"Hermanos! The Devil has built a robot!"
This is, I suppose, as bog standard and disposable as episodes of Angel get. It certainly feels that way. And yet it’s still bloody good telly and masterful in its use of character. As I’ve become fond of saying, if this is a disposable episode then colour me impressed.
The tale of Number Five is heartwarming enough, entertaining, fun, and a good hook for an episode. I’m a little puzzled as to why Holland Manners would headhunt him personally and then have him spend fifty years in a menial job, but meh. And what are these menial internal nail jobs anyway? You see them everywhere in American films and telly but they must surely have been rendered extinct by email. Perhaps even in 2003 they would surely be well on the way out?
Anyway, all the stuff with the wrestlers and Aztec demon is fun, even for those of us who do t live on a country bordering Mexico and who don’t necessarily know much about the culture. It works as an A story. But I think the story is really about Angel and his motivation to keep being a hero. At the start we see him disengaged, a contrast to Gunn who loves getting up in the morning now he can use his lawyer superpowers to do good and make a difference. The problem is, of course, that he’s lost faith in the Shanshu prophecy, but the events of the episode cause him to perhaps rekindle that faith. All this Shanshu stuff is going to be important soon then. And it must apply to Angel, apparently, as Spike is a ghost...
This is perhaps my least favourite episode of the season so far. And it’s still bloody excellent.
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