What was that show again? Oh yeah... Angel

[Darkchylde]

When I first saw You're Welcome, I was about to start crying during Angel and Cordelias final scene but then the tv cut out and I missed most of it. Then I went and downloaded it and cried like a baby.

[tjaman]

S5x13 - Why We Fight

The lackluster followup to a blockbuster episode.

We've only witnessed Angel/us eat a handful of people, and sire even fewer.

Offhand I can only think of a few. He sired Dru, of course, and there's the vampire he sired from "Somnambulist" (I can't remember his name offhand -- Penn, was it?). And Holtz' daughter, as well as eating Holtz' family. And I think he sired at least one of the vamps in "Heartthrob." There's the woman we saw him eating after he lost his soul in BtVS and he ate Jenny Calendar. He ate Buffy, of course, and Wesley, and a little bit of Connor, and in "Orpheus," there was the guy in the ice cream parlor who was already on his way out, as well as finishing off Lilah. And he ate Hamilton, which was just fun. I'm sure he ate a few others as well.

Lawson ...

I can't figure out if this was a storyline alluded to sometime in the series, or if Joss was exploring a question he ultimately did not answer. To wit: What happens when an ensouled vampire sires someone?

We don't know, beyond the absolutely stupid ace he slips up his sleeve. If Angel had staked him in his office, he could've saved CYNTHIA! without having to listen to Lawson blather all night long. And tying up Fred and Gunn and Wesley ... Lawson said he hasn't checked in for awhile, so he shouldn't honestly have a lot of clarity as to who these people are to Angel.

Now, I'm not going to say there weren't some absolutely delightful aspects to this storyline: Fred wondering what they did before they got these jobs and Wes seeming to recall lots and lots of Jenga. And then the exchange between Angel and Spike:

Angel: I'm not getting trapped at the bottom of the sea!
Spike: And I'm not getting experimented on by his government!

And naturally, they were both wrong.

Also, Spike was nabbed at a "free virgin blood party" in Madrid, which is sort of fun ...

* needs to remember to tell Z'Kelso to take that sign down, and to not light the grail-shaped beacon while he's at it *

Fun bits of continuity. Also fun: Rasputin's lover and Camden Toy as the Prince of Lies, which was just an enormous amount of fun back on the 'Tome (I believe was can credit Py for his "Raspy-Waspy" comment, and the suggestion that the Prince of Lies claimed his title when women would ask him if their clothing made them look fat and he'd say "Oh, nooooo.")

There is a little continuity problem, of course, unless Prof. Walsh is a vampire and was around in the '40s to start the Initiative -- so as, apparently, to close the "vampire gap" with the Germans -- since I believe Walsh was given credit in BtVS for starting the program. I don't believe she was ever anything more exotic than a reanimated corpse, however, so no luck there. Also, I believe we have now all gotten past the suggestion that Angel has never eaten a person since he was ensouled.

And I think they did what they could, but Angel in 1943 looks way more like the Angel of 2004 than the Angel of 1997. Darn that otter's blood, huh?

Lawson said he checks in every decade or so -- he tracks down his sire and up until now, hasn't seen him doing much of anything. Sadly, he missed the whole Sunnydale chapter of his life, and not one but two turns as Angelus.

The question, once raised, needs a satisfactory answer. If Joss felt compelled to tie this up as a loose end, I'm afraid I was never aware of it.

Lawson describes his life since he was sired: He and Spike swam 20 miles in less than eight hours, which isn't impossible but is impressive. He and Spike could've hung out for awhile, I suppose, but there's no indication or suggestion that they did so. Lawson "murdered women and children, tortured fathers and husbands just to hear them scream," and got no pleasure from it -- 60 years of blood drying in his throat like ash.

For saving the crew, for fixing the problem, Angel gives Lawon a pass. But he doesn't know for sure what he's unleashing on the world. And -- after crashing through the wall in Angel's office -- again (the maintenance crew must just be bored replacing that wall by now -- people have crashed through it a lot by now -- it's like the Mummy Hand in "Life Serial") -- and getting staked, we're not sure ourselves. But despite his parting words "If I see you again, I'll have to kill you," is there no purpose to be found for Lawson in S5?

That's what he's searching for. As a human, Lawson allowed how there was a difference between following orders and having a purpose. Joss doesn't include something like that in an offhand way. Angel, for the past year or so (the time sequence is difficult to gauge, in that most of S4, more or less, was taking place in a much more time-compressed way than most seasons), hasn't had any orders to follow. He's been flying a little blinder than usual, and while he just got some bearings in "You're Welcome," he isn't at the Powers' beck and call, exactly. Angel has had to explore why he's doing what he's doing, his purpose, his mission, and sadly that entire discussion seemed absent from this episode.

Course, he's not getting a lot of input from the other side, either. Along with Lindsey, boiling in his own filth somewhere out there in the 'burbs, Eve has gone missing. And the White Room is empty, so the Senior Partners aren't bending his ear at all.

But by spending an entire episode dedicated to the question of why everyone's doing what they're doing -- and not in any satisfactory or definitive way answering it -- or even closing discussion on what's up with Lawson (did he get some of Angel's soul or didn't he? Is he merely an unfulfilled creature of the night or has he been infused with something along the order of conscience?) -- this is what I would dismiss as a lost opportunity, except for a few things.

Gunn's stumble during the meeting, establishing a new liaison -- and there's some suggestion, with the upcoming appearance of Hamilton, that the Senior Partners are adamant of maintaining contact, whether Gunn has loss access through the White Room or not.

Why is Gunn doing the things that he's doing? He seems to have more orders than mission right now, and losing that access seems to cripple him. His upgrade is failing, and he's becoming a little lost. It's a little like Cordelia, whose access kept her a vital member of the mission. Gunn feels that his access is what's keeping him vital. But whether CYNTHIA! has a stranglehold on the law or not is not mission critical. It's strategy that they've found useful, but they entered their current situation without even bothering about whether they knew anything about the law or not. Fred wanted a state of the art lab, Wesley was seduced by the books, Lorne wanted power lunches with pretty people and Angel wanted to save Connor. Gunn ... was initially drawn in by an afternoon in the White Room.

Of the five, Gunn is the one being cheated -- he's losing what initially motivated him -- but Gunn could be an asset without the upgrade. Even more so. Without all the legal strategy and Gilbert and Sullivan and demon languages buzzing around in his brain, maybe he would have a better grasp on right and wrong, rather than beneficial and expedient.

Whereas Cordy's continued access was mission critical, I'm not certain Gunn's is, and that subtle distinction is about to turn around and bite someone in the arse.

One of the biggest reasons why this episode seems as sterile and disappointing as it ultimately does is that, while Lindsey's abduction and Eve's disappearance is touched upon, not a single word is breathed about Cordelia. I was leaping for the Special Features on this disc to see if there were any outtakes -- and to be honest, it's not like this episode itself is packed to the brim -- to see if anything was pulled out about CYNTHIA!s reaction to Cordelia's death and their pain and loss, but it was just the featurette on the 100th episode itself, and while congratulations are indeed in order, that's almost insulting. Someone should've said something. Even if it was a week ago, unless Vail did a second sweep, the death and loss of Cordy is something that should've been hitting someone really hard -- as hard as it was hitting all of us -- and that omission is a punch in the gut.

I'll close by saying that following orders and pursuing the mission is a thread that was touched on just a little too subtly in this episode. But it's about to loom really, really large for Angel.

"Why We Fight" is about to come into sharp focus, whether we know it or not. And the path it takes, the story it lays out, is a countdown to one of the strongest finale episodes I've ever seen of anything.

[Darkchylde]

Tj, Angelus never ate Jenny Calendar, he snapped her neck and there was that girl in phases that he sired. She went to Sunnydale High.

tjaman said:

Lawson describes his life since he was sired: He and Spike swam 20 miles in less than eight hours, which isn't impossible but is impressive. He and Spike could've hung out for awhile, I suppose, but there's no indication or suggestion that they did so. Lawson "murdered women and children, tortured fathers and husbands just to hear them scream," and got no pleasure from it -- 60 years of blood drying in his throat like ash.

Personally, I think Lawson is a sociopath. I'll explain later when I've rewatched the episode so its a bit fresher in the head and make some notes.

[tjaman]

Good call on Jenny -- I knew he'd killed her, tho.

There were also the flashbacks after Angel got back from hell.

I knew the list wasn't in any way comprehensive.

[tjaman]

S5x14 - Smile Time

The one with the wee little puppet man, or "So you think you're having a bad day?"

One thing that is so satisfying about this series is the fact that Joss paints long, long story arcs. There are at least two references to Angel being nothing more than a puppet over the course of the series. One was a mention of Angel as being a puppet for the Powers That Be back sometime I think in S4, and another, more recently, of Spike calling Angel nothing more than a corporate puppet.

Joss being the "show don't tell" genius that he is, takes this one step further with "Smile Time."

The episode explores relationships between Angel and Nina, and between Wesley and Fred. It also focuses a laser on two characters whose powers seem to be deserting them.

Or three, if you count Spike getting the stuffing beat out of him in an elevator by a wee little puppet man.

Gunn's upgrade is failing him. And this is one of those things I think we can securely blame on W&H, not the Senior Partners.

The Senior Partners, whatever else we know about them, are interested in keeping W&H profitable. They know there's a trust issue in giving over the L.A. branch to CYNTHIA!, so they put one of the Team in charge of legal affairs.

How has that worked out? Well, Corbin Fries' check cleared, and W&H almost certainly had an executorial windfall with Hainsley's death. Fred's gone a little over budget in the past, but all in all, Gunn knowing his stuff has certainly kept the meatgrinder primed, stocked and more than operational. He's playing golf with the same D.A.s that employed shamans to tamper-proof the juries, and as recently as "Harm's Way," W&H still owned the L.A. police department (a lovely political jab post-Rodney King). There was a bit of a setback with that guy killing five nuns and jumping bail, but everyone still seemed to be doing alright.

If things were going so badly, they'd have deployed that monster in the basement well before now.

So Gunn's been doing the task they set him on. But that sarcophagus was almost certainly going to be hung up in exactly the way it was. While I imagine anyone in legal affairs could have signed for it, it was just too delicious an irony to force Gunn to do it, so I'm guessing that Knox got together with Sparrow as soon as that hot chick finished her White Room session with Gunn, and told him to install the trial version.

With no liaison, with no White Room, the Senior Partners are completely cut off. It's a different world from where everyone seemed to be terrified of them in S2. Eve was openly unreliable, corporate employees are making their own deals, and Gunn -- no less than, I'm guessing, the Senior Partners (who seem no more in favor of Illyria running loose than anyone else, given the complaints they relay through Hamilton a few eps from now) -- is being terribly played.

Let's explore an alternate path. Gunn's engrams are fading, but he's always been so much more strategy than finesse, and has always had a clear vision of right and wrong. He retains his position as legal adviser, directs the operation of his department -- I've said before I'm certain he's not the only lawyer in the firm -- and Fred stays alive -- or, if she doesn't, it's no one's fault except Knox and some red-shirt from legal.

This, however, doesn't make for as gripping a story. Gunn's role in Fred's demise is much more tragic. But he's not evil and he hasn't gone dark. He's just scared. He says himself that these powers they've given him are his way of contributing to the mission -- missing the fact that no one asked him to lawyer up, and no one has been relying on his being a legal eagle.

Except in this case.

Gunn and Lorne go to visit Framkin. During that exchange, Framkin, appropo of nothing, bursts into song. Gunn's clearly at a loss, but the member of the away team who shouldn't be is standing one flashy suit to the right.

What the hell happened to Lorne? One episode from now he can read Fred with his back turned. When Framkin starts in on "Courage and pluck / Courage and pluck" Lorne should be right there saying "It's not him. He's being controlled, possibly by demon puppets. Someone should check the Library of Demonic Congress, see if there's been a deal of some sort. But at least he finally got the mustard out."

Lorne could've been the day-saver if Gunn was never given the upgrade.

Either way, they did, ultimately, focus on the right target.

When Polo is drawing out the children's life force, he sounds incredibly naughty -- especially with his hat shoved down giving him a frowny face -- nice transformation. "Come over here and touch it. Oh! Oooh yeah." Etc. Eww.

As for the rest of it, tho, I get the feeling Joss would write one hell of a children's show. Groofus: "I've been working on a song about the difference between analogy and metaphor." Personally, I'd love to hear that song. "There's a little bit of math in everything" was a great song, as was the theme for "Smile Time" itself.

In our secret backyard / We can make your day more fun and less hard / No more frowning, let’s get learning ABC’s and 1234 / Everything from words to weather / We’ll discover them together / Time to strap your thinking cap on / Thinking things are gonna happen / Every day’s a new beginning / All your friends are here and grinning / ’Cause it’s smile time / That’s right! You’re on smile time!

That disturbingly bursty manic sun and all the wonderful puppetry. And those poor kids doing their best Jack Nicholson (the "Joker" reference from Knox was great). And that office. If all the puppets are demons, one wonders what that poor little puppet hanging from the doorknob did to secure his fate. Polo, Flora, Groofus and Ratio are just wonderful characters, and I'm sure that was Mr. Fish-n-Chips on the table in front of Framkin -- who got started in his garage with two old couches and a glue gun -- wild.

Most enjoyable, of course, was puppet Angel.

Now, as love interests go, puppet Angel is certainly charismatic. It's a basic illustration of how he feels at W&H, however -- at a loss, certainly unheroic. At the beginning of the episode, he tells Wesley he feels emotionally useless -- the guy in the corner with the blood habit and the 200 years of psychic baggage.

See? Even Angel has no idea how old he is. He seems already to have forgotten that 100 years spent in hell, in which I'm sure he picked up a little more baggage because he throws some of it at his son in "Deep Down."

He and Nina are extremely cute together -- even when his nose does come off. Which reminds me.

Fred got puppet fired. ;D

And Puppet Angel got mauled. That nude scene with Nina the following morning was incredible, where she plucked puppet fluff from her lips with the dawning horror that she may have eaten him. Shadows from the following morning where she asks Puppet Angel what puppets eat. Naughty!

Beyond everything else in this episode, Puppet Angel stands out as being one of the most adorable predicaments he gets himself into. He's wonderful. It's incredible to me that someone in the building didn't choose that moment to pull some sort of coup.

Oh wait. Someone in the building does.

And surprisingly enough, it's not Spike.

Wesley himself is the walking illustration of one of my favorite lines from "Dangerous Liaisons":

Mme de Mertieul: "Like most intellectuals, he is intensely stupid."

Fred basically tells him three or four times, out loud, that she's interested in him -- something we saw bubbling up in "You're Welcome," and a huge shift from where she was in "Life of the Party."

It's incredible to me that solving Angel's little problem doesn't become a higher priority than solving the epidemic, but since both are related, no harm done. And nice final fight on this ep, including Fred reading the Latin for the nest egg while Wes fights with Ratio. Killer.

Ultimately, this is a nice, light, fun storyline heading into the Coming Darkness. The incredibly cute puppet Angel bops around for the episode being adorable (and saving Boreanaz's bum knee a little bit more), and CYNTHIA! mounting up led by Puppet Angel with the big bummy sword is a fantastic image -- nearly as good as Puppet Angel vamping out in his fight with Polo.

But somehow, this is a weird place for Angel and Nina to deepen their relationship. It's a weird place for Gunn to be so secretive about what's going on with him, opening a window on the absolute, ongoing need for people to communicate with each other better. It's a weird place for Knox to be trying to renew a romantic relationship with his intended victim. It's a weird place for Wes to just be picking up on Fred's signals -- although I kind of understand (well, not really -- Wes had given up his pursuit of Fred since she seemed more interested in Knox because his heart couldn't take the pain, although he himself never pursued other interests, which is probably why the typing pool thinks he's muffins) and it's a really weird place for Lorne to not be able to read Framkin and figure out what's going on.

So it's kind of a weird place for "Angel."

But if any episode was a good place for that weird place to be ... this one was it.

Well done, guys. Fun, fun eppy.

[tjaman]

And, for purposes of discussion, I repost ...

S5x15 - A HOLE IN THE WORLD

Or "Cavemen win."

.

Every time I watch this one I see something new, which is strange given how extraordinarily straightforward it is.

First off, the WB are dorks.

Watching this one episode, with the funny little opening in Fred's room at her parents' home, it wasn't as clear, the way it was aired, that this episode is in fact the first of a two-part farewell to Fred -- or, more to the point, a farewell to Fred and the introduction to Illyria.

It cheats Cordelia a little bit, but only if you ignore the fact that Cordy got to spend her last days doing stuff, living her final moments to their fullest. "You're Welcome" is a perfectly wonderful showcase for Cordelia because we don't learn until the end of the show that she is, in fact, dead.

In "A Hole in the World," Fred is being mourned very nearly through the second half of the episode. There are very few final last minute grasping at straws of hope available. If anything, with this death, Joss played completely fair, which he doesn't always.

But between "A Hole in the World" and "Shells" -- the second half of this two-parter -- there were six weeks of hiatus. There were changes made to the opening credits to include some Illyria footage. There was very little indication that this was a two-parter right up until Fred's last words reiterated in a spark appearing between Illyria's fingers, Wesley packed Feigenbaum, the stuffed Master of Chaos bunny, away in a box and the final sequence of Fred climbing into a pickup truck and heading west to find her angel, above the heart-breaking acoustic strains of Kim Ritchie's "A Place Called Home," legitimately bookending the two-part farewell.

In a just universe, they'd have aired these episodes back to back.

I'll start, as this episode did, with a mistake -- or, more to the point, another bit of evidence were it needed that S4 is a terrible season, or that "Supersymmetry" was a terrible episode. Apart from having Angel manifest a hallucination in the lobby of the Hyperion, re-creating the lecture hall where Fred was attacked -- something he's never been able to do before or since (and it wasn't just his own imagination, since Gunn could experience it as well) Fred, in an offhand comment before the lecture, said she'd been a history major before Prof. Seidel inspired her to get involved in quantum physics.

Well, to begin with, the dsciplines are completely different, and require completely different skill sets. You move to quantum physics from somewhere in the math or science fields, not from more verbal disciplines.

This, I think, we can put down to the sort of mistake we encountered in "School Hard," where Spike shouted out that Angelus was his sire, discovering in flashbacks that in fact Drusilla was Spoik's sire and Angelus was hers.

It suggests that Fred's backstory was too sketchy for too long -- especially for as wonderful as these writers tend to be. And again, the flashback redirects just seem more persuasive, somehow. When Fred tells her mom she's going to go to UCLA and learn everything they can teach her about quantum physics and come up with stuff they haven't thought of, not only is it just an exuberant backstory launch for this character, it's just more believeable -- not simply because it's just more credible than everything we saw in "Supersymmetry," but because we see it. Fred has a stuffed bunny named for the person who came up with Chaos Theory, and she's been interested in high-energy physics since she was in high school.

Quod erat demonstratum.

Fred, who from "Spin the Bottle" got high in high school and pursued conspiracy theories, Fred the incredibly bright college student who was banished by her professor to one of the theoretical dimensions ...

Let's explore that. Fred blames Seidel for her incarceration that turned her into this incredibly sympathetic crazy person in Pylea. But whether she picked up that book herself in a relatively unused wing of the campus library and read the incantation on the cover aloud, or whether her professor sent her there ...

Fred reads the incantation.

And Fred touches the gemstone on the sarcophagus.

In the second part of this two-parter, Wes curses Fred's curiosity. As fatal flaws go, I was assuming it was going to be her impossible over-reaction to things, like Gunn dying for a few seconds, or their trek through the sewers in "Shiny Happy People" where she once again brings up his murder of Prof. Seidel and refers to herself as a "shell."

Just like Angel being refered to as a puppet, Joss starts some of his storylines far in the past.

Continuing our trace of Fred's path, she is forced to live for five years as a slave to green demons, on the run as Cave Fred after she disables the collar that forces obedience on pain of death, until one day she is rescued -- Hero Angel refuses to behead her, and instead facilitates her escape, and then she saves Wes and Gunn by distracting a seriously vamped-out Angel with a bag of blood. She takes him back to her cave, which is increbily brave, but whereas in five years she has learned to negotiate the monsters in Pylea, she is ill-equipped to deal with life in L.A., reverting to Cave Fred -- cavemen win -- back at the hotel.

She is reunited with her parents and begins to re-acclimate, forging a relationship with Gunn, and becoming an object of Wesley's obsession -- which he becomes horrified by in "Billy." She herself begins to pursue her old obsession, making a little progress on string theory that gets published and brings her face-to-face with the man who, however you want to interpret this, sent her to Pylea. And she plans to return the favor, although Gunn actually carries out her murderous intent, driving a wedge between them. She fights battles, saves her friends from Jasmine's thrall, and then takes over the practical science division at W&H, forms a little infatuation with her cute lab assistant Knox, but ultimately turns her attentions to Wesley.

One can argue she's gone out at the top of her game. The betrayal involved in Knox bringing that sarcophagus to her lab for her if they'd been going out would've been one thing, but somehow it's all the more evil because she and Wes were building a relationship and finding happiness with each other.

We don't have any evidence that they actually consummated this relationship, but from their interaction during the raging bug battle at the beginning of this episode -- and all of Wesley's tenderness toward the end of it -- it's a damn good bet.

If there were any doubt at all about Gunn's complicity in that sarcophagus appearing, the anonymous delivery crew's words "It's already signed for" puts a button on it. One wonders who Knox is acting for -- the sarcophagus he's been waiting for, which he and Sparrow apparently were in cahoots about, appearing in his lab is a moment when he'd be expected to knit his hands together and emit a Mr.Burns-esque "Eeeex-cellent."

But he's coy for the cameras and for most of the episode he seems to be trying to do everything he can to bring Fred back.

The first reveal is so incredibly cool, however. After everything looks like it's going to be just fine after she's checked out for mummy dust, Fred and Wes are making plans for the evening on the landing and Lorne passes by. She sings a few notes of "You Are My Sunshine" (and what an adorable little voice she has) and Lorne knows exactly what he's heard. He whips around with this great expression of panic on his face in time to catch her as she coughs blood and falls down those dangerous-looking stairs.

Immediately the arguments of the day -- including the cavemen v. astronauts argument Angel and Spike are having and she's continuing with Wesley -- arguing that the astronauts must be armed in some way -- cease. Everyone is united in their efforts (it seems) to save Fred. This episode really highlighted the fact that there are very few womenfolk in Fred's universe. The medlab they take her to is packed full of Y chromosomes with little Fred alone in her bed -- "My boys. I haven't had this many strapping men at my bedside since the varsity lacrosse league." Great joke, luv.

They do everything they can -- I loved Wes shooting that guy through the leg when he found out he wasn't working Miss Burkle's case -- and Angel and Spike and Lorne tracking Gunn's lead to Eve's location, and her pointing them to The Deeper Well -- which was some good storytelling, btw. I loved Lorne's lines in Lindsey's old apartment -- "Fred once told me after a sinful amount of Thai food that she thought most people would prefer to be green -- your shade, if possible." And "If I was facing your future, I'd make like Carmen Miranda and die." Great work from Andy Hallett in this ep.

Fred gets up and tries to save herself -- nice move by Joss -- a strong woman refusing to sit idly by while her body and her world collapses makes her all the more solid a character and actually all the more sympathetic.

Gunn confronting Knox about saving her, when he and Gunn together (without Gunn's implicit knowledge) are the reason she's dying. Nice. Also, Gunn confronting himself in the White Room was interesting without being too informative. There was a lot of story to tell in this episode, and there wasn't a lot of throwaway stuff, but that scene, while cool, didn't add too much.

Knox's slip of the tongue is as clumsy as Desdemona's handkerchief, but he'd covered his tracks too well -- he had to give himself away because no one else would've been able to figure it out. Hell, even when there are no witnesses he doesn't get overexcited about the sarcophagus showing up and his god manifesting once again.

The final scenes where Wes is reading to Fred from "The Little Princess" -- using one of those wonderful templates to call it up -- is some of the most emotionally compelling television out there. Along with Fred repeating her first lines to Angel -- "Handsome man saves me from the monsters" -- her conversation with Wes is even better. After instructing him to tell her parents it was quick, that she wasn't scared, she says something like:

Fred: I walk with heroes."
Wes: "You are one."
Fred: "And this is my power. To not let them get me."

And if it were up to Spike and Angel (nice trick with the wire from those two) they wouldn't. But Angel's acting on information we don't have -- to wit, that the Circle of the Black Thorn is watching for a sacrifice and Fred's closest in the line of fire. This was a slightly different Angel than we saw in "Lineage," where his entire world would end if anything happened to Fred. The Angel of "Lineage" would've been OK with Drogyn's warning of Illyria clawing its way into everyone between Fred and The Deeper Well -- the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people. The Angel on the bridge above "A Hole in the World" determines to make the sacrifice.

Knox: "I don't mean he can't save her. I mean that he won't."

Cavemen win. Ancient powers triumph over pure science. Fred dies and ... as perfect as the theme becomes, it was just a puzzle Mutant Enemy had been fussing with for the week this episode was written, but it was just too impossibly elegant. Fred is dragged back into the cave, kicking and screaming.

Fred: "Wesley ... why can't I stay?"

In my opinion, the most heartbreaking final words I think this show has given us for any main character, so full of loss and confusion and sadness. And there is no answer.

Unless it is Illyria's opening assessment of her re-established existence. Rising like an icy blue stab of pain, her words:

Illyria: "This will do."

Joss, you evil, evil bastage.

[Aunt Arlene]

* sniff *


* kicks a random frog *

[tjaman]

S5x16 - "Shells"


Wes: I've been unreasonable. Because I've lost all reason.

.

On reflection, I don't know why his shooting of Knox came as such as surprise.

From the beginning of this episode, from breaking a tempered axe on Illyria's unmoved hair, from his attempts to disgust her with her current condition -- humans are everywhere, puking their emotions on you from every direction go back to where you were -- he was listening, strategizing, recategorizing his loss and grief and rage into assault.

His emptiness at the hollowed out husk of Fred, this glowing power inside of it, whose every utterance was madness, vertigo, complete, merciless, unassailably shifting perception -- you are all so tiny, so insignificant -- when seconds before he was her entire world.

Illyria had no patience for worship. Humanity's regard for her was immaterial. She Was. Knox's awe and rapture was as unbidden and as inconsequential as Wesley's rage.

In many respects, Wesley became her true Kwa'ha-zan, her high priest, but getting there was an episode of pain.

Step One: The doctor, who testified from his limitless medical knowledge that Winifred Burkle's eternal soul was "consumed in the fires of regeneration." Stick to brain boosts and Xray vision, doc, and leave the condition of the soul to more practical theologians like Willow.

Step Two: Vulnerability. Illyria's mastery over time and space was demonstrated, unassailable. Her raiment -- two rolls of electrical tape (homina) and the very fact of her being made her invulnerable, but her little time-freezing trick made her untouchable. Angel's intuition that the gemstone from the sarcophagus gave him power was dead on.

Step Three: Devastation. As powerful as Illyria was, her army, her temple, these assets, in their destruction, knocked her harder than an axe to the back of her head. Even Wesley's murder of Knox was immaterial to her. On seeing the devastation in her absence, she lost part of her divinity.

Sacrifice: Knox was only part of it. The refusal of the Scoobies to help lost a phone to the effort. But when Wesley discovered Gunn's part in the arrival of the god-in-the-box ...

Stab.

Knife in the gut.

If Wes could ... share the feelings he'd had for the past 24 hours with a single, physical attack ...

Observation: This is another compelling reason for why "A Hole in the World" and "Shells" needed to be aired back-to-back rather than separated by a six-week hiatus, the sequence in "A Hole in the World" featuring Gunn singing "Three Little Maids" included Gunn looking into Wesley's eyes saying "If you ever do anything to hurt her ..."

Gunn tuneful brain boost came ultimately at the cost of Fred, his goodwill with CYNTHIA! -- which had been bruised before, but which was entirely broken with the realization of his involvement, however tangential and unintended -- in her death -- and in the face of Wesley's rage, his physical well-being.

Knife to the gut.

Devastation in every direction.

Illyria's temple.

Wesley's grief.

Knox's guilt.

Gunn's complicity.

Lorne's collapse.

Angel's ineffectuality.

Fred's death.

And ... a flicker of hope.

Illyria, in her loss, returns to W&H, to her sarcophagus, to Wesley.

With no army, no priest and no power base, she's at loose ends to walk in this world.

Based perhaps more on the acuity of his loss than anything else, Illyria is drawn to him as her guide.

"Shells" ends with a fragile alliance between Illyria and Wesley, and through him, with W&H.

It ends with Wesley packing the contents of Fred's life into cardboard boxes. Packing away the master of chaos.

With Fred packing into a 4x4 on her way to her new life.

And everything we know awaits her on that journey.

.

And ... a tearful goodbye.

[quantumcat]

(standing ovation)

[Aunt Arlene]

I meant to post about how much I loved that review, but...I forgot. ;D

Shiny as usual though.

[tjaman]

Thanks q and Auntie


S5x17 - Underneath

What is the nature of hell?

Spike and Angel discuss a number of types of hell.

We've explored a few in the past with Angel.

Pylea. A place that stripped away one's humanity and was organized in such a way as you toiled at a job you didn't seek, purchased by overseers you didn't choose, maintained in conditions you couldn't stand and unable to protest because it's just been barred from you.

Cordy was in hell in Pylea. And by that definition, in "Rm w/A Vu" as well. Pylea was a hell dimension, but for Angel it was a paradise. There was a clear delineation of right and wrong, he could be in the sun, he could see his reflection. What made our plane of existence a hell of eternal penance for him -- the loss of his humanity, the lack of moral certitudes -- was in some degree restored to him there.

It only became a hell for him when he could not control what also made him a demon.

We witnessed his demon's hell in "Orpheus." The lack of volition, the ongoing witness to destruction that was not taking place, to the redemption that was, forced to remain confined to Angel's skull, with only the most limited expression of Angelus possible.

How about Darla's hell? The soul she felt growing inside of her, the love it shared with her, the emptiness she knew was coming. A hell of imminence, an unrelenting ticking clock that this was going to be taken away. She couldn't experience the love inside her without confronting its fragility.

Wesley's hell was similar. A realization, after so much loss and darkness, that true love and happiness was finally within his grasp, only to have it wrenched from him as he began to experience it.

Spike's hell was a two-parter -- beyond the lost love of Dru, which we as humans can't entirely access, and the chip itself, which was a prison installed. With the soul he fought so hard for -- which he couldn't understand, being a demon -- (and I just right now got that what he was drawn to in Buffy must've been her demon infusion -- wild) -- he got to experience all the remorse Angel did for all of his past crimes and sins. But then he had to deal with the realization of crimes he'd committed while ensouled. Sure, he was brainwashed, but reflecting on these murders, he recognized his lack of control and opened his heart for the staking.

Pavayne's hell was a bit more flowery, storytellingwise. He was desperately perched on the very mouth of destruction, and to maintain the volition he'd wrought for himself in his twisted evil madness, flung other lost souls into it as a kind of eternally insufficient appeasement. His reality became a hell Spike described as he was experiencing it, as straddling two edges of an ever-widening abyss with no end in sight.

So in "Underneath," why his poet's brain was only able to come up with "fire hell" and "ice hell" -- expanded on by Angel with "toy poodles on parade hell" -- truly a horrific image -- is a bit of a mystery.

LINDSEY IN HELL

Hell as discussed in this show is a dynamic place -- as heaven, if Buffy is to be understood correctly, is more static. Hell is a place of continuous, struggling effort as opposed to a place of completion, of rest.

Lindsey's hell was one I think lots of people experience, in all reality. We wake up in the morning with our perfect, undemanding days with people we think we know. We form connections, we limit our perception to the people we come into contact with. We wave and smile and we get by. But in the privatemost basements of our lives our hearts are being ripped out by the sheer meaningless repetition of it all, the lack of direction, the traps we've laid so carefully for ourselves and in which we find ourselves ensnared.

Hell is meaninglessness.

Angel's meaningless meeting meaninglessness. That was a nice introduction to the episode -- Angel at an empty table. With Cordy and Fred both dead, that's where we were as fans as well. Wes was babysitting the Blue Meanie, Lorne was off someplace getting hammered, Gunn was still in recovery and Harmony and Spike were about as much help as Harmony and Spike ever were.

Hell is meaninglessness.

Gunn had a headful of legal knowledge that was useless to him. He'd been skating along blissfully unaware of the price he was paying for it, and now that it was there, he couldn't make himself use it. It was dead to him. There was no joy in it. Fred's smiling face was gone and he had demon languages and strategies.

Hell is meaninglessness.

Buffy felt at peace in her version of the Elysian fields. More to the point, she never felt like there was any action she needed to take. She felt warm and safe and loved, secure in the knowledge that everyone she loved was going to be OK.

Her existence was a peace that she'd earned.

Lindsey's sunny, bright and shining, seemingly perfect day was interrupted regularly by obligation -- meaningless in itself -- that ripped his chest open.

Punishment for defiance. And a with a rule -- it can never exist as a null set. Someone had to relive that same glorious day every day or there'd be a tear in the universe.

The basement was confrontational. The layers of illusion were torn away and the person in the basement was confronted with their crimes, with who they were.

It's interesting that the hell dimension was designed by a Japanese agent of W&H. An Asian punishment I'm aware of releases a convict to a normal, happy, potentially fulfilling life, with the nagging understanding in the back of his mind that one day, an executioner will step out from behind him and end his life without warning.

This may be misremembered on my part, but in practice it consigns the convict to that basement, because hearts are not nystically restored, and every day is potentially one's last.

Like a certain otherwise anonymous security guard who'd clearly been guilty of the crime of functioning in any capacity for W&H.

As an introduction to Hamilton, the episode rocked. As discussed in the commentary, Hamilton did not have to play his character at all evil -- although Adam Baldwin said he'd have loved to play it more sinister. If you do an evil thing, you don't have to present yourself as evil. Hamilton arrived with an earthquake that shook Eve from her hiding place and ripped out a heart and threw Harmony across the room (YAY!) on his way to calmly serving Eve with her mortality papers.

Angel (I think): You said you were gonna die!
Eve: And now someday I will.

Yes. In S5x22 - Not Fade Away, I believe.

This was a good move, storytellingwise. In a spinoff from a series all about the empowerment of women, the final showdown between Angel and the representative of the Senior Partners would've had him battling Eve, who we'd been suspecting for a while was no more mystical than a doily with a long shelf life. Angel smacking Sarah Thompson around wouldn't have been entirely satisfying. That's not to say it wouldn't have been scads of fun, but not series finale fun.

Essentially, it would look like Angel beating up a little girl, and I don't think that's the image Joss wanted heading into that alleyway.

It took Angel to spark Gunn out of one circle of hell -- a situation he had no voice in creating -- to one he could choose, a penance he could take on. Angel prompted Gunn to lead them to Eve, and Eve led them to Lindsey. And, knowing the rules, Gunn took on his punishment -- freeing them at the expense of his own well-being, taking on the literal pain of getting his heart ripped out to address the more metaphorical way he'd found himself in that situation.

"Underneath" is not an especially satisfying episode. Angel already knows everything he learns from Lindsey -- that The Apocalypse is coming -- because he's already seen it in the visions he gained from Cordy.

But it does open a window on the pain of loss, and of love.

And on the nature of hell.

[Insane Troll Logic]

Interesting!

And very well written.

I always had a problem with the "Pylea as hell dimension" thing. OK, so if you were a cow, it was pretty hellish. But no more so than the life of a slave in our dimension. Does Pylea have an inbuilt "hellishness"? Or is hell a state of mind, as TJ so eloquently put.

My point is that for every hellish thing Pylea has to offer, there's just as many things in our dimension that are as bad.

And there's far worse people in Angel's reality than Lorne's mother....

[tjaman]

Although maybe not so many in Lorne's ...

[Insane Troll Logic]

Yep!

And Lorne was atypical for such a DeathWokClanner - it was hell to him, but not others. So in my opinion, Pylea isn't any more a de facto "hell" than many other places.

[Aunt Arlene]

Nice review, as usual.

So what happens when we run out of episodes?

* starts to hum "Where Do We Go From Here" *