REVIEW: Angel, Season Four (Joss Whedon, 2002-2003)

 

My contention's been that Angel, as a story, hinges on the idea that doing the right thing has to be done without hope of reward.  That's what keeps the engine running and the car moving, even when things threaten to veer off course.  Season Four flips that idea on its head.  For three seasons prior, Angel (David Boreanaz) fought without hope of reward.  Suddenly, he's offered reward without the need to fight.  New villain Jasmine (Gina Torres) bestows the entire world with bliss, destroys violence, and promises peace.  Her zen, Oprah-like warm blanket of calm might be an imposition, and sure, she needs to eat some people every day to keep her strength up, but isn't that a fair trade?  Isn't that a smaller sacrifice than all the wars and revolutions and deaths we humans commit every day?

The problem, which you and maybe Angel recognize, is that if we don't have choice - or at least the illusion of choice, depending on how deterministic you are - we cease to be responsible for our actions.  Suddenly, our actions derive from the cosmos, not from ourselves.

These kinds of questions help to (barely) justify the fourth season of Angel, which is a profoundly bizarre, often-frustrating jaunt through one of the kookiest conceits I've ever seen in a network TV show.  In short: one of the main characters, possessed all season long, seduces her best friend's son, sleeps with him, gets pregnant in a hurry (her second supernatural pregnancy, by the way), and gives birth to a fully-grown black woman, Jasmine. We're also supposed to believe that Jasmine's been pulling the strings since the beginning of the second season, and pretty much all the major events so far were the result of her manipulations, but that's going too far for me, and I was willing to accept the newborn adult bliss-god.

The progression of events required to sire Jasmine results in the most serialized Angel yet, with the back half of the season devoted almost exclusively to the build from Cordelia's pregnancy to demon Skip's arranging of an apocalypse to the birth of Jasmine and her eventual confrontation.  It's a bold decision, but the plot elements feel off.  Most notably, the Connor-Cordelia relationship skirts the edges of rape and impropriety - although he's eighteen in-universe, he looks fifteen, and although she's around twenty-two, she looks thirty.  Also, a few months ago, Connor was a baby.  This isn't as awkward as Jacob falling in love with a baby in Breaking Dawn, but it's in the same squicky ballpark.

Luckily, the season offers some diversions from the awkward main story.  "Spin the Bottle" reverts the heroes to their teenage selves, and "Supersymmetry" decays the relationship between Gunn (J. August Richards) and Fred (Amy Acker), a relief to viewers wise enough to know Fred deserves better.  Meanwhile, Wesley (Alexis Denisof), fresh off his expulsion from Angel Investigations, indulges in a relationship with villain Lilah Morgan (Stephanie Romanov).  The cutaways to their kinky romance are often the highlights of unrelated episodes.  "The House Always Wins" is obvious with its depiction of dead-eyed casino-goers, but it provides a showcase for Andy Hallett's Lorne.  I was saddened to learn that Hallett died in 2009 of heart failure - his ability to pierce through his makeup and display a kind, flamboyant soul is a continued achievement in a season short on victories.

I wonder if Whedon knew the shortcomings of this season, given that it ends, like the lamented fourth season of Buffy, with a final episode that essentially promises the next season will be more interesting.  Spoiler alert: it is.  Oddly enough, Buffy and Angel follow an extremely similar rhythm with their development across seasons.  Both start as diverting but low-stakes monster-of-the-week series for their first season and change.  Both swing into more interesting directions in the final third of the second season, almost to the episode: "Passion" is the seventeenth episode of Buffy's second season, and "Epiphany" is the sixteenth episode of Angel's.  Both series peak with their third season, valley with their fourth, and peak again with their fifth.  Maybe the fourth season was destined to be this way, and Whedon ultimately had no choice in the matter.  Isn't that a creepy thought.

RATING: C+

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Former Buffyverse Reviews:
Buffy, Season Six:     B   /   Angel, Season Three: B+
Buffy, Season Five:   A   /  Angel, Season Two:  B-
Buffy, Season Four:   B  /  Angel, Season One:  B-

Buffy, Season Three: A

Buffy, Season Two:   A-

Buffy, Season One:   B