Angel comments
Apr. 16th, 2002 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenOkay, here's my second set of comments on "Forgiving".
Let it be said I loved this episode. I think I covered that in my earlier set of comments re: the wildfeed, but just on the odd chance y'all don't memorize every word that I say, there you go. That being said, I'm still going to try not to repeat myself too much 'cause boring for us all, right? Anyhoo..
The good:
Fred: She had a personality. Who the fuck knew that was possible? Props to Jeff Bell for making her reactions believable, although props also go to Turi Meyer, who I'll get to in a second. But point being she wasn't Freddy Sue, who can do everything except shut up. She had some flaws, she wasn't perfect for everything, and most importantly she wasn't acting like a fucking five year old. She was acting like a young woman in her 20s, which is what she's supposed to be - woohoo.
Jeff Bell: Dark episode, daring episode. Believable dialogue (with some notable exceptions to be discussed in a minute) with that classic Jeff Bell humor thrown in. Can we please turn the show over to Tim and Jeff and kick everyone else off of it?
Turi Meyer: Great directing, although I got tired of the Host not appearing in a shot unless he was over Angel's shoulder. However I will forgive that for the phenominal performance he dragged out of David Boreanez. There was no David B onscreen, which made such a welcome change from some crap fests like "Dad" or "Provider". It was all Angel, all the time. Yay.
Gunn: Hey buddy! Nice to see you! Missed you like Hell. It was great seeing Gunn acting like his old self - kicking ass when needed, taking sides when needed, more importantly not taking sides when also needed. Gunn has never been a blind faith kind of guy. He gave Wes the benefit of the doubt because Wes is his friend (and so nice to see that friendship again) but that was it - benefit of the doubt. Which meant Gunn then wanted proof to back it up one way or another. This is the Gunn we know and love, the Gunn who can work with Angel but not actually like Angel. One of the joys of Gunn's character is his complexities, and those were back in full force.
Angel: Pookie! You've been gone for so long! And I see you've brought our old and rarely-seen friend Continuity along with you. Loved Angel going dark. Loved him hauling out the torture kink. Purr, purr, and can I mention purr?
The bad:
I said it before but the explanation for why Cordy wasn't there was lame, lame, lame. Can't you say you tried to call but her cellphone wasn't working? The hotel was suffering from a hurricane? Something? It's just dialogue, guys, make it up!
The bum stealing Wes's wallet. I'm all for making things darker, but to me this was kicking Wes for the sake of kicking him. Yes, granted, in real life someone in Wes's position would probably get his pocket picked, but this is fiction and we need to go for a story that flows and makes sense more than we need to go for realism. If you want to continue the mind fuck of him lying there then show the bum passing by, Wes trying to talk, not being able to make himself heard over the sound of the rattling cart, and there you go. Having his wallet get stolen - unless this proves to be a plot point later (it did look like his life savings, or close to) - was gratuitious.
The msc:
I'm not going to comment on the urn thing at the end until we find out if that's the end of Sahjhan (note the spelling, kiddies, there will be a quiz later, although props to the show for the meta-humor). I pulled up the shooting script for Loyalty and reread Holtz's comments about the urn - basically fuck knows if it's a forever deal. Yes, Holtz says they "last a lifetime" but nobody clarifies if Sahjhan can get out again if somebody just opens the lid. If that is the end of Sahjhan though, let me go on the record as saying: LAME!! Even if a bigger bad gets revealed before the season finale that won't make up for getting rid of this one villan so easily. But again - I'm holding off on really having an opinion until we find out for certain.
Lines of the episode:
Pardon the bad paraphrasing but the best lines of the ep have to go to:
Angel: If you want someone to beat you up, go get your boyfriend. (Have I mentioned I've missed the real Angel? I've missed the real Angel. Plus gotta love a line that nasty coming out of the hero of the show, but more on this in a sec)
Gunn: [to Justine] STAY DOWN! (I know, not one for a bumper sticker but it sounded so much like the real Gunn it gave me a happy)
Angel: I don't hurt those I care about [stare at Fred) (Does this need explanation?)
TBQ commentary:
Okay then, now that we've done the wrap-up, let's do some discussion.
Whoo nelly was this a dark episode, but GOOD. In a way it reminds me of "The Body" in that fuck was it good, but I think I'd have a hard time watching it twice. Or at least watching it so soon. It also reminds me of the "let them eat lawyer" moment of season 2, which I think for me clarifies the real strengths of the show and why I love it, slashiness aside.
Here's why - they were totally unafraid to go for broke. Let's remember gang, Angel is the hero of the piece. And what did we see our hero doing? Torturing people, getting ready to kill innocents, conspiring with the enemy, calling on the forces of evil, lying, making callous jokes about domenstic violence and trying to kill one of his co-stars and all that in more or less 24 hours. And this is the show where he's supposed to be the good guy.
This to me is the strength of Angel the series. Yes we have the bits of fun and fantasy that started in Buffy, but Angel takes all of that to a far darker and more mature emotional place and when they are good they are GOOD. (sadly this means when they're bad it's that much more painful, but I have faith that there will be plenty of bad eps in the future for me to discuss so I'll just stick with the current one).
An interesting moment to me of realizing just how far they were willing to go was when Angel was talking with that guy by the curb and having that moment of "It's not your fault." As I was watching the show I suddenly realized that I had lost all empathy for Angel the character. Why? Because it wasn't the guy's fault, but it was Angel's. Angel had released this force of absolute destruction on the world (again yes, Sahjhan gets captured later but Angel wouldn't know that for certain) and he didn't care. Suddenly I was there thinking "You know what, Angelcakes? I'm starting to not give a shit that your torturing, world-ending, evil ass lost a kid you were going to end up killing anyway." And Angel's the protagonist.
That's an amazing amount of courage on the part of the staff who put this storyline together. It takes balls to turn your hero - your main character - into the villan. What other show would do that? And moreoever, what other show would do that without trying to excuse the behavior? Compare this to the Willow magic addiction storyline - yes Willow did bad things, but she was an addict, she couldn't help herself, whine whine whine. Where's Willow's responsibility?
Not so with Angel. Angel himself even hammers this home at the end (literally) when he tells Wes he hasn't gone evil, this isn't Angelus, it's all Angel. In a way this even one-ups Buffy season two when Angelus came around in the first place. After all - that wasn't Angel's fault. The curse broke. He didn't have the soul anymore. Whoops.
But no such luck here - there's no excuse, Angel's just gone bad and he's done it under his own steam.
Another thing I loved about this ep was the Angel/Wes storyline (get your slash minds out of the gutter). AtS has done a phenominal job of parallelling Angel and Wes without hitting us over the head with anvils (Marti Noxon, take notes). Wes, like Angel, has done things in his past that he's not proud of, he's made choices that were not entirely moral but were right by his standards, and he's trying to atone for the things he's done. This season too also showed him feeling like an outsider, and unwanted by the woman he loved (much though I still say Wes and Fred have and will continue to have zero chemistry) just as Angel did with Cordy (ditto).
Wes's throat cutting, then near-murder by Angel to me feels a lot like Angel being sent to Hell in season 2 Buffy. It would be hard to get this boy into a lower place (not that I'd complain if the writers figured out how - hands up, how many of you are wondering if Wes will eventually end up as a vampire before the show goes off the air?) Just as Angel lost his foundation in Buffy when he became Angelus, Wes has lost his foundation in Angel (Wes himself tells us in Couplet that Angel is the reason why he's there) and Angel, like Buffy, isn't going to be inclined to give it back. Throw in the trauma of lying near-dead in the park for over a day, where I'm sure time felt longer than it actually was, and it's Wes's own Acathla.
Showing how Wes recovers from this - assuming he recovers from this - is going to be interesting. Moreover we had the nice acknowledgement of the parallelism on the screen with the Host actually saying that Angel should forgive Wes if he wants to forgive himself. Okay, the speech was a bit on the side of telling us what the thing is, but judges will allow because it was also a fuzzy tiger to distract people from realizing that Angel was lying through his little fanged teeth (two - two - two TBQ vocab words for the price of one). As someone else (sorry, I forgot who) pointed out, Angel is actually trying to commit suicide when he goes after Wesley, and the scene is all the more powerful for the connection between the two - both the friendship that is broken, but for the narrative resemblance between them. As my AP English teacher used to say - there's a 5.
So now what?
Well - hard to say. Damn if that WB promo didn't look discouraging, but it's the WB so it's hard to trust anyway. I've got a hard time buying that Gunn and Fred are going to be buying any "we're not losing another member of this family" speeches from Angelica after watching him try to kill Wes. But I'm just not going to even try to judge this based solely on the promo. They're misleading and never give out useful information.
Looks like Cordy's back. Wee. Sorry, Charisma, but they've raped your character so much I honestly didn't miss you. Bring back the real Cordy to join the real Angel and real Gunn and I'll change my mind. Also please don't tell me that Cordy's demon power is to turn into a pretty light being. Why can't Cordy be an ugly demon? It'd be more interesting.
Random thoughts:
I can't help but wonder if they're setting it up for Justine to eventually join the AI gang. Gotta say I wouldn't mind. I know I'm in the minority but I actually like her. Plus? She and Wes actually had some chemistry. I'd love to see what happens now that Wes is apparently Justine's version of hitting rock bottom. Is she going to try to interact with him again? Would he want her to? What? Lotta potential.
Also - given that Wes's throat got hurt, I can't help but flashback to his comment to Holtz about not being able to trust Holtz because of his low, gravely voice. Foreshadowing? Who knows? Again - lotta potential.
Let it be said I loved this episode. I think I covered that in my earlier set of comments re: the wildfeed, but just on the odd chance y'all don't memorize every word that I say, there you go. That being said, I'm still going to try not to repeat myself too much 'cause boring for us all, right? Anyhoo..
The good:
Fred: She had a personality. Who the fuck knew that was possible? Props to Jeff Bell for making her reactions believable, although props also go to Turi Meyer, who I'll get to in a second. But point being she wasn't Freddy Sue, who can do everything except shut up. She had some flaws, she wasn't perfect for everything, and most importantly she wasn't acting like a fucking five year old. She was acting like a young woman in her 20s, which is what she's supposed to be - woohoo.
Jeff Bell: Dark episode, daring episode. Believable dialogue (with some notable exceptions to be discussed in a minute) with that classic Jeff Bell humor thrown in. Can we please turn the show over to Tim and Jeff and kick everyone else off of it?
Turi Meyer: Great directing, although I got tired of the Host not appearing in a shot unless he was over Angel's shoulder. However I will forgive that for the phenominal performance he dragged out of David Boreanez. There was no David B onscreen, which made such a welcome change from some crap fests like "Dad" or "Provider". It was all Angel, all the time. Yay.
Gunn: Hey buddy! Nice to see you! Missed you like Hell. It was great seeing Gunn acting like his old self - kicking ass when needed, taking sides when needed, more importantly not taking sides when also needed. Gunn has never been a blind faith kind of guy. He gave Wes the benefit of the doubt because Wes is his friend (and so nice to see that friendship again) but that was it - benefit of the doubt. Which meant Gunn then wanted proof to back it up one way or another. This is the Gunn we know and love, the Gunn who can work with Angel but not actually like Angel. One of the joys of Gunn's character is his complexities, and those were back in full force.
Angel: Pookie! You've been gone for so long! And I see you've brought our old and rarely-seen friend Continuity along with you. Loved Angel going dark. Loved him hauling out the torture kink. Purr, purr, and can I mention purr?
The bad:
I said it before but the explanation for why Cordy wasn't there was lame, lame, lame. Can't you say you tried to call but her cellphone wasn't working? The hotel was suffering from a hurricane? Something? It's just dialogue, guys, make it up!
The bum stealing Wes's wallet. I'm all for making things darker, but to me this was kicking Wes for the sake of kicking him. Yes, granted, in real life someone in Wes's position would probably get his pocket picked, but this is fiction and we need to go for a story that flows and makes sense more than we need to go for realism. If you want to continue the mind fuck of him lying there then show the bum passing by, Wes trying to talk, not being able to make himself heard over the sound of the rattling cart, and there you go. Having his wallet get stolen - unless this proves to be a plot point later (it did look like his life savings, or close to) - was gratuitious.
The msc:
I'm not going to comment on the urn thing at the end until we find out if that's the end of Sahjhan (note the spelling, kiddies, there will be a quiz later, although props to the show for the meta-humor). I pulled up the shooting script for Loyalty and reread Holtz's comments about the urn - basically fuck knows if it's a forever deal. Yes, Holtz says they "last a lifetime" but nobody clarifies if Sahjhan can get out again if somebody just opens the lid. If that is the end of Sahjhan though, let me go on the record as saying: LAME!! Even if a bigger bad gets revealed before the season finale that won't make up for getting rid of this one villan so easily. But again - I'm holding off on really having an opinion until we find out for certain.
Lines of the episode:
Pardon the bad paraphrasing but the best lines of the ep have to go to:
Angel: If you want someone to beat you up, go get your boyfriend. (Have I mentioned I've missed the real Angel? I've missed the real Angel. Plus gotta love a line that nasty coming out of the hero of the show, but more on this in a sec)
Gunn: [to Justine] STAY DOWN! (I know, not one for a bumper sticker but it sounded so much like the real Gunn it gave me a happy)
Angel: I don't hurt those I care about [stare at Fred) (Does this need explanation?)
TBQ commentary:
Okay then, now that we've done the wrap-up, let's do some discussion.
Whoo nelly was this a dark episode, but GOOD. In a way it reminds me of "The Body" in that fuck was it good, but I think I'd have a hard time watching it twice. Or at least watching it so soon. It also reminds me of the "let them eat lawyer" moment of season 2, which I think for me clarifies the real strengths of the show and why I love it, slashiness aside.
Here's why - they were totally unafraid to go for broke. Let's remember gang, Angel is the hero of the piece. And what did we see our hero doing? Torturing people, getting ready to kill innocents, conspiring with the enemy, calling on the forces of evil, lying, making callous jokes about domenstic violence and trying to kill one of his co-stars and all that in more or less 24 hours. And this is the show where he's supposed to be the good guy.
This to me is the strength of Angel the series. Yes we have the bits of fun and fantasy that started in Buffy, but Angel takes all of that to a far darker and more mature emotional place and when they are good they are GOOD. (sadly this means when they're bad it's that much more painful, but I have faith that there will be plenty of bad eps in the future for me to discuss so I'll just stick with the current one).
An interesting moment to me of realizing just how far they were willing to go was when Angel was talking with that guy by the curb and having that moment of "It's not your fault." As I was watching the show I suddenly realized that I had lost all empathy for Angel the character. Why? Because it wasn't the guy's fault, but it was Angel's. Angel had released this force of absolute destruction on the world (again yes, Sahjhan gets captured later but Angel wouldn't know that for certain) and he didn't care. Suddenly I was there thinking "You know what, Angelcakes? I'm starting to not give a shit that your torturing, world-ending, evil ass lost a kid you were going to end up killing anyway." And Angel's the protagonist.
That's an amazing amount of courage on the part of the staff who put this storyline together. It takes balls to turn your hero - your main character - into the villan. What other show would do that? And moreoever, what other show would do that without trying to excuse the behavior? Compare this to the Willow magic addiction storyline - yes Willow did bad things, but she was an addict, she couldn't help herself, whine whine whine. Where's Willow's responsibility?
Not so with Angel. Angel himself even hammers this home at the end (literally) when he tells Wes he hasn't gone evil, this isn't Angelus, it's all Angel. In a way this even one-ups Buffy season two when Angelus came around in the first place. After all - that wasn't Angel's fault. The curse broke. He didn't have the soul anymore. Whoops.
But no such luck here - there's no excuse, Angel's just gone bad and he's done it under his own steam.
Another thing I loved about this ep was the Angel/Wes storyline (get your slash minds out of the gutter). AtS has done a phenominal job of parallelling Angel and Wes without hitting us over the head with anvils (Marti Noxon, take notes). Wes, like Angel, has done things in his past that he's not proud of, he's made choices that were not entirely moral but were right by his standards, and he's trying to atone for the things he's done. This season too also showed him feeling like an outsider, and unwanted by the woman he loved (much though I still say Wes and Fred have and will continue to have zero chemistry) just as Angel did with Cordy (ditto).
Wes's throat cutting, then near-murder by Angel to me feels a lot like Angel being sent to Hell in season 2 Buffy. It would be hard to get this boy into a lower place (not that I'd complain if the writers figured out how - hands up, how many of you are wondering if Wes will eventually end up as a vampire before the show goes off the air?) Just as Angel lost his foundation in Buffy when he became Angelus, Wes has lost his foundation in Angel (Wes himself tells us in Couplet that Angel is the reason why he's there) and Angel, like Buffy, isn't going to be inclined to give it back. Throw in the trauma of lying near-dead in the park for over a day, where I'm sure time felt longer than it actually was, and it's Wes's own Acathla.
Showing how Wes recovers from this - assuming he recovers from this - is going to be interesting. Moreover we had the nice acknowledgement of the parallelism on the screen with the Host actually saying that Angel should forgive Wes if he wants to forgive himself. Okay, the speech was a bit on the side of telling us what the thing is, but judges will allow because it was also a fuzzy tiger to distract people from realizing that Angel was lying through his little fanged teeth (two - two - two TBQ vocab words for the price of one). As someone else (sorry, I forgot who) pointed out, Angel is actually trying to commit suicide when he goes after Wesley, and the scene is all the more powerful for the connection between the two - both the friendship that is broken, but for the narrative resemblance between them. As my AP English teacher used to say - there's a 5.
So now what?
Well - hard to say. Damn if that WB promo didn't look discouraging, but it's the WB so it's hard to trust anyway. I've got a hard time buying that Gunn and Fred are going to be buying any "we're not losing another member of this family" speeches from Angelica after watching him try to kill Wes. But I'm just not going to even try to judge this based solely on the promo. They're misleading and never give out useful information.
Looks like Cordy's back. Wee. Sorry, Charisma, but they've raped your character so much I honestly didn't miss you. Bring back the real Cordy to join the real Angel and real Gunn and I'll change my mind. Also please don't tell me that Cordy's demon power is to turn into a pretty light being. Why can't Cordy be an ugly demon? It'd be more interesting.
Random thoughts:
I can't help but wonder if they're setting it up for Justine to eventually join the AI gang. Gotta say I wouldn't mind. I know I'm in the minority but I actually like her. Plus? She and Wes actually had some chemistry. I'd love to see what happens now that Wes is apparently Justine's version of hitting rock bottom. Is she going to try to interact with him again? Would he want her to? What? Lotta potential.
Also - given that Wes's throat got hurt, I can't help but flashback to his comment to Holtz about not being able to trust Holtz because of his low, gravely voice. Foreshadowing? Who knows? Again - lotta potential.
