ANGEL SEASON TWO
Much like Buffy, Angel’s first season was a rocky road. Unlike Buffy, the feeling-out process for Angel involved cast shake-ups and even a tweaking of the entire driving force of the show. What started as a pulpy, noir-heavy, detective story (with vampires), focusing on three core characters and a police detective/possible love interest on the side, became something very different by the end of season one. Gone was Doyle, the half-demon that received visions from “the powers that be” and guided Angel along each episode’s plot. Those duties were shuffled over to Cordelia, who, in turn, finally found a purpose to the overall thrust of the show. In Doyle’s place was the returning Wesley Windham Price, a carryover from Buffy’s third season, who worked on that show mostly as a comedic foil. His character is reintroduced to us in Angel in much the same way, though he quickly develops into a well-rounded character and a vital member of the cast (really, that’s understating it; Wes has arguably the greatest character evolution in the entire Buffyverse). As the show finished its first season, the character of Police Detective Kate Lockley was still around, though her role was shrinking fast, and at the start of season two she was basically a bit part no more important than Joyce in the fourth season of Buffy.
To put it mildly, the season that began with “City Of” was not the same show that ended with “To Shanshu in L.A.” It had grown in quality and proved its willingness to shake up its rules and foundations in order to get the best product on the screen. It also ended with the promise that things were going to get a whole lot wilder in year two, as the overarching baddies of Wolfram & Hart devised a way to resurrect Angel’s old squeeze, Darla.
Season two thus begins with the promise that the writers had worked out the kinks and were ready to dive deeper into the mythology and character development they only teased in season one. It wouldn’t be the same show, but it would still be Angel. That tone is set immediately, as the first thing we see is a green-skinned and red-horned demon emerge from stage right amidst spooky lighting.
He then proceeds to sing karaoke.
Lorne is just one of a trio of characters either introduced to us this season or who are promoted to series regulars. Lorne, to put it simply, is too good for this world. He’s a demon with a love for performing, a perennially happy disposition, and a desire to please. On the one hand, he’s exactly the kind of character that the network would request be added to the show, to bring some brightness to it, but on the other, he’s just the kind of cat that Joss Whedon would proactively envision. Think about it: What crucial skills or qualities does Lorne bring to the mix? He can’t (and won’t) fight. He has no great wealth. He has no important connection to any hero or villain in the show. He’s purely ancillary and other than being an empath who can sing, he can’t really do anything. And yet, I can’t imagine this show without him. In a show as dark and brooding as this one often got in year one (even the light-hearted episodes were often gloomy), Lorne strutted into season two like a Christmas-colored breath of fresh air. He might not do anything, but his mere delightful presence alone is enough to warrant keeping him around.
Another face that we only just started getting to know in year one is Gunn, who appeared in the final three episodes of the first season. Starting with season two, he’s added as a show regular and given billing in the opening credits, something that will become the norm in Angel (every new season features someone new added to the credits). While Angel works as a warrior of a different era, and Wesley is a very book-oriented fighter, Gunn is depicted as the man getting his hands dirty, doing real fighting in the streets. He brings a different dimension than we’d gotten to this point in the Buffyverse but it took the writers a year or so before they figured out exactly how to present his character. Early on he’s too much of a caricature, and the episodes focusing on him rarely land in the upper echelon of the show.
Fortunately, most of season two revolves around the toxic relationship between Angel and Darla, and it’s here where the show shines.
In one of the show’s best recurring vignettes, Angel regularly flashes back to ancient times, when Angelus, Darla, Spike, and Drusilla, trotted from country to country wreaking havoc and feasting on all manner of innocents. We’d heard a lot about how evil Angelus was in his former days, and we certainly got a taste of it in Buffy’s second season, but it was only here that we are actually shown what made this foursome the most feared vampires in the world.
The flashbacks serve a purpose, however, as they inform us of the inner thoughts Angel is wrestling with while dealing with the resurrected Darla. In what is easily the series’ best story arc, lasting two seasons, Joss and co. take the viewers on a journey with more twists, surprises, and layers than any other long-told story on either show. This season is basically divided into two mini-arcs, with a final arc at the end of the season that’s detached from the Angel/Darla drama.
At first, Angel sees Darla around Los Angelus, and suspects he’s crazy, seeing a ghost. When he finally confronts the woman, she acts as if she doesn’t know him and flees, escaping from him into the sunlight. Later, Angel tracks her down to a home where she appears to be a normal housewife, a mere look-alike to the woman he was with for literal centuries. Then the first twist happens: Darla, we learn, was resurrected with a mortal soul, but that carried with it a resurrection of all the mortal ailments her former self once had. Before becoming a vampire, Darla was a prostitute and was dying of syphilis. Choosing immortality over certain death, she became a vamp, met up with Angel and the rest is history. Now that she’s back so too is her fatal disease, too far along to be cured with modern medicine. She begs for Angel to turn her back into a vampire, which he naturally refuses. Instead, he embarks on a quest to save her life.
Under normal circumstances, the hero would prevail, but no: Twist #2 is that Angel fails and Darla remains doomed to die. The two embrace and accept their fate before—shock of shocks and one of the best moments in all of Buffy or Angel—Drusilla makes her return and does the deed Angel would not. With one bite, the old Darla is back and we begin the next mini-arc of the season, as Darla and Drusilla go on a tear. Bitter and angry over everything that’s happened, Angel sinks into a dark inner place, fires his team, and goes bad (not Angelus bad, but bad enough to rattle the vampires he’s hunting). This culminates in twist #3: Angel sleeping with Darla. As lightning crashes in the aftermath, we’re led to believe that Angelus has returned, but no: Angel’s soul only leaves when he experiences true happiness, something a one-off with Darla can’t create. The brief dalliance brings Angel back to the light and he returns to the team he fired, asking to work for them. This takes us into the final arc of the season, as the Darla-drama is put on hold so we can spend some time in Lorne’s demon dimension.
For most of it, Angel’s second season was just as heavy, dramatic, and dark as the first, but the character-interaction kept it from being too dour, and the long-form plot-twisty arc (which season one didn’t have) kept its viewers perpetually hooked. Fans who stuck with the season throughout its first sixteen episodes were treated to the first half of an epic tale, the rest of which would play out during the show’s third year. Before that, however, and after a few one-off episodes to tie up loose ends, Angel’s second year ended with a visit to Pylea, the medieval, war-loving land where everyone who looks like Lorne acts like the monster we assumed Lorne to be when we first laid eyes on him. These final episodes of the season offer a happy detour from the darkness experienced previously; it’s a reward to the fans who endured such a grim and heavy storyline, and most importantly, it provides us with the character that will come to be the series’ heart and soul: Winifred Burkle. More on her next time.
Angel’s second year was not as flashy as Buffy’s sophomore outing. It didn’t have the great one-off episodes and singular tone-shifting moment the way that Angel turning into Angelus brought to Buffy’s year two. That would be a regular struggle the show would live with for the duration of its time on the air: It was never as flashy as Buffy and always put more emphasis on the slow-burn arc and character development than it did having a really memorable plot every week. Buffy’s episodes are best considered in single offerings, and occasionally as two-parters. Angel, on the other hand, is a series of arcs, with the occasional one-off that rises above the rest. It makes it harder to compare to its sister show but, as Joss Whedon famously quipped, “Angel was the one show on the WB that was trying not to be Buffy.”
The series never hit the ratings mark that its companion series reached, but those who stuck with Angel will swear by the show’s high quality, and often praise it as some of the best character writing in all of Joss and co.’s TV wheelhouse. A big reason for that praise is the work done, not only in the excellent second season but also in the year that followed, which we’ll talk about next time.
Until then!
