Home
There’s two types of season finales in this world. The sort that wrap everything up that’s been going on all season, and the sort that throw a curve ball at you and leave you wondering what’s going to happen next season. Well, alright, there’s a few more than that, but these two do happen a lot. At the end of Angel‘s last season, we had the beautiful images of Angel and Cordy sinking into the sea and rising into the air respectively.
Well, beautiful as long as you didn’t think too hard about how or why it was happening. This time round, things are left moving in intriguing new directions.
‘Home’ was a breath of fresh air after the over arcing plot we’ve had to suffer and enjoy in roughly equal measure this season. Suddenly, everyone’s allowed to have a sense of humour again. We’re allowed to see the cast interact in more casual ways, rather than just responding to another apocalyptic threat. Quite frankly, after Angel and Buffy this season, I could go quite a while without an apocalyptic threat. They’re getting just a tad lame. Especially if I get some more lovely moments like Lorne and Fred dancing in the Wolfram and Hart foyer.
What I could get a lot more of is anything involving Wesley and Lilah — though I get the impression that their story could well be over at this point. Wesley’s attempt to destroy her perpetuity contract was a great touch. I do hope though that if Wesley uses this marvellous library system in the future, that he doesn’t have to hold his lips right next to the book to speak the desired name. It looks rather daggy, and to just walk in, say the name and have the correct book fly towards you would be much much cooler.
Fred, Gunn and Lorne probably had the least to do this episode — yet their threads did allow some intriguing possibilities for next season. Well, OK, not so much with Lorne. Having watched season 2 again recently, I’d love to see a return to the wiser, in tune with the higher-powers Lorne that dispensed good advice, rather than the more hedonistic creature he’s become. Or at least an acknowledgement that he’s made this change. Gunn and the Panther got on better than I expected, but there seems a bit of danger in linking one’s self too deeply with something at the centre of Wolfram and Hart. Fred now has a cool lab and a geeky scientist to help her — and luckily, this one can string sentences together and talks at a reasonable speed, unlike Sydney Bristow’s pet nerd on Alias.
I haven’t mentioned the issues with Angel and Connor yet. I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Has he done the right thing? Will we ever see Connor again? Has he made a mistake dealing with Wolfram and Hart? Sadly, due to the irritating wrangling of Connor’s character, viewers are only likely to care about the final question. I’m not convinced this was the best way to get him out of the way, but given their track record with him, I’m glad he IS out of the way. And to be fair, this plotline did revisit some of the themes that the show touched on all through the season.
Therefore I label ‘Home’ as the most enjoyable episode of Angel, season four. Others were better, but the vitality of a few completely new ideas being thrown into the mix — coupled with losing a whole bunch of ideas that weren’t working so well — seems to be giving this show a new beginning. And I like beginnings.
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