Angel: Inside Out

"Guy steps out for a few hours, half the place goes supervillain."

This episode is about as much a game changer as it’s possible to be. Cordy has been exposed and confronted as the baddie and is freed to spend all of her time quite openly mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ing. Except, that is, she’s still grooming (the word gets used) and gaslighting Connor.

Ah, Connor. We’ve discussed how annoying he is before, but he creaky crosses a line here, and seems as though he’s genuinely meant to come across as an annoying little shit. Even his mother’s ghost, sent by the Powers to speak to him, are unable to get through. He’s completely under the spell of whatever’s controlling Cordelia, and goes as far as to be an accessory to the cold-blooded murder of an innocent girl. His hands are quite literally dipped in blood.

We learn a lot, too; the thing controlling Cordy has been manipulating events for a long time, including Cordy’s ascension and an awful lot of recent events. Much seems to be depressingly pre-ordained, although Gunn gets a wonderful speech about how some amount of agency still exists. Skip, of course, has always been in on it and is, in fact, evil.

We also get a big montage of how it was in fact Cordy who did all sorts of unexplained things over the course of many episodes, and Wesley comes to realise that it was her who killed Lilah. It’s moving to see the renewed friendship between Angel and Wes here as Angel cares because Wes does, a nice moment.

It all ends with a flash of light as the baby is born and turns out to be Gina Torres, getting a compensation role after the cancellation of Firefly. And everyone kneels before her. Yet another twist in a series that glories in having no status quo. This is brilliant stuff and it’s looking awfully like a rather brilliant series with not long to go.

Angel: Birthday

"Well, as much as I enjoy this forced death march down memory lane..."

I know. It's been a while. But now I'm back and determined to finish Angel. (And Buffy.) The delay was caused by, er, a scratch in a DVD, but said DVD has now been replaced and the Buffyverse marathon resumes.

So Cordy's visions are finally catching up with her; in fact, they're killing her. On her birthday. Which is rude. Hence a splendid Cordy-centred episode full of typically superb dialogue and Charisma carpenter being awesome.

So many moments: Dennis' aborted birthday party, Cordelia's theme tune, the first appearance of the excellent Skip. It's all a cheat, of course; Cordy's visions are killing her because she's human so she finds a loophole of becoming part demon, like Doyle, with no ill effects apart from a silly punchline. But who cares; this is first class telly.

The alternate reality is interesting, though; this one-armed Wesley is rather badass. Foreshadowing? And it's instructive that the visions send Angel to pieces but Cordy handles them like a woman. Most importantly, she really does make a difference. Also, I like Skip. A lot.

I've missed this. I'm looking forward to proper re-immersion into the Buffyverse...