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We Create What We See
Jan. 22nd, 2004 12:31 pmWoo! Another good one! Woo!
I'm going to post my commentary here in two parts. I suppose I could do one of those LJ cut things, but as anyone who reads this surely expects me to run off at the mouth about these things by now, I can't see the point in being coy.
What I Thought of Angel 5.10, Soul Purpose, Part One
Rating: Super!
First, David Boreanaz's first episode behind the camera makes me seriously hope that we'll be seeing more from this guy. Much, much more. His debut in the Angel director's chair featured a patient comic timing in setting up a number of visual gags that matches up to the dry, goofball quality that's been quietly creeping into the character of Angel over the years. Witness: (1) The carefully framed scene in the strip club allowing us plenty of time to take note of the huge sign in the background, all just to provide a punchline to Spike's answer to Lindsey's question about where Spike thinks he is; (2) The Jaws homage in Fred's exploratory surgery; (3) The apocalypse framed as a movie already in progress, with onlookers too engrossed to tell Angel what he missed; (4) The multiple references to episodes past - Spike using moves that almost exactly mirror Angel's own from Angel episode 1, the "reward" fantasy in Angel's own office that harkens back to "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco"; (5) The lovely pause allowing you to register the weird spectacle of Gunn and Wesley in Spike's doorway, again just to set up the subsequent line: "Look, Crockett and Tubbs." This guy's really got the comic touch. Bravo.
Next, the content of the episode was SUPER!!!!!. The pieces of the season are finally starting to come together - at last, we're getting a real reason for Spike's presence on the series, and it's not just to be comic relief or make Angel's life miserable, but to point out how very, very precarious Angel's position as Champion really is. "Soul Purpose" really drives home the message from the ending scene of "Destiny," from "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco," from "Unleashed"... from pretty much every episode this season - that Angel's self-image is completely dependent on being perceived as a hero.
Angel's hallucinations, where he sees himself easily supplanted in the hero's role by Spike, give us our clearest picture yet on the inside of Angel's head. All of these little vignettes are there to point out just how much of Angel's identity is based on validation from his friends. Without their constant chorus of "Champion, Champion, Champion" (which seriously annoyed me in Angel Season 3, but now actually seems to have had a point), he sees himself as "a shell," with nothing of value to offer. Fred, rummaging through Angel's guts, comes up "empty" - his heart is a "dried-up walnut," his soul a dead goldfish. "We're gonna have to flush this," she mutters. (There was also the strangely suggestive image of the pearls... or did I watch this episode with the only people in the Northern Hemisphere who've heard the phrase "giving a girl a pearl necklace" in a sexual context? Maybe every male on this series has a secret thing for Fred.)
Anyway, ahem, this idea, that Angel's entire identity relies on the input he receives from outside sources, creates a huge ripple effect throughout the entire history of the character. It's now hard not to notice how much hand-holding has gone into Angel's creation both as the vampiric Scourge of Europe, in which he flourished as a sadistic torturer under Darla's tutlelage, and as Helper of the Helpless - Lindsey's scheme to virtually recreate Angel's early history as LA's dark avenger by posing as "Doyle" to Spike double-underlines this with a thick magic marker. We're being asked to notice how much of Angel's history relies on people telling him what to do and how to behave. Even his arrival in Sunnydale to help Buffy was due to Whistler picking him up off the New York streets and taking him to see the new Slayer - without such an intervention, Angel would likely never have stopped drifting through the decades under a cloud of guilt. Angel changed his ways because he was given a purpose. But now that his purpose is becoming less than clear, Angel's confidence in himself is failing, e.g., his cranky outburst at Gunn for bringing up the term "gray area." Angel's lost his "vision" - without a guide, a Doyle or Cordelia to be his link to duty - he no longer has a clear map to how he fits into the scheme of things.
All this has the wonderful effect of really making you feel sorry for the poor guy. Suddenly, he's a loveable neurotic - a couple of hard hits are all it takes to collapse his fragile psyche like a house of cards. Funnier yet, none of the incidents currently bothering him were even all that conclusive - Spike's battle victory over Angel was for a "fake cup"; Buffy's choice of Spike for her Champion hardly counts as a testament to enduring love, considering the twin facts that a) it got the guy killed and b) Buffy herself made a point of softening it by stating that when she does think of a future, it's Angel she thinks of, not Spike. Self-doubt seems to be an ingrained part of Angel's character - he needs constant reassurance to convince him that he's worth anything at all. (And doesn't this just tie beautifully into his issues with his father?)
Moreoever, the confident front he puts up - the angry, brooding, boss-man - is now shown to be just that, a front. This is shown pretty clearly by the dream sequence in which we see Spike claim the reward that Angel always supposed was his. It's Angel we're really meant to see here, not Spike - this is his fantasy scenario, one suspciously close to the one created by the shaman last season to relieve him of his soul. This is what Angel wants - to soak up accolades for saving the world, beaming a happy smile, one hand modestly clapped to his chest like a beauty contest winner ("Miss America? Me?"), while protesting that he "didn't do it for a reward." "That's why you deserve it!" Fred crows. Angel knows that selflessness is a requirement for the reward he wants, but the very fact that he knows it, and caters to it, throws doubt on whether or not he's really all that selfless, or just telling people what he thinks they want to hear.
I'm going to post my commentary here in two parts. I suppose I could do one of those LJ cut things, but as anyone who reads this surely expects me to run off at the mouth about these things by now, I can't see the point in being coy.
What I Thought of Angel 5.10, Soul Purpose, Part One
Rating: Super!
First, David Boreanaz's first episode behind the camera makes me seriously hope that we'll be seeing more from this guy. Much, much more. His debut in the Angel director's chair featured a patient comic timing in setting up a number of visual gags that matches up to the dry, goofball quality that's been quietly creeping into the character of Angel over the years. Witness: (1) The carefully framed scene in the strip club allowing us plenty of time to take note of the huge sign in the background, all just to provide a punchline to Spike's answer to Lindsey's question about where Spike thinks he is; (2) The Jaws homage in Fred's exploratory surgery; (3) The apocalypse framed as a movie already in progress, with onlookers too engrossed to tell Angel what he missed; (4) The multiple references to episodes past - Spike using moves that almost exactly mirror Angel's own from Angel episode 1, the "reward" fantasy in Angel's own office that harkens back to "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco"; (5) The lovely pause allowing you to register the weird spectacle of Gunn and Wesley in Spike's doorway, again just to set up the subsequent line: "Look, Crockett and Tubbs." This guy's really got the comic touch. Bravo.
Next, the content of the episode was SUPER!!!!!. The pieces of the season are finally starting to come together - at last, we're getting a real reason for Spike's presence on the series, and it's not just to be comic relief or make Angel's life miserable, but to point out how very, very precarious Angel's position as Champion really is. "Soul Purpose" really drives home the message from the ending scene of "Destiny," from "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco," from "Unleashed"... from pretty much every episode this season - that Angel's self-image is completely dependent on being perceived as a hero.
Angel's hallucinations, where he sees himself easily supplanted in the hero's role by Spike, give us our clearest picture yet on the inside of Angel's head. All of these little vignettes are there to point out just how much of Angel's identity is based on validation from his friends. Without their constant chorus of "Champion, Champion, Champion" (which seriously annoyed me in Angel Season 3, but now actually seems to have had a point), he sees himself as "a shell," with nothing of value to offer. Fred, rummaging through Angel's guts, comes up "empty" - his heart is a "dried-up walnut," his soul a dead goldfish. "We're gonna have to flush this," she mutters. (There was also the strangely suggestive image of the pearls... or did I watch this episode with the only people in the Northern Hemisphere who've heard the phrase "giving a girl a pearl necklace" in a sexual context? Maybe every male on this series has a secret thing for Fred.)
Anyway, ahem, this idea, that Angel's entire identity relies on the input he receives from outside sources, creates a huge ripple effect throughout the entire history of the character. It's now hard not to notice how much hand-holding has gone into Angel's creation both as the vampiric Scourge of Europe, in which he flourished as a sadistic torturer under Darla's tutlelage, and as Helper of the Helpless - Lindsey's scheme to virtually recreate Angel's early history as LA's dark avenger by posing as "Doyle" to Spike double-underlines this with a thick magic marker. We're being asked to notice how much of Angel's history relies on people telling him what to do and how to behave. Even his arrival in Sunnydale to help Buffy was due to Whistler picking him up off the New York streets and taking him to see the new Slayer - without such an intervention, Angel would likely never have stopped drifting through the decades under a cloud of guilt. Angel changed his ways because he was given a purpose. But now that his purpose is becoming less than clear, Angel's confidence in himself is failing, e.g., his cranky outburst at Gunn for bringing up the term "gray area." Angel's lost his "vision" - without a guide, a Doyle or Cordelia to be his link to duty - he no longer has a clear map to how he fits into the scheme of things.
All this has the wonderful effect of really making you feel sorry for the poor guy. Suddenly, he's a loveable neurotic - a couple of hard hits are all it takes to collapse his fragile psyche like a house of cards. Funnier yet, none of the incidents currently bothering him were even all that conclusive - Spike's battle victory over Angel was for a "fake cup"; Buffy's choice of Spike for her Champion hardly counts as a testament to enduring love, considering the twin facts that a) it got the guy killed and b) Buffy herself made a point of softening it by stating that when she does think of a future, it's Angel she thinks of, not Spike. Self-doubt seems to be an ingrained part of Angel's character - he needs constant reassurance to convince him that he's worth anything at all. (And doesn't this just tie beautifully into his issues with his father?)
Moreoever, the confident front he puts up - the angry, brooding, boss-man - is now shown to be just that, a front. This is shown pretty clearly by the dream sequence in which we see Spike claim the reward that Angel always supposed was his. It's Angel we're really meant to see here, not Spike - this is his fantasy scenario, one suspciously close to the one created by the shaman last season to relieve him of his soul. This is what Angel wants - to soak up accolades for saving the world, beaming a happy smile, one hand modestly clapped to his chest like a beauty contest winner ("Miss America? Me?"), while protesting that he "didn't do it for a reward." "That's why you deserve it!" Fred crows. Angel knows that selflessness is a requirement for the reward he wants, but the very fact that he knows it, and caters to it, throws doubt on whether or not he's really all that selfless, or just telling people what he thinks they want to hear.
