Angel ep by ep; IN THE DARK (here's Spike!)

S

saturn5

Scooby
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
937
In the dark

The Good;
Spike mocking Angel is excellent, lovely to see Oz and a great rescue and final battle at the pier. Nice end coda too. The Cordy/Oz/Angel scenes are hysterical, as Willow observes both she and Buffy know the love of 2 taciturn men.

The Bad;
Very little, strong ep. Boy Spike is dumb but funnily so. Everyone at the pier seems to take the 2 guys jumping off the end on fire very calmly.

Best line:
Doyle (to Angel); Long time between sunsets huh?

Jeez, how did they get away with that?
Well, Angel get's tortured to nearly death for the majority of the episode. Spike also hints that Marcus has an interest in the kids beyond just eating them. Reputedly this is the ep that got the Angel season 1 dvd boxset an 18 rating in the UK. I don't disagree but what makes this worse than 'Hellbound' which only got a 15 rating?

Apocalypses: 4

Angel Cliches
Damsel in distress; yep, that makes 2
Inverting the Hollywood cliche; rather than play the unbreakable tough guy Angel admits that with a little more torture he'd have told Marcus everything. Cordy notes the Gem isn't in the freezer or toilet tank as it would be in the movies.
In disguise; no
DB get's his shirt off; no but we get some torso action, Marcus commenting he has 'little external damage'.

Fang Gang in bondage: yep, Angel for virtually the whole ep
Cordy: 5
Angel: 5
Wes: 1

Fang gang knocked out:
Cordy: 6
Angel: 6
Wes: 1

Kills:
Cordy: none this ep. 3 vamps, ½ a demon from her time in Sunnydale
Angel: Another vamp for Angel. So that gives Angel 8 vamps, 2 demons, 1 human.

Fang Gang go evil:
Cordy: 1
Angel: 1

Alternate Fang Gang:
Cordy: 1
Angel: 3

Characters killed: only Marcus
9;

Total number of Angel Investigations:
3, Angel, Doyle and Cordy

Angel Investigations shot: no
Angel: 4,

Notches on Fang Gang bedpost:
Cordy: 1?
Angel: 1;Buffy

Kinky dinky:
Spike refers to Buffy as 'slutty the vampire slayer' and teases Angel over Buffy's affair with Parker.

Captain Subtext;
Spike's speech on Angel is full of homophobia. He also asks if Angel and Marcus would like to be alone when running his hands over Angel's naked torso. Spike comments that Buffy is 'cute when she's hurting', you wonder did he always have a thing for her? Such a shame we never get to meet Doyle's wonderfully named friend 'Frankie Tripod'.

Buffy characters appearing in Angel; (unless someone can correct me no original Angel character ever appears on Buffy?)
4; Angel, Cordy, Oz, Spike

Questions and observations;
Why does Angel grab his neck when Marcus puts the chain around it? Surely he doesn't breathe? Marcus wears glasses which presumably like Dalton in Buffy are for sentimental reasons. Doyle has read Angela's Ashes and it reduces him to tears (the novel focuses on the shiftless father so it may appeal to Doyle who never knew his). Angel once again beats his way to what he wants, without Buffy's influence he tends to be a lot more brutal. It's a great performance from Kevin West who is a very familar face on TV (although I thought he was in Scrubs and Ally McBeal but he isn't, that's Robert Clendenin another actor with a similar look). Marcus wears a Bond style Nehru jacket. Angel knows Doyle's mother. This is Angel investigations first walk-in client and her problem for once is just a very human jerk ex-boyfriend rather than anything supernatural. Ok so the ring makes vamps unkillable, even if you cut their heads' off?
Marks out of 5; 3/5
 
hey Saturn, are you the guy 'joxerlives' from tv.com or just borrowing his stuff? Then again maybe he borrowed someone elses stuff heh. I just remember seeing all this on tv.com verbatim.
 
Wesley said:
hey Saturn, are you the guy 'joxerlives' from tv.com or just borrowing his stuff? Then again maybe he borrowed someone elses stuff heh. I just remember seeing all this on tv.com verbatim.
Click to expand...

No, I'm the same person, for some reason some sites won't let me post as Saturn 5 so I go under the name JoxerLives there
 
crazysoulless
crazysoulless
Joxer from XWP? I love him!
really great episode!!!Angel watching the sunset in the end...this is really touching...at least until season 5 he would never be able to walk on the light again!!!Spike mocking Angel was just hilarious!!!
And the fact that Angel didn't keep the gem of Amarra for himself was heroic...but i was sad that i couldn't see his angelic face in the light again!
 
I've thought about it, I'm not sure Oz would have worked in the Angelverse. With a smaller cast, such a quiet character would have truly stuck out like a sore thumb. Although admittedly as of Buffy S4 he was probably the best fit.... Lets be honest S4 Xander, Buffy, or Willow would have looked like kids running around compared to Cordy, Angel or Wes.
 
M
Megalita
Very true
Spike at the beginning made my life. "I'm almost out of that Nancy Boy shampoo I like *so* much!"
It was a pretty decent ep, but I think that was mostly because of Spike. Without him, I can totally seeing the episode be very "blah" if not downright bad.
 
For some reason, ever since the first time that I saw this episode, whenever I see Angel in any kind of car, I think immediately of the Angel-mobile.
 
U
ubi4soft
that monolog was pure gold
I love this episode. So many little moments, that somehow have become some of my favorite Buffyverse stuff ever. Spike's Angelmobile Speech 🙂, Cordy and Oz reuniting - Oz: Are we done? Cordelia: Completely. Doyle referring to Oz as his little Bam Bam. Angel and Oz speaking - “No, we’re usually laconic.”
It's all good really. 😀
 
The opening scene with Spike mocking Angel from the rooftop is by far the funniest scene I've ever witnessed on AtS. I have so much love for Spike and James Marsters for that.

It was so sad when Spike informed Angel that he isn’t the only lover Buffy has had anymore. He said it to hurt Angel and it worked. His voice cracked when he said “she’s even cuter when she’s kicking your ass”. He learned of Buffy being bedded by someone else a mere week after it happened. It is interesting that Angel found out about every single one of Buffy’s future male lovers. Parker. Riley. Spike. Spike told him about Parker. Faith told him about Riley. He smelled Spike’s scent on Buffy.

I loved how Buffy was a presence on S1 of AtS even though she was only in two episodes. For this episode, Angel is given a legendary ring (from Buffy) that would make him invincible, Marcus can sense that Angel has “known love” and Spike brings up Buffy. Each season of AtS will show Angel doing something that goes against the reasons he gave the Buffster for ending their relationship. “You deserve something outside of demons and darkness. You should be with someone who can take you into the light, someone who can make love to you. And children.” She gives him the opportunity to walk in the sun and thus live in the human world (and he went to the movies and ballet with AI), he has sex with at least three other women (Darla, Eve, Nina, six if he slept with those women who put the spell on Caritas), and he had a non-vampire son named Connor. His real main reason for leaving Buffy was that he didn’t want to hurt her anymore. He became part of her life to keep her safe both physically and emotionally but ended up constantly putting her in danger and breaking her heart. It is why in IWRY he gave up the chance to walk in the sun, make love, and have children with Buffy. It was still endangering her life according to the Oracles.

Spike of all people talking about Buffy being an addiction and saying that loving the Slayer (Buffy) was a perversion is so ironic. He became three times as Buffy-whipped as Angel. And in Wrecked when Buffy describes her first time having sex with Spike as “the most perverse degrading experience of my life” he smiles and replies, “Yeah, me too.”

It was really touching when Angel admitted what he wants is forgiveness. The mission statement of Angel Investigations is both Buffy saying “Strong is fighting. It’s hard and it’s painful and it’s everyday” and Cordelia's AI slogan “We help the hopeless”. Angel tried to seek redemption through helping others redeem. He may have done a lot to battle demons and rescue quite a few damsels in distress but he entered the soul-saving business. He was showing the people he saved how to improve their life and find faith in themselves.

This episode was the first test on AtS for Angel. Would he choose the easy way out or pick the long hard road to atonement? He was given a reward he hadn’t earned and gave it back (destroyed it) knowing he had to earn it for it to be right. I think that is why he loved the idea of the Shanshu Prophecy. He felt that if he did everything that was required in the prophecy and was made human, it would be meant to be because he would have fought hard and earned his salvation and happiness. I was really shocked when he signed it away in NFA to make a suicidal stand against Wolfram & Hart knowing that even if he won he would have only destroyed one branch of a multi-dimensional organization.
 
I actually laughed when Spike mocked Angel. Oz being there was good, his presence was kinda tense, because he is connected to Buffy, and Angel wanted that so bad. To see her, to feel her. I liked the episode, Spike was hilarious as usual! 😀
 
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