Rating: 
Summary: Off To The Dark Side
Review: The best thing you can say about the second season of this wonderful show, is that after it's first season, the show finally found it's footing here. The first year was very good, but didn't quite yet know what exactly it was. The second season is stronger in that area. Personally, I liked the first season better. We are off to a rolicking start with "Judgment", and then the classic episode, "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been". A flashback episode that details Angel in the 1950's staying at the Hyperion Hotel, amid a number of colorful characters. This hotel also becomes the setting for the show. Darla is back. She has been resurrected by evil law firm Wolfram And Hart. The plan for Darla is for her to toy with Angel and to lure him back into being Angelus. "Dear Boy" is the first episode where that arc really kicks in. Where Angel finds out, after seeing Darla in his dreams, that she is real. An epic episode called "Darla", is a real butt kicker. It is a continuation of the 'Buffy' season 5 episode, "Fool For Love". It chronicles the history between Angel/Angelus and Darla thru the years. Old fiends Spike and Drusilla appear as well. It's a massive episode that is completely on a grand scale. Darla learns that she, now back as a human, is dying from the disease that she was dying from back when she was human, before The Master turned her. Angel tries to save her in "The Trial", but learns that it is hopeless. That ending is a shocker when Drusilla comes back, courtesy of Wolfram And Hart, to sire Darla back. The result of this is in "Reunion", the season's best episode. Darla is back and she and Drusilla are on the rampage. This ep also sets in stage the rest of the season. Angel has slipped into darkness and has fired Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn. He is a man on a mission and goes it alone. It comes to a head in "Redefinition" when Angel confronts Darla and Dru, in a rather gruesome way. Also a thorn in Angel's side is lawyer Lindsey McDonald(Christian Kane), who has developed a love for Darla. By the time the situation has been handled and Angel and company are back together, the show shifts in tone. The 4 final episodes of the season have nothing to do with what has come before in the season. It's a 4 episode arc beginning with "Belonging", where the team investigate a portal to another dimension named Pylea, where the host Lorne(Andy Hallett), is from. They try to discover what happened to a young woman named Winifred when Cordelia is sucked into the portal into Pylea. "Over The Rainbow", "Through The Looking Glass", and the season finale, "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb", continue this story as the rest of the gang go to Pylea to rescue Cordy, who has become a princess in this other dimension. There are a fair number of bad episodes here. "First Impressions" and "Happy Anniversary" are not only the worst episodes of the season, they are the two worst episodes of the entire series. Just awful. "Guise Will Be Guise" is only watchable thanks to a comedic Wesley performance. "The Shroud Of Rahmon" is boring and uninteresting. Many familiar faces return here. The Master, Faith(in an uncredited cameo), Willow, Harmony(in the hilarious episode "Disharmony"), Anne(who first appeared as Chantaralle in 'Buffy' ep "Lie To Me", and then in the third season premiere, "Anne"), and Detective Kate Lockley. The writing is still sharp and superb. The characters have grown and are fleshed out a lot more. This season was a lot darker than the first. At times, it got too dark and was almost a pain to watch. It was still good, but kind of depressing. David Boreanaz has grown a lot as Angel since his "Buffy" days. He knows the character and how the character would act and react to things. He's becoming a better actor. Andy Hallet joins the show as a telepathic demon named Lorne. He runs a karaoke bar and can read people's minds when they sing. He becomes a trusted and welcomed ally to the gang. Wes has continued to grow as well. He is still Wesley here, but the guy changes more than anyone else in the third season. Season two of "Angel" is a lot of fun. Some brilliant work. It's my least favorite season, but it's up against some stiff competition with seasons 3 and 4. Especially 3. Essential.
Rating: 
Summary: Chapter 2
Review: This is the Second chapter in the Angel series, and the prelude to one of the finest seasons of TV that Television has ever seen (Angel Season 3). The second season takes place about 5 months after the season 1 finale, and shows the gang in full demon fighting swing of things. They've picked up two new friends: Charles Gunn (a street-fighting demon hunter) and Lorne (A green lounge singing demon). Through the season Angel enters a downward sprial, due to the return of Darla (the vampire who sired him). He returns to normal in just enough time to go to Pylea (A demon dimension) and save the race of humans... Only to return to La with the new of Buffys dealth. The second season contains many stellar episodes, and the best guest stars the show has ever seen: Eliza Dusku (Faith), Andy Hallet (Lorne), Julie Benz (Darla), and Juliet Landau (Drusilla) to name a few. The season included the wonderful episodes: Judgement, ARe you now or have you ever been, First Impressions, Untouched, Dear Boy, Guise will be Guise, Darla, The Shroud of Rahmon, The Trail, Reunion, REdefinition, Happy Anniversary, the Thing Dead Line, Reprise, Epiphany, Disharmony, Dead End, Belonging, Over the RAinbow, Throught he Lookinglass, and There's no place like Plrtz Glrb. If your a fan of great television, or horror this is the box set for you. And if you have any intention of buying the 3rd season this season is a must see to understand much the 3rd and 4th season plot lines.
Rating:
Summary: As Darla said it was neither Angel nor Angelus in Season 2
Review: Season Two was when both Angel and "Angel" lost its way. On the one hand you can clearly define this episode in terms of the character of the Host (Andy Hallett), who first pops up in "Judgment" as the host of Caritas, a karaoke joint that serves as a safe haven for demons. The next thing we know Angel (David Boreanaz) is singing, for lack of a better word, "Mandy." At the end of the year we learn that the Host is actually Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan, shortened to the convenience and conventions of this dimension as "Lorne," and Angel Investigations ends up "Over the Rainbow" is Pylea, where things are totally "Through the Looking Glass," and they learn that "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb." This is all fun enough, but in between we have Angel letting Darla (Julie Benz) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau) snack on the lawyers of Wolfram & Hart ("Reunion") and then lights the two fem fatale vamps on fire ("Redefinition"). In between, Angel fires everybody at Angel Investigations.
One of the things we have come to expect from a series created (or co-created) by Joss Whedon is the ability to play both light and dark. We have also come to expect a story-arc for the first half of the season that combines in some interesting way with the second half story-arc. What that means here is that Angel spends the first half of the second season destroying everything he has built because of Darla, and the second half trying to put it back together again after an initial period where he does not especially want to. For me the problem is that while the previous season ended with the revelation that Wolfram & Hart had brought back Darla, it also revealed the correct translation of the word "shanshu" was "to live" rather than "to die." Once the vampire with a soul fulfills his destiny, he (read Angel at this point) will become human as his reward. Angel allowed, "That'd be nice." How we got from that Angel to the one smoking a cigarette so he could flick it into a pool of gasoline to torch Darla and Drusilla is what makes the first half of the season interesting. As Darla correctly observes, the creature who did this was neither Angel nor Angelus.
Even if we do not agree with the dark place to which Angel goes in this second season, Whedon and series co-creator David Greenwalt justify the transformation. The series was fortunate in bringing back the character of Darla because over the next two seasons Julie Benz was going to turn in the best performance by a recurring guest star on either "Angel" (or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") culminating in the show's best moment when Connor is born in the third season. The mind games that Darla plays with Angel, aided and abetted by the Wolfram & Hart tag team of Lindsey McDonald (Christian Kane) and Lila Morgan (Stephanie Romanov), provides adequate motivation, especially when Angel fails to save Darla and she is turned back into a vampire by Drusilla.
For me the problem is getting from that dark place to Angel basking in the sunlight of Pylea, made possible because it takes six episodes for Angel to see the light ("Epiphany"). It seems to me that should have been the big finale for the show's second season given how dark it was getting, but instead we get the comic adventures of the gang in a demon dimension. True, we get the sight of Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) as queen, the addition of Amy Acker as Fred, and the season ends with Alyson Hannigan showing up as Willow to tell Angel by just the look on her face that something has happened to Buffy. But given Angel's dark descent the reversal at the end is rather disquieting (and certainly unique in the dozen "BtVS"/"Angel" finales).
The best episodes in Season Two usually have to do with the Darla plot line, with Drala setting Kate Lockley (Elisabeth Rohm) after Angel in "Dear Boy," Angel facing "The Trial" to try and save Darla (who sings "Ill Wind" at Caritas), and Darla and Dru on the town in "Reunion." I also like Lindsey's swan song in "Dead End," thanks to his "evil hand," and especially since Christian Kane sing at Caritas. The two best comedy episodes of the season are "Guise Will be Guise," where Wesley (Alexis Denisov) is mistaken for Angel by a beautiful client, Virginia Bryce (Brigid Brannagh) and tries to play the role the hilt, and then "Disharmony," where Harmony (Mercedes McNab) the vampire shows up on the doorstep of Cordelia and decides to try and go straight (unlike Willow, who has a very funny phone call from Cory). But there really is nothing funnier than the Dance of Shame that Lorne's mother insists upon when her offspring returns home to Pylea (because Lorne's severed head talking was not a surprise).
On balance and from the perspective of looking back on the five season of the show, I think Season 2 was the weakest year of "Angel." That being said, this is a pretty good low point. If they had explored the character who was neither Angel nor Angelus for the rest of the season and really wallowd in the dark stuff I would have rated the season higher because as "Angel" proved the following year it was when things got really bad that the show got really good. Getting away from the flashbacks always being about the Angelus years to an earlier time in Angel's quest for atonement in "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" was a good move and taking advantage of Wolfram & Hart in "Blood Money" were solid stand alone episodes. In the end, the worst thing I can saw about "Angel, Season 2" is that the first half was better than the second half. That might seem a minor complaint, but not with a Joss Whedon show.
Rating:
Summary: yeah
Review: There isn't a single season of Angel I don't love. Can't say the same for Buffy...
I don't have a favorite season of Angel, but what I love about this one is Angel's obession with killing everyone at Wolfram&Heart. The gray area he touches, were he's not Angel and he's not Angelus is amazing.
Plus I always loved Drucilla and she's back. The story behind the original group with Dru, Spike, Angelus, and Darla is great.
I would recomend this series over Buffy any day. Buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Is Angel Season 2 Widescreen or Fullframe?
Review: I like most people was unsure about the format listed on the casing of the DVD. I ordered Angel Season 2 through Amazon.com because it was advertised in Widescreen. When I received the case however it said it was Fullframe. HOWEVER, when you actually watch the DVD's it IS indeed in Widescreen format. It is a bit misleading, and I'm not sure as to why. I felt that I should mention it to other prospective buyers of the series who want the Widescreen Format.
Rating:
Summary: A show on the rise.
Review: Season 2 really begins to delve into Angel's dark side and his past as the evil vampire Angelus. His sire Darla plays a huge role and Julie Benz does a fine job that really is a coup and pure luck in casting. Darla was on Season 1 of Buffy for a few episodes and they killed her off without knowing at the time that Angel would get his own show and require her to play a heavy role. As it turns out Julie did a great job and the story of how Angel became a vampire is fleshed out nicely.
It is always interesting to take your hero/heroine and show their flaws. It adds texture and depth to a character. Angel's flaws and past are wallowed in and we get to see the dynamics involved in all that he has done. The viewer is shown the evidence and allowed to decide for themselves.
Angel breaks from his gang in Season 2 and begins to play with the darkside. As this is happening the gang are left to continue Angel Investigations without Angel himself. This leads to some much needed character development for Wesley, Gunn, and Cordy. The show kinda meanders around the 4th disc until the entrance into Pylea.
One of the strangest arcs on either Buffy or Angel. The Pylea arc had potential to suck really bad. The best part of it was that it was so unexpectedly good. It is things like this that would kill most shows. Once we got to Pylea it was so apparent how badly the show needed to get away from LA for a while. It was painfully obvious that we needed that escape to another world. The Pylea episodes are strong, funny, and well acted by all involved.
Season 2 is a little shaky at times but the show remains steady and opens the door for the classic 3 seasons to follow.
Rating:
Summary: Angel's epiphany
Review: This season is much more complex than season one. It showed brilliantly that the supernatural elements in Angel are only channels and doors to the revelation of the real, human world. The Darla sequence was fabulously done, and Angel's moral development was credible. in fact, the Darla sequence is this season's strength.
On the way of seeking redemption Angel renunited with the human Darla. Angel thought if he could save her he would save himself.because Darla is experiencing the same thing Angel does- a second chance to redemption. But when Darla was once again turned into a Vampire, and Angel was being shown that the real hell is exactly where he is, he lost all hope of saving himself and seeking redemption. He became darker and darker by this realization and given up and had sex with Darla- the most brilliant plot in many different aspects: Darla used this moment to get rid of Angel's soul- the thing she finds most disgusting, in another view, Darla was going to kill Angel but didn't have to since Angel completely gave himself to her. Angel used Darla as a prostitude, he didn't care whether he will lose his soul or not and in a way he wanted to lose it and given in to the darkness. But when he woke up he realized that Darla had "saved" him by giving him the deepest despire instead of perfect happiness because it was despire that led Angel to sex with Darla. The sex between Angel and Darla was completely meaningless. Unlike the sex between Angel and Buffy, in which Angel achieved perfect happiness because he was happy with himself. On the other hand the sex between him and Darla was pure emptiness. Angel was completely in a "trance", even stupidity of the things happening between him and Darla. This sequence showed the irony of sex- genuine love sex makes Angel lose his soul, yet empty sex saves him. Thus Angel received epiphany- the realization of how deep he has fallen into darkness and began to comprehend a whole different view of him playing the hero- the revelation that he used to save people only to serve his self-matter, the desire of redemption ( which is the sole cause to his darkness and despire when he realized he might never recieve them, that the world is controlled by evil and good will never prevail)- to believing that he should just help people and save people for the people, not for himself. The most touching quotes of Angel:
Kate: ¡°I feel like such an idiot.¡±
Angel: ¡°Lotta that going around.¡±
Kate: ¡°I just couldn't... my whole life has been about being a cop. If I'm not part of the force... it's like nothing I do means anything.
Angel: ¡°It doesn't."
Kate: ¡±Doesn't what?¡±
Angel: ¡°Mean anything. In the greater scheme, the big picture, nothing we do matters. There's no grand plan, no big win.¡±
Kate: ¡°You seem kind of chipper about that.¡±
Angel: ¡±Well, I guess I kind of worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy. I never got it.
Kate: ¡°And now you do?¡±
Angel: ¡°Not all of it. But now I just wanna help. I wanna help because people shouldn't suffer as they do. Because, if there isn't any bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.¡±
however, this season's flaw lies in the 4 part season finale. it was completely meaningless and a bad choice for a season finale. the point of it was to bring Fred into the show. but they really should've done it maybe before the season finale. however, it is enjoyable to watch.
Overall: definitely deserves 5 star. This is the first season of Angel that shows the complexcy of the show and the brilliancy of Joss Whedon, the writer for creating it- that Angel is not another dump soap opera, but something that is deep and reveals the human world in its supernatural way.
Rating:
Summary: The best season in All Angel seasons
Review: Angel season two, was the best in Whedon history, Also the talking head, that almost scared Angel, Gunn & Wes to death.
that was the most funny part, and then Angel misunderstands the saying of cordelia's i love him, and he was like you love me?
and i liked the style of Darla, she was Hot! and how lucky she is..she gets to kiss David! and there's more, each episode contains interviews with the stars, and great sound productions, also interviews with Joss, and Martin,and David, not the stars, David Greenwalt, also, Mike Masa, the stunt double of David Boreanaz, And the Make-ups of the monsters, and of the Vamps and of the Creepy spooky, Ghosts.
it also contains scripts for Darla and Disharmony, and Mistakes of the People acting and Working.
and lots of behind the scene Works & struggling, reading the scripts and the lines, it contains a lot of fun and reallity.
so what are you waiting for go buy it!
Rating:
Summary: 'Angel' begins to find its' wings...
Review: It's funny because the cast of 'Angel' didn't really come together and 'gel' until the end of its second season. Gunn, the street-fighting warrior joins the gang at the start of this season but it's not until the final few episodes until we are introduced to Fred in the strange land of Pylea. Darla returns, confused as to why she was brought back by Wolfram & Hart. Angel is also confused and does what he does best: tries to save her soul. However, when he allows a massacre to take place at the hands of our good friend Drusilla and Darla, the gang expresses their feelings about the situation and he responds by saying something Donald Trump is very good at: 'You're fired.' They spend a lot of the season seperated until episode 16, just in time to fight Harmony when she makes a visit to L.A. This season is an improvement of the first because we get so involved in these characters and the choices they make. The season wraps with Angel returning from Pylea only to hear the devestating news from Willow that Buffy is dead.
Rating:
Summary: Angel Hitting Its Stride
Review: The series takes off in the second season as the team takes form. Wesley is incorporated to a greater extent and Cordelia's visions are strengthed. Very solid season.
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