“Boning your mom and trying to kill your dad? There should be a play...”
And suddenly things get brilliant. The season was looking a bit aimless for a while, I admit I spent a couple of episodes getting a bit worried, but this episode pays off a lot of the things that seemed aimless at the time and does so in a way that gives each and every character some real development. The “previously on” at the beginning makes it clear just how much of a build-up there’s been, with the Gunn/Fred/Wes triangle and the Cordy/Connor shagging.
Cleverly, the pre-credits scene is entirely devoted to bugging up Angelus and how devious and evil he is, how he will use his verbal dexterity to sow discord and weakness so he can kill everyone. And the episode sees this largely play out as Angelus picks at various scabs. The love triangle is an obvious one, quickly leading to Gunn catching Wes kissing Fred, fisticuffs between the two men and Gunn accidentally hitting Fred. Then there’s the outing of the Cordy/Connor comshocking and of course the easy e ploitation of the ever-snotty Connor who, revealingly, sees Angelus as his real father; Angel is “just something that you’re forced to wear”.
Worse, though, is the eexploitation of Cordy’s general ugliness; he will give them information to save the world and he can have her for whatever depraved purposes he wishes. Ouch. Of course, his information proves useless, but we get the definite sense that he’s going to be asserting his claim.
And he certainly can, as the cliffhanger shows: Angel’s soul is missing, and it looks as though he’ll be sticking around for a while...
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