Angel S02 Wrap Up

Sweeney: WE FINISHED ANOTHER THING! Sorry, this being the third wrap up post in a week, it’s hard to keep selling that enthusiasm, but we’re still pretty excited about it all the same. Is this us starting to get cocky about finishing things? This post is late, so that’s probably a bad idea. JUST KIDDING, IT’S STILL SUPER EXCITING TO FINISH THINGS AND IT DOESN’T HAPPEN OFTEN ENOUGH! There. All better.

That weird ass intro is kind of accidentally appropriate as we wrap up a weird ass season of Angel. You lot seem to be suggesting to us that shit’s just going to keep getting weirder, and I’m not even sure what to make of that. This was an interesting season. Definitely an interesting season. A lot of highly re-watchable episodes, and certainly few moments that felt “predictable.” If nothing else, I’ll give you that, show.

Darla – Darla was the highlight of S2 for me and you all know how much we freaking love crossover magic. There was a clear winner here.
Epiphany – This is the episode where we got the amazing “all that matters is what we do” line. Also, all the Buffy parallels.
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been – I really dug this round of flashback fun times, and we’ve had lots of fun trying to make imaginary crossover magic around Traumaland with that Big Bag O’ Racist Money.
Reunion – Even though this kicked off the strugglebus that was CrAngel, this episode was fantastic.
Dear Boy – All of these episodes can get some sort of, “AND THEN ANOTHER CRAZY THING HAPPENED/WAS REVEALED,” explanation.
The Trial – Feels and a mindfuck, of sorts, make for a successful episode of Angel. Also I appreciated that Angel was shirtless.
Untouched – This is a thing I said in the recap: “The hardest part of recapping was trying to focus on the plot when all I really want to do is sit around and discuss their excellence.” So, there’s that.
There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb – I feel weird putting a finale this far down, but I’m still so conflicted about that arc. A good way to end it, though. PLUS, the actual actual ending? Crushing and genius.
Guise Will Be Guise – Wesley was still a bit bumbling, but I liked how much story time he got!
Reprise – Sucks to be the set-up guy, but woo more Buffy parallels!
Judgement – Angel riding a horse was hilarious.
Happy Anniversary – This episode is getting more points than it deserves for giving me an excuse to make that fake Twitter bio.
Blood Money – Anne! Her appearance on Angel makes me happier than it reasonably should. It’s just such a random little crossover and I don’t know why I appreciate it so much. I just do.
Belonging – This episode was weird. Several moments I loved, but I have an overall unpleasant feeling about it that I can’t explain.
Through the Looking Glass – Joss Whedon dancing! But, then, like… Pylea.
Over The Rainbow – Yay Amy Acker! But also I’m still not 100% on board with Pylea.
Dead End – Remember that one time Angel played a prank? That was fun.
Redefinition – Points deducted for all the weird CrAngel beginnings, but points earned for karaoke + that awesome moment when Darla tells Lindsey she’s in love with him.
The Shroud of Rahmon – Fit well with the dissolution-of-the-Fang-Gang arc. I vaguely remember not hating our least favorite LAPD officer for a minute or two. But I also don’t really care much about the episode.
Disharmony – I might have better feelings about this episode if I watched it on its own, but I’m not a huge fan in the context of the season itself.
Thin Dead Line – The zombie cop story was weird. Yay Anne! But the less time this show spends acknowledging that Los Angeles has a police force, the better. Also, a big BOO to hospitalized Wesley.
First Impressions – Rapey.

Lorraine: Season 1 ended with the great reveal that Angel had a chance to become human. That is seemingly forgotten in season 2– or least, no real, outright mention was made of it. Instead, what we get is the big question of what it means to be human. We get an exploration of human connection, purpose, and finding your place in the world. It seems that all at once, Angel abandons his greater mission and picks up that handy thesis statement: if nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do. It translated into a good season, with two main highlights: the flashback magic Darla brings and the perfection is the Fang Gang, even in their Fangless state. The best word to describe the season might be, “solid.” There were not many outliers, either SUPER AMAZING or THE WORST, if you ask me. It was all solid.

Darla – Some of the best crossover magic we’ve seen and Darla was entertaining as hell to watch in all her flashback stages of evil.
Reunion – A true moment of WTF. It was all wonderfully built up to, and I freaked out when Angel fired the Gang.
Epiphany – Ah, yes, the sex-phiphany. The Darla/Buffy parallels were great to watch and we got to say Cowboy Boots of Revenge a lot.
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been – Fun with flashbacks! Plus, we get key elements like the Hyperion and the Racist Bag O’ Money.
Dear Boy – Fantastically funny undercover work from the Fang Gang and the reveal that Darla was brought back HUMAN made the episode.
The Trial – One of the most memorable episodes of the season for me, believe it or not, and not because Angel was shirtless.
Reprise – Mostly a great set up for “Epiphany” but it still gets credit!
Redefinition – Most of these episode points come via Fangless Gang karaoke, no matter how much I hated CrAngel from the start.
Untouched – The case of the week gives us a big, important, “choices matter” lesson and the Fang Gang is amazing. AMAZING.
Guise Will Be Guise – Wes as Angel was perfection.
Dead End – A nice (maybe. probably.) send off for Lindsey and one that gave us smiling and joking Angel.
Over the Rainbow – My favorite of the Pylea arc, probably because we hadn’t been there very long yet.
There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb – This only edges out the next episode because of the sucker punch ending.
Through the Look Glass – I’m not sure if lumping up all of Pylea is cheating. But middle of the road is how I feel about them. A+ Whedon dancing, though.
Belonging – Kind of a weird episode, but Lorne is always nice and so are “Angel is old” jokes.
Judgement – Hello Lorne and thank you so much for showing up! Not so much with the Angel riding a horse.
Disharmony – I’m still torn about the lighthearted episode that followed once of the most heavy hitting of the season.
Blood Money – Too much CrAngel does an episode bad. Thankfully, there were a few Fangless Gang highlights.
The Shroud of Rahmon – The episode did well showing us how the Fang Gang was starting to fall apart but meh to the crazy blanket.
Happy Anniversary – The main plot was pretty bullshit-y. It was a shame we wasted great Lorne moments here.
First Impressions – Darla was a rape-osaurus, but at least we got to see Angel in a pink helmet.
Thin Dead Line – This episode wasn’t even terrible, which says a lot about the season. It just didn’t go anywhere, really.

Kirsti: I really struggled to do this ranking, you guys. I’m usually all about assigning numbers to things, but with this? I just don’t know where to start. There weren’t many stand out anythings in this season, which meant that a lot of stuff just felt middle of the road-y. Add in a dose of UGH for the CrAngel episodes, and I’m left staring at 22 episodes and wondering where the hell to even start…

Epiphany – The parallels to Innocence back in season 2 of Buffy were unmistakable and brilliant. Add in the Cowboy Boots of Revenge, and this one scraped into first place for me.
Guise Will Be Guise – Wesley pretending to be Angel was pure comedy gold and I loved every second of it.
Dead End – I’m probably the only one who liked this, but Lindsey being all “LOOK, MY HAND IS EVIL!!” in the meeting at Wolfram & Hart was solid gold. Plus, the guitar playing. Uh, yes please.
Through the Looking Glass – The highlight of the Pylea arc. It was a little cheesy at certain points, but finally getting to meet Fred (properly) and Groo was always going to be near the top of the list.
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been – Past!Angel but without terrible wigs? I’m gonna go ahead and call that a win.
Darla – While it was nice to get more backstory on Darla, the present day stuff was a bit of a drag.
Untouched – It was kind of public service announcement of the week-y, but it was still pretty good.
Reunion – I loved the Darla and Drusilla stuff, but the start of CrAngel was a MOST unwelcome ending.
Reprise – With the exception of the hilarious goats scene at the start and Darla’s epic bitchface eyeroll, I wasn’t a big fan of this. It’s only this high because it set up the events of Epiphany.
Disharmony – It’s not often that Cordy gets to have a girls’ night, so despite the insanely awkward “LOL, I THOUGHT SHE WAS A LESBIAN!!” scene, I rather enjoyed this episode.
Over the Rainbow – Besides Angel’s “LOOK HOW NOT ON FIRE I AM!!”, this was pretty middling for me.
Dear Boy – Terrible Wig Flashbacks, inappropriate hair touching, and terrible attempts at spying? Snore.
Belonging – There aren’t enough Old!Angel jokes in the world to save this from averageness. Not to mention the bullshit commercial director that Cordy has to deal with.
Redefinition – Even Fangless Gang karaoke can’t make stupid CrAngel nonsense tolerable.
There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb – I was thoroughly over the Pylea arc by the time we reached the season finale. Plus, Team Heartless Cow had precisely zero feels about Willow turning up at the end.
First Impressions – While Cordy’s attempts at saving Gunn were kind of fabulous, all the Darla dream sequences were a drag.
Thin Dead Line – Zombie police officers rampaging through the streets = pass.
The Trial – This just dragged on and on without ever getting to the point for me.
Judgement – Angel jousting down the middle of an LA street? NOPE.
Blood Money – Too much CrAngel, not enough anything else. On the plus side, it introduced us to Anne again…
The Shroud of Rahmon – This was just dumb and big buckets of ugh.
Happy Anniversary – Not even Lorne awesomeness could save this epic creepfest. Your girlfriend’s going to break up with you, so you decide to freeze the two of you forever mid-sexytimes? BEST PLAN EVER.

As always, we are excited to hear how you rank the episodes in the comments below!

Nicole Sweeney (all posts)

Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.

Marines (all posts)

I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.

K (all posts)

I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.