Angel 5.1: Conviction
Oct. 1st, 2003 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenAhh, been a while since I've done one of these. Spoilers for the ep only.
God damn it! How dare Spike steal all of Wesley's screen time!! That bastard!! And they totally ruined Wesley's character by destroying his memories of Connor and.... yeah, now you see how silly y'all looked. Sorry, sometimes it pays to be a spoiler whore, especially in this fandom.
ObCheapWhore: Spanking! Fairy! Never let it be said I'm above bribery. I'll now let the rest of you squee over it as I dissect the rest. (note how I delegate 8) )
Not a bad ep for the Weed-man. Those of you who have read my Angel comments before know that I tend to view Joss-written episodes with about the same amount of eagerness that I anticipate sticking forks in my eye. But when the boy does good I give credit where due, and he did good. He didn't do his usual screw-up of making the characters quippier than they were supposed to be. And he kept the right tone. Frankly to me it felt a bit like Firefly, with Angel in Mal's position, and I'm 100% fine with that. Angel would be a leader like Mal would. Just the right tone of dark and violence under the goodness. And the right kind of doofiness. The bit with the phone was good - and well directed, so credit to Weed for that as well. God knows David B will screw up a dorky scene if you let him but Weed kept him at just the right level. Ditto with the car scene. Also with subtle emotions. This was no Tim Minear directed performance, but I still liked the undercurrent of emotion in Angel's voice when he dealt with the realization about the kid.
In case you didn't notice, the shot right after the credits was one amazingly long single take (Fred in the elevator to Angel arriving in his office). When I first watched the ep (*cough*) I debated whether or not I liked it because sometimes Weed goes overboard with his trick shots. It's a fine line between a tricky shot done well and a tricky shot that slaps you in the face and demands to be noticed for its specialness. But upon rewatching it today I decided it was well done. There was a staggering amount of organization that needed to go into that thing between the main characters hitting their marks, the steadicam moving into place and all the extras (BTW, look quick and you've got a spoiler for an upcoming ep) doing their thing. It's possible that it teeters towards face-slapping but even so - dayum. Go everybody. Seriously.
Speaking of juggling characters, let's notice how the entire gang was juggled in this ep. Energetically speaking there were a couple of lags here and there (note how Wes stalls near the end just a little) but for the most part the ensemble cast was handled well. Everybody had equal weight, a difficult task considering how many things had to be covered.
And let's touch on my boy Wes. Still scruffy, in spite of everyone's fears. I find it interesting that he, of all of them, was the one to express doubts about why they were here. Is this possibly due to the Connor mind-wipe? Hard to say and I'll bet anything ME doesn't know yet either.
Wes hits an interesting note though. He's strong and confident in himself, but he's not as bitter and cynical as he was last year. Frankly he reminds me a bit of his s3 self, which I always thought was probably his baseline. Not a total dork, not a total asshole either. Just somewhere in between.
Notice too where he is with Angel. Comforting him about Cordy, helping him with the secretary without being asked, taking charge without Angel even questioning it (Wes was the one to delegate everybody tasks once the problem came up, not Angel). Lord knows this was the kind of Wes that Angel wanted, can't say it's a surprise that it's the Wes Angel got after his mind-wipe.
I'm dying of curiosity about whether Wes still has the scar on his neck. I'd love to know if it's no longer there because there's no more Connor, but even if Alexis isn't sporting that makeup it could be a tough call. In a world where Angel's hair can grow in a week (and notice that this was the first season to start within a week of the last - and let's watch how quickly they fuzzy tiger that to get the gang into fall) it's possible that Wes's scar could also heal.
Oh, and by the way - I like Angel's hair. To be honest it's been seven years, it's about time this little fairy got a new hairstyle. Angel was in serious danger of losing his queer cred. And while I'm on it, David's not fat people, those are muscles. The boy is built like a football player now. And I, personally, am not made of wood. Rrrow.
Fred wasn't bad, though I'm kicking myself for not realizing that we're going to be cursed with that ultra-clunky line of exposition for what's probably going to be month's worth of previouslies. Don't get me wrong, I recognize the need for them to stop and have the narrative laid out for the benefit of those tuning in it's just... sigh. Couldn't we just put up a placard or something? It'd be about as subtle.
One thing about Fred though, and it's that yet again she shows why I don't like her as a person even though she's now better written as a character. Her little tantrum in the lab? Hon, get over yourself. If you've got issues with the firm you can quit. Angel's not holding a gun to your head. But if you work for the firm for the best of intentions maybe people in your department did the same thing. Do you honestly think everybody in the world wakes up and decides to be good or evil? If you haven't tuned in to the concept of grey areas by now maybe you need to get a Gunn-style brain zapping. And for God's sake get your bare feet off the furniture, you look like a hillbilly (tm Carson)
Speaking of characters I don't like....
I've long thought that Weed's talents function on a Picture of Dorian Grey principle, which is that for every brilliant idea he comes up with (Lorne) he must similarly have a complete ass of an idea to balance it out (Fred/Gunn). If 90% of tonight's ep was brilliance, the 10% painting in the attic was named Eve.
Sigh.
Okay, here's the thing, if you were a spoiler whore you knew that Eve came originally packaged with a little speech about how she wasn't Lilah, in fact Lilah was gone and we're all going to dance on her grave now because Eve is the New Lilah [tm] and is Much Better Than Lilah Can't You Tell? [tm]
In other words, Stephanie couldn't come back for various reasons and Weed threw a tantrum about it the likes of which haven't been seen since Seth Green went off to persue his movie career.
Could you tell that all of Eve's lines were meant to be said by Lilah? Could you tell they hadn't even changed the blocking much? Can you tell I don't like this character?
Look, it's not the Lilah thing. I could care less about the backstage politics here. As always, I care about quality product. Eve is not quality, not by a long shot.
First off let's talk casting. If you are scripting a femme fatale, as they so clearly were, then you need to not hire someone who acts like she's trying to run for student body president. You also need somebody who doesn't sound like they're the bastard love child of an embarassing incident involving Kirsten Dundst and a chipmunk (though, for the record, Kirsten could have possibly pulled off this role). You need somebody who sounds smokey, sexy and knowledgeable. You do not want somebody who's a half step away from talking about spirit fingers.
Which isn't entirely a slam on the actress. Honestly I can't tell if she's good or bad or not. She's a square peg and this is a round hole. She does not fit into the mold they're trying to shove her in and that may or may not be her fault. Personally right now I'm inclined to blame Weed and everyone responsible for getting her on the screen. I mean for God's sake look at her clothes. Her coat doesn't even fit her and what the Hell were those skirts?? Considering how well dressed everyone else was (Yes, I know Lorne was bright but A) thank God they're not trying to straight him up anymore and B) it still looked good on Lorne) I'm almost wondering if it was a point to make Eve look horrible and like she was trying to wear big girl's clothes for the first time.
'cause here's the other thing - she's either written badly for what she's supposed to be, or really well for something else. If she's supposed to be mysterious, all powerful, all connected girl then she sucks. Because she can't carry off that air of confidence that Lilah could and her attempts were very Mary Sue-ish at best ("Champ"? Never, ever have the new kid call the man characters by cute little nicknames. Trust me, it's not pretty.)
On the other hand if Eve is just someone trying to be like Lilah she's doing great, because you know what she actually comes off as? The girl who fetches the coffee for the Senior Partners. You know how I know? Because she's got the free time in her day to sit in people's offices and pose herself for HOURS until people show up. She did it twice. This is not a sign of someone with power. This is a sign of someone who got in on the intern program and is trying to make sure nobody notices she's got nothing to do. Neither Lilah nor Lindsey nor fucking Gavin for that matter would have ever sat on their ass for any amount of time waiting for people to happen by. They had better things to do. Eve? Not so much.
So either it needs to be a plot point that this chick isn't as important as she pretends to be, or they need to stop writing her like the Lilah-wanna be she is STAT. Because right now she's just sad.
Other notes:
Great stunt work. The Mikes had fun, you could tell. I've got a minor peeve with the one bad wirework in the school but the rest was so good I really can't complain. I'm amused, though, to note that stunt-double-Mike is a bit easier to pick out now that David's got new hair and new muscles. But the flip side is you can tell David does a lot of his own stunts too.
I loved Harmony. I'll admit I had my "box?" like doubts about bringing her into the cast but I thought she struck just the right note. And she and Angel had great chemistry together.
Wes is still pretty.
I wonder how much David B was drooling over all those classic cars. My guess is he probably didn't have to do much acting in that scene ;)
Fred's was clunky, but I'm somewhat amused by the meta-commentary with Gunn. The most underutilized member of the team? Yeah, no shit. We've been saying that for years.
I'm nerd enough that I was dying to see the new credits. I wonder how all those "Don't you dare tell us Spike is coming onto the show!!!" anti-"spoiler" (and I put it in quotes because I don't count Spike coming onto the show, which was highly publicized by the WB for God's sake, to have ever been a spoiler) felt about him being in the opening credits. And look! New power shot.
Also look! Alexis continues to have apparently killed the pet rabbit of whomever does the glamour shots since there he still isn't. Sigh. James and Dave looked pretty though.
Wes canonically knows Angelus's history by heart. I'm assuming that's how he recognized Spike.
I think Angel's "Spike." is going to become our version of Seinfeld's "Newman." Or at least I hope it will.
I will allow that Eve's line of "How do you know I'm either of those things?" was good. More of that might help her.
Did you notice Wes was wearing my favorite coat? 8) (I told you, I'm a cheap whore)
Ah look, just as I learn the floorplan for the Hyperion I get a whole new thing to have to figure out. Angel's office is on the opposite side of that square area from Wes and Gunn's, right?
Notice that Wes is comfortable with Angel yet with the others still has a slight "odd man out" distance. It's not as bad as s4 but it's not as close as early s3 either. Makes me wonder if this will influence his development as the season goes on.
And with that my brain grinds to a halt. As always, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. But on the whole I loved the ep. Great start. Even for a Weed ep ;)
And finally, Did You Notice: Gunn's big cat in his blipvert? I love those little touches. (And I will always, always be a cheap whore to muzak on this show. Gets me every time, I swear.)
ETA: I knew I forgot something. I wanted to give a shout-out to a good camera angle. When Fred and Wes are talking about Angel taking it hard and Fred suggests that the place just gets to you, we switch to a shot from the top of the staircase with Wes and Fred small at the bottom. It was a nice, subtle way of creating a POV on these characters that makes you feel a little paranoid. Subconsciously you feel like they're being watched. It was a nice touch so, again, credit to Weed where due.
ETAA:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sisabet Reminded me of another fav line "You went evil faster than I thought you would". So, so happy with that line.
Out to you guys!
God damn it! How dare Spike steal all of Wesley's screen time!! That bastard!! And they totally ruined Wesley's character by destroying his memories of Connor and.... yeah, now you see how silly y'all looked. Sorry, sometimes it pays to be a spoiler whore, especially in this fandom.
ObCheapWhore: Spanking! Fairy! Never let it be said I'm above bribery. I'll now let the rest of you squee over it as I dissect the rest. (note how I delegate 8) )
Not a bad ep for the Weed-man. Those of you who have read my Angel comments before know that I tend to view Joss-written episodes with about the same amount of eagerness that I anticipate sticking forks in my eye. But when the boy does good I give credit where due, and he did good. He didn't do his usual screw-up of making the characters quippier than they were supposed to be. And he kept the right tone. Frankly to me it felt a bit like Firefly, with Angel in Mal's position, and I'm 100% fine with that. Angel would be a leader like Mal would. Just the right tone of dark and violence under the goodness. And the right kind of doofiness. The bit with the phone was good - and well directed, so credit to Weed for that as well. God knows David B will screw up a dorky scene if you let him but Weed kept him at just the right level. Ditto with the car scene. Also with subtle emotions. This was no Tim Minear directed performance, but I still liked the undercurrent of emotion in Angel's voice when he dealt with the realization about the kid.
In case you didn't notice, the shot right after the credits was one amazingly long single take (Fred in the elevator to Angel arriving in his office). When I first watched the ep (*cough*) I debated whether or not I liked it because sometimes Weed goes overboard with his trick shots. It's a fine line between a tricky shot done well and a tricky shot that slaps you in the face and demands to be noticed for its specialness. But upon rewatching it today I decided it was well done. There was a staggering amount of organization that needed to go into that thing between the main characters hitting their marks, the steadicam moving into place and all the extras (BTW, look quick and you've got a spoiler for an upcoming ep) doing their thing. It's possible that it teeters towards face-slapping but even so - dayum. Go everybody. Seriously.
Speaking of juggling characters, let's notice how the entire gang was juggled in this ep. Energetically speaking there were a couple of lags here and there (note how Wes stalls near the end just a little) but for the most part the ensemble cast was handled well. Everybody had equal weight, a difficult task considering how many things had to be covered.
And let's touch on my boy Wes. Still scruffy, in spite of everyone's fears. I find it interesting that he, of all of them, was the one to express doubts about why they were here. Is this possibly due to the Connor mind-wipe? Hard to say and I'll bet anything ME doesn't know yet either.
Wes hits an interesting note though. He's strong and confident in himself, but he's not as bitter and cynical as he was last year. Frankly he reminds me a bit of his s3 self, which I always thought was probably his baseline. Not a total dork, not a total asshole either. Just somewhere in between.
Notice too where he is with Angel. Comforting him about Cordy, helping him with the secretary without being asked, taking charge without Angel even questioning it (Wes was the one to delegate everybody tasks once the problem came up, not Angel). Lord knows this was the kind of Wes that Angel wanted, can't say it's a surprise that it's the Wes Angel got after his mind-wipe.
I'm dying of curiosity about whether Wes still has the scar on his neck. I'd love to know if it's no longer there because there's no more Connor, but even if Alexis isn't sporting that makeup it could be a tough call. In a world where Angel's hair can grow in a week (and notice that this was the first season to start within a week of the last - and let's watch how quickly they fuzzy tiger that to get the gang into fall) it's possible that Wes's scar could also heal.
Oh, and by the way - I like Angel's hair. To be honest it's been seven years, it's about time this little fairy got a new hairstyle. Angel was in serious danger of losing his queer cred. And while I'm on it, David's not fat people, those are muscles. The boy is built like a football player now. And I, personally, am not made of wood. Rrrow.
Fred wasn't bad, though I'm kicking myself for not realizing that we're going to be cursed with that ultra-clunky line of exposition for what's probably going to be month's worth of previouslies. Don't get me wrong, I recognize the need for them to stop and have the narrative laid out for the benefit of those tuning in it's just... sigh. Couldn't we just put up a placard or something? It'd be about as subtle.
One thing about Fred though, and it's that yet again she shows why I don't like her as a person even though she's now better written as a character. Her little tantrum in the lab? Hon, get over yourself. If you've got issues with the firm you can quit. Angel's not holding a gun to your head. But if you work for the firm for the best of intentions maybe people in your department did the same thing. Do you honestly think everybody in the world wakes up and decides to be good or evil? If you haven't tuned in to the concept of grey areas by now maybe you need to get a Gunn-style brain zapping. And for God's sake get your bare feet off the furniture, you look like a hillbilly (tm Carson)
Speaking of characters I don't like....
I've long thought that Weed's talents function on a Picture of Dorian Grey principle, which is that for every brilliant idea he comes up with (Lorne) he must similarly have a complete ass of an idea to balance it out (Fred/Gunn). If 90% of tonight's ep was brilliance, the 10% painting in the attic was named Eve.
Sigh.
Okay, here's the thing, if you were a spoiler whore you knew that Eve came originally packaged with a little speech about how she wasn't Lilah, in fact Lilah was gone and we're all going to dance on her grave now because Eve is the New Lilah [tm] and is Much Better Than Lilah Can't You Tell? [tm]
In other words, Stephanie couldn't come back for various reasons and Weed threw a tantrum about it the likes of which haven't been seen since Seth Green went off to persue his movie career.
Could you tell that all of Eve's lines were meant to be said by Lilah? Could you tell they hadn't even changed the blocking much? Can you tell I don't like this character?
Look, it's not the Lilah thing. I could care less about the backstage politics here. As always, I care about quality product. Eve is not quality, not by a long shot.
First off let's talk casting. If you are scripting a femme fatale, as they so clearly were, then you need to not hire someone who acts like she's trying to run for student body president. You also need somebody who doesn't sound like they're the bastard love child of an embarassing incident involving Kirsten Dundst and a chipmunk (though, for the record, Kirsten could have possibly pulled off this role). You need somebody who sounds smokey, sexy and knowledgeable. You do not want somebody who's a half step away from talking about spirit fingers.
Which isn't entirely a slam on the actress. Honestly I can't tell if she's good or bad or not. She's a square peg and this is a round hole. She does not fit into the mold they're trying to shove her in and that may or may not be her fault. Personally right now I'm inclined to blame Weed and everyone responsible for getting her on the screen. I mean for God's sake look at her clothes. Her coat doesn't even fit her and what the Hell were those skirts?? Considering how well dressed everyone else was (Yes, I know Lorne was bright but A) thank God they're not trying to straight him up anymore and B) it still looked good on Lorne) I'm almost wondering if it was a point to make Eve look horrible and like she was trying to wear big girl's clothes for the first time.
'cause here's the other thing - she's either written badly for what she's supposed to be, or really well for something else. If she's supposed to be mysterious, all powerful, all connected girl then she sucks. Because she can't carry off that air of confidence that Lilah could and her attempts were very Mary Sue-ish at best ("Champ"? Never, ever have the new kid call the man characters by cute little nicknames. Trust me, it's not pretty.)
On the other hand if Eve is just someone trying to be like Lilah she's doing great, because you know what she actually comes off as? The girl who fetches the coffee for the Senior Partners. You know how I know? Because she's got the free time in her day to sit in people's offices and pose herself for HOURS until people show up. She did it twice. This is not a sign of someone with power. This is a sign of someone who got in on the intern program and is trying to make sure nobody notices she's got nothing to do. Neither Lilah nor Lindsey nor fucking Gavin for that matter would have ever sat on their ass for any amount of time waiting for people to happen by. They had better things to do. Eve? Not so much.
So either it needs to be a plot point that this chick isn't as important as she pretends to be, or they need to stop writing her like the Lilah-wanna be she is STAT. Because right now she's just sad.
Other notes:
Great stunt work. The Mikes had fun, you could tell. I've got a minor peeve with the one bad wirework in the school but the rest was so good I really can't complain. I'm amused, though, to note that stunt-double-Mike is a bit easier to pick out now that David's got new hair and new muscles. But the flip side is you can tell David does a lot of his own stunts too.
I loved Harmony. I'll admit I had my "box?" like doubts about bringing her into the cast but I thought she struck just the right note. And she and Angel had great chemistry together.
Wes is still pretty.
I wonder how much David B was drooling over all those classic cars. My guess is he probably didn't have to do much acting in that scene ;)
Fred's was clunky, but I'm somewhat amused by the meta-commentary with Gunn. The most underutilized member of the team? Yeah, no shit. We've been saying that for years.
I'm nerd enough that I was dying to see the new credits. I wonder how all those "Don't you dare tell us Spike is coming onto the show!!!" anti-"spoiler" (and I put it in quotes because I don't count Spike coming onto the show, which was highly publicized by the WB for God's sake, to have ever been a spoiler) felt about him being in the opening credits. And look! New power shot.
Also look! Alexis continues to have apparently killed the pet rabbit of whomever does the glamour shots since there he still isn't. Sigh. James and Dave looked pretty though.
Wes canonically knows Angelus's history by heart. I'm assuming that's how he recognized Spike.
I think Angel's "Spike." is going to become our version of Seinfeld's "Newman." Or at least I hope it will.
I will allow that Eve's line of "How do you know I'm either of those things?" was good. More of that might help her.
Did you notice Wes was wearing my favorite coat? 8) (I told you, I'm a cheap whore)
Ah look, just as I learn the floorplan for the Hyperion I get a whole new thing to have to figure out. Angel's office is on the opposite side of that square area from Wes and Gunn's, right?
Notice that Wes is comfortable with Angel yet with the others still has a slight "odd man out" distance. It's not as bad as s4 but it's not as close as early s3 either. Makes me wonder if this will influence his development as the season goes on.
And with that my brain grinds to a halt. As always, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. But on the whole I loved the ep. Great start. Even for a Weed ep ;)
And finally, Did You Notice: Gunn's big cat in his blipvert? I love those little touches. (And I will always, always be a cheap whore to muzak on this show. Gets me every time, I swear.)
ETA: I knew I forgot something. I wanted to give a shout-out to a good camera angle. When Fred and Wes are talking about Angel taking it hard and Fred suggests that the place just gets to you, we switch to a shot from the top of the staircase with Wes and Fred small at the bottom. It was a nice, subtle way of creating a POV on these characters that makes you feel a little paranoid. Subconsciously you feel like they're being watched. It was a nice touch so, again, credit to Weed where due.
ETAA:
sisabet Reminded me of another fav line "You went evil faster than I thought you would". So, so happy with that line.Out to you guys!
