Angel: Smile Time

"You're a wee little puppet man!"

This is obviously the best episode ever. Let’s get that right out there. I mean, what’s not to adore? A bunch of evil Sesame Street puppets plotting to steal the life force of innocent kids for to sell to Hell for a massive profit; puppets controlling the puppeteer, played by David Fury himself... oh, and of course there’s little puppet Angel. And the trying-not-to-laugh reactions of the hand. And Spike’s reaction. Especially Spike’s reaction.

But that’s not all. There’s an interesting scene where the puppeteer skews Gunn and Lorne (finally getting a decent role) for working for an organisation that gets guilty people off and is, shall we say, somewhat lacking in ethics. We have Gunn continuing to have his legal upgrade fade away, taking away his purpose in life and leading to, as it gets called, Flowers for Algernon syndrome. He gets offered a deal with the devil for a permanent upgrade and next time we see him he seems to be lawyered up again- what happened?

Then there’s Nina, back again as it’s that time of the month, and besotted with Angel, whose awkward handling of this is quite hilarious, as is the scene where Wes tells him like it is, while himself completely failing to notice that Fred has now dumped Knox and is blatantly signalling at him. So it’s heartearming to see Angel and Nina finally agreeing to a date, and the punch the air moment that is that kiss between Fred and Wes.

Now, Mr. Whedon... I can’t help remembering what you did after Willow and Rara got back together so joyously in Buffy. You’re not about to do anything, well, evil are you?