Angel 5.4 Hellbound
Oct. 22nd, 2003 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenBack from Rhode Island, taking a moment to offer comments.
Interesting episode. I find myself looking at this ep like a tapestry or a rug which is almost entirely perfect except for some wear and tear along the edges. I'd really love to snip the wear and tear off but I can't because then the entire rug would unravel. It's kind of frustrating.
Don't get me wrong, it was a good ep. And apparently Steve DeKnight reads my fic (Okay, granted, wrong vampire but when the dialogue is almost spot-on I'm going to claim the shout-out). Creepy ep. Not in the kind of way that would keep me personally awake at night but the kind that has me giving props to Steve for the directing. And the makeup department. They did a phenominal job with this one and I wouldn't be surprised if this was their Emmy reel.
I was thinking earlier (and you'll have to forgive me as my thoughts ping pong all over the place, I'm too tired to be linear) about how this year Angel's got a slashed budget (heh, she said slash) and it occurs to me as I write this that Steve did a lot with just camera angles and lights going on and off, yet at no time while watching this did I think "Well this is cheap". So again props for that.
And oh dear GOD am I taking the Spike and Angel conversation as a shout-out. Angel thinks he's going to Hell? THANK YOU! Been saying that for years (and, Captain Ego that I am, I'm thrilled to know I've been writing him correctly for years too) Plus nobody except Fred was surprised by Spike's Hell revealation so neener neener neener (I'm tired, therefore more immature than normal).
When I first read the spoilers for this ep I have to admit I rolled my eyes. I didn't want Fredless 2: Electric Spikearoo. I didn't like the idea that yet again ME was going to force us to give a crap about a character by a long and painfully contrived episode created for the specific purpose of beating us about the head with how much we were supposed to give a damn. I realize that unlike Fred there are those in the audience who are thrilled to have Spike on board, but as the Spike flamewars have shown us there are just as many vocal people out there who aren't so I thought ME was making a bad mistake in attempting to win them over by teasing them with the possibility that Spike might be leaving.
But I have to say in the actual execution of the ep they did great. For starters, Spike had a personality back. His motivations were consistant throughout the ep. This was a Spike we could understand and relate to. He was actually interesting to watch, regardless of whether or not you cared about him going to Hell. And frankly that's the point. It shouldn't matter whether or not we like the characters personally and want to invite them to lunch. It matters whether or not we can be interested in watching them on our TV screens. Spike today was interesting.
We also had a nice touch, too, with the conversation with Spike and Angel on the couch. Granted the Hope and Crosby references were a little anvilly on the meta-level, but it worked to show us that this is what we're going for. Part of Spike's place on the show is going to be this sort of uneasy camraderie with Angel. Based on their past and their peerage with each other (so to speak) it shows how Spike can have a place that none of the others can. Contrast this with Fredless where they had to pull reasons to keep the girl around out of their ass pretty much as of that episode.
(Sidenote: I'm a little torn on the poetry/Manilow exchange. I was annoyed when I first heard it because I hate hate HATE the pussyization of Angelus with the white hot passion of a billion suns and y'all already know how much I fucking hate beating that god-damned Mandy joke to death. However in the watching of it I decided that Angel's tone is ambiguous enough that he could mean that he, Angel, liked the poetry and not Angelus. Also, admittedly this is at least a variation on the Manilow joke which is what I've been begging them for all along. Had Spike said specifically "You like Mandy" it would have been the exact same joke again. The tiny variation of "You like Manilow" at least changes it a bit to incidate that entire genre of music. So it's not as bad as I once thought, though admittedly I am desperate ;) )
Plus, frankly, at no time were we worried that Spike was actually going to vanish, nor was that the crux of the story. In this ep we're clear the whole time that this is just Spike's wacky yet creepy adventures in Wolfram & Hart. The drama of Fredless was supposed to center around Fred possibly leaving and, well, nobody gave a shit.
Other random goodness: Angel at the end. Gotta love it when Daddy shows up.
This naturally moves us on to the random badness, and again I wanna say these are just the worn edges that are frustrating me in an otherwise perfect tapestry:
Eve. Still don't care about her. Still don't like how she's acting, by which I mean Eve the character, not how the actress is playing her though that's not thrilling me either. Put it this way: "Sweetie" still makes me want to throw things at my screen and demand that the girl get over herself. I guess she's sort of being filled out as the bullshit red tape girl but.... whatever. Did that actually need to be a person? Angel couldn't just get emails about it? Can't Charles "Mr White Room" Gunn do the exposition tango on what the Senior Partners want when they have to? I'm willing to hold off judgement on the assumption that Eve will actually have something to do later that actually matters to an overall plot but for right now - give her a personality at least! What is she? Femme fatale? Overrated coffee girl? Other? Pick a team, start playing. (Also - and thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
justhuman for double checking this for me, but shouldn't she be a little more in the know with regards to Spike vanishing and reappearing? What was the direction on "Where did he go?" supposed to be? Is she geniunely ignorant, which just fuels the theory that Eve is no more than a full of herself intern, or was she attempting to not show how much she did know in which case let me say she's faking the useless bimbo thing really well.)
The direction on Spike was fab. The direction on everybody else was scattershot. Don't get me wrong, I love Steve and I love his ability to throw in a spot-on one liner (eg "That's never a good sign.") but the random bits of humor felt a little - I dunno. If the words clumsy and jarring had a baby. I'm trying to remember the various moments and I think what it is is that every time it felt like a one-liner moment. In other words the characters were saying something funny to say something funny and not because they'd been innately inspired to make a quip. It wasn't all the time but it was enough to bug me.
Also why was Angel suddenly stupid and out of his element? I was sort of okay with it during the Fred conversation because that seemed to be played like Angel had been given a speech that he had to say, though at that point I have to dispute the characterization of Angel who would sit there and allow Eve to order him around like that. But whatever. Angel's never been a beaurocrat before so even if Eve didn't force him to say the speech I could sort of see Angel not being comfortable with having to deliver a stern budget lecture anyway.
But then this continued throughout the ep, including the white room. Um - huh? Angel's been in the white room plenty of times and under worse personal circumstances. Why's it freaking him now?
That goes back to what I'm saying about scattershot. It's not that I mind the characterization of Angel as a guy who's occasionally dorky, stupid and in over his head to the point where he doesn't even know what to do with his hands anymore. But the moments make sense for Angel. Having him turn into that guy at, say, a Hollywood party makes sense. Having him turn into that guy in the White Room (and let me just add scared of a big cat when he's faced demons) comes off as doing it for the sake of doing a dorky Angel scene.
So basically the Greek chorus moments needed to be tighter. If it wasn't for that the ep would be perfect. As is it was a strong A =)
As always, randomness:
Can I again ask what it is exactly that Wes does? I know he's got a spiffy official job title now but apparently his role is now that of a demi-librarian. He's allowed to hand books to people but at no point is he permitted to find anything useful in them until somebody else spots it first. I get that Lawyer-Brain Gunn would now be neck and neck with Wes in the mad research skillz department and I don't dispute that in the slightest, but when you've got an ep that centers on the supernatural and Wes at no time is ahead of everybody else on knowing what the fuck is going on, something's seriously wrong. (Yes, I know he guessed that it wasn't Spike who hurt the mystic - that was a guess, not knowledge. I also know that he looked up stuff on the computer but again that was after everybody else narrowed it down for him. The only time he actually seemed to be competant at his job without anybody lending a hand was when Fred handed him the list and Wes knew what the books were and how quickly he could get them.) My hope is that the "intelligence" part of "research and intelligence" is going to be fleshed out as the year goes on. In other words that they're moving Wes away from the fancy book learning in order to James Bond him up later in the game.
Geniune question here: Did I miss the line that explained why Lorne wasn't around? My sound got messed up for a second during his, well, second of screentime so if he told the person on the phone something to the effect of "I'm leaving the office now" I totally missed it.
Hey look, an entire ep with Spike in it and the microphones worked. Go fig.
Is it just me or was Wes A) feyer than usual? B) at one point hitting a few mockney notes with his accent? and C) wearing eyeliner?
Speaking of makeup, did David B shave his eyelashes off or is the extra makeup for the HDTV goodness just making him look like he has none?
ObNitpick: If Spike wants a lot of practice at being able to touch things apparently he just needs to sit on Angel's couch more since the pillows behind JM were moving enough to indicate an earthquake.
ObShallow: Spike and Angel both sit as though they've got three legs. Lucky bastards.
Interesting episode. I find myself looking at this ep like a tapestry or a rug which is almost entirely perfect except for some wear and tear along the edges. I'd really love to snip the wear and tear off but I can't because then the entire rug would unravel. It's kind of frustrating.
Don't get me wrong, it was a good ep. And apparently Steve DeKnight reads my fic (Okay, granted, wrong vampire but when the dialogue is almost spot-on I'm going to claim the shout-out). Creepy ep. Not in the kind of way that would keep me personally awake at night but the kind that has me giving props to Steve for the directing. And the makeup department. They did a phenominal job with this one and I wouldn't be surprised if this was their Emmy reel.
I was thinking earlier (and you'll have to forgive me as my thoughts ping pong all over the place, I'm too tired to be linear) about how this year Angel's got a slashed budget (heh, she said slash) and it occurs to me as I write this that Steve did a lot with just camera angles and lights going on and off, yet at no time while watching this did I think "Well this is cheap". So again props for that.
And oh dear GOD am I taking the Spike and Angel conversation as a shout-out. Angel thinks he's going to Hell? THANK YOU! Been saying that for years (and, Captain Ego that I am, I'm thrilled to know I've been writing him correctly for years too) Plus nobody except Fred was surprised by Spike's Hell revealation so neener neener neener (I'm tired, therefore more immature than normal).
When I first read the spoilers for this ep I have to admit I rolled my eyes. I didn't want Fredless 2: Electric Spikearoo. I didn't like the idea that yet again ME was going to force us to give a crap about a character by a long and painfully contrived episode created for the specific purpose of beating us about the head with how much we were supposed to give a damn. I realize that unlike Fred there are those in the audience who are thrilled to have Spike on board, but as the Spike flamewars have shown us there are just as many vocal people out there who aren't so I thought ME was making a bad mistake in attempting to win them over by teasing them with the possibility that Spike might be leaving.
But I have to say in the actual execution of the ep they did great. For starters, Spike had a personality back. His motivations were consistant throughout the ep. This was a Spike we could understand and relate to. He was actually interesting to watch, regardless of whether or not you cared about him going to Hell. And frankly that's the point. It shouldn't matter whether or not we like the characters personally and want to invite them to lunch. It matters whether or not we can be interested in watching them on our TV screens. Spike today was interesting.
We also had a nice touch, too, with the conversation with Spike and Angel on the couch. Granted the Hope and Crosby references were a little anvilly on the meta-level, but it worked to show us that this is what we're going for. Part of Spike's place on the show is going to be this sort of uneasy camraderie with Angel. Based on their past and their peerage with each other (so to speak) it shows how Spike can have a place that none of the others can. Contrast this with Fredless where they had to pull reasons to keep the girl around out of their ass pretty much as of that episode.
(Sidenote: I'm a little torn on the poetry/Manilow exchange. I was annoyed when I first heard it because I hate hate HATE the pussyization of Angelus with the white hot passion of a billion suns and y'all already know how much I fucking hate beating that god-damned Mandy joke to death. However in the watching of it I decided that Angel's tone is ambiguous enough that he could mean that he, Angel, liked the poetry and not Angelus. Also, admittedly this is at least a variation on the Manilow joke which is what I've been begging them for all along. Had Spike said specifically "You like Mandy" it would have been the exact same joke again. The tiny variation of "You like Manilow" at least changes it a bit to incidate that entire genre of music. So it's not as bad as I once thought, though admittedly I am desperate ;) )
Plus, frankly, at no time were we worried that Spike was actually going to vanish, nor was that the crux of the story. In this ep we're clear the whole time that this is just Spike's wacky yet creepy adventures in Wolfram & Hart. The drama of Fredless was supposed to center around Fred possibly leaving and, well, nobody gave a shit.
Other random goodness: Angel at the end. Gotta love it when Daddy shows up.
This naturally moves us on to the random badness, and again I wanna say these are just the worn edges that are frustrating me in an otherwise perfect tapestry:
Eve. Still don't care about her. Still don't like how she's acting, by which I mean Eve the character, not how the actress is playing her though that's not thrilling me either. Put it this way: "Sweetie" still makes me want to throw things at my screen and demand that the girl get over herself. I guess she's sort of being filled out as the bullshit red tape girl but.... whatever. Did that actually need to be a person? Angel couldn't just get emails about it? Can't Charles "Mr White Room" Gunn do the exposition tango on what the Senior Partners want when they have to? I'm willing to hold off judgement on the assumption that Eve will actually have something to do later that actually matters to an overall plot but for right now - give her a personality at least! What is she? Femme fatale? Overrated coffee girl? Other? Pick a team, start playing. (Also - and thanks to
justhuman for double checking this for me, but shouldn't she be a little more in the know with regards to Spike vanishing and reappearing? What was the direction on "Where did he go?" supposed to be? Is she geniunely ignorant, which just fuels the theory that Eve is no more than a full of herself intern, or was she attempting to not show how much she did know in which case let me say she's faking the useless bimbo thing really well.)The direction on Spike was fab. The direction on everybody else was scattershot. Don't get me wrong, I love Steve and I love his ability to throw in a spot-on one liner (eg "That's never a good sign.") but the random bits of humor felt a little - I dunno. If the words clumsy and jarring had a baby. I'm trying to remember the various moments and I think what it is is that every time it felt like a one-liner moment. In other words the characters were saying something funny to say something funny and not because they'd been innately inspired to make a quip. It wasn't all the time but it was enough to bug me.
Also why was Angel suddenly stupid and out of his element? I was sort of okay with it during the Fred conversation because that seemed to be played like Angel had been given a speech that he had to say, though at that point I have to dispute the characterization of Angel who would sit there and allow Eve to order him around like that. But whatever. Angel's never been a beaurocrat before so even if Eve didn't force him to say the speech I could sort of see Angel not being comfortable with having to deliver a stern budget lecture anyway.
But then this continued throughout the ep, including the white room. Um - huh? Angel's been in the white room plenty of times and under worse personal circumstances. Why's it freaking him now?
That goes back to what I'm saying about scattershot. It's not that I mind the characterization of Angel as a guy who's occasionally dorky, stupid and in over his head to the point where he doesn't even know what to do with his hands anymore. But the moments make sense for Angel. Having him turn into that guy at, say, a Hollywood party makes sense. Having him turn into that guy in the White Room (and let me just add scared of a big cat when he's faced demons) comes off as doing it for the sake of doing a dorky Angel scene.
So basically the Greek chorus moments needed to be tighter. If it wasn't for that the ep would be perfect. As is it was a strong A =)
As always, randomness:
Can I again ask what it is exactly that Wes does? I know he's got a spiffy official job title now but apparently his role is now that of a demi-librarian. He's allowed to hand books to people but at no point is he permitted to find anything useful in them until somebody else spots it first. I get that Lawyer-Brain Gunn would now be neck and neck with Wes in the mad research skillz department and I don't dispute that in the slightest, but when you've got an ep that centers on the supernatural and Wes at no time is ahead of everybody else on knowing what the fuck is going on, something's seriously wrong. (Yes, I know he guessed that it wasn't Spike who hurt the mystic - that was a guess, not knowledge. I also know that he looked up stuff on the computer but again that was after everybody else narrowed it down for him. The only time he actually seemed to be competant at his job without anybody lending a hand was when Fred handed him the list and Wes knew what the books were and how quickly he could get them.) My hope is that the "intelligence" part of "research and intelligence" is going to be fleshed out as the year goes on. In other words that they're moving Wes away from the fancy book learning in order to James Bond him up later in the game.
Geniune question here: Did I miss the line that explained why Lorne wasn't around? My sound got messed up for a second during his, well, second of screentime so if he told the person on the phone something to the effect of "I'm leaving the office now" I totally missed it.
Hey look, an entire ep with Spike in it and the microphones worked. Go fig.
Is it just me or was Wes A) feyer than usual? B) at one point hitting a few mockney notes with his accent? and C) wearing eyeliner?
Speaking of makeup, did David B shave his eyelashes off or is the extra makeup for the HDTV goodness just making him look like he has none?
ObNitpick: If Spike wants a lot of practice at being able to touch things apparently he just needs to sit on Angel's couch more since the pillows behind JM were moving enough to indicate an earthquake.
ObShallow: Spike and Angel both sit as though they've got three legs. Lucky bastards.
