Buffy and Angel Rewatch part 34

B5.13 Blood Ties
Such a great episode, it gets better and better every time I see it. The secret about Dawn and the Key had to come out some time and it made sense for the Scoobies and Dawn to find out about it in the same episode as it saved the reveal happening over and over. Michelle Tratchenberg does a good job portraying this lost school girl, especially in the Magic Box and the blood scene. Her teenage antics later on in the episode are a little annoying, but since its hard to imagine what it would be like to discover your whole life was a lie, her tantrums are acceptable. The rest of the cast do a nice job too and there are some good moments between Spike/Buffy, Giles/Xander (being proud the Key had a crush on him) and Buffy/Dawn/Joyce, which has to be some of my favourite Summers women moments. I particularly liked the birthday present scene, which is one of my favourite Buffy birthday moments. It was a very sweet and understated moment.
Again Glory and the Knights are a little annoying (I'm finding Glory to be increasingly one note) but the Glory/Ben reveal was good. (9/10)

A2.13 Happy Anniversary
I was dreading watching this episode, and whilst the main story is pretty tiresome, there are parts of this episode which have its merits. Firstly this is Lorne's first proper episode and Andy Hallet does a wonderful job pulling off this lively and engaging character. He was the perfect compliment to Angel's morose nature. The main storyline of the scientist stopping time was a cautionary tale about crazy scientists I thought, but wasn't that interesting to watch and just felt like filler material. The demon aspect to it, made it even more dull, with it being a run of the mill demon of the week disaster rather than about the scientist himself, which was a bit of a shame.
The other storyline with Wes, Gunn and Cordy was great to watch though, their failures followed by their successes were a real delight to see. I especially enjoyed their murder mystery-esque first case. (7/10)

B5.14 Crush
Despite its importance to the overall arc and mythology of the show I'm not a huge fan of this episode. The first half is ok, Buffy's revulsion at Spike's feelings for her were funny to begin with. I also liked Spike's scene with Dawn and then then With Joyce and Dawn and also the role-playing with Harmony which were all amusing.
The episode got less interesting when Drusilla entered however, though Juliet Landau did pull of an impressive performance. The catfight/ attempts to kill each other in Spike's cave were quite boring as it was hard to take any threats seriously. Despite Joss' usual penchant for killing characters, he seemed reluctant to kill either Harmony or Drusilla which made the scene a little lacklustre with everyone just running off at the end. One of my main problems with the episode I think is that Spike with a crush as we've had in recent episodes is funny to watch as he tries to deny it. However Spike in love like this this episode and future episodes is a little sappy and he definitely loses some of his edge which makes him an interesting character. (7/10)

A2.14 The Thin Dead Line
This is one of my favourite episodes of the season. Unlike most of the better Angel episodes, this one is very much standalone and has very little to do with the overall season arc. However, we do get the gang working together on not one but two demon problems. We also get as an added bonus, Angel actually working parallel to them to help them solve the case of the zombie police. The episode also ups the stakes by shooting Wesley. Main characters, whilst facing some danger, are never in any real danger due to their statuses as cast on the show. The only time they are is usually when the actor is fired/leaving. That's why seeing Wesley in real physical danger makes the episode a lot more dramatic.
The moral dilemma of the episode is very interesting and similar to the one the gang face at the end of season 4; keep the zombie police who are terrorizing the more criminal, but also vulnerable members of a community or get rid of them allowing crime to free reign. A better society for a small price? Angel said in this episode he can live with it (perhaps a sign of where is head is) and its an interesting concept that means there's not really any truly happy outcome to the situation. (8.5/10)