Angel S2-17: The Short Review

'Disharmony'

Written by David Fury

Directed by Fred Keller

I don't believe it. They've brought one of my least-favourite characters from 'Buffy' over for an episode, and they've made me really, really enjoy it.

And I can't quite explain it. Harmony in 'Buffy' has always irritated me, more than a little. Here, she was more-or-less the same character, and yet somehow she didn't get under my skin in the same way. Perhaps it was her scenes with Cordelia that did it; we saw Harmony with just a little - not much - more depth than usual, just that bit more than one-dimensional comic relief.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that bringing Harmony over for a visit was really a rather clever move. There's a sense in which she is to Cordelia what Darla has been to Angel. Cordelia tries to help her friend with little or no consideration of what the rest of the gang might think, or what the consequences might be. This parallel was not strongly emphasised - and that's good. It could so easily have come over as heavy-handed. Instead, the focus was on Angel's relationship with Cordelia (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the A-team), with the viewers left to draw their own conclusions about Harmony's role. However, I do think that at the end of the episode, Cordelia understood and appreciated Angel's situation a bit more than she did at its start.

After the ending of 'Epiphany', I had some qualms about how the reformation of the A-team was going to be handled. Thankfully, it seems mostly to be being dealt with - the ending of this episode notwithstanding which (although funny), I didn't like - in a realistic and understandable fashion. Cordelia, Gunn and Wesley have accepted Angel back to work with him, but their personal relationships have each been redefined, and will take some time to stabilise completely. The complete role-reversal between Angel and Wesley compared to that of a year ago works well, and in between the humour there were some deft moments of poignancy.

The humour itself was wonderful. This is, for my money, hands-down the best Cordelia episode the show has done (which, to be fair, is not saying much), and is also in the running for one of the funniest episodes, full stop. From Angel's awkward attempts to engage his ex-friends in conversation, and that fantastic phone-call from Cordelia to Willow, to the host's snide remarks about Harmony's singing and the very concept of a vampiric pyramid scheme, this was highly entertaining stuff. It would be possible to complain that there wasn't much in the way of plot or dramatic tension, but that, I think, would be missing the point - and in any case, whilst I was watching it, I was having enjoying myself far too much to care.

Hardly a groundbreaking or defining episode, then (which makes for a slightly shorter short review than usual), but rather a much-needed breath of fresh air that - for me - worked very well indeed. It wasn't deep or clever, it was simply fun, and that was enough for this week.