Another season with the vampire with the soul. Well, he had a soul for most of it, anyway… The season picked up right where Three left off, with Angel stuck at the bottom of the sea, Cordelia on a higher plane, and Wes an outcast, although the writers didn’t leave things that way for long, thankfully, and set out to get our cast of characters together again.

Cordelia’s amnesia upon her return was pretty annoying, but then I have a pet peeve against amnesia being used as a plot device. And when she did remember who she was, I absolutely could not believe that she would hop into the sack with Connor – I mean, that was just icky and Oedipal and weird and so, so wrong. Of course there were larger reasons behind that which were soon revealed, and it’s a good thing they were because my first impression was that Cordelia was acting way out of character for no damn reason at all.

But as it turned out, there was a reason – to bring forth the Beast Master, Jasmine. Now, before we get to Jasmine, let me say that I really enjoyed the whole storyline with the Beast. The writers made this “end of the world” feel different from the 17 others that had preceded it, and I appreciated the effort. The Beast was strong, smart, and incredibly nasty. I was a little hesitant when the gang decided to bring back Angelus, but they were right in assuming he could destroy the Beast when no one else could. And I really enjoyed seeing Faith get a chance to earn some redemption before doing so in Sunnydale.

But then Jasmine showed up, and it left me wondering why the hell the Beast did anything it did. If she wanted to be born and enslave humanity into a peaceful state, why bother blocking out the sun, making the sky rain fire, and summoning forth Angelus? Aren’t all of those things evil? Jasmine was evil too, but in a nicer way, and the two just don’t jive as far as I’m concerned. Right? Did I miss something in the explanation somewhere?

I was glad to see Lorne become a full cast member, as he became such an integral part of the show keeping him as a special guest star just seemed weird. And even though it was kind of easy to see coming, I was bummed that Fred and Gunn let a small thing like homicide drive a permanent wedge between them. But Connor, damn is that kid annoying! By the end of the season I was really getting ready for the show to be rid of him. All he ever does is disobey Angel, then fight him, apologize, run away, and repeat the process all over again. Yawn. I’d be more relieved with him being sent away to live with his fake family if I thought for half a second he would actually stay there.

Oh well. Overall I thought this was a solid season, and I’m definitely curious to see how Angel Inc. will run with Wolfram & Hart at their disposal, and THE apocalypse looming just on the horizon…