Angel: Why We Fight

"You're a Nazi!"

"What? Oh, no, I just ate one."

Meh. Well, there had to be an episode that failed to impress at some point during this otherwise excellent season. This episode, well it's just dull filler.

Submarines can be the scene of taut, exciting thrillers, but not here. I'm not sure whether it's the script or the direction, but the location is not so much atmospherically claustrophobic as limited, grey and dull. And, much as I love flashbacks, what's the relevance of all this? Yes, it's fun to see Spike interrogating Nazis. It's fun to see an old, supposedly powerful vampire who looks just like Nosferatu, an obvious reference. But none of this needs a whole episode.

Worse, the present day sequences, with Lawson taking Angel's mates hostage in a half-hearted sort of way before an obligatory so-so fight at the end, is token in the extreme. So what's the point of all this? Oh, it's to show that Angel once sired someone, in extreme circumstances, after regaining his soul. That's it. It has no wider relevance to anything lse and no doubt will never be referred to again.

So is there anything we can salvage? Well, it's confirmed Eve is gone, and the White Room liaison to the Senior Partners has indeed vanished too. And what's that lapse of memory from Gunn? Is his lawyer brain beginning to fade now the Senior Partners are cut off...? Interesting, but all this just reiterates stuff currently happening. There can be no episode duller and more skippable than this.