"Parting Gifts" (Angel 1.10): Welcome back, Wesley!

This episode ostensibly centers around a demon who steals other demon bits and sells them at auction, but its real purpose is to introduce a new character:

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Well, RE-introduce an old character is more accurate.

And a new twist:

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Cordy gets Doyle's visions now.

It's a particularly snappy script, written as it is by David Fury. My intrepid co-watcher Jenn particularly likes Angel's rant about how "hack writers" use lazy stereotypes when creating TV vampires. I also enjoy Cordy's audition for Stain-b-gone and her awkward kiss with Wesley. And speaking of awkward kisses, show, there's a REASON Cordy and Angel both "feel nothing" after she tries to pass Doyle's visions on to him. Just saying. Done with my rant (for now), on to the Angel guide to being a rogue demon hunter!

DO look the part. 
Recently sacked from the Council, former Watcher Wes tries mightily to inhabit an edgy persona that reads more ersatz Angel than bad-ass.

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Jenn suspects those leather pants are pleated. I suspect she's right.

DO know your strengths.
You can take the Watcher out of the Council, but a Watcher he will remain. Wesley knocks out some mad research, Giles-style, to identify the Kungai demon whom he and Angel mistakenly believe to be behind a series of demon mutilations, and is then able to speak said demon's dialect and identify the real perp.

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Now you're looking the part, WWP!

DON'T be a lone wolf.
Angel, I'm looking at you. And not just because you're devastatingly handsome.

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But you totally are, especially when you're cooking. Call me.

For all Wesley's talk of going rogue and hunting alone, his dawdling at the front door, waiting to be invited to breakfast at Chez Angel, is adorable and in keeping with the Whedonverse's first rule: Don't talk about Fight Club. Oh, no, sorry--the rule is to keep your friends close. To paraphrase the goofy time lords Angel begs for Doyle's return at the beginning of the episode, when a cute Irish seer goes out the door, let a rogue demon hunter in the window. Angel's Scoobies are *almost* assembled.