Angel was a spinoff series from Buffy the Vampire Slayer that centered on Angel Investigations. It had Angel (David Boreanaz) living in sunny Los Angeles and using his vampire skills to save people with the help of Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) and company. It was great, until season 4.
I had been warned by so many in the lead up to the fourth season, just constant tweets telling me that I had to suffer through it to get to season 5, which was great. I had it in my head going in that season 4 was going to be bad, but nothing could have prepared me for how right everyone was. How this continued for an entire season on television, I will never know. It’s that bad!
I often found myself screeching on my couch about storylines, crying out, “I do not CARE ABOUT THIS,” ad nauseam. I wanted nothing more than for Angel and Cordy to kiss and for Gunn (J. August Richards), Fred (Amy Acker), and Wesley (Alexis Denisof) to realize that they can just be a throuple! Instead, I got whatever the hell season 4 ended up being. Why did I have to see Cordy go into a coma after giving birth to Angel’s granddaughter?
Not only were we still contending with the “teenage” Connor (Vincent Kartheiser) of season 3 yet again, but it also got so much worse by having Connor and Cordelia (who was like his mother when he was a baby) sleep together in some weird last-moments-on-Earth scenario. Why, when Angel was there, we will never know.
All of this is just setting the scene for my humble apology to anyone to whom I said, “It can’t be that bad.” It can be. It can be so much worse than I thought.
Nonsense reasoning to get Cordy off the show
I was aware of the horrible environment that Carpenter faced because of Joss Whedon. That she has since spoken out about the situation she faced made watching what happened to Cordy in season 4 feel like a lot of Whedon’s anger being used against Carpenter, and it then forced this season to make absolutely no sense.
So are we to believe that the divine powers that be told Cordy to sleep with an 18-year-old that she used to take care of as a baby, who suddenly became a teenager, because the two had to have a baby that (played by Gina TorreS) that named herself Jasmine because of the flowers and had plans to turn the world into her willing slaves? All of that sounded like a good idea in the writers’ room?
Not a single person said, “Uh, hey Joss, really quickly, we were kind of setting up this Angel and Cordy thing for seasons and I think throwing Connor into the ring right after she already sidetracked with Groo (Mark Douglas Lutz) is too much”???? Not only was discarding the Cordy/Angel of it all the thing that really just took it out of me, but it all just made no sense to lead us to … Angel Incorporated taking over Wolfram & Hart.
Quite frankly, the only thing that got me through this season was the promise that I would see Spike (James Marsters) again in season 5. Every time I struggled, I would look to how many episodes I had left and know that Spike was coming back to me if I just stayed strong.
Luckily, I saw him in the opening credits for season 5, screamed, “LET’S GO,” and jumped up and down, so I am already on a better track and thank god I never have to think about season 4 again. Only Lorne (Andy Hallett) singing got me through it.
(featured image: The WB)
