Even more interesting is that Jenny was sent to Sunnydale as soon as Angel revealed himself to Buffy and they started getting too close. At this point, her Kalderash backstory wasn’t even written, but the show got the greatest gift of the ultimate timing coincidence. There’s also the coincidence that Calendar has a vague similarity to Kalderash. Jenny arrived just then after being told that Angel’s pain was lessening and to separate him from the Slayer. Her infiltration one episode later from an in-canon perspective is not a coincidence.
At the time of Mutant Enemy finally deciding on Angelus as season 2’s Big Bad after Whedon’s underestimation of David Boreanaz’s ability to carry the role and the Anointed One as season 2’s originally-intended Big Bad not working out at all, the original intent was actually for Angelus to kill the new character of Oz. However, the popularity of Seth Green and the potential for the Willoz ‘ship eventually settled on Jenny being on the chopping block. It also was a greater emotional hit, as Angel had more of a connection to Jenny (saving her life), whereas he didn’t really know Oz at all. The audience also hadn’t known Oz for that long. There’s also the fact that Angel had saved Giles’ life (not to mention Xander and Willow’s) and a much more profound connection to him, even if Angel was also becoming fairly close to Willow before all that was snatched away.
It also gave Giles the most emotional storyline he ever had, on top of the extra cruelty was the fact that Giles actually liked Angel a lot prior to the Angelus arc, which Giles never forgave Angel for. It was Giles who originally told Xander that Jesse was no longer his friend, but rather the thing that killed him, but it becomes Giles who can’t make that separation between Angel and Angelus. And of course, Xander hated Angel long before Angelus ever showed up, as can be seen by his numerous jealous comments well before the reveal in 1x07.
They kept doing research together and Angel was one of the few other “adults” Giles could interact with. Giles was even fascinated by the maudlin romance of a vampire in love with a Slayer. He’s not against the relationship at all.
One of the non-canon tie-in novels even had Angel spending the entire summer saving Sunnydale with Giles and Jenny as Buffy’s replacement while she was at Hank’s house in L.A. That book tells us the probable context of how Angelus got that off-screen invite into Giles’ house.
After Angelus, Giles gave Angel some begrudging credit for having the mature foresight needed to leave Buffy, which was his criticism of Spike in Lies My Parents Told Me, but that is quickly dashed when it is Giles on the phone who Angel is begging for help to save Fred’s life, only to be utterly rejected and insulted with visits by Andrew. As much as I’m loathe to consider the comics canon, one of the few good calls was to have everything that came out of Andrew’s mouth be more lies that never came from Buffy, but unfortunately that doesn’t excuse Giles being on the phone call refusing to help Fred only because it’s Angel who made the call.
Again, as much as I’m loathe to acknowledge the comics, one of the only bright spots, despite the utter character-assassinating clusterfuck of how it got there (including Twilight!Angel killing Giles), was Angel saving Giles from having sold his soul to Eyghon, which also calls back to Angel (or, more accurately, Angelus) saving Jenny from Eyghon.
In later seasons, it’s interesting to go back to these early pre-Angelus interactions with Giles and Angel where they actually had a lot in common (two nerdy, well-educated bookworms, not unlike the relationship that developed between Angel and Wesley) and often had similar perspectives on what would be best for Buffy and Angel’s own impossible situation. Angel broadcast all his misgivings about the relationship in 1x07 and repeated all the reasons standing between them numerous times, so it really wasn’t just hearing it from Joyce (much is made of her having a better relationship with Spike and never getting past Angel taking her daughter’s virginity, despite the fact that they actually have more interests in common, most especially art and collecting, and were in complete agreement that the relationship was never a good idea) and the Mayor (a fellow immortal who lived out the same tragedy) that led to The Prom. It is Giles whom Angel tells concerning why he’s been so absent in Out of Mind, Out of Sight.
Angelus didn’t just destroy any future for Angel having a relationship with Buffy, but also destroyed most of the budding relationships he had in Sunnydale. Angel, Wesley and Cordy were thus the only characters at the end of season 3 who had nothing left to lose by leaving.
When Buffy couldn’t go to Giles for advice or use Willow as a kind sounding board (without Xander’s judgment), it was always Angel whom she ran to. Angel was whom Buffy ran to whenever what worried her was about her parents’ divorce, wanting to be a normal girl, not getting to live long enough to have a future (or the children Angel can’t have) or why they fight. Gingerbread has the philosophical precursor to the Epiphany speech. Buffy has an interesting history of replacement father figures (Giles being the most prominent) and Angel’s paternal tendencies are a huge part of his arc. He’s a Prodigal Son with another Prodigal Son, after all, not to mention his own often-paternal protector/provider relationship with his team at Angel Investigations. So, when Angel was taken from Buffy (blaming herself for killing the person she loved most, thus the connection of her to James Stanley), she also lost one of her biggest confidants. The whole season is having her relationships and reasons to stay in Sunnydale stripped from her.
Wesley, of course, was written entirely as Giles’ mirror when first introduced. He’s there to make Giles look cool and hip by comparison. He was even more of a bookworm than Giles ever was and had much faster recall, more readily having information without all-night research. The only character who challenges Angel for the character with the biggest eidetic memory database concerning history, languages and demonology is Wesley. It’s often Angel who has all the answers in the first season and a half that Giles often doesn’t (the Hellmouth, the Harvest, the Master, the Pergamum Codex, what the Anointed and his followers are up to, Spike, Drusilla, the Judge, etc…). Witch not only lies about Giles’ spell casting history, but it turns out Giles’ entire tweedy persona is a big lie and that he’s actually more street smart than book smart. Wesley is the exact opposite initially, though ends up so brutal that he gives Angel a run for his head-over-heart, big-picture-thinking tendencies. Wesley and Angel end up mirroring each other as well, and you can see the start of it as early as Wesley’s willingness to sacrifice Willow to stop the Mayor.
Finally finished my Buffy/Angel jacket for my co-worker, and can I just say how super proud of myself I am?
All the patches were done by my through photoshop: edited, printed and iorned on. Bite Me Pin and bat teeth charm from Etsy. Buffy/Spike patches from Etsy (Team Faith from ProphecyGirlClothing.) All Buffy pin backs came from Redbubble (The Gothic Alice’s designs) as well as the little mutent pin back. Oh! And I made little stencils for the “Five by Five” and Angel logo.
conceptually angel is such a fascinating character to me and i want more of his story. but literally how is the show able to make him so damn boring
Ok, begrudgingly i’ve decided to give ATS another shot… i’m sure i’ll have a lot of thoughts so i’ll tag them accordingly
FINALLY, i have finished angel season 1 and i’m ready to talk about it. my verdict: i actually like it! and i have a LOT to say lol
Background (if you want to get right to the review you can scroll down some)
This is the first time that I’m sitting down and watching Angel the series from start to finish. When I watched BTVS for the first time in the fall of 2016, I saw that ATS was available to watch as well, but I didn’t bother, mainly because I didn’t care enough about Angel beyond his role on BTVS. I didn’t think I was missing anything necessary to understanding BTVS if I skipped ATS (I think at the time, I didn’t even question what had happened to Faith lol, to me she woke up in s4, left, and then returned in s7. I definitely loved her the moment I first saw her in s3, but I think I forgot who she was when I saw her come back in s7). I was also in college, so I didn’t have a lot of time to watch the expanded Buffyverse, I was just interested in finishing the main show.
I decided to give ATS a shot around this time last year, when I had finished a thorough rewatch of BTVS (and subsequently fell down the rabbit hole). My initial impression? Lord I was so bored, lol. I was not feeling it. I missed the Scoobies. I knew that they wouldn’t be the focus of ATS, but idk, I was hoping for more. I hoped that Cordelia being a main character would incentivize me to keep watching. Nope. And I thought Doyle was so annoying I couldn’t stand him. I watched the first four episodes of s1 and that was it. I think I was still in BTVS mode, my brain hadn’t made the switch to “ok, this separate show is still in the Buffyverse, but the focus is on different characters than before.” What I did instead was look up the summaries of the episodes to see if any BTVS characters made appearances in ATS episodes. So I did end up watching ‘I Will Remember You,’ ‘Five by Five,’ ‘Sanctuary,’ the ending scene in ‘Judgment,’ and the Faith episodes in s4. Yeah, it wasn’t until after I’d seen every BTVS episode twice that I finally found out what really happened to Faith. I had no idea she went to jail, lmao. And then broke out! To save Angel! I was shocked, but of course, I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t look it up online. I did watch some of the s4 episodes before the Faith ones, to get some context for the plot. I only vaguely remember now what was happening, besides Lilah’s dead, Cordelia’s evil, Angel’s Angelus and has his son Connor, and Wesley… is gritty. I watched a few s5 episodes as well, the one where Harmony thinks she drank human blood or something, and the ones where Fred and Wesley die :( so yes, I kinda picked around, never completing a season.
Now, after a year or so of refusing to watch ATS, and only seeing stuff about it from Tumblr, I decided to give in, because what I’d seen on here intrigued me enough to watch. This means that I already know who all dies — Wes, Cordy, Fred, Lilah, Doyle, Darla (and doesn’t Lindsay get sent to hell or something?) — that’s all I know for now. See, I found out through the few episodes I watched that Wes, Fred, and Lilah die, but I went out of my way to look up what happens to Cordy and Darla, because I didn’t think I would ever watch the show, lol. And then I saw a gifset on here of the scene where Doyle dies, so that’s that. But nevertheless — I persisted.
Season 1 Thoughts
Okay are you still reading this? Lmao NOW here are my thoughts on season 1: I thought it was a solid start for the show. It did take me a few episodes to get into. The first four were just okay, they were the ones that threw me off last time. But when I got halfway through ‘Rm w/a Vu,’ that’s when I was hooked, that was a good one (”I’m not giving up this apartment” “It’s haunted” “It’s rent controlled!”). Here are thoughts I have about some of the episodes:
#8 ‘I Will Remember You’ — Rewatching this one still got me fucked up. Angel alive, feeling his heart beat, eating food, standing in the sun… and the scene where he walks outside to Buffy god anytime Angel gets to act human and stand in daylight, I get emo. It’s something that he never takes for granted. Same thing in ‘In the Dark,’ when he slips on the ring and walks into the sun, when he gets to watch the sunset… okay maybe it brought a tear to my eye. Maybe the concept of finally stepping into the light after being bound to crawl in the darkness for eternity got to me. Also, I’ve never been super into Bangel but god, their scenes hit hard every single time. Both of them getting to sleep together and have Angel not lose his soul, Buffy being able to feel his heart beat, eating ice cream together, enjoying the normalcy/domesticity that they always wanted but could never have. Then they can’t even keep it because Buffy would be in danger, and Angel can’t fight as well when he’s human. And then the fucking day is erased and only Angel remembers it. The tragedy of it all, god.
#6 ‘Sense & Sensitivity’ — Okay, I’ll admit that for a second I was a bit of an Angel/Kate shipper. She seemed like she was attracted to him, but kept herself guarded. And they made a good team (though unfortunately she ends up turning away from him some episodes later, so that’s the end of that). When she’s at their office with Cordelia and Doyle she is sooo cute, an emotional little messy baby. And then the whole fucking mess with that “sensitivity training” guy making everyone emotional and unable to stop the italian guys from breaking out. That was a fun one.
But alas… I have to mention the cop-shaped elephant in the room. It’s something I don’t understand about ATS. How is it that BTVS is so very anti-cop anti-establishment with its messaging, and Angel, doing the vigilante thing, “helping the helpless,” saving the vulnerable people who fall through the cracks, is the guy who turns to the police? Odd. I suppose that’s the difference between him and Buffy though. The stuff she encounters on a daily basis in broad daylight is what the cops can’t handle. LA’s not on a hellmouth, so Angel has a bit more leeway with what he can do. It makes sense that he tries to help as many people as he can, taking on as many tasks, and shuffling to the police what they can handle. It still rubs me the wrong way, though. The most uninteresting parts of ATS so far are the cop parts (outside of this episode). I could say more but I’ll leave it for ’Sanctuary.’ We could also talk about the “Buffy and Angel act as supernatural cops” aspect… but that’s another long-ass post.
#9 ‘Hero’ — So remember how I said I was not a Doyle fan on my first watch last year? This time around he actually grew on me! And even knowing that he was gonna die, watching this one still fucked me up. The ending scene where they’re watching the video he filmed for Cordelia, him saying “Am I done?” Ugh Okay but what happened to the Scourge? I thought there was gonna be more to that plot, but I guess they went away after Doyle’s sacrifice. Lol the n@zi metaphor was NOT subtle at all.
#11 ‘Somnambulist’ — Rip to Angel/Kate, oh well. I thought Penn was an interesting character, in how he’s still killing all these years later after Angelus showed him how to. It makes me wonder how the fuck Angel got so twisted when he was alive, what made him go batshit as Angelus. Either his father really did a number on him, or he was just like that. Like the kid in ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’! It wasn’t the demon making the kid act erratically, he was just fucked up. Maybe Angelus doing what he did to his family, terrorizing hundreds and becoming one of the most infamous vampires to ever walk the earth was #justliamthings for him. I want to know more.
#12 ‘Expecting’ — Now what the actual fuck was this one. Where do I even start. The season began with the Buffyverse’s favorite “sex is bad” refrain in ‘Lonely Heart’, with the Sexually-Transmitted Demon passing between people who went home with each other from the club. It’s odd how both shows love to demonize sex (literally): Buffy and Angel have sex and it’s an apocalyptic event, plus her one-night stand with that douche Parker. She later uses sex with Spike to torture herself. Faith is promiscuous and it’s part of what makes her the “anti-Buffy.” Xander has sex and he’s later almost suffocated in relation to it. Outside of Bangel, it seems that only monogamous sex is fine — Willow and Oz, Xander and Anya, Buffy and Riley (though sex did almost kill them that one time!), Willow and Tara, etc. Very very suspect.
And now we have ‘Expecting,’ in which the Mean Girls line “don’t have sex because you will get pregnant and die” was taken literally. The saddest part about it is that this was Cordelia’s first time having sex (I’m fairly certain — if it wasn’t explicitly stated, it was implied). All the freaking Scoobies have had sex before her, like… the most popular girl in school not getting any until after the nerds have gotten some? What kind of world do they live in? So we finally get to see this really special/intimate moment happen for her, and of course it ends up mirroring Buffy’s experiences with Angel and Parker — the guy is gone when she wakes up. I was so sad for her. I know she’s always been the “bitchy” character, but I was hoping that she’d get a better experience than that.
And to fucking top it off… magic pregnancy! Another strange motif that j0ss kept bringing up on the show (I know Darla has Connor, and I think Cordelia has another pregnancy later on). It leads me to believe that this was j0ss’ way of expressing his misogyny, because I’m pretty sure I read that Charisma was pregnant at the time of filming ATS? And we all unfortunately know her side of what went on behind-the-scenes, so I can’t help but perceive his feelings towards her are being projected onto Cordelia’s character. What could’ve been a strong character episode for her ends up being really ridiculous. After she wakes up pregnant, I couldn’t take the rest of the episode seriously, I couldn’t decide if it was a joke or not. And even though they were demon babies, it rubbed me the wrong way when the show made her look crazy for wanting to keep them. Like what is the message being sent there? Ultimately, I did think it was entertaining, like a bad X Files episode.
#15 ‘The Prodigal’ — I loved seeing more Liam. He was so pathetic as a human, dear god. But of course that had to do with the way he was raised. It’s sad that his father was such an asshole to him. The scene where he says goodbye to his family, and dramatically leaves into the night very much parallels the end of BTVS s2 where Buffy leaves her mom after revealing she’s the slayer. Painful. Watching the part where Liam crawls out of his grave makes me wonder what the turn-time is for vampires: some people are able to turn into vamps in a matter of a few minutes or hours, while others are able to be buried before they turn into a vamp and rise out of their grave. Omg and his sister saying that she returned to him “like an angel,” very sad. I love what Darla says about how Liam killed his father, that his father’s “defeat of him will last lifetimes.” And then her saying it was his love for his family that allowed him to kill them the way he did being something he carried with him centuries later to when he tortured Buffy. The way that Bangel’s one act of love is what “killed” Angel and brought out Angelus… Wow.
Okay, now I get that Kate is distraught after seeing her father dead from vampires, but I think it’s a bit strange and cop-like of her to give Angel the brush-off and generalize all vampires as being evil when she knows all he’s done this entire time is help her. Oh side note, Cordelia says that the code for their alarm should be her birthday, and then she punches in 0522? Um hello we’re twins, because that’s my birthday too.
#17 ‘Eternity’ — Ugh I love whenever Angelus makes an appearance in present day. He is such a fascinating villain. He is so terrifying, I actually feel it in my gut when he’s threatening other characters. It’s funny, because after ‘Enemies,’ I always think he’s faking when we see Angelus. I thought he was pretending in this one, and then he was actually Angelus and I was like “oh shit.” I think the more that I watch Angelus, the more I can tell when it’s actually him, vs when Angel is just pretending. I’ve seen ‘Enemies’ so many times at this point that I notice there are the slightest things that give him away as to faking. Ex. Angelus wouldn’t have gone along with the mayor’s plan, he would have just done whatever he wanted. Also, I know from the s4 episodes I watched that they bring back Angelus to defeat the Beast, but why couldn’t they have used the drug from this episode to temporarily resurrect him? Omg wait then Faith wouldn’t have broken out of prison so maybe it all worked out.
#18 ‘Five by Five’ — Yesss bitch my girl is back. She is BACK! I don’t know how many times I’ve watched this one and ‘Sanctuary.’ I mean, what can I say that hasn’t already been implied by me being a Faith stan. Excellent episode. Faith going from bad to worse to rock bottom to crying in the rain, clutching Angel, telling him to kill her because she believes she deserves it. Faith at her lowest moments is so hard for me to revisit, especially after seeing her growth towards the end of the series.
Every time I’d watched this episode before my most recent rewatch, I’d always assumed that whatever was happening in the background (Angel getting the gang guy to testify against Wolfram & Hart in court) was related to an ongoing plot for the season. But now, watching the episode in context with the rest of the season, it made me realize that no, that guy testifying against W&H had nothing to do with any other episode, but it IS important, along with the Angelus and Darla flashbacks, in that it connects with the center point of the episode: Faith’s breakdown and turn to redemption.
I’m obsessed with the lines Faith says to Angel in his apartment: “hey baby, come give us a hug,” “go ahead, do me, or I’ll do you,” and “think fast, lover.” To me, these lines further indicate the fact that Faith is Buffy’s mirror. She mirrors Bangel with him by calling Angel these pet names, acting all fake-lovey. She’s also making a mockery of the relationship, mocking his status as a lover and not a fighter, in reference to not having killed her yet, and his failed attempt at getting through to her in ‘Consequences.’
Oh and speaking of… I know it’s been pointed out several times on here how Angel fucked up in ‘Consequences’ by thinking he could relate to Faith, as if the hundreds of people he’s raped and killed could compare to her accidentally stabbing a guy on the job. And of course it’s a valid point, since his intervention only served to push her further off the deep end. But you know what? I think it makes their relationship all the more impactful to me. Because that’s just how life goes. Nothing is ever perfect. We can’t always get the people or things we want or need, but we have to work with what we’ve got. Sure, Angel was maybe the worst person for her to relate to, to open up about her guilt to, but who else did she go to? Yes, the Scoobies all fumbled in their own ways, but she definitely had Buffy or Giles that she could’ve turned to for help, and she chose not to and let her ego get in the way. And it’s one of those things where it didn’t have to happen, but it was inevitable anyway. Through her refusal of help from the best people in that situation, she got stuck with the last resort, Angel. And not to say she deserved the nuclear option, but like I said, she didn’t pick anything else. “You don’t have a good choice, but you have a choice.” So sure, there’s that distance between them — even at the end of this episode, when she’s clutching him in the rain, after everything, there’s still this chasm between the magnitude of what either of them has done. But he’s currently the only person she’s got. The only person that never gave up on her. And there are so many similarities between them, it’s actually insane: Faith torturing Wesley mirrors Angelus torturing Giles, their love for Buffy, their loner status, their tendency to isolate and push others away, etc etc. They are the only people that understand each other the way they do. I absolutely love their friendship/sibling relationship. They are besties to me.
#19 ‘Sanctuary’ — Ah, the painful morning after. Not joking when I say this episode physically pains me. I do wish the continuation of Faith’s turn towards redemption wasn’t tinged with Bangel drama. I think Buffy and Angel’s argument could’ve been a separate episode or something, since ‘Sanctuary’ picks up right after the emotional hurricane that is ‘Five by Five.’ Or maybe they could’ve saved their argument for the ending scene, idk. I want more Faith and I’m not getting enough Faith in the episode that is about Faith.
Buffy’s characterization… lol, the writers certainly made some choices there. It’s a weird position to put her in — the audience sees Buffy all full of vitriol and anger towards Faith while Faith is trying to get her act together, so naturally we want to take Faith’s side, even though Buffy clearly has the right to be angry after what Faith did to her (Buffy’s head-turn when Faith says her name… I get chills EVERY time). What doesn’t make sense to me is her coming to LA. If Buffy was actually concerned for Angel’s safety, I think a phone call would’ve been much quicker, rather than taking however many hours to go all the way from Sunnydale to LA without saying anything. And then when she and Angel start to argue and Angel’s like “Faith go upstairs” it always makes me think of parents fighting and telling their kid to leave the room so they don’t see the arguing, lol. But god, the rooftop scene. Buffy and Faith’s exchange leaves me gutted every time. It feels like a real-life punch to the gut when Buffy says “I gave you every chance! I tried so hard to help you, and you spat on me. My life was just something for you to play with. Angel - Riley - anything that you could take from me, you took. I’ve lost battles before, but nobody else has ever made me a victim.” GOD, that part is painful. Fuffy stans lost that day:/ And Faith’s “just tell me how to make it better…” She wants to redeem herself! She wants to reverse the path she’s on and own up to her mistakes. All Buffy had to do was say the word, and Faith turned herself in in the next scene.
Now, the Fuffy stan in me is glad that Faith took Buffy’s words to heart and turned herself in, but the Faith stan in me wishes they could’ve figured something out where she wouldn’t have had to. Maybe she could’ve been part of Angel’s gang in LA? I do believe that she needed somewhere to go where she could calm down, take accountability for her actions, and fully reevaluate her life, away from the outside world. But I don’t think jail was the only place she couldn’t have done that. Copaganda strikes again… Didn’t Oz go to Tibet to learn how to control his wolf side? Doesn’t Angel go to someplace similar after Buffy dies? So, I think there was somewhere else she could’ve gone. But the council was after her, the cops were after her, and Angel lost all his favors with Kate, so I suppose there wasn’t much room to do anything else. It wouldn’t have been right to magic away her legal problems, either. And then yadda yadda more Bangel drama to cap the episode off but what are you gonna do.
#22 ‘To Shanshu in LA’ — I like that this episode tackled what makes life worth living. Angel had been feeling down after not being able to help Lindsay, and he was so casual about the prophecy saying that he would die, feeling like the only reason he’s still around is to redeem himself and save as many people as possible. But there are people that love him and care about him. Cordelia and Wesley are the people who have his back and tie him to the rest of the world. And the prophecy’s promise that he’ll eventually become human got me tearing up a bit… the small smile he gets on his face. Omg and Darla came back! I knew that she would eventually come back, but I was so fucking confused as to how, because I was certain she died in BTVS s1.
Recap/further comments:
Um… that was certainly a lot I wrote. I enjoyed the season more than I thought I would, so I’ll stick around for what comes next. These are all first impression thoughts (except for the ones I said I had seen before), so I’m sure that if I watch these episodes again, I’ll have more things to say, or different opinions. I almost wish I hadn’t been spoiled with every major thing that happens on Angel, because then I’d have been able to really strap in for the emotional rollercoaster. But I still enjoyed watching. Angel’s a silly little sad guy but he’s mine <3
The episodes got so much more enjoyable to watch when the plot wasn’t about another damsel in distress that Angel had to save (’City Of,’ ‘I Fall to Pieces,’ etc.) Something I didn’t realize until now is that j0ss is obsessed with blondes. Every other girl is blonde. Ugh, brunettes need to rise against this tyranny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many blondes in one TV show universe.
I thought it was refreshing that the season didn’t have a Big Bad the gang needed to work to stop, that it was mainly MOTWs. I kept waiting for the Big Bad reveal, and I thought it was gonna be one of the villains from either ‘Hero,’ ‘She,’ or ‘The Prodigal.’ For those episodes, I think it would’ve been interesting to evolve either of their stories further. I think the villain in ‘To Shanshu in LA’ was super easy to stop.
Ok there’s a scene where Cordelia has a tramp stamp (’Parting Gifts’), and I was like “Omg when did she get one? I didn’t think that would be an in-character thing for her to do” but after this episode it’s gone so idk. Maybe they forgot to edit it out or something, but it was so obvious lol.
I was glad to see BTVS characters make an appearance: Wesley, Spike, Oz, Buffy, and Faith. All icons. Lol I feel like I read something that said Sarah was supposed to have more appearances on ATS and she was like “no.”
I appreciated Gunn’s episode ‘War Zone,’ and that we finally have a main character of color in the Buffyverse. The scene in ‘Blind Date’ where he says “evil white folks really do have a mecca” is hilarious; however, the self-aware race jokes tragically do not make the Buffyverse any less white.
Angel taking showers is a funny concept to me. He’s so self-conscious.
And I really hope Wesley ditches that tan suit. It’s not a good look, lmao.
Some questions I still have:
How does Angel afford the places he lives? He had those two places in Sunnydale (granted they were crypts in the cemetery but I swear they had electricity), and the little office he had this season that also had an underground living space attached, as well as access to the sewer tunnels… and this was before they started charging anyone. He even has money to bribe people with (’The Ring’).
I’m not the biggest vampire nerd, so I’m not caught up on all the lore, but it’s strange how Buffyverse vampires don’t show up in mirrors but can show up on camera. Also, do they breathe or not? Angel couldn’t resuscitate Buffy in BTVS s1 because he said he has no breath. But every scene in which I see Angel or Spike or another vampire visibly/audibly breathing I’m like huh? How does that make sense.
And finally: In the history of the Buffyverse, you’re telling me no one has tried to ensoul a vampire before Angelus?
The season 2 review is in!!! And… it was actually excellent
I think at this point it’s safe to say that I’ll finish Angel all the way to the end. I really wasn’t expecting this season to be so good. From Darla’s return as a human to Angel firing everyone, showdowns with Drusilla + her siring Darla, Wolfram & Hart’s antics, Wes getting SHOT, Angel saving Kate’s life and having SEX WITH DARLA, Harmony’s return, the whole fucking Pylea fever dream….. dear god they snapped with this one. While I was watching, I was thinking about the people who actually watched Buffy season 5/Angel season 2 at the same time when the episodes were first airing way back when. Like that must have been fucking crazy – I can’t imagine watching the Scoobies try and protect Dawn from Glory and dealing with Joyce’s illness/death while at the same time experiencing Team Angel’s split due to Angel deciding to go Prick Mode on everyone. And then both season endings at the same time?? Buffy dying while Team Angel is trying to escape Pylea?? Talk about anxiety. They don’t make TV show universes like that anymore, they really don’t…
Season 2 Thoughts
Things here and there that struck me in particular:
#1 ‘Judgment’ — My girl Faith shows up at the very end<3 Angel had been so caught up in the prospect of potentially becoming human that he forgot the purpose of Angel Investigations fighting the good fight: It’s what they have the power to do, so it’s what they should do. It’s not a matter of counting years or counting cases so that one day he might finally be “done” and “officially redeemed.” It’s the act of constant doing that is the redemption. And it ties into Faith being in jail because at that point, there is the potential for her to be in jail for life. So the redemption process for her is not about the number of years she spends in jail, it’s about the commitment to being a better person and doing better. And their exchange – ”The road to redemption is a rocky path.” “That it is.” “You think we might make it?” I love them<3<3
#5 ‘Dear Boy’ — At the beginning when Angel beats up that one guy and ignores the rest of his team when they need his help… you know who I thought of. You know who I fucking thought of. It is a little scary sometimes how much he and Faith are alike, like they are really siblings across generations. Angel has that moment in ‘Guise Will Be Guise’ where he’s sparring with the “swami” and he tells the swami he holds back in fighting because he doesn’t want the darker side of him to come out and take control (um foreshadowing for the season finale episodes), which is something that Faith struggles with later on when she breaks out to stop Angelus. (I wouldn’t be surprised if they shared a common ancestry or something since they’re both Irish). Maybe he wasn’t talking out of his ass in ‘Consequences’…
Darla’s interactions with Angel are so incredibly fascinating to me. The whole scene with them in that warehouse… Angel saying Darla never made him happy… Darla saying “God doesn’t want you but I still do” … dear lord. Every toxic destructive couple on TV since then has learned from Dangel I think. It makes me wonder what Spike thinks of Darla. Because the rest of the the Whirlwind has their psychoanalysis-worthy dynamics with each other (Angel/Darla, Angel/Drusilla, Angel/Spike, Darla/Drusilla, Drusilla/Spike) but I wonder if they ever mention the dynamic between them two. Or maybe it’s like a “great-grandsire” thing and they don’t have as strong a connection as the others.
And wtf was up with Kate automatically going to Gunn and scanning his ID and not doing it to anyone else… more thoughts on this later.
#7 ‘Darla’ — YES give me fucked up babygirl who lived served cunt and then died. Dangel this season is so captivating because it has 1. The ties of a century-and-a-half-long love affair; 2. The dynamic between the Sire and the Sired – she created Angelus, meaning the monster that he is is because of her; 3. She’s been soulless longer than him so of course she wants to immediately go back to that, she doesn’t understand his power of restraint (especially in not killing her) so their current-day selves are incompatible; 4. Angel’s feelings towards Darla can be seen as like a fucked up expression of mommy issues; I could go on.
It’s kinda crazy how much Darla and Angel’s relationship mirrors Buffy and Angel when they were together. Bangel is in a whole other realm, of course, but somehow also the exact same: Buffy and Darla both give him a new purpose when they meet him, and they both damn him by killing him. Buffy killed Angel at the end of BTVS S2 and then he came back in S3 – Angel killed Darla at the end of S1 and now she’s back in ATS S2. And both Buffy and Darla have died twice/been resurrected twice. The main difference between both relationships, though, is that Buffy made Angel truly happy. He was actually in love with her, unlike the obsession he had with Darla. Seeing Dangel interact on screen makes me appreciate Bangel even more for how he finally got the relationship he was missing with Darla, he finally felt fulfilled. And Bangel has its own complexities that make it a compelling story, but for the purposes of this season… WOW Angel and Darla are so fucked up and I love it. I suppose that’s what 150 years of killing and pillaging while soulless together will do.
And I can’t believe Spike eating that Romani guy’s family essentially stopped Angelus from getting his soul removed…
#9-11 ‘The Trial,’ ‘Reunion,’ ‘Redefinition’ — This run of episodes drove me absolutely insane. Darla is dying of syphilis so Angel, all noble and brave and hardheaded that he is goes through a deadly trial to save her life. The fervor with which he dedicates himself to saving others makes me emo. And then it doesn’t work. AND THEN DRUSILLA SIRES HER INSTEAD. Very fucked up but Dru’s entrance was so badass lol. It was kinda like her payback towards Angel for torturing and siring her all those years ago. I wonder what she’s been up to all this time, last I remember she and Spike had split, and that’s when Spike came to Sunnydale and got captured by the Initiative.
Darla and Dru are so chaotic and gay, they steal the show for me (and they have a cute height difference). Darla’s initial anger at being turned back into a vampire (brought back, undead) and Dru’s subsequent guilt made me think of Buffy and Willow’s S6 dynamic. Though whereas Buffy struggles with being brought back, Darla quickly gets over herself and is ready to fuck shit up with Dru.
Angel letting them kill that room full of Wolfram & Hart people was SO fucked up but also very satisfying so no I can’t blame him. And dropping the cigarette to light them up like Christmas trees was most pleasing to me. But when he fired Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn? Nah big guy, I drew the line. (Though I’ll admit that my initial reaction was a small bit of satisfaction that came from deep down within me. But that might be from me over-identifying with Angel when it comes to relationships) I find the differences between Team Angel’s dynamic and the Scoobies’ dynamic to be quite interesting. Since Cordy, Wes, and Gunn are all adults that have come together for the sole purpose of “helping the helpless,” I don’t think they have the same amount of emotional drama in their group like the Scoobies have. For the most part they’re pretty up-front about issues that come up. And because all C, W, & G have ever done is help Angel, him turning his back on them comes out of the blue – whereas with the Scoobies, Buffy turning her back on her friends is usually (but not always) warranted because they can be frequently dumb.
#14 ‘The Thin Dead Line’ — Okay so this episode has me confused on where the show stands with the police. Are the police a force for good in-universe? Are they bad? Because at this point, BTVS is still pretty anti-cop. But in ATS S1, Kate and Angel frequently helped each other out, and Faith turned herself in. That led me to believe that the show was trying to paint a better picture of the police, in that they can be useful when necessary. But so far this season, we’ve seen more moments of Kate being antagonistic towards Team Angel (like in ‘Dear Boy’) and the police being generally useless, like in this episode. But then we get other moments where she’s helpful (’The Shroud of Rahmon’), and in a later episode the show wants us to sympathize with her when she’s treated poorly at work and gets fired? I’m still confused. I do like Kate as a character, and at times ATS reflects her positively, but other times the show reflects her negatively and idk. I’m being pulled in different directions. Maybe they were trying to do a “not all cops are bad” thing, considering in this episode they distinctly identify Kate as a “good cop” and separate her from the “bad cops” of the episode – the zombies and the police force that has risen them. It’s so weird how relevant this episode still is today. Oh my god and then Gunn’s friend records the video of him interacting with one of the cops… just really eerie.
Can I just say that they took wayyyy too long to get Wes to a hospital after getting shot. Like he was really bleeding out all over the damn place. I guess you could say he survived the streets…
#15-16 ‘Reprise,’ ‘Epiphany’ — Lindsey simping for Darla has been driving me crazy this entire time. I’m lukewarm when it comes to him. I’ll feel for him in certain moments, and then he goes and does some shit like that or runs Angel over with his car or plays the guitar at Caritas and I’m like, I can’t. I’d like to think that when he leaves in ‘Dead End’ that he’s able to finally find peace, but knowing this show (and his cute new Wolfram & Hart-approved Evil Hand) I’m not counting on it.
This one gets quite depressing/shocking - Angel faces off with Cordy and Wes tears his stitches in the process; Kate gets fired and tries to kill herself bc of it??? (I’m not too hurt that she’s no longer a cop, but it’s sad that they let her go from something she devoted her life to, something she had in common with her late father. This moment plus the “cops suck” sign Angel puts on Lindsey’s car in ‘Dead End’ lead me to believe that the show is now leaning towards a more negative view of the police); In his attempt to face off with Wolfram & Hart in what he expects to be a hell dimension, they bring Angel back to Earth and he realizes that oh. Everyone’s got evil in them. Everyone’s got some kind of darkness. And he essentially says “fuck it all” and jumps into bed with Darla. What gets me though is the post-sex scene that exactly mirrors Buffy and Angel’s first time, down to the “was I not good enough?” But whereas the Bangel scene was the beginning of the end for them, this Dangel scene was their end. The final act (or what should be the final act). Wow all Angel needed was to get laid to stop acting like a fucking idiot. Post-nut clarity is something else. So after, he saves Kate, reconciles with her, and gets back to working with Cordy, Wes, and Gunn. Team Angel Wes is back<3 Hesitatingly, but back<3
#19-22 ‘Belonging,’ ‘Over the Rainbow,’ ‘Through the Looking Glass,’ ‘There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb’ — Finally the introduction of Fred!! She is an icon she is a legend she is the moment she is going insane in a cave in a random dimension. Oh tell me why I was getting j0ss vibes from Cordelia’s interactions with that director…
We love trips to other dimensions<3 I kinda wish we saw more inter-dimensional travel in BTVS, I thought the whole construction of Pylea was pretty cool. And my guy Angel was able to walk in the sun<3 (though he let it go directly to his head lol). Cordy becoming queen of Pylea is so accurate like good for her. Deserved. And of course the Groosalugg is this fine ass guy but she was braver than the marines for not sleeping with him. Ugh I’m still waiting on her to get one good relationship. Idk if I’m counting her time with Xander considering all they ever really did was make out. And then he cheated on her (but they were cute nonetheless…) Like I just want her to get one quality bone now is that too much to ask?
I really like the concept of Angel turning completely into the uncontrollable demon version of himself, and then being traumatized after seeing his reflection. Even though he doesn’t see that demon come out in their home dimension, he still wrestles with it inside him everyday, and it’s why he feels the need to “hold back” all the time, for fear of the demon consuming him and taking over. I loved when he attacked the Groosalugg but didn’t let the demon side take over and kill him.
Overall such a wild season 2 ending, I was not expecting something like this to happen, I thought the end would be with Darla coming back and they’d have to fight her. But a trip to another dimension was unexpected. And then they come back and Willow is sitting there and she has to deliver the bad news about Buffy’s death… yeah I knew it was coming but it still hurt. It hurts every time
Recap/further comments:
Overall a really solid and engaging season. This is what I was wanting in the first place when I tried to start Angel last year. I wanted to jump right into the good episodes without having to watch the first season lol. But I’m glad that I’m sticking around to the end (now it only goes downhill from here right?).
Lorne and Caritas was such a highlight of the season. How strange is it that a karaoke bar became thehot spot to go to when demons needed insight on their auras and futures? We got Angel and the gang singing terribly, Darla giving an unexpected beautiful number, and fucking Lindsey with his guitar as well. I really like Angel and Lorne’s scenes together – Lorne always wants to be chill and entertain guests and Angel always wants him to get right to the chase bc he has never relaxed a day in his souled unlife. One scene I really liked between the two of them is in ‘Happy Anniversary’ where Angel vents to Lorne in the car. It made me wish we got more moments of Oz doing that. Just snapping and finally speaking his mind (instead of just leaving…).
I wish Faith and Darla met. I think that would be so crazy. They have parallels of being on the path of good, then a death happens (Faith killing Finch, Darla being sired by Dru) and they subsequently go evil (both are considered dark characters by the Buffyverse for being promiscuous). Plus there are all the parallels to be made for Buffy and Darla, so by associative property (or something) Faith and Darla have a lot in common. Faith meets Drusilla in the comics, and they have a really interesting interaction, so that’s the closest we’ll get to her meeting the full Whirlwind.
Ok for two seconds in ‘Disharmony’ I was a diehard Cordy/Harmony stan. Pleeaaase the whole interaction with Cordy thinking Harmony was gay and calling Willow to talk about it I know that later on Harmony joins Angel’s side, and I’m wondering if it’s due to her getting a soul or something similar. I’ll save my questions on that for when I get there.
Cangel, Cangel, Cangel… I’m currently undecided on it. When Cordy said she and Angel aren’t friends, yes my heart broke. And I did laugh when Angel promptly bought her a bunch of new clothes and she was squealing lol. I think they’re cute but it seems a little random to me. Like it wasn’t until Angel realized he was being a jerk to everyone and came back that he started showing her more affection. Which at first I was like “okay, that’s interesting” and then i got to ‘Belonging’ and I was like oh. Okay got it. So. We’ll see where that goes.
I loved Cordelia in ‘First Impressions’ but lmao white women do wayyyy too much sometimes, she was giving me Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
And finally… while I was watching ‘Darla’, I got to thinking: Did Angel deserve Buffy? After all that we’ve seen him go through before the first episode of BTVS? My knee jerk reaction is to say no, she’s too good for him. And then I thought about it a little and I felt sympathetic and wanted to say yes, because of the pain and suffering he went through before meeting her. But then I thought about it some more – he killed people as Angelus, then got a soul, then wandered around doing fuck all (which includes letting all those people die in ‘Are You Now or Have You Ever Been’ and drinking that one guy’s blood in ‘Orpheus’) before getting his shit together and helping Buffy out. So his redemption didn’t start until the moment he met her. And he’s now getting rewarded with the fulfilling relationship and love he’d been missing? Hmm… something’s off for me. They weren’t supposed to be together. That’s why when they have sex he loses his soul. That’s why she sends him to hell. His love for her allows him to really commit to his redemption, but the relationship itself makes things difficult. That’s partly why they split at the end of BTVS S3 (which, unpopular opinion maybe, I think was right). I think the split was necessary for several reasons, one of them being that he still had a long way to go in his redemption, and had to do it for himself rather than focusing it on Buffy. Which I can appreciate for his character, but it does make me sad for Buffy. Lol I think she deserved him but he didn’t deserve her. Ultimately I think Angel does have to let people in and stop being so cut off if he wants to do the best he can in his redemption. And NOW, after helping stop several apocalypses, after saving countless lives, and mentoring others? Okay, maybe he can have a little GF as a treat. Maybe.
One question I still have:
How the hell did Angel not kill himself after he was ensouled? Rejected by the Whirlwind, couldn’t feed on humans, nobody wanted him, floundering about in alleys and away from humans for nearly a full century. Like what did he have going on for him? What kept him alive? He was pretty pathetic as Liam, and then when sired, he was reborn as Angelus. But upon gaining his soul, and bearing the weight of all the things he did while soulless, where did he get the strength to keep going? For 100 years?? Could not be me, honestly. Spike was chipped for only a few episodes and then tried killing himself like… that’s more accurate, I think. But at least he had the Scoobies to hang with and random shit around Sunnydale to get into, to keep him going (before developing feelings for Buffy).
Ok but like let me tell you more about why the found family vibes on Angel get me every time.
This group of troubled people with so much family baggage managed to build a home together. With trust and love.
Cordelia, for all her privilege never felt like she belonged. Her family didn’t really care about her. The cordettes didn’t really know her. The Scoobies were the closest she ever got to having friends but pride (and Xander’s betrayal) kept her from ever truly letting them in. She only ever had herself to rely on.
Wes has spent his whole life drowning under the expectations of a father who will never be satisfied. His one driving force in life was to prove himself, and he failed. The Council didn’t want him. The scoobies didn’t want him. Faith didn’t want him. He’s probably felt alone for his entire life.
Angel literally spent 100 years isolated and cut off from the world, drowning in guilt. Before that he was an angry, lonely young man who was a disappointment to his family and was killed before he ever got a chance to change. As a vampire he did horrible things. He tried to find redemption with Buffy only to destroy her and himself. He doesn’t think he’s worth saving.
Gunn believes it’s him against the world. Losing his sister was losing his last lifeline, his last bit of hope. He doesn’t know how to be the leader his crew needs and he doesn’t know where he fits in the world. He’s smart and capable in a world designed to tear him down.
Fred is deeply traumatized. Her experiences not only isolated her from her family, friends, and home, but they forced her to wall off her mind in order to survive. She can barely function at times and doesn’t know how to exist in a world that was lost to her for 5 years.
This band of misfit toys somehow manages to find one another, rally around a mission to help people, and slowly become one another’s support systems. This group has seen one another through good and bad and they would die for each other in a heartbeat, but not without a fight.
I love their interactions, their family dinners, they way they bicker and fight and look out for one another.
The show has SO MANY FLAWS but the group dynamic and love was not one of them.
