Angel: Orpheus

“You tell me, it’s your flashback!”

Angel has been awesome over the last few episodes, so it’s quite something to say that this episode stands out as being superlative. But it does. The structure seems simple at first and is easy to grasp; Faith is dying from the mystical opiate she ingested to trick and spike Angelus, while Angelus is under a lot of tranquillisers. They share an extended flashback of Angel’s twentieth century while guest star Willow (yay- it’s fantastic to see her interacting with everyone) re-ensouls Angel while evil Cordy tries to stop her.

But of course it’s more than that. It’s about redemption; the big twist is simply that the flashback of Angel’s redemptive life is not for the benefit of Angelus, but entirely for Faith. Dying is easy; redemption is hard. But these sequences work mainly because of the coolness of Faith, and the awesomeness of Eliza Dushku. Angel will miss her, but never mind; she’s off to Sunnyvale soon.

Incidentally, I thought that crossovers has been a big no-no ever since Buffy and Angel have been on different networks. What’s changed here?

There’s a lot else going on, of course. There’s the chat between ex-baddie Willow and Wesley that puts his dark side into perspective. There’s the increasingly and worrying nature of the relationship between the manipulative Evil Cordy and young, naive Connor, which this episode extends to physical abuse and unambiguous gaslighting. The kid may be annoying, but no one deserves that. There’s ‘70s Angel, with the hair.

Then there’s the last scene, with a rather kinky looking Cordy emerging. Is she about to drop that sprog? I for one have no idea what’s about to happen, which is precisely what I love about this season.