone from a speeding bus. In episode 12, Amy truly earns her angel wings when she repeats her “look out, bus!” trick from episode 1… but this time with a real bus that would have pancaked poor Allison. (PS: look out for a giggle-worth ET reference earlier in the episode). What do we have to do to meet our own guardian angels, Amy?
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