Angel S2-19: The Short Review

'Belonging'

Written by Shawn Ryan

Directed by Turi Meyer

Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. There is an awful lot happening in this episode, but it doesn't seem to really go anywhere; it feels somewhat as though they've floored the accelerator but forgotten to put the car in gear.

In many ways, this should be a good episode - most of the elements are present and correct - and yet, nothing seems to gel. The character interaction, for instance, is all top-notch, if a little on the depressing side. Every character - apart from, appropriately enough, Angel - seemed to have a little piece of themselves torn away in this episode. The sight of one phone call shattering Wesley's hard-won confidence was both believable and, at least for me, incredibly affecting, as was Cordelia's depression when her dreams of acting were destroyed. Gunn (as, it seems, ever) was underused, but the expression on his face as he watched the funeral pyre spoke volumes. It seems as though the A-team is on the verge of falling apart, simply because sometimes bad things happen to good people.

And if there's one thing this episode illustrates nicely, it's that in the wake of his epiphany Angel has swung too far in the other direction (so to speak). He's seeing the other side of the coin, but that's all he's seeing, and it's not enough. Balance must be attained somehow; if it isn't, the temptations of the simple life will remain as strong as ever - as demonstrated by Angel's reaction to the Host's description of his home dimension.

Speaking of whom, it's nice to finally get some of the background info on everyone's favourite garden-hued lounge lizard. However, I have mixed feelings about the information itself. Presumably the A-team will be making tracks to his home dimension to rescue Cordelia, and there is certainly a huge amount of potential in taking Angel to a demon dimension with no shades of gray, given his history over the course of this season. Unfortunately, as much faith as I have in the writers to take advantage of this concept, I do worry that this time they may have bitten off more than they can chew. If nothing else, I have to doubt whether the show has the budget to carry off a demon dimension convincingly - particularly a fantasy demon dimension, although I appreciate that a land of moral absolutism will be easier to portray in a fantasy than in an SF setting. It could all so easily go a bit pear-shaped and look tacky, especially if everyone turns out to be a Klingon-reject like Landok. What's more, it seems a bit unnecessary - the single best scene so far this season, for my money, has been that lift ride with Holland, and (superfluous CGI notwithstanding) it must also have been one of the cheapest.

I want to hope the 'Belonging' is just a bump in the road. After all (in my opinion, at least), everything since, and including, 'The Thin Dead Line' has been pretty damn good; we were overdue for a fall. It's not as far as fall as it might have been, either, since its major flaw for me is that it's just not terribly exciting or interesting. In many ways, the episode reminds me of 'Redefinition'; it's all about set-up, moving pieces into position for the next stage of the game, and like that episode it suffers because it doesn't have a strong plot of its own (although, having said that, I actually like 'Redefinition'. Apart from the voiceovers, at least). If the moves pay off over the next three episodes, all will be forgiven. If they don't, this could be remembered as the point at which S2 all went horribly wrong.