Angel # 5: Reprise/Epiphany

Season 2, Episodes 15 and 16
First Aired February 20th and 27th, 2001

There are a stretch of episodes in the second season of Angel the producers refer to as the "beige Angel" arc when Angel (not Angelus) decides that instead of helping the helpless, his duty is to take down Wolfram and Hart any way he can (the beige comes from Lorne stating that his aura has changed to a beige color). Angel "fired" his friends from Angel Investigations and began a guerrilla campaign against the evil law firm. He was willing to hurt the innocent in pursuit of the greater good.

His crusade eventually brought him to an opportunity to kill one of the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart (other-worldly demons) and get to the "home office" to finish off the firm once and for all. When Angel carries out his plan, he is confronted by Holland Manners, one of the LA branch's leading partners. Angel was indirectly responsible for Manners' death, so seeing him again came as a bit of a shock; Angel, and the audience, learned about the Wolfram and Hart policy that keeps employees under contract long after their deaths. Manners agrees to take Angel to the "home office", and throughout their journey, he talks about the goals of Wolfram and Hart, its purpose, and its history. But when the pair arrive, Angel learns that the "home office" is our dimension. The wicked side of human nature makes the firm possible. Utterly defeated, Angel returns to his home, only to find Darla ready to kill him. Instead, he decides to violently have sex with her, believing that he has no reason to retain his soul any longer if he cannot make a difference. "Reprise" ends almost exactly the way the Buffy episode "Surprise" ended, with a thunderclap awakening a post-coital Angel.

However, "Epiphany" does not begin like "Innocence"; Angel does not lose his soul. The key to breaking the curse isn't sex, but happiness, and Angel fucked Darla out of despair. He retained his soul and had an epiphany. He realized that he had become no better than Wolfram and Hart, because even though he technically represented "good", he wasn't helping people. He had turned away from the people he cared about most and the people who cared about him the most, and allowed them to be put in harm's way. Angel set out to apologize to his friends and even offered to work for Wes, who had become the boss of Angel Investigations after Angel fired him, Cordelia, and Gunn.

In one important scene with Kate Lockley, who also reached rock bottom, Angel explained his new outlook on life, and I have tried to use his philosophy as a basis for my own life. He explained that if there is no greater meaning to life, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world. Kate also gave him hope for the world by explaining that there may be a higher power working for good out there after all; Angel broke into Kate's apartment to revive her after she attempted suicide, but one of the rules about vampires in the Buffyverse is that they cannot enter a home uninvited, and Kate had never invited Angel in before.

These episodes showed Angel hit his bottom, rebound, and receive a new outlook on life. They also sowed the seeds for the third and fourth seasons of the show.

Up next: Angel #4...