Question: I remember there being an implication that the lawyers of Wolfram and Hart sold their souls to the firm. Is that true and if so, would they still be capable of the same change of heart that someone like Faith can?

I know it’s not actually from this episode but “I’d like to test that theory” will always be in my like top 5 most badass returning character entrances of all time.

If Angel trains really hard, he may develop the skills needed to run an evil law firm one day.

How did I never notice Angel says, "I've got the moves" before 😂😂😂 Damn you, Ian

This episode FOR SURE needs a "Bladerunner: Final Cut" edit where all the VoiceOver is removed. It would be such a simple yet effective shift.

Now I want a reedit of the episode with no monologue. That would have been fantastic noir

This was hilarious, Ian. I agree that it would have been a better episode without Angel. The only thing I was expecting, and didn’t get, was a cut to Xander saying “how, what, how?” and Giles replying “three excellent questions”.

That "Top That" montage tho. And the callbacks (always funnier in threes). I am dying. Seriously, 10/10 fried gold!!!

I feel like at this point the writers chose to drop everything and go with "Lawyer BAD, Angel CHAMPION! He does champion-preparation-broody things because YES GOOD!"

I am CRACKING UP at the “I got the moves” edit. 🤣🤣🤣

""Look how FUNKY he is...." I literally almost had an accident I was laughing so hard during that "re-imagined" montage lol

Your humor was ON POINT this episode. LOL'd outloud multiple times

I love Wes’s song choice. “Maybe something by Cat Stevens?” Father and Son, perhaps?

You fool! Every time someone sees Giles' best line ever in a clip, they have to re-watch the whole series!

When I was young, I loved this episode, because it was exactly the kind of self-justifying, self aggrandizing rubbish I loved to feed myself when I was feeling weak or powerless. Angels feels like a child acting out. He sentenced the lawyers to death to prove a point to them and himself. You don't know what i'm capable of. When he is montaging, he seems to be desperately trying to numb himself of his conscience and guilt so that he can kill Darla again. When he says he's not ready he simply discovers that he isn't ready to kill her again. Because he hasn't been able to let go of the memory of her human self. When he sets them on fire it felt like a cruel act to further take steps toward being indifferent enough to kill her. Angel doesn't finish them off because he knows he can't. The reason all of this felt so aimless and confusing could simply be because Angel has stepped off his path. He is no longer following a grand design and so all of his actions feel pointless and half cocked. Thats just justifyication for bad writing but hey.

When asked "What is the Plot of this episode?" I paused to try and recall...I legitimately only remember the scenes...

"I'm not on their level..." *looks down the stairway into the sewers* "but I can get there" *descends down into them* I'm sorry, but that bit, to me, has always been the perfect summation of this stretch of the arc. I am unsure why you used the audio with a different shot, because it loses its context without it... but yeah, the implication that Angel is intentionally lowering himself to Wolfram & Hart's level hits real hard after the events of the last episode. It was a deliberate action, and he intends to do worse - just to stop Wolfram & Hart. Of course, what he doesn't realize, yet, is (as you put it in the last review) he is now playing their game, of which *they* decide the rules. I disagree that the show tries to redirect the concept away from Angel going dark, without being Angelus. To me, that whole monologue is from the perspective of someone who *thinks* they are doing the right thing, but is descending further and further into outright evil. He tortures Merl in a way that seems uncharacteristic of him - even leaving him hanging there; and the vampire/demon he decapitates looks like he's literally begging for his life. Buffy may take the stance (in early seasons) that demons can't qualify as innocents - but Angel has always been a lot more grey in that regard. Merl, from everything we've seen from him, is not evil - and while his and Angel's interactions usually have Angel playing 'bad cop' routine, he is outright torturing him to get information, now - and just leaves him there when he gets what he wants. That is an evil act. The big argument I can see is that Wesley and Cordelia not having a problem with it is a bit off-putting. I can see Gunn reacting the way he did, because his experience with fighting vampires, I've always assumed, has taken him to some dark places himself... it's why I feel he shows growth, in a future episode, dealing with the people he used to fight alongside. But Wes and Cori have a better understanding of Angel, and know that this is out of character for him... and more importantly, they know that as evil as the lawyers from Wolfram & Hart are, they still have souls. So yes, it is odd that they don't bring it up at all in this episode. I don't think that means the rest of the episode is ignoring the fact that Angel is going very dark.

I love the idea of the internal monologue being removed, damn that would make this so much cooler.

Aw man, you are SO right about the VO. I could never quite put my finger on why this episode doesn’t come together, but that’s it. It erases all possible ambiguity. I wonder if that was a writing decision or maybe Boreanaz’s agent stepped in and said they couldn’t have a whole episode of the show without him talking. Regardless, it definitely feels like an afterthought.

I would say that it's likely that Angel meant to kill Dru and Darla with that ciggie. Fire kills vampires pretty damn quickly, we've seen buffy torch vampires before and they totally combust in mere seconds; the fact that they got to a fire hydrant to cool off in a generous amount of time was likely not something Angel had accounted for The training was likely to fight 2 vampires who are his senior, and probably to emotionally prepare himself for torching the vampire he made who Angel considered to be his greatest masterpiece as a mass murdering psychopath back in the day, and the vampire who made him, who on some level he loves and has so much history with The "war" he was referring to is against wolfram and hart, who are an organisation that extends far, far beyond the lawyers he killed in that room So, no, I disagree, I don't think Angel's motives or actions are confusing, but I do agree that the VO in the episode is unnecessary, they could've done a lot more with show than tell, and it's a little campy for the dark places that this story goes to On a side note: the fact that the gang are more concerned with their occupational status than the mental health of their friend who is clearly pushing them away and going down a dark path is frustrating to me, but I sort of understand that they are hurt and in the early stages they're probably lashing out themselves rather than attempting to be understanding... its a bit weak, but yeh Those are just my thoughts on it Great video man, always love analysis and have done from the very beginning

It's been a while since I watched it but my interpretation of "I'm ready" "I'm not ready" was about whether he was prepared to kill Darla.

See I always felt that he wasn't ready to kill Darla& Dru. Every time in the episode that he had the opportunity he didn't. Then he set them on fire Figured that would be the end of it. However once they hit that fire hydrant the more sadistic part of his nature took over And said "you know what let them suffer for a little while I'll get them later". And I always felt that's why Darla said what she did.Angelus was Sadistic and did It was a smile on his face and a song in his heart but Angel never was. At least that's my humble interpretation

The fact that Angel leaves the lawyers locked up with Dru and Darla is, to me, problematic mostly because it doesn't go along with the concept of the basic idea that having or not having a soul is what separates true evil that should be destroyed from the evil that shouldn't. But even those who are strictly against it cross this line. Buffy is baffled when Faith kills an evil guy with a soul, but because of her selfish reasons will gladly try to kill Faith when she needs her blood to save Angel. Giles kills Ben, knowing that eventually Glory will be back and that this act is the only way to prevent it from happening (remember their conversation before the battle about killing Ben, especially Xander's reaction?). And there are more examples... Each of them have different reasons to step out of the boundaries,and is one of the things how Whedon exemplifies the concept of moral ambiguity. As for me, I enjoed the wine-cellar scene and D&D killing most of the lot trapped in there. They have souls, but they are evil and there is no other way to stop them. Even the very last episode when Angel tells Lorne to kill Lindsey is an example of this.

"Do you remeber the plot?" Me: Zombie Cops Also me: Wait, no!

My impression is that Angel just cares so much for Darla and Dru (and feels so guilty for what Angelus has done for them in the past) that his conflict is not souled vs unsouled but rather those who he cares about vs. those who he doesn't. Angel might have spared the lawyers from any other monsters, but he wasn't willing to risk killing Darla, who he has deep, messy, emotional connections to. Wolfram and Hart knew how rough it would be for Angel to see Darla turned in front of him. That's why they did it. I think Angel is just too emotional to give up on Darla even though he knows she's now a soulless vampire. In light of this episode, that's why he fired his team. It's also why he doesn't save anyone. He's distancing himself from his human connections so that he can distance himself from his emotional connections. He's preparing to murder the woman he loves. I know that Season 1 of Buffy would contradict this, (when Angel casually killed Darla) but the show has evolved since then.

Angel kill that blind assassin. She had a soul. In Conviction Angel kills the Wolfram and Hart tactical guy with a shot gun. I think Angel is a okay with killing people with souls. Edit: In fact he has Lindsey killed at the end of the show Lindsey has a soul and said he wanted to change Angel kill ensouled people all the time.

Why does a vampire need a training montage? Really, isn’t he like, unchanging and immortal physically? Hilarious and insightful video. Always gives me a new appreciation for one of my favorite shows. Thank you!

Your editing in this recap is just *chef's kiss* so good

I totally agree about the voice over. It wasn't needed and is in fact distracting as Hell-the polar opposite of David's voice-over in "Passion" which served to emphasize what the audience was seeing on the screen. This just takes away from the narrative. I've always enjoyed this episode, quite a lot actually but that part is really unnecessary. On the other hand, Angel setting Dru and Darla on fire while Julie Benz is screaming "Who was that?" is one of my favorite things....ever.

I never noticed this before, but Lorne clearly doesn't card if Cordelia can drink at Caritas.

The war that angel keep referring too is the war between good and evil. Almost like supernatural you're always going need hunters to fight the things that go bump in the night. And I know people are going say what about the slayer but we must always remember that buffy can't be there for everyone so there must be more people out there fighting the good fight.

“Tree bad, fire pretty” hahaha. Love that turnaround.

I always understood that the "I'm ready/I'm not ready" was about killing Darla. Angel's first real act as a vampire was killing his father (everything else he did was, imo, window dressing). Darla is, in his vampiric life, the equivalent, the vampire who turned him. You've talked about the Oedipal angle with the two of them before. He does love her, and she is his mother. So, it would make sense that, for a vampire who cruelly and mercilessly murdered his father as soon as he was turned, who carries guilt for that now with a soul, killing his mother figure would be difficult. They did show this, to an extent, on Buffy when he killed her the first time, with her certainty that he wouldn't. But he had Buffy, and they had a mission, so it was easier. Now, he's abandoned his mission, and he blames himself for Darla being turned again in the first place, and he knows killing her is a necessity but his heart's not in it. He had to hype himself up to do the deed this time. But, of course, she lives, and the writing doesn't execute any of it particularly well.

I do love the idea of re-editing this episode without the voiceovers and making Angel's behavior more ambiguous.

When you did the "I've got the moves" montage, I half expected a shot of "She" Angel's 'moves'. LOL

These reviews are the Highlight of my life. Everytime a new one comes out it’s like a mini Christmas!

As always, this analysis was amazing. Strong critique, well delivered, gave credit where it was due, and I LOL'd HARD at the girls on the bikes "watching" the montages. All of that said, I think this one delves so much into future material that it actually does need a spoiler alert warning. I feel like your take on the episode and your anxiousness to get to the "good stuff that's coming" are so high that you weren't willing to find ways to make your point that didn't need that many significant cutaways. Not to mention basically stating up front to first time viewers, "This isn't going anywhere" which is a huge spoiler in itself. Doesn't bother me of course, since I'm already a vet of both series. Just sayin'. Still loved every minute of it and I feel like I'm going to wind up rewatching it a few times, because I absolutely love it when you poke an episode like this. ;) That wit is one of the big things I'm here for.

I always laugh at this episode, I'm sorry to say. Thank you for articulating why, while also making me laugh again.

Great analysis as always! Always a great day when I get the notification that one of these has come up.

Outside of “I Will Remember You,” Faith’s arc episodes, and some character moments, I’ve never been huge on Angel the series. I love Buffy, it’s my favorite show, but there are some really off moments in Angel I could never get over. Especially in the later seasons.

The "Top That" montage threw me out. Absolute Gold, sir. Thank you!!

You made me think of this line from MacBeth: "Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." It's a weirdly downplayed and muted reaction to Lady MacBeth's death, so I think it fits

I always felt like the Angel and Darla bits in this episode were about the dilemma of spiritually two weak, lonely "people" finding real love with each other and then having to pretend it didn't happen so they can kill each other. For example, Angel believes that if he bangs Darla, he'll lose his soul, so he knows he has to kill her. Why? Because after the grief of losing Human!Darla, part of him wants to not care SO MUCH, so as long as she's alive (or until they bang and it doesn't work) he'll be chasing that moment of Perfect Happiness. But he loves her (in a perfect misery kind of way), so he's not ready to go up against her. Not only because he's not ready to kill her, but because he's not ready to control himself. He's weak, he knows it, and she's always been an enabler for his weakness. So he thinks he needs to not feel anything so he can be "ready" to kill her. Darla is suddenly pretending she only wants power because that's a properly evil motive, right? No feeling monster whose heart still reaks of the first Real Love she's ever felt would be preoccupied with power! She wants to be the old Darla again. The Darla who never knew love and never truly cared about anyone, but now that's impossible. The scene where she freaks out because she senses Angel in the crowd of demons is about this. Also, I feel like this reading is hammered home by the rest of the gang doing the same thing, trying to pretend they aren't grieving the family unit. Moving on out of spite before they're really ready. Sadly, I don't think anyone in this episode is preoccupied with the business of saving souls. (EDIT: I feel like the whole driving force behind Angel's scary obsession with Darla in season 2 of Angel ((notice his obsession begins and ends there, he wasn't obsessed with her in season 1 of Buffy or season 3 of Angel)) is built on his desire for relapse. He now knows he can lose his soul and he thinks Darla can give him that, so he feels compelled to fuck around with her, long before he finds out she's human. The reformed addict metaphor is strong in this junky relationship. Angel used his feelings for Darla as an excuse to feel okay about relapsing and being a monster, and Darla uses being monsters together as a cover to feel okay about wanting a relationship.)

I’m gonna be honest I always assumed W&H plan was always: f*ck around and find out. Ethan Rayne would be a top notch lawyer in this company given how he seems to only serve chaos and being an annoyance to do-gooders

I’m always so happy when a new episode from Passion of the Nerd!

The closing line absolutely killed me; thanks for making my Friday

Drusilla also predicts the fire when she and Darla leave the fight club - "I see such pretty fire, and pain!" I find this one enjoyable but now that you mention it it does seem to be a bit unsure of itself!

What you're saying in this review about Angel's montages, is why I think Angel has such a struggle when he gets his soul back the first time. We hear him almost tell Willow (regarding vamp-Willow) that your vampire-self is a lot like you. Angel feels awful about what he did as Angelus, because that is who he is deep down. We see people like Spike, who as a vampire, adored Drusilla and tried to save his mother. To Spike, even as a vampire, love was his driving passion. But Angel has this dark vindictive nature within himself, which is his true cardinal passion. When Angel first turned, he immediately wreaked havoc on his family. It makes sense because he probably hated his father all along, and deep down always wanted to show him who was boss. Once re-ensouled, he is full of self-hatred and remorse, yet struggles with the temptation of relapse again and again, because "sometimes I miss that clarity" - it must feel so good to give in to what you truly want to do, with no remorse over it being an evil act. In this episode, when Angel says "let them fight the good fight, someone has to fight the war", and later Darla says "that wasn't Angel, that wasn't Angelus either. Who was that" - I see it as setting the audience up for who he will become. Angelus gave in to all his evil impulses (Id). Angel tried to atone for them all, and always do what was objectively right (Ego). Come season 5 we might get some sort of grey. A grey many face when they try to reconcile what they thought the adult world would be, and what they think they have to do to survive in it (the Superego, based on your own personal moral judgements about right and wrong - which others may disagree with based on their own moral judgements!)

I think the Senior Partners definitely know what their plan for Angel is, but I assume the WR&H human employees are not privy to that information, possibly they wouldn't be able to comprehend it even if they knew. It makes it all seem like corporate jargon when they talk about 'the plan' which I actually love. In classic corporate style, they think they're the most important players but they don't really know anything. I'm sure they'll know more when they circle back and touch base with the Senior Partners though.

I sincerely hope you finish the whole series! I know that may take a while, but this channel is the best in talking about the Buffyverse!

I love this videos, please keep them coming!!

Apart from the fact that I absolutely agree with you, this was an awesome episode! Perfect editing and everything. The montage stuff was hilarious!! "Angel's still montageing" looool

I have a theory........that the reason why David Boreanaz is filming his scenes mostly in isolation from the other cast members for the next few episodes is because he was busy filming in late 2000/early 2001 for the movie Valentine and this whole subplot is just a way for the writer's to justify his absence.

What bothers me the most: Why did everyone die in that cellar (except L&L)? 20 lawyers and 2(!) vampires and D&D get out of there without a scratch. When you're locked in there, you're not sitting around waiting to get bit, you're fighting for your life!!!! And those W&H lawyers know how to deal with vampires, there must have been something wooden in that basement. Even the Scoobies kill vampires from time to time.

So glad you stayed focused on the episode instead of getting distracted with other seasons and shows. 😏

This episode really reminds me of my teens. I was obsessed with both Buffy and Angel, but I wasn’t allowed to watch them by my Mother because “the occult and Satan”. 🙄 During this season I was trying to secretly tape episodes, with varying levels of success, and I missed or only got bits of quite a few episodes in the second half of season 2. I always thought I’d missed something important in this episode. Many years later when I bought the dvds, I found out that I hadn’t missed much at all… even watching the episodes all together, I still felt like I’d somehow missed something important. The big dramatic set pieces are awesome, but they don’t really gel in the rest of the story, at least they don’t for me. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Thanks for the fantastic video, as ever, the quality of your reviews is always exceptional.

It's always been my headcanon that WR&H's "The Plan" is actually a super contract they wrote out in agreement with The Powers That Be that contain a borderline infinite number of clauses that they're ensuring get worked out in a way clearly beneficial to them that will eventually lead to universal conquest via the conditions of said contract coming true. Hence why they're a law firm.

Have I told you yet that you're my favourite editor on youtube? Because you're my favourite editor on youtube. This video was extremely funny and makes several very good points. Calling Angel a bigger drama queen than Angelus was my favourite, as well as "jerky Angel having a sassy pout." It's true, if Angel wanted Darla and Dru dead, he would have killed them there, but he didn't, so.... *shrug*

"those two scenes aside, what is the plot of this episode" ...you got me there!

Everything else aside - which is a lot of good stuff really, Thanks so much for the Teen Witch.

Great job Passion! I like to think of this Ep as a 'Link' Ep, one that connects the first half and the final end of the Season leading up to that last seen with Willow. He lost Darla and he thought that would break the "man" not the demon but at the end and when its Buffy, its the last little bit that breaks, the final point.

The Teen Witch reference was spot on

Darla wants the control that she lost as a human. Dru was lonely and wanted to play. Angel lit them on fire because he could.

The plot of this episode is the fallout of the ending of the previous episode. And sadly, the A.I. Team's story is more interesting than Angel or Darla & Drusilla's story. Angel, Drusilla and Darla's story only becomes interesting once they join up there at the end and Angel sets the two of them on fire. I agree about the next few episodes. They built up this Dark Angel aspect and we don't see much darkness over the next few episodes, just what Ian says from 0:26-0:35. The Dark Angel storyline, for me, was great build up with little payoff. I always felt like 1:43-1:47 was accurate. The team worries more about helping themselves than helping Angel out of Darkness. Before, it was he's obsessed instead of getting to the root of why they should help him. The closest person to understanding is Wesley explaining to Virginia when he tells her why he thinks Angel fired them, and even then it is too vague to be any help, were he to help. Getting to the root of the problem was the only way to help, and no one in the group tried that. It's why they argued in Caritas about it before singing (that was a great scene). I have a theory that in BtVS S1 after Angel killed Darla, he was gone for the next three episodes for the same type of reason he was in this episode: Darla was his sire and that is a bond non-vampires just do not understand. It's not obsession Angel was going through. Its a bond. A bond the group doesn't understand because they aren't vampires themselves. In S1 Angel severed that bond by killing Darla. The guilt of that moment is weighing heavily on him to the point of wanting to help her, but when she gets turned by Drusilla it flairs up all over again, in part because of the guilt, and in part because Darla accepting death as a human would have been Angel's closure. And now he is no longer a hero saving people, but a vampire out for vengeance due to losing that closure and losing Darla all over again, just like BtVS S1. All characters in every story of the episode are at a loss as to what to do now and I believe that is the point. Angel isn't understanding his emotional state, the team gives up on helping Angel in leu of themselves, Lindsay and Lilah have no direction when they feel targets on their backs and Darla thinks she wants power over taking care of someone. 10:10-10:19 is true, but the point of that truth is that all characters are at a loss and have no clue what they do now, but Ian is right in that the group no longer caring about Angel's moral compass comes off as them losing said moral compass, as well. But I think that is the point. I think Darla pinpoints the purpose when she realizes the man that burned her and Drusilla wasn't Angel or Angelus, but someone else, emotionally speaking, although she doesn't comprehend that any more fully than the team. I looked at Angel's voice-over monologue as him not getting his own emotions because he has fallen into the "darkness" for use of a better word. He is wrong about a lot, if not all, of it because, for use of a better word, he is in denial about what he is going through himself. I agree that the internal monologue wasn't necessary, but I do enjoy that he is all but spouting off about his emotional state when he doesn't understand what he is actually going through. The soul aspect Ian brought up was interesting. While I unconsciously knew Buffy and Angel fought against the soulless, I never really thought about it. It is why the Scoobies struggled so much with Faith and why Angel was the only one who could help her and why the monster-of-the-week villains were so easy for both shows characters (most of the time) to dispose of on an emotional level (for use of a better phrase). And why the A.I. Team fail so much with trying to understand what Angel is going through with Darla when he is falling into Dark Angel mode. Its interesting that there is a clip about Angel saying they're not in the business of giving up on people when the team in some ways did. Once they were fired, as Ian said, a brief mention of Angel doing what he did before, it was about them just moving on and not about them helping Angel. I think no character has an understandable purpose because they are all lost emotionally and confusing their emotions with what they think should be done.

The whole being ready/not ready is about him processing his grief over Darla. He had to accept that she was beyond saving. I think in that context it does make sense

Am I the only one who yelled “Giles!” during the intro? ☺️ ... OMG Teen Witch! 😆 ... fantastic analysis! Totally agree about the voiceover. Thank you!

Your videos are so great. You love the show as much as I do, but you’ve done the in-depth analysis that really highlights the artistry of the themes. People who don’t know the Buffyverse just see it as a Xena-level 90’s show, but the reality is so much more skillful and poignant than people realize. The creators of these shows deserve greater appreciation, as do the casts. To me it mirrors the unexpected richness of Avatar: the last airbender, so much more than people give it credit for.

Thank you, as always, a challenging episode indeed. I think I always saw this as an episode about a fight for revenge over justice and what is morally right - Angel wanted to save Darla, he wanted her to have chance to atone. W,R&H stole that when they vamped her again - stole it from Darla and from Angel. I saw the "ready/not ready" as him, a souled being, preparing mentally (using a physical workout metaphor) to cast off his moral code to avenge what they did to Darla by removing her chance to die in peace. This is, obviously, my interpretation!! But, I think, Angel was flailing around in pain, seeking a justification to avenge what happened. Casting out his moral guides (his human team mates), casting off his mission. I think "the war" he was fighting was his own demons. Love, can be messy and can hurt. Overall, I agree with all of your critic and admit my "perspective" goes beyond the text(!)and into my feelings about Angel - not man nor beast - a grey area, indeed x

as much as I love this episode, your usage of "Top That" here to mock it is amazing.

ok the one thing I can think of that explains Angel's "ready/not ready/ready"-ness is that in Reunion, Angel was unable to stake Darla when she said his name, and at the end of that episode he basically said he WOULD kill her but not yet. So when he goes to the demon fight club to see what D+D are up to and says he's not ready immediately after, it's that he's not yet capable of killing Darla, who he had just worked so hard to save. Even at the end of this episode, he sets D+D on fire which is pretty horrific, but he doesn't get close to actually fighting them. He puts himself into a position where he has to do the least to cause damage and then even after they've been barbequed (and therefore weakened), he just leaves. I figure that Angel did all of that in order to put D+D out of commission for a while until his (emotional) wounds are less fresh, and focus on W+H in the meantime since he's definitely "ready" to fight them. And while I think that's all kind of emotionally powerful and is my head-canon, it doesn't even fit perfectly with the voiceover since what does sleeping on soft beds or having "the moves" have to do with being emotionally capable of killing your ex-wife for a second time when you were a forced witness to her murder like a couple days ago.

I definitely was not expecting the Teen Witch call out. Comedy gold.

Thanks alot for another Angel review :D have a nice weekend -Senshi

OMG you referenced Teen Witch! Love you Ian.😂

If you did not understand, then you did not pay attention. There is an old saying "you hear but you're not listening"

The high pitched squeal I let out when you did Ron's ex-wife effigy burning speech over Angel setting Darla on fire--Ian you beautiful genius.

Thank you for this. This episode and the next string of them is when I stopped watching Angel the first time around actually. S1 had it's horrible episodes but also had great ones too. The beginning of S2 leading to Angel going dark was pretty great but after the last episode, I don't think it knew what to do with Angel anymore once they got him there. It was disappointing and took me years before I finished up Angel.

Thanks to Angel for proving that Drama does indeed live in the soul.

Awesome review.

i was just thinking about this episode guide the other day, esp because ive been struggling with this episode hump for a while

"Always was a bit of a drama queen" - Spike about Angel 🤣🤣

I LOL'ed at 'Special Projects' by the way. As I was taught and have observed that is corporate speak for: "We have no place for you in our org, so we create this job before tossing you out."

I thought angel is sending a message, he says a few moments before that whole fire scene that he is "too close" and "not ready yet" one would assume he's not ready for killing Darla yet, because of these feelings. So he's effectively saying "I'm here, I'm not gonna let you do whatever you want" but at the same time he knows he can't pull the trigger yet so to speak.

Because.. tree bad fire pretty? BAH! Ian you were on fire with this one!

I always hated that Angel used the "I'm getting soft" cliché in this episode. Getting soft? He used to avoid fights and go after easy preys or eat rats. Now he fought other vampires and demons on a regular basis. If activity and living conditions can affect a vampire fighting skills then he was at his peak!

I always took the campy angel sequences and monologues as the narrative putting us in angels delusions and dramatic denial of any wrongdoing. He genuinely believes he’s fighting a war because he can’t fathom any other justification for his actions. Then the gangs b story is also in denial about the previous episode which shows them working through angel leaving without even being able to tackle the moral implications of where angel was. Is it confusing? Yes. Is it also an incredibly human exploration of denial? Also (for me) yes. I think the biggest problem is that cordelia doesnt ground the episode in that sense of cordy tactless nondenial she usually does, which makes the denial look like denial of the writers rather than characters

I think the reason that Buffy doesn't dust Spike is she feels responsible for him. In season 2 Spike bonds with Joyce over losing Drew, Spike and Buffy team up to save the world. Buffy comes out as the Slayer to Joyce with Spike, Spike was also with Dawn when found out who she really was as the key. Spike protects Dawn from Glory, and got the crap beat out of him for doing so. If you remember in Season 4/5 Riley leaves all the decisions of Spike care to Buffy. Including weather or not to kill him and removing his chip. Spike dovotes his life to Dawn when Buffy died, Spike is also apart of Angel line, so keeping Spike alive is another part Angel that Buffy can hold on to. Angel and Spike are very much like brothers, this is proven to be true in Angel season 5, Spike is the only person allowed to call Angel (Leam).

POTN had way too much fun with the references this episode, lol!

"Dear Diary, today I couldn't find my diary, so I'm writing on the corpses of the twenty people I killed without serious repercussions..." Honestly if Lindsay wanted to take Angel out he should've just billed him for the therapy he needed after that. Great review as always :D

My favourite bit of this episode is when Drusilla senses Angel in the crowd and Vamp Darla loses her composure, Dru even says “He remembers when you were warm” and Darla further upset tells her to shut up. She’s not the same Vampire lady who got staked back in Buffy, she’s someone who’s been able re-learn what humanity is after centuries even if she loses soul again. We don’t talk about the human side to Darla enough, her development from abusive ex to mother who regrets ruining the life of her baby daddy is earned in my mind.

I still like these episodes, and I still like the idea of "Dark" Angel. I always like when I can compare and contrast him with Spike, because of how similar yet different they are. (Spoilers). Angel always exists as though the man and the demon are two separate entities, and I like to see this as sort of a hybridized version of himself. I feel like what Spike eventually finds is a healthier version of this balance. Spike had to embrace his inner demon to become the warrior he was capable of being, but when Angel does this he is significantly worse. Perhaps that is because Angel's demon is worse than Spike's, or perhaps it is because Spike is a stronger character, either way I find it interesting.

I always found Gunn's antics at this point in the series confusing. The man is established as having a gang in LA, who are still fighting the good fight against the forces of evil who prey on their neighborhood, who he just sort of abandoned. While Wesley and Cordelia being dejected about Angel firing them makes sense, why does Gunn care? As Gunn notes, it's no skin off his nose. So, why is he there? Why does Gunn leave his crew and help these cases of the week when everyone he grew up with is being slaughtered by vampires and demons? If Angel fires them, and that affects Gunn, he, unlike Cordelia and Wesley, has an entire support network to return to and keep on working with. If they're not supposed to matter, and only be Gunn's backstory, then that has rather unfortunate implications about them.

I think the Angel training montage/voiceover was going for a Taxi Driver vibe. Travis Bickle: “I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long.” Very similar to Angel’s comment about feather beds. The monologue in Taxi Driver takes place as Travis is starting to crack and is about to go on a killing spree. My guess is the writers were trying to invoke a similar feel of Angel’s psyche cracking and him heading down a dark path. Whether they were successful or not is another question lol

Healing my mind spirit ❤️ and making me laugh hard your amazing sir.

On Darlas change of motivation and the apparent contradictions it brings up after watching your videos discussing the soul cannon and the idea of the human template left when a person becomes a vampire i have come to read Darlas desire for power to be more of a result of her having been human while she was being used by wolfram and hart than it was a result of the use itself. If becoming a vampire removes a human soul and replaces it with that of a demon leaving only a template of the original humans desires, fears; and especially in the case of Spike, priorities, then Darlas change in drive could easily be a result of the moral development she under went in the brief period in which she had a human soul which as Wheadon said is the moral compass and as you have elaborated from there the ability to grow up. Not to suggest that souled Darla would have wanted power but that the feelings of powerlessness that she experienced while being human the second time around would have altered the template left behind for vampDarla 2 electric boogaloo. This also raises some questions about Angelous because Angels souled experiences never seem to impact him much beyond directing his targets even though he actually does develop past the need for parental approval that spawned that singular drive for chaos and destruction

“Angelas was never this big of a drama queen” made me wheeze 🤣

Top That montage was the best thing ever.

Wait, people like the ending to this one? I very much watched Buffy and Angel in a pre-message board era and so have no idea which episodes rate highest in the fandom. But the ending here always bugged me. I'm sure I'm in a minority of one here by caring about this, but aren't Darla and Drusilla on fire for far too long? Like too long even when adding artistic license into the picture. They dance about on fire, then run outside, then grab a sledgehammer, then smash open the hydrant, then slowly wait under the showering water before they're put out. Any other vampire, regardless of power level, would've burned up about 5 times over! So for me it completely does in the world building. Again, as I said I'm sure no one else is bothered by this and that's fine, I'm just now imagining Graduation Day pt 2 with a full minute dedicated to each vampire hit by a flaming arrow...

“Because tree bad, fire pretty??” I see what you did there, Ian 👌🏻

Oh gosh no not the teen witch scene! LOOOOOLLLL!!

I love Redefinition