Angel S1-14: The Short Review

'I've Got You Under My Skin'

Teleplay by Jeannine Renshaw

Story by David Greenwalt and Jeannine Renshaw

Directed by R D Price

This was a nice, solid episode. Good plotting, some real humour, and a decent dollop of proper character development to boot. What more could you ask for?

For much of the episode, the atmosphere was convincingly creepy. I liked the pacing very much; there was a definite 'calm-before-the-storm' feel, and it was impossible to guess which member of the Anderson family would turn out to be the possessed (except, of course, that it wasn't going to be the father). Once it was revealed that it was Ryan, there was a serious danger of the episode simply proceeding to rip-off 'The Exorcist', yet the writers manage to convincingly make the story directly relevant to these characters, at this time in their lives. The episode also demonstrates that it's possible to introduce characters for just one episode and yet make them three-dimensional and believable; the Anderson's concern for their son was, to my mind, very well played.

If I have a complaint, it's that the twist, whilst genuinely unsettling and suitably non-obvious at the time (it's fairly clear why this episode wasn't ever shown in the early-evening slot by C4), is perhaps a little too open-ended. Ryan doesn't have a soul? Why not? Is he just a particularly amoral child, or what? That said, whilst I was actually watching I was too busy enjoying myself to worry about things like that, so it is perhaps not all that important.

It was good to see the series continuity taken into account. Kate still doesn't really trust Angel, despite her decision not to stake him at the end of 'Somnambulist'. Angel hasn't forgotten about Doyle; quite the opposite, in fact - the first time I saw the episode, my heart skipped a beat when he called Wesley Doyle. It skipped another when Ryan said, with Doyle's voice, 'the good fight, yeah?' Angel's way of dealing with grief, as shown here - shutting himself off, not talking about it, yet having it always on his mind - seems to me to be precisely what we should expect from the character.

The writers took advantage of this plot to tell us some interesting things about the A-team. I felt there were some nice parallels drawn between Angel's fear of losing another member of his team, and the father's fear of losing Ryan. And, of course, this was the first time we really learnt some more about Wesley. We see his lack of self-confidence and his over-eagerness to please brought into focus as consequences of an abusive childhood, and a father who was never satisfied with him - a background that, perhaps, parallels Angel's own. It was good to see that he didn't overcome all that in one episode; in fact, he fails completely in his attempt to exorcise the Ethros demon, and Angel has to save the day. However, he did muster enough confidence to at least make the attempt, which says a lot about the impact Angel's friendship is having on him, I think.

Yes, this episode does still suffer from having some bad writing; the brownie-eating scene in the Anderson's house seems to stand out in that regard. However, increasingly the writers seem to be getting the measure of both the characters and the show, and learning how best to deal with the humour. The blind Tibetan monks/mute Chinese nuns lines, in fact, remain one of my favourite exchanges of dialogue in Angel. Overall, it's all very slick and enjoyable; the only reason I'm not more effusive with my praise is that I know just how much better series one gets.