“You’re deeply ambivalent.”
“I am, and I’m not.”
Oh goody. Jane Espenson finally writes an episode of Angel. I’d been looking forward to this.
It’s interesting, though, that the tone is very different from her Buffy episodes. What humour there is
here is good, but it’s much toned down as is appropriate for this more serious
show, and largely centred on Wesley’s klutziness. This is interesting, of
course, this being a Wesley episode and all, and one that further advances his
slow journey from klutz to bad-ass.
Obviously, the conceit of Wesley having to pretend to be
Angel for the whole episode, and filling the shoes pretty well, is a good one.
It has the potential to have been trite, of curse, especially the bit about
Wesley getting a shag under false pretences and then redeeming himself, but it
avoids that in the execution through good character development and a knowing
postmodernism. There are plenty of other knowing winks to the audience, too.
From the “Swami” to Gunn’s “Walking real quick was the plan?” to the comment
about Angel being “a eunuch”. I also loved the bit where we found out that our
putative sacrificial virgin has, in fact, managed to knock up quite a sexual
history.
This is about as light-hearted as Angel gets. Time for the season arc to get really, really serious,
I suspect…
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