Review of Angel

[lathany]

Yes - I'm a huge Lyndsey fan. I've never been as impressed with Angel as I was back in the early days when he was still kicking around. Consequently this is a great addition from my viewpoint. And it was nice to see some Drusilla as well.

As for the rest ? Flashbacks - nice. Spike back to normal - necessary. Return and exit of Sirk - probably a good move, he was a bit one dimensional (sarcasm only). Plus after three seasons of non-movement on the whole Shanshu thing it's nice to see season five... well, actually not moving forward either - but they're obviously thinking about it. And the whole Eve + Lyndsey vs New Wolfram and Hart + Senior Partners situation is a welcome twist.

Aside : It's taken me a whole eight episodes to consider this, but, is Eve the original Eve ? I guess if she is then it'll only be apparent at the end of the season.

Bad stuff ? Angel vs Spike. OK they let one of them win (which I wasn't expecting), but I spent most of the fight hoping that they'd finish and get back to the plot. Also Wesley's absence was a shame, but they made good use of it.

Overall, definitely a good one. I'm just hoping that there's some more Lyndsey lined up !

Comments

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

the only person since Oz to actually manage any passable acting in the Buffyverse

So the ending is good because it provides us with an excuse not to switch Angel off and watch something less crap, rather than any intrinsic properties of the scene? ;-)

one of them was close enough to snatch a drink from the cup before the other could prevent it

I did observe that, but decided to let it slide on two grounds:

1) Perhaps they were extremely concerned about the (unknown) consequences of spilling the cup before drinking. In that case, they'd each have to make sure that the other one was down and out before even touching it.

2) Each really wanted to beat the other to a messy pulp.

For instance clearly Spike could have gone for the cup instead of jumping down the steps in a menacing fashion and trying to spear Angel with his metal pole, but he might not have known that. And clearly he had his heart set on nailing Angel to the woodwork.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_alanna/]

I think they established quite well that the fight wasn't so much about wanting to drink from the cup, as it was about one-upmanship.

As such, pushing the other person out of the way to make a mad dash and take a sip from the cup isn't nearly so fulfilling as beating the other nearly unconscious and then *strolling* across the floor to take a triumphant sip.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Agreed - if nothing else, Spike got there before Angel and then waited for him in the foyer.

In fact, that reminds me of the thing that annoyed me about the flashback sequence - they were really clumsily placed.

On the way there, when Angel accused Spike of stealing his car, Spike said something like "possession is nine tenths of the law. You taught me that". What he should have done was make a direct reference to what Angel later said to him the flashback: "we can take whatever we want, but we can't own anything". The reason he didn't is that we hadn't seen that flashback segment yet so it would have made no sense to the viewer. Yich.