Angel: Parting Gifts Rewatch

August 26, 2015 9:25 PM - Season 1, Episode 10

Angel fears his quest is hopeless after losing Doyle's visions, only to find he imparted them to Cordelia with his goodbye kiss. Other forces are after her newfound powers, and newly badass rogue demon hunter Wesley Wyndham-Price arrives in town just in time to help rescue her from their clutches.
posted by yellowbinder (2 comments total)

This is the first step in the passing on of the visions. (Actually, that’s probably why they showed the video of Doyle in “You’re Welcome,” to remind us of this before Cordelia passes on some visions herself.)

Cordelia getting a vision in the middle of a commercial audition is way too embarrassing to watch again. Nooo.

“I’m an empath demon. I can read emotions. It gives me a slight advantage at cards. You know, Black Jack, Poker.” I’ve been watching too much Star Trek lately. All I can think of is that Troi should have won way more of those poker games.

Wesley is back! Rogue demon hunter! His whole leather-clad, trying to be dark thing is a whole barrel of be careful what you wish for in terms of foreshadowing. His kiss with Cordelia is a nice callback to the most painful kiss scene ever, and I guess this lets him redeem himself slightly.

Cordelia has the first unhelpful vision about herself (like the one she has with the Skilosh demon in “Epiphany.”) Barney the empath demon snarks at her that she never thinks of anyone but herself, and it’s interesting that her first real vision is actually about herself. Of course, we’ll see her journey to someone much less self-involved (though still inherently herself) – at least, before the show does great violence to her character.

Of course Angel knows exactly what the blob sculpture is called. I guess his recent experience with Doyle softened him up a little bit, because it’s pretty kind the way he helps Wesley regain some confidence in himself, even if it’s just because he actually needs his help. It’s nice to see Wesley actually learns from the knife taped to leg fiasco and gradually figures out how to use weapons.

Cordelia goading the bidders into a bidding war for her eyes to buy time is very in-character and very smart.

The last scene, where Wesley really doesn’t want to leave and is basically begging them to ask him to stay, is pretty adorable. Of course, having watched the final episode of the series for the first time about a week and a half ago, it hurts.
posted by ilana at 11:35 PM on August 26, 2015

Who would have thought that Wesley would have worked out so well?
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:36 PM on August 27, 2015