Gunn and Tam, Lindsey and Eliot, Wolfram & Hart and Rossum Corp.

I've been watching Angel and Leverage. Kind of fun seeing Christian Kane as the morally ambiguous bad guy lawyer Lindsey McDonald on Angel and then as the morally ambiguous good guy Eliot Spencer on Leverage.

Just finished watching the episodes War Zone which introduces Charles and Alonna Gunn, and Blind Date which showed Lindsey's crisis of conscience.

As watched Charles and Alonna, I thought about Simon and River Tam from Firefly. The Gunns are orphans, Charles always watching out for Alonna. When Alonna is turned into a vampire, she's happy to have strength and clarity of purpose without the guilt. She offers to turn Charles too, saying that he's always taken care of her, now she can take care of him. Alas, he ends up killing her.

In Firefly, Simon's sole purpose on the show is to take care of River, after she's been messed up by the Allliance. In Serenity the movie, in the climatic battle against the Reavers, River says to Simon, "You've been taking care of me my whole life. Now it's my turn." Then she kills the Reavers and saves the crew.

I'm beginning to like Angel the series more. If I find a good deal, I may buy the series, but as it is, I think I'll keep borrowing from the library. So far, I'm still really liking Cordelia and Wesley's really growing as a character and not a buffoon anymore.

I like the whole Wolfram & Hart angle, which uses legal and magical power. Lindsey had a crisis of conscience regarding the assassination of the three blind seer children, and tries to get out of W&H. But at the end of that episode, goes back and is made a junior partner. Are we to think that he may try to change W&H from the inside? Makes me think of this fanfic Sleeper that I thought was pretty good.

Is Wolfram & Hart the precursor to the Dollhouse/Rossum corp?

And Faith is back! She's now in jail, on her own road to redemption.

Lastly, I like Whedon's play on the theme of heart. In War Zone, when the vamps say they're going to take out the heart of Gunn's crew, I thought they meant Charles, who's in charge (sorry for the bad pun!), but they meant to take Alonna, who is Charles' heart.

And to begin and end with Leverage, my favorite character is Hardison. Not a big surprise since he's the sweet, smart, funny, sassy one who doesn't lead with his fist but rather his brains/skills. Rather like Wash :)