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Angel
Episode Air Date 10/29/01Nothing funnier than misogyny, is there?
Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I don't find violence against women entertaining. Not that this week's episode showed any particularly graphic beating scenes and such. But the subject is so distasteful in general, and too close to what we often get on the nightly news, that it comes as no surprise that the writers failed to create an episode that few will care to remember.
The story centered around young Billy Blain, last seen boarding a W&H limo after extraction from his fiery cell (ah, Skip, we hardly knew ye). Without giving away too much, it is safe to say that Billy doesn't exactly bring out the best in people. Billy also happens to be the nephew of Congressman Nathan Blain, whose politician's smile may be back in a future episode to put a frown on the faces of the Fang Gang.
Hmmm… a political family, "the closest thing to royalty in the country," using its power to get away with abuse of women. Who could imagine such a thing? And do they know that one of their own has spent time in Hell?
On a positive note, a few scenes offer glimpses of ongoing character development that should payoff down the road: Wesley's courting of Fred, the tension simmering between Lilah and Gavin, and Cordelia's continued, gradual transformation from head cheerleader to rogue demon hunter (pray that Wesley never reciprocates).
In particular, an encounter between Cordelia and Lilah gets off to a promising start before decaying into a failed attempt at fashion oriented film-noir wannabe banter. Indeed, few of the jokes work in this episode. It's as if the writers could not decide if, given the misogynistic plot, they should go for laughs or not.
Unfortunately, this episode did little to remedy the major weakness of this season: The lack of an ongoing, compelling plot line. After some underserved mystery surrounding him, Fire Boy turned out to be a dud. Perhaps next week's return of Darla will turn out to be more of a bang.
After all, that's how it started.
