IA 0109 - Hero

Good podcast about one of the best early episodes of Angel. Yeah, the Scourge were a pretty silly idea, with the Nazi allusion laid on pretty thick, but overall it was a nice way for Doyle to bow out.

One issue I wanted to raise, and it's something that occurred to me in earlier podcasts which dealt with the idea, is Bryan's take on Angel's curse. Bryan expressed the idea that a relationship with Angel would be difficult because as long as he's good, you know he's not really happy and how does a person deal with knowing their loved one is not really happy? But what we're really talking about is a moment of pure happiness. We're not dealing with a binary happy/unhappy idea, there are levels of happiness. As Wesley says in the season 5 episode Smile Time "Ninety nine point nine nine nine ad infinitum percent of the best relationships in the recorded history of the world have had to make do with acceptable happiness." In other words, just because Angel doesn't turn evil and try to kill you doesn't mean he's unhappy. I can't remember whether it was Angie or Melanie who pointed it out, but just the fact that Angel now knows about the risk probably means that he's never going to experience that moment of pure happiness again, simply because of the nagging doubt that will always be there.