Angel: Not Fade Away

"Good night, folks."

This is it, then. The end. And, my God, that was magnificent.

The plot of the episode could be reduced to “the gang kill every single member of the Circle of the Black Thorn, and some of them die” but, of course, the plot is not the point. This final episode lives and breathes character, feeling, and the positively existential message that yes, doing good may make no difference in the long run in a world that will always be corrupt and unjust, but we do it anyway, with joyous defiance, as something much bigger than our lives. That message lies beneath everything in this final episode.

Angel must keep up appearances, of course, and early on he is made to sign away the Shanshu Prophecy. But then he is, of course, a hero. Heroes do good because of who they are and not because of any reward, just as one does not need to believe in a Heaven to be moral. Neither does Angel, and neither do any of his friends.

But it isn’t all grim; the gang get to spend one last day doing what they love before they probably die that night. So Lorne sings. Angel spends time with Connor, and sees what a well-adjusted and happy young man he is. Spike gets drunk and performs at a poetry slam. Gunn, wonderfully, does charity work with our old friend Annie who, as much as anyone, articulates what the episode is about- if there are, indeed, corrupt forces ensuring that there will never be justice or an end to suffering, the proper response is to get to work and comfort the suffering. Hopelessness achieves nothing, however justified. We do good regardless.

Wesley, tragically, has no possible perfect days; spending it with the god king inhabiting Fred’s body is the best he can do. There is no joy for him, only grim determination and, anyway “I don’t actually intend to die tonight.” Like Hamilton later, this is something he probably shouldn’t have said.

The Circle are all killed, but not without cost. Wesley dies in Illyria’s arms as she lies to him, his last words being to tell Fred that he loved her. Alexis Denisof is simply magnificent in portraying a character who has had a rich and deep arc, and the same must be said for J August Richards, as Gunn’s arc this season has been deeply satisfying. We are shocked to see a dejected Lorne murder Lindsey before walking away forever. We are less shocked to see Harmony betray her boss and then ask for a reference, but that kind of juxtaposition is something I’ll miss enormously.

And so the survivors gather to face the consequences, with no hope of survival but happy against the odds. And then it ends. Has any season finale ever been better than this?

RIP Angel. RIP Buffyverse. You were loved.

Angel: Power Play

“You’re my hero.”

“I may not always be.”

The penultimate episode. We’re scarily close to the end.

This is an episode of set-up for the grand finale, yes, but it’s also a suspenseful piece of self-contained drama in its own right as we wonder whether Angel truly has been reduced by the dark side, by a taste for power. Only with Nina, in hindsight, is he truly honest, if oblique, about his desires and feelings, and the way he dumps her is even more heartbreaking once we realise why. But much of the episode shows him indifferent to the suffering of the little people, agreeing to destroy the opponent of an evil senator, and generally doing things that seem to be evil in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Circle of the Black Thorn.  Only at the end so we discover his true purpose- to strike a blow against evil which will not stop it, or apocalypse, in the long run but will be a worthwhile gesture, from which there is no coming back. And Wesley, Gunn and Spike are all with him.

It’s worth comparing Angel’s earlier speech about power to what he says here. Yes, the world will always be controlled by the powerful. Yes, evil can not be stopped and fighting it is in a sense futile. But that’s not the point. One can choose to be good as a glorious gesture, and give one’s life meaning. This is not a religious argument for morality but almost an existential one. And it’s glorious.

The Circle of the Black Thorn includes many people we have met before- the Duke of Sebassis, Cyvus Vale, that devil bloke that Angel plays squash with, a useful shortcut for the viewer. We also see Illyria being subtly humanised a little. Various characters play Crash Bandicoot, which Mrs Llamastrangler introduced me to a few years ago, and Illyria sees it as a metaphor for life- annoying but addictive. There’s still room for humour, and humanity. An epic episode, as ever for Angel, is leavened with humanity. That’s a big reason why I’m going to miss this programme.

But it’s time to look forward, nervously. Forty-odd minutes to go...

Angel: Underneath

"This isn't Hell. It's the 'burbs."

This is an excellent finely crafted piece of television drama. The script is superb; I feel I haven’t praised Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft highly enough so here’s me doing it now. They are brilliant, whether it’s characterisation or plot, and their dialogue may not have the playfulness of a Joss Whedon but has a delightfully wry wit. I’ll miss them, and am puzzled at how little else they seem to have written.

This is a pivotal arc episode, of course; Lindsey is rescued so he can tell Angel what the Senior Partners are up to, namely corrupting him and his friends to keep the distracted from “the” Apocalypse, which is apparently the actual one and not one of those common or garden apocalypses that happen at the end of most Buffyverse seasons. It also sees Eve sign away her job, and her immortality, to a new liaison from the Senior Partners played by none other than Adam Baldwin, another Firefly alumnus. It’s cleverly done how he’s presented as an unstoppable threat who arrives implacably in front of Eve and produces... a pen.

Lindsey’s “holding dimension” is fascinating, reached by a magical car that evokes KITT from Knight Rider- we are primed to expect a Hell yet our first sight of him he looks very post-coital with his beautiful wife. Lindsey has a beautiful family in an enormous picket fence house but he seems to be afraid of the cellar. Only later do we find that he’s tortured there daily.

And here, of course, lies Gunn’s redemption. I love Angel’s pep talk to him as one who should know- yes, Gunn will forever be tormented by what he has done and yes, he should be. But he’s a good man and needs to atone. And that’s what he does- by taking Lindsey’s place in full knowledge that means daily torture. Redemption indeed.

But Lorne is headed in no such direction. Having run away unable to face Fred’s death he’s been drinking himself silly, depressed and disillusioned. He may have decided to  return and pretend to be functioning but he’s clearly shocked to see Angel and Spike without Gunn.

All this and we get done nicely scripted interplay between a very grim Wesley and an Illyria horrified at her relative weakness. We still don’t like her yet, but the script is gamely trying.

Absolutely first class telly.

Angel: You're Welcome

"She's evil, you gormless tit!"

So we finally get to say a proper goodbye to both the magnificent Cordelia Chase and the brilliant Charisma Carpenter. I will miss them both. Angel without Cordy was- perhaps is- unthinkable. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes beyond the pregnancy to enforce her departure, but I’m glad she came back for a good send-off.

And a send-off it is. We begin with Angel losing the will to continue at Wolfram & Hart and deciding to quit, despite strong opposition from a still very fulfilled Gunn, until he is interrupted by a phone call about the still comatose Cordelia, the details of which we don’t hear. And, when the gang visits her to find an awake and well and hugging Cordy we only get a quick dismissive mention of the dying woman in her room, a nice bit of misdirection.

It’s good to see all the touching reunions, but Cordy is somewhat appalled to see the deal with the devil that has taken place- I love the way that as soon as she says this a Red Devil shakes Angel’s hand and says “Racquetball Thursday?”- and perhaps even more disturbed to see an Angel who seems to be losing his Mojo. There’s a touching scene where Angel sees her watching that video Doyle made all that time ago, the “first soldier down”, she gets to apologise to Wes about Lilah, and it isn’t long before Cordy and co work out just how Spike has been used by Eve and Lindsey. The fight between Angel and Lindsey that follows is all a metaphor for Angel and his mojo; when he rediscovers it, he wins, and that’s because of Cordy.

Eve is in trouble, and I love Harmony’s cheerful offer to torture her. But as Lindsey is grabbed by the irate Senior Partners and Eve is sent away it seems that all is well for the moment, and it’s tome for the pub, the gang all in good spirits. Angel and Cordy have a quick hug before she tells him she can’t stay, and then they finally get a snog. And then the phone call happens, and she’s been dead all this time. She never woke up. Second soldier down. What an episode.

Angel: Soul Purpose

"No offence, Mr.Vader, but I've got no itch to join the evil empire."

An interesting episode, this; directed by David Boreanaz while also being very much an episode about Angel himself, his new insecurities about the Shanshu Prophecy and Spike, and his ethical problems with the power he now wields. I love the dream sequences, and the opening is clever, reconstructing the scene with the cup of suffering from a couple of episodes ago but then diverging from it in dreamlike fashion.

Meanwhile there’s an interesting B plot in which Lindsey approaches Spike, who doesn’t know him, pretending to be called “Doyle” and to have visions of people needing help, slowly pushing Spike into the role Angel has now left but while maintaining a subtle control over him, all simultaneously with pushing Angel down. It seems his intention is to trick the Senior Partners into thinking Spike and not Angel is indeed the prophesied one- and those tattoos which the horny Eve finds so sexy are magically preventing them from seeing him. This is a nice little twist, especially with the ironic use of the show’s tropes.

Wesley and Gunn are in their element with theirs Machiavellian plans and plots, but I think their tendency to act outside Angel’s authority is something very much not confined to just this episode. And certainly the whole team just allows themselves to be distracted by their roles, manipulated by Eve, allowing the parasite to feed on Angel. It was Lindsay who sent Spike both the amulet and the parcel, and he and Eve appear to be successfully manipulating everyone- except Spike. Ever the rebel, it is he who rescues Angel and I think his speech to Gunn and Wesley carries a lot of weight; he’s the hero here, and in D&D language he’s very much changed from chaotic evil to chaotic good. He doesn’t like Wolfram and Hart with it’s lawful evil ways. Spike is being treated as the actual hero even by the narrative.

We end with Eve under suspicion but perhaps succeeding in fomenting discord. A superb episode and, perhaps, a pivotal one.

Angel: Destiny

"Try staking your mother when she's coming on to you!"

"Wow, that explains a lot...!

Well, this is certainly an arc episode; before we even get the titles Spike received a parcel that goes flash and suddenly returns him to corporeality. Enter eating, drinking, shagging Harmony and, as foreshadowed a couple of episodes ago, a sudden ambiguity over exactly who the Shanshu prophecy nw applies to.

This causes a certain amount of problems with reality in order to create some kind of external threat, and this is solved suddenly at the end by some deus ex machina from the Senior Partners. But that’s ok; none of that is the real focus. It’s the effect on both Angel and Spike on realising that the Shanshu prophecy could now apply to either of them, and the fact that Spike defeats Angel at the end on Sirk’s  Little wild goose chase; he wants it more. And, along with all the flashbacks from 1880 with the two of them, Dru, and the awkward absence of Darla, this is a kind of culmination of a very long running struggle between the two of them, and something which I suspect may go on to define the season.

Other characters are there too, of course, although Wes is on leave. Gunn is increasingly confident and motivated, and Angel instinctively puts him in charge when he nips off to Death Valley. Lorne as a character is now starting to seem worryingly underserved this season. And the White Room is gone, along with the link to the Senior Partners.

The ending is fantastic, though- after spending much of the episode trying to convince everyone that “I’m not the bad guy”, she returns home to reveal that she’s personally behind the wild goose chase and she has a partner. Lindsey...

Angel: Dead End

"Back in the '50s we all thought life would be like The Jetsons now..."

I'm rather enjoying this ongoing and deadly competition for corporate advancement between Lila and Lindsey. Pity it ends today, and Lindsey seems to have some kind of epiphany and buggers off just when it seems he's won, but it was fun while it lasted, this episode included.

The early scenes, using ready- tied ties to emphase Lindsey's reduced mobility with his hand gone, also emphasise both his alienation and the awfulness of fashion in 2001. But the stakes soon rise as we realise that one of either he or Lila will be confirmed on post and the other one "cut", which sounds ominous.

It's hinted that Lindsey is indeed the golden boy, however, getting a hand transplants, no less, and that poor Lila is utterly buggered. After all, Wolfram & Hart are investing a lot of money and dark magic into Lindsey. 

It's a bit of a plodder, this one, and yes, it's hard to take an evil hand seriously. It's also hard to emphatjose with Lindsey's rebellion, which is too little, too late and motivated by self- indulgence rather than conscience.

In other news, it's becoming increasingly clear that Cordelia, not being half demon, sinky can't handle the visions for much longer. But how can the gang help the helpless without her?

Angel: Reprise

"You know... I've... Well, I really couldn't help but notice the goats. Yeah, a lot of goats. Goats, many. Those are goats, guys!"

After watching this rather witty and excellent episode, it’s easy to see Angel’s recent character development as a metaphor for addiction. This is the episode where he hits rock bottom. It’s not just Angel, though. Kate gets fired from the job that is her life and, devastated, overdoses on pills. Meanwhile, Wesley, Cordy and Gunn realise that life without Angel is not so easy as a fraudulent client refuses to pay. Compared to these genuine misfortunes, Angel’s “hitting rock bottom” is somewhat more abstract. The climax, however, hints that his resulting relapse may have devastating consequences. Oh, and this is one of the episodes that I vividly remember from my original, blog-free marathon of Buffy and Angel, a very scary ten years ago.

It’s not just Angel and his erstwhile friends who have problems this episode; Wolfram and Hart has it’s highly plot-convenient seventy-five year review, which is causing the most fear amongst its employees since the “purge of ‘68”. Do you think that Lilah and Lindsay might feel a little bit worried?

Kate, too, has consequences to face up to, as her employers finally want to know why she is spending all her time at work pursuing her own hobbyhorses at the expense of her job. What’s tragic here is, although Kate’s superiors are wrong to assume that the supernatural does not exist in LA, this doesn’t really matter. Kate really is losing it in exactly the way they suggest, as she goes to prove in the most tragic way possible. Tragically, I genuinely can’t remember whether she lives or not.

One thing with watching Buffy and Angel back to back is that one notices those little awkwardnesses of continuity. For example, why should Darla be so much more affected by Angel’s little bit of pyrotechnics than Drusilla? Nevertheless, I’m not sure it’s wise of Lindsay to be illegitimately sheltering her at a time like this. W&H employees are cacking themselves about the review to the extent that the Host’s karaoke bar is absolutely full of people in suits. It’s a depressing time for everyone.

Wesley, himself at a low point, is dumped by Virginia. It’s clear that the business that he, Cordelia and Gunn have set up is not working without Angel as its focal point. Angel is too interested in his own obsessive pursuit of Wolfram and Hart, which reaches a climax this episode. Angel gets the guided tour from none other than the late Holland Manners, whose contract seems to extend beyond death. The big reveal here is that the senior partners are in fact humanity itself, or rather the evil that lies within. As a concept, this isn’t anywhere near as deep as it seems to think it is, but as a character point it works brilliantly. Angel is convinced by this that there is no point to anything and he might as well just shag his brains out with Darla. As we know, however, there are consequences to this sort of thing.

Angel, awakening from his night of meaningless sex, feels himself changing. Oh dear…

 

Angel: Blood Money

“It’s actually kind of fun when you know the rules. I mean, you know there aren’t any.”

This is an interesting period of the season, with Angel having adventures separately from the gang. They continue to tread water in setting up their agency, something which seemed to be established last time. Angel, meanwhile, continues his single minded pursuit of Wolfram and Hart plus a certain two vampire ladies.

We start with Wesley and Gunn playing risk at Cordelia’s, doing nothing. The gang has no plan, no office, nothing. But they succeed magnificently against a conveniently off-screen baddie and end up with a new office, albeit one that isn’t as posh as the Hyperion. So much for them. They’re comic relief in this episode.

As far as Angel is concerned, his new attitude is challenged when he comes face to face with Anne, who has changed many times since we first met her in Buffy. Her latest persona is that of a single minded charity worker, who cares deeply about the homeless children to whom she is dedicated, to the exclusion of all else. She cares not that Wolfram and Hart will be taking 95% of the cash from the charity ball they arranged. Nor does she give a monkeys that this may be used for deeply nefarious purposes. For her, nothing exists beyond the cause. Her social conscience may be myopic, but at least she has one. Angel has no social conscience at all right now.

Angel’s scheme may be clever, cool, and knocked down Wolfram and Hart a peg or two, but it is deeply cynical. Angel doesn’t even bother to expose them, knowing that this will be covered up, and he wishes to do nothing more than rattle them a bit. Still, at least he’s sufficiently affected by Anne’s scolding to hand over the money to her, which she gladly accepts despite the literal blood on it. That’s single mindedness for you! This episode contrasts single mindedness in the cause of others (Anne) and single mindedness for selfish purposes (Angel), and it’s clear which is morally better.

Of course, we get more competition between Lilah and Lindsay, ending in an interesting bit of information from their new boss, that Angel is a “major player” in the forthcoming apocalypse. The prophecies do not detail what side he is due to be on, so our evil lawyer friends seek to darken his soul, seemingly with some success. Lilah and Lindsay, they will be reassured to know, are just expendable foot soldiers in this cause. This may be something of an episode of the week, but there is a lot of arcy stuff going on in the background.  

Angel: Redefinition

“He’s got cow eyes, big and black…Moo…”

As the title suggests, this episode concerns the fact that everything has now changed. Everyone is lost, and they need to feel and grope for a place in a world that has changed around them. For Angel this simply means training and obsessing over Darla some more, to the exclusion of all else, including what was once his mission. His task is the easiest. For Darla and Drusilla, it simply means that they get to have fun recruiting henchmen and concocting evil plans. We get an interesting comment from Drusilla, however, at the end. She doesn’t know whether she’s looking at Angel or Angelus. This has very interesting implications.

For Lilah and Lindsey, things are more awkward and difficult. They are the only survivors of the massacre, and Wolfram and Hart are obviously going to treat one of them as a scape goat. Cue lots of amusing scenes in which they try to double cross each other. Unexpectedly, however, they are both promoted to active co-vice presidents, on probation, until one of them slips up. They’re going to be watched by the Senior Partners, who are, as ever, unseen and mysterious.

The heart of the episode, concerns Cordy, Wes and Gunn as they search for a role without Angel, with the aid of karaoke. Ultimately, they all realise that they have it within themselves to continue without Angel. It’s interesting to see, in our first actual glimpse of Wesley’s home life, that he is still with Virginia, and they seem to be very much in love. I’m sure that won’t last. This is a Joss Whedon show after all.

Angel: Reunion

“Spank us till Tuesday, we promise to be bad if you do!”

I had the same thought Gunn did. Drusilla is now her own grandmother’s mother. That’s a bit weird. And it gets weirder. Angel firing Cordy, Wes and Gunn is a shock, as much to us as to them. The bulk of the episode revolves, of course, around the wonderful Drusilla and Darla, who are great together. Is it me, or is Drusilla not far, far more entertaining here than she ever was in Buffy? I’m just loving her.

The main shocking event, of course, is the massacre in which Holland Manners and all of his underlings, seemingly, snuff it at the hands of our two vampirettes. This is, at the same time, a bit of a shock and predictable in hindsight. One can’t help thinking, of course, that this may have been part of Wolfram and Hart’s plans all along.

The most shocking fact about the massacre, though, is that Angel just stands by and lets it happen. He cynically spits Manners’ words back at him, saying that he “just can’t seem to care”. As Wesley says at the end, he’s in danger of “real darkness”. He’s very, very alone right now, and that does not seem a safe place for him to be.

Suddenly, all the certainties are gone. It feels as though anything could happen.

Angel: The Trial

“You’ve been reading too much Anne Rice”

This episode is evil. I love it. The trials may be a bit of a cliché; in fact, they’re even an Angel cliché, given the number of times that this has popped up. But this is different. I love the butler with his unflappable attitude to the nastiness, and the twist is deliciously evil. Angel goes through hell and yet it’s all for nothing. Darla has already had a second chance, so she doesn’t get a third. I laughed out loud.

We have another interesting flashback showing Angelus and Darla once again afraid of the mysterious Holtz. Watch this space. But the episode primarily concerns the revelation that Darla is dying of the same syphilis as her previous life. This, in itself, is an evil twist. As if things couldn’t get any more evil, the episode ends with Darla accepting her fate and realising that Angel loves her and is only refusing to sire her because he cares for her soul. Finally she has closure. Deliciously, it is at this point that Wolfram and Hart, those rascals, send in Drusilla to once again turn her into a soulless vampire. As I say EVIL!