Season 1
Season one starts the show off right. Angel arrives in LA and starts saving people the best he can. One day a man shows up at his apartment named Doyle, a half-demon who was granted visions of the future by the powers that be, the higher power of good as opposed to the countless evils from the series. Doyle sends Angel to a party where he runs into Cordelia, an old acquaintance from Sunnydale. After saving her from a rich vampire Cordelia decides to work for Angel as a secretary, (she starts Angel Investigations first so the job exists) turning Angel's crusade into a business. Angel soon learns that evil works different in LA than in Sunnydale, in that they all have lawyers, and are untouchable to the authorities, enter Wolfram & Hart, the evil law firm run by 3 powerful demons that are on a different plane of existence. As the season progresses Doyle constantly is trying to make Cordelia fall for him, but to no avail, about halfway through the season Doyle sacrifices his life to save hundreds of lives, ironically this act is what makes Cordelia finally see how much she cared for him. Doyle also passes his visions to her before dying. We then are reunited with Wesley, a now disgraced Watcher and rogue demon hunter. Wesley is broke and assists Angel as a consultant while trying to convince them he's fine. After about 2 episodes Angel hires him full time. The season also introduces a character named Gunn, who becomes a main character next season. The final confrontation is with Wolfram & Hart who summon a powerful demon in order to bring one of the senior partners into this realm. This ends how you would think, team Angel arrives to stop the big bad, does, however there is a twist, Wolfram & Hart brought back something else, but they are not able to find it, setting up for the next season. B.
Season 2
Season two begins by promoting James Gunn, a former street kid who grew up fighting vampires his own way, to a main character. It also reveals what Wolfram & Hart brought back, Angel's old vampire lover Darla. she causes problems for the group all with the purpose to get Angel to change her back into a vampire. The season also introduces Lorne, an empath demon who runs a demon sanctuary/karaoke bar. He also has the power to read people after hearing them sing. For the first half of the season Darla and Lindsey, a lawyer at Wolfram & Hart simply screwing with Angel. After she becomes a vampire again to save her life Darla reunites with Drusilla, and they go on a rampage through LA. Angel realizes he must be just as ruthless as them in order to stop them, which he does. Darla then seduces Angel, but the next day his soul is still in tact, this is when Angel realizes he is over Darla, and it's time to let her go. So for the last few episodes team Angel is pulled into a parallel universe where they must save Cordelia, or so they think. Because of her visions Cordelia is made queen, and with the help of Lorne's family they are able to return to LA, with a new member, Winifred Burkle, or Fred for short. The last scene is of Willow telling Angel that Buffy had died (See Buffy Season 5). B+.
Season 3
Season 3 is the first season of Angel to have a classic "Big Bad". Sahjhan, a demon who has it out for Angel for an unexplained reason awakens a man named Holtz, whom Angel tortured and killed his family 200 years ago and has wanted revenge ever since. And if that wasn't enough Darla returns with a surprise, she is pregnant with Angel's child. Angel and Cordelia slowly begin to fall for each other, and team Angel must reintroduce Fred into society. This is one of my favorite seasons, and if it wasn't for the rather boring villain it would have been my favorite. Darla is sharing a soul with her unborn child making her realize all the bad she has done over the years, this ultimately results in her staking herself because her dead body is unable to give birth, so in order for her child to live, she had to die. Angel names his son Conner and all seems good for the group, until Wesley discovers a prophecy involving Conner, more specifically that Angel will kill him. Wesley keeps it to himself until he has a plan to save Conner. Meanwhile Wolfram and Hart have spiked the blood Angel buys with traces of Conner's blood to make him more aggressive. Sahjhan grows tired of waiting for Holtz to kill Angel and decides to go to Wolfram & Hart. Wesley then kidnaps Conner to take him to Holtz where he'll be safe from Angel, only to be double-crossed and his neck cut by Holtz's number two. Holtz then takes Conner through a portal into a hell dimension to protect him from Wolfram & Hart and Sahjhan. team Angel then goes on a hunt for Wesley, they found him in a hospital recovering. Here Angel tells him he will never forgive him for what he did, and Sahjhan altered the prophecy because it's Conner, not Angel that he has a problem with. Conner returns from the Hell dimension having aged many years and wanting to kill Angel for being a monster. Holtz also returns much older and finally realizes that Angel is not the same person he was when he was Angelus. Holtz tells Conner to return to Angel before having his number two kill him. She tricks Conner into thinking Angel did it so Conner will kill him. But instead Conner devises a far worse punishment by trapping Angel at the bottom of the ocean. Cordelia then ascends to become a higher being because of all the good she has done. A-.
Season4
Season 4 is much like Buffy, it is the weak point of the series. The season starts with whats left of team Angel searching for Angel and Cordelia. While Wesley, having being changed by the events of the previous season simply locates Holtz's followers and torturing them until they take him to Angel. Wesley rescues Angel and Angel acknowledges he understands why he took Conner, and finally forgives him. They return to Angel Investigations, and Angel is unable to forgive Conner, kicking him out of the team. The group continues their search for Cordelia for a while, but then she returns with no memory of who she is. Around this time a powerful demon called The Beast comes to LA and kills everyone at Wolfram and Hart. The Beast seems to know Angel, or rather Angelus from a long time ago. So Wesley decides to unleash Angelus in a controlled environment to learn what he knows. This sets up a Hanibal Lector element to the series. Meanwhile we find out Cordelia may not be Cordelia, but someone in her body. She is in complete control of The Beast and seduces Conner. Angelus eventually gets free and goes on a killing spree, he manages to kill the Beast before Team Angel, with the help of Willow and Faith manage to put his soul back. The being possessing Cordelia is then released putting her in a mystical coma. This is where the show falls apart. The new villain is Jasmine, a fallen higher being that has the power of mind control over anyone who sees her, that is until her blood gets into their system. This leaves team Angel to fight Jasmine and Conner, they win, but Conner then completely loses it and tries to kill himself and Cordelia. Angel stops him just in time. In the final episode wolfram and Hart offer the LA branch to Angel Investigations, every member is targeted by a specific branch, and they agree to the deal. Angel's terms however is that Conner's memories are altered so he gets a normal life, and that everyone forgets about him. If it wasn't for Jasmine, Conner, and how horribly Cordelia is handled this could have been the best season, but because of all the problems it ends up as the worst, B-.
Season 5
After Buffy ends, this season starts. Team Angel is now running Wolfram and Hart at various levels. The team sees it as doing what they have been, but with a budget. They have everything they need to hunt monsters, but there's a catch, many of the monsters they usually hunt are now clients. So in order to hunt evil, they have to let others go free. The season brings back Spike as the newest member of the team, and Harmony, one of Cordelia's old friends turned vampire is now Angel's secretary. The team feels they are being corrupted, but they can't do anything about it, and all their former allies, namely Buffy and the slayers no longer trust them. The team finds themselves once again being messed with by Lindsey, this time he has found a way to hide from the senior partners to do it. Gunn was given the knowledge of the law by the senior partners in order to run the legal department. They are also given a liaison named Eve, who is a child of the senior partners, and is revealed to be working with Lindsey. When the partners finally find out they lock Lindsey in a Hell dimension as punishment. But when Angel and his team decide to finally fight back, they realize they need Lindsey's help. They free him and Eve is replaced by another child of the Senior Partners named Marcus Hamilton. Towards the end of the show Fred becomes very ill because of an employee who worships a pure demon named Illyria. The illness eventually kills her and Illyria takes over her now vacant body. Illyria however is unhappy with the world and want's to return, but she is unable to. Illyria learns that her powers are too great for Fred's body and Wesley finds a way to take most of them away saving her life. The last few episodes Team Angel takes the fight to the Circle of Black Thorns, a council made up of all of Wolfram and Harts most evil clients. They divide the targets and strike them all at once. Lindsey is killed by Lorne after they succeed because he is evil. Wesley is also killed and Illyria avenges him. She also comforts him until he dies. The series ends with Team Angel about to start the final battle with the partners, then it just ends. This being my favorite season, it earns an A.
Overall
Season 1 B
Season 2 B+
Season 3 A-
Season 4 B-
Season 5 A
Average B+
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