As the army of darkness known as The Scourge arrives in LA to destroy all half-blood creatures, Angel, Doyle and Cordelia attempt to save a group of demons from the army.
Angel still hasn’t had a very high success rate this season, and as everyone knew beforehand, this episode sees the death of one of the regular cast ie Doyle. Now, many would think of this as rather foolish as the main cast is so small anyway, coupled with the fact that he’s had so little screen time anyway. Ignoring the fact that this seems to be a terrible waste of an interesting character (and Angel badly needs one), he’s actually written out in an effective way, finally coming through in a heroic send-off after a last kiss from Cordelia. It’s all a bit predictable and clichéd, but what you expect is more what’s needed in situations like this one. The final scene with the video pushes it more into the sick-making arena, however.
As to the main story itself, the Nazi allegory is unsubtly driven home with uniforms that merely require a swastika. Angel’s ability to change outfit and hairstyle to match the occasion is also a little odd, but at least we get to see him vamp it up a bit more than usual. Where the problem lies is in introducing a group who are reportedly vicious unstoppable killers. Now, if they were to become a season enemy, fine, but all Angel does it beat up three of them and kill the leader, and regardless of the fact that the combined might of the others could take him out with both hands tied behind their backs, there’s no sign of further resistance. It’s lazy after all the build-up, and extremely annoying.
In its favour, this is the darkest episode of Angel to date, and the first 20 minutes is dark, depressing and really quite unsettling. Sadly, a couple of positive aspects in an uneven episode don’t mark it down as one of the greats. And although I’d still like Doyle back, I’m interested to see where it goes from here.
***
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