Season 6 spoiler:
One could also argue that Giles was at least partially responsible for the clusterfucks that happened in S6 by leaving the kids to fend for themselves.
Overall though, I would count Giles as a good dad, even though he’s not perfect. At least he tried to do what he thought was the right thing.
That’s true, though. 
Even Angel commented on it - the Mayor was grieving when he saw Faith in the hospital. And if anyone would know what grief looks like, one assumes that Angel (drawing on Angelus’ memories) would.
More spoilers re Giles S6-S7
[spoiler]As soon as Giles wanted to leave the show, I don’t think the writers knew what to do with him. I mean, just up and leaving? That’s not something Giles would do.
And in season 7, he was acting weird solely for the heavy-handed (and stupid) “Giles might be The First!” subplot. How can you not remember if you’ve touched someone or not over the last few days?
The treatment of Giles is one of the big reasons why season 6 blew.[/spoiler]
Spoilers for Giles and Joyce in 6 and 7 (and earlier, even)
[spoiler]Two major problems with the show post high school - for one thing, few shows can transition from high school to college. Your “high school problems externalized to vampire problems” idea just doesn’t work once you’re out of that environment, at all. If you’re still feeling alienated in college, it isn’t college, it’s you.
Then, they got rid of all the grownups, which I think caused some major problems. First Joyce and then Giles. The young people didn’t really have enough, you know, anything to carry the show alone - it felt weird and unbalanced. I did like that they essentially made Xander the official show adult to make up for it after awhile, but by getting rid of every single adult they missed the important challenges of college and young adulthood - forming an adult relationship with your parents, etc. I think that’s one of the reasons the later seasons seemed very “stuck” to me. I’m not sure I explained what I’m trying to get at very well. [/spoiler]
Forever - slightly less devastating than The Body. They manage to contain the majority of the agony in the last 5 minutes. I continue to be impressed with how well the show is handling the subject of death. All that funeral shit that has to be done, and the fear of what comes next. Phenomenal acting by both Ms. Gellar and Ms. Trachtenberg.
Meanwhile, I notice they’re trying to prevent too much agony by keeping Angel going on a note of hope. I was very uncomfortable when Angel was not with his crew. I didn’t really want to talk about it to be honest. 
The writing on Angel gets better and better. The ‘‘Angel loses his soul’’ fake-out in Reprise was nice. As someone who has flirted with nihilism, I enjoyed seeing Angel pulled to the existential brink and back again, followed by… his Epiphany.
Which brings us to what I think may be my favorite episode of Angel to date: Disharmony. Who says Angel can’t do camp? Comedy gold, that is.
Harm: ‘‘I don’t have a place to stay.’’
Cordy: ‘‘Do I even need to say it?’’
Harm: ‘‘Yeah you do!’’
And David Boreanaz (hey, just learned he’s a Philly boy!) nails his part perfectly. All the social awkwardness and confusion and heartbreak… not to mention his absolute glee at the end when he successfully bought back Cordelia’s affection with clothes.
The way he mocked Wesley with that grin… and Wesley was so pissed… not cute pissed, but genuinely irate… it was beautiful.
But this situation with Harmony trying to be good and failing miserably… it makes me think about Spike and trying to figure out what the hell is going on there. He’s performed a number of actions lately that seem prima facie completely selfless. I totally buy that he liked Joyce and is sad that she’s gone… she was always really nice to him. But Disharmony seems to be making the argument that vampires can’t be anything but evil. If that’s the case, then where does that leave Spike? I don’t know, but it will be interesting to see where that goes.
I think Forever is the one BtVS episode I’ve only seen once or twice. The first time through, I was just generally upset with it because I really did think I loathed Angel. After that, it was just difficult to see him there knowing what was going on in Los Angeles. Plus Xander is such a cock to Spike.
Disharmony is one of my favorite episodes. When Harmony ripped a page out of one of Wesley’s books to dispose of her gum, Wesley looked so perfectly homicidal with rage (in a totally understated British way).
The Reprise/Epiphany arc one-two punch is one of the highlights of AtS for me. The show never lightens up from that darkness, but there’s still enough hope offered that it makes sense for Angel to be put back on the right path. Though I believe that Holland faked Angel out. I think Angel was right, and he was on the way to the Home Office, but Holland fucked with his mind and easily deflected him. So the tragedy of Angel’s epiphany is that it worked, but he should have never had it. Not like that.
This is actually explained in season 2 of Buffy with The Judge. The Judge destroyed anyone with a trace of humanity and the show explained that Spike managed to retain a lot of his humanity during his vamp transition from William the Poet to William the Bloody. This episode also reinforced the notion that Angelus is just a pure monster that has no connection to Angel other than a body.
For all the cries of “Spike was neutered!”, Whedon set it up very early in the character’s history.
The thing that bothers me about Epiphany is that Kate was about to die from an OD, and Angel supposedly saved her life with a… cold shower? Oh really? :rolleyes: Not that I don’t enjoy seeing a dripping wet Kate in the shower, but this does get a little ridiculous.
I thought he was just trying to wake her up so he could make her vomit.
“Epiphany” is one of my favorite Angel eps ever. I disagree with pepperlandgirl about the Home Office, though. I think Holland was being totally truthful about the whole thing.
But that doesn’t really make any sense. If there were three demon lords who ruled from Earth as their “Home Office” why would Wolfram and Hart need all that mystical crap to communicate with them (they should already be here) and why isn’t Earth overrun by hell demons?
Who knows? Maybe they just like the mystic?
As for your last question…insert your favorite Cheney reference. 
I think the key is that vampires innately pretty much lose all their conscious-based hangups, but it’s not impossible for them to re-form them, and they can still maintain things like friendship (or interest, anyway). They certainly have all the negative emotions - Angelus is a monster, but he has a sense of humour, of irony, he doesn’t just cause pain but enjoy the causing of pain. They still have a sense of aesthetics if not intially of morality.
I’m not sure if this agree or disagrees with what you’re saying, but Angelus and Spike were never very similar.After Spike had his hands chopped off by the crazy slayer, they discussed the nature of their evil. Spike never really thought about the nature of evil during his evil days, but instead just had fun causing mayhem. By contrast, Angelus revelled in the evil itself, putting much thought and effort into relishing the artistry of evil. Consider what Angelus did to Drusilla; it would never occur to Spike to destroy someone so completely, and even if it did he wouldn’t bother due to lack of interest.
Which is part of what made Season 5 of Angel so good. They needed a few foils to counteract all the doom and gloom people. Spike and Harmony provided that. Even though it was a throw-away episode in arc terms, “The Girl In Question” was essential in understanding how different, yet the same Angel and Spike are.
I’m not sure what the truth is, but (I think) Darla made a comment about the ring, saying that Wolfram and Hart performed a ritual to disable it immediately after Angel stole it. This might suggest Angel thought the ring was working when it wasn’t.
Continued season six discussion:
No, from my recollection (and this Wikipedia plot summary for “Wrecked” matches my memories) they did show magic as getting you “high”. And not just in an “I’m so powerful, I can do anything I want!” sort of way, but in a very blatant “It’s just like dope!” way. I note the episode in question was written by Marti Noxon.
(I haven’t participated in the seasons six and seven poll thread, because even for season six, I don’t think I can boil it down to “liked it” or “didn’t like it”–but, for me at least, season six definitely took some head-bashingly stupid twists and turns.)
season six:
[spoiler]
It’s been a while since I saw the episodes in question, but I never took it to imply that all magic was drug-like and made you high. Just that the charms/spells sold by Rack were so. Yes, it was a bit silly, but I suppose it makes sense. There’s a spell that makes people forget things, spells that restore souls, spells that rip off skin, spells that blast people with eldritch energy, spells that raise the dead, spells that twirl objects in the air. Magic can do anything. Why couldn’t there be a spell that makes you high?
But in any case, I didn’t see any contradiction with the rest of the series, since the only magic we ever saw that created this effect was sold by this one guy. So why should we assume all magic is that way?[/spoiler]
Because before Willow even met Rack she was jonesing for more magic, which wasn’t how it worked prior to season six. Beyond that, if they wanted to make the comparison that Rack’s magic equaled drugs then that’s even stupider because Willow wasn’t the drug using type. And if his magic produced a similar effect, I imagine it would have scared her straight.
I meant prior to Smashed/Wrecked.