MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*
The final season of ANGEL goes through some odd mutations as it shifts from "film noir mystery" to "working from within to take down the evil company." Further, according to a recent interview with James Marsters, when his character of Spike was resurrected for this series, this exigency may have caused the producers to cut Charisma Carpenter from the cast. This means the character arc for Cordelia is never really brought to a satisfying conclusion, at least in the teleseries. Still, in Season Four the writers had written themselves into a corner with respect to that character, so maybe they couldn't have done much with her anyway. And one more season of Spike, being brought into continuous conflict with his old hell-mate Angel, was probably a decent trade-off.
CONVICTION (F)-- Season Four dropped the Fred-Gunn romance in a contrived manner so that by Season Five one can hardly tell they were ever together. This set up more unrequited agony for Wesley, who still loves her but can't seem to make a play. Gunn, for his part, gets super-charged with legal knowledge so that he can function as one of W&H's lawyers, just so he has a more definite function in the series than busting heads. Harmony is invited-- by Wesley, no less-- to become Angel's new secretary, but the Senior Partners also send Angel a new advisor, name of Eve, who serves as Hell's liaison. The main plot, about the team trying to prevent LA from being blown to hell, is just filler. The episode ends with Spike appearing in the offices of W&H, but as an insubstantial phantom.
JUST REWARDS (F)-- Not only is Spike a phantom, he also can't leave the evil law offices and so sticks around to bug Angel as much as possible. At the same time, Angel demands that W&H stop supplying a client named Hainsley with grave-derived corpses. Hainsley, a necromancer, threatens to take Angel down, and tries to get Phantom Spike to betray the noble vampire. The expectation set up is that Spike, who betrayed the Buffy team a few times, will do anything to get a body again, but it's no great surprise that Spike is not so much loyal to Angel as disloyal to the necromancer.
UNLEASHED (F)-- This is a decent filler episode in which the Angel Team protects a brand-new werewolf, name of Nina, from becoming the main course for a bunch of gourmets hungry for werewolf flesh.
HELL BOUND (F)-- Scofflaw though Spike is, he knows that all the things he's done in his vampire persona should doom him to eternal perdition. For the first time, the second "vampire with a soul" is faced with that fate, as a being called the Reaper, whom others at W&H cannot see, continually torments him. The existential confrontation with damnation, however, is circumvented when it turns out that the Reaper is the ghost of a sorcerer who's found a way to preserve his existence by sacrificing other spirits-- even though, technically, Spike is not exactly a ghost. James Marsters gets all the good scenes here, but the story is only adequate.
LIFE OF THE PARTY (P)-- And here's the first crummy episode of Season Five. Lorne arranges a Halloween party at W&H as a means of cementing the firm's relationships with its many demonic and sorcerous clientele. But Lorne has overextended himself by not getting enough sleep, and so he unintentionally starts commanding the other members of his group to do things against their will, much as Willow unintentionally did in "Something Blue." The foremost of these incidents is that Lorne's suggestion that Angel and Eve "get a room" causes them to have sex, though this doesn't have much overall effect upon the series as a whole. During the big bash, a Hulked-out version of Lorne shows up and tries to bash everyone to bits, and once the monster's defeated, Lorne vows to get some sleep.
THE CAUTIONARY TALE OF NUMERO CINCO (F)-- This episode isn't all that good, but I give it props for trying to write a love letter to luchadores movies. Angel has a violent encounter with Numero Cinco, the W&H mailroom-guy, who walks around in a wrestler's mask-- but this is just a prelude to learning that Cinco is the only one who can stop a demon that feeds on heroes' hearts. The most significant subplot is that Spike, despite still being a phantom, hears some details of the Shianshu Prophecy, and wonders if it might apply to him, not to Angel.
LINEAGE (G)-- Finally one of the stories turns up the drama to eleven and does so in such a way as to reveal the psychological depth of the Wesley character. The opening scenes give the impression that the team is faced with just another new foe: a horde of cyborg assassins. Fred gets injured in these scenes while Wesley, who still has yet to make a romantic pass at her, becomes very guilty at having put her in harm's way. The script still plays it coy as to whether Fred reciprocates his feelings, because the focus here is not on Wesley's future but his humiliating past. His father Roger Wyndham-Pryce is trying to rebuild the Watcher organization that was wiped out in BUFFY's last season, and he wants his son to join him. Wesley, however, wants his independence, even if it does involve working for a hellish law office. The matter becomes irrelevant when it turns out that (a) Roger is a mole, trying to steal a weapon from the office, and (b) Roger is a cyborg, which Wesley only finds out after being forced to shoot his "father" dead. Though the real Roger Wyndham-Pryce is still alive and unaware of all these events, Wesley is once more put through a dark night of the soul, his third following Angel trying to kill him and his loss of Lilah.
DESTINY (G)-- Up to this point Phantom Spike has been no more than an annoyance to his former pack-mate Angel, but a strange box arrives at W&H and it turns Spike to a solid being again. However, the same magic that works on Spike starts breeding chaos in the law offices and spreading to the outside world The Angel Team gets the info that they can cancel out the magic if the destined champion of the prophecy drinks from a magical cup. Naturally each of the two ensouled vampires thinks he's destined to receive the honor, and they end up having one of the series' best fight-scenes at the climax. This is also one of the last times the show flashes back to the period when Spike had been newly turned by Drusilla, and Angelus, the "big dog" of the vamp-pack, puts Spike to the test. More importantly, Young Spike is sincerely in love with the wayward Drusilla, and his first big quarrel comes about when Angelus, on the outs with Darla, seduces Drusilla. So this provides the genesis of the long rivalry of Angel and Spike, and from then on, their continuing love/hate affair bedomes the final season's best feature. The story also brings back evil lawyer Lindsey (Christian Kane), who's running some conspiracy with his lover Eve, W&H's link to the senior partners.
HARM'S WAY (F)-- This makes a good counterpart to "Disharmony," being a focus on how Harmony copes with being Angel's secretary. At the very time that the team is trying to manage a difficult summit between rival demon tribes, Harmony is framed for murder. She blunders about trying to prove her innocence and nearly kills some of the regular cast. One of the better funny ANGEL episodes. A minor development of the Spike story is that he stops talking about seeking out Buffy for a time, possibly fearing that if he sees her again, she'll reject him.
SOUL PURPOSE (F)-- "Hell Bound" put Spike through a hallucinogenic wringer, so now it's Angel's turn, reflecting his loss of confidence after being defeated by Spike. Many of Angel's delusions involve his seeing Spike taking over his position as champion and being feted by the other members of the team while Angel himself becomes the mail-boy. Meanwhile, Lindsey launches the next part of his hard-to-follow plot. He takes the name "Doyle," formerly that of the half-demon psychic who passed on his powers to Cordelia in Season One and convinces Spike to play vigilante.
DAMAGE (G)-- Here's a good callback to the history both Spike and Angel had with vampire slayers, as they encounter an insane young woman with Slayer strength. Dana (Navi Rawat) has been in an insane asylum for years following suffering abuse, but thanks to the spell that unleashed all Potential Slayers in BUFFY Season Seven, she comes into her power and breaks loose. Unlike Buffy and Faith, Dana's memory somehow taps into those of the last two Slayers-- the ones whom Spike killed-- so she's out to give Spike grief. The episode loses points for pointlessly bringing back the unfunny BUFFY character Andrew, though the climax does involve his command of other Slayers who take custody of Dana at the end.
YOU'RE WELCOME (F)-- And now it's time to say goodbye to Cordelia Chase as well. Angel, in the midst of contemplating defection from W&H, gets a call about Cordelia awakening from her coma. This may have been mystic flummery, for by the episode's end we learn that Cordelia's body never awakened, though something that looks and feels like the living Cordelia greets the Angel Team. She follows them back to W&H and has brief interactions with Harmony, Gunn and Lorne. She asks after Connor and finds out that Angel agreed to work for W&H in exchange for remolding reality to give Connor a happy life. Cordelia is not shy about telling Angel that he's gone down a bad road, though as in all the other Season Four episodes, she never reveals any details about how she got hijacked by Jasmine. The team learns that Eve has made an alliance with Lindsey to get revenge on Angel, though his actual plot never made much sense. Cordelia aids Angel in defeating Lindsey and sending him to some hell-dimension. The story concludes with Cordelia shuffling off the mortal coil to become a vision-thing of some sort. It's hard to believe the story was conceived as a guest-shot for Buffy.
WHY WE FIGHT (F)-- If nothing else, this one's a good change of pace, as most of the story is a flashback to Angel's years in the US during World War Two. In short, Angel, Spike and two other vampires get trapped in a submarine at the bottom of the sea. The frame story concerns how one of the mortals menaced by the vamps comes back to gain vengeance on Angel.
SMILE TIME (F)-- I must admit that though there's nothing exceptional about the story, "the one where Angel gets turned into a puppet" remains one of the most memorable ANGEL tales. Spike's huge amusement at Angel's humiliation alone makes the episode, though he takes a back seat to the boss vamp's temptation to romantically pursue werewolf-woman Nina. In between the puppet-hijinks, Gunn begins to lose his downloaded talents and makes an unwise deal, while Fred finally breaks the ice with Wesley. Both lead to bad ends.
A HOLE IN THE WORLD (G)-- Fred is infected with the essence of an Old God named Illyria, which destroys her body and soul despite everything the team can do to prevent it. Even more than the BUFFY episode "The Body," "Hole" shows the utter inability of even super-powered mortals to stave off death, which I assume is the "hole" referenced in the title. A special perk is that for once writer Josh Whedon expands on his quasi-Lovecraftian universe in a fully mythopoeic manner, as Angel and Spike delve into a subterranean domain, "The Deeper Well," only to learn that even attempting to oust an Old God from her chosen vessel will cause untold destruction. Denisof and Acker ratchet up the waterworks to give Winifred Burkle a send-off, while introducing a new character for Acker, that of an incarnate god who has little patience with the fatuities of mortals.
SHELLS (G)-- Wesley has not even a moment to mourn Fred, for he must immediately deal with Illyria, an Old God in human form. She remembers nothing of Fred's existence but is aghast to learn that the world has now been overridden by humans, who were a nugatory species on the level of pond scum. Angel and Spike return from England, having failed to reverse Illyria's possession of Fred's body. They question the W&H scientist Knox, who conspired to give Illyria her new form. Then Illyria abducts Knox, casting aside all opposition. On a minor note, Gunn learns that the process that gave him a permanent download was also involved in Illyria's incarnation, though this seems out of left field. Wesley does not react well to Gunn's accidental betrayal and stabs Gunn, albeit non-fatally. Illyria, with Knox's aid, successfully opens a gateway to a pocket dimension, from which she plans to revive an army of conquest. However, to her great consternation her soldiers have all perished over the centuries, and on top of that Wesley kills Knox. Despite the conflict between Illyria and the Angel Team, the former goddess shows up at W&H once more, having nowhere else to go.
UNDERNEATH (F)-- Eve wants the Angel Team to protect her from the senior partners, who already have Lindsey. None of them knows that for whatever reasons, Lindsey's captors have put him into a suburban paradise with a pretty wife and a child, though his familial pleasures are regularly interrupted by torture sessions with a S&M demon. Eve convinces the team that Lindsey can solve their problems with his insight into the minds of the senior partners, so Angel, Spike, and Gunn invade the holding-dimension to rescue Lindsey. In their absence-- during which time Wesley is still babysitting Illyria-- a hulking man in a suit (Alec Baldwin) invades W&H, trying to find Eve. However, though the hulk (name of Hamilton) is from hell, he's only here to take Eve's place as a new liaison to the firm, so she's not harmed. Gunn isn't so lucky. In order to expiate his guilt for having indirectly caused Fred's death, he takes Lindsey's place in the otherworld so that Angel and Spike escape with Lindsey.
ORIGIN (P)-- Naturally the writers don't really want Connor totally sidelined, since he causes Angel all sorts of grief. So one day Connor's parents bring their son into the W&H offices to find out how their son was able to survive being run down by a car. It doesn't make a lick of sense as to why Connor would still be half-demon if his entire timeline has been rewritten. The writers choose not to explain this, even though they make up a special demon, name of Vail, who's credited with having accomplished the rewriting. And yet there's some balmy prophecy that insists that Connor is the only being who can destroy Vail's enemy, the scheming Sahjhan from Season 4. The only good part of this mess is the scene in which Spike tries to "test" Illyria's powers, which makes for some decent face-smashings.
TIME BOMB (F)-- Though Wesley persuades Illyria to crash into the hell-dimension and to rescue Gunn, the team worries that Illyria's powers will soon build to a crisis point and she'll explode, destroying lots of Earth real estate in the process. Wesley devises a ray-gun to disperse her power, though for most of the episode the viewer is led to believe that he intends to kill her. While this goes on, Angel also has to deal with a legal matter about a sacrificial cult trying to take possession of an unborn baby from its mother. The episode's best feature is a series of time-distortions resulting when Illyria becomes "unstuck in time." Presumably the script was written when the staff hoped to be able to continue for a sixth season, which would have included Illyria becoming a regular, less reluctant team-member.
THE GIRL IN QUESTION (F)-- This is another silly concept. Angel and Spike journey to Italy to protect the decapitated head of a demon-clan master while simultaneously trying to pry Buffy from the clutches of a mysterious, never-seen seducer known as The Immortal. Naturally, since Sarah Michelle Gellar did not choose to come back for what would have been a cameo role, Buffy is only seen from a distance and is never involved in any story-action, any more than is the mysterious man she's now dating. In this comedy both Angel and Spike are played for fools, and even the perpetually uncool Andrew is allowed to shine. The only redeeming virtue of the episode is the writers are still able to keep up the great rapport between Angel and Spike, allowing the viewer to see glimpses of the amity they once shared before either of them got a soul. Flashback scenes also show their wenches Darla and Drusilla having been seduced by the ultra-manly Immortal, which seems like gilding the lily a bit too much.
POWER PLAY/NOT FADE AWAY (F)-- There are some good moments in this concluding two-parter, but the myth-discourse is palliated by the attempt to shoehorn in all of the subplots, such as the overrated Shianshu Prophecy. (There was even talk of having Buffy make one last guest appearance, but though Gellar might have been willing, the idea was dropped.) In the first part, Angel begins acting evil, as if completely corrupted by running Wolfram and Hart. The rest of the team run around worrying, except for Illyria, who bonds a little with Spike in running around fighting evil. The subplot with Lindsey belatedly takes shape, though he doesn't do much beyond providing bits of info. Angel seems to be auditioning for membership in an elite convocation of demons, the Circle of the Black Thorn, who are the means through which the senior partners work their will upon the mortal plane. Not surprisingly, Angel's running a scam to deceive both the watchful Hamilton and the duplicitous Lindsey. In essence, the hero has realized that there's no point in seeking to use W&H "to change things from within," because the power of the senior partners will always be used to keep humans down. The best that heroes can do is to shake things up, to inflict substantive damage on the lords of Hell, even if they themselves perish. The two-parter finds time to work in character moments for minor figures like Connor and Harmony, and all the major players get to have big action-scenes taking out demonic forces, with Angel squaring off with Hamilton. Lorne, though not a fighter, gets an uncharacteristic final moment that nevertheless sums up his place in the world of champions. The final scene, in which the Angel Team takes arms against an irresistible tide of monsters, does much to redeem all the weak moments of this uneven but still important teleseries.
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