There’s a few things I really need to get out of the way first, otherwise this review will never get anywhere: Damn, Wesley is a great character. Well done to Alexis Denisof and the writers for making him the most real and believable character in the Buffy and Angel Universe.[ftn] The quiet speaking at the start. His discussion of love with Lilah. His moment of decision to save Angel, and knowing just who to call in to help. Brilliant stuff.

Now to the rest of it. Myeeeeeh. Evil Cordy is not really as much fun as the words look on paper. Let’s face it, when Cordy was schoolgirl-evil in season one of Buffy, she was great to watch. I really feel that perhaps this would have worked better if Charisma Carpenter had decided to play this as a twisted version of her former self, all bright and bouncy. There would be the risk of being a second Glory there — but anything’s better than Little Miss Soft ‘n’ Regular Speaking. Every scene she’s in makes me want to go to sleep, and as Connor tends to share them, I’m losing the enthusiasm I was building for his character. Not a terribly exciting twist at the end there.

I’ve handled the best and the worst, let’s look to the middle. Eliza Dushku makes a very welcome return as Faith. A more restrained individual than the one that we last saw, she retains her strength, while holding to some firm, incompromisable values. One of these is Angel, and her desire to save him — if she gets the chance then it’ll be a nice way to round off her character’s arc on Angel. She’ll have to try a bit harder than she did this week though.

We see a more clever and calculating side to Angelus this week — though sadly this is undermined slightly by his bungle with the sun. Still, I can imagine him deliberately ignoring the possibility that killing the Beast would return the sun simply because that’s what Angel thought would happen. But his plan to kill the Beast, get closer to the Beast’s master, and kill Faith into the bargain was a good one. His short phone call to Dawn was a nice touch also.

When not around Cordy, Connor was quite enjoyable — I liked the almost instantaneous crush he developed on Faith! It makes his subsequent baby-induced thrall to Cordy all the more tragic. This boy just seems to bounce around from one controlling liar to another.

Things to ponder… Is this still Cordy? Or just someone walking around in her body? And if she’s happy about the pregnancy, can we conclude that the bonking was part of her evil plan, and not in fact as bizarre as it initially seemed?

Footnotes

1. If I ever use the words ‘Buffyverse’ or ‘Jossverse’ you can kill me where I stand.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Wednesday, May 28th, 2003. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.