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Maybe I need to watch it again... I guess I'm just being spoiled by the highly intense, witty, and forever-edging Season Four of Angel, and my expectation for Season Five was kind of held too high by the buzz I heard... Nevertheless I totally agree this is a great season and I enjoyed watching it most of the time. As a final season, a lot of early relationships are reviewed and loose ends tighten up. My favorite episode, same with a lot of other viewers, is "You're welcome". I also like "origin" a lot for it's emotional connection, unpredictable(almost thrilling) twist, and the profound(almost intense) subtleness. The last 15 minute of this episode accomplished what it was unable(or unintended?) to do with the entire 4th season: the character Connor finally become interesting instead of annoying. I begin to curious about what he is thinking about or how does he feel. And the most amazing of all: it's not like that I'm looking at a totally different character, I can clearly feel the connection between this new Connor and the old one at the very same moment. Wired, but very nice. Episodes have nothing to do with the old connections are very charming as well. I particularly enjoy "Harm's Way", and "Smile Time" bought me totally the moment puppet Angel made his vamp face! I also have no problem at all with the ending(my only question there is what happened to Lorne? Did he just left?), and am very much comfortable with the statement "what matters most is the path not the ending"(or rather, "there's no ending at all"?) itself. But the storyline seems to be a little bit loose, not strong or challenging enough to carry and/or support such an important statement. I always believe the most powerful words are those unspoken(maybe that's why I love the show the first place), Angel seems to be a little too verbose and too readily predictable to me in this season. This impression is further enhanced by the fact that there isn't a very clear, strong and fearful villain in this session. Things are a little rushy in the end, not as delicious as those slowly cooked plots in Season Four. The action scenes are great though and I like the way how Angel and Spike teamed up --- Never tired of Spiky playing with his mouth.