Angel Alone

The writing in Angel season two isn't always the strongest. I'm about halfway through and though there've been some strong stand-out episodes, like "Guise Will Be Guise" (one of the best of the whole series, I now think) and "Blood Money", the season suffers from some bad overall arc ideas. After Angel leaves a bunch of Wolfram and Hart attorneys to the mercy of Darla and Drusilla, his staff are all horrified. So he fires them so he can be unfettered by their scruples. This leads to a situation that lasts for several episodes in which Angel and the Angel Investigations teams work separately. The trouble is, I don't buy anyone's motives for this. I don't think Gunn, in particular, would be bothered by Wolfram and Hart's people being eaten. Certainly not season one Cordelia, though, sadly, season two is where the ever delightfully mercenary valley girl became tiresomely righteous, around the same time Charisma Carpenter apparently got breast implants and an unflattering short haircut. It's only Wesley I can see being plausibly aghast, but I couldn't see it being a deal breaker even for him. Angel's decision to fire the three of them makes no sense, too, because it's not like they were really standing in his way before. And it's likely he needed only wait until another screenwriter was at hand for them to come around to his opinion, anyway.

But I liked the past two episodes I just watched, "Blood Money" and "Happy Anniversary". Both feel exceptionally comic book-ish--"Blood Money" feels like Batman and "Happy Anniversary" feels like Tales from the Crypt.

I like how the character played by Julia Lee, first introduced as Chantarelle on Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 2, is re-introduced. Although she and Angel had met on Buffy, neither recognises the other, and that's actually plausible. They both look different, especially Anne, and I don't think they heard each other's names back then. A lesser show would've had an awkward line of dialogue where she mentioned knowing Buffy and the two characters would fill each other in. Instead, we get something much more realistic and strange--two characters whose paths previously crossed who have no idea they've crossed a second time. That's like the legitimate strangeness of human existence.

"Happy Anniversary" is the first to feature the Host as a full on guest star and he drops some fairly insightful lines that Andy Hallett's ever delightful, melodious delivery makes sound profound. The main plot about a physicist whose invention stops time feels very much like the kind of cruel moral tale you'd see in the original Tales from the Crypt comics, except the ending isn't so grim. The way he overhears his girlfriend planning to break up with him after giving him a "sympathy bone" on their anniversary feels so oddly relation-drama for Angel it makes me wonder if this is actually something from one of the writers' (as it happens, show creators David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon) personal lives. Hopefully neither one would have endangered the world to freeze time mid-coitus.

Angel is available on Disney+ in Australia and Amazon Prime in the US.