10 Things Angel Did Better Than Any Other Show

4. Villains

The villains on 'Angel' are every bit as interesting and fun to watch as the heroes. In some cases, even more so. The main one that recurs throughout the series, of course, is the law firm of Wolfram And Hart, which is represented by a cadre of lawyers, the most notable of which are Lindsey McDonald and Lilah Morgan. However, all of the villains that have appeared on the show; from run-of-the-mill ghosts, vampires and demons, the Nazi-like Scourge, a blind assassin, old faves like Darla and Drusilla, Holland Manners, pretty much all of Pylea (except for Lorne), the women-hating Billy, humans like Holtz, Justine and Gio (from Gunn's old gang), The Beast, Jasmine, The Puppets from "Smile Time", The Circle Of The Black Thorn and even Angel himself (when he's reverted back to Angelus), are all perfect foils for our heroes. Especially when it came to witty banter. Not only do they run the gamut on the escalating scale of evil, but they're also perfect templates for the usual stock villains that appear in good versus evil stories, albeit with various twists. Demons like Sahjhan and Skip looked menacing and could probably do some damage in a fight, but they instead chose to work behind the scenes to manipulate our heroes into making bad decisions. Meanwhile, people like Holtz and Justine, despite being the physically weakest of Angel's Rogue's Gallery, actually came closest to killing the main protagonists. There was always more to the villains in 'Angel' than you could surmise at first glance. Casting Gina Torres as a Goddess, who turned out to have a maggot-ridden face, or having puppets turn out to be life force-draining demons were both purposely done to subvert expectations. Like I said before, 'Angel' was always able to surprise you in ways that no other show could.