Angel: Origin

"In gratitude, I grant you three wishes."

"Really?"

"Nah, I'm just messing with you."

Connor, inevitably, is back for an episode. This shouldn’t surprise us. What does come as a pleasant surprise, though, is how well it’s done, and how the fact that Angel altered reality and everybody’s memories acts to drive a wedge between him and Wesley in particular.

Connor’s life may be a lie, and his memories false, but these lies have made him into a healthy, pleasant, well-adjusted young man with a strong relationship with his family and a place at Stanford. He still has superhuman endurance, though, which brings him to the attention of Wolfram and Hart, and although Angel initially, to the gang’s confusion, runs away from the problem, he can’t keep himself away. He soon learns from Marcus that the Senior Partners have nothing to do with putting Connor back in his life- instead Cyvus Vail, the demon who changed Connor’s memories, no wants to use Connor to kill Sahjahn as is, of course, prophesied. Although why Vail didn’t try to do this earlier I have no idea.

I like Cyvus Vail. He’s a witty, likeable character as is Sahjahn. It’s a shame that one of them has to die, and so Sahjahn adds to this season’s growing body count. It’s a fun and entertaining set of scenes, paralleled with the horrifying Wesley discovering the truth about the reality shift, and restoring everyone’s memories.

This will, I suspect, affect Wesley’s trust for Angel, especially as early dialogue to Illyria highlighted how much he trusts his boss at that point. But the interesting effect on Connor; at first he seems to become his old, wild self and kills Sahjahn, only to return to his well-adjusted self. And the final scenes hint that, although he has his old memories back and knows the truth, he remains the man his new memories made him and chooses his current life- a mature, healthy response.

Meanwhile, Gunn is being regularly tortured in the cellar in a quest for redemption. So keen is he to redeem himself that he turns down an offer of release from Marcus- no more deals with the devil for him, no matter what the cost. This scene is here to show he’s learned his lesson; I suspect his days in Hell are numbered.

Another great episode, then. But aren’t they all at the moment?