Angel 4.17 Inside Out

[thebratqueen]

So I find myself with a few free minutes before hitting the home stretch of packing and leaving for Baltimore and I thought I'd jot down some Angel comments because I am that much of an addict.

I'm not large with the time though so this isn't going to be as involved as my usual, which was a shame because this was a kick-ASS ep.

I think the thing I want to focus most on is giving the writing team credit where it's due. I mean we all know that the "this was planned all along" thing is horseshit. Many of the plot points that they're citing as planned were forced upon them by outside circumstances - Glenn Quinn being fired, David G not getting the contract he wanted, Charisma's pregnancy, etc. And anyone who watched season 3 could tell that even the stuff that was planned - like the addition of Fred to the cast - wasn't necessarily something that the writing staff wanted, understood, or even agreed with.

So of course in no way, shape or form has all of this been some part of a larger scheme, but that's not the point. The point is that in season 4 they took all of the stuff that was thrust upon them - good and bad, planned and unplanned - and tied it all up into a story that makes it look like they knew what they were doing all along. That is some damned good writing (and directing, and acting, and so on).

Again, really wish I had the time to get into more detailed comments, but I'm forced to head directly into bullet points:

Yes the Angel/Wes scene had me at "hello". As we established back in Deep Down, Steve DeKnight loves me very much.

Steve DeKnight directed as well and did a bang-up job of it. Even the slo-mo shots were pretty good, and god knows that's the one technique this show abuses to hell and back. David B was also framed beautifully. I don't think he's ever looked that good.

Wes, gun, precise shot - I'm geekily amused that the episode that established Wes's marksmanship skills in the first place was also an episode about Cordy being pregnant with a demon baby.

Loved Mom!Darla. I want her as a reoccuring character. I loved how easily she slipped into giving the guilt trips. Although you'd think Darla of all people would've been whapping her son upside the head for being easily manipulated by a woman. Then again maybe she should've just observed how much he was like his father ;) Also? Connor caught between his mom and his psychopathic girlfriend? Just a little Freudian, in the sense that the Pacific is just a little wet.

I half expected Wes to slip out the back and kill Cordy himself. God knows he's more end-goal oriented in these things than Angel is. Also Angel is a moron for not taking someone with him to help deal with Connor, but we knew about Angel's IQ already.

Lotta stuff here that's laying the groundwork for season 5. I'll say no more so that I can avoid spoilers, but I will note that I thought it was interesting that in a Steve DeKnight episode a man who's known for giving good, in-character Wesley, didn't have Wes threatening to cast the spell on Skip. Makes me wonder if this was due to a lack of anything else Fred could do, or if this is part and parcel of them trying to stubly shift Wes into a new role with the gang so he and Fred aren't so redundant.

In the "blocking is your friend" catagory, we give a tip of the hat to the Angel and Wes scene, in which their comfortability with one another and their slowly reviving best-friendship was symbolized by Wes sitting behind the desk in the main office and neither one of them having a problem with it.

In the pure speculation catagory, you've got me wondering how much of the Angel/Cordy ship is going to be affected by the fact that for 2 years now - namely the 2 key ones from Angel's POV - the woman he loved wasn't actually the woman he knew.

And I've got to scoot. As always I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but at least this time I've got an excuse.

ETA:

Mom!Darla may or may not have been Darla. Remember that she gave a vague answer to Connor's question about that.

Also? I got a big geek hard-on for the fact that Wes knew the Lizzie Borden thing. This is possibly just me.

And I'm officially taking the monkey comment as a shout-out because, as we all know, monkeys are funny.