'In the Dark' is a crossover episode of 'Angel',
the Part 2 to 'Buffy'’s 'The Harsh Light of Day'.
I also consider it a sort of trilogy with the first three episodes in the show,
resolving a few lingering details about Angel’s character
and, with 'In the Dark',
setting up his future arc.
['Symphony 41, Jupiter Symphony']
And in the third episode of the show Angel rescues another blonde in an alleyway.
Perhaps his mind is fixated on something.
The whole scene again, plays like a hyperbolic noir superhero scene.
Spike certainly seems to think so.
"--I was once a badass vampire..."
“And now I’m just a BIG fluffy puppy with bad teeth.”
This is the third reference to Angel as a "puppy" in the Whedonverse.
For more info, check out the 'Buffy' Guide.
So Spike has figured out what Buffy decided to do with the Ring of Amara after “The Harsh Light of Day”
and has followed Oz to L.A. to retrieve it.
Speaking of…
“Hello L.A..”
Oz gives Angel the Ring of Amara, which can make Angel more or less unkillable.
Angel seems distracted by the implications of the ring,
as well as the fact that Buffy sent Oz instead of coming herself.
He descends into the sewers and hides it under a rock.
The next morning, Doyle is suffering the effects of a night out on the town
and Angel is doing sexy Tai Chi again.
[I know when that hotline bling]
Angel rushes to the rescue of the blonde from earlier
and Spike attacks him by his car trying to get the gem.
"What's next,"
"...vampire cowboy?"
"Vampire fireman?"
"Oh,"
"...vampire ballerina.”
Angel bests Spike, who escapes,
and Angel suggests Cordy hole up with Doyle for the day.
Even with Spike in town,
Angel visits the blonde from earlier he saved who mentions she can’t help but keep falling back in with her ex all the time.
Doyle gives Angel a tip towards someone who might know where Spike is
and Angel goes on a gumshoe hunt for information.
Finding Spike in an alleyway eating.
Turns out it was a trap and Spike has recruited the services of a vampire agent of torture,
Marcus.
Marcus makes some statements suggesting he has similar perceptive abilities to Drusilla,
if she hadn’t had the sanity tortured out of her.
He can sense Angel’s soul and his history.
He can read whether Angel is telling the truth or not.
He begins the act of torture with a very simple question.
“What do you want, Angel?”
"Are you gonna torture me or just bore me to death, huh?"
Marcus proceeds to skewer, stab and crush Angel repeatedly.
But the stab that seems to do the most damage
...is Spike telling Angel about Parker.
"Good looking fellow."
“Used her shamelessly.
"She is cute when she's hurtin', isn’t she?”
Spike goes looking for the ring
leaving Angel and Marcus to it.
Marcus points out that Angel hid the ring.
He could be walking in the light but clearly that is not what he wants.
Spike tells Doyle and Cordy to find the ring for him or Angel dies.
Cordy and Doyle find the ring and trade Spike for Angel.
But Marcus double crosses and takes it for himself.
As Oz is driving the getaway, Angel makes him turn it around to go after Marcus.
Oz J-turns the hell out of his van
and drives down to the pier
where Angel, rushes out and takes Marcus down.
Angel dons the ring and steps out into the light,
with a clearer vision of what comes next.
No shortcuts to redemption.
And the episode ends with the weirdest last line of any episode.
Most likely a Boreanaz improv they left in.
But it signifies to me that Angel has a little more light and direction now.
A path.
A reason.
I like this episode quite a bit.
In fact, other than an upcoming two-parter, this may be one of my favorite episodes of the season.
But I feel like it’s a bit of a borrowed glow by virtue of two guest appearances from Buffy alumni Spike and Oz.
In fairness, Oz doesn’t do much
but James Marsters as Spike just chews up the scenery and is a delight to watch.
Consequently, this episode feels like a bit of a detour for the 'Angel' cast to me,
if not for Angel himself.
The scenes between Marcus and Angel are the meat of the episode,
and here again we have a villain handed some of the more meaningful lines:
“It’s through the pain that we find the truth of who we are.”
"It strips us of our defences."
Marcus is, of course, talking about the torture
but his words have a very relevant double meaning.
Painful experiences ARE quite often the most revealing moments of character and self examination we experience in life.
When things are going great, there simply isn’t much of a reason to look inward.
It’s when things are at their worst that we stop to examine what brought us to this moment,
and what if anything, comes next.
Or, to put it another way:
“What do you want Angel?”
"I want..."
"...forgiveness."
"Yes."
"That's the truth."
"And you want to earn it."
Angel is suffering,
bathing in self hatred every night with all the lights out.
As we talked about in the previous video, it got so bad that he once even tried to off himself.
And he’s been moving forward thanks to the momentum granted him by the love of a certain Slayer.
But I don’t think it is until the words are tortured out of him
that he’s clear on what he’s been missing.
In this context, Angel smashing the ring in the final scene makes sense.
The ring is a symbol for his final goal.
For all intents and purposes, the restoration of his humanity through his redemption-
implying he considers the vampire side of himself, sin.
Something to be expunged.
The lust,
the hunger,
and somewhere beneath the surface,
Angelus.
But the ring is an unearned shortcut
-it is not the outcome he’s looking for.
So, sure, symbolically I’m fine with the ring's destruction.
Pragmatically is a different story.
The blonde who keeps calling Lenny her boyfriend even though she knows he’s unhealthy for her
works as an obvious parallel to Buffy and Angel’s relationship in 'Season 2'
...and a bit of 'Season 3'.
Angel takes Rachel’s side in telling her to dump him
and that, with a little faith in herself, she can move on.
This is something I’ve been suggesting Angel has been lacking in the previous episodes as well
but by the end of this one he’s found it too.
It’s a great pairing of episodes that I enjoyed quite a bit.
I loved the idea of giving the villians the meaningful bits of dialogue
and the inclusion of Spike and Oz infused some much needed levity into the show's broody atmosphere.
Interesting that the titles of both episodes in the crossover could easily be reversed.
After Parker’s manipulation,
Buffy ends the episode decidedly unclear and in the dark.
While Angel, after his moment of clarity at the torturous hands of Marcus,
rushes out into the harsh light of day to stop him.
[record scratch]
[razor]
"What do you want, Angel?"
What do you want, Angel?
"What do you want if not the ring?"
Just tell me what you want, Angel!
"What do you want, Angel?"
What do you want, Angel?
What do you want---
OW!