Angel, "Redefinition" Review (2x11)

Brief Synopsis: “After firing his staff and cutting himself off from the world, Angel begins intense physical and mental training in preparation for an encounter with Darla and Drusilla. Meanwhile, his former team are trying to continue fighting the good fight on their own now that Angel has abandoned the cause.”


"Reunion" (2x10) quick link here                                                                                                                                   "Blood Money" (2x12) quick link here

Three quick notes before we get started...

1) This review will almost definitely contain spoilers for episodes after this one.

2) If you enjoy my reviews, please subscribe to the blog! Over on the right-hand side there's a little box that says "Follow Shangel's Reviews by Email!". If you put your Email address in there and click "Submit", then confirm your subscription, you will get each review sent straight to your inbox! No junk mail, no bullshit, just my reviews.

3) If you're going to be using Amazon (UK/USA) or eBay (pretty much anywhere) soon, please do so through my blog. It'll take you just a couple of extra mouse clicks, but they will pay me a small percentage of the money you spend, helping me find more time to write these reviews. Most importantly, it costs you nothing at all extra. Details of how to do this are located here (it'll take less than a minute to read!). Thank you very, very much!

With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?



“Redefinition” is about what the title suggests, the characters redefining who they are. This process is split into three main sections. 1) Angel’s path to darkness. Angel has become a character that we’ve never seen before. He’s no longer the Angel we know and love, but he’s not Angelus either. He’s a brand new vampire. 2) Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn redefining who they are outside of their connection to Angel. Now that they’re unemployed, where do they turn now? Are they capable of helping the helpless on their own? Ultimately, they redefine themselves by not redefining themselves. All that changes is that they’ve exiled Angel from the Angel Investigations company. They keep the name, they keep helping the helpless, and they decide to move on from Angel. 3) Darla trying to refine who she is now that she’s a vampire again. She’s trying to steer her image away from the shadow of Angel and cause some destruction by herself. She’s on a mission of power and destruction.

As I mentioned in my review of “Reunion”, I’m thoroughly impressed with David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon for allowing their leading character to become so dark and negative. It’s something that is often ignored on television and it’s so refreshing to see a hero that is so flawed. They didn’t just allow him to get a little dark, they went all the way! He’s isolated himself from the world, fired his friends, and is doing nothing but obsess and train for the showdown with Darla and Drusilla. Remember, this isn’t Angelus, this is Angel. Angel is supposed to be the leader, the hero, the champion. He’s not supposed to fire his friends and cut himself off. When Angelus is dark and murderous, it’s forgivable to the audience because it’s not really Angel committing these acts. Angel has no such leniency this time because he’s the one acting dark and merciless. How are Cordy and Wesley supposed to pay their rent? Who’s going to help the helpless while Angel is distracted with his thirst for vengeance? How many innocent people will be neglected while Angel is off on his all-consuming mission to take down Darla, Drusilla, and Wolfram & Hart?

Cordelia: “What just happened? Can someone explain to me what just happened here?”
Wesley: “I believe we were fired.”
Gunn: “Canned.”
Wesley: “Let go.”
Gunn: “Axed.”
Wesley: “Shown the door.”
Gunn: “Booted.”
Cordelia: “Alright! I get it! But, what just happened?!”

I’m excited to see that the episode spends so much time with Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn. With Angel off by himself, I was worried that the show would focus on his path to darkness at the expense of screen time for the rest of his former team. Cordy and Wesley have no idea what to do with their lives now that they no longer work for Angel. It’s all they had! Before joining forces with Angel, Cordy was living in a cockroach-infested motel trying not to starve, while Wesley was touring the U.S. by himself as a lonely Rogue Demon Hunter. Angel gave these two characters money, friendship, and a purpose. That’s all been taken away from them now through no fault of their own. Not only that, but they’re hurt by Angel’s actions. Angel wasn’t just their boss, he was their friend. Without his guidance, without his leadership, they’re directionless. Gunn acts as though he doesn’t care, but the fact he shows up at Caritas later in the episode proves that he does. Working for Angel Investigations started as a simple money making exercise for Gunn so he could afford to buy things and help his crew, but along the way Angel Investigations became his primary priority. He’s spent less and less time with his crew since joining A.I. because he’s able to help more people and save more souls with them. That’s been stripped away from him now too. The scene ends with the gang heading their separate ways, knowing they’re not going to be working together again.

Virginia is back! I thought that she was going to be another random one-episode ‘damsel-in-distress’, but instead she’s morphed into a legitimate girlfriend for Wesley. Sadly, outside of her debut episode (“Guise Will Be Guise”), she really isn’t in the show enough to leave her mark on it. However, she does a great job of comforting Wesley during this turbulent time of his life, so kudos for that.

It would appear that when Darla and Drusilla massacred the wine cellar full of lawyers, they allowed Lilah and Lindsey to live. Why, you ask? Because one of them is the likely successor to Holland Manners as the head of ‘Special Projects’ and Darla and Drusilla feel it’s wise to have a useful connection like that. Like Lilah and Lindsey themselves, Darla is driven by power. She says as much to Lindsey here. She uses Lindsey’s feelings for her against him in order to achieve more power...

Lindsey: “You spared me. Why’d you spare me, Darla?”
Darla: “Do you really have to ask? I’m in love with you.”
*they stare at each other for a few seconds before Darla, Drusilla, and eventually Lilah, burst into hysterical laughter*
Darla: “Shut up, Lilah.”
Drusilla: “Shh!”

The act of saving them starts a wonderful power play between Lilah and Lindsey. Do they stick together and try to survive or do they turn on each other and try to be the last person standing? While neither character is particularly likeable (they both make great villains though!), both of their stories are absolutely fascinating. Both characters are desperate for power, but for extremely selfish reasons. Lindsey wants power because he grew up with nothing. He knows what real poverty feels like and there’s no way he’s going to allow himself to slip back into it. So, in his quest for power, he’s become corrupted. He had a choice in “Blind Date” to join Angel and to start over, but ultimately he chose money and power over doing the right thing. This is a character trait that repeats time and time again throughout the course of the show. On the other hand, Lilah has a sick mother who doesn’t remember her name. Lilah partly joined Wolfram & Hart in order to pay her mother’s medical bills, but she also gave in to corruption along the way. You could argue that Lilah is more evil than Lindsey and worse than most villains because she does things just to mess with Angel. No grand plan like Holland, no missing soul like a lot of villains, just simply wanting to annoy Angel. Things like making Cordy’s visions turn physical, things like spiking Angel’s drinking blood with Connor’s blood so Connor smells like food to his father...she’s a very sadistic individual with no moral compass, which makes for a great character. Neither Lilah nor Lindsey are moral creatures, but Lindsey has a little more than Lilah simply due to his second thoughts over children being killed in “Blind Date”. Look at Wolfram & Hart! Look at all the people who’re killed on Wolfram & Hart’s watch...some of whom are their own employees! Are Lilah and Lindsey frightened of Wolfram & Hart or do they really not give a crap who dies so long as they can survive and thrive? The simple answer is a little of both, which makes for an absorbing character study over the course of the rest of the show.

It turns out Lilah’s way of trying to ensure her future is by trying to set Lindsey up. Both of them are aware that Wolfram & Hart is looking for a scape goat. They need someone to blame for Holland’s death and the annihilation of the other lawyers in that wine cellar. Naturally, the worthy victim will be either Lilah or Lindsey and the surviving member will be promoted to head of ‘Special Projects’. Lilah tries to seduce Lindsey and convince him to run away with her...however, she’s wearing a wire. Sneaky, sneaky. Lindsey is too smart to be duped by this and tells Lilah that Wolfram & Hart are going to choose who they’re going to choose and all they can do is wait and see what happens. I love all this political game playing from Lilah and Lindsey! The existence of Wolfram & Hart really helps to differentiate “Angel” from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, as BTVS has nothing remotely similar.

Lost and directionless, Wesley, Cordy, and Gunn (separately) head to Caritas in search of answers from Lorne. When they all bump into each other, they decide to drink their problems away and it leads to one of the best comedic scenes of the season. They’re all drunk and blaming each other for Angel firing them. Gunn calls Wesley a ‘pansy ass’, Cordy references Gunn’s inability to figure out where to stick his axe without Angel’s directive, and Gunn tells Wesley and Cordy that if he had to listen to them snipe and bitch at each other all day, he wouldn’t have fired them, he’d have killed them. Oh, true friendship. I love that Lorne actually has answers for them all, but decides not to divulge them. He knows that they’ll figure it out for themselves as soon as Cordy receives her next vision, so he’s allowing them the opportunity to solve their problems themselves, which is exactly what they need after Angel fired them. They need to get some confidence back and to come together again as a team. Lorne telling them what to do won’t help with that. I hate that Angel isn’t a part of the team anymore, but there’s something oddly beautiful about Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn (three humans) going out by themselves, without superpowers, to defend the helpless people of Los Angeles. The half-demon part of the team has passed away (Doyle) and the vampire leader has turned his back on them, but the humans are going to stay and fight because they feel it’s the right thing to do. Group hug? Cordelia receives a vision and the former team head out into the night together.

Drusilla: “We could have a thousand soldiers and still he'll come, galloping, galloping, still he'll come.”
Darla: “Why is everybody trying to make this about Angel?! I mean, for God's sake, can't a woman wreak a little havoc without there being a man involved?”
Drusilla: “You miss him, like a heartbeat.”
Darla: “I don't miss my heartbeat, Dru. It was a symptom of a disease I've since been cured of. You know, in a perfect world, Angel would be here right now, helping me burn this city to the ground. This is his job I'm doing. But where is he?...Probably flogging himself in a church somewhere.”
Drusilla: “Ooh, flogging. Eww, churches.”

Darla, furthering her search for power, is trying to recruit an army of the best vampire and demon warriors that Los Angeles has to offer. She wants to create a war, to create a slaughter, a massacre, like the ‘Fanged Four’ did during the Boxer Rebellion. Wolfram & Hart give her the connections in the real world to create a storm and her reputation in the underworld gives her the means to recruit herself an army of warriors. If you were going to lead a rebellion, would you want Drusilla as your second-in-command? She’s a skilled fighter and has the ability to hypnotise people, which is always useful, but she’s also rather erratic. Mid-fight she’d probably start lying on the floor and talking about stars and worms.

Darla: “My name’s Darla and this is Drusilla. We’re new in town, though some of you know us by reputation.”
Demon: “I’ve never heard of you before.”
*Drusilla reaches up and rips his ears off*
Darla: “Now you never will (Shangel note: he already has!). I trust we have everyone’s attention? Good. We’ve come with a little proposition. Me and my girl, we’re not just the new thing in town, we’re the only thing in town. And we’re in the market for some...well, one doesn’t want to use the term ‘muscular slaves’...actually, one does.”

What’s wrong with the fat and skinny slaves, huh? Why only muscular? Muscle slows you down! Darla’s trying to redefine who she is outside of her feelings for Angel. She wants to create a path of destruction for herself, but she’s constantly dragged back into the shadows of Angel. Everywhere she turns, she hears of Angel. Darla is a character that has never been allowed to be the leader. She’s been in the shadow of The Master and Angelus for most of her afterlife and now is her time to shine. The only problem is that she can’t shake her love for Angel. She’s never been able to. Look how defensive she gets at Drusilla, Lindsey, and Lilah throughout this episode when they so much as mention Angel’s name! Look how much her demeanour changes after Drusilla mentions that Angel is in the demon fight club arena with them! The second she sees Angel, she turns into a puddle of goop again...before he sets her on fire. What a prince.

Out of all the darkness in this episode, out of all the horrific things Angel does, the only one that I find unforgivable is leaving poor Merl dangling upside down by a rope in the sewer. YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST CUT HIM DOWN, YOU BASTARD! Also, should Merl be able to talk so coherently without a tongue?

Another delicious aspect of this episode is how quickly Angel descends into darkness now that he’s lost his anchor to humanity (his team). Angel is doing what he has to do to stop Darla and Drusilla. What’s stopping Angel from killing them at the moment? His feelings and love for Darla. Angel needs to strip away everything that he feels ‘weakens’ him before he’s ready to kill them. He needs to train his body harder, he needs to become less emotional, and only then does he feel he’ll be ready to stop them. He’s systematically detaching himself from everything that he’s built for himself since arriving in Los Angeles...his friends, his emotions, and his connection to the world through the humans he’s saved. He’s voluntarily doing this to become the monster he needs to be. He’s de-humanising himself. Notice that in addition to firing his staff, he monologues about how he’s spent too many years in warm, comfy beds. Too many years trying to blend into a world where he doesn’t belong. He burns the drawings he sketched of Darla. The ‘man’ that cared for Darla is gone. He can’t be that person and defeat her. The next step in his training is to go out into the world and slay vampires. He’s not slaying vampires to protect an innocent human or because he was attacked by them, he’s slaughtering his own kind to prove to himself that he’s ready for what’s to come. This is a side of his character that we’ve never seen before. The closest he came to this was in “Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been”, but he was more an isolated loner than a man turning his back on the world.

I love the way his character is portrayed in this episode! Very few words, mostly internal monologues...notice that even when Angel burns Darla and Drusilla, he doesn’t say a word to them. His brooding skills have reached a whole new level here. He’s now a black belt in brooding. Plus, you know, he’s smoking. We’ve seen Angelus smoke before, but never Angel (excluding a few flashbacks from the 1950s). This is to further the point that Angel has never been closer to Angelus than he is now. He’s never been this dark. Only bad people smoke in the Buffyverse, kiddies. Giles only smokes when he’s teenage, ‘Ripper’ Giles, Angel only smokes when he’s disassociated from humanity, Spike is a soulless bad boy, etc. Angel deliberately doesn’t kill Darla and Drusilla. He’s simply sending a message: I’m just getting started, I’m coming. He’s not Angel anymore, but he’s not Angelus either. He’s something new, something dark and merciless. Part of this new personality is by choice in order to have the strength to stop Darla, Drusilla, and Wolfram & Hart, but another part has been forced upon him by Wolfram & Hart constantly trying to ruin his life and turn him dark! In the last episode, “Reunion”, Holland showed Angel that he didn’t care if innocent humans were killed in the crossfire. How can Angel fight that type of evil without turning dark himself? He won’t allow innocent humans to die, but if evil Wolfram & Hart employees are killed in the crossfire, he no longer cares. If Wolfram & Hart aren’t playing by any rulebook, why should he? He needs to fight them on their level to stop them.

Drusilla: “I’m burning! Make it stop, please!”
Darla: “That wasn’t Angel.”
Drusilla: “He’s gone. He’s all gone. Oh, it hurts! It hurts!”
Darla: “Wasn’t Angelus either.”
Drusilla: “Darla, help me! Help me, please! Please, please!”
Darla: “Who was that?”

Wolfram & Hart promote both Lindsey and Lilah! They feel that Lilah and Lindsey’s competition with each other is healthy and that it’s best for business for the time being. The eventual plan is still that one of them will be killed (how charming...), but for the foreseeable future both Lindsey and Lilah will co-run ‘Special Projects’ at Wolfram & Hart. Oh, joy. Now there’s two people who hate Angel in charge of ‘Special Projects’. I bet Angel wishes he’d kept Holland alive now.

The episode closes on Cordy, Wesley, and Gunn deciding to keep the Angel Investigations name and stay in business themselves without Angel. They fought a demon and won. They’ve proven to themselves that they’re capable of helping the helpless without Angel. They have some skills and they have Cordy’s visions to guide them. Just because Angel has turned his back on his mission, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to. Wesley tells Angel that they intend to carry on fighting the good fight without him and Angel’s closing monologue is telling for where the show is heading for the rest of the season...

Angel: “Let them fight the good fight. Someone has to fight the war.”


Quote Of The Episode

Cordy: “But, see, that's what I'm saying. If Wesley hadn't been all shaking his finger...” 

Wesley: “No, no, no.”

Cordy: “And ‘no, no, no’, this whole Darla thing would have just, you know, blown over.”

Gunn: “What?!”

Wesley: “Blown over? Angel is obsessed with Darla. Obsessions don't just blow over!”

Gunn: “Right.”

Cordy: “Well, you certainly didn't help by making him feel guilty about it. You shamed him into firing us!”

Wesley: “You blaming this on me?!”

Cordy: “I'm not blaming...yes. I'm blaming you. You get the blame.”

Gunn: “I don't know. If I had to listen to you two day in, day out, snipe, snipe, snipe, bitch, bitch, bitch...I figure y’all got off easy because I would have killed you.”

Cordy: “Ha! That's rich coming from Mr. 'I don't take orders...now where do I stick my axe?'”

Gunn: “What is that supposed to mean?!”

Wesley: “Well, Gunn.  You've never been very supportive of Angel's leadership role. I remember a certain shroud...”

Gunn: “Hold up, hold on, are you trying to tell me this is my fault?”

Wesley: “Well, how is the man supposed to run a business if his employees won't follow directives?”

Gunn: “Was one of his directives 'hire pansy-assed British guys?'”

*Cordy suppresses a laugh*

Wesley: “My ass is not pansy!”

Lorne: “Could I have someone bring you kids another round?”

All three: “Yes!”

Gunn: “What about her? Maybe if she'd had a couple more visions Angel would have been too distracted to think about this Darla chick, huh?”

Cordy: “Earth to retards! You have an obsession, you pretty much squeeze it into your schedule no matter what!”

Wesley: “Aha! So you admit it's an obsession!”

Cordy: “No!...I mean, yes!  But no!”

Wesley: “Hypocrite!”

Cordy: “Ass-pansy!”

Wesley: “Don't call me that!”

Gunn: “You two are driving me buggy. All you talk about is 'this is his fault, this is her fault’...you two wouldn't last ten seconds on the street!...”

*Cut to the three of them, arm-in-arm on the stage, singing "We Are The Champions" by Queen*


FINAL SCORE: 7.5/10

What are your thoughts on "Redefinition"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

If you've enjoyed this review, please use the conveniently placed buttons just below to share it on Blogger, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, or email it to a friend! It is greatly appreciated!