We left off last week with a major cliffhanger: Connor had been taken through a portal into a demon dimension with Holtz and Wesley was left bleeding to death on the ground with his throat slit.  Things are bad.  There’s no reason to believe Wesley can survive that, especially without immediate help.  I’m mad at myself for ever doubting this show; it’s pulled off some amazing writing and brought everything together, much like its parent series did time and again.  I’m invested and can’t wait to see more; I want to binge the rest of the season. 

Interestingly, while I love the way this episode plays out, it’s not one a viewer could see as a standalone episode.  If you were a viewer back when this aired, back when forgetting to set the DVR meant missing an episode and on demand wasn’t available quite yet, this episode needed to be connected to the previous one.  Coming into Forgiving cold would mean next to nothing.  Sure it’s easy enough to figure out what’s gone on, but you would miss the horrifying emotional impact.  I’m not complaining since that’s the case for most series today, but this predates our modern storytelling by probably close to a decade.  This is a bridge-episode; it connects plot points and that’s a game changer for the whole season but it started with the previous episode; it needs to be viewed as a 2 part story. 

The pacing on this is good considering most of it is about the gang trying to find Wesley or Sahjhan.  When we see Wesley, he’s mugged and then his body is dragged into a bush making it less likely that someone will find him.  I didn’t see that coming; I thought the homeless man was bringing him to a more prominent spot to be found since he had just made off with Wes’s wallet.  Alas, no.  Anecdotally, I recently returned from a work trip to India and the most shocking thing to realize upon my return was the contrast: people here in the US are far ruder.  (Admittedly, I was in only two towns so it’s a bit of a generalization, but if I bet if Wesley lived in India, someone would have dragged him to a spot where he could be found and rescued, rather than dragging the poor dude into a bush.)

To keep the pacing exciting, Angel kidnaps the head honcho from Wilfram and Hart.  I’ll be completely honest, I think it would have been totally acceptable for Angel to kill him based on what’s lead him here but the drop down the stairs while tied to a chair was satisfying.  I do wonder how they filmed that.  Stuntman aside, that looked real and it probably would have hurt the actor/stuntman no matter how you did it.  But considering what’s coming at the tail end of this episode, I am a little disappointed in the writing and it hit me more in retrospect.  Surely if Angel could bear such a grudge against Wesley, especially after learning why Wesley made the decision he made, then surely he would have done more to the top dog from an enemy agency – one that sanctioned feeding Angel his own child’s blood.  

After giving half the episode over to having Fred and Gunn find out why Wesley did what he did, the next big reveal is that Sahjhan faked the prophesy.  Actually, as I type this, I realize there was another error in judgement, at least to my estimation: Angel’s rage should have had him beat Sahjhan rather than needing the Darth Vader moment from Justine, where she comes back to save Angel just in the nick of time.  I was so caught up in the adrenaline of the moment, I think that washed over me, but in retrospect, I think it would have been a better rewrite had Angel been able to let loose on Sahjhan.  This ties in with the ending where Angel was so forgiving to Wesley while visiting him in the hospital before suddenly channeling everything he learned from watching The Sopranos, The Untouchables, The Godfather, Goodfellas, and Casino all into one angry outburst.  I wanted to hear his best DeNiro: “I want him dead, I want his family dead, I want his house burned to the ground!” He sounded way more Italian than Irish in that moment… 

With that, we’re left to wonder where we go from here which has a certain symmetry with the song from Buffy’s season 6 episode, Once More, With Feeling.  Can Angel actually forgive Wesley?  Is there any way things can ever go back to normal?  While Wesley’s motivations were noble, his inability to communicate his concern to Angel did put Connor in harm’s way.  In fact, it put everyone in harm’s way and left Connor trapped in a demon dimension.  He should have at least tried talking to Angel.  Or if nothing more, the others.  He could have spoken to Cordy, Fred or Gunn.  

The direction of the season has really changed since the season began and I want to know how things can be settled but things are looking very bleak right now.  Hopefully it’s darkest before the dawn and knowing the prophesy is false might be the first step in overcoming the nightmare.   ML