Angel 4.8 Habeas Corpses
Jan. 16th, 2003 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenSo, how 'bout that Angel?
Boo yeah! Great episode! Seriously well handled in almost every aspect, and even the stuff that sucked didn't take away from my enjoyment of the whole.
I'm happy to see that they're not backing down from the darkness inherent in this plotline. The Beast killed hundreds of people and their bodies were on camera damn near the entire ep. Take that, First, with your wimpy mostly off-camera SIT deaths and only cutting up Spike who's dead anyway.
And tell me that Jeff Bell isn't going back to Tim right now and going "Hey - I killed Gavin AND the entire law firm! Beat that with your one death per episode!"
Lots of well handled stuff. Skip did a great job with directing. Unfortunately there's no one particular shot I can point to as a great example of why, but suffice it to say that his use of lighting and camera angles helped to create the perfect creepy atmosphere (much though it was frustrating for some, I know, for all the Wes sexiness to have apparently been lit using a laser pointer instead of the show's usual single birthday candle).
I was actually reminded of Signs a bit while I was watching. Not because anything here even remotely approached the elemental and platonic ideal of creepy that Signs did, but in the sense that a lot of the creepy was based on things happening off-camera which therefore added to the ongoing feeling that you couldn't trust what you didn't see. Focusing on the gang's faces, for instance, instead of keeping the camera down at their feet the entire time they were walking over the dead bodies.
Although I will say that I seriously wish they'd had a better Foley artist. A few of the off-camera things had an almost Warner Brothers cartoon feel, and even some of the on-camera stuff didn't sound right. Case in point, the fact that Gunn's tapping pen sounded exactly like a drum, complete with hollow sound, instead of, say, a tapping pen. Makes me wonder if this is the same person who came up with the crap-ass sound effects for Lullabye.
What can I say about the Wes/Lilah goodness that hasn't been said? Amazingly acted by both parties and word, a thousand times word, to those who have said this is what the Buffy/Spike breakup in season sux should have been like. I think some are right when they suggest that one of the differences is that Wes and Lilah respect themselves, unlike Buffy who didn't, but also I think this is mostly due to the fact that Wes/Lilah was allowed to be Wes/Lilah, and not Marti Noxon's Story Hour About The Very Bad No-Good Boyfriend She Had Back In College That She Can't Get Over Even To This Day In Spite Of Now Being Married With A Kid And Should Have Learned To Cope Already.
I will say that I think it's interesting that some have interpreted Lilah's "Connor's inside" comment as a good act on her part. I agree that she was about to tell Wes that she loved him, and stopped because she knew she couldn't burden him with that, but at that point I think she deliberately said something assy, however helpful, to help seal the deal. A generous act on her part would have negated staying quiet about her feelings. However to slap Wes in the face with "Your heroic act of saving me actually put Angel's kid in danger" was a betrayal (after all, she said there was no way to get Connor out, not "and now you have to go back in") and I think Wes's expression when he hears this shows that he's taking it as such. Yes, helpful information, yes they save the kid anyway, yes Lilah probably knew they would and that was part of why she mentioned it, but the way she said it wasn't good. It was selfish, or at least made to appear so, which of course ironically made it good - it helped to cut those ties. (Or at least helped more than a generous act would)
I've no spoilers about the fate of Wolfram & Hart from this point, so I'm left speculating with the rest of you about whether or not this means we've lost the law firm for good or if in season 5 we'll find out the senior partners set up shop elsewhere (and if the head of the WB - or whoever that was - is optimistic about season 5, then I will be to). No matter what happens though I think it just goes to show that, again, Angel more than Buffy has no problem with shaking up the dynamics of the show as part of moving the story along.
No matter how many characters die, Buffy always returns back to more or less where it came from. Buffy's always Buffy, the Scoobies are always the Scoobies, and really the only thing that changes are the names. Even evil Willow went back to being regular Willow within a few episodes. But on Angel they blow up their sets and don't recreate them (the original office), they change the dynamics of the characters (Angel firing the gang, Wes being in charge, Angel being in charge again) and even change character alignment and allow it to stay changed (Wes going dark). So killing off everyone in W&H as it stands now continues that tradition of not being terrified of change.
Other tid bits -
Angel himself was great. Well-acted. And again he and Connor have terrific chemistry.
Also? I've gotta say - Connor's little stalking walk? I'm not made of wood people. C'mere honey. Just, you know, do something with that ass haircut would ya?
The tiny (or not so tiny) bits of bad:
Gunn's on the rag, apparently. What more can we say? He acted like an ass and this would make even the vaguest kind of sense if they'd ever remembered to have Wes act like he was trying to steal Fred away ever. But since Wes just acted a little prissy after Gunn and Fred hooked up - and mostly in situations where the prissiness was actually appropriate - this makes no sense. I can't help but wonder if the writers themselves remember that Wes hasn't done anything A) onscreen and B) that Gunn would know about. But as it stands Gunn's actions here are the greatest act of Colin Sense since St. Colin himself.
[Colin Sense: The ability for an RPG character to have knowledge that only the RPG player should have.]
And speaking of Colin Sense, I know the writers need to keep stuff vague so they don't paint themselves into a corner, but could they please decide who knows about Wes/Lilah and who doesn't? Obviously Angel does, but Gunn being such an ass about Wes's connections to the enemy in a few episodes now and Fred knowing to go to Wes for help doing dark things back in SuperSymetry only made sense if we assumed that sometime offscreen the two of them were told Wes is banging Lilah. But then today we have Fred gushing that Wes having inside information about W&H is [childish giggle] so cool implies that Fred has no idea how Wes gets that information. Now, granted, Wes did have someone on the inside so yes he is the man, but if I knew that Wes was banging Lilah and had inside info on W&H, I wouldn't be sitting there like Angel in front of a microwave trying to figure out how the magic happened. So either Fred doesn't know about Lilah or she does and is too much of a moron to make the connection. Which, now that I think about it, actually makes sense.
You can tell I'm trying to avoid the Connor/Cordy stuff, can't you?
Connor? Well acted. Cordy? Had Charisma's cell phone battery indicator in the upper right hand corner of the screen the entire time. I haven't seen something phoned in so badly since the last time I saw![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
miss_edith try to order a pizza while drunk (ba dum BUM! Thanks, I'll be here all week). Or since, you know, the last episode with Cordy in it. Some have suggested that Charisma's pregnancy is messing up her acting skills. I put it to you it's Charisma's inability to give a damn. Even Madonna was able to do her best job while preggers. Charisma should cope or get off the show (er - meaning cope with her issues with the show. I don't mean cope with working and being pregnant at the same time which is obviously very difficult). Esp since she could be involved in a very interesting plotline right now. No spoilers here, just saying that you can't fault people for being bored by the Connor/Cordy/Angel love triangle when apparently one of the actors is too. When even Boreanaz is acting his heart out on this one and managing to sell it, you know it's time to blame the musician and not the instrument for any of Cordy's flaws.
BTW - is it just me or in the Cordy/Connor sex scene did it seem like Connor actually was fucking Cordy through a sheet? Or maybe I was just obsessing over the bed linens because that way I wouldn't BURN MY EYES OUT.
Did you notice: Charisma's rosary tattoo? (Visible in the first scenes with her and Connor)
Did you notice: How crappy the editing was for the C/C scene? Makes me wonder if the editor was really that bad or if they didn't have much to work with now that Charisma's on a pregnancy-friendly work schedule. Given that the rest of the ep wasn't rife with so many continuity errors I suspect the latter.
And finally, did you notice all the yummy hide in plain sight spoilers? It was amazing they didn't have Wesley actually standing on an anvil at one point. Hee hee!
Boo yeah! Great episode! Seriously well handled in almost every aspect, and even the stuff that sucked didn't take away from my enjoyment of the whole.
I'm happy to see that they're not backing down from the darkness inherent in this plotline. The Beast killed hundreds of people and their bodies were on camera damn near the entire ep. Take that, First, with your wimpy mostly off-camera SIT deaths and only cutting up Spike who's dead anyway.
And tell me that Jeff Bell isn't going back to Tim right now and going "Hey - I killed Gavin AND the entire law firm! Beat that with your one death per episode!"
Lots of well handled stuff. Skip did a great job with directing. Unfortunately there's no one particular shot I can point to as a great example of why, but suffice it to say that his use of lighting and camera angles helped to create the perfect creepy atmosphere (much though it was frustrating for some, I know, for all the Wes sexiness to have apparently been lit using a laser pointer instead of the show's usual single birthday candle).
I was actually reminded of Signs a bit while I was watching. Not because anything here even remotely approached the elemental and platonic ideal of creepy that Signs did, but in the sense that a lot of the creepy was based on things happening off-camera which therefore added to the ongoing feeling that you couldn't trust what you didn't see. Focusing on the gang's faces, for instance, instead of keeping the camera down at their feet the entire time they were walking over the dead bodies.
Although I will say that I seriously wish they'd had a better Foley artist. A few of the off-camera things had an almost Warner Brothers cartoon feel, and even some of the on-camera stuff didn't sound right. Case in point, the fact that Gunn's tapping pen sounded exactly like a drum, complete with hollow sound, instead of, say, a tapping pen. Makes me wonder if this is the same person who came up with the crap-ass sound effects for Lullabye.
What can I say about the Wes/Lilah goodness that hasn't been said? Amazingly acted by both parties and word, a thousand times word, to those who have said this is what the Buffy/Spike breakup in season sux should have been like. I think some are right when they suggest that one of the differences is that Wes and Lilah respect themselves, unlike Buffy who didn't, but also I think this is mostly due to the fact that Wes/Lilah was allowed to be Wes/Lilah, and not Marti Noxon's Story Hour About The Very Bad No-Good Boyfriend She Had Back In College That She Can't Get Over Even To This Day In Spite Of Now Being Married With A Kid And Should Have Learned To Cope Already.
I will say that I think it's interesting that some have interpreted Lilah's "Connor's inside" comment as a good act on her part. I agree that she was about to tell Wes that she loved him, and stopped because she knew she couldn't burden him with that, but at that point I think she deliberately said something assy, however helpful, to help seal the deal. A generous act on her part would have negated staying quiet about her feelings. However to slap Wes in the face with "Your heroic act of saving me actually put Angel's kid in danger" was a betrayal (after all, she said there was no way to get Connor out, not "and now you have to go back in") and I think Wes's expression when he hears this shows that he's taking it as such. Yes, helpful information, yes they save the kid anyway, yes Lilah probably knew they would and that was part of why she mentioned it, but the way she said it wasn't good. It was selfish, or at least made to appear so, which of course ironically made it good - it helped to cut those ties. (Or at least helped more than a generous act would)
I've no spoilers about the fate of Wolfram & Hart from this point, so I'm left speculating with the rest of you about whether or not this means we've lost the law firm for good or if in season 5 we'll find out the senior partners set up shop elsewhere (and if the head of the WB - or whoever that was - is optimistic about season 5, then I will be to). No matter what happens though I think it just goes to show that, again, Angel more than Buffy has no problem with shaking up the dynamics of the show as part of moving the story along.
No matter how many characters die, Buffy always returns back to more or less where it came from. Buffy's always Buffy, the Scoobies are always the Scoobies, and really the only thing that changes are the names. Even evil Willow went back to being regular Willow within a few episodes. But on Angel they blow up their sets and don't recreate them (the original office), they change the dynamics of the characters (Angel firing the gang, Wes being in charge, Angel being in charge again) and even change character alignment and allow it to stay changed (Wes going dark). So killing off everyone in W&H as it stands now continues that tradition of not being terrified of change.
Other tid bits -
Angel himself was great. Well-acted. And again he and Connor have terrific chemistry.
Also? I've gotta say - Connor's little stalking walk? I'm not made of wood people. C'mere honey. Just, you know, do something with that ass haircut would ya?
The tiny (or not so tiny) bits of bad:
Gunn's on the rag, apparently. What more can we say? He acted like an ass and this would make even the vaguest kind of sense if they'd ever remembered to have Wes act like he was trying to steal Fred away ever. But since Wes just acted a little prissy after Gunn and Fred hooked up - and mostly in situations where the prissiness was actually appropriate - this makes no sense. I can't help but wonder if the writers themselves remember that Wes hasn't done anything A) onscreen and B) that Gunn would know about. But as it stands Gunn's actions here are the greatest act of Colin Sense since St. Colin himself.
[Colin Sense: The ability for an RPG character to have knowledge that only the RPG player should have.]
And speaking of Colin Sense, I know the writers need to keep stuff vague so they don't paint themselves into a corner, but could they please decide who knows about Wes/Lilah and who doesn't? Obviously Angel does, but Gunn being such an ass about Wes's connections to the enemy in a few episodes now and Fred knowing to go to Wes for help doing dark things back in SuperSymetry only made sense if we assumed that sometime offscreen the two of them were told Wes is banging Lilah. But then today we have Fred gushing that Wes having inside information about W&H is [childish giggle] so cool implies that Fred has no idea how Wes gets that information. Now, granted, Wes did have someone on the inside so yes he is the man, but if I knew that Wes was banging Lilah and had inside info on W&H, I wouldn't be sitting there like Angel in front of a microwave trying to figure out how the magic happened. So either Fred doesn't know about Lilah or she does and is too much of a moron to make the connection. Which, now that I think about it, actually makes sense.
You can tell I'm trying to avoid the Connor/Cordy stuff, can't you?
Connor? Well acted. Cordy? Had Charisma's cell phone battery indicator in the upper right hand corner of the screen the entire time. I haven't seen something phoned in so badly since the last time I saw
miss_edith try to order a pizza while drunk (ba dum BUM! Thanks, I'll be here all week). Or since, you know, the last episode with Cordy in it. Some have suggested that Charisma's pregnancy is messing up her acting skills. I put it to you it's Charisma's inability to give a damn. Even Madonna was able to do her best job while preggers. Charisma should cope or get off the show (er - meaning cope with her issues with the show. I don't mean cope with working and being pregnant at the same time which is obviously very difficult). Esp since she could be involved in a very interesting plotline right now. No spoilers here, just saying that you can't fault people for being bored by the Connor/Cordy/Angel love triangle when apparently one of the actors is too. When even Boreanaz is acting his heart out on this one and managing to sell it, you know it's time to blame the musician and not the instrument for any of Cordy's flaws.BTW - is it just me or in the Cordy/Connor sex scene did it seem like Connor actually was fucking Cordy through a sheet? Or maybe I was just obsessing over the bed linens because that way I wouldn't BURN MY EYES OUT.
Did you notice: Charisma's rosary tattoo? (Visible in the first scenes with her and Connor)
Did you notice: How crappy the editing was for the C/C scene? Makes me wonder if the editor was really that bad or if they didn't have much to work with now that Charisma's on a pregnancy-friendly work schedule. Given that the rest of the ep wasn't rife with so many continuity errors I suspect the latter.
And finally, did you notice all the yummy hide in plain sight spoilers? It was amazing they didn't have Wesley actually standing on an anvil at one point. Hee hee!
