FEATURE: Angel - First Impressions

Previously on Angel: Angel has discovered the useful sanctuary of The Host, where people go to sing in order for him to "read" them. He's also made an ally with Charles Gunn, who had to stake his recently turned sister, and the office has moved into the Hyperion hotel. Elsewhere, Wolfram & Hart have resurrected Darla in order to get to Angel.

Gunn arrives at the hotel for an appointment with Angel to go after a snitch for information on a demon named Deevak, but Angel has been asleep all day, dreaming of a date with Darla. Eventually, they make it to the meet, but are attacked by vampires; they take them out, but Angel struggles in the fight. Later, Cordelia has a vision of Gunn in danger. Unable to reach Angel who is asleep and dreaming again, Cordelia heads out to help Gunn and the pair have to team up, but Deevak is lying in wait for them.

Whereas last week, the focus was very much on Angel himself, First Impressions is a chance for us all to get to know Gunn a little better as well as spending time getting to know the new, improved and more selfless Cordelia. As odd couple pairings go, he of the poverty-stricken minority and she of the white privilege, it's one that's not perhaps mined for as much as its potential would suggest, but it functions enough for the character explorations needed. Gunn's still smarting from losing his sister and his continuing spiral into self-destruction just isn't acceptable now he's part of the team. Cordelia's little pep talk to him at the end of the episode is one of her best moments, a big sign of her willingness to change and put herself out there for other people.

The other great moment of the episode, though not especially important to the plot, is the ongoing development of the friendship between Angel and Wes (which we all know is going to real rocky soon). I don't have much else to say about it, but it's a scene so good that I'm going to print it here:

Wesley: Come on. What are you waiting for?
Angel: [holds up a pink motorcycle helmet] I-I-I really don't think it's gonna fit.
Wesley: Oh, of course it will. Put it on.
Angel: You know, I-I don't need a helmet for protection.
Wesley: Angel. It's the law in California. Do you want us to get pulled over?
Angel: No.
Wesley: Then what's the problem?
Angel: Well, it-it's just, you know... the whole... visibility issue, not to mention the whole hat-head thing and, you know, when you really think about it, how come I have to wear the ladies helmet?

Wesley: Stop being such a wanker and put it on!

[Angel puts the pink helmet on]

Wesley: Looks good. Hop on board gorgeous.

Angel: You'll pay for this.

The other element of the episode and one that plays more into the season's ongoing storyline is the Darla dreams that Angel has been having. Dreams are a funny thing in the Buffyverse, often prophetic, but nearly always dangerous in some way. The episode has some sly fun with Angel's dreams, allowing The Host to crop back up and reference Angel's eclectic music taste as well as showing Angel and Darla moon-bathing, completely with sunglasses and beach loungers. 

I like that Darla's tactic is to tempt Angel away from his path, shortly after his resolve to continue down it and help people for little or no reward. It's especially key after we see his more apathetic state towards humanity in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been, demonstrating that Angel is perhaps a little more corruptible than he likes to think if his resentment is high enough. Having Julie Benz back in full devious Darla mode is always a joy because she's one of the few characters to have made a massive impression with just a little runtime. Exploring her relationship with Angel further, as well as allowing Benz to be all sly, offers a good undercurrent for the rest of the episode.

Quote of the Week:

Cordelia: Maybe *we* can help.

Gunn: You two? I find Deevak, I'm gonna need more than C-3PO and Stick-Figure Barbie backing me up, no offense.
Wesley: Very little taken.

Let's Get Trivial: It's a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen reference is a fine thing to get into a fantasy series about vampires. The episode title is a nod to Pride and Prejudice's original title and the plot carries the familiar hallmarks of two very different people coming together after initially not getting along very well. Not much romance between Cordy and Gunn though.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been

Previously on Angel: In the ongoing battle against Wolfram & Hart, Angel's offices were the first casualty, blowing up rather spectacularly. They're in need of a new place. 

After he briefly visited an old hotel in the previous episode, Angel becomes intrigued by the building’s past and gets Wesley and Cordelia to start investigating as he heads down to the hotel itself. The Hyperion dates back to the 1920s, but Angel has a history that he doesn’t disclose at first, having been a resident there in 1952. Strange events date back throughout the hotel’s past, including during Angel’s residency when a man in the room next door kills himself and sparks off an amateur investigation with disastrous results. Meanwhile, in the present, Angel seeks to destroy the Thesulac demon for good.

I adore the Hyperion set in all its 1920s glory. The production design and the way that it is shot in the 1950s flashbacks gives it a Gothic feel; long, dark corridors seem to stretch on forever, people lurk in shadows and it never feels entirely visible. Some of the colours used, muted greens and reds, also ensure that the episode has a pulp fiction look to it (of the Dashiell Hammett variety, not Tarantino). 1950s Judy is a classic mysterious dame with a stolen stack of cash and a secret; she's passing as a white woman at a time when being Other was not at all recommended. Like Angel, she's an outcast. He gets to be her brooding hero, begrudgingly deciding to help her.

That style builds into the world of the other guests of the hotel, glimpsed only through brief scenes in which they speculate about the guy who killed himself in 215. There's a blacklisted writer (McCarthyism is in full flow, seen briefly on a TV clip containing the episode's title) who sees it is as one of his plots, a blonde in a green dress with the kind of husky voice you expect in a noir and an actor who may as well have walked straight off the set of Dragnet. Just the facts, ma'am. Of course, they don’t actually have a clue what’s happened because it’s a Thesulac demon sucking the life out of the guests.

Everything, naturally, spirals out of control. Judy saves her own skin by pointing the finger at Angel and suggesting he’s a murderer. The angry mob hangs Angel and the Thesulac demon feeds on their rage. Setting it in the 1950s, a time of great paranoia and prejudice, is a masterstroke and really builds into the general uneasy atmosphere that the flashbacks carry. The moment is a crucial turning point in Angel’s post-soul life, trying to help out humans and receiving their ire and violence as a result. It’s hardly surprising that he allows the Thesulac to feed on the residents of the hotel after the lynching. It’s a really dark move and one which blurs the line between Angel and Angelus somewhat,

There’s a heavy foreshadowing of Angel’s indifference to Dru and Darla feeding on Wolfram & Hart lawyers later in the season, but there’s not just darkness there. There’s hope too. The final scene with Old Judy, in which he forgives and comforts her after her years of torment since his apparent death, shows Angel’s life is one of peaks and troughs. He may lose his way occasionally, but with the right people around him, he’ll find his way back.

Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been is a classy affair, one of Angel's finest, that both looks great and does a lot of solid character work for Tall, Dark and Forehead too. I like that there aren’t any really big set pieces here, no heavily choreographed scraps. Instead, it feels like Angel at its most human, exploring the kind of negative side of mankind whilst also demonstrating the need for forgiveness in order to move on. Plus, Angel looks pretty natty in 1950s threads.

Quote of the Week: 

Angel: Watch his tentacles!

Cordelia: Excuse me?!
Wes: Tentacles.

Cordelia: Ooh...

Let's Get Trivial: The odious bellhop's name is Frank Gilnitz, a reference back to writer Tim Minear's time as a writer and story editor on The X Files. "Gilnitz" was a name often used by The X Files writers' room for incidental or unseen characters, usually with the first name John. An amalgam of John Shiban, Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz, the name became a running joke in the sci-fi series.

Demonology 101: Angel catches a Bible that is thrown at him by the bookshop owner and it burns his hands. This is the first time in the Buffyverse that it is confirmed that Bibles are harmful to vamps.

LA Who's Who: The concierge, Ronald Meeks, is played by John Kapelos. You Breakfast Clubbers might recognise him as Carl, Shermer High School's janitor.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Judgment, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - Blind Date

Previously on Angel: Angel's been causing problems for some shadier-than-normal lawyers from Wolfram & Hart whose previous efforts to stop him have been thwarted. Angel's also made an unlikely ally in the form of homeless street fighter, Charles Gunn.

Angel's on a routine patrol when he witnesses a blind woman, Vanessa Brewer, assassinate a man in front of him. He finds out that she's on trial and attempts to demonstrate her abilities by throwing her sunglasses back to her, which she catches without seemingly ever knowing they're coming. Of course, she's represented by Wolfram & Hart, Lindsey specifically, and she is acquitted of all charges. It turns out Lindsey's a bit of a rising star in the firm and as a result of this victory, he's offered another case when he's told that Vanessa will be employed to kill three children for undisclosed reasons. It's a step too far for the lawyer and he turns to Angel for help.

One of the main reasons I like this episode so much is that it gives me a chance to talk about Lindsey. Lindsey is one of the more fascinating characters of Angel's world, simply because he never quite operates within the same boundaries as everyone else. He can move freely between being good and evil as his situation dictates, but in the end, he will always be a slave to his ambition. Take this episode for instance; standing by whilst kids are killed is not something his rather dubious morality can tolerate, so he switches sides. However, in doing so, he witnesses the real power over life and death that his bosses wield and when they offer him a second chance, he takes it, returning to the darker side of the fence because it's tactically advantageous to do so.

It makes him unpredictable as the show continues because his boundaries are never quite clear to anyone but himself. He knows what he does is wrong, but he also knows what standing by looks like as this episode illustrates. He's a child of poverty and misfortune, someone who has had to claw their way out of a hole in order to have the kind of freedom denied to him. He's the dark, twisted embodiment of the American Dream, one of the few examples of this that the show offers us. 

Blind Date is a more sombre affair than we've seen recently, but it has a couple of really cool set pieces at its heart. The big one is of course the Wolfram & Hart heist that we see Angel and Lindsey pull off with the help of the returning Gunn. It's an elegant mix of comedy (mainly from Gunn's angry black man routine) and the kind of suave burglary you'd expect from Angel. Rather than beat up the demon guarding the vault, he simply blows a Wesley-concocted powder at it and tips it over. It's a nice comic beat in the heart of an otherwise dark episode, but one which will also prove to be a defining one.

Yes, as he goes to exit the vault, Angel notices an old scroll and picks it up for no other reason than he thinks he should. As Wesley reveals at the end of the episode, it contains writings on a vampire with a soul and possibly more information about Angel's place in the world. It's something that he's been struggling to find, particularly since his return from Hell, and this could point him in the way. Earlier in the episode, he finds himself frustrated by the powerlessness he feels in the face of a human world that Wolfram & Hart have got rigged. His vampirism hampers him from doing the best he can, but it also allows him to operate outside that system.

Somewhat helpfully, it's the first episode in a while where all successful parts of Angel have been firing at the same time (it certainly gives me far more to talk about than War Zone did). Though we don't see much of Cordy and Wes, they're both settled into their respective roles and work their way through the exposition with ease. But it's in the dark morality at the heart of the episode that the show really finds its feet. Angel chooses to fight his fight because he can and because it can offer him the redemption he seeks. Lindsey fights only when he has to. Their different views clash spectacularly here, but the two final scenes, where Lindsey accepts his new job and Angel watches over his city, is a perfect encapsulation of both. 

Quote of the Week:

Lindsey: I get myself killed, that'll convince you I've changed?
Angel: It'll be a start.

Inventive Kill: Angel suspends a vampire by the neck with a chain and then uses the pulley system to stake the vampire on a slat sticking out of a pile of pallets. Mad skillz.

LA Who's Who: Jennifer Badger, who plays Vanessa Brewer, was a stunt double for both Charisma Carpenter and Eliza Dushku across both series.

The Sunnydale Connection: When Cordelia comes up against encrypted files, she naturally calls in the wiz, Willow. The half-heard conversation is lovely; "Willow says hey!"

- Becky

You can check out Becky's look at previous episode, War Zone, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - War Zone

Previously on Angel: The big guy's had a bit of a bust-up with Buffy over the Faith issue, but his reputation is starting to spread across LA. It's attracting new clients and his fair share of enemies.

Cordelia organises a meeting with a big software billionaire, David, who is having a little issue with the fact he got a bit too into Dungeons and Dragons and went to a demon brothel. Angel takes the case to retrieve any evidence of David's dalliances before his stakeholders can find out. His investigation leads him to a gang of homeless youths in South Central who have been waging a territorial war with LA's vampire population. Trouble is, they think he's a new Big Bad that needs defeating. Hijinks ensue, people are lost in the fight and Angel finds himself with a new begrudging ally in one amateur vampire hunter Charles Gunn.

War Zone suffers from its position in the season, right after the extraordinarily good Faith episodes and prior to the last two episodes, which are decidedly more meaty. It's a bit like Go Fish in the second season of Buffy though thankfully produces something a bit more successful than walking fish men. 

In fact, the whole episode is quite the heavy-handed social exploration, covering the gamut of class from the wealth of David to the grinding poverty that Gunn and his gang endure. There's references to race in there too, though, perhaps wisely, they let the casting of Gunn's people do it for them. It's not the show's best attempt at finding a real-world commonality with demon-fighting, but it's admirable of them to try, even if they don't really find any depth within it nor pursue it to any kind of meaningful outcome.

In truth, the biggest occurrence in this episode is the arrival of Gunn, full of rage and violence, markedly different from Angel's brooding, Wesley's repressed desperation and Cordy's openness. J. August Richards hits the ground running in a role that goes on to have one of the most interesting arcs across the series (though it takes until the fifth season to properly go for it). It's a sad introduction and a sobering one, having to stake his recently turned sister to prevent her from killing him. Although I grow increasingly tired of women being sacrificed in popular culture in order for men to learn lessons, I can't deny it tugs at the heartstrings. 

I do love the final scene between Gunn and Angel, a twist on the usual 'mentor' type relationship in that Gunn doesn't want any advice and Angel doesn't really need to give it. It's a begrudging alliance, for sure, but it'll prove to be a solid one. It also helps that it isn't a scene in which Angel offers to help Gunn, instead switching the power dynamic to leave Angel as the one who might come seeking Gunn's help in future. 

Quote of the Week:

Cordelia: They locked you in, huh?
Angel: No! I just love old meat lockers...
Wesley: You should have tried to call us on your cell phone. You probably forget you had it.
Angel: Those things hardly ever work. Besides, it was a lot easier and quicker to just- Look, I'm the boss here. I say when we use the cell phones and people are gonna die and I have to go.
Cordelia: You're welcome!

Inventive Kill: A badass stake gun on the back of Gunn's truck stakes a vamp from afar.

Let's Get Trivial: Charles Gunn was added to the cast thanks to Joss Whedon deciding that she show needed a character to work with Angel who was very different from either Cordelia or Wesley. It also helped to finally up the Buffyverse's diversity quota, albeit marginally.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Sanctuary, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - Sanctuary

Previously on Angel: Faith arrived in LA after putting Buffy through hell in Sunnydale, looking to throw down with Angel and is employed by Wolfram & Hart to kill him. She beat Cordelia and tortured Wesley to get to him, but Angel quickly realised what she needed was help.

Sanctuary picks up from where Five by Five left off as Angel brings Faith back to the office in order to keep her safe. Naturally, Cordelia and Wesley are far from impressed; she uses the company expenses to take a vacation whilst he goes drinking. He's soon approached by the Watcher's Council hit squad, fresh from being beaten by Buffy-as-Faith in Who Are You, looking to finish their business with Faith. Angel's plan to rehabilitate her hits a stumbling block when an exceedingly angry Buffy arrives, demanding to know why her ex is cuddling her nemesis on the sofa. Meanwhile, Wolfram & Hart are attempting to cut their losses by hiring a demon to assassinate the rogue slayer and Kate at the LAPD is also trying to track her down.

I spoke in last week's post about how the show deals with Faith as a person who causes so much chaos but who refuses to deal with the consequences of such and it's a pattern reflected across the two episodes. In Five by Five (and Who Are You), we see the damage done whilst in Sanctuary, Faith takes a backseat as everyone else decides what to do with her. Her conversations with Angel are all theoretical, pondering how she could possibly begin to make up for the damage caused, whether 'sorry' will ever be enough (I love that Buffy won't let her apologise yet - forgiveness is about timing here). As such, it makes her first practical effort, to hand herself into the police, land better as a dramatic finish. It's the first choice she makes entirely on her own and it's her first step on a path to the redemption she, like Angel, will always be fighting for.

There's something about having Faith around that seems to make everyone involved up their game, whether it's on Buffy or Angel. The writing gets tighter, the acting gets better, the drama cuts keener. This episode is no different as the show continues to ponder the question of whether Faith is worth saving or not. Everyone splits into two camps depending on how much Faith has tortured/maimed/switched bodies with you. On the one side is Angel, seeing so much of Faith in himself that he is confident he needs to at least try and save her. On the other side is everyone else, each feeling the effects of the destruction Faith is capable of wreaking, led by Buffy.

Given the last time Angel and Buffy saw each other, it was the end of I Will Remember You (sob) so naturally feelings are still running a little raw, exacerbated by Angel's decision to help Faith who Buffy is, quite rightly, still furious with. This episode though, perhaps more than any other, marks the break between Angel and Buffy quite violently; it's the first time he hits her in his ensouled form and the shock of it, for both Buffy and us, is palpable. Likewise, his speech at the end to her about how she no longer gets to bark orders at him is on point, but so is her belief that Faith cannot be saved and doesn't deserve to be. There's no real wrong answer, but their positions are too different to be reconciled and that final exchange of verbal barbs will have long-lasting effects, particularly spilling over into Buffy.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is a force of nature in this episode, operating on a level of rage that we don't usually get to see from Buffy. "I've lost battles before, but no one has ever made me a victim" is such a great line and it reinforces the trauma that Faith inflicted; Buffy's weakest moments are when she loses her agency, the empowerment that naturally comes from being a Slayer. I love how unyielding she is too, having learnt nothing from her experience as Faith, but also from her experience with Angel. It's only a few months ago that she was arguing with Giles that Angel could still be redeemed, after all. Tim Minear brought in Joss Whedon to write the Buffy scenes and it pays off enormously, allowing the character to operate on the darker level that Angel allows whilst embodying Faith's capacity for destruction.

When speaking of this episode, Whedon states that it's the moment "the training wheels came off" and that he understood "what Angel is and it's not Buffy." That scene feels like a clean break for the audience too, a swift delineation for the new show that's finally standing on its own. The evil in Buffy, for the most part, tends to be easily categorised. People do bad things and Buffy dispatches them accordingly as the good guy, not resorting to anything particularly underhand to do so. The waters will muddy in the later seasons of the show, but it operates on that basic level. In Angel, nothing is defined in simple terms and Faith's involvement here illustrates that perfectly. He's in the business of saving now and will resort to whatever methods he can to do so (I'll definitely touch more on this in the fifth season).

Fittingly, it's the last time we see Buffy on the show, though Angel will return to Sunnydale a few more times. Although it would become an issue of scheduling difficulties rather than intent, it works to Angel's benefit. Sanctuary might not have a happy ending, but it's the right one. And I didn't even get to talk about the rooftop fight scene, which is so damn good (notice how Buffy immediately moves to protect Faith; she ain't all bad kids).

Quote of the Week:

Faith: I've got to be the first Slayer in history to be sponsored by a vampire.

The Sunnydale Connection: This episode follows on from the events of Who Are You and features the most crossover characters (five) in one go: Buffy, Faith, Collins, Smith and Weatherby, with eight if you count Angel, Wesley and Cordelia, considering they originated on that show.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at the previous episode, Five by Five, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - The Ring

Previously on Angel: Angel's activities in Los Angeles have attracted the attention of a bunch of evil lawyers, Wolfram & Hart, running up against them a few times since he moved in. 

A beaten man, Darin MacNamara wanders into the office during a standard Wesley-Cordelia bicker and asks Angel for his help solving the disappearance of his brother, Jack, who was captured by a group of demons. During his investigation, Angel discovers an underground demonic gladiator-type deal going down, not realising that Darin and Jack laid a trap for him until it's too late. He becomes one of the fighters, leaving it to Cordelia and Wesley to find out what's happened to their boss.

After last week's dull, paternal affair, The Ring offers us a tale of something considerably more entertaining, continuing with the darker, demonic underbelly of LA with the added bonus of gladitorial combat and an attempt at a Spartacus-style uprising. It's a simple story idea, but a solid one for a filler episode that mixes in the action thrills with the comedic skills of the main cast. It also presents Angel with the central 'kill or be killed' dilemma, something which goes against everything he's been fighting for since getting his soul back.

Taking Angel out of the picture and trapping him within the cages means that the bulk of the episode's investigating is done by Cordy and Wes, which is every bit as hilarious as it sounds. Watching them try and maintain their cover as undercover cops ("something's going down tonight... something with the man!") is brilliant, but it also shows how well they're starting to work as a team. Although it'll be a while before we see full action Wesley, we get a glimpse here that he's not as bumbling as the impression he tends to give, something that he uses to his advantage at various points.

Boreanaz is a lot of fun here too, given a chance to do both the heroism bit and the comedy bit, particularly in his early scenes in the cages with his more laconic counterpart. And to be more laconic than Angel is quite something. It's another step further away from the rather two-dimensional persona that Buffy Angel was characterised by, moving him into scenarios in which he has to do more than simply look concerned. He also gets to do a lot of action scenes, get his ass kicked and brood about in his vest a lot. So that's nice.

We've known for a while how powerful Wolfram & Hart are, but the episode starts to peel back a little more of their veil through the presence of Lilah and her attempt to free Angel from the fights to get him onside. Their tricksy relationship with him, something that continues right through to the end of the series, is starting to build too. Here, they try the softly-softly approach, but it won't be long before they're back trying to kill him again.

The Ring may be a filler episode, but it's a good one and it keeps the show carving out its own identity, even if it still doesn't quite know what it wants to be just yet. The beginning's a bit noiry, the middle goes a bit comedic and the end gets all Gladiator, but it's entertaining throughout.

Quote of the Week:

Cordelia: Someone ought to create an intra-demon dating base. You know like... archfriend.org, where the lonely and the slimy connect [or Tinder, as it's now known]

Let's Get Trivial: When Wesley asks Cordelia if the 'Demons Demons Demons' has the Vigories of Oden Tal, he's referring to the patriarchal bad guys from She.

LA Who's Who: This episode marks the first appearance of Lilah Morgan, who goes on to be increasingly influential throughout the series.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, The Prodigal, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - I've Got You Under My Skin

Previously on Angel: Angel Investigations now consists of the Dark Avenger himself, Wesley and Cordelia, but the ghost (not literal ghost) of Doyle hangs over the three of them. 

After Cordelia has a vision of a suburban home and a young boy, Angel and Wesley head over to the address just in time for Angel to save the boy, Ryan, from being run over by a car. Wesley does a little investigating whilst Angel is with the family and discovers the luminescent bodily excretions (yum) of an Ethros demon, which is possessing one of the family. The gang spring into action, discovering that it's Ryan who is possessed, not the father as initially suspected. They decide an exorcism is the only way to go. However, as events take their course, it turns out that the demon might not be the biggest foe they have to face this week.

I've Got You Under My Skin marks another move into the darker territory that previous episode She explored, the whole episode defined by a deeply ominous quality from the moment of Cordelia's vision. It's probably the most full tilt that the series has so far gone into horror and the possession aspect of the story allows it liberally reference one of the pinnacles of the genre in The Exorcist. There are little nods, like Cordelia's fear that everything was about to get really vomity, to the wider themes of the episode; family and the traumas that they both suffer and inflict. 

For Angel, it's means of working through his grief surrounding Doyle and his empathy for Mr Anderson, the family patriarch, trying to desperately keep their family together despite the odd occurrences and violence that follows them around. There are the first hints towards Wesley's troubled relationship with his father through a brief line he has about fathers terrorising their children and it's something the demon uses against him during the exorcism. And it establishes that Wesley is prepared to kill Angel if he needs to, something which the vampire acknowledges is a good thing. Hey, we've all seen what he gets like.

The great twist in the episode, of course, is that the demon isn't the one everyone should be worrying about, but Ryan himself (a Whedon addition, reportedly). It's a really clever feint, especially the reveal that the demon was trying to get Ryan to kill himself in order to save those around him. When a soulsucking demon wants someone dead, they're probably not very nice. And so it proves when Ryan attempts to set fire to his sister whilst his parents are locked in their room. All of the work that his father had done to try and keep Ryan safe, protect him from the horrendous acts that have been committed, is undone by virtue of the demon escaping and Ryan being allowed to cut free.

It gives the episode a bleak message; some people simply can't be saved. Just as with Doyle, who willingly sacrificed himself and could never have been saved by Angel, Ryan isn't to be redeemed here. That's where the horror comes from in this episode. Although the score is wonderfully ominous and the atmosphere created by director RD Price and Jeannine Renshaw's script is fantastic, it's the simple, horrifying thought of powerlessness that defines the episode. 

I've Got You Under My Skin should feel like another filler episode and indeed starts off that way, but the marriage between the episode's plot and themes is perhaps one of the best so far and a real statement of darker intent. Ryan may have been taken into custody to get the help that's needed, but there feels like no real resolution simply because the bad guy here is just a little boy, not someone Angel can sink an axe into. Angel was always advertised as grimmer than its Sunnydale-based relative, but it gets fun when the show fully embraces that.

Quote of the Week:

Angel: [Cordelia's] making brownies.
Wesley: Oh is that what I smell? I thought I tracked something in...

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, She, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - Expecting

Previously on Angel: Cordelia moved to LA to begin an acting career, but was stymied by her lack of talent and everything going a bit wrong. She's got the apartment down, but since Doyle's death, she's yet to get back on her dating game. And she's not dating Wesley. We know how that went down.

Cordelia's starting to get a hold of her LA life, gathering a group of friends and heading out on a hot date with Wilson Christopher, man about town and general studmuffin. She brings him back to her apartment, Phantom Dennis does the protective ghost bit and then she sleeps with Wilson. And then she wakes up to find she's pregnant. And not just a little bit pregnant. Full term, about to pop demon spawn pregnant. Wesley and Angel immediately spring into action to work out whether Wilson is a parasitic procreating demon or if something bigger turns out to be behind it. Meanwhile, Cordelia's maternal instinct kicks in and she decides she's going to her babies no matter what.

Originally, Tim Minear wanted to play the episode from a more comedic angle, but Whedon insisted on playing it straight so it goes for more of a body horror angle. It's basically the bit in The Fly when Geena Davis realises she could be giving birth to a weird human/fly hybrid and has the nightmare about giving birth to a giant larva manifested in one episode. They even manage to work an Alien reference in there with some floor-melting acid for amniotic fluid. It's also sort of where the episode doesn't quite work.

There's still a few bits in there that are played a little too silly to fit in with the straighter horror angle they were going for. Cordy drinking blood out of the fridge and grossing out Angel is still played for laughs when it could've been made a lot freakier. The actual gory horror of the episode, where you think the scares would take hold, is marginal, leaving it more to the audience's imagination and without anything majorly graphic. The thing is, with body horror, that graphic quality is what you need. You need to see the demonic babies inside Cordelia and freak out with Wesley. Normally I'd advocate the power of suggestion over most things, but it doesn't really work here.

There is one bit of the psychological horror aspect that does land and it's in the way in which the women are impregnated. The idea of a group of predatory males using their powers to seduce women is horrible (anyone who has ever been to a nightclub has seen this happen. I've even been circled before. Men are weird, guys). It's especially nasty in a world where pick-up artistry is a thing that has events and gathers men around to share secrets on how to seduce women. They're usually led by a vaguely demonic looking man too, so it's an idea that works all round.

There's also the idea of how invasive these men are within the lives of the women they sleep with. Cordy's despair at waking up to discover she's pregnant is heartbreaking, made even moreso by the knowledge that she's still only supposed to be 18/19 at this point. She's a character that's gone through a lot already and she's someone we no longer want to see suffer, such is the power of Charisma Carpenter's performance and the writing that took her on this journey. The scene isn't played with Cordelia's usual over-emotive hysteria either; it's just a simple, weighty despair.

Another mixed bag of an episode then and one which never quite knows which way it's supposed to be going. However, all is redeemed with that final scene in which Cordelia acknowledges that Wesley and Angel are the two people to whom she can trust her life. It's a really adorable moment, especially with how they're both fussing over her to make sure that she's ok, but it's also an important one. The characters really do feel settled and more like the family dynamic we're used to from Buffy; Wesley and Angel have their own little nerdy demon hunter dynamic going on now too.

Quote of the Week:

Wilson: You shouldn't sneak up on people like that in here. That's how accidents happen.
Angel: Speaking of accidents, I'm a friend of Cordelia Chase.
Wilson: This is a private club. Featured word: private.
Angel: Hey, you don't talk to me, I'll kick your ass. Featured word: ass.

LA Who's Who: You may recognise Ken Marino, Cordelia's baby daddy, from such things as Role Models and Wet Hot American Summer.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Somnambulist, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - Somnambulist

Previously on Angel: Angel is still haunted by the crimes he committed in his alter-ego state as the infamous vampire, Angelus. Wesley is now residing in LA after he was fired from the Watcher's Council and wishes to help out with Angel Investigations.

Angel's having nightmares about draining victims in LA and carving a Christian cross into their left cheek. It turns out that there just happens to be a serial killer doing the exact same thing and Kate is on the case. On his return to the office, Wesley notices the connection between the serial killer's modus operandi and that of the seventeenth century Angelus. Angel's spotted it too and upon realising that Angel is somehow committing the crimes in his sleep, they realise that it's the work of a vampire he sired back in the day, keen to relive their life of murderous crime together. With Kate on the case too, it's not long before she discovers the truth about Angel.

I feel like there needs to be some kind of health warning in any episodes where Angelus' Irish accent is deployed. Doubly so for this episode when Jeremy Renner is acting English. It's not quite on the Keanu Reeves in Dracula end of the Bad Accent spectrum, or indeed Angelus', but it's thankfully brief at its most potent and weirdly Transatlantic for the rest of the episode. He's a decent guest star, but nothing memorable, mainly because he's playing a caricature of Angelus, rather than a character of his own, which is kind of the point. I also like that he had no idea about Angel's curse, which suggests he was a pet project of Angelus' outside of the central crew of Darla, Drusilla and the Master, suffering an inferiority complex forever as a result.

After Parting Gifts, this episode becomes a reaffirmation of the show's structure. There's no mention of Doyle and the focus moves away from the team and back in on Angel himself. It's a key episode in terms of his relationship with Kate, transforming their relationship entirely now that she knows the truth. That's the big plot development here, but the episode suffers from treading over old ground too much in order to move the show on from the fairly big change that resulted from Doyle's death.

There have been a lot of references to Angelus throughout this series and in Angel's appearance on sister show Buffy in Amends when everyone keeps asking if he's evil again. There's a nice reminder of it here, not in the flashbacks, but in Kate's profile of the serial killer, overlaid with Angel wandering through LA trying to figure out how to stop Penn. Angelus is something he has to live with and something that becomes increasingly important to his fight across the five seasons of his own show.  But it's the same message we've had again and again throughout the season. 

It's here where the first season shows the cracks in its quality, never really having any thematic resonance beyond that. Even the idea that fuelled a couple of the early episodes, that the monsters of LA were the equivalent to the torment of being an adult, is a retread of the Buffy formula that quickly gets forgotten over the course of the episode. The Shanshu Prophecy is, of course, on the horizon and Wolfram & Hart are lurking in the background, but this is still a show searching for its own identity and not quite succeeding just yet.

Quote of the Week:

Wesley: No sign of any vampire attack... [gets grabbed by Penn] Which is maybe because he's here and has me by the throat. 

Inventive Kill: Kate bags her first vamp, stabbing a huge piece of wood through Angel, missing his heart but impaling Penn's. 

LA Who's Who: I can't not put Jeremy Renner in this little section. Since his brief appearance in Angel, he's gone on to an Oscar nomination, appearing as an Avenger and saying douchey sexist things to the press. So, that's nice. He also goes on to appear alongside Elizabeth Rohm (Kate) in American Hustle, playing husband and wife.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Parting Gifts, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - Hero

Previously on Angel: Buffy had been in town to confront Angel about Thanksgiving and leaves after about five minutes, but in this timeline, only Angel knows of an alternative path in which he became human and gave it all up to continue his battle with the forces of evil. Doyle has fancied Cordelia from the start, but is afraid that if she learns he's half demon, she'd reject him.

So after last week's episode full of pain and sacrifice and loss, we get Hero. An episode full of pain and sacrifice and loss. Doyle is finally nearing the courage to tell Cordelia that he is half demon when he has a vision of several half-human/half-demon refugees cowering in a dank basement. They're on the run from the Scourge, a gang of pure-blood demons who loathe "half-breeds" and seek their extermination. It's not the first time Doyle has had a run in with them and they prove to be his biggest test as he seeks his own brand of atonement.

When we have news stories of American states shutting down their borders to refugees forced to give up their homes and money for safe passage to another country and openly discriminatory people advocating ID cards are running for Presidential candidacy, Hero is one of those episodes whose poignancy has only grown with time. It's no coincidence that the Scourge run around in uniforms that wouldn't look out of place in the Third Reich; they're pure blood demons who have a real loathing of anyone with mixed human heritage. Prejudice is confronted on several levels; Doyle has to confront his own self-loathing for his demon half whilst Cordy has to break down her own misconceptions about demons built from her experiences in Sunnydale.

In 2002, Glenn Quinn died after an accidental heroin overdose, adding another layer of tragedy to any watches of this episode. During his short tenure on Angel, he crafted a character that fans fell in love with, creating a legacy in just nine episodes that fans still talk about to this day. Quinn had an easy charm that he brought to deal and a clear, droll sense of humour that fit well within the realms of the Whedonverse comedy stylings. That Doyle gets Whedoned early in the season was part of the plan early on which means that all of Doyle's loose narrative threads are wrapped up in this one episode. Cordelia learns of his half-demon blood and reacts with characteristic candour, admonishing him for not telling her and then asking him if he's ever going to ask her out for dinner. He never gets chance, instead kissing her before he dies and passing on his visions.

Earlier in the series, he told Angel that everyone has something to atone for and here, we learn what Doyle's particular event was. He was approached by a fellow Brachen demon seeking refuge from the Scourge and Doyle refused to help, knowing that he would be getting involved in something far bigger than he is. When he receives a vision of them all dead shortly after, he goes to their hiding place to find out if what he was shown was the truth. He finds them massacred. When the Scourge returns, he confesses all to Angel, but only realises what his test will be when the beacon is about to go off and will kill anyone in close range with human blood. Doyle jumps and succeeds, sacrificing his life in the process.

If I Will Remember You was the episode in which Angel finally and literally cast off Buffy, then Hero is the one that reinforces its darker and perhaps loftier ambitions. In my look at I Will Remember You, I talked about Angel's sacrifice and need for redemption, which has been the show's driving force from the start. To immediately follow the episode with the same themes could seem repetitive, but the show gets around that by having it as the story of Doyle's redemption. It's also an episode about the cost of fighting the good fight. Like Jesse back in Buffy's first episode or Jenny Calendar (at the hands of Angel himself, lest we forget) in the second season, the audience needs reminding of the high stakes involved in such a quest. Angel may get a happy ending, but there will be casualties along the way.

I'm of the opinion that Hero gets harder and harder to watch each time, but the coincidental relevance to ongoing news events gives it that extra layer of tragedy. It may have functioned as a simple Holocaust allegory back when it first aired, but now it's taken on whole new levels of meaning. I don't know anyone who can get through this episode without shedding a tear and if you can, well, you're more in control of your emotions than I am. It's certainly not an episode I enjoy revisiting, despite its brilliance.

Quote of the Week:

Doyle [in the Angel Investigations ad]: Come on over to our offices and you'll see that there's still heroes in this world... Is that it? Am I done?

LA Who's Who: Sean Gunn! Sean Gunn plays Lucas. And who is Sean Gunn? Brother of Guardians of the Galaxy director James and the real hero of Gilmore Girls, Kirk. He'll re-appear sans blue pin cushion face in the episode, She. There's also Lee Arenberg who goes on to play Pintel in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl alongside Mackenzie Crook's Ragetti.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, I Will Remember You, here.

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FEATURE: Angel - Sense and Sensitivity

Previously on Angel: Angel met Detective Kate Lockley on a routine investigation about a weird chest-sucking demon thing; she naturally assumed he's a serial killer, but hey, he saved her life and now they're pals who help each other out.

Kate's currently trying to track down a mobster wanted for murder, Little Tony Papazian and enlists Angel's help in tracking him down. Thanks to Doyle's networks, Angel gets the job done, leaving Kate to arrest Papazian. She gets a little too aggressive with him during the interview and a lawyer, Mercer, from Wolfram & Hart succeeds in getting the entire precinct to take part in sensitivity training. However, after the training, everyone gets a little too sensitive; Kate breaks down and confesses her daddy issues to her father at his retirement party in front of a bunch of cops, which promptly results in everyone breaking down as a result of their own sensitivity training. Angel and the gang get involved and try to resolve the situation before Little Tony can get to Kate.

There's a fun conceit at the heart of this episode, one which feels a lot like the Buffy episode Band Candy, when Sunnydale's adult population were cursed with returning to their teenage personalities. Here, the sensitivity training and magic talking stick allows the LAPD to get in touch with their inner feelings whilst reducing them to a bunch of emotive wrecks. It never works quite as well as its Buffy counterpart though because apart from Angel and, at a push, Kate, we don't know the personalities involved as well as we did Giles, Joyce or Snyder. The comedy derived from seeing them regress from the people we knew and therefore operated on a much deeper level than anything Sense and Sensitivity can achieve.

It doesn't help that we, as an audience, are still getting to know Kate; we know she's pretty ruthless and efficient at her job. She's one for a dry sense of humour and might be attracted to Angel. What this episode does is allow us to get under her skin whilst the narrative fills in a lot of her background fairly swiftly. Her daddy issues are ridiculously cliched, but the performance of Rohm makes up for it, resisting the easy route of breaking down hysterically at her father and instead opting for a more measured approach that escalates as she revealed how craply he had treated her. The episode's boldest move is to not have this resolved at the end.

It's easy to imagine that in Buffy, a similar situation would have ended with her father attempting a reconciliation at the end, or at least acknowledging his behaviour. For Angel, it's much more fitting to have the ending that is given; he simply shows up to scold her for making a fool of herself, ignoring anything she said and outwardly stating he's going to pretend it never happened. Angel observes this scene from a quiet corner along with the audience and it feels as if we're witnessing a personal snapshot. The moment is a quietly heartbreaking one and affirms that, in Angel's world, some things just aren't meant to be fixed and this is a relationship that won't ever be mended.

I've already spoken about the comedy of the central conceit and how it doesn't land so much for the police characters, but to end on a more positive note, let's talk about how amusing Angel is when he's being all sensitive and cuddly. David Boreanaz lands his lines so brilliantly, especially the moment where he confesses that he feels Cordy and Doyle judge him when he vamps out. Charisma Carpenter is the perfect foil as Cordelia gets more exasperated and less sensitive towards her boss as she goes on. As I said before, it works much better here because we know the characters' personalities so well and the awkward hug that Angel proffers to his colleagues makes the rest of the episode truly worth it. And obviously the Hawaiian shirt, hat and Baltimore accent at the beginning is just brilliant.

I still can't quite decide whether or not I like this episode. Admittedly, a large part of that has to do with it being Kate-centric and the show is still unsure of what to do with her, though the episode works hard to get more of a character background in place, as cliched as that might be. Yet it's probably all worth it for the chance to see Angel go full warm and fuzzy on us.

Quote of the Week:

Angel: You know, Antony, you could be a rainbow and not a [punches Little Tony] "pain" bow.

- Becky

You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Rm W/A Vu, here.

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