Angel 4.14 Release

[thebratqueen]

Before I begin, a quick note about last week's episode. Though I felt the directing was off (and the source of any weaknesses about last week's episode) I do want to give credit to one moment. Wesley reveals that Angelus is back and instead of an immediate reaction we watch Faith think. It's not often that a director (although I am tempted to wonder if this was in the shooting script) has the confidence to allow a character to simply sit on the screen and think. Reason being, it's not very visual. Yet it was a key point and they included it. So props for that.

Now on to tonight's ep.

Thanks to the magic of the internet I've watched this ep several times now and it gets better with every watch. And this is, of course, for one reason: Angelus is wearing glasses.

I. Am. A. Cheap. WHORE.

Ahem. Sorry, I'll try to be better.

(No, seriously, dudes - hook me up with screencaps. Angelus. With GLASSES. How can you not love it?)

Cough. Okay then, actual analysis.

James Contner is back at the helm for this and thank god for it. He's one of the stronger directors and I think you can see why. Combine that with a writing combo of Steven DeKnight, Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain (and yet again I wonder what's up with the multiple threebees this season - although the girls have never written anything apart so I guess this is technically just a single writer pairing. I'm starting to get the impression that they're Siamese twins, but enough about my delusions) and you get an episode seeped in backstory, characterization and believability.

Full credit goes, I think, to the girls for making Fred into a palatable character. They're the only ones so far who have ever written her to be consistantly interesting, so my guess is they were writing her now. I've got comments about the whole Fred/Gunn thing that we saw tonight but they're seeped in spoilers so I'm going to have to keep my mouth firmly shut at the moment. For now I'll just stick to pointing out that it was done realistically and I'll leave it at that.

The heart of the episode goes to that unholy trinity of Wes/Faith/Angelus. But first a quick comment of - this is how you handle Angelus outside of a cage. Last week he was too goofy, a clear hallmark of a director who didn't know how to handle him and let DB get too much freedom with his improvisation. This week DB was kept on a tighter leash (I'll pause to let Kita enjoy that image) and the quality shows. Yeah we had occasional Angelus-style dorkiness, but this is the active, hyper, really not that good at planning yet still evil Angelus that we've come to know and love. It's a shame he can't stick around.

(Sidenote - why do so many people assume that Angelus hasn't killed anyone yet? I've seen more than one person bitch about ME manipulating things so that Angel won't have that much to feel guilty about once he gets the soul back. Uh - why are we assuming he's not snacking offcamera? He's given no indication that he's still as pissed off about lacking dinner as he was when he first left the Hyperion, plus he's now tortured people onscreen. Trust me, I think he's doing fine.)

Also he wore glasses. Because ME loves me.

Speaking of loving me, let's talk about Wes.

Or actually Wes/Faith/Angelus, which was the heart of the episode.

You know the thing that I loved is that for all that this episode centered around Faith, and her fight to come to grips with her dark side, at the same time you had Angelus and Wes as satellites to this with exactly the same problem. Angelus doesn't want his soul back, so all of his actions are guided by his desire to stay away from good. Faith is trying to be good but is scared she can't stick the dismount. And Wes - Wes has lost his ever-loving mind.

Don't get me wrong 'cause hot. But him manipulating Faith - starting with that very Billy!Wes "SHUT UP!" to the immediate cessation and suddenly friendly face once she attacked him - was the first time I have looked at my boy and thought that he has taken some severe psychological damage in the past year. Either that or Alexis was only being a much better actor than Wesley is - in other words, Alexis read that he had to act incredibly violent and thus gave it 110% even if Wesley himself couldn't have faked the violence that well.

But if that was geniune Wes? Hoo boy. Uh, honey? You sure you want Angel back? Because right now I'm thinking you and Angelus are the better drinking buddies.

Mind you, the flip side of this is that Wes was, like Faith, reacting to trauma. I think it's worthwhile to note that the scenes of Wes and Faith at Wes's flat are the first time in a year that we've really seen Wes act human. He's kind and tender towards Faith - his facial expressions as he notes her damage speak volumes. He reaches out to her with empathy - showing sympathy when she needs it, politely backing away when she simply wants a shower, making jokes. This is the nicest we've seen him since Loyalty. Which actually led me to think that the Wes/Faith thing is even more canon than last week 'cause damn.

But I can't think that it's unrelated. He's tender and human until he hears Faith break down in the shower and then he starts to question. Then Angelus attacks and nearly kills him (and how many of us think that Wes would've welcomed death even without the good cause) and Wes goes to his usual mode - ends justify the means, and use any means necessary. He used Angel back in Pylea, he's using Faith now. Granted, he may still feel a sense of teamwork with Faith (and I think his sympathy after she attacked him shows he doesn't truly hate her) but he'll still value those means above human relations.

Which makes him an interesting contrast to Faith, who got attacked and retreated into herself. And as Faith's reaction to Wes attacking the girl shows, right now she's higher up on the scale of good than Wes currently is. Given their history, it's a fascinating thing and in no way did this episode fail that.

Msc notes:

Yay! Andy's in the credits! Of course I knew this was coming but still - yay! ABOUT DAMN TIME.

Faith taking a shower - bravo to them for not making this sexy. Instead the camera focused on her wounds. Also on how small she was. It was a beautiful way to visually put us in Faith's mind and show what was going on - the big, bad, muderer Slayer met her match and got scared. All through the camerawork. Gorgeous stuff.

Speaking of giving props, I'd like to give props to props. I don't know why but I liked that Wesley's showerhead had a tiny misaligned spray. I'm sure they just grabbed whatever was handy at the studio, but still, I liked it.

Wes/Faith? Christ it's damn near canon. He was hovering over her, she was hovering over him, significant looks on how he should know she wouldn't hurt him "now" - I'm not made of wood people.

Charisma actually gave a good performance. Again note that we had a good director. This is not a coincidence. (Mind you the bitch in me also notes that this is the first time Cordy's been allowed to act evil onscreen for more than five seconds at a time and oh, gee, didn't Charisma say that that was the only way she wanted to play this? Gee, funny that.)

Someone needs to tell Amy that she can have her hair curled or in a loose ponytail but not both. She looked like Princess Leia in the Cinnabuns years.

It was well acted, but I have to admit I'm giving a big "Huh?" to the angst of Connor-as-demon. He's the kid of two vampires and he has super-strength and speed. It never once occured to him that maybe he's not 100% homo sapien? But who knows, maybe later he'll talk about how he always worried about this and now it's true.

Note how Angelus doesn't go into vamp face until the very end when he had to in order to drain Faith. Nice choice. It gave all his barbs and violent actions a very human touch - again visually telling us what's going on inside of the character's head. With Angelus, it's the point that the evil is inside of Angel whether or not he's got his good side showing.

Angelus was damn near licking Wesley out in the courtyard there. ME? Loves me. Just in case someone out there wasn't clear about this.

Great humor all throughout the ep. Thank God we've come so far from the days of unfunny misdirection "comedy".

Wes + shotgun = instant orgasm.

I'd bitch about Cordy's Colin Sense re: figuring out Connor was scared about being a demon except she's the big bad so, um, guess she's allowed.

Re: Wes's line about Gunn being both someone he can trust and someone who can hurt Angelus - does this imply Wes knows the spell affects Connor too? Does the rest of the gang know then?

Another sign of Faith's conflict: for all that she doesn't agree with Wes torturing the girl, neither does she stop him. He's mortal, she's the Slayer, she could've yanked him off. She didn't. Nice touch.

Possible line of the ep: "What the f-[thump]" Although honestly it's impossible for me to make a list of best lines because that list would essentially be the script for the entire show.

OMG - how good was the Angelus/Faith/scaffolding fight scene? Major, major props to the stunt crew for this. Granted the wire work was obvious at times and Faith's double kept her hair in front of her face so often it was like watching Cousin It doing battle, but GOD how good was the scaffolding work? Makes you want to go back to watch the scaffolding fight in The Gift and smack everyone over the head and force them to look into the future to see how to really do it right.

Note that both Faith and Angelus had offscreen voices pushing them to recognize their weaknesses in the good/evil fight. Interesting stylistic choice.

And finally (for now):

Angelus. Glasses. Cheap. Whore.