Sweeney: This show. I’m not sure how I feel about this show. It has all these amazing characters, but they seem to outshine the show itself. I don’t know what to make of that. This show did a great thing, back in S1, by setting a tone that allows it to simultaneously be really dark while also not taking itself too seriously. Lor mentioned in today’s Buffy rankings that the fact that people encourage us to either watch E6 really fast or to watch it while doing a lot of the writer’s work for them speaks to a larger problem with the season. I’d extend that to my feelings on this series, as a whole. We still have 2 more seasons to go, and I’m intrigued to see where all the batshit crazy goes. I think this show is actually better to snark than Buffy, but because we keep treating it as part of our general, Buffyverse blogging, we haven’t managed to properly pull the two apart. I guess what I’m saying is that you’ve all said some interesting things about S4, and I’m going to do my darndest to remember what a different show this is and set my consistency expectations at, like, PLL settings. And also to make sure I’m wearing my snarkiest pants.
That was a really round-about way of saying that S3 has been delving deeper into that world of inconsistent, contrived, weird decisions. In spite of that, it also gave us a few kick ass episodes and moments, so please do not misunderstand any of what I’m saying to mean that I dislike the season or show. I love the fact that this show is fucking weird that several episodes in they dropped the PREGNANT VAMPIRE bomb on us, and by several episodes before the end of the season it was all, “BABY NOW A TEENAGER BECAUSE HELL DIMENSION” and even when those bombs made us go, “WTF?” it was still very, “Well, yes, of course. Of course. This show. This fucking show.” I do dig the crazy. While Buffy felt like it dragged this season, Angel’s corresponding season was an endless string of plot twists.
That’s my rambled speech. Here are my rankings:
- Lullaby – Darla, girl, I can’t wait to re-watch your short stay in Sunnydale with a mixture of shock, disgust, and amazement with my new knowledge of where you end up. AMAZING.
- Waiting in the Wings – SUMMER GLAU. This was almost a tie, but the tie-breaker was the love triangle stuff I could do without, but this episode was wonderful on a show that doesn’t often achieve full episodes of excellence.
- Fredless – I love Fred’s parents. High marks for good parenting.
- Sleep Tight – A lot of shit happened this season, huh? This is overwhelming.
- Quickening – This gets more points than it probably deserves for it’s Lullaby setup and FLASHBACK MAGIC.
- Forgiving – This was intense. Some good moments from our villainy types.
- Loyalty – LOL, talking hamburger.
- Bendiction – I actually really liked this, but I’m docking a lot of points for how much I hated the ending.
- The Price – THIS SHIT WAS BANANAS. I feel like that’s my reaction to each episode as I try to remember what happened.
- Tomorrow – YUP, WTF?
- Offspring – Remember that time when Gunn & Wesley worked together well? My feels.
- Dad – LOL, Geraldo Angel. I like Papa Angel.
- That Vision Thing – Points for introducing us to Skip.
- A New World – I enjoyed Connor’s initial, “WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” reactions.
- Heartthrob – The boyfriend’s revenge undermined the points for the Terrible Wig Flashback, but this was a solid middle-of-the-pack episode for me.
- Provider – Mega contrived, boo weird dolla dolla billz in Angel’s eyes, but it was kind of fun in places.
- That Old Gang of Mine – I don’t remember.
- Couplet – #meh.
- Birthday – Some amazing moments, and while I like it’s functional contribution to the arc, I hate the way its arc significance was actually handled within the episode.
- Double or Nothing – This was OK, but the ending was hasty and many points deducted for the fact that nobody got around to seeing that Gangstas Paradise was a bad idea.
- Carpe Noctem – Nope.
- Billy – It’s not news that I fucking hated this episode.
Lorraine: Angel is a weird show to recap, mostly because, as I’ve mentioned, I think it does moments better than full episodes. It does characters better than plots, and arcs better than stand-alones. This isn’t a bad thing when viewing, I believe, but is very much highlighted while spending so much time with the series. I do care about what happens to these characters, but it seems that it’s taking a whole lot of time to get anywhere at all. In the grand scheme of things, I liked season 2 much better than this one and I feel this was pretty on par with season 1.
That said, I’m excited for season 4 because I hear it’s crazy. And for better or worse, crazy is always more fun to recap.
The way this season was built in interesting, in that it tells really one story broken into three mini-arcs: Darla, baby Connor and teen Connor. The downside to this construction is that it requires three separate build-ups. That became super evident as I ranked them and found a lot of, “okay but mostly set-up” episodes along the way.
Here’s how I rank them:
- Lullaby – Julie Benz, everyone. Julie Benz. A much better death than Sunnydale.
- Waiting in the Wings – Summer Glau, everyone. And an episode that was both fun and related to the ongoing action.
- Sleep Tight – This was full of tension and a few curve balls. Definitely one of the most engaging episodes of the season.
- Fredless – At the end of the recap, I called this a not great episode, but a little time made me fonder of it, from Wes and Cordy acting out Bangel to Fred painting over her Crayola Wall Art, it was solidly fun.
- Forgiving – The prophecies were fake and Angel tried to suffocate Wesley. I’d say this one leaves an impression.
- Benediction – The Connor thing gets clearer and Cordy’s powers get weirder.
- Loyalty – This is one of those set-up episodes I talked about. Still ranks pretty high, probably because of the burger.
- The Price – This show has had a handful of total WTF endings, and “Hi Dad,” ranks high among them.
- Tomorrow – Angel sinking to the bottom of the ocean was kind of offset by Cordy floating up, wherever. I’m still asking, “what they heck.”
- That Old Gang of Mine – The villain was a bit too much for me but the exploration of good, evil and everything in between was entertaining.
- Quickening – More build-up to Lullaby but I’m generally fond of things with Darla and wigs.
- That Vision Thing – The second episode was an improvement on the first, but still a bit slow in setting up the season dynamics.
- Dad – I felt for “Geraldo Angel” (lol) but his obsessive schtick was a tad annoying. Plus, after Lullaby, this episode felt way slower.
- A New World – Connor’s spidey jump lives forever in my heart.
- Offspring – Lots of great interactions, though on the whole, there were a few character annoyances in an episode that were solely for the sake of set-up.
- Heartthrob – The vampire boyfriend bent on revenge was dumb, but being a Snow I have to say: PREGNANT DARLA, WTF?
- Birthday – It’s a shame this episode ranks so low, considering some of the great moments of the AU, but Cordy’s transition to CHAMPION was shoved in our faces.
- Provider – The contrivance was heavy with this one, but it’s a shame that it isn’t the worst ever because the pace was so much faster than usual Angel episodes. A few points for that, episode. Minus more points for Angel’s way-too-intense, sudden onset love of money.
- Double or Nothing – Weak and I still don’t buy Gunn selling his soul or the use of Gansta’s Paradise.
- Couplet – Not a fan of the Cordy/Groo and Fred/Gunn stuff or of the Catfish Demon Tree.
- Billy – It could’ve worked, but unfortunately, the anti-misogyny message wasn’t clear enough.
- Carpe Noctem – Stupid filler episode that made little to no sense.
Kirsti: This season was a struggle for me. I mean, AtS is ALWAYS a bit of a struggle because I don’t care about it or the characters nearly as much as I do the characters in Buffy. Here, I struggle to connect to them emotionally, I don’t care about the decisions they make, I don’t care about their romantic entanglements, and everything comes out feeling decidedly mediocre. As a result, ranking them was something of a tricky endeavour. Especially as I’m currently in New Zealand and my brain is very much on holidays… That said, let’s get on with this thing.
- Waiting in the Wings – I love this episode so much. Summer Glau and her amazing dancing automatically put me on the “This episode is awesome” train. Add in a non-Connor-centric plot for the first time in approximately forever and the Fang Gang working together properly, and the result is nothing short of fabulous.
- Fredless – Responsible parenting for the first time in FOREVER, plus Fred’s magical weapon/toaster thing = YES, GOOD, MORE PLEASE.
- Offspring – The return of Darla and her mystical pregnancy was pretty brilliantly done. Sure, Cordy’s side-with-Darla-nearly-get-self-killed approach was less than ideal, but it was still a pretty good episode.
- Benediction – A lot of set up for the finale, but at the same time I was left excited to see what would happen in the next episode. And that was the first time that’s happened with Angel in a long time, which leads me to the conclusion that this episode was pretty great.
- Lullaby – Poor Lorne and his poor club should really put a ban on the Fang Gang. That said, this episode and its ending were a pretty great start to a decidedly ordinary arc.
- Loyalty – While I wasn’t a fan of the whole stupid prophecy storyline – because I think it’s one that this show relies on too heavily – this episode did a pretty good job of showing Wes’ increasing feelings of isolation.
- Tomorrow – Despite my enthusiasm after watching Benediction, this episode proved, more than anything else, to be slightly insane. It started off well, but then took a turn for the “WTF???”.
- Sleep Tight – That ending was pretty damned dramatic, even if the whole “I could use my words, but NOPE” thing drove me insane throughout.
- Quickening – Not great, but also not terrible. The terrible wig flashbacks were actually useful in finally explaining what Holtz’s deal was, and the revelation that Darla’s baby was not only human but a boy was kind of great. But it was mostly all set up for the events of Lullaby.
- Forgiving – Meh. The search for Wesley seemed to drag on forever, which meant way too much screen time with Fred and Gunn. But Sahjahn’s revelation that the prophecy was made up was pretty well done.
- Dad – Obsessive Angel and his refusal to let anyone else near the baby was just irritating. Especially when he had no idea what he was doing.
- A New World – Connor cutting off people’s ears and generally being an angsty teenage butthead = pass.
- Birthday – While it was pretty great to see Skip again, this was a decidedly average episode for me. Especially with floating Cordy at the end…
- Heartthrob – I’m sure this was meant to be melodramatic and eternal love-y, but it just came across as an over-the-top cheesefest.
- The Price – Demonic prawn thingies, a millionty reminders that this shit was done better by Doctor Who, and glowy Cordelia? Blurgh.
- That Old Gang of Mine – An interesting idea that was executed in a less than ideal fashion. I get that Gunn’s gang would start killing all demons, but procuring machine guns and launching a full frontal assault seems over the top.
- Couplet – A demonic tree with internet access luring lonely hearts to their deaths? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, NOPE.
- That Vision Thing – Kal Penn’s giant squidgy fez covered brain was enough to force this episode into the bottom half of the season.
- Double or Nothing – Gangsta’s Paradise. That is all.
- Provider – This was just dumb. Angel prioritising money over everything else was stupid, and Fred nearly getting her brain taken was eye-rollingly bad. And then there was the zombie stalker boyfriend. Ugh.
- Carpe Noctem – Boring from start to finish.
- Billy – NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. I nearly didn’t make it through this episode. Not even BAMF Cordy could save it.