Angel: Not Fade Away (5.22)

And they went out fighting. When Angel began, you'd be hard pressed to imagine that the series finale would end with the few survivors left pulling a Butch Cassidy; guns blazing, running into probable doom. But, thinking hard, Angel was never a show about victory. It was more a series about atonement, about constantly aiming for something despite rarely coming out on top. The show's entire mission statement is expressed during Gunn's reunion with Anne, where he asks her how she would react if she knew everything was ultimately futile. Would she give up? Just call it a day? She answers that she wouldn't, and instead would just continue doing what she'd be doing regardless. Not Fade Away is about taking a stand, being counted, and making your actions worth a damn. This is brutal in its execution, but beautiful as a piece of storytelling.

Angel: Power Play (5.21)

Power Play works like a cleaner, punchier version of season four's Awakening, with every corner of the script building to that inevitable plot twist. But while Awakening lived and died by its ending, Power Play is strong enough on its own to not feel like filler material leading to a cut-and-dry resolution. While you're never left wondering if Angel really did travel over to the dark side, the episode does a wonderful job of depicting the corruption of power, continuing the idea of an end of the world not brought forth as a result of one singular threat, but of the merging of various acts of negativity -- crossing human, demon and satanic bounds, this is an elaborate convergence of every type of evil, from the calculating to the mundane to the anarchic.

Angel: The Girl in Question (5.20)

I remember seeing this years ago and thinking it was ass. With Buffy at arm's length throughout the whole thing, glimpsed only from afar in a nightclub, played by some bony stand-in that is so not our Sarah... why bother all-together? But watching The Girl in Question for the second time, I was mystified that I could have ever thought so much negativity about it. It's probably the silliest thing the show has ever done, but has such a spitfire of zany energy that you're completely carried by it for the whole hour. And the real message of the episode is worthy of additional acclaim. It's no classic, but a hilarious book-end to all the Buffy angst.

Angel: Time Bomb (5.19)

Time Bomb exists for three reasons: to diminish Illyria's indestructible power so she doesn't kill any narrative tension in the future; to remove Gunn from his suburban hell punishment; and to set up the last run of episodes, at least in regards to Angel. As a standalone hour, it's not particularly exciting, nor funny. It explores the very worst elements of Illyria's character and actually makes her annoying at times, while the sci-fi time travel hoodoo feels a lot like a different show all-together. But the season itself still feels so purposeful right now, like the writers are fully aware of that new sense of drive it's adopted and is just relentlessly running with it. This isn't strong at all, but isn't the total crock some make it out to be.

Angel: Origin (5.18)

There's a great conversation this week in which Connor asks if he's a superhero, and if Angel and his friends are also superheroes. It brought to mind the work of Stan Lee, and how Connor's journey here is very much an elaborate comic book origin tale. In this new world where everybody's minds have been altered, Connor is an ordinary teenage boy from an ordinary family, who gets hit by a truck one day and finds himself completely intact. His parents are concerned, and take him to a strange law firm specializing in supernatural weirdness. There he discovers his true identity, meets his vampire father and his team full of demons and blue-skinned ladies, and gains back his old memories. It's such an incredible story, increased in power by how adorably normal this new Connor is.

Angel: Underneath (5.17)

Underneath spends a long time sifting through the various plot strands that have appeared over the last couple of weeks. There's sometimes little of a uniting theme between the dueling subplots, which means it's no classic, but each individual story is so successful as a standalone piece that you can forget some of the weaker elements here. It only makes Angel's cancellation sadder, the show finally having hit this moment in time where all the cogs that make up the series are cohesive and working like crazy, every character granted an incredible sense of purpose, and a tone that feels just as familiar as it does fresh and exciting. Rest in peace, show.

Angel: Shells (5.16)

There's an enormous shift in tone here, understandable considering the tragic hour it follows, but it's still something that rattles. As an introduction to Illyria, however, Shells is ridiculously successful. It's not the first time a character has been taken over by something evil (we've seen variations on this plot device repeatedly over the years on Buffy and Angel), but Amy Acker is so shockingly convincing as this cold, uber-powerful titan that you get completely suckered in by her character. A strange mix of Glory (with the minion worship), Anya (the total lack of understanding when it comes to humans) and some kind of relentless machine, Illyria is a wonderful addition to the cast.

Angel: A Hole in the World (5.15)

The concept of "astronauts versus cavemen" is such a Whedon-y joke that it can only read as a goofy aside at first. It's strange and fun, and everybody is weirdly distracted by it. But as the episode builds, it becomes clear that this running gag is there for an entirely different purpose. A Hole in the World is an exploration into futility, events unfolding that are so horrible and painful, yet entirely inevitable. No matter how much they work, no matter what they do to try and prevent it, the episode still ends with blood and pain. Like Fred says, "this is a house of death". You can be a forward-thinking astronaut and explore science and technology and that's all great, but the primal power of those cavemen, of the old ones, is always impossible to undermine.

Angel: Smile Time (5.14)

I wrote back in my review for Waiting in the Wings that Angel was rarely the kind of show to entirely break with tradition. While Buffy frequently offered episodes that played around with formula, both elaborately (the musical, a silent episode) as well as via less showy but nonetheless alternative ways (characters hearing everybody's thoughts, a dream episode), Angel was more of an generic series in terms of spectacle, allowing a traditional narrative to unspool over long-term arcs. Smile Time is one of those rare Buffy-ish episodes, in which initial absurdity quickly becomes something truly warm, winding up one of the most wildly experimental hours that the show ever attempted. They made him a puppet.

Angel: Why We Fight (5.13)

Why We Fight is the absolute epitome of an episode anchored by really, really cool ideas, only they're not depicted all that well on-screen. It's an episode generally considered pretty bad, but I'd rather take an ambitious but flawed hour over something as generic and flat as, say, Unleashed or Hell-Bound. It's unfortunate though, because the very concept of Angel being recruited by the government in 1943 to investigate Nazi plans to create a line of vampire super-soldiers is so strong and intriguing. But, outside of a few powerful scenes, Why We Fight is a real chore to get through.

Angel: You're Welcome (5.12)

Writing something purely for the fans is without doubt a double-edged sword. You can become so swamped in knowing, continuity-leaden moments that the whole script gets that feel of online fan-fiction... and that's never a good thing. But sometimes you exploit the series' history in such a celebratory way, throwing in a bunch of moments that are funny and nostalgic and cool, that the episode itself becomes an instant classic. Outside of that very last scene, there are few surprises in You're Welcome. It's not spectacularly well-plotted either, but it's such a rousing testament to Angel's vast accomplishments over the years and its wonderfully creative characters that it quickly becomes one of the finest hours in the show's history.

Angel: Damage (5.11)

The opportunity to follow through on some of the lingering threads introduced at the end of Buffy was pretty irresistible, but what Damage does so well is neatly elaborate on where the Buffy ensemble have found themselves, as well as directly picking up one of their last story arcs, all the while ensuring that this is very much an episode of Angel. It's shockingly different to something like season one's Sanctuary, where all of Buffy's baggage felt more like a rude interruption than something that was at all relevant to the world of her spin-off show. Damage, alternatively, takes thin ingredients from the potential slayer arc and drowns them in themes of mental illness and sadistic torture, as well as making it surprisingly important to the characters of Angel and Spike.

Angel: Soul Purpose (5.10)

Maybe if Restless didn't cast such a huge shadow over Soul Purpose, it may have worked better. But both represent the two extremes of dream episodes, one being insightful and revealing while balancing out the absurdity and humor, the other feeling like an excuse for wacky dream shenanigans. Before anybody accuses me of selling the episode short, there's still a lot to like about it, but it can't help but pail in comparison to how the Whedonverse has used the dream device in the past.

Angel: Harm's Way (5.9)

There's a lot riding against Harm's Way. It easily grinds all the forward momentum launched last week to an abrupt halt, feels slightly strained as a comedy piece and has the thinnest of storylines in a long while. Long stretches of time are given to elaborate monologues in which Harmony recites the plot and wonders aloud what's really happening, and the finale isn't good at all. But there's an unlikely charm to the episode, despite all of its issues, that allows Mercedes McNab to be all cute and perky... which is always good.

Angel: Destiny (5.8)

There's definitely a fan-service quality to Destiny, if only because it seems like a response to one of those 'who'd win in a fight between...?' fanboy questions, along the lines of Freddy vs. Jason, or Batman vs. Superman. But it quickly becomes clear that Destiny, while eventually settling for rock-'em, sock-'em hysterics, does at least have a conscience. It continues to explore one of season five's few running themes, the show wondering whether merely having a soul is tantamount to being a good person, and whether Angel will ever get himself out of this funk that he's been in for a while. It's no Lineage, but definitely another strong episode that sets the show back on track.

Angel: Lineage (5.7)

The first episode in season five that doesn't feel regressive in its sensibilities or alternatively plain terrible, Lineage wonderfully depicts the contradictions between your private self and your public self, and what happens when the barriers between both personas are torn down. Wesley has always been a character of two extremes. When he arrived on Buffy, he was this bumbling butt-nugget that made Hugh Grant seem like the pinnacle of manliness. But after experiencing torture and pain and emotional devastation, he's wound up this brusied anti-hero -- a complete 180 to what he once was and a testament to the Whedonverse's dedication to the art of character growth.

Angel: The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco (5.6)

'WTF?!' is not a good reaction to have when you're watching a television show. This is Angel's very worst episode, and just like Buffy's worst hour, all you're left feeling is complete disbelief that anybody thought it could work in the first place. Even if you excuse the flamboyant wackiness of the Mexican wrestling, it's rare to find a Buffyverse episode that's such a drag. Whole streams of dialogue are given to a mumbly wrestler in a mask, ugly exposition is tossed around like confetti, and the Angel team do little but stand around pondering the mystery. It's plain horrible.

Angel: Life of the Party (5.5)

Even though he's essentially been a permanent cast member for four years now, I don't think Lorne has ever been better than he was during Angel's second season, cast as the proprietor of a strange demon karaoke bar and a proud dispenser of little nuggets of profound wisdom. Ever since Caritas burned down, he's been something of a background character. And while Andy Hallett is still a wonderful presence on the show, most of the time he's only there to toss around nicknames and euphemisms... and that's sort of a drag after a while.

Angel: Hell-Bound (5.4)

I recently wrote about a particularly underwhelming episode of The X-Files, in which the script quickly dovetailed into random bouts of spookiness, characters facing various bursts of nastiness purely to fill time before the inevitable showdown. Hell-Bound, unfortunately, follows the same track as Unleashed in that it's mostly showy and flat, only mildly intriguing due to some strong character work. But it's still generally pretty tiresome, another reminder that it takes a long while for season five to go anywhere interesting.

Angel: Unleashed (5.3)

Unsurprisingly for a show that only got a last-minute renewal from its network, season five's opening stretch has a ratings-bait feel to it, the writers concentrating on standalone mysteries to lure in new viewers rather than over-complicated arcs like last year, in which you were completely lost if you hadn't watched the previous four or five episodes. With that, though, comes a real generic quality, and Unleashed is probably the most mundane episode since early season one. But it even lacks the noirish sparkle of those initial 'damsel in distress' hours, eventually becoming pretty blah-worthy in how safe it is.