Parting Gifts

Rating: 7/10

This episode was basically designed as a transition piece between Doyle and Wesley as the third regular. It is a strong episode but not blistering. On rewatching the episode my notes had lots of points in the positive section and very little on the negative side. However, in the scheme of things this isn't really anything that special. I guess the easiest way to explain this is to say that this episode doesn't have enough drama or action and although there are funny moments its not a comedy.

The episode opens with Angel asking the Oracles for Doyle back. This gives the viewer momentary hope that Doyle might return. However, it becomes pretty clear that the Oracles are not going to help. I don't want to see unfeeling but what they say makes some sense - Doyle's sacrifice brought about his atonement for his past sins and allows Angel to live to help others. If Doyle hadn't done what he did in "Hero" either everyone on that boat would have died or Angel would have sacrificed himself meaning others would suffer because he could no longer help them. Of course the Oracle might have been able to have found a way to bring Doyle back but I can accept their argument for not doing so.

The writers cleverly managed to work Doyle into this episode despite the fact that his performance in it is limited to the recap. Its good to see that he wasn't forgotten and that we do see Angel and particularly Cordelia mourn for him. She may initially be unhappy about his parting gift of the visions from the PTB but she still was clearly grieving. It was good to see Cordelia accept her gift by the end. This again shows her growth (especially after she said that if visions had been her gift, in "Lonely Hearts", she would take it back. Another interesting element to this episode for Cordelia was the revaluation that she secretly knows that she is not a good actress. I suspect that, especially after "To Shanshu in L.A.", she will accept her role in fighting evil and in effect give up the acting dream - I might be wrong however.

Staying with Cordy her audition scene was very funny. I could really see those auditioners as Joss, David and Marti! The way that Cordy did the audition while getting the vision made me laugh as did the reaction to these three auditioners. In fact the scene before this with Cordy saying that herself and Angel needed to stay together and deal with the pain before blowing him off to go to the audition was also very funny! The funniest scene comes from Angel and his rant at the stereotype of vampires living in coffins during the day. I think the line; "made popular by hack writers." was the Joss's way to poke fun at the genre and point out how he did it his own way.

Personally I found Wesley pretty funny. His character mixes incompetence and intelligence's very skilfully although he still is a bit goofy here! After just seeing this episode I still preferred Doyle but by the end of the season I was a Wes. fan for he has developed such a great close relationship with Cordy and Angel while retaining his sense of incompetence. I liked the fact that his identity was kept a mystery though a good part of the episode. If you didn't know that Wes was going to appear you wouldn't think that he'd be riding a motorbike and wearing leathers (I think he figure out the down sides to this!). However, having Alexis's name in the list of guest stars did take away any intrigue for spoiler avoiding fans.

The episodes plot centres around a demon character called Barny who it appears is the victim of the week. However, it turns out that Barny is actually the villain of the piece and he collects rare talents / demon abilities and sells them to the highest bigger (a talent sell out metaphor?). This was a cleaver plot twist although it did make things a little confusing on first viewing (me being stupid was probably the reason behind this however!). Before Barny reveals his intent to sell Cordelia's new gift (with actually wasn't his original purpose from visiting Angel Investigations), he has some interesting conversations with Cordelia. He actually helps her come to terms with her new gift. The fact that he is a bit like Doyle is, I think, a way of showing us how Doyle could have turned out with out the PTB's intervention and it shows how noble his death was compared to what it could have been.

At this point in the season the cameo from Wolfram & Heart was infuriating. They seem surplus to requirements here and have contributed little to the series at the time of the episode. I'm so glad that in the last 5 episodes of the season we finally got to see W&H being used closer to their full potential and they promise to be an interesting adversary next season mainly due to the events of the season finale.

Great Angel Moment: Cordelia kissing Angel!