Angel: Home (4.22)

Reinvention is good. There's something about Home that screams of an attempt to curb cancellation, and it's not a new phenomena. When a show's ratings are flatlining, not horrible but certainly not strong enough for an immediate pick-up, it's seemingly traditional for the show to experiment with a game-changer. Sometimes the show flashes forward in time, sometimes a major new character is flown in, and sometimes an entirely new environment is introduced. The latter doesn't always work, think back to the jarring "Veronica Mars: FBI Agent" thing, but sometimes the game-changer is so absurd yet so inherently believable that it's no surprise the network was completely charmed by it.

Angel: Peace Out (4.21)

There's interesting moral complexity at the heart of Peace Out, something far removed from the pod-people sci-fi of the early Jasmine episodes and the exhausting melodrama of last week. Here we actually see the person within the illusion of Jasmine, as well as her generally good intentions. It's sometimes hard to rectify the Jasmine seen here with the Jasmine inhabiting Cordelia's body during the opening stretch of season four, but her plan raises some intriguing questions about freewill and Angel's arguably short-sighted decision to bring her down. Because, as she says, while she does a lot of damage and eats her own worshipers every once in a while -- is it really a worse situation than a world overrun with war, poverty and corruption?

Angel: Sacrifice (4.20)

Almost as a parallel to the season itself, Sacrifice sees the Angel team literally running on empty. But because it's one of those placeholder episodes designed to fill the gap between two major story developments, it winds up appearing like nothing but a bunch of people running on empty. Therefore, the most successful idea raised here is also the episode's weakest. There's an interesting angle to all of this in that Angel has literally no clue how to stop Jasmine, and I liked that sense of abject ignorance of any get-out scheme or means of attack. It's relentless badness. But, at the same time, the writers struggle to get out of that well. Because, naturally, our heroes have to stop Jasmine at some point. And what they come up with is... eh.

Angel: The Magic Bullet (4.19)

The Magic Bullet opens in complete juxtaposition to the season as we've known it so far. In what works as a direct antithesis to the Beast's sun-blocking fire and brimstone earlier this year, we've now arrived in an Angel permanently bathed in bright sunlight, with peace and happiness spreading through the streets of Los Angeles and everyday people being overcome with joyful rapture. But another cool parallel burns through this episode, with the outward peace only masking the paranoia and suspicion directed at the renegade Fred, as well as the casual treatment of self-destruction in the name of God, and the fact that Jasmine has been, you know, eating folk behind closed doors.

Angel: Shiny Happy People (4.18)

Yet again we're thrust into another relentless story arc, and so far this is way better than I remembered it being. Jasmine's arrival marks a major turnaround in tone this year, after the dark foreboding of the last, what, million weeks, here we have lightness and love and goddess worship. It's shocking, attention-grabbing, and in direct parallel to what we thought we knew about the monster baby in Cordelia's belly. Because it turns out to be a statuesque Gina Torres-shaped bringer of peace, which is... new. Torres is spectacular here, her soothing voice and almost alien beauty granting Jasmine this naturally regal and arresting presence, somebody you could believe would be captivating to those around her.

Angel: Inside Out (4.17)

This is season four's grand explanation episode, the inevitable 'let's stop and actually work out the intricate workings that we've been blindly stumbling through' hour full of elaborate exposition, revelatory flashbacks and mass theorizing. It winds up being more or less a lengthy info-dump, but it's pretty fantastic that so much of it actually makes sense. This has been a particularly dense season, with a story that rapidly unfolded week after week with little breathing room, and it's admirable to see the writers explain away potential loop-holes and some of the wackier characterization this year. As I keep repeating, on second viewing this season is surprisingly logical.

Angel: Players (4.16)

One of the possible side effects of such serialized-driven seasons like this one is that there are sometimes episodes that turn out to be nothing but elaborate placeholders delaying a cliffhanger ending. Release two weeks ago, while nowhere near a 'bad' episode, stumbled into this problem as it felt like a vast collection of slightly repetitive moments, purely designed to bridge the gap between the event-heavy episodes on either side of it. Players is another hour that struggles to become anything of much use, stranding Gwen and Gunn in a stillborn filler story designed to bide time until the effective cliffhanger at episode's end. Meh.

Angel: Orpheus (4.15)

The first crossover episode in years, Orpheus is the flip-side of the last hour of its kind. While season one's Sanctuary cast Buffy Summers as a whiny, petulant outsider with little rationale, Willow Rosenberg slips easily into the world of Angel -- a shining beacon of energy and breezy banter that momentarily brightens up what's been a pretty dour run of episodes. It's also ironic that she's used far better here than she's recently been used on her own show, free of the baggage of her new love interest and granted some purposeful dialogue for once.

Angel: Release (4.14)

It's interesting to see the radical changes that have occurred in both Wesley and Faith, as depicted here. Faith's jail time has given her a greater appreciation for life, as she's no longer the self-destructive psychotic that wreaked havoc on Los Angeles four years ago. She's grown up, matured and honed her strengths. But the spell in prison has weakened her defenses, leaving her vulnerable to attack and lacking some of the focus and intensity she once had. It's in direct parallel to Wesley, who has become ruthless and uncompromising in the intervening years. Their relationship has always been particularly intriguing, with the power balance constantly changing. Here Wesley took control, pushing her to be the baddest she can be, as that's the only way she could actually stop Angelus.

Angel: Salvage (4.13)

It's actually pretty hilarious that the Beast is written out with such an underwhelming death sequence, since we're now at the point where Angel season four moves onto a whole new platform of awesomeness. The previous run of Beast-centric episodes have been problematic, with one of the major issues being the Beast's lack of presence as an antagonist. But with Angelus running wild in the city, Faith crashing into the show and bending everyone to her rule and a plot-twist doozy of a ringmaster pulling all the strings, Angel has once again hit the ground running...

Angel: Calvary (4.12)

Lilah Morgan doesn't have a whole lot of depth to her as a person, and that's what seems to make her such a dangerous badass. Cordelia tries to get to her here, claiming that Lilah's determination to kill the Beast is rooted in fear, and that Lilah's just too stubborn to acknowledge that side of herself. But, to be honest, Lilah isn't fearful. She's calculating, ruthless, and doesn't at all care for the weakness of humanity. Like she says to Wesley at the top of the show, she misses her 'shiny things', and it's irrelevant that she had to sacrifice any sense of morals to get them.

Angel: Soulless (4.11)

An entertaining episode, even if its narrative is frustratingly obvious -- Angelus is back, locked in a cage, and desperate to mess with everybody's heads. Angelus himself straddles that thin line between being genuinely perceptive and devious... and acting like a tenth-grade brat with the meanness. He seems a lot more forthcoming with the quips and snarkiness than his Buffy season two incarnation, but you can't help but enjoy his easy victory over the Angel team, exposing secrets like some puppy-killing Nancy Drew.

Angel: Awakening (4.10)

Awakening is a nice encapsulation of season four's strengths and weaknesses. You spend the first forty minutes having ridiculous levels of fun, the story full of booby traps and mysteries and earth-shattering action sequences. But then things start getting a little silly. You find yourself on the verge of throwing things at the screen, wondering why on earth characters you know and love are behaving so irrationally -- "why is Angel having romantic sex with somebody he loves??", you cry! Then, out of nowhere, the show tosses a game-changer of a doozy of a surprise right at you, making you question everything you saw and everything you thought you knew. All you do know is that you're tuning in next week...

Angel: Long Day's Journey (4.9)

This is right around the time when Angel season four begins to project itself like an epic novel and less like a television series, meaning events occur not within the vacuum of an one-hour format, but in grand statement stories that cross several episodes. It's sometimes wonderful from a viewer perspective, like vintage 24, but doesn't inspire a whole lot of material for a writer critiquing each hour. Then again, Angel isn't exactly made for those of us annoying enough to write lengthy assessments about it every week. Long Day's Journey, on its own, is another entertaining chapter of the story -- lacking in the elaborate set pieces of last week, but maintaining that high level of apocalyptic absurdity.

Angel: Habeas Corpses (4.8)

There's definitely been a back-to-basics feel about season four, with a heavier reliance on showy set pieces and attention-grabbing stunts than ever before. In a lot of ways, this has worked well. Angel is a lot of things, and pulpy action thriller is just one of them. The lengthy zombie massacre chaos at Wolfram & Hart is obviously entertaining, but it's interesting to consider the last W&H massacre and see which one was clearly stronger, as well as what made that one so much more powerful. Entertaining superficiality has become routine this season, but there's that definite absence when it comes to deeper layers of the narrative -- sparks only appearing when characters are pushed center stage over wacky twists.

Angel: Apocalypse, Nowish (4.7)

It's interesting that both Buffy and Angel are setting up apocalyptic wonderment at the exact same time... but both from opposing angles. Buffy, right now, is all about foreboding and dialogue-driven intensity, arguably reaching for a sinister 'tone' rather than something physical and raw. Angel, with Apocalypse, Nowish, is straining for balls-to-the-wall carnage. It's an arresting trade-off between the dueling tones both series have embraced in the past, and both shows are currently successful in their respective approaches. Apocalypse, Nowish features one of the most realistic depictions of biblical end-of-the-world insanity that I've ever seen in genre television, the episode ending with a stunning montage of a divided cast all experiencing the horror of a rain of fire and brimstone, the new big bad seemingly indestructible in his quest for hell on earth.

Angel: Spin the Bottle (4.6)

Joss Whedon, as much as he's known for misery and apocalyptic doom, is also pretty darn silly. And it's said silliness that he runs with in Spin the Bottle, a lightweight diversion in which our Angel protagonists are struck down by a misfiring magic spell that renders them all teenagers again. Joss wears his Band Candy/Tabula Rasa source material on his sleeve, and manages to improve on the weaker elements of those episodes. Like the finest comedy, Spin the Bottle works because the funny is derived from our own knowledge of the characters. There's a definite sense of the show almost pining for the days when its protagonists were a little less complicated, but it never exactly harms the hour itself.

Angel: Supersymmetry (4.5)

Supersymmetry continues this season's trend of feeling remarkably un-Angel, in the best possible sense. Characters have been granted stronger definition this year, while Cordelia's amnesia has been a daring decision that has produced better use of her character than it easily could have done. There's also this pulpy sensibility to most of the year's episodes so far, with the comic book references, grandiose plot mechanics and the decision to cast Angel as a Batman figure of superhero intensity. In some ways, it feels a lot like the first season, only with three years-worth of intrigue and story arcs making up for some of the weaker elements that harmed Angel's opening year.

Angel: Slouching Toward Bethlehem (4.4)

Thematically, the first half of Slouching Toward Bethlehem isn't great television. Cordelia has arrived back on earth with that pesky Lifetime-style problem of amnesia, sending her on a quest to find out information that we as an audience already know. It again feeds into the idea of this season trying to hook freshman viewers, but it's not a ton of fun for us long-term guys, besides a couple of funny lines about Cordelia's hair-don'ts and her past at Sunnydale High, along with Fred's comedic deflecting of anything potentially demonic. What does work in these early scenes, however, is Skip Schoolnik's direction, his photography able to make the familiar Hyperion set suddenly so cold and unwelcoming. It feels so empty and vast in its size, and you can really feel Cordy's loneliness and sense of detachment from everybody.

Angel: The House Always Wins (4.3)

It's interesting at this time to see the writers approaching season four with something of a blank slate. The stories are more standalone-driven, characters have become a little less angsty, and every member of the ensemble seems to have a comfortable new role to inhabit. It's all pretty funny considering season four became that notorious Angel year that got way bogged down in story arcs, all of which ran so consistently that the show sometimes ended up resembling a supernatural version of 24. The House Always Wins, while a standalone, cribs from the sensibility of Ground State in that it's very filler in nature but features some wonderful character-driven drama. This week, it's all about Lorne.