Hmmmmm. I'm a little underwhelmed by the first two of these three, but I'll try to stay away from too much moaning. I have to say though that the biggest laugh I got out of 'Disharmony' was reading the cityofangel.com ratings. Our gallant reviewer gave the 'Reprise'/'Epiphany' duo 3.5 stakes out of 5, before bestowing 4.5 on 'Disharmony'. The orange tastes sweet to him and sour to me, obviously.

2.17- 'Disharmony'

I have to confess an imperfect following of the self-imposed rules of the Odyssey on this one, as it was the only episode I saw when it aired in Britain. Therefore, I don't come to it completely fresh, although I do have a completely different perspective of the show than I did when I watched it that first time. Then I considered it surface and not a patch on Buffy. This time round, I actually don't think my opinion has changed that much- and I'm extremely irritated by one of the little storylines. Now, I'm not David Fury's biggest fan. I think he started off pretty well as a solo writer with 'Helpless', 'Choices' and 'Fear, Itself', and his contributions have been steadily worsening ever since. My problem with his writing in general is that it is one-dimensional. He is a very funny writer, and 'Disharmony' delivers a couple of cracking one liners, (I loved: 'I think she should re-consider the name 'Harmony''), and also set up some rather cliched sitcom but nevertheless amusing situations, (like the Harmony/Cordelia vampire-lesbian misunderstanding). But I also think that there's not much going on underneath. With Jane Espenson, you can coast happily along on the top level, and then realise that there is some serious stuff underneath. With Fury, that happens much more rarely.

I like the plot of this episode- it's well-conceived. The spin where Cordelia believes Harmony is too sweet and stupid to be a threat, and AI eventually believe her, is tidily done, with some good acting by Mercedes McNab. But we should have knwon that Harmony has pretty much always been a sheep. It's painfully obvious when Cordelia and Harmony have their first conversation over wine that she'd still like to hang off Queen C's every word. But Cordelia's grown a long way from there. So eventually, when Harmony becomes one of the cool gang of vampires, fitting right in, it makes good sense. I also loved the motivational speaker. But I am irritated by a few things. Firstly, the Willow crossover seems a little pointless. But that's just a personal dislike for crossovers in general. Most of my grumbling boils down to the Angel plot-line in this episode. You remember 'Grease'. I'm sure you all sang along like me to the songs and the 50's retro. But I was really annoyed by the ending. Sandy has to learn to be conventionally sexy in order to get her guy. John Travolta is too cool to fall for the Sandy that Olivia Newton-John represented in her earlier career. She must change herself. And as soon as she conforms to society, she is accepted. Other people may see this as empowering our female lead; I find it a really annoying ending.

And Fury annoys me in a similar way with the Cordelia-Angel vibe in this episode. We get the nicely written 'We're not friends' scene, and the serious scene with Wesley, playing off the 'sorry you got shot in the gut bouquet' line. But then Fury does two things for laughs. Firstly, Wesley's 'she's going through a lot of pain' line is subverted by Cordelia having a great time at the end of the episode. And secondly, at the end, Angel wins back Angel's love and affection by buying her clothes showing the good taste of 'a gay man'.

Let me make one thing quite clear. I don't object to the trivialising of Angel's re-integration per se [The 'atonement's a bitch' line is one of the funniest in the episode]. What I do object to is jarring discontinuity in message. To set up the residual anger of Cordelia and Wesley at Angel's betrayal and acts of violence, and then to knock them down for a good joke just undermines any theme running through the episode. And this spoiled it irrevocably for me, because again we're being told, due to the episode's narrative structure- 'If you feel rightly guilty, appeal to your friend's materialism, and it will all be better'. I repeat again- the joke in itself is not the issue- it's the fact that it frames and undermines the real thoughts of re-integration that Angel had, and thus suggests that all the angst can be dispersed easily. I'm afraid I just think it's another example of Fury being a funny but thoughtless writer, with little feeling for the thematic nuances of his episodes.

Couple of more upbeat points. There's the parallel between Angel and Harmony, which is a little underplayed. They're both vampires who have had nasty experiences, and are now trying to find themselves a place where they belong. Harmony ends up making the wrong decision. Angel has already made the right decision. But the fact that Cordelia doesn't kill Harmony may be a less irritating suggestion of how she is dealing with Angel. She has realised that Angel is too valuable a friend to be thrown away, even more so now she's seen yet another person in her life betraying her after she trusted them (chalk Harmony up beside her parents, her other small-brained friends and, of course, Xander). By not staking Harmony, Cordelia decides that she can't let kill the remanant of her old friend, which is an interestingly opposite echo to Buffy in 'Lie To Me', where Buffy does leave her old friend to die, although admittedly in extremely different circumstances. Found this episode fun while I was bumbling along without my brain engaged, and then got annoyed when I looked for deeper themes and resonances. I'm afraid that's a repeating pattern for me with Fury episodes.

2.18- 'Dead End'

This one (which at cityofangel got 4 stakes, LOL), didn't irk me in the same way as 'Disharmony', but left me feeling a little nonplussed by the whole malarkie. There were definitely some good moments, and here are a few of them:

-Cordelia's visions. I like this developing story. There's an interesting message about just how much pain a human can take. ME is exploring how taxing being compassionate really is. It reminded me strongly of 'Earshot', and again of 'Grave'. In 'Earshot', Buffy can hear the pain of the whole community, and it's too much for her to bear, even as a hero. It leads to one of the most enlightened lines in Buffy, that eveyone is so busy dealing with their own pain that they miss everyone elses'. For me this feeds in to Angel's line in 'Epiphany', because, if you can overcome your own angst and personal story for long enough to reach out to someone else then it is an amazing thing. An dthus, 'the smallest act of kindness is the greatest gift in the world'. Here we see how Cordelia's visions have changed her. We've already seen how psychologically Cordelia has matured in the past 18 months, but here we see it taking a physical and mental toll- both the vision experience itself, and the residual pain. It made me realise just how well-thought-out these visions are. The fact that they are intensely painful is because the physical pain is an analogue to the emotional pain. In being truly empathic for a few seconds, Cordelia takes on their emotions in a visceral as well as intellectual sense, rather like Lorne being knocked out in 'Happy Anniversary' by the sheer importance of the revelation in the physicist's mind.

-Lindsey is a great singer. Wow, that was good. And Angel believing it wasn't was truly priceless. And written by David Greenwalt? Also impressive.

-However, I think this is more one of Greenwalt's failed uses of his characteristic scattershot writing technique. The stuff doesn't quite all fit together as well as it could do. There are some marvellous moments though, as in all Greenwalt episodes.

-One of these is Lindsey's reckless refusal to take the job he is offered. It is interesting in that it is a very mature act carried out in a very immature way. Lindsey plays the 'Insult the board because it doesn't matter' game with a certain amount of glee as well as releasing his anger

-The immature outside and mature inside is also emphasised by Angel's bickering with Lindsey throughout the episode, and the eventual send off. In helping Lindsey through his own 'Epiphany', (brought about by the pain of a friend), Angel is being outstandingly mature and restrained to someone who has tried to kill him multiple times. But it is expressed in a rather school-boyish way, particualrly with the sign on the back of the car at the end.

-Tying the immaturity of the men in the episode with the indescribable pain of the Visions, I wondered whether Greenwalt might even be playing out a period-metaphor. Hey, it's just where my mind goes. I'm sorry. I'll move on.

-Interesting that Nathan Reed's password is 'Zen'. There's a chilly calm and collectedness about the higher echelons of Wolfram and Hart that suggests something almost Zen-like- but in a rather nastier way.

Slightly better than 'Disharmony', but certainly not a favourite of mine for this Season.

2.19- 'Belonging'

I feel I should mention, perhaps a little defensively, that I haven't been the biggest of fans of Shawn Ryan so far. While perfectly fine, I thought 'First Impressions' was one of the lower points of a truly fantastic Season. But just to show that I wasn't dismissing Fury a priori, I loved this episode despite of my initial reluctance.

There are plenty of really well-acted parts in this episode- perhaps it is more of an ensemble piece than most of the other good episodes this season, where Angel's (melo)drama has been the focus. Here we get Cordelia and Wesley and Lorne and Gunn all with really interesting things to do, and Angel's story actually playing in the background to them, just as he has vowed to stay in the background in AI, not be the leader. Of course, he's finding that hard, since he slips into the natural role of figurehead rather well. He was never a figurehead in Sunnydale, and part of the reason why he was never completely integrated into the group may have been Giles role as the first counsellor to Buffy. In LA, he has his own well-defined niche, and to deliberately play out of it is a bit of a struggle. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little bit of re-negotiating of roles before the end of the Season with Wesley and Angel.

Moments of wonderful clarity and/or pain in 'Belonging' included:

-The superlatively written and shockingly well performed scene with Wesley on the 'phone to his Father. One of my favourite scenes of the Season so far. While I have enjoyed watching Wesley as a character, his role has too often slipped into emotion-less utility figure like Giles in Sunnydale throughout this Season. I want to see his character enriched further, a wish that has been [arguably justifiably] scupperred for most of this season by Angel's huge torment. This pain with his Father is just marvellously done. After all his time away, he still craves validation.

-Cordelias's pain. The advert in which she acts shows how much she's grown up. I don't think that Season Three Cordy would have had any problem with jumping through the hoops required for fame. Now, with more important issues in hand, she realises that to judge someone on the bags under their eyes is superficial nonsense. But again, we see amini-tragedy, because this has always been Cordelia's dream- just to act. She says, despairingly: 'I just wanted to show them I could act. That I was good.' Whether or not this is a jab at Hollywood, acting as a whole, or just this individual director, it cuts across Cordelia's journey wonderfully.

-Lorne in this episode, is very interesting. As I've pointed out a few times already, Lorne often acts as the narrator and the audience/writers' mouthpiece. Here he isn't like that at all, because he ceases to be detached. Actually rather like Andrew in 'Storyteller'. Due to the opening of the portal and the appearance of his cousin, he is suddenly a character with a struggle, rather than the detached laconic singer. And it's well acted with confused restraint by Andy Hallett. Lorne would like not to care, but he really does. He's just not comfortable with that crucial key word, 'Belonging'.

-Gunn has where he 'belongs' questioned as well. I don't want to spend too much time here on his struggle, because his choice of LA or the streets is yet to be resolved, but clearly he chose one above the other and is now grieving for his choice. He may not have been able to do anything about it, but that's not the point. He could have tried, had he decided his loyalty the other way.

All five characters have their belonging questioned, and it brings confusion to them all. Is Angel really part of the human community- as he makes a mess of the apparently convivial meal in the teaser? Is Wesley still defined as the failed son, or is he something more? Where does Gunn belong? Must Cordy turn her back on her dream, to belong to the film industry. And, the most important question of all, how does Lorne belong? A question which must clearly be answered, as it appears Cordelia has ended up in his native dimension.

There's the fun of the over-formal Deathwok clan member, who plays off tidily as a satire on the Klingons in Star Trek, where honour is everything, the fight is life, and art is not really important. There are also some almost 'Holy Grail' moments as he spouts ridiculous names. It was a little like the troll in 'Triangle'. The mentioning of the esoteric Deathwok death rituals followed by the cut to Gunn burning his friend's corpse was extremely powerful.

Very interesting stuff. I might finally mention how Angel seems to love the idea of a black/white universe when Lorne explains it. But maybe his look is a little more ambiguous. I would have thought, considering his journey this Season, it should be not just wishing he was there. Liked this episode lots. Final three reviewed in next couple of days. Preferably tomorrow so it doesn't get immediately swamped by Well Known Casting Spoiler.