Angel 4.13 Salvage

[thebratqueen]

Not bad. Not bad at all. Not great but still so much better than most. And amazing compared to the kind of crap-fest that Fury can give out. Methinks he either had a corset-tight story outline or somebody did strong editing after the fact. Or both.

A very plot-centric episode, which is what keeps me from going totally insane with joy. I go squee for sexy character development. We didn't get a lot of that here. Instead we got a lot of moving the characters to where they needed to be. Which is fine, and what places, huh?

The Wes/Lilah scene was - guh. Words. Have none. Amazing actors, both of them. It's such a shame we've lost Stephanie. She took a nothing character and gave her life (with the help of the writers, obviously, but I mean that she helped make it believable). And note what we get in that scene - nothing but Alexis and Stephanie. No music, no wacky camera angles, just two actors, doing their craft. I've got a suspicion that the two of them were basically given the script and told to go to.

I esp think that because I don't think tonight's director was very strong. David B needed to be on a tighter leash. Angelus was fine but nowhere near as good as when, say, Sean was directing. There was a little too much David B present. Not as bad as in, say, "Dad" but it was there. And Charisma was back to flat acting again, which really uses up the free chit I was giving her with regards to my optimistic theory that maybe they told her to phone it in to hide the fact that she was the big bad. Because now even in the moments when she was by herself and therefore had no reason to hide - still flat.

So given the fact that the known good actors were still good and the so-so actors were so-so, I suspect that tonight's director wasn't sure of what he was doing. And I can't say I blame him, considering he got pulled at the last minute so that Tim Minear could be forced to do an episode of Firefly that will never see the light of day so thank GOD it had the hand of Tim in it instead of this CRUICIAL EPISODE, NOT that I am BITTER.

Ahem.

So I should probably talk about Faith at some point.

I've got to come clean and say I never liked her much on Buffy. Not that I hated her, but I wasn't rabid about her the way many fans were. I felt she was a little too forced down my throat - "She's sexier than Buffy! She's daring! She's like Buffy but darker, GET IT??? NO, DO YOU GET IT???"

It really wasn't until she hopped over on Angel that I had a glimmer of liking her, and that's because, like so many characters before her (Angel, Wes, Darla...) Angel the show added some depth that wasn't on Buffy. I liked the redemptionist thing. I liked Angel and Faith AAing each other through their evil - although possibly that's just my AA kink as well ;)

So I'm glad to see her again. I liked how they were able to give a subtle indication of how she'd been doing in prison. I also liked how it was clear she could've broken out at any time but chose not to.

The Wes and Faith conversation was interesting too. Again some acting notes - Alexis used Wes's old posture. He regressed a little in talking to her, yet managed to keep his new self too. It took him a moment though. He was clearly starting the conversation off with a rehearsed speech - his "Hello, Faith, how are you?" which was totally unrelated to the conversational opener that she gave him.

Faith's side of it is interesting to dissect too. She has no idea Wes is there to ask for her help, yet she's open to talking with him anyway. But all rights she should hate this guy yet she's not telling him to fuck off. She's happy to listen to him and accept him on new terms. Again it goes to show where she is mentally.

Then when she finds out that Wes is asking for her help she's not upset about it. She takes it in stride.

IMO the fact that she knew how to escape when Wes told her Angelus was back - and didn't even ask for him to repeat it - says to me she was probably spending some of her time thinking of senarios like this as well.

I also liked how Wes immediately went into his own problem-solving mode. She said step away from the glass, he stepped away, no questions. And from then on out they made a good team. They bonded well over their mutual desires to redeem Angel and to get the job done. Notice, too, that unlike Connor, Wes doesn't chafe under Faith's leadership. Granted he's the one who brought her into all this so I suppose arguably he could claim some credit for any good she brings to the situation, but to me that also shows that he really just wants what's best. If that happens to be Faith, then he takes a secondary role. If it happens to be anyone of the AI gang... well he takes charge and frankly I don't blame him ;)

Random notes:

Loved Angelus's phone call to Dawn. "Is your sister home?" Cracks my shit up.

I was so willing to take the reappearance of Wes's cool wrist thing as David Fury's apology to me for writing this episode, except it broke in a SECOND. Zuh? Why would Wes even buy it if it's not going to withstand a vamp stepping on it? You don't think he would mention needing it to be stronger than most vampires?? It's not like Wes was planning on using it as a letter opener! (And what happend to the other weapons inside of it too? There was a crossbow guys, why wasn't he using it?)

OTOH Wes fighting = yum. Let's have more of that. Even if Alexis's stunt double is apparently 30 years older than he is and balding.

Wes still has the scar on his neck. I'm not made of wood, people.

A good, dear friend of J. August Richards needs to pull him aside and tell him to shave the pubic hair off his chin.

The musical score was interesting. There were some elements which reminded me of "Billy". Also I really liked how the Wes/Lilah scene had no music until Lilah's head was chopped off. Her "release" was the final redemption Wes could give her, the music is cued, and we cut to a scene of Angelus, the guy Wes wants to help redeem. Nice touch.

As always, I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff.