Angel S3-19: The Short Review

'The Price'

Written by David Fury

Directed by Marita Grabiak

"There's a price to pay - I know, there's always a price. The question is, is it one worth paying? You know, that spell I did was for nothing. I didn't find my son. Now he's gone forever, and you ask me: Was it worth it? Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Because he was my son" - Angel.

Based on comments he made at the Bronze recently, it seems that next year David Fury will be writing multiple episodes of Angel - and I have to say that based on 'The Price', I could very easily live with that. The episode is full of the conversations I've wanted to see, and the issues I've wanted to be raised. All this, and a decent, atmospheric, monster-of-the-week story as well. What more could you want?

Basically, I'm just being consistently impressed with the way the fallout from 'Sleep Tight' is being handled. There is no right party, and no wrong party, and that is recognised. Does Wesley deserve Angel's forgiveness? Absolutely. Is it understandable that Angel wouldn't be prepared to offer it yet? Completely. Is Fred's reaction believable? Yes. Last week, her anger at Wesley came through, but so did her desire to protect her friend; this week, she's the one who makes the most effort to build bridges. What about Gunn? I'd say he's believable, as well. Last year, pre-beigeness, Gunn looked up to, admired and respected Angel, probably more than either Cordelia or Wesley. It was because of this that Gunn was the hardest on Angel in the post-epiphany days, and it's one of the reasons Gunn has lingering issues with Angel now. We seem to be seeing a similar reaction here; the more Gunn has invested in a friendship, the harder he.ll come down on you if you betray that trust. And yet, to me the very fact that he's prepared to go to Wesley for help when he has to suggests that he hasn't written the man off completely. Meanwhile, Wesley's bitterness and feeling of isolation is both justified and somewhat naive. Obviously, there's a case to be made that AI should not have cut him off as much as they have, but at the same time Wesley made a mistake, and he needs to accept that his friends' reactions are understandable.

Cordelia, however, is more problematic, which is a shame, because for most of the episode Fury writes the best Cordy material we've seen since 'Birthday'. Unfortunately, whilst her decision to side with Angel is understandable (especially given the amount of bonding she did with Connor), we just aren't given any clear picture of what she thinks of Wesley right now. It's not that she has no interest in seeing him, even; it's just that we don't know where Cordy stands. We desperately need a Wesley/Cordelia scene; in my mind, it's the biggest outstanding issue at this point, simply because Cordelia's motivations are so unclear.

I'm optimistic that we will get that scene soon, though, if only because Connor's return has changed the ground rules; and on that topic, I have mixed feelings. On one level it feels as though they brought him back too soon; but at the same time, I feel that since it was so obvious that he was coming back, waiting could have hurt my suspension of disbelief regarding the characters. reactions. We've had the grieving, and we've had Angel trying to move on by focusing on work, and we needed to see it (although the latter was perhaps one of the few misjudged character moments in this episode; I get what they were trying to do with the forced-cheerfulness, but Angel came across a shade too close to the Angel of 'Provider' and 'Fredless' for my liking); but I suspect much more and I would have become impatient. I can live with moving on and exploring the issues surrounding the return of Angel's son. And certainly, this has the potential to be terrible, and cliched; "son raised to hate his father" is not, after all, the newest story in the book. But Buffy and Angel are all about breathing new life into cliches.and I have to admit, that was quite an entrance; the kid certainly looks the part. For all my misgivings about where this might end up, a part of me can't help saying "that was so cool!"

As for the episode's other big revelation, well, deus ex Cordelia was certainly...shiny. We don't actually know a lot at this point, but I tend to think that the fact that this apparently free gift manifested itself in an episode that was (a) called 'The Price', and (b) all about the fact that nothing comes for free and everything has consequences, are pretty big hints that this might not be the boon it appears to be. The obvious problem, for instance, is that Cordy wasn't in control of what happened, it just happened, apparently as a self-defence mechanism - and if it happened in public, or at the wrong time, the results could be disastrous.

And as an added bonus to the above, the episode also gives us a strong monster-of-the-week plot that is unsettling, tied to the arc, and deals with themes that have been touched on all season long. There are, for example, strong parallels with 'Billy', both at a plot level - the consequences of a morally dubious action Angel performed to save a friend come back to haunt him, involving the possession of somebody he cares about in the Hyperion - and a thematic level, in the way the issue of responsibility is addressed. Here, as then, Angel is shown to be aware of the questionable nature of his choice, but affirms that he would do it all over again because Connor was his son - and we understand. Angel's actions may be wrong, but we know why he did what he did; in the end, he's only human. Gunn realises that at the end of the episode. Whilst going to Wesley for help is orders of magnitude less wrong than Angel's actions (indeed, since the only reason for not going to Wesley was that Angel is angry with the guy, it's arguable that what Gunn did wasn't wrong at all) . it's clear that Gunn now appreciates Angel's position. If saving Fred had required dark magicks, he'd have done it in a heartbeat, because she is his love. Meanwhile, the slugs themselves, sucking their victims dry of life, act as a metaphor for unhealthy emotional responses such as Angel's anger at Wesley, and Wesley's bitterness about not being given a chance to tell his side of the story (to which the solution is to drink lots of alcohol, appropriately enough); and the superficial redecoration of the Hyperion - papering over the cracks in Angel's room, Cordy's suggestion of throwing a rug over the pentagram - points up the flaws in the way the characters are dealing with their issues.

'The Price' isn't the best Angel episode ever, but it is, in my opinion, everything this show should be about. Investigation of moral grey areas, where there are no right answers; believable character conflict arising from serious issues; use of theme and metaphor to deepen the portrayal of the topics addressed - and most importantly, of course, creepy monsters. The episode never excels, but it impresses nonetheless simply by virtue of being so consistently good on so many fronts. It's dark, and yet there is plenty of humour (once again mostly from Groo, who seems to be working well as a device for sending up heroic fantasy tropes: "Groo, damsel in distress - you know what to do"); serious, and yet somehow fun. All in all, then, an excellent start to May sweeps.