Angel: In the Dark (1.3)

What I loved about Spike was that both series managed to casually depict him as both an aggressive, violent and dangerous vampire, as well as a complete moron whose evil plans are always spoiled by his own stupidity. Both sides are evident in this, the first crossover episode with Buffy, and James Marsters crashes into the show with some genius dialogue and wonderful sequences which exploit his great chemistry with David Boreanaz. Angel and Spike outwardly despise one another, but it's a relationship with so many levels of festering resentment, jealousy, disgust and... latent attraction. Heh.

There were lots of strong moments here. Spike's opening monologue has been spoken about so many times already, but it's obviously awesome. Then there's his interaction with Cordelia, and later his hair setting on fire. But the part that always made me laugh the hardest was his insistence that he's not stupid and hired a torturer who '[didn't] care about the ring'. Ha! Goddamn, he's so silly. Marcus was ridiculously creepy, by the way, with the kids and that sneer he had. Yikes.

The whole subplot with Angel protecting Rachel seemed outwardly redundant, but I guess it sort of worked as a metaphor for the Gem. It's easy to find some kind of peace and redemption by wearing the Gem since it makes you indestructible (just like it would be easy for Rachel to stay with her abusive boyfriend), but sometimes a challenge makes you stronger as a person. So Angel destroys the Gem and that potential future plot glitch is understandably removed from existence.

The only problem with this episode is the same kind of problem that affected Lonely Hearts. While David, Charisma and Glenn have chemistry as actors, there's something a little 'off' about the group dynamic between Angel, Cordelia and Doyle. Once again, we see Cordelia and Doyle take something of a back-seat while Angel does the heavy lifting. It feels a little like season one Buffy, where Willow and Xander contributed nothing but running and screaming for a lot of the year. Obviously, the dynamic gets stronger as time goes on, but there's definitely something lacking right now on that front. Generally a fun episode, however. B+

Credits
Guest stars Seth Green (Oz); James Marsters (Spike); Kevin West (Marcus); Malia Mathis (Rachel)
Writer Douglas Petrie Director Bruce Seth Green