#47: Skip

Skip, the demon from another dimension that, among other things, serves as Cordelia's 'spirit guide' makes only four appearances on Angel, so in order to show up on this list, he needs to have made each one count. It's actually worth discussing each particular episode in detail. Though two of the four appearances are technically 'minor' (falling outside the top five), make no mistakes: Skip makes no cameos.

The Jeffrey Bell-written “That Vision Thing” is Skip's début appearance, as a demon in a holding dimension guarding Billy, an evil character who will later have an episode devoted to him. Skip plays his particular combination of powerful evil and aw-shucks hoi polloi very well here, but he's clearly a bit character. He becomes a 'character who matters' on the Cordelia-episode “Birthday”, where his very likeable role as Cordelia's 'spirit guide' makes him the #2 character (behind Cordelia, obviously) in this episode. It's a role he plays again on season finale “Tomorrow”, where he guides Cordelia on her ascent to the higher plane. The rather confused season four episode “Inside Out”, which bridges the 'beastmaster' episodes to the Jasmine episodes, has so much backstory to narrate (or reboot) that Skip's role here as the Greek chorus is enough to give the long-winded character a number-two finish. And a full-and-complete 'finish' too, as Wesley shoots him terminally in the head.

480 words per episode is an amazingly high average word count: one that not only is higher than the three characters we've already discussed (not much lower than their combined per-episode word count) but is actually a higher average than most of the two series' main characters.

• Overall ranking: #47
• Ranking on Angel: #23
• Total words spoken on Angel: 1918
• Season 3: 1119
• Season 4: 799
• Total speaking appearances on Angel: 4
• Ranking #2: 2
• Minor: 2

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