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Where's the Harm?
Mar. 9th, 2026 05:36 amFor a season of television that's primarily impressive for how grim it is, Angel season five has a surprising number of fun episodes, really the best comedic episodes of the series. A January 14th 2004 episode called "Harm's Way" uses the short version of the character Harmony's name for a pun, one of several episodes to do so. It must have been a surprise to everyone that Harm turned out to be one of the most consistently funny characters in the Buffyverse.
Played by Mercedes McNab, Harmony first appeared as a background character, one of Cordelia's snooty high school friends in the first seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. By season five of Angel, she gets to be the unapologetically shallow character that Cordelia used to be. She fits right in with the new premise of Angel's crew running an evil law firm when she takes the role of Angel's secretary. In "Harm's Way", we see how her job entails fetching Angel's mug of pig's blood and handling the catering for a meeting between two demon clans, resulting in the untimely appearance of a camel. The episode uses a dovetailing of premises to present the audience with something that challenges their complacency in accepting plot formulae. In the standard language of television, we would be compelled to sympathise with Harmony, and we do, in her attempts to please the implacable Angel, complaining at one point that she works extra hard because she doesn't have a soul. And that's the catch. She doesn't have a soul so compliance with the new policy that forbids killing people for pleasure or sustenance doesn't come naturally to her.
Just like with Spike in the middle seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, some of the best stuff in both series comes from when it plays around with its hazy mythology around what defines a character with a soul compared to one without one. This issue is also explored with Spike, now a part of Angel's cast, when he resumes an exploitative, casual sex relationship with Harmony even though he now has a soul.
What the heck is a soul anyway? I'm sure someone will figure it out one of these days.
Played by Mercedes McNab, Harmony first appeared as a background character, one of Cordelia's snooty high school friends in the first seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. By season five of Angel, she gets to be the unapologetically shallow character that Cordelia used to be. She fits right in with the new premise of Angel's crew running an evil law firm when she takes the role of Angel's secretary. In "Harm's Way", we see how her job entails fetching Angel's mug of pig's blood and handling the catering for a meeting between two demon clans, resulting in the untimely appearance of a camel. The episode uses a dovetailing of premises to present the audience with something that challenges their complacency in accepting plot formulae. In the standard language of television, we would be compelled to sympathise with Harmony, and we do, in her attempts to please the implacable Angel, complaining at one point that she works extra hard because she doesn't have a soul. And that's the catch. She doesn't have a soul so compliance with the new policy that forbids killing people for pleasure or sustenance doesn't come naturally to her.
Just like with Spike in the middle seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, some of the best stuff in both series comes from when it plays around with its hazy mythology around what defines a character with a soul compared to one without one. This issue is also explored with Spike, now a part of Angel's cast, when he resumes an exploitative, casual sex relationship with Harmony even though he now has a soul.
What the heck is a soul anyway? I'm sure someone will figure it out one of these days.
