Angel: Peace Out

"I know she's a lie!"

And so the whole Jasmine storyline ends, suddenly. It works, it’s a good piece of telly, but you can see the joins as Angel is sidelined off in some CGI dimension where cliffhangers are easily resolved and high priests taunt him about his relationship with his son. Still, this strand successfully builds up what would otherwise be a deus ex machina ending in which Jasmine’s powers are suddenly revoked when Angel suddenly arrives.

As for the other cliffhanger, it feels a bit of a cheat that none of the rest of the gang are killed, instead spending most of the episode in a cell while the drama happens between Jasmine and Connor, who is the episode’s real focus. Still, at least the shared experience has seemingly brought the gang together and papered over some of their differences.

It’s explicitly revealed that Connor has always seen Jasmine’s real face, but doesn’t care. He needs something to believe in and, as he says in his little soliloquy beside a comatose Cordy (has Charisma Carpenter been sacked or something?), it’s nit that he’s naive enough to believe Jasmine but her lies are better than all the other lies.

Interesting, then, that is should be he that kills her, shortly before seemingly sodding off for good, which I suspect many of us wouldn’t mind. Less interesting is the half-hearted debate between Angel and Jasmine about paradise vs. freedom; I trust we all side against tyranny on that one.

So it’s a witty and well-scripted episode, one that actually makes good use of Connor, but one where a good script can’t quite paper over the awkward pacing of the plot, not even with its wit. But we end up with the status quote seemingly restored and our heroes back in the hotel- and up pops the seemingly alive Lilah...