Angel: Heartthrob

"Don't say the "B" word."

My wife could go into labour any week now, and becoming a new father is unavoidably going to curtail my blogging time. What better time to start a new season of Angel?

Excellent opening episode, this. Time has passed, the team has bonded in the absence of the brooding, the bereaved Angel is in retreat in Sri Lanka, Fred still won't come out of her room, and Cordy's visions are even more painful. By the time of Angel's return (touchingly, he's missed his friends and they all hug) we have a happy and bonded team. It's all, for the moment, very lovey-dovey.

And that's appropriate, because this whole episode examines the phenomenon of love and grief in the wake of Buffy's, ahem, "death". Flashbacks remind us of Angel's kinky yet easy-going relationship with Darla, but contest them with the much more passionate love between their fellow vampires Elizabeth and James- introducing a certain Holtz while doing so. We will be hearing more of him.

Flash forward, and Elizabeth is at large in present day LA being evil. Her evil is thematically sound, though; she taunts a male student by forcing to choose whether she kills him or the girl he professes to love. He breaks down and begs her to kill her and spare himself... and then Angel saves them. That's one couple who will be having an awkward conversation.

However, after Angel kills Elizabeth, James is not happy about the death of his beloved, and by "not happy" I mean like something out of Romantic poetruunable to live without his beloved, he accepts death as the inevitable price of attempting to avenge her. He dies happy, having failed to kill Angel but done the right thing by his loved one. 

We learn at the end- via, of course, Cordy- that Angel is troubled; does the fact that he is able to live, albeit in mourning, after Buffy's death mean that their love was never real, as James tied believing?

A solid opener, although I bet we never hear of either Elizabeth or James again. Quite the cliffhanger, too, as we learn that Darla is impossibly pregnant...

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.