Release
Previously, on Angel, Angelus did some pretty clever work, with one key flaw, killing the Beast and almost taking Faith too. I had some respect for our evil friend, therefore. However, after watching this episode, it almost completely evaporated — thanks not only to some atrocious dialogue but also to David Boreanaz’s decision to overact insanely when speaking to the disembodied evil-Cordy voice. These scenes in particular were painful to watch, with the exception of when Cordy taunted Angelus with his coexistence with Angel, which was a nice point. Does an impressive, somewhat ancient vampire go to pubs to brag about how cool he is? I wouldn’t have thought so. His cunning plan to beat up some random shopkeeper until he told him who the Beast’s master was seemed just a little poor also.
While we’re talking about evil people, let’s briefly consider Cordy, or ‘the Beastmaster’ as everyone seems to have decided is a good name. Well, they managed to pick the Beast’s name, as well as the Powers that be, so they probably figure they’re onto a good thing here. I hope she turns out to be Loretta instead. I was shocked this episode to find out that while Cordy’s ‘evil’ voice is lame, the voice she used inside Angelus’ head is actually lamer.
But don’t think this week didn’t have it’s redeeming features. If you’d said the words ‘Faith’ and ‘Shower’ to me before watching, I’d have been awfully excited about this episode — especially if you’d also added ‘Willow’, ‘Fred’ and ‘Bubbles’. However this scene turned out to be something quite different, and gave a good, wordless insight into the struggles that Faith is dealing with. A lot of the best moments came from this struggle, as well as her relationship with Wesley, most notably in their heated discussion behind the demon pub. Continuity with their previous relationships with each other and with Angel was impressively maintained, and the characters benefited from it. Wesley trying to get Faith ‘in the game’ was an amusing inversion of Faith’s similar demands of Angel in season one’s ‘Five by Five’.
Gunn and Fred were vaguely interesting — I can’t work out whether their kiss was the first of a new relationship, or the last of their old one. Although I found Fred’s continuing dismay that she — a fairly weak mortal — wasn’t able to take down a centuries old vampire in close combat rather puzzling. Connor in a few scenes managed to show some charisma and interest — ironically this was always stymied by dull scenes with Charisma Carpenter. Was his self-inspection the funniest and most endearing side we’ve ever seen of him? I’d say so. Lorne continues to be a welcome, and uniquely happy presence, but with little character development so far this season.
The episode ended of course with a pretty impressive fight scene — one of Angel‘s best to date — that particularly dealt with Faith’s questions of who and what she is. In the end, this week we got an intense, emotional episode concerning aggression and control… spliced together with some of the most boring and cringe-inducing stuff the show has ever done.
Unfortunate, that.
526