Angel

Mark here...Laurel and I are sitting down for some blogging again.  Tonight I made a Shepard's Pie with a bit of a twist using ground bison.  Originally I was making it to be a bit low fat but I think adding bacon and butter may have pushed the fat content up.  In any case, it tasted good.  On to the episode...this episode is called "Angel" and is an expository episode to give us a bit of background on Angels' character.  Up to this point he has sort of lurked in the shadows and turned up here or there for a rescue.  Here we get the set-up that he is actually a 200 plus year old vampire who has been cursed by gypsies.  The curse gives him back a soul and a conscience, thus his tortured persona.  Of course now's the perfect set up for him and Buffy as star-crossed lovers.  In these days of vampire lovers left and right, this romance is actually pretty interesting.  That said the episode writing was a little flat.  Given that Angel's story is pretty good, the events around the episode are run of the mill.  One bright spot was Darla the villainous vampire.  She's the vampire who made Angel a vampire and also his ex.  She's out of the picture by the end of the episode, which is too bad...she's way more fun than The Master or the Anointed One (aka little brat).

Laurel here...I was really into Darla this episode.  She's a pretty awesome lady villain.  She comes up with a sneaky plan to get Angel to kill Buffy that almost works...While Buffy is out, she pretends to be one of Buffy's friends to get Buffy's mom to invite her into their house.  Then she bites Buffy's mom (although I'm not quite sure why she didn't finish her off). Angel shows up to save the day of course, because that's what he does.  When he gets there Darla shoves Buffy's mom into his arms and leaves, so Buffy walks in she finds angel standing over her mom, and course thinks that Angel tried to kill her mom.  She does go out hunting for Angel intending to kill him,  but Darla's plan is foiled when Buffy and Angel realize they feel for each other too much to kill each other, and Angel ends up killing Darla instead.   Anyway I'm sad she got killed.