Ballet Ghosts

Season three of Angel has a fairly decent string of episodes before Joss Whedon suddenly steps in and knocks one out of the park with "Waiting in the Wings". This 2002 episode features the characters going to a ballet that of course turns out to be haunted.

At this point, Cordelia had already begun to slip into being a boring moral paragon. Whedon, who wrote and directed the episode, reminds us we loved the character because she was also shallow and sometimes brutally blunt. Wesley, who was also morphing into a new character, a brooding lone hunter, is in this episode also believably the awkward dweeb he was back in season three of Buffy.

This is also the introduction of Summer Glau to viewers. Here playing the doomed ghost of a ballerina, the real life ballerina Glau would then become a star of Whedon's Firefly series and then of the wonderful Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In her one scene of dialogue in "Waiting in the Wings", complaining about the sorcerer who keeps her imprisoned despite not even understanding ballet, is lovely. Whedon's catty dialogue is paired nicely with a sense of genuine torment in Glau's performance.

Angel and Cordelia making out in the haunted dressing room is really sexy and the ambiguity over how much of it is the possession talking is really nice.

Angel is available on Disney+ in many countries.

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