“Angel” Season 2 (2000-01, WB) marks the beginning of a three-year slide in quality for a show that started strongly and would finish strongly in Season 5. For me, a big part of Season 2’s decline was the shift in location.
Angel’s cramped offices and cozy apartment in Season 1 had a perfect film-noir vibe; the spaciousness of the Hyperion Hotel (the Angel Investigations HQ for Seasons 2-4) made it much easier on the camera crew, but I didn’t like the location as well.
I also missed the mystery standalones that were more prominent in the inaugural year, and I’m not crazy about the new looser, serialized approach to storytelling. Still, it’s tough to argue against the first two serial threads of Season 2: First, Darla (as always, deliciously played by Julie Benz) returns, and second, Angel turns dark. But not Angelus dark. Rather, he tries to beat Wolfram & Hart at their own twisted game, and it leads to a nice stretch of episodes where Angel goes solo and the rest of the gang bonds in his absence.
“Angel” Season 2 (2000-01)
WB, 22 episodes
Creators: Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt
Stars: David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof
Unfortunately, the last thread is the four-episode Pylea arc that closes the season; the gang visits Lorne’s home dimension, everyone keeps saying how much they want to go home, and I felt the same way as a viewer. “Angel” should be about the mean, gritty streets of L.A., not about a “Wizard of Oz” homage. (Proof that even bad “Angel” ain’t so bad: We are introduced to Fred in these episodes.)
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Joss Whedon didn’t write a single teleplay in this year that was a step down from the previous one. On the other hand, Tim Minear — who contributed several of the best Season 1 scripts — writes what are clearly the four best episodes of Season 2. Even though “Angel” is technically Whedon and David Greenwalt’s show, it often feels like it’s Minear’s, too, and episodes like these are the reasons why.
Here are my rankings for the 22 episodes of “Angel’s” second season:
1. “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?” (2, Tim Minear)
I mentioned that I’m not crazy about the Hyperion Hotel as a setting. However, there’s no denying the artistic brilliance of the episode that introduces it and sets it up as a metaphor for Angel himself. Through beautifully realized flashbacks to the McCarthyism era of 1950s, we see that a particularly isolationist Angel left the hotel’s residents at the mercy of a paranoia demon.
2. “Darla” (7, Minear)
Finally, we get Darla’s backstory, and it’s gorgeously told through flashbacks to key events in her past, from the Master siring her to Darla’s disappointment with the newly ensouled Angel. Adding an extra layer of brilliance is the fact that several of these scenes appeared in the “Buffy” episode that preceded it on its original airing (the Spike-centric “Fool For Love”), but they are given a new context here since we now know Angel had a soul during these events.
3-4. “Reprise” (15, Minear) and “Epiphany” (16, Minear)
I liked Kate so much when the series began, and I felt her rocky relationship with Angel and her arc in general kind of petered out. But it’s nice to see her play a pivotal role in these great episodes: Angel rescues her from a suicide attempt, and she realizes that she never invited him in. (It’s a cool moment. But it’s odd that the Powers That Be wanted Kate to live and yet she would never appear in another episode. I love “Law & Order,” but I resent it for stealing Elisabeth Rohm.)
The chat between Kate and Angel features Angel’s epiphany, which I often cite when boiling down the overall theme of “Angel” or outlining my own spiritual outlook: “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. … If there’s no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.”
5. “Redefinition” (11, Mere Smith)
In a Buffy/Angelverse that has given us stylized episodes like “Hush,” “Restless” and “Once More, With Feeling,” this one — where Angel doesn’t speak the entire episode — gets unfairly overlooked. He does do a few voiceovers, granted, but generally this hour demonstrates that an Angel yarn can be told with stylish simplicity.
One thing I’ve always found odd about “Redefinition” is that Angel sets Darla and Dru on fire, yet fails to finish them off. I suppose the writers were going for a parallel to the end of “Buffy” Season 2, when Buffy has to psych herself up to kill Angel, but it seems like Angel should be ready to stake them here.
6. “Happy Anniversary” (13, David Greenwalt)
This is a great-looking episode, as Angel and Lorne tool around in the convertible and we see the bright lights of nighttime L.A. in the background. Also, it’s neat to see these two team up for the first time, and in such a mythology-laden season, it’s cool to get a standalone yarn about a lovestruck scientist who might accidentally destroy the world. (“Fringe” did its own variation on the theme earlier this season.)
7. “Reunion” (10, Minear and Shawn Ryan)
It’s fun to see Benz and Juliet Landau chewing scenery (and innocents of L.A.) as Darla and Drusilla break free. But of course the unforgettable moment comes at the end when Angel opts to leave a bunch of Wolfram & Hart lawyers locked in a wine cellar with the vampires. Then he fires Wes, Cordy and Gunn and embarks on several episodes of brooding and less morally restrained vigilante justice — the juiciest part of the season.
8. “Disharmony” (17, David Fury)
Some episodes have such strong concepts that they feel like winners on arrival. This is one, as Harmony visits Cordelia. As viewers, we had known for two years that Harmony was a vampire, but Cordy doesn’t know. Fury has a ton of fun with a double-entendre-filled scene where Cordy thinks Harmony is a lesbian rather than a vamp, then he continues the fun with a phone conversation where Cordy doesn’t know Willow is a lesbian.
Then the visual of Harmony joining the team (sitting next to an uncomfortable Gunn in the convertible) is hilarious, but in the end, her betrayal and return to her selfish, evil roots makes perfect sense. In addition to being funny, “Disharmony” explores the nature of whether it’s the demon or the person that causes evil, something that would be intriguingly expanded upon with Spike over on “Buffy.”
9. “Dead End” (18, Greenwalt)
In another episode where an evil character gets humanized, Lindsey gets a new hand from Wolfram & Hart. The episode becomes a less-comical version of “Idle Hands” as the hand seems to have a mind of its own. Then it moves into tasty horror territory when Angel and Lindsey uncover the organ farm of living subjects in the bowels of W&H.
10-11. “Blood Money” (12, Ryan and Smith) and “The Thin Dead Line” (14, Jim Kouf and Ryan)
I dig these episodes because we return to a theme and character last encountered in the “Buffy” episode “Anne.” I like how we meet Anne (who had borrowed the name from Buffy at the end of that episode) again, and see that she is running a shelter for street-dwelling teens, yet she and Angel don’t recognize each other from when they briefly met in the “Buffy” episode “Lie to Me.” There’s a genuine sense of peril in both “Blood Money” and “The Thin Dead Line,” but in different ways: First, Wolfram & Hart is using the shelter for their own financial gain; second, zombie cops are picking off kids.
12. “The Trial” (9, Doug Petrie and Minear)
It begins as a somewhat padded exploration of what lengths Angel will go to save a soul — in this case, Darla. Then, after he has convinced Darla that she is better off dying as a human than having eternal life as a vampire, the tables are memorably turned in that shocking final scene when Drusilla enters the room and re-sires Darla.
13. “Guise Will Be Guise” (6, Jane Espenson)
Although it’s not as dependent on humor as you might expect from an Espenson episode, this is a nice Wesley showcase. In pretending to be Angel, he gains an Angel-like confidence, and in the end he gets the girl (rich socialite Virginia Bryce, who would pop up a few more times before the pair breaks up).
14. “The Shroud of Rahmon” (7, Kouf)
This episode is notable for its structure (as it opens, Wesley is interrogated by the police and lamenting a case gone horribly wrong) and for the fact that both Angel and Gunn go deep undercover to the point where they help a bunch of demons with a museum theft. Kate’s and Gunn’s whining about Angel being a vampire is getting a bit old at this point, but Angel makes a strong case that he’s not such a bad guy when he creatively saves Kate’s life.
15. “Dear Boy” (5, Greenwalt)
The reunion of Angel and Darla is long overdue, as it comes on the heels of several water-treading scenes where Darla pops up in Angel’s dreams to drive him crazy. The episode ends with a dialogue-heavy scene wherein Angel outlines the virtues of being good and Darla lays out the pleasures of being bad. It’s almost worth the long wait. Almost.
16. “Untouched” (4, Smith)
I have a soft spot for this episode just because it’s a “helping a helpless client” story that “Angel” should do more of. And the Drew Barrymore-from-“Firestarter”-esque client expands the series’ roster of super-powered characters. The roots of her out-of-control powers (she was sexually abused by dear old dad) are a bit cliched, though.
17. “Judgment” (1, Greenwalt)
The first shot of Season 2 (Lorne singing karaoke in Caritas) begins a new era in the Buffy/Angelverse, where the concept of demons as evil is no longer a given. In addition to good-guy Lorne, that theme is driven home further when Angel mistakenly kills a good demon. However, this episode is essentially just one bit of bad luck after another for Angel, capped off with a been-there, done-that finale where he reaffirms that he’ll take a lot of abuse to help the helpless.
18. “First Impressions” (3, Ryan)
I guess there is some fun banter between Gunn and Cordy here, but overall, this is episode doesn’t leave much of an impression. It kicks off Gunn’s ongoing thread where he’s torn between his old gang and his new friends at Angel Investigations. I always felt Gunn’s joining Angel’s experienced crew of monster-fighters should’ve meant he could help his old neighborhood more, not less.
19-22. “Belonging” (19, Ryan), “Over the Rainbow” (20, Smith), “Through the Looking Glass” (21, Minear) and “There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb” (22, Greenwalt)
I dreaded rewatching these episodes, which I found rather boring and silly when they originally aired in conjunction with the emotionally draining end of “Buffy” Season 5. On DVD, they play better, and I was able to tease out the theme of belonging and how it applies to each of the main characters. And I can see how a “Wizard of Oz” fan might have fun exploring the parallels in this arc. That having been said, I didn’t like spending time in the medieval-type dimension of Pylea (I know, that’s the idea, but still) and I was relieved to see the gang open the portal and return home for a fresh start in Season 3.
Speaking of which, I’ll be back soon with a look at “Angel” Season 3, which includes highs like Fred (yay!), lows like Connor (ugh) and in-betweens like Justine (remember her?). In the meantime, share your thoughts on Season 2 and your rankings of the episodes in the comment thread below.
Click here for an index of all of John’s “Buffy” and “Angel” reviews.