Angel: Season 4 - Dark Angel

I don't know why the penultimate seasons of both Buffy and Angel were the darkest ones, but let's just say that there are some things that happen this year that makes Season 6 of Buffy look light and cheery. Things start off bad for the Angel Investigations team, and they only get worse as the season goes on. Though both series have a serialized format, this particular season rivaled 24 in terms of its season-long arc; episodes often began right at the end of the previous one this season, and viewers would be completely lost if they had missed an episode or two.

Anyway, three months have passed since Cordelia ascended and Angel was sunk to the bottom of the ocean by his son and Holtz's girlfriend. Fred and Gunn are still holding down the fort at the Hyperion Hotel, and are teaching Connor how to live in our world. Though he has come a long way, he still doesn't quite understand human society, and he is still an incredibly angry person. Wesley is still an outcast from the group and he continues to date Lilah, but he spends his nights searching for Angel. Sometime between the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4, he captured Justine and keeps her captive in a cage in his closet. Every night, he takes her out on a small boat and uses a SONAR-based metal detector to scour the ocean floor for Angel. By the end of the premiere, Angel returns to the Hyperion, where he tells Connor that he'll always love him, then kicks him out. Angel also states that their new mission is to find Cordelia, who, in the final shot of the episode, is seen on the higher plane expressing how bored she is.

The next few episodes show Angel trying to make amends with Wes, Lorne returning to Los Angeles, Connor trying to live on the streets (while being watched by both his father and Wolfram and Hart attorneys), and the gang discovering what happened to Cordelia. But soon, Cordelia returns to Earth, but has no memory of her former life (which means that when she sees Angel's vampire face, she totally freaks out). Though this would seem a good thing, her return comes right before a series of tragedies (some of which are direct consequences of her return). Lorne is attacked by Wolfram and Hart, Cordelia and Connor begin living together (much to Angel's sadness and discomfort), and when Fred tries to kill the person who sent her to Pylea, a rift develops between her and Gunn when he steps in and kills him in order to save Fred from herself. But all of these are nothing when compared to the arrival of The Beast.

Rising from the exact spot on the street where Connor was born, The Beast is a large demon with skin made from impenetrable rock. He is incredibly strong (probably about as strong as Adam), and is barely affected by any attack Angel and co. throw at him. At first, his purpose seems to be to sow as much chaos and destruction as possible, which is something he is extremely good at. The end of "Apocalypse, Nowish" features one of the greatest fight scenes in all of Angel, as well as a rain of fire that leaves people across Los Angeles wide-eyed and fearful. Except for Cordelia and Connor, who get it on as a way to reaffirm their lives, since they believe that death is imminent (or at least, that is what we are supposed to think...).

Soon, it becomes clear that The Beast has plans, the first of which is to block out the sun and create perpetual darkness (I told you this season was dark). The twist? He succeeds! But The Beast isn't done yet; he takes out Wolfram and Hart in a single episode (pretty significant, seeing as how Angel has been trying for four years, and has made very little progress), which leads to Lilah eventually coming to stay at the Hyperion. Furthermore, the team learns that the reason that they had never heard of The Beast is that all records of it (including memories) had been purged. But since Angelus' consciousness was out of commission when the purge occurred, he may still remember it, so the gang does something that would under normal circumstances be suicidal. They remove Angel's soul. Since the only way to do this is to make Angel perfectly happy, and there is not much to be happy about, the extraction method (and writing of the episode this occurs in) is pretty ingenious. Of course, Angelus is less than willing to help Angel's friends, and despite the precautions taken, he eventually escapes. Next plan: bring in Faith.

Believing her to be their last hope, Wes breaks Faith out of prison (where she is nearly killed by an agent of the First Evil) to try to stop Angelus. We have seen Angelus in action before, but this time around, he seems even more cruel and demented. He sics The Beast on Faith as a way to knock all the fight out of her, but instead of letting the Beast kill her, he finds a way to kill The Beast, and takes HIM out instead, as a way to force Faith to have to fight him next. Interestingly, the very first episode of Angel that I ever saw was "Release", the second of three episodes involving Faith. At this point, I had seen the entire first three seasons (and possibly the fourth as well) of Buffy, so I was pretty surprised to see Faith as a good guy, Wes as an anti-hero badass, and a character who is the teenaged son of Angel. Oh yeah, and at this point, we learn that Cordelia is evil! It would seem that she's controlling The Beast, and her night of passion with Connor was part of a plan to get herself pregnant. Did I mention that there were a TON of twists and turns this year?

But going back to Wes, he descends deeper this year into depression and anger. Cordelia revealed her evilness to the audience by killing Lilah, which had a bad effect on Wes. His world is crumbling around him; he may be a member of Angel's team again, but there is still a lot of mistrust toward him, especially from Gunn. Fred, the woman he still loves, is going through hard times with Gunn, but Wes cannot act on this, since he is partly responsible (he helped her in her attempted murder). Oh, and the world is crumbling in a literal sense. We see how far he is willing to go to beat whatever is going on, when he tortures a drugged out girl for information.

Eventually, with Willow's help, Angel's soul is restored, but by then, it is too late to stop the advent of Jasmine, the power controlling Cordelia (ok, so SHE wasn't evil, she was being used as a puppet). So at last, the entity that has been responsible for countless deaths, massive destruction, and perpetual darkness arrives, and what does she want? World peace. Yes, world peace. Anyone who meets her is put under a spell which makes them calm, content, and full of love towards their fellow man. But this only works on beings with souls, so vampires and evil demons aren't affected. Not only that, but Jasmine encourages her followers to destroy any creature not under her influence, since they obviously don't want peace as well. But when Fred accidentally discovers a way to break the spell, Jasmine orders that she be killed as well. Oh, one more thing; in order to maintain her hold on the world, Jasmine has to consume human followers once a day.

So here's the morally gray dilemma: if we have world peace but no free will, is it a worthwhile trade? Fred, Angel, et. al. determine that it is not worth it, and try to find a way to destroy Jasmine's hold over the world. Granted, their decision is helped by the fact that they are being hunted down, but even if Jasmine had let them be, I still think that the Angel Investigations team would have fought for free will. And their success leads to one of the biggest twists of the series: they are rewarded by Wolfram and Hart, and are offered control of the newly rebuilt Los Angeles branch. After all, who better to run Hell, Inc. than the people responsible for ending world peace?

Up next: The belly of the beast...