In The Dark

Reviewed by Adam Bardwell

Rating: 9/10

This episode continues the story set up in the Buffy episode, "The Harsh Light of Day", with Spike and Oz crossing over to L.A. Oz is visiting bur swings by at Angel's to drop off the Ring of Amara which makes the vampire who wears it unkillable. Spike was the one who'd found it in Sunnydale and he understandably wants it back. The result is equal parts humorous and gruesome.

Lets start with the humour. The teaser to this episode has to be the funniest moment of the whole season. It opens with a girl running into her boyfriend in an ally. He accuses her of being unfaithful and is about to shoot her when Angel turns up and knocks him unconscious. Not particularly funny - you are probably think but then we cut to Spike looking a Angel and the women from the rooftop. He is putting words into their mouths - its hilarious ("I'm almost out of that Nancy boy hair gel I love so much!") in a way that only Spike can be. Spike is amusing throughout his best scenes later in the episode are those when Angel is being tortured and when he discovers that the ring has gone and he end up on fire (shades of "Lovers Walk")

The more unsettling, more disturbing aspect of the show is Spikes hired help, Marcus, torturing Angel with Beethoven and hot pokers. Angel doesn't wear the ring because it is from Buffy and from his end comments probably because he doesn't want to forget the evil of the night. This is similar to "I Will Remember You" where Angel gives up being human for the cause so to speak - I'm glad they haven't done anything since for it would get old quickly!

Marcus is superbly played - he is very unnerving. His fetish for children was quite a controversial way for the writers to go but it did add to his unsavouryness. The torturing of Angel itself was surprisingly graphic. The effects used to put pokers though Angel were seamless and convincing. I would have thought there would have been more blood involved but as Angel is a vampire who knows?!

Probably due to scheduling Oz's appearance here isn't that big. He was a logical but interesting choice for the episode. Logical for he does have to travel for gigs but interesting for he has quite little interaction with Cordy and particularly Angel while they were all on Buffy. Due to the breifness of his stay here neither relationship is really expanded. Although his arrival is funny ("This is Doyle he - airquotes - works") here did feel that the writer was struggling to flesh out the dialogue due to the lack of previous interaction between them. Oz does come in handy when it comes to rescuing Angel and stopping Marcus - showing the worth of a fourth main character which hopefully Gunn will be next season. I'm glad that there is no plan for Oz to be a regular on Angel - I like the character but he doesn't share the need for redemption parallel that the others do.

There were two nice little touches - one was almost certainly an accident the other was on purpose but subtle I believe. The first is the following quote of Angel's which comes from a scene from a B-plot of a victim of the week (I'm glad the writers soon stopped feeling the need for these); "You can take the hard road and go with Faith". I know he was talking about the reliance, trust, belief etc kind of faith but if you think about it is actually foreshadowing for later in the season where Faith does make the hard chose at her cross-roads and decides to change. This idea of life's cross roads is a theme of the whole of the season. Though the season we've seen flashbacks to Angels passed showing some the crosswords in his life (especially his chose not to drink human blood after gaining his soul in Five by Five). Along with Faith we've also had Lindsey at the end of the season who made the opposite side and chose the easy road of the dark side.

Oh! I almost forgot the second little touch which was Angel doing that training after the gang had been talking about Buffy. It was very similar to what we saw the two of them do in season 3 (I think in the episode "Revelations") and it was a cleaver way to show that he is missing her deeply.

One of the big problems with this episode as with quite a few is the light issue. I don't see how Spike and Angel manage to conveniently position themselves in the one shadow with light all around them. Angel in the Back of Oz's van was particularly bad because there wasn't really any shade - how much light does it take. This must also be a question asked when Angel set himself on fire when he charged Marcus. The vamp. in "Who You Are" over on Buffy that was exposed to sunlight seemed to dust pretty quickly so this is a bit of an inconsistency.

My only other qualms with this episode are minor. The fact that Doyle had the power to find the ring seemed contrived especially as we learn nothing else about his powers in the episodes he's in. The death of Marcus was a bit obvious - when ever you see wood break like that you no that a vamp is going to be dusted on. Its becoming clichéd but the effect with him skewed on it was good.

Great Angel Moment: Has to be Spike up on the rooftop.