Angel: Tomorrow (3.22)

It's all about parallels. Angel is confined to the depths of the ocean, and Cordelia ascends to places unknown. Tomorrow is one of the few Buffyverse finales that literally ends on a cliffhanger, leaving you gasping for some kind of resolution just as that coffin fades into the darkness and we smash into the end credits. Even before that ending, however, this is a strong closer to the third season. Here, events conspire to make everything sort of perfect. Angel has his family back together again, Cordelia has her epiphany. But David Greenwalt's script ensures that, once we look a little closer, things aren't as wonderful as they may appear.

Angel: Benediction (3.21)

Revenge has been one of the driving themes of season three, especially in relation to Holtz. Holtz has never been somebody we could completely dislike, since his quest is rooted in the pain of experiencing the horrific murder of his entire family. Here he begins to showcase new levels as he encourages Connor to connect with his birth father, later granting Angel his blessing when it comes to re-forming the bond with his son. But, obviously, this is Angel, a show when nothing ever ends up the way you had expected. Holtz, hate driving his every action and decision, forms the ultimate revenge scheme, and it's a masterful moment of biblical intensity.

Angel: A New World (3.20)

Connor is (justifiably?) maligned later on, but his introduction here is confident and engaging. Right now, he and Angel share an unsurprisingly complicated relationship -- Connor untrustworthy of his birth father, and Angel unsure of how to communicate with a son he knew briefly as a baby, before suddenly morphing into a broody teenager in the space of two weeks. There's a lot of parental angst here, Angel being fatherly and protective when he discovers Connor has been sleeping in a drug den, and later trying to get through to him on a paternal level. With that, there appears to be some hope for the two of them -- the first lingering moments of a traditional father-son relationship. Until, naturally, another trademark Angel sucker punch that sends the episode off on a high note.

Angel: The Price (3.19)

There are two ways to view this episode. Either you can enjoy the season one-style monster-of-the-week angle, with the Angel Inc. team fleeing from CGI monsters around various Hyperion corridors -- or you can literally see it as an episode with a lot of people running up and down corridors. Whichever group you fall into, The Price is still a total filler hour saved by a strong cliffhanger ending and a couple of noteworthy bits of characterization. It's not as pointlessly redundant as last week, but still feels a little bland and unassuming at certain junctures.

Angel: Double or Nothing (3.18)

Lord, this was dull. I hate to be the guy that casually dismisses any Gunn-centric episode, but it's quickly become apparent that he can't successfully drive any Angel hour anymore. I don't really know what's happened to his character, but I can suggest that his relationship with Fred has severely impacted him. Remember the whip-smart warrior of season one? Or the resourceful pseudo-detective in season two? Now he's the lovesick puppy. J. August Richards can't sell his complete infatuation with Fred either, their scenes together having this awkwardly YA flavor to them, with all the goofiness and the complete lack of sexual intimacy they have. It's just strange.

Angel: Forgiving (3.17)

There's very little narrative arc to Forgiving. More than anything, it's just a cluster of individual scenes linked by Connor's abduction. Unlike most episodes, you can't really discuss any separate subplots or whatever, because everything feels so scatter-shot right now. And 'scatter-shot' only because the show is going balls-out at this point. Forgiving depicts exactly what would happen following a traumatic event, with people falling apart, urgent searching for some kind of resolution, but coming up empty just as you think you've found it. It's an episode that is daring, brutal and uneasy to watch, but ridiculously powerful.

Angel: Sleep Tight (3.16)

This is exhausting -- a remarkable exercise in double crosses, shock cliffhangers and game-changing plot twists. Much of the episode involves Wesley attempting to remove Connor from Angel, leading to that stunning moment in which Lorne realizes what Wesley is about to do, leading Wesley to brutally knock him out and take the baby. It's yet another scenario which throws your allegiances for a loop, tying in neatly with the continued ambiguity of Holtz. We support Wesley for wanting to save Connor from imminent death, especially when Angel begins to act irrational and volatile, but quickly we see how irrational Wesley is becoming, too. He's so wrapped up in what he believes to be right that he begins to sacrifice any shred of forward-planning. It's a kick-ass episode.

Angel: Loyalty (3.15)

There's definitely been a strong sense of detachment this season when it comes to Angel's main cast. Angel has been wrapped up in being a father, turning him into somebody who appears so much lighter and comedic, yet being entirely single-minded and focused on his son. Cordelia has become a little sanctimonious at times, while her importance to the show has been so diminished that she's entirely removed from this and the following two episodes. Finally, after so much initial promise, Fred has been dragged into a stillborn subplot with Gunn, by proxy making her character a total drag. This leaves Wesley as the only strong character left, and it makes sense that the show has suddenly thrust him center stage in the middle of a moral dilemma and a dangerous prophecy.

Angel: Couplet (3.14)

A cute, if frustratingly lightweight, episode. Couplet more or less signals the end of the Angel/Cordelia romance, and while it still feels a little unfinished as a story, you can sort of understand why it was quickly dropped as a plot point. Nevertheless, this is Angel in weird sitcom territory, cemented by the annoying Desperate Housewives score that plays over every one of these 'comedy' scenes. But if you dig a little deeper and avoid the obvious humor of Cordy dressing up Groo in Angel's outfits and making him a complete doppelganger of the guy, there's a lot of heart to the episode that proves quietly affecting.

Angel: Waiting in the Wings (3.13)

Now midway through its third season, there are many things that Angel obviously does right. It's depicted incredibly powerful story arcs, featured characters that are ridiculously well-drawn, all of which has been propped up by a main cast that has entirely grown in strength and numbers and gradually become a multi-faceted crime-fighting unit. But one of the things that has kind of eluded Angel over the years is something that made Buffy one of the most attention-grabbing series on television. I'm talking about 'event' episodes along the lines of Hush or Innocence, arresting detours into unexpected adventures, hours that broke new ground and experimented with the conventions of the series. Waiting in the Wings is a rare Angel episode of that type, an ambitious melodrama that is just as profound as it is visually gorgeous.

Angel: Provider (3.12)

Another episode that staggers the major plot arcs currently running -- but at least the events here felt organic. Sure, most of Provider was crazily lightweight, but it never felt like we were being thrown off-course from the main thrust of the season. This episode was all about the Angel Investigations team getting back to work for Connor's sake, really pushing the agency in order to get their hands on whatever money they can. In general, Provider felt a lot like a collection of stories that probably couldn't sustain an entire hour, so we got bite-size nuggets instead. It's moderately entertaining, but struggles to be anything deeper.

Angel: Birthday (3.11)

Without giving anything away, it's unfortunate that so much of Birthday ends up retconned in future episodes. Future episodes that, if I remember correctly, are a whole heap of convoluted suck that never makes a whole lot of sense. On its own, Birthday is a pretty wonderful fable that breaks down the walls of Angel as we know it and allows Cordelia to experience a life that could have been, if she had just taken a different direction all those years ago. Cordelia as a character has been problematic this year (far too preachy and sanctimonious) -- but this takes her back to her roots, maintaining her recent growth but allowing her to once again be funny, charming and vacuous.

Angel: Dad (3.10)

While there are still explosions and angst and folks trying to abduct, sacrifice and experiment on a newborn baby, Dad adds a surprisingly lighter feel to the show. I guess we're so used to Angel being relentlessly miserable that crying babies and circumcision jokes appear so jarring. This is an all-together less grand spectacle than Lullaby, which is entirely necessary -- while that episode was all about apocalyptic emoting and profound sacrifices, this allows the show some breathing room, setting up its newest narrative evolution and rolling with it.

Angel: Lullaby (3.9)

One of the driving themes of early season two was Darla trying to come to terms with her new found humanity, and experiencing feelings that she hadn't felt for hundreds of years. That sense of emotion and soulfulness eventually crippled her sanity, so desperate to become a vampire again that she ended up trawling bars for an easy siring. A similar thing happens here, but it's played in such a haunting way that it's infinitely more moving. This is Darla's finest hour, an episode that explores her psychology and allows Julie Benz to play varying different tones as her character experiences a deep personal crisis.

Angel: Quickening (3.8)

One of the most disquieting side effects of Angel's newest story arc is the fact that Holtz is very much entitled to his revenge. This has always been a series that highlights its interest in moral ambiguity, but this particular storyline really challenges your allegiances. Naturally, being Angel's show, we champion him and hope for his eventual victory, but Holtz is a compelling sort-of antagonist. He's already been given an intense back-story through dialogue, but actually seeing the horror of Angelus and Darla murdering his wife and child was pretty horrifying. We don't want Holtz to succeed in killing Angel, but we can't realistically condemn his repeated attempts to do so.

Angel: Offspring (3.7)

Last season I mentioned that I kind of support the idea of an Angel/Cordelia romance, due to their natural chemistry and their obvious affection for one another. Plus, it's pretty common for sexual attraction to grow out of long-lasting friendship and mutual respect. But one thing that's jarring with me this year is, in fact, the Angel/Cordelia romance. This may sound crazy, but I'm actually finding all their flirtatious banter sort of 'icky'. I don't know if it's the writing or that the relationship just doesn't work when its depicted so transparently, but there's something mildly contrived about them acting this way right now, and for the first time in the history of the Buffyverse, Cordelia actually annoyed me here.

Angel: Billy (3.6)

Billy Blim is an even more disturbing antagonist because he's on this specific show. Buffy and Angel are such strongly feminist series with richly-drawn, powerful and badass female characters at their heart -- so the arrival of a character who despises the idea of a woman having strength creates something so abrasive and chilling, going against everything the Whedonverse has promoted. With that in mind, the sight of a beaten and bruised Lilah is truly horrible, while Billy's pathological madness feels so real.

Angel: Fredless (3.5)

I had initially assumed Fredless was the first Angel script from a new writer. There's an artificiality to a lot of the dialogue, most of the ensemble feels out-of-character, and there's an over-reliance on making everything cutesy. At the same time, the script is filled with annoying recounting of Buffyverse mythology, like the newbie writer is determined to prove their Whedon cred. What surprised me is that Fredless in fact isn't the work of a first-time writer, but it's the work of Mere Smith, who wrote some wonderful episodes last season. So much of Fredless feels jarring and irritating, and I seriously fail to understand why it's so beloved by fans.

Angel: Carpe Noctem (3.4)

Body swaps naturally create comedy, as we see people stumbling into the lives of others and rapidly messing things up for everyone around them. Carpe Noctem avoids any type of final resolution or an ending in which Angel discovers something about himself (via a 'how the other half lives'-type scenario), but quickly becomes one of the most entertaining episodes in a long while. It's such easy comedy (and sometimes the hour reeks of fan-service), but there's just so much fun to be had watching some horny old man inhabiting Angel's body and coming on to literally the entire female cast.

Angel: That Old Gang of Mine (3.3)

That Old Gang of Mine is heavily flawed, but on a purely superficial level is probably the most entertaining episode this season so far. It features the most interesting villains, seems to be experimenting with heavy story ideas, and exploits 'hostage crisis' conventions for all they're worth. The latter is interesting because I ordinarily dislike hostage episodes of any TV show, but the Caritas showdown here is mightily affecting, presumably because the place itself is so welcoming and pleasant.