Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass
Written and Directed by Tim Minear

Original Airdate: May 15, 2001

Plot: Cordelia settles into her role as a princess on Pylea, unaware that the priests have other ideas about how her rule should go. The Host takes Angel to meet his family in order to try and find a way home, leading to Angel's be welcomed as a hero by the Host's cousin. When Angel is asked to sacrifice Fred, he instead saves her and during a battle to free her, unleashes his pure demon side...

Review

Warning: There is no one here but you to lead you away from the SPOILERS that are just ahead for the latest episode of Angel, "Through the Looking Glass." If you've not yet seen the episode and would like to see it unaware of any of the events in it, please turn back now..

In short: Some spots of interest...

I am rapidly coming of the opinion that for the current story arc on Angel, the writing staff had enough good ideas that if you did two episodes, they'd be too packed to be of any entertaining value and would feel rushed but they didn't really have enough to make it into three episodes--much less four as we've seen here. And it's a real disappointment because there are some nice ideas in here, but they are so few and far between that it's been a real struggle to sit down and really enjoy what Angel is trying to do with this storyline.

I feel like we've finally got to the heart of the matter with the storyline here. Namely that after a year of seeing Angel embrace his dark side, seeing what it's like fully unleashed and just how he might have to deal with the consequences of that. Indeed, all year long we've seen Angel trying to find the balance between his good half and his demon half. And while he's walked into the darkness at times (a quite interesting walk onto the dark side), he's also walked in the light. (Not literally as he'd catch on fire). So, to see a storyline where both of Angel's halves get their own screen time is an interesting one--though I will admit it's a bit of a tired one. Certainly, I'll give you that the idea of splitting a person into two halves--one good and one evil--has been better done on the original Star Trek episode, "The Enemy Within."

And while I can buy the explanation that Pylea has separated Angel into two halves--hence why he hasn't burst into flames in sunlight, it's brought up some interesting questions. One is that could Angel technically now be purged of his demon half. Of course, if you've seen the original Star Trek episode I referred to earlier, you know that Captain Kirk eventually learned that the only way to be a whole person was to have both halves in tact and the delicate balancing act that takes place between the two. So, I can see that maybe out of this Angel will learn that. However, I did wonder--if Angel is pure human in his human form, might not his demon half be the part that causes him to burst into flames when he's exposed to sunlight. If so, why didn't he burst into flames here.

And Angel's being two halves of a whole explains his behavior. I think in the human Angel, we are seeing bits of the character of Angel before he turned. I sat down and thought about the Angel we've seen in flashbacks throughout the series and realized that he has reverted to that in alot of ways. We did see Angel being a bit vain at times and he was a bit immature when we saw him. He was also a character who was concerned with pleasures of the moment and not worried about future consequences--which is a lot of what we saw here. I am glad that Tim Minear brought these to the forefront in subtle ways and didn't beat us over the head with them over the course of the episode.

As for Angel's dark half coming out in pure demon form, that worked pretty well. I liked seeing it run around and attack everyone. Also, the idea of it being a very instinctive creature, driven by urges was a nice touch. Indeed, we saw this in that he was quick to turn on Wesley and Gunn, two people that the human half considers friends, but the beast half considers nothing more than food. And to see the beast half somehow or other trust Fred was interesting. It makes me wonder if there was some residual Angel in there or if it was because he went to demon form to protect her.

So, that storyline has raised a whole lot of questions--none of them that will have easy answers, I suspect.

As for the rest, of the story, it left me a bit cold.

Again, last week I expressed my whole lack of interest in the Cordelia becomes a princess plotline. And this story didn't do a lot to really gain any momentum here. I think it's simply because we've seen so many modern movies take the fairy tale and twist it on its ear. Indeed, in a lot of this I was reminded of the Princess Bride in that we had the usual stereotypical images from a fairy tale and see them turned on their ear. Certainly, I wasn't in any way surprised that the cow they were sending to mate with Cordelia was human and that she was attracted to him was also no great shocker. Nor was the fact that Cordy was a princess in title only and that the real strings were being pulled elsewhere. Honestly, while Cordy has been given the short end of the character development at times this year, I honestly haven't found much to enjoy about the extended focus on her the past few weeks. Part of it is that I don't buy this plotline.

Indeed, of all the plotlines, this one felt the most like padding. Indeed, until the end with the Host's head on the tray, this plotline felt more like a distraction than anything else. And that's a shame really since we are seeing Cordelia get a portion of what she might have dreamed about as a little girl--namely to be a Princess and to have others worship you. In fact, this is sort of related to how she perceived herself in Sunnydale--as the princess whom the entire school revolved around. But not a lot is really being done with this, except to scratch the surface and that is just a shame. Because there is so much potential to be mined.

But the good news is, we have an episode left to perhaps look into this.

I will say that, again, I get the feeling parts of this episode are just padding. And I found myself losing interest at times, while at others being completely interested in what might be going on. I am hoping for a huge payoff in the season finale because, honestly, season two needs to end with a bang.

So, I guess that's about it for now, except a few small things...

--The dance of joy and the dance of welcome were absolutely the funniest thing in the entire episode. Heaven help me, but I rewound my tape after the episode was over to see those again. At first it reminded me of the Dance of Joy from Perfect Strangers, but yet the progression of it was hysterical. And are the rumors true?!? Was that Joss Whedon doing the dance?!? If so, I salute you, sir!

--The Host's using music as a weapon. It brings up an interesting point. Simply drive the Angel-mobile to the city and blast out some Metallica. I can bet the people there will be on the ground in a second. Reminds me of the scene from Back to the Future with Marty dressed up as "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan."

--Fred is growing on me. She has potential.

--I've of two minds about the Wolfram and Hart connection. First of all, we don't know what it is. But I hope it's something interesting and not just--oh, they've been here and are evil.

Well, that's about it for now. This episode was an interesting one and it's got some stuff that's got me interested for next week. But the episode did not raise my hopes too high for the direction of the series right now. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it all comes out.

My rating: 5.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: Angel's two halves are tearing him apart...

:::The dance of joy::::
:::The dance of welcome::
(I am still laughing)