Ob Angel rant

[thebratqueen]

Okay folks, as promised here's my rant about Angel.



Let's get the good out of the way first - Wes and Lilah. I have lots of comments about these two but I'm going to save them until I post my season 3 comments. I'm going to do my best to stick to just this episode in this post so I'll bottom line my W/L comments.

Loved them. Loved the interplay. Am so on board the Wes and Lilah ship. Tell me if there's a mailing list because if not I'll create one (kita0610? Honey? Wanna co-mod the darkness?)

Anyone with better TV reception than mine pick up the song in the background at the bar? I could swear it sounded Irish and thus the slash fans of the world say "thank you" to the sound guys. I'll also give a nod of the head to lerefuge who already commented on the fact that Wes is developing a drinking problem. I liked that because I actually noticed how many things involved him and alcohol in the past eps and they managed to show this to us without hitting us about the head with anvils.

That being said, I must draw my only conclusion - the Wes and Lilah scenes were not written by David Greenwalt. It's the only thing that makes sense. And would actually work given that we know in some of the past eps they've paired things up where one writer tackles the main storyline and another gets the sub-plot (eg David Fury wrote and got credit for The Price, but said later that Mere Smith wrote all of the Gavin and Lilah scenes).

I can't figure out who wrote the Wes and Lilah stuff. Jeff, Tim or even Mere could have pulled it off. But if it was David Greenwalt color me seriously surprised.

Also liked - Vincent remains a good casting choice. Fred pretending to be a vampire was admittedly cute. Groo seriously grew on me as a character, it's a shame we're losing him. Never let it be said I don't admit when I'm wrong.

Now let's get to the other 95% of the episode.

We're all on board for Angel and Cordy having no chemistry. I won't bore you with that rant. Cordy's so-called feelings for Angel draw me yet again into the realm of season-long commentary so I'll hold off on that too. Again I'm just going to focus on this specific episode:

This is bad writing, people. Much like Mere Smith's usual, I could teach a how-to class based solely on the concept of "Study this episode and, ignoring the Wes/Lilah stuff, do the exact opposite of what David G did."

(Note - take it as a given that everything I say about this applies to everything except the Wes/Lilah stuff.)

The dialogue sucked. It was out of character and it wasn't real dialogue for characters in that situation to boot. The directing was horrible. The bad dialogue could have been fixed by putting true emotions behind it and those emotions were not there.

Let's look at the plot - everything in this plot happened for the sake of something else in the plot. This story was written backwards. Case in point, David clearly knew that Angel needed to end up at the beach, so Cordy invites Angel to the beach. Why was Cordy's apartment not a place for this conversation? Why would Cordy pick the beach of all locations? What was Connor's plan if Cordy hadn't invited Angel to the beach? Was Justine going to run that ship up and down the coastline and hope to get lucky?

The drive in. Why were W&H there? I get Linwood was punishing Angel, I mean why were they there? I'll tell you why - because Connor needed to defend Angel and make that speech. This is also why Angel said "get out of the car" instead of, oh, I don't know, driving the car the Hell out of the drive in and away from the civilians.

There's more but you get the idea. Everything happened so that something else could happen, not because it was a spontaneously generated thing. Cordy would not have invited Angel to the beach if Justine and Connor didn't need to get him to a boat. This is bad writing.

In the vein of my favorite fanfic question - "Have you met the characters before?" Why was Cordy wearing that outfit? Since when does Cordelia Chase shop at Mary's House of Christian Robes? (And don't get me started on the shot of her feet near the end which was such a bastardization of Christian imagery)

Likewise since when is Angel a reader? I'll buy an Angel who had a bookcase of children's books that he bought for baby Connor that he hasn't gotten rid of yet. But no way was he a reader in mortal life. Yes, we've seen him reading, but Angel does not have the innate joy of reading that characters like Wes, Giles and Willow do. Angel would not bond with his son over books, and he especially would not bond with his son over early 18th century books for teens. History lesson guys! It's called the Bible and morality plays! Think Angel's stocking those up in the hotel?

Then we get insult to injury. Not only does Angel try to bond over books, but he then denies the fighting. "You don't need to fight" - except he does! We established last week and in this episode that Angel's into Connor fighting. Again something happens for the sake of something else - out of nowhere Angel's iffy on fighting for the sake of making sure the audience gets it. Because we are stupid. Which I'll get to in a bit.

witchwillow has an icon which says "Lorne is not a plot device". I have never felt those words so much when watching this ep. When did Lorne find out about Cordy's feelings? And if he's being a yenta why didn't he tell Cordy and put her on her true path which is, you know, his fucking job? Why would he tell Angel? Why would he wait until then to tell Angel and not, say, before Groo showed up? How did Lorne have the ability to tell these were Cordy's feelings? When has Cordy sung or hummed recently? How can Lorne pick up that but not the fact that Wes wasn't trying to betray Angel? And why is Lorne going to Vegas? You got it - for the sake of something else. We can't have Lorne in the premiere because that would give us an easy answer to how they find Angel. Obviously Gunn or Fred could sing and Lorne could discover it. But we can't have that, so Lorne suddenly goes. Although props at least for figuring out a more plausible explanation for the leaving than the "Cordy and Angel meet on the beach because they need to meet on the beach."

Worst line of dialogue contender - "You're tight with money." Except when Angel gave you a pimp-sized wad of cash to go fuck your boyfriend for a month. I get that it's Cordy, I get that the real Cordy is tactless. Angel gave her a pimp-sized wad of cash for the sole purpose of letting her fuck her boyfriend for a month. How did anybody think they could get away with a line of dialogue where Cordy is seriously calling Angel cheap? Again - direction! Make it an old joke between them that's no longer true! Make a joke out of the fact that because he gave her that money he's got nothing left! Make a joke of the fact that he gave her that wad but he still doesn't know how to tip the delivery guy! But you cannot have Cordy tell Angel he is cheap when he gave her a pimp-sized wad of cash for the sole purpose of letting her fuck her boyfriend.

Am I repeating myself a lot? Yes. I'm hoping if I say it often enough they'll hear me in Los Angeles.

I'll get to the final Cordy scene in a second.

Insults to my intelligence:

Angel losing the cellphone. I get that kidlets out there would spend the summer saying "He's got his cellphone! He can call for help!" Okay, fine. But this was not the way to get rid of it. Who was he calling? Why did he bring the phone in the first place? Tell me it would not have read better and infinitely creepier if they did "Wesley redux" and had Fred or Gunn call Angel only to turn around and realize his cellphone's on the counter? Angel used his phone so he could lose his phone. Or it could have stayed in the hotel.

"You only helped me so you could kill me" Yes, thank you David G, I watched the show. I'm not that stupid, I figured it out, and why is Angel telling the guy who knows? Again - bad dialogue! Angel would have no need to tell the guy who knows the information he knows.

"Lorne's not here, Connor's gone, we don't know where Angel and Cordy are" Yes, again, I've watched the show. Why are you recaping it for me?

And I know this one will be controvertial but I'll say it anyway - Fred checking for perfect happiness was an insult to my intelligence too. Fuck you. You cannot ignore the perfect happiness issue for the entire damn season, throw us a bone in the finale and think we're going to give you a medal for continuity. No fucking way. The entire Connor thing should have brought up the perfect happiness issue for Angel and you ignored it. You can't throw in a scene where suddenly the characters are treating it like a concern and expect me to swallow it.

Okay, we're at it now - Cordy.

I'll grant one thing. I've got a niggling suspicion that Charisma's "personal time" during sweeps screwed them up on the Cordy storyline. If I find out after the fact that they had meant to show Cordy developing her powers and couldn't, and Cordy thinking about Angel that way and couldn't, judges will allow that they were forced to rush it in the final eps.

That being said, this still sucked.

Bad moment contender: coming down the stairs, Angel makes a sex joke to Cordy and Cordy touches him and talks dirty into his ear. As Cordy is so wont to do. Except not. That has never been the interplay between those characters. That's never been the interplay between Cordy and the guys she's actually fucking. Where the fuck did that come from?

Cordy and the mirror - I've got comments about this that are better off in my year-end review. So I'll just say this: why did Cordy pick the outfit that she saw? Why didn't she recognize that that was a vision? Why didn't she figure out after the fact that it was a vision? Why, just why?

Again have you met the characters before? Cordy is told she is a higher being and, after some demurring, accepts this. Who is this character? This is Cordelia Chase. Being told she was a higher being should have been such a Cordy moment. That inner ego of hers should have, pardon the expression, had its moment to shine. We had none of that. Instead it's St. Corduffy the modest. Because that's Cordy's character.

The only thing that rang true as "Cordy" was when she whacked Skp and say "Say that part first!". Tip your hats in mourning, folks, that was the last of the real Cordy.

(Another quick nod to lerefuge for pointing out that Angel calling Cordy "Cor" was a glaringly obvious continuity error that makes you wonder if a bad fanfic author penned this ep.)

Yes, Cordy loving Angel was unbelievable. Yes, there is no reason for Cordy to be a higher being. Yes, she's never controlled her powers enough to be tested or judged by them. This is obvious, I'm not going to get into it because we all know this.

So let's try this on for size, and points to Mer for raising the issue - what was up with the traffic? As lucifrix said in her LJ, what's going to happen to Cordy's car? Let's assume for a second that the traffic stopped not because Skip froze everyone but instead because he pulled Cordy out of "real time" so nobody else in the world is affected (which, quite frankly, let's hope is what happened because I'd hate to see the hundred-car pile up that's going to happen just outside of Skip's sphere of influence). Cordy's car was in moving traffic. There's no one driving it now. This is going to be a very sad accident for someone.

And what's especially frustrating is it would have been such a Jossverse moment to remember that. As Mer said, Skip should have given Cordy a wave goodbye, gotten into her car, started it up and resumed time.

Again - bad writing. You can't leave this shit out there, especially on such an inherently implausible scene. Putting aside the issue of how crappy the idea of Cordy being a higher being was in and of itself, the concept is like the Jossverse as a whole. We buy the vampires and demons because everything else rings true. It has got to be plausible or your house of cards collapses. Think back to Sleep Tight - implausible on top of implausible. What was one of the final lines? Lilah "Well I'm looking at a mountain of paperwork." Yes! Ground it back in reality to help us accept the paranormal absurdity.

This ties into the actual ascension. Um, David? Where was Cordy going? And all of you reading this - tell me I wasn't the only one flashing back to Seeing Red and Andrew hitting his head on the awning? David - that's the sky. We don't live in the time of "here there be dragons". We know what's up there. Where's she going, the Satellite of Love? (Sayth Mer: "No, because this Transcends Love [tm]." It's the sky.

And what's especially stupid is that this was a fixable problem. I get that Cordy was going up because Angel was sinking. Fine. Put a fucking portal up there! Rub a circle onto the film with some white-out if the FX budget's been tapped! Make this the reverse of The Gift in other words - Buffy jumped down into a magic thing, Cordy floats up into a magic thing. We'll buy that. But we can't buy Cordy floating up into the sky because, again I feel the need to remind you of this, it's the Sky.

Sigh. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I'll probably get to it in my comments or year-end review.

Final notes? Here's what I want to see next season:

Charisma is gone.
Angel thinks Cordy betrayed him to Connor.
Connor and Justine go to Utah (I'm not saying they can't come back, I'm just saying that's where I want to see them go after this).

Again I've got more but they're more in terms of the season as a whole. But just in relation to this ep that's what I want to see.

I'm outta here. [TWACK] Out to you guys!