How did Angel’s character continue to develop in season two?
In year two Angel faced off against a demon law firm called Wolfram and Hart. They’re a law firm that represent some very dark interests and brokers some very dark deals in Los Angeles. He’s always going up against them and they frequently find themselves at odds.
At the same time two women, Darla and Drusilla, came out of his past and were figuratively and literally haunting him. He finally just lost patience and locked these girls in a room with a bunch of lawyers and let them have at them. That is, eat and kill these lawyers who’d been making his life miserable. So he took a very dark turn last year.
Then he went back and his people, Wesley, Cordelia and Gunn, a new member of the show, said "We are all that stand between you and darkest night," and he said "I know and you’re all fired".
He fired all these people right in the middle of the season, and creatively, it was a wonderful twist. I was just beginning to get sick of "Cordelia gets a vision, we have fun in the hotel, we go solve a crime." Suddenly he’s fired his people because he knew he had some very dark, dirty work to do, he knew he’d have to hunt down these girls and set them on fire and he knew that to do that he’d have to go to a dark, lonely place. He didn’t want to take his people there with him.
He did all of that stuff and then he came out of that darkness and realised, "Oh my gosh, the people I most need to make amends to are these very people who are in my life, who I work with". So he went back and he made up with the group and he tried his best to be among them.
Then Wesley said to him "Well, I don’t know if we’re ready to come back and work for you again" and Angel said "No, I want to work for you, I want to be a worker among workers". So now Wesley is running the shop and Angel is sort of like the Indian scout. He’s the guy who can go where other people can’t, he knows these monsters, he knows the dark places, and he’s in a surprisingly good place by the beginning of year three.
