Angel
"First Impressions"

Airdate: October 10, 2000

This episode has one big problem, and I'd like to get my feelings on this out of the way immediately: there's too damn much Darla. Of course, I think that any Darla is too much Darla. There are few people in the world who annoy me as much as Julie Benz does, and this is beginning to make me all cranky.

In this episode, Darla's continuing to haunt Angel's dreams. She's also getting all naked and stuff, which I really didn't need. But the really unfortunate part is that there's no conclusion to this dreaming sub-plot yet, which means it's just going to continue to drag on and on until I can't stand it anymore. I was happy when they killed her once. Why couldn't she just stay dead? What did I ever do to deserve this?

Moving on to more important issues, however, brings us to the reasons I liked this episode: Cordelia and Gunn. Gunn's been trying to hunt down a demon named Deevak who put two of his crew in the hospital, and he enlists the Angel Investigations staff to help. They don't make much progress on the "helping" part, but later that night, Cordelia has a vision: Gunn's in trouble. Angel and Wesley aren't reachable, so she takes it upon herself to save Gunn, using Angel's car and her trusty ax. Unfortunately when she arrives at Gunn's hangout, there's not much to save him from except his hapless sparring partner, and all that Cordy accomplishes is bashing one of Gunn's guys over the head and getting Angel's car stolen. Gunn reluctantly helps her find the vehicle, just so she'll go home and leave him alone, and many assorted hijinx and vampire fights later, they find the car -- and Deevak. Gunn pretty much gets his ass kicked, but Wesley and Angel come to the rescue, and the demon gets his ass kicked.

There's a lot of goodness to be had in this episode, primarily in the forms of J. August Richards and Charisma Carpenter. Richards hasn't previously been handed a lot of quality writing on Angel, but now that he has been, he's making good use of it. Charisma Carpenter also takes full advantage of the opportunity to put some real meat behind Cordelia and develop the character a bit. Alexis Denisof and David Boreanaz aren't featured very prominently in this episode, but their scenes are great and provide excellent comic relief for the more serious happenings on Cordelia and Gunn's side of things. Plus, you know, Angel was naked. And this just wouldn't be The 11th Hour if I didn't mention that.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Angel airs at 9/8C, Tuesdays on the WB.

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