Three good reasons to post these next two now. Firstly, Rahael claimed she might try to catch me up today, and I don't want her to have it too easy. Secondly, I'm desperately attempting to divert my attention from the fact that we've just lost the cricket to Australia in the last over after getting them 8 down for 120, facing 205. Suffice it to say it was like a last second touchdown or a home run at the bottom of the ninth. Not fun. And finally, the episodes are as great as I've come to expect from Tim Minear. And then some.

2.15- 'Reprise'

Interesting title which I haven't quite got my head round. Are we supposed to think that this is Angel's reprise- resuming on his course of destruction to Wolfram and Hart after the diversions of 'Happy Anniversary' and 'The Thin Dead Line'? Is it a nod to the fact that writers seemed to have completely discarded Darla at a vital moment? I'm not quite sure. What I did find more certain is that virtually everything that happenned in this episode almost inevitably fitted into the theme outlined at the end. That theme being the evil inside people. An evil which can never be defeated because it is not even looking for victory, just influence on normal people. And an evil whcih is perpertrated routinely in every day life, not just at the hands of big scary demons. In this way, the episode deals with themes also very important to the First Evil arc in Season Seven of Buffy. It also does it very elegantly and without making the episode feel constricting.

Consider all the different characters in this episode. There are a lot of them, partly because Minear realised he had the luxury of spreading several of the plots out into the second part of his double-bill. In each case, they either commit evil or have evil committed against them. In some cases, it is little things; inconsiderate things which could have been made easier, or failures of heart. They don't all seem that significant until you see them through the perpective of Manners' revelation later on. Let me point out a few

-Angel goes back to the guy he asked for information fifty years ago about the Hyperion. The man has remoulded his life on the idea that a vampire could care about defenceless humans, and try to kill demons for them. In one indifferent, malicious stroke Angel reveals that the whole premise for his reformation was false- that Angel in fact allowed the residents of the Hyperion to die. He may well have destroyed the man's hope in old age, after unwittingly making him a better man 50 years ago. All for no real reason. Of course this is all largely irrelevant due to

-Darla. Still, despite her knock back by Angel- she kills the old harmless man for no reason, and plays Lindsey [who I misspelt repeatedly yesterday, sorry to pedants everywhere] completely.

-Cordelia gives absolutely no ground to Angel, even threatening to stake him instead of giving him the book he requires.

-The mother of the Third Eye Girl, despite being a rich friend of Virginia Bryce and having her daughter saved from a life-time of triocularity, refuses to give any money to Angel Investigations purely because of personal prejudice.

-Virginia, who has been happy to take Wesley's good will and have her life saved by him, breaks up with him for no other reason than a lack of trust in him. While perhaps the least evil in itself, this certainly has deeply negative effect on Wesley, who then is unable to communicate his despair to Cordelia.

-Finally, and most dramatically of all, we have the sacking of Kate Lockley. I do not argue that the police were wrong to sack her, based on the information that they had, but lines such as that final one 'I'm just glad your Father isn't alive to see this', are callous and insensitive to the point of evil.

Here are six examples of mundane, undramatic evil which lead virtually evey character in the series to complete hopelessness by the end of 'Reprise'. In truth, due to the trajectory of the plot, I believe this is possibly the darkest episode, (maybe even hour of television per se), that I've seen in a long, long time. Virtually everyone ends in despair- even the mostly evil lawyers whose mindless attempts at getting into the Senior Partners good books are scuppered by Angel's killing of its terrestrial manifestation. The only two people who at the end of the episode are satisfied are both dead- Manners and Darla. Now, unlike virtually any other writer on the show, Minear balances his episodes almost perfectly. We have the theme I described above in this episode. We also have a final twist which is yet another one of those 'Gah!' moments. It's entirely psychologically believable that Angel would sleep with Darla, and the line 'I just want to feel something besides the cold' is extremely poignant after his meeting with Manners. But it's also one of those things that, if you are unspoiled, just stuns you. Then on top of that there are some intelligently written yet visceral character moments, and a tiny bit of black humour. Some more high points.

-The goats and David Fury. I really don't see any reason why not. Very funny. And also led to that immortal line 'I'm cutting back on the goats. We've had complaints', which I really didn't understand at the time.

-Kate and Angel are thoroughly paralleled again. Kate, in doing what she believes is right, has exiled herself from the organisation of which she used to be such an integral part. And it's impossible for her to imagine life outside the Police Department. Angel has isolated himself from AI, which used to be the epitomy of all that he stood for. And he's finding it extremely difficult to function on his own- in fact, W+H are driving him to that moment of despair at the end of the episode.

-The idea that Evil is on earth is beautifully done with the lift, supposedly going down. The abstract concept of a board of Partners that Angel can fight is alluring, even if Angel's mission is deliberately kamikaze as Manners suggests. But the problem with real life and Angel's existence is that evil is temporary, mobile and intangible. It can't be defeated by defeating a 'Big Bad'. It in fact can't be defeated at all. The visual metaphor for this is stunning, and I was interested to read Minear putting: "Here's how something like this happens. We all sit around scratching our heads, then Joss [Whedon] says something to the effect of, 'Can Holland come back all dead and take Angel on an elevator ride to hell, but end up right back where he started?' Then I just try to work out the details. The bush is burning, and its name is Joss." Love Minear best of all Angel writers, but interesting that Joss came up with one of the abiding plot twists and metaphors for this season as a whole (so far, at least).

-Of course the end is the classic 'Will he lose his soul?' mislead, although I'm pretty sure I'd guessed that Angelus wasn't in for a comeback by the end of 'Reprise'. The moral of the story was all wrong. It wouldn't have made narrative or thematic sense for Angel to experience a moment of perfect happiness as he raises the white flag of surrender to evil and resigns himself merely to feeling anything, to turning his back on his mission. So I wasn't entirely tricked here, (which is rare for me, as I usually fall for these things).

Supreme episode. Extremely dark- but partly because we leave at the darkest moment, with the resolutions to the despair all happenning in

2.16- 'Epiphany'

If 'Reprise' was exquisite, 'Epiphany' was perhaps exquiste-er. I suppose it's rather like trying to compare the three other genuinely top-quality two-parters in Mutant Enemy history- Becoming, Graduation Day and Five by Five/Sanctuary. I don't think evaluating one against the other helps much. Perhaps the newest offering is somewhat more detached than the Season Finales. I don't know. However, both episodes are great, and if 'Reprise' is a slide towards despair, 'Epiphany' is a realistic attempt to let the characters start to climb out of the gutter. I had real difficulties fitting all my notes for this episode on my little envelope, but jsut about managed it. This may seem a little disjointed, but I'm just going to concentrate on a few of the many things I especially liked.

-There's the very strong parallel of the teaser in 'Innocence'. This episode is actually not in an altogether dissimilar position in Angel to where 'Innocence' was in Buffy, just more than half way through the second Season. And again we see Angel standing and crawling with difficulty in the hammering rain of despair and coming evil. But this time we have the exact opposite scenario played out. In 'Innocence', Buffy, Angel's partner is hurt as Angel loses all his humanity, and slides into what seems like pure, artistic evil, in still the most difficult scene to watch in the run of the shows for me (Angel's morning-after scene with Buffy). In 'Epiphany', Darla, Angel's partner is hurt as Angel regains part of his humanity, and certainly doesn't lose his soul. And, amidst the slight relief of Angel seeming to come to her senses, the viewer cannot help but feel sorry for Darla fleetingly. The one thing that she had confidence that she was good at cannot get her lost lover back again. After 400 years, Darla views herself as no more than a failed prostitute. And, even as a vampire, a soulless being with no moral compass, she seems to feel a kind of despair. A despair that making love with Angel turned into no more than a night on the job. She got the ring, but nothing else. As she rather defensively cries 'I don't understand... Was I... was it... not good?' we are reminded of Buffy, and of Darla's lost humanity, and of how tragic each phase of her life has been. Angel realises that Darla has accidentally saved him from his darkest impulses, but Darla cannot comprehend the story. She seems the weaker of the two characters, which is most unusual for a vampire.

-Meanwhile, in a rather symmetrical way, Angel saves Kate. I did notice that Angel got into Kate's room without being invited, but assumed that he had been invited in before. More of that later.

-Lorne once again acts as the distant narrator, with lines like 'You've just turned a corner'. There's also the extremely sly metanarration when he says 'I think I speak for us all when I say- if all you're going to do is swicth back to brood mode- we'd rather have you evil' The audience love seeing Angelus, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if a large section of the audience was deeply confused by the noir Angel storyline. Lorne sneakily addresses this issue, speaking once more as the writer and the audience, rather than just a character.

-Cordelia has a Vision of herself- which, as she tells the Powers That Be, doesn't help much as it comes too late. It seems obviously to be a reference to Angel's own epiphany though; a moment where you see yourself in a new light.

-Wesley and Angel's gradual reconciliation is very powerful to watch, and this is definitely the episode that engaged me the most emotionally of any Angel episode thus far. Angel makes comments like 'You did a good thing', and we realise that after his revelation, that really isn't a platitude. There's also the fun of him noticing that, via 'Blood Money' and 'The Thin Dead Line', Wesley and Gunn have gone from being rather adversarial to being good friends while Angel has been away.

Of course, Lindsey is the old pre-epiphany Angel. He is still obsessed with Darla, and still willing to lash out in order to get his way. The idea of the out-of-control car neatly symbolises what Lindsey is feeling now, and how Angel was acting around the time of 'Redefnition'. And there's the tidy moment where Angel cuts off Lindsey's artificial hand, and claims that before he would have cut off the other one. His realisation has not made him soppy, just allowed him to re-focus.

-Then there are the stellar final two scenes. Kate's final scene with Kate is really wonderful. It comes back to the idea that I expressed in my post on epiphanies in November, before watching any Angel. Angel has realised that it needs to be good for good's sake at the end of 'In the Dark', 'I Will Remember You' and 'Judgement', but here realises it again a little deeper and with a little more recognition. It's not his first epiphany of this fact, but one of those multiple epiphanies lke Buffy has about keeping things secret, or Willow has about not controlling things she can't control. Here, however, Angel learns his lesson with a little more clarity than usual, and thus we get marvellous lines like 'The smallest act of kindness is the greatest gift in the world'. How powerfully truthful and uplifting. I sit on the fence slightly on the Divine Providence twist. It's clear that there are Higher Powers in Angel's Universe, (although oddly enough, there's little evidence that there is in Buffy's story), but how we are to take the moment of changing of the laws of the Universe is difficult. It could be a true goodness conquers restriction moment, or maybe the happenning symbolises another example of a character needing to be ready to see hope, (exactly like Angel at the end of 'Amends'). I'm sure it's not just a Christian or theistic message, but there does often seem to be a message of fate and 'Rightness' running through the storyline.

-And then the very final scene with Angel, Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn. Although the writing is a little less profound, I find this deeply moving, especially since it is the first time I found I really cared what happenned about these people in LA, and the first time I was close to tears, (didn't quite make it, but it will happen soon, I'm sure). Angel is big enough to say sorry, and to realise that it's not about returning to a position of leadership, but just helping to do good and alleviate suffering by helping. And Angel's harshest critic- Cordelia, the girl who was betrayed by everyone until Angel, and then felt betrayed again, is swayed by the most beautifully symbolic act of Angel supporting her through her vision. Wesley and Gunn earlier in the season let Cordelia fall to the floor. Cordelia realises, as we realise because of the parallel scenes, that she and the gang have missed Angel. Angel really will support Cordelia, because it's the right thing to do. And, through all the painful individuality and personal struggles and conflicts of interest, there's still just the faintest hope that those people who you know might be able to share with you something extremely special. The battle. And if the battle cannot be won, then just random acts of help and empathy. Which is what we call life.