Angel: Couplet

“Relax. If there’s one thing Groo knows, it’s how to handle a weapon.”

So, after last episode, it’s Jealousy, Part II, again with both Angel and Wesley. There’s some wit and some fun. And there is also, I gather from the final scenes, a hint of some impending darkness.

Angel’s jealousy of Groo is played largely for laughs. Angel is jealous, yes, and amusingly childish about it, but he’s old enough to have perspective, and is much reassured both by a nice little pep talk from Wesley and by saving the day from the rather token evil tree demon of the week. Wesley is less so; Gunn and Fred are in the cute early throes of love, and he feels it. And behind the learned exterior he’s young and less mature.

So their reactions are quite a contrast; Angel helps Cordy to get a potion allowing her to have sex with Groo without losing her visions, and ends the episode by paying for them both to have a holiday somewhere for a couple of episodes- a little strange from a father who wants to save for his baby son, but honourable. Wesley, meanwhile, strikes the wrong tone in a conversation with Gunn, until now his closest friend, and is beginning to look a little isolated. Not a good time, then, for him to find a prophecy that “the father will kill the son”...

An excellent episode, even if evil Cordelia does want her man to cut his hair short. No woman is ever getting rid of my flowing locks...!