ANGEL
Season 2

Available on DVD

1. Judgement
2. Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?
3. First Impressions
4. Untouched
5. Dear Boy
6. Guise Will Be Guise
7. Darla
8. The Shroud of Rahmon
9. The Trial
10. Reunion
11. Redefinition
12. Blood Money
13. Happy Anniversary
14. The Thin Dead Line
15. Reprise
16. Epiphany
17. Disharmony
18. Dead End
19. Belonging
20. Over The Rainbow
21. Through The Looking Glass
22. There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb

Season Overview

ANGEL's second season comes roaring out the blocks with a real sense of its own identity and purpose. Gone are the constant visits from members of the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER cast and the show gets on with the job of providing a show that is dark and centred on the deeper sufferings of its characters whilst still being witty and light when it chooses to be.

Along with the monster of the week stories, there are two main threads this season. The first is the resurrection of Darla, Angel's sire. Her torturing of his emotions and the twisted familial relationship between her, Angel and Drusilla, the first vampire Angel turned, are the dark core that takes the vampire to the very edge of darkness where not even his friends can help him.

The second story arc is the four-part mini-series that forms the finale to the series with the whole gang going to the alternative dimension of Pylea. This is made possible by the introduction of a demon karaoke bar run by a louche host who can sense destiny, but only when you sing. This character, known mainly as The Host, but later revealed to be called Lorne (yes, he's green), is brilliantly portrayed by Andy Hallett and fits into the show right away.

There are no real standout episodes this time around, but that is more a testament to the general high standard of episodes rather than something to bemoan. Epiphany is possibly the high point, but Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been? is a great monster of the week and character piece whilst Guise Will Be Guise gets the prize for the most fun episode of the season.

ANGEL has found its own voice and we can only hope that it goes on from strength to strength from here.

Judgement

Cordelia has a vision of a nasty demon of unknown origin and Angel goes out and kills it. He only then finds out that the demon was the bodyguard of a pregnant woman and her unborn child. He was needed to defend her in a fight to the death, a fight that Angel will now have to take up. Worse than that, he will have to sing Barry Manilow's Mandy in public.

The second season of ANGEL gets underway with a typically perverse episode that plays with all expectations to come up with an entertaining storyline with plenty of wit and charm and a dark underbelly of threat. Not only does Angel kill an 'innocent' demon through his own prejudice to show that the series still intends to play upon its shades of grey, but it pitches a medieval joust in the middle of a modern Los Angeles street and doesn't feel the need to explain any of the backstory.

The biggest delight, however, is the demon karaoke bar where your future can be told for the price of a song. This is exactly the kind of juxtaposition that the show revels in.

Welcome back Angel.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been

An abandoned LA hotel suddenly becomes of interest to Angel. As Wesley and Cordelia research the sordid history of the place, Angel remembers a time in 1952 when he might have saved a woman, or been saved by her.

The summary of this episode sounds pretty dull, but it's an atmospheric little piece that, whilst it riffs heavily on the Overlook hotel from THE SHINING evokes a nice time and place. Prejudice is the theme, racism to be precise, providing the source for a paranoia demon to thrive. The fifties decor, vehicles etc are nicely done and the even the background actors help to bring the setting alive.

The plot itself seems fairly straightforward for a while, but then throws in betrayal and revenge to come up with a few twists. The only weakness is that it's taken Angel until now to get a conscience about what he did.

First Impressions

Angel's sleeping more and more, having vivid dreams about Darla, the vampire who sired him and with whom he ravaged his way across the continents before he killed her. Resurrected by Wolfram and Hart, she's inducing these dreams to weaken him. It's starting to work as he's late to help out Gunn who's in pursuit of a powerful demon that's terrorising his old neighbourhood, even after Cordelia has a vision of their friend in mortal danger.

Considering the hatred and disgust that Angel had for Darla at the end, it's hard to accept the ease with which he has come to accept her in his dreams and how eager he is to get back to sleep to spend more time with her. That's the thing about love, though, it can be the most addictive drug in the world, seductive even as it destroys you.

The Cordelia/Gunn thread is the one that provides all the fun as she proves just how streetwise she isn't. There's no twists or surprises along the way, just a witty script played out with great comic timing.

Untouched

Following Cordelia's vision of a girl in danger, Angel finds a crime scene with two dead men. The woman has been recruited by Wolfram and Hart because of her intense telekinetic powers and is being handled by Lila for the company, but Angel senses the emotional wounds that are fuelling the girl's talent and attempts to save her.

Parental abuse is an ugly thing with effects that last a lifetime. This episode manages to make that point with suggestion and subtlety, making it all the more powerful. The girl's CARRIE-style outbursts are merely the peg on which to hang another tale of Angel connecting with a damaged soul and using his own pain to forge the connection that ultimately leads to salvation.

Dear Boy

Angel starts to see Darla during the day, whilst he is awake, rather than just in his dreams. When he confronts her, she claims to be someone else, but Angel knows that it's her, come to turn him back into the evil Angelus.

Wolfram and Hart's plan is revealed as Darla takes a bold step in her attempt to challenge Angel's humanity and send him back to the dark side. Though there's never any real doubt that she will succeed, the confrontation between her and Angel in the abandoned reservoir is dramatic and on an emotional level. Who would have thought that a show about vampires could delve so deep into the psyche of what it means to be undead? Both David Boreanaz and Julie Benz make the most of the nuanced script with some quality thesping.

Guise Will Be Guise

Angel travels out of town to see a Holy Man who he believes will be able to help him get Darla out of his head. In his absence, Wesley pretends to be his boss in order to protect a young woman who has been threatened by enemies of her magic-selling father.

Following the emotionally-charged and dark episodes of recent times, here's a full-bloodedly silly episode full of fun and nonsense to lighten things up again. Alexis Denisof gets to take centre stage as the plot revolves Wesley's unconvincing attempts to pretend to be a cool and dangerous vampire. There are lots of witty lines and the cast show their comic timing off to great effect. The ending might be a bit of a damp squib, but it's a lot of fun getting there.

Darla

Since Angel rejected her attempts to turn him, Darla's mental condition has started to deteriorate as the consequences of having a soul begin to exact their toll. Wolfram and Hart can't help and even factored this into their plans, but there is one who might be able to save her - Angel.

This episode is all about the tortured, twisted relationship between Angel and Darla down the century. A series of flashbacks to various times show the story of that love from Darla's turning by the Master to the day when she knew that she had lost him forever. Some of these we've already seen in both Season 1 and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but the new sequences are seamlessly integrated into the established mythology of Angel's past, deepening and refining it at the same time. The characters are revealed more and the history shared makes the link that Angel still feels for his sire understandable and believable.

All of this means that when Angel and Darla's view of what constitutes saving her are revealed to be different it's a real sucker blow. This is character writing at a level that genre series rarely even aspire to, let alone achieve.

The Shroud of Rahmon

Gunn asks for Angel's help in getting his cousin out of trouble with a heist that he's gotten himself into. The target is a shroud believed to possess mind-altering qualities and the mixed bag of thieves gives Angel the opportunity to go undercover. When the case holding the shroud cracks and the influence starts to spread, Angel bites into Detective Lockley's neck.

David Boreanaz gets a chance to play a different character as Angel has to play out his undercover role and the others get a chance to act out of character. It's a fun, but throwaway episode that won't figure large in the memory when this season is looked back on, but is entertaining all the same.

The Trial

Angel learns that Wolfram and Hart not only brought Darla back as a human, but a human who is dying of the illness that would have killed her had she never been turned into a vampire in the first place. His only hope of curing her lies in facing a series of trials that must surely kill him.

What starts off as a fairly standard 'pass the trials and get what you want' storyline takes a twist when Angel succeeds only to find that Darla's been brought back from the dead once and once is all you get. He is faced with the prospect of watching her die and she has come to accept that this is a good thing. Wolfram and Hart, however, don't give up quite so easily.

ANGEL has completely found its own voice in this second season and continues to mix up its darker, twistier, emotionally-charged storyline. This is not just about vampires and demons fighting, but about the tortured relationships that tear our souls. This is absolutely fantasy for grown ups.

Reunion

Following her being bitten by Drusilla, Darla is due to rise again as a vampire, but Angel isn't about to let that happen. The only trouble is that he doesn't know where to look. It's a case of having to follow the bodies, but in this case it takes him to a surprising physical location and a darker psychological one.

The 'heroes good/demons bad' philosophy of Buffy The Vampire Slayer is jettisoned even more as Angel looks for a state of mind that will allow him to fight the war into which he has been plunged and allow him to slaughter Darla and Drusilla, the vampires that form his 'family'. This means allowing innocent people to die and cutting himself off from those he cares about.

As Angel begins to fall, so Darla begins to rise. Together with Drusilla, she picks a pleasingly surprising target for the start of her reign of terror, which then leads to Angel's also pleasingly unexpected change of attitude. This show just continues to grow in stature.

Redefiniton

Darla and Drusilla set about recruiting demons for an army with which they will take over the city. Angel trains himself hard to go out and meet them head on. His employees, however, weep into their drinks before singing karaoke and deciding to carry on the fight themselves.

It would seem that Wolfram and Hart's scheme to turn Angel bad might be bearing some fruit. His actions are no longer marred by any trace of mercy and, horror of horrors, he smokes. This episode feels a bit filler-ish, setting up the next stage of the story rather than having one of its own. The addition of a voiceover from David Boreanaz explaining motivations that are plain enough just adds to the impression.

The final face-off with Darla and Drusilla is a bit of an anti-climax, but it does make the point about the new, merciless Angel. There is, at least, a lighter note in the visit of Wesley, Gunn and Cordelia to the karaoke bar.

Blood Money

Angel is on the warpath against the Wolfram and Hart law firm and will fight on any level. When he learns that they are holding a benefit event for a local teens refuge, he is sure that it is a scam to steal the money and sets out to expose them. His plans are hampered somewhat by a visitor from his past.

Pardon us, but embezzlement of funds from a charity doesn't make for the highest of supernatural dramas and this just proves that point. It's not a bad episode so much as being a deeply average episode, a bit dull but OK. Compared to some of the other stories we've seen this season, however, it is downright drab.

Happy Anniversary

The Host of the karaoke bar comes to Angel and tells him that one of the people he 'read' whilst they were singing will pretty much end the future for everyone at 10pm the following night. It turns out that he is a physicist working on ways of freezing time and plans to freeze his girlfriend and himself in a moment of true bliss. A group of demons plan to sabotage the experiment to make sure that he freezes everything, forever.

This is an odd story. As pretty much everything else is based around magic and the supernatural, to get a tale that is so stuffed full of technology and hardware comes as a bit of a shock. It also seems a little small league. Sure, he's going to freeze time for the whole universe, but it's all because his girl's about to leave him? Not exactly the most epic of reasons.

The Thin Dead Line

Gunn gets a call for help from his old neighbourhood where cops that won't stay dead are taking a zero tolerance approach to anything. Whilst Cordelia helps barricade the teen shelter, Wesley goes to help Gunn and gets seriously shot. Angel's investigations, meanwhile, take him in another direction.

This is more like it. After two lacklustre episode we get a streamlined action story with zombie cops and violence and killing and everything. The flashes of social comment aren't pushed enough to spoil it either.

Reprise

It's the 75 year review at Wolfram and Hart, which means that one of the Senior Partners is coming to the offices in person. Angel sources a glove that can kill the creature and offer him a ride to the Home Office, the source of all evil.

Wow, ANGEL bounces back with an episode that starts off as a simple action plot to kill the visiting demon, but then goes off on a metaphysical tangent that gives Angel all kinds of questions about the nature of evil and his place in the great scheme of things. Then Darla comes knocking and things get a bit frisky. The last time Angel got frisky with a girl he ended up nearly bringing the Apocalypse to Sunnydale.

The highlight here is the visit to Hell, to the very source of evil. It's a clever and somewhat profound twist as the doors open and displays just how this show can be more than a martial arts monsterfest.

Epiphany

After his night of passion with the Darla, Angel awakens to find that he hasn't lost his soul, but has gained an insight into the meaning of life. Armed with that, he sets off to make his peace with his old team only to find them in mortal danger.

Following the startling revelations of Reprise, Epiphany ought to have been equally insightful. Instead, it's just fun. There are nasty demons, some witty repartee, a bruising encounter between Angel and Lindsay, who is slightly peed off that Angel slept with Darla, and a crashing climax.

Disharmony

Harmony, one of Cordelia's closest friends from High School and now a vampire, turns up in LA to rekindle old times. Cordelia mistakes her blood lust for lust of another kind, leading to awkward situations, but when it is revealed that a motivational speaker turned vampire is recruiting an army Harmony proves to be a less useful than most undercover agent.

ANGEL's been very dark of late and so it's great to have a silly, funny, light and cheerful episode like this to get some fun out of. Mercedes McNab is always good value as the ditzy demon Harmony and there are plenty of good lines to go around.

Dead End

Cordelia witnesses a man stab out his own eye. Angel's investigation leads to an underground clinic where body parts taken from unwilling donors are given to recipients deemed worthy of them by Wolfram and Hart. Lindsey is the latest and his new hand is less than co-operative.

The character of Lindsey has been given a lot of screen time lately and he has grown into a more rounded one as a result, complex and deeper than the usual evil person. This story is his and is all the more interesting for it. One of the show's strengths has been its focus on character over plot and this is an opportunity for one of the minor characters to shine. Which is just as well because the plot itself is a bit pefunctory.

Belonging

The host comes to get Angel to kill a vicious creature that has just come through a mystical portal. Cordelia has a vision of just such a portal through which a girl vanished five years previously. The Host, now named as Lorne, is joined by another demon of his kind who tells of a dimension that the Host fled in shame. They manage to find a way to send the demon back to his homeland, but Cordelia gets caught up in the backlash.

Another more minor character comes to the fore as the host of the karaoke bar takes centre stage. Some of his background is explained and there is a monster to be killed and lots of the trademark one-liner dialogue. If the episode ends up being inconsequential then that doesn't matter because it's very entertaining.

Over the Rainbow

Whilst the boys look for a way to get her back, Cordelia finds out more about the hell dimension that is her new home. Humans are slaves and called cows. They are kept in line with collars of pain and when they can no longer carry out the most menial, disgusting jobs then they are eaten. Then she has a vision.

For a hell dimension, Pylea doesn't seem so bad. For one thing, Angel doesn't burst into flames in the daylight. Sure the humans are slaves, but it really doesn't seem that much worse that Earth in mediaeval times. Harsh and brutal, yes, but hardly hell.

This would undermine the darker moments of the story except that there aren't any. This is a light and breezy adventure story with little of the darkness that has permeated the rest of the season. As such, it's entertaining enough, but not what you'd call memorable.

Through the Looking Glass

The boys are saved from execution by the revelation that Cordelia has been made ruler of Pylea by virtue of a prophecy about a leader cursed with visions. What she's not been told is that she is supposed to mate with a creature called a Groosalug.

The silly nonsense of this story continues with Cordelia prancing around in a very revealing outfit complaining about revealing outfits, Gunn and Wesley finding links with Wolfram and Hart even here and crawling through sewers, Angel making contact with the woman whose disappearance was what started the investigation of portals and the Host losing his head, literally.

It's light, it's bright, it's breezy and it's sort of not ANGEL. The show's stories have been rooted in the gritty reality of the streets and the characters. Now here they are making merry in the halls of Robin Hood with ridiculous dances and music as a weapon. It's a fun frolic, but it really doesn't fit in with the rest of the show at all.

There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb

Angel spends some time in the company of Winnifred Burke and learns that she is the key to getting everyone back home. Gunn and Wesley spend some time in the company of the rebels and learn that they are the key to getting inside the castle to Cordelia. Cordelia spends some time with the Groosalug and learns that he has the key to her heart.

This story has been set up over three previous episodes, the last two set in Pylea, and yet it seems like they've been lying around on the job because there is a whole lot of plot to get through in just one season finale. The main issue is that Gunn and Wesley have to convince the rebels that they can help, come up with a plan, train everyone up and break into the castle all in the space of a few hours.

The race to set all this up doesn't leave time to come up with a satisfying climax as Angel goes head to head with the Groosalug in a battle that is somewhat underwhelming, but not so underwhelming as the way that the battle ends, everyone says goodbye and we're back home in time for the tragic news about the love of Angel's life. It's all rushed and really doesn't pay off.