Angel S3-13: The Short Review

'Waiting In The Wings'

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon

"I don't dance. I echo" - the Ballerina.

I haven't really wanted to sit down and write this review. From its lush, opulent look to its gorgeous soundtrack, 'Waiting In The Wings' is the most atmospheric episode of Angel since 'Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?' - and considering that in the intervening time we've had episodes such as 'Reprise' and 'Lullaby', that's no mean feat. So I haven't wanted to dissect the episode and risk losing some of the magic by recognising its flaws.

Because like anything else, it isn't perfect. It is, however, remarkable. For me, the most remarkable thing about it is that I'm still buying the romance (and if you'd asked me back at the start of the season, that would have been something I never thought I'd say). Here's why: It's about the characters. It's not just gratuitous romance. Take the Gunn/Wesley/Fred triangle, for instance. After 'Provider' I was worried that the plot was being shoehorned in for the sake of giving the supporting cast something to do whilst Angel and Cordelia get it on. However, the Groosalugg's arrival at the close of 'Waiting…' almost gives me the opposite impression; that they had to bring back another character to make the Angel/Cordelia romance fit the love triangle story they wanted to tell. The net result is a much greater feeling of balance, and I have some confidence that the stories will be further linked in the future - I'd just love it if we got to see Wes and Angel do some single-guy bonding, for instance.

'Waiting…' in fact contains four different triangles - the story of Giselle, the Count, the Ballerina and Stephan; Gunn, Wesley and Fred; and Angel, Cordelia and the Groosalugg. A review this length is never going to be able to disentangle all the relations between these stories, so I'll leave the detailed breakdown to others, but I would make a couple of points. Firstly, there are no exact parallels; none of the stories map exactly. Instead, they act as a series of counterpoints and mirrors. The second point arises out of the first; I find it very interesting that Angel and Wesley end up having about as much in common with the spurned Count as they do with the hesitant, forlorn Ballerina. I seriously doubt either of them is going to go to the extremes that the Count did but, well, rejection and jealousy can be a powerful motivators and Angel, in particular, is surely unaccustomed to dealing with such feelings.

In general, I'm pretty comfortable with the way things seem to be panning out. The implication that Angel/Cordelia isn't ever going to happen - unless Cordelia turns out to have been in really deep denial about her feelings - is probably a good thing, and I think the Gunn/Fred relationship also has a great deal of potential. In this episode, it worked as a way to contrast Wesley's approach (putting Fred up on a pedestal) with Gunn's (allowing himself to become her friend); in the future, there are surely implications for Gunn and Wesley's friendship, and since I stand by my prediction that Gunn will be involved in the Holtz storyline in some way, I see some interesting possibilities in that direction as well. I admit that I'm less than thrilled about the return of the Groosalugg, although it does work (for now, at least) on both dramatic and thematic levels. Hopefully, however, he won't be around for too long.

All in all, 'Waiting In The Wings' is a pretty classic episode - to my mind, in fact, the third such out of the last five aired. Something I particularly appreciated that really shouldn't be as rare as it is - everybody was used well. Everybody got to interact with everybody else (apart from possibly Cordelia and Gunn). Everybody got some good lines, and some serious material to work with. In this context, frankly, the fact that the episode saw Angel saving a soul (if not a life) is just an added bonus. Hopefully, the season has hit its stride; some of the potential set up in the first half of the season is starting to be realised. There should be great things to come - and I'm eager to learn what they are.