Angel 5.17 Underneath

[thebratqueen]

Okay, first off you gotta imagine me crying my eyes out like Butters on South Park. Only five episodes left, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Second, let's talk this episode.

Now to be fair (and I'm sure you can already tell where my review is going, when I start out with "to be fair") this was a filler ep. Part of the chess game. It was, if you will, Inside Out. Putting all the players into place for the next arc to come. The show's done this a million times before, it's necessary, I accept that.

That being said, Jesus CHRIST what was with the directing?

Seriously, was Skip suicidally depressed that week? Not that I could blame him since this was right about when the news of the cancellation hit town, but dude. Dude. DUDE.

First off, I'm putting blame for Eve right with Joss, since we know he's the one with the fetish for her. An entire plotline devoted to keeping her alive? Hi, we don't care. We really don't care. We're not going to care, and we're going to ask why we're not at least getting Lorne and Harmony smacking her around during the downtimes. Then we're especially not going to care when saving her ass results in innocents dying.

But this also, I think, goes back to the directing. And a bit on the actual handling of the plot. I love Jayne, really I do, but he should've been offstaged until the very last scene. Don't show anything but rumbling and people being thrown through walls until the very end when he shows up at the garage. Then dramatic posing, blah blah blah, whips out the contract instead of a sword and see? Suddenly it's funny.

Not that we would have cared about Eve any more, but at least her trappings would've been a bit amusing.

Long as we're on the subject, might as well quote the conversation I just had in IRC:

[Wolfling] Jayne is such a step up as liason over Eve.
TBQ] AIR is a step up over Eve
* Wolfling ignores plot of ep for a moment over the happiness of having Jayne in the Buffyverse
[TBQ] there's no down once you hit Eve
[TBQ] she is the chewy center

And gee, do you think the twins were given some talking points for this ep? No? Are you sure? Because there might be something about - what's the word - oh yeah, layers. There just might. Blink and you'll miss it though, so watch carefully!

Anyhoo, speaking of other things that were fucked up in execution - and at this point I really am thinking this was also due to the entire cast and staff being depressed about losing their jobs, so can't say I blame 'em - let's talk about Illyria. Man. Way to take an interesting character, roll that interest up in a ball, rip it into a thousand pieces, throw it out the window, and then leave us with the rest. Props to Alexis and Amy, they gave it all they had. But again the directing was way, way off. There was no real connection between their scenes and the others (more of a fault of the "put everyone into place" aspect, I know, but still), and Illyria was nothing but blah blah blah blah blah stilted pseudo-Shakespearian dialogue blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

The twins tried, really they did. They had some lines in there that should've been killer - smurf and shrimp, for example - but the directing sunk them like a lead balloon. Just listen to the music during the shrimp exchange. It's all moody, and morose, and not even in an ironic way. Amy can't help it, granted, because she's stuck with a character who has to talk like an alien. At which point the director should've been relying more on Alexis. Yeah, Wes is drunk, we get it, but reaction shots from him would've gone far to make the humor work. They were trying for classic Jossverse humor. They ended up in a Pinter play. (Speaking of which, considering that Illyria's special power is time manipulation do you think she could maybe try to talk faster? Just a suggestion.)

The hat trick in the wooden line reading Olympics (shaddup, I'll mix metaphors if I want to) goes to Lorne and his lines in the bar. Though part of me wonders if that was Andy choking on the bit about Fred being a girl Lorne loved, 'cause dude there needs to be at least one damned person in that universe who doesn't masturbate to the idea of Fred smiling at them. I choose to believe that the love was meant platonically. If it wasn't you can lie to me because I have five episodes left and I need my crack as pure as I can get it.

Still, there were good bits. Lindsey's Hell was an interesting idea, and Christian was clearly having a ball filming those outdoors scenes. I also like the twist of how Gunn's punishment is probably going to be worse because he's a good guy. Angel and Spike had good interaction, and it's nice to see the show actually using Spike in both the team and in his ability to reflect and present new ideas to Angel. Angel's speech to Gunn in the hospital was well done, and very in character. And... uh... Alexis has really amazing blue eyes. That was also nice.

But, filler ep that was badly directed and hinged on one character we don't give a shit about (Eve) and another who we now don't give a shit about because she's suddenly boring (Illyria) and... well I'm looking forward to next week, that's all I've got to say.

Usual roundup of msc:

Harmony in the credits, yay! Though I gotta watch again to see what her background is. I'm always amused by what they pick (though I think nothing tops Lorne's being the symbol for fire).

You know, I actually wondered how they were going to handle Illyria re: the credits, so it was kind of nice to get closure on that question.

Meeting porn!

Angel/Spike banter!

I swear to god I had no idea Spike was going to make a rat comment tonight. Er, those of you who've read this will understand why I feel a need to mention that.

Spike was obsessive about Knight Rider? Um... I think at that point that pretty much makes Spike/Andrew canon.

Man was Jayne playing Hamilton fey. I'm not complaining, I'm merely observing.

Eve still looks like a 12 year old. Her room looks like a 12 year old's room. Her voice is still annoying and her hair still needs volumizing shampoo. Now that they have Lindsey, there's really no need for Eve to continue to be there, and yet somehow I suspect we haven't seen the last of her. Why, God, why?

I appreciate the fact that the first and only time that Fred has looked like an adult this season is while she was on her knees and between Wesley's legs. I'll be sending flowers to the makeup department accordingly.

Speaking of behind the scenes folks, man do I feel for the poor set designers. It's not good when you can see the seams in the LA skyline, but... [sniffle] My poor dead, gay show. God damn WB and their stupid lack of giving them a budget.

Props to David for kicking the acting out of the park. If anyone was having a rough week it'd definitely be him, but he still brought in his A game. (Second props go to, I think, Alexis for giving all he had with some horrible material to work with. He possibly ties with Amy in this category).

[sniffle] Only five episodes left....

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!