Well, I finally made it through all of Buffy’s spin-off show, Angel.  It took me a while, what with my watching a ton of TV (too much, one might argue), but the series has been completed.  And while I have to say that the show ended on a really strong note, the beginning part of the season was pretty weak.

It started out with Angel acting WAY out of character.  In the first few episodes he actually killed some people.  Bad guys, sure, but it still violated his rule of showing mercy to humans.  Then he boinked Eve without any discussion of the consequences.  Sure he was under a spell, but still – everyone knows what can happen when this guy gets lucky, and it isn’t always pretty.  I get that working at Wolfram & Hart affected the way he had to do business, but just totally changing the guy’s code of conduct just seemed a bit too drastic.

Then there were the pretty ridiculous plot points that were used.  The back-story of Numero Cinco?  An episode all about Harmony?  Angel being turned into a freaking puppet??  I mean seriously, a puppet?  That episode made Beer Bad look pretty amazing by comparison.

But I shouldn’t JUST complain, as the season did provide some cool moments.  Wesley shooting his (robot) father was pretty intense.  The resolution of the Cordelia arc was handled well.  Spike’s introduction to the team felt a bit forced at first, but it was nice to see their rivalry play out, especially involving the long-forgotten Shanshu prophecy.  It was also cool to see Lindsey again, but I did wish his motivations had been made a bit clearer; he left W&H, so why the sudden grudge against them?  And of course the tie-ins with Buffy and her crew were a lot of fun even if we didn’t actually see the Slayer.  The episode with the Immortal was pretty slapstick, but well handled over all.

Fred’s death and the rise of Ilyria didn’t make much sense to me at first – didn’t they just do this story, where a character gets taken over and killed by an “old one?”  I was pretty surprised that they made Fred’s death permanent, and Ilyria did make for some interesting moments.  Still, it seemed odd to kill off a main character so close to the series finale.  The finale itself was very well done, and I really enjoyed Angel’s one last “eff-you” to the Senior Partners.  Wesley’s death was as gut-wrenching as Fred’s, and it was sort of sweet how they were both able to die in each other’s arms, though not at the same time.  The show’s final message, that even though the battle may never end, it’s always worth fighting the good fight, was a great way to cap a great show that, at it’s core, was about the search for redemption.

Deep, huh?  So now that I’m done with the Buffy/Angel TV series, I guess I have a lot of comic book reading ahead of me…