Gunn's old crew is back. They've gone from protecting their neighborhood to hunting anything with a demon face. And Gunn has to decide which side he's on. 🪓

This week on Re-Watcher's Council, we're covering Angel Season 3, Episode 3: "That Old Gang of Mine" — the Gunn episode the show has been building toward since Season 1, and one of the most thematically rich standalone hours of the series.

Gunn finds himself stuck between old and new allegiances when he discovers that a string of brutal, indiscriminate demon murders is the work of members of his former gang. These aren't the same people Gunn grew up fighting alongside — they've crossed a line from defending their community into killing anything non-human on sight, guilty or innocent. Harmless demons, demons who never hurt anyone, demons taking refuge at Caritas — none of it matters to Gio and the crew anymore. And when they take Caritas hostage and put a stake in Gunn's hand and tell him to prove his loyalty by dusting Angel, the show forces him to make a choice he can't take back.

Angel's response to that moment is one of the best scenes of Season 3. He shifts into game face, looks Gunn dead in the eye, and says: "Take a look. This is what I am. Deal with it or don't. But make a damn choice." No manipulation, no appeal to friendship. Just the truth, laid bare.

We also get Fred having a genuine hero moment — quietly wresting control of a hostage situation from a violent killer with the aid of a crossbow — which is an early sign of exactly who she's going to become. And the Furies are back, which means the show gets to make the joke about Angel's debt to them, and Cordelia's reaction is everything.

Buffy survived death. She survived a resurrection. She survived clawing out of her own grave. She is not going to survive the plumbing bill.

The basement is flooded, the pipes need full replacement, Joyce's medical and funeral bills are still outstanding, and the Summers girls are flat broke. Buffy heads to the bank to apply for a loan — gets attacked by a mercenary demon mid-meeting — kills said demon — and still doesn't get the loan. Because that's just her life now.

Oh, and someone hired that demon. Three someones, actually. Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan have officially formed a supervillain club in someone's basement, and they would very much like to be taken seriously. They will not be taken seriously.

Meanwhile, Giles is back from England — and he is not happy. The conversation between him and Willow about the resurrection spell is one of the most quietly terrifying scenes the show has produced in a while, and it ends with Willow saying something that should make everyone in the room considerably more worried than they currently are.

Snark and Fares dig into the episode where Season 6 fully commits to its thesis: the Big Bad this year isn't a demon or a god or a mayor. It's bills. It's consequences. It's growing up whether you want to or not.

Wolfram & Hart found a new way to weaponize Cordelia's visions. Angel is not handling this calmly. Nobody is. 😤

This week on Re-Watcher's Council, we're covering Angel Season 3, Episode 2: "That Vision Thing" — the one where the show makes Cordelia's vision problem dramatically, viscerally worse, and uses it to force Angel into doing something deeply uncomfortable to save her.

Cordelia's vision gift turns dangerous when it begins physically affecting her — burns, gashes, real wounds manifesting on her body. It turns out Wolfram & Hart lawyer Lilah Morgan is behind it, using a psychic to corrupt the visions and send Cordelia toward death in order to coerce Angel into breaking a prisoner out of a mystical holding dimension. The prisoner in question is being held there by the Powers That Be themselves — which means Angel has to choose between Cordelia's life and doing something the universe clearly does not want him to do.

He does it anyway. Of course he does.

This episode is doing some really important character work underneath the plot mechanics. Angel's bond with Cordelia is front and center here — she was his first real connection when he came to LA, and watching him go dark and dangerous the moment she's threatened says everything about where their relationship stands. We also get the first appearance of Skip, the easygoing demon prison guard who will become a surprisingly significant figure later in the season. And on the Wolfram & Hart side, Gavin Park is flexing his legal muscles trying to use building code violations to oust Angel Investigations from the Hyperion — which is somehow both petty and genuinely threatening.

The visions storyline has been building since early Season 2, and this episode makes clear it's heading somewhere serious. Cordelia was never meant to carry them as a full human — and the show is starting to reckon with that in a big way.

Buffy is back. Her hands are shredded from clawing out of her grave. Her friends are overjoyed. And she is telling absolutely none of them the truth.

The Scoobies are already dealing with the fallout from the resurrection spell — something came back with Buffy, a formless demon stitched into existence by the magic that brought her home, and it's working its way through the gang one possession at a time. Anya with a knife. Dawn breathing fire. The creature using Xander's own mouth to eavesdrop on how to kill it. You know. Normal Tuesday in Sunnydale.

But the monster-of-the-week is almost beside the point. Because Spike has been counting the days — all 147 of them — and when he looks at Buffy he knows something is wrong that the others can't see. And in the alley behind the Magic Box, she finally tells someone the truth.

She wasn't in hell. She was happy.

Snark and Fares dig into one of Season 6's quietest gut-punches: the episode that reframes everything the Scoobies thought they did, the Spike scene that changes the entire shape of the season, and a Jane Espenson script that trusts its audience enough to drop the big reveal in episode three and spend the rest of the year living with the consequences.

Welcome to Angel Season 3. Angel went to a monastery in Sri Lanka to grieve. There were demon monks. He should've gone to Vegas. 🧛‍♂️

This week on Re-Watcher's Council, we're kicking off Angel Season 3 with the premiere episode, Heartthrob — the one where Angel comes home from three months of grief-processing abroad, the team tries to figure out how he's doing without actually asking, and a vampire from Angelus's past shows up with a very personal vendetta and absolutely nothing left to lose.

We also get Fred slowly, tentatively starting to emerge from her room and find her footing at the Hyperion — the "listen for the click" scene with Angel is quietly one of the best character moments of the premiere. Cordelia is giving Angel necklaces and immediately making it weird. Wesley and Gunn are settling into their roles as a genuine team. And Amy Acker joins the main cast and opening credits as of this episode, which is very well deserved.

Oh, and the episode closes with the reveal that Darla — last seen leaving LA — is somehow, impossibly, pregnant. A vampire. Pregnant. Season 3 is going to be something else entirely.

Season 3 is here and we are ready.

Five months after Buffy's sacrifice, the Scoobies are holding it together — barely. The Buffybot is patrolling, Willow is in charge, Giles is heading back to England, and nobody's talking about the thing they're all actually doing: trying to bring Buffy back from the dead.

Snark and Fares dig into the two-part Season 6 premiere — the resurrection ritual, the Hellion demon bikers, Buffy clawing out of her own grave, and the gut-punch reveal that her friends pulled her out of heaven.

Oh, and Anya found a mystical artifact on eBay. Because of course she did.

Welcome to the darkest season. Buckle up.

This week on Re-Watcher's Council, we're covering the Angel Season 2 finale: "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb" — the conclusion of the Pylea arc and one of the most gut-punch endings in the entire Buffyverse. Written and directed by David Greenwalt, this episode wraps up everything the Pylea arc set in motion: the rebellion, the Groosalugg, Lorne's family, Angel's demon form, Cordelia's reign as princess, and the question of whether this ragtag group of people can actually function as a team when everything is on the line.

This is also a big Buffyverse crossover moment — airing the same week as the Buffy Season 5 finale "The Gift" — and if you're watching in airing order like we do on Re-Watcher's Council, the weight of that ending hits completely differently.

That's a wrap on Angel Season 2 — one of the best seasons of television the Buffyverse ever produced. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Re-Watcher's Council, and tell us in the comments — where does Angel Season 2 rank for you overall?

This is it. The 100th episode. The Season 5 finale. The one that changes everything.

This week on Re-Watcher's Council we're covering "The Gift" — and we are not going to pretend we held it together. Glory has Dawn. The portal is opening. And the only solution anyone can think of is the one Buffy has already refused to accept. So instead she does something else entirely. Something that's been quietly signposted all season long, from the First Slayer's message to the vision quest to every single episode of grief and loss and impossible love that came before it.

We're breaking down the full final battle — the Buffybot fake-out, Xander proposing to Anya in the middle of the apocalypse (very him), Willow going full power to get Tara back, Giles making the hardest call of his life, Spike's heartbreaking moment with Buffy on the porch, Dawn's choice on the tower, and the ending that has wrecked Buffy fans for over two decades. We also dig into what this episode means as a potential series finale — because it absolutely works as one — and what it sets up going into Season 6.

Season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the greatest seasons of television ever made. This finale is why.