Both “Angel” and “Buffy” are looking mightily apocalyptic this season. And considering the average apocalypse historically takes an episode, two at most to handle (and indeed became so SOP that it was reduced to a mere “B” plot in the hilarious BTVS episode “The Zeppo”), we’re obviously talking some major league world destruction.
The two series are going about it from very different approaches, however. Buffy has essentially become Slayerfest 2003, “Private Benjamin” meets “The Untouchables” with stakes as Buffy channels Sean Connery to whip her troops into shape (“I don’t know but it’s been said, Rupert Giles might be dead! Sound off, one two!”). Meanwhile Angel, who these days is just as likely to hang up on the helpless as help them (when was the last time they actually *did* that, and no, helping Conner doesn’t count) has become darker, more foreboding and, frankly, more compelling.
The recent episode was no exception. The only problem I had with it is that it came across like house cleaning. Let’s face it: Wolfram and Hart never went anywhere. They had senior partners, the exact nature of which we never really knew. They had a doomsday plan, the specifics of which we never learned. They had some connection to Pylea (or however you spell that dimension), the details of which were never pursued. And now, this week, they’re all dead. It came across (to me at least) like the producers saying, “You know what? Screw it. They’ve been around for three seasons, we don’t know what to do with them anymore, they’re more annoying than menacing, and they’ve said repeatedly they can’t kill Angel because he’s ‘important,’ so there’s only so much menace they can provide. Let’s just annihilate them and move on.” Which, barring a surprising plot development, is what they did.
As for Cordelia bøffìņg Conner…I dunno. I could see out-of-character behavior for someone who’s never endured end-of-the-world scenarios before. But Cordelia’s an old hand at this. It was–how shall we put it–questionable. Except I hear scuttlebutt that Charisma Carpenter’s pregnant. If that’s true, this might be how they cover it. She was sent back by the Powers That Be to have it off with Conner and produce yet another baby to be yanked off to another dimension. Either that or send her out on missions carrying a laundry basket in front of her.
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