With both Angel and Cordelia still missing, Fred, Gunn, and Connor try to keep Angel Investigations running while they search for their friends. Ironically, the man everyone believes betrayed Angel is the one who finally comes to Angel's rescue. Then Cordelia mysteriously reappears with no memory of her life or her friends. Confused, she chooses to take refuge with Connor -- setting in motion events that will chanse their lives forever.

From The Case

The Bottom Line

Annoying characters and a heavy-handed extended storyline made this season much less than it could have been. It's barely tolerable.

01 - Deep Down: While Fred and Gunn search for a vampire who feeds near the beach where Angel and Cordelia were supposed to meet, Wesley locates the woman who had a hand in Angel's disappearance.

02 - Ground State: Angel finds himself up against a woman with superhuman electrical powers as they both attempt to steal the Axis of Pythia, a mystical artifact that will reveal Cordelia's location.

03 - The House Always Wins: The gang heads to Las Vegas to see Lorne, only to discover he's being held prisoner by a casino owner who's making big bucks by forcing Lorne to read the auras of audience members.

04 - Slouching Toward Bethlehem: A frightened and confused Cordelia takes refuge with Connor after she mysteriously shows up in the hotel lobby with no memory of her life -- or of anyone at Angel Investigations.

05 - Supersymmetry: Fred confronts her old physics professor after learning he created the portal that sucked her into Pylea, and Cordelia confronts Angel about whether they were ever more than friends.

06 - Spin The Bottle: In an attempt to restore Cordelia's memory, Lorne obtains a memory spell that unfortunately backfires, making everyone think they're high school students on a vampire hunt.

07 - Apocalypse, Nowish: As Fred ponders her relationship with Gunn, the Beast that Cordelia saw in a vision returns -- setting in motion events that ultimately affect her relationship with Connor.

08 - Habeas Corpses: Desperate and confused, Connor goes to Wolfram and Hart and asks Lilah to help him figure out if there's a connection between himself and the Beast.

09 - Long Day's Journey: When the gang tries to stop the Beast from blotting out the sun, something the Beast says makes them realize that the only person with the knowledge to defeat him is Angelus.

10 - Awakening: Wesley locates a shaman who can "extract" Angel's soul and save it in a bottle, so that when Angelus is done dealing with the Beast, Angel's soul can be restored.

11 - Soulless: If the gang realizes they may have bit off more than they can chew after setting Angelus free, they encounter an even bigger problem when they're ready to restore Angel's soul.

12 - Calvary: Lilah's attempt to persuade Angelus to kill the Beast proves fatal, and Angelus reveals that the Beast is taking orders from a boss who is even more powerful and dangerous.

13 - Salvage: Tensions arise when Wesley gets Faith out of prison to help take down Angelus, and Connor, in awe of the Slayer's power and personality, finds himself drawn to her...instead of Cordelia.

14 - Release: As Faith and Wesley search Los Angeles for Angelus, Cordelia drawes her web of deception tighter around both Angelus and Connor.

15 - Orpheus: When the final confrontation between Faith and Angelus leaves them both near dead, Fred makes a desperate call to Sunnydale, and Cordelia finally reveals her pregnancy.

16 - Players: While Wesley, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne worry about the possible "demon-ness" of Cordelia's baby, Angel begins to suspect a link between teh baby and the Beast's Master.

17 - Inside Out: Angel traps Cordelia after realizing she is the Master, but Connor comes to her rescue and, despite pleas from his own mother, helps Cordelia prepare for the birth of her baby.

18 - Shiny Happy People: Cordelia gives birth to Jasmine, a beautiful woman who has the mysterious power to make everyone who looks upon her happy and eager to worship her -- everyone except Fred.

19 - The Magic Bullet: Now on the run from Jasmine's followers, Fred realizes her only hope of stopping Jasmine's influence is to return to Los Angeles and somehow trick Angel into seeing the truth.

20 - Sacrifice: Angel and the gang take refuge in a sewer tunnel, where they encounter a monster who claims to be from a dimension that once worshiped Jasmine.

21 - Peace Out: As Connor confronts Jasmine about Cordelia's whereabouts, Angel searches the other dimension for the Keeper of the Name -- the only creature who knows Jasmine's "true name".

22 - Home: Lilah returns from Hell to offer Angel Investigations full ownership of Wolfram and Hart, an offer Angel considers taking, but only under one condition...

Season Recap information taken from the Episode Guide on the DVD release.

As we all now know from my review of season three, I'm not a big fan of this season. Now, in watching for the second time to prepare for this review, I will admit that it's not as bad the second time through, however, in my opinion, it still ranks in at the worst season (however, that still beats the pants of other series).

Now, the first bit of the season is actually really good, because the Connor/Beast/Cordelia storyline is not the main focus of the story. However, around episode seven, the epidsodes begin to focus more on this very long story arc and less on the episodic nature of the previous seasons that made them such a joy to watch.

That is not to say that the episodes which follow are not without their highlights, because one of my favorite characters in the series makes a return, Angelus, and, to top it off, Faith comes back as well. I'd be willing to bet that part of the reason that the networks dropped Angel was that I'm not the only one who didn't like this story arc, and viewership for the show dropped. However, all was not lost, following in the footsteps of Save Farscape, the fans of Angel got the show another season with the WB, albeit at a reduced budget, and the show put out their best season.

Kinda makes you wonder, eh?

This season started out OK, and then quickly degraded like the previous one. It is better if you think of the 3rd and 4th seasons as one season, but as a stand-alone season, this was marginally watchable. I'm not sure if it was the acting or the writing, but I just couldn't bury my contempt for Angel, Cordelia, or Connor in this season, and it really hurt the season as a whole. The "every episode is continued" bit didn't help either.

Not all was lost though. Joss Whedon continued his destruction and dismantling of Wesley. I also realized something: I hated every character but Doyle, the second they were introduced. That said, I really grew to like Lorne, Fred, and Wesley, and Gunn became much more three-dimensional here as well.

You can't really miss this season, or the previous one, if only to make the following one more sensical. That said, the main cast fell hard here, and without the supporting cast, I likely wouldn't have watched the fifth season.