Angel Season Two musings

[chicken]

Not having seen these episodes before, I really really enjoyed this season (I started watching Angel about 2/3 of the way through season 3 and was very, very confused until I read some episode summaries online at Angel's Acolyte).

Favorite moments:

- The whole Harmony episode
- Angel in the suns' light all happy
- The use in two episodes of the Zeppo music for Wesley (in one ep.) and all three (C,G,W) in another, to underscore their Zeppo/unheraldedness that is so similar to Xander's
- Wesley's heartbreaking call to his father on his father's birthday. God, this made me almost as upset as seeing Willow at the end, or seeing Cordelia hanging upside down from a pole.
- Willow, at the end, duh. After much effort I managed not to cry, but that's only because I have recently been all cried out over my parents' declining health, and re-watching the end of Season Two, etc.
- Darla and Drusilla's slashy intimacy
- The rivalry between Lilah and Lindsey and the overall way ME has brilliantly made the W&H characters so much more than typical cardboard bad guys.
- Seeing the arrival of Gavin Park. Cuz, remember, the first time I really saw him was at a very fateful (for him) moment in Season Four.
- In "Happy Anniversary", written by Joss with Greenwalt, there is the wink-wink reference to "Star Trek nerds" which of course some of the writers and fans certainly are. And there is Landok's looks and bearing (as well as some of his behavior) which are very Klingony.