Angel 4.22 Home

[thebratqueen]

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Just something in my eye here, don't mind me....

Gah. God damn you Tim!

You know I knew the episode was going to kick all kinds of ass when I read the spoilers but fuck nobody directs like Tim. I can live without Tim's writing if I have to - and apparently I'll have to - but nobody but nobody pulls suffering out of Boreanaz as well as Tim does and I'll bet you anything nobody else ever will. Tim's the only director I know who can actually get these subtle hints of emotions out of DB and just - sniff - I'm fine, really.

Man, where do I even begin? In no particular order, as always:

I'm taking the long silence after the teaser as yet another shout-out since god knows I have been the champion of shots where the characters think. Although can we pause a sec to talk about the dialogue for the teaser? Lilah was a smidge quippier than usual. Made me wonder if Joss helped pen a line here or there. She was fine during the rest of the ep though so I can't complain much.

How much fun did Mike Massa have with the fight at the sporting goods store? And I see we didn't end the season without another "straight drop from a height" stunt. Makes me happy.

Please, please, for the love of God and me let Cordy go. It is painfully obvious how good the show is without her. Hell, let me even point you back to one of the few arcs that worked in season three which was the Loyalty arc which, again, had no Cordy. Guys, she is the Kim. She is the weakest link. She is the black hole from which no quality survives. Under the definition of "things which are good for this show" she is under "antonyms". LET HER GO.

Gunn and the panther/jaguar - insert your own Sentinel joke here.

Wes had his cool wrist thing! See? Tim loves me more than David Fury does. Allow me to say the feeling is mutual on both counts.

And let's talk metaphors. We know from David Greenwalt that the concept is what if you worked for Greenpeace your whole life then suddenly worked for Shell Oil. The concept is growing up - as Lilah tells us - and doing things you normally wouldn't do when you were a kid. Notice how lightly this was handled in the show. Notice, too, what makes Angel decide - his son. The very thing that makes most people turn their back on their youthful ideals. As a parent - as a good parent - Angel is no longer free to make decisions the way he once did. He's got to give up part of himself for Connor, and how apt on many levels that the thing he gives up is, essentially, his soul.

And they didn't beat us over the fucking head with this!

Is there any wonder why I'm an Angel whore far more than a Buffy one?

Note, too, how the show, even with the shiny windows, still handles light and dark with plenty of grey. We're reminded up until the very end that W&H is an evil organization. The place hasn't been retrofitted into goodness. And with Angel's warning that even the limo ride would corrupt, we can watch the episode unfold and, much like with the ambiguity of the Jasmine storyline, wonder if the gang really will have the chance to do good from within, or if the belief that they can is merely an illusion.

(Note - my tiny beef is that we went at lightening speed to the gang deciding they would take the tour, but I know we've only got an hour and I wouldn't trade a second of the Connor stuff so I'm happy to accept that since the gang was going to do it anyway this wasn't a thing we needed to linger over)

Speaking of illusions and contracts, I wonder how much foreshadowing we're getting for Wes/Lilah in season 5. I noticed that the show really started to push the concept of how important Lilah was to Wes at about the same time that behind the scenes they knew the kind of season 5 they wanted to work towards. Hints of tortured romance to come?

I can't help but wonder, too, if, considering that the last scene before Wesley's acceptance was the one with Lilah, we're meant to conclude that Wes, romantic schmuck that he is, decided to join Lilah in damnation if he couldn't make her join him in salvation (assuming he ever believed he could be saved, and I think that one's still out at the jury)

Tim's use of widescreen was as strong as ever. My personal fave was Angel in the far back as a mere speck while Connor's right up front. He also had some great closeup shots, and I liked the framing of Angel's leg-kick/Connor's flip.

Also props to the score, and again the part where we had no score. I like that the show isn't afraid of silences.

Zinging my way back towards everyone's motivations, I'm fascinated to see what they're going to do with Angel especially. In my ideal world he'll be the one they'll really use to demonstrate the twists of deals with the devil. After all, for all that he got what he wanted - up to and including the visit to see Connor - W&H still got what they wanted. Is Angel really shaking them up, or are they just as unconcerned about the piddly crap as they ever were?

And who's surprised that in his final episode, Tim would kill Connor? And not just kill him, but make Angel do it. sniffle God I love that man.

There's so much more I could chat about, but I'm starting to drift into the land of happy afterglow. I may just save it up for the season in review. Lemme just give a quick shout-out to the whole development of Connor, and how his final turn to violence at the end was handled brillantly over the past 3 eps, and that was the thing I was noticing a lot as the Jasmine eps went on that I just couldn't talk about since I'm such a spoiler whore.

I will quickly say, though, that I'm for Angel's decision - and loving the irony that a removal of Connor's free will (at least the will to decide for himself) is Angel's final gift to the boy. But I think it was pretty clear that Connor had far surpassed Wes in the realm of getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop, and unlike Wes it wasn't due to anything he'd done - it was due to Angel. Angel, by virtue of who he was (viz the man that tormented Holtz) forced Connor into that Hell dimension. As Lilah says, Angel's the reason Connor is the man he is today. And when he's 18 and so screwed up that he can't feel and he thinks killing people is the answer - hell yeah the poor kid needs a reset button.

Of course I can't help but wonder what it will mean for the rest of the gang now that Connor's not even a memory. Especially Angel and Wes, since they're the ones who suffered most from all that (note how I cheerfully skip over She Who Causes Suck)

Happy sigh.