Angel: Players

"He's just making it up as he goes along!"

To some extent this is a quiet episode with time to breathe and enjoy a mini-break from full-on arc stuff, an episode the like of which we haven't seen much lately. But it's also cleverly titled, with both episodes about people being played.

This is first and foremost a Gunn episode, as Gwen (remember her?) suddenly turns up and asks for his help in a caper that she assures him is all in a good cause. The tricks him, a little, but he still has fun, and Gwen tells him firmly that he's far more than just the muscle, as he's been recently told by a manipulative Angelus and an angry Wesley. Even better, the damsel in distress turns out to be Gwen herself and the MacGuffin that is the subject of their heist turns out to be a devise that can cut off her electric charge, at least for a while, so for the first time in her life she can have physical intimacy. And she wants that to be with Gunn.This must be a rather confidence-boosting night for Gunn, and the fact that he gets no-strings rebound sex with a rather attractive and highly intelligent virgin who has risked her life to sleep with him can't hurt either.

Meanwhile, the gang all learn that Cordy is pregnant, Connor is the father and the pregnancy is abnormally far along, all very suddenly, and are somewhat taken aback. Given this baby's heritage, I'm not surprised. Cue lots of research, including a subtle scene where Fred and Wes discuss relationships, and why he got with Lilah. They are slowly coming to understand each other.

We get lots of disturbing gaslighting scenes between Cordy and Connor, and Cordy wandering around pretending not to be evil. But, as the last scene shows, she's been played, and is caught red handed. It's quite the hook, and quite the episode.

Angel: Long Day’s Journey

“We need Angelus..."

Obviously there's a lot of plot here- this big, apocalyptic demon is still loose in LA and up to stuff, rather fortunately giving our heroes room to mope and have character stuff happen, making this a good episode. It's unclear where all this is heading, though; it's done with skill and wit, but at this point the season arc feels a little... aimless.

Character-wise, though, a lot happens, not least a load of awkward but unavoidable conversations between Angel and Cordy. As predicted, Wes is now part of the gang again, smoothed over by a subtle comment by Lorne, and the verbal sparring between him and Gunn is toned down accordingly. Instead, Gunn feels very uncomfortable with Fred and Wes spending so much time researching together.

Oh, and our electric friend Gwen is back; it seems she wasn’t just a one-of character after all. I bet she dies next episode as her plot function seems to be for Angel to ostentatiously spend time with her to make Cordelia jealous.

Deliciously, though, all these little arguments between the characters add extra frisson to the probability that one of the gang is a fifth columnist working with the Beast, currently very busy murdering a bunch of typically Buffyverse eccentric yet powerful cultists of the god Ra, so he can blot out the Sun and make a more demon-friendly LA, as you do. And he succeeds completely, with a little help from his friend. Who is, it seems... Angelus. That explains Angel’s blackouts and gives us s better inkling of exactly where this season is going. We finish with Wes proposing a rather daring plan. Good stuff, but I have no idea what the season arc is going to look like at nearly the halfway point. Is good characterisation of scriptwriting hiding a cobbled together arc or are they being clever?

Angel: Ground State

"Damn. This is so much harder than it looks on Batman."

This is, I suppose, an example of a functional, non-stand-out episode of Angel; the nearest it comes to a "meh" episode, to treading water. So it's saying a lot about the high quality of the show at this point that it's nevertheless bloody good.

We begin, unusually, with an introduction to a one-off character: Gwen. She gets a lot of prominence, and the pre-titles sequence also shows us a semi-origin; was she supposed to return? (I assume she doesn't; I have in fact watched the entire Buffyverse before and don't remember her returning, but it was a long time ago.) Or was this partly intended as some sort of pilot? I don't know, and don't want to look it up because spoilers. But she's a cool character- a cat burglar with deadly electrical powers and lots of it. But is she some kind of Marvel-style mutant or something? How do her powers fit into Buffyverse mythology?

Anyway, the plot is both her and Angel, Gunn and Fred competing on a heist for a valuable Macguffin called the Axis of Pythia (lots of Greek mythology this episode; we get hints that the Eleusinian Mysteries are more than just ritual, so do Pagan pantheons actually exist in the Buffyverse, and what are they?), all as a means for Angel and co to learn and accept where Cordelia has gone- which eventually they do, much to Cordy's annoyance.

We also get to see Angel trying to reach out to a cold Wesley, perspective having given him the will to forgive. We also see a bemused Angel find out that Wes is sleeping with Lilah in a fascinatingly and sexily twisted relationship, if we can call it that. And, of course, we see Fred begin to crack under all the pressure of holding everything together for the last three months.

That's an awful lot going on for an episode which, I suspect, is no one's season highlight.