Angel: Inside Out

"Guy steps out for a few hours, half the place goes supervillain."

This episode is about as much a game changer as it’s possible to be. Cordy has been exposed and confronted as the baddie and is freed to spend all of her time quite openly mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ing. Except, that is, she’s still grooming (the word gets used) and gaslighting Connor.

Ah, Connor. We’ve discussed how annoying he is before, but he creaky crosses a line here, and seems as though he’s genuinely meant to come across as an annoying little shit. Even his mother’s ghost, sent by the Powers to speak to him, are unable to get through. He’s completely under the spell of whatever’s controlling Cordelia, and goes as far as to be an accessory to the cold-blooded murder of an innocent girl. His hands are quite literally dipped in blood.

We learn a lot, too; the thing controlling Cordy has been manipulating events for a long time, including Cordy’s ascension and an awful lot of recent events. Much seems to be depressingly pre-ordained, although Gunn gets a wonderful speech about how some amount of agency still exists. Skip, of course, has always been in on it and is, in fact, evil.

We also get a big montage of how it was in fact Cordy who did all sorts of unexplained things over the course of many episodes, and Wesley comes to realise that it was her who killed Lilah. It’s moving to see the renewed friendship between Angel and Wes here as Angel cares because Wes does, a nice moment.

It all ends with a flash of light as the baby is born and turns out to be Gina Torres, getting a compensation role after the cancellation of Firefly. And everyone kneels before her. Yet another twist in a series that glories in having no status quo. This is brilliant stuff and it’s looking awfully like a rather brilliant series with not long to go.