Challenge of the Super Friends!
Apr. 29th, 2004 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookThe strange South Park synchronicity holds. I also throw in a couple of spoilers for next week's trailer. Otherwise, it's all about the superheroes.
Just when I thought I'd figured out the show's new paradigm (This is Angel. Welcome to SMACKDOWN!), the whole thing turns around again and gets back on the track I thought they were on with the introduction of Illyria in the first place. That is, the superhero team thing. Yes, Wesley tells us at the end of the ep, she may make "the team." Not that there's been much of a team lately, but maybe that's beginning to change - Illyria pulls a Gunn rescue mission, apparently to further her own agenda, whatever that is, and with his return to the W&H offices (although not back in his tool-for-the-man pinstripe suit - Gunn has resolutely returned to his roots as a hoodie-wearing hardcore), nearly everyone is back to where they were when we started this whole mess, back in "Conviction." Except for Fred, who is, y'know, gone. (And yeah, except for Spike, but I'll get to that.) First, Illyria.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Now, I stand by my original assessment that Illyria, as a character, is extremely superhero-comic - she's got the super-strength and funky time-distortion powers, plus a costume, and dialogue that (were it a little more consistent, that is) tends to read as ripped from the pages of Jack Kirby's New Gods. However, at least at this point in the story, Illyria is very much the exiled supervillian, not hero.
This is a key distinction for a couple of reasons. (Is anybody besides me noticing the continuing theme of the subverted villain in these shows?) First, as someone whose moral/ethical subset and overall life goals do not match up with those of Our Heroes, Illyria is well-placed to comment on the ethics, morals, and life goals of Angel and Co., thus providing the story with both a counterpoint and a (theoretically) impartial narrator. We've seen this trick before multiple times - whenever a major character goes "evil," for instance, they comment relentlessly on the shortcomings of their former self (e.g., soulless Angelus bagging on souled Angel; Faith-as-Buffy deriding Buffy and then herself in "Who Are You," etc.). Constant commentary makes an even more pointed appearance when characters switch sides, such as BtVS Season 3 Faith, Season 4 Spike, or Season 7 Andrew. A former opposition character integrated into the heroic inner circle can question methods, raise legitimate moral quandries, and challenge the hero's authority. They can also offer assistance that the hero may or may not wish to take, for various reasons, and... notice how we're getting into parallel with the entire Wolfram & Hart deal here?
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them?
So Angel, by taking over the law firm that was set up to be his ultimate nemesis in Angel episode 1, is in the ultimate trying-to-integrate-the-opposition mode. If he's Superman, then his gang is his Justice League, and W&H is the Legion of Doom. (And no, none of this maps one-to-one - I'm not saying Lorne is Aquaman and Illyria is the Martian Manhunter, for instance, but you get the idea.) Angel taking meetings with demons is Superman conference-calling with Sinestro, and that's just plain weird.
But the brain-teasing fun of "Time Bomb" is that the story gets us back on this track, of noticing the inherent weirdness. After more than a few episodes of moral hand-wringing (we-shouldn't-have-come-here-blee-blither-blah), we see Angel butt up against Illyria, a rival leader ala Brainiac or Lex Luthor, and also against new Senior Partners snitch Marcus Hamilton, the guy who signs his checks. Both have different approaches to power than Angel's own, and it's through exploring that contrast that Angel may yet gain a better handle on both himself as a hero - for what is a hero, in the superhero-comic sense, but someone who opposes a villain? - and how to wield the double-edged weapon that is Wolfram & Hart.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
I'll get back to Illyria in a moment, but first, Marcus. I found myself wishing quite loudly throughout the episode (hosted this time at the house of our usual Special Guest Viewers, Mech Man and Action Girl) that we'd been given Marcus all along instead of Eve. For one, he actually does stuff, such as remind Angel that he's running a business here, yo, and delivers useful information. (Such as the reveal that Angel's division was pulling in top profits - whuzzat? I guess while everyone's been running around fighting evil puppets and flame-throwing demon leeches, Lorne's entertainment section has been raking in the cash.) Marcus's sudden go-getter competency serves to contrast just how little Eve really did, other than to sashay around in office-inappropriate slink-wear, offer metaphorically Biblical bites of an apple, and drop her underpants for Angel. As a female executive, she was frighteningly ineffectual, and to top all this off, she exited her career arc at first opportunity for the sake of love. This makes her an eye-rolling throwback to the Days Before Feminism - the "weaker" sex indeed - but, by way of Marcus, I realize now that her utter uselessness did have a point.
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
Eve was not a threat to Angel. That was the whole point of Eve. As Marcus called out clearly last episode, she was a "little girl" he didn't take all that seriously. He had sex with her for gossakes, and we all know what a minefield that topic is here - respect and sex don't often go together in the Whedonverse, at least not without tragic consequences, and Marcus even reminded us of this: "we won't be making love on that couch anytime soon." Eve was there to be a unthreatening face for the Senior Partners, a tame kitty that Angel could make himself think he had under control, just like Gunn's misconceptions about the Conduit panther.
I'm sort of starting to circle back around to Illyria here now. Stay with me.
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
Marcus, unlike Eve, is a real and present voice of the Senior Partners. He's big with the reminders of what Wolfram & Hart is, what Angel's responsibilities are in running it, what "profit" and "loss" mean in those terms (a pregnant woman under contract to a demon cult - profit for her, loss for possibly everyone else, what's the bottom line here?). Marcus is a clear and distinct symbol of exactly what Angel opposes, the Wolfram & Hart that Angel originally started fighting. Institutionalized sin, evil made acceptable and clean and corporate. Angel has always been a get-his-hands dirty sort of guy, someone who "enjoys," if that's the word, fighting battles in sewer tunnels, getting his clothes covered in gore. The remote, behind-a-desk quality of his new life as CEO has always been a bad fit for him.
Okay, now we're back to Illyria.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
Illyria does a lot of talking in "Time Bomb" about her former role as ultimate monarch. She tells us that true rulers are without morality. They are forces of nature, like a hurricane. Real power means never having to justify anything, just like that old adage about real love meaning never having to say you're sorry. Power just is. Illyria sneers at Angel for being "moral," for having principles. She scoffs at him as a leader because he spends all his time thinking about the effects of his power rather than using it.
This gets us into the theme of compromise, the whole core of the question surrounding the W&H deal. Illyria doesn't believe in adapting onesself to one's environment - she says as much to Spike in one of their "training" sessions. Finally, we're seeing a point to Spike being Illyria's Danger Room opponent other than the straightforward S&M thrill of catsuited-woman-throws-Spike-around. From Illyria's worldview, the view of an uncompromising leader, Spike's adaptability is a sign of his status as something low and pathetic. And yet, by studying her, learning her, Spike is actually starting to get inside her defenses, score some hits. She's still far stronger than he is, but that doesn't make her invulnerable. Illyria's worldview begins cracking, like she the "cracked engine block" that she herself becomes, with this realization. Power by itself, even if wielded ruthlessly, is not a complete protection.
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action
So Illyria, bleeding "gasoline" from a time-distortion flaw, becomes a both literal and metaphorical ticking timebomb. We see her shifting around in time, constantly reassessing and challenging. She rails at cruel fate. She tries to get in a surgical strike and kill the team before they can kill her. None of it does any good. Ultimately, she has to trust in Wesley - who has tried to kill her before, so she has no reason to trust - and his "moral" notions, simply to survive. To exist in this time and place, Illyria has to compromise. Staying true to her principles of ultimate leadership means death. Illyria picks survival, even at the cost of reduced power.
In contrast, Angel learns something from Illyria. He learns that he has power - the "wolf, ram, and hart" is a powerful weapon, which we knew from "Conviction," and Angel finally decides he's going to use it. At the end of the episode, he takes firm control of the negotiations with the demon cult, pulling the rug out from under Gunn's moral objections, which were paralyzing the deal. Angel has learned that power is something you use.
Be all my sins remember'd.
Only that's not a new thing for Angel, is it? Angelus knew how to use power perfectly well. The confident Angel we end on is disturbingly similiar to good ol' Angelus's firm belief in evil, so it remains to be seen just how his newfound resolve will play out. Is Angel just that good at playing evil's game that he can win even in their own arena? Maybe. Or has he learned exactly the wrong lesson in this current "apocalypse," which is apparently already in late innings and the bad guys are winning, all with the good guys' naive help? We'll see.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Other than that, my only other observations have to do with the strangeness of Crazy Wesley - dude, what's with the creepy Renfield phase? Is there a point to Wesley going all bipolar? - and the head-scratchingly dumb fun of Secret Agent Lorne. Ben Edlund's dialogue was hot as usual - the guy really knows his superhero plot bunnies and how to work them; of our audience, everyone immediately identified "that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Enterprise blows up over and over" as a precedent, but the story did not reuse or overlap with that one in any way, nice! And I especially liked that everyone had something to do that looked and felt less like sheer filler (in the case of Secret Agent Lorne, the filler quotiet was implicit, but also useful in making wry commentary on Angel and how he's been losing the plot of his own plans). Spike comes off as not a total idiot - always a pleaser for me - and Illlyria's plight actually held my interest. There was some money spent on this episode - weird time effects, two expensive vampire dustings (dude, Angel's head rolled!), four guys in latex. Harmony had a great bit offering demons organic colas. Gunn and Wes buried the hatchet, so to speak, on the whole I-stabbed-you issue. Good stuff.
And now, my lingering questions.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?
Illyria's thing with names. When she first appeared, she appeared surprised at the idea that "things have names." In this episode, we see her call Wesley by name. Not so with Angel, her rival in leadership. Hm. And last week, she called Spike by name, wanting to keep him as a "pet," but this week, he's "the white-haired one." This raises a question in my mind about how Illyria rates status with names. Does assigning a name to something lower it in her mind, or raise it? Given the combination of disgust and respect she seemed to have for Wesley in "Underneath" ("you don't worship me at all, do you?"), a scene in which she never addressed him by name ("you" and "a human" were the preferred monikers), and the strange mixture of betrayal and disappointment in this episode, in which she does call him "Wesley," I'm not sure. Food for thought.
And on next week's trailer.
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
I held off from my usual citation of the strange South Park synergy until now, because here was the theme: to rescue the future, we must make the present a better place (okay, we're on track with where I think we're going with Angel so far), but the ultimate answer for future happiness is for guys to turn gay and have lots of sex. This just after a next-episode trailer in which we see Angel and Spike riding together on a Vespa... uhhhh. (And Angel gets on the scooter behind Spike with his arms wrapped around him, which makes him look like a teenage girl on a prom date with Marlon Brando; I'm mentally rearranging my image of who gets to be top and who gets to be bottom in this relationship even as I write.)
Anyway, next week deals with Buffy, the big rivalry over Buffy, and I can't say I'm really looking forward to it because you know, had enough heartache on that score, thank you very much, but maybe the flashbacks and some healthy guy bonding will salvage it. That's all I've really got to say.
All the quotes are from Hamlet.
Just when I thought I'd figured out the show's new paradigm (This is Angel. Welcome to SMACKDOWN!), the whole thing turns around again and gets back on the track I thought they were on with the introduction of Illyria in the first place. That is, the superhero team thing. Yes, Wesley tells us at the end of the ep, she may make "the team." Not that there's been much of a team lately, but maybe that's beginning to change - Illyria pulls a Gunn rescue mission, apparently to further her own agenda, whatever that is, and with his return to the W&H offices (although not back in his tool-for-the-man pinstripe suit - Gunn has resolutely returned to his roots as a hoodie-wearing hardcore), nearly everyone is back to where they were when we started this whole mess, back in "Conviction." Except for Fred, who is, y'know, gone. (And yeah, except for Spike, but I'll get to that.) First, Illyria.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Now, I stand by my original assessment that Illyria, as a character, is extremely superhero-comic - she's got the super-strength and funky time-distortion powers, plus a costume, and dialogue that (were it a little more consistent, that is) tends to read as ripped from the pages of Jack Kirby's New Gods. However, at least at this point in the story, Illyria is very much the exiled supervillian, not hero.
This is a key distinction for a couple of reasons. (Is anybody besides me noticing the continuing theme of the subverted villain in these shows?) First, as someone whose moral/ethical subset and overall life goals do not match up with those of Our Heroes, Illyria is well-placed to comment on the ethics, morals, and life goals of Angel and Co., thus providing the story with both a counterpoint and a (theoretically) impartial narrator. We've seen this trick before multiple times - whenever a major character goes "evil," for instance, they comment relentlessly on the shortcomings of their former self (e.g., soulless Angelus bagging on souled Angel; Faith-as-Buffy deriding Buffy and then herself in "Who Are You," etc.). Constant commentary makes an even more pointed appearance when characters switch sides, such as BtVS Season 3 Faith, Season 4 Spike, or Season 7 Andrew. A former opposition character integrated into the heroic inner circle can question methods, raise legitimate moral quandries, and challenge the hero's authority. They can also offer assistance that the hero may or may not wish to take, for various reasons, and... notice how we're getting into parallel with the entire Wolfram & Hart deal here?
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them?
So Angel, by taking over the law firm that was set up to be his ultimate nemesis in Angel episode 1, is in the ultimate trying-to-integrate-the-opposition mode. If he's Superman, then his gang is his Justice League, and W&H is the Legion of Doom. (And no, none of this maps one-to-one - I'm not saying Lorne is Aquaman and Illyria is the Martian Manhunter, for instance, but you get the idea.) Angel taking meetings with demons is Superman conference-calling with Sinestro, and that's just plain weird.
But the brain-teasing fun of "Time Bomb" is that the story gets us back on this track, of noticing the inherent weirdness. After more than a few episodes of moral hand-wringing (we-shouldn't-have-come-here-blee-blither-blah), we see Angel butt up against Illyria, a rival leader ala Brainiac or Lex Luthor, and also against new Senior Partners snitch Marcus Hamilton, the guy who signs his checks. Both have different approaches to power than Angel's own, and it's through exploring that contrast that Angel may yet gain a better handle on both himself as a hero - for what is a hero, in the superhero-comic sense, but someone who opposes a villain? - and how to wield the double-edged weapon that is Wolfram & Hart.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
I'll get back to Illyria in a moment, but first, Marcus. I found myself wishing quite loudly throughout the episode (hosted this time at the house of our usual Special Guest Viewers, Mech Man and Action Girl) that we'd been given Marcus all along instead of Eve. For one, he actually does stuff, such as remind Angel that he's running a business here, yo, and delivers useful information. (Such as the reveal that Angel's division was pulling in top profits - whuzzat? I guess while everyone's been running around fighting evil puppets and flame-throwing demon leeches, Lorne's entertainment section has been raking in the cash.) Marcus's sudden go-getter competency serves to contrast just how little Eve really did, other than to sashay around in office-inappropriate slink-wear, offer metaphorically Biblical bites of an apple, and drop her underpants for Angel. As a female executive, she was frighteningly ineffectual, and to top all this off, she exited her career arc at first opportunity for the sake of love. This makes her an eye-rolling throwback to the Days Before Feminism - the "weaker" sex indeed - but, by way of Marcus, I realize now that her utter uselessness did have a point.
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
Eve was not a threat to Angel. That was the whole point of Eve. As Marcus called out clearly last episode, she was a "little girl" he didn't take all that seriously. He had sex with her for gossakes, and we all know what a minefield that topic is here - respect and sex don't often go together in the Whedonverse, at least not without tragic consequences, and Marcus even reminded us of this: "we won't be making love on that couch anytime soon." Eve was there to be a unthreatening face for the Senior Partners, a tame kitty that Angel could make himself think he had under control, just like Gunn's misconceptions about the Conduit panther.
I'm sort of starting to circle back around to Illyria here now. Stay with me.
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
Marcus, unlike Eve, is a real and present voice of the Senior Partners. He's big with the reminders of what Wolfram & Hart is, what Angel's responsibilities are in running it, what "profit" and "loss" mean in those terms (a pregnant woman under contract to a demon cult - profit for her, loss for possibly everyone else, what's the bottom line here?). Marcus is a clear and distinct symbol of exactly what Angel opposes, the Wolfram & Hart that Angel originally started fighting. Institutionalized sin, evil made acceptable and clean and corporate. Angel has always been a get-his-hands dirty sort of guy, someone who "enjoys," if that's the word, fighting battles in sewer tunnels, getting his clothes covered in gore. The remote, behind-a-desk quality of his new life as CEO has always been a bad fit for him.
Okay, now we're back to Illyria.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
Illyria does a lot of talking in "Time Bomb" about her former role as ultimate monarch. She tells us that true rulers are without morality. They are forces of nature, like a hurricane. Real power means never having to justify anything, just like that old adage about real love meaning never having to say you're sorry. Power just is. Illyria sneers at Angel for being "moral," for having principles. She scoffs at him as a leader because he spends all his time thinking about the effects of his power rather than using it.
This gets us into the theme of compromise, the whole core of the question surrounding the W&H deal. Illyria doesn't believe in adapting onesself to one's environment - she says as much to Spike in one of their "training" sessions. Finally, we're seeing a point to Spike being Illyria's Danger Room opponent other than the straightforward S&M thrill of catsuited-woman-throws-Spike-around. From Illyria's worldview, the view of an uncompromising leader, Spike's adaptability is a sign of his status as something low and pathetic. And yet, by studying her, learning her, Spike is actually starting to get inside her defenses, score some hits. She's still far stronger than he is, but that doesn't make her invulnerable. Illyria's worldview begins cracking, like she the "cracked engine block" that she herself becomes, with this realization. Power by itself, even if wielded ruthlessly, is not a complete protection.
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action
So Illyria, bleeding "gasoline" from a time-distortion flaw, becomes a both literal and metaphorical ticking timebomb. We see her shifting around in time, constantly reassessing and challenging. She rails at cruel fate. She tries to get in a surgical strike and kill the team before they can kill her. None of it does any good. Ultimately, she has to trust in Wesley - who has tried to kill her before, so she has no reason to trust - and his "moral" notions, simply to survive. To exist in this time and place, Illyria has to compromise. Staying true to her principles of ultimate leadership means death. Illyria picks survival, even at the cost of reduced power.
In contrast, Angel learns something from Illyria. He learns that he has power - the "wolf, ram, and hart" is a powerful weapon, which we knew from "Conviction," and Angel finally decides he's going to use it. At the end of the episode, he takes firm control of the negotiations with the demon cult, pulling the rug out from under Gunn's moral objections, which were paralyzing the deal. Angel has learned that power is something you use.
Be all my sins remember'd.
Only that's not a new thing for Angel, is it? Angelus knew how to use power perfectly well. The confident Angel we end on is disturbingly similiar to good ol' Angelus's firm belief in evil, so it remains to be seen just how his newfound resolve will play out. Is Angel just that good at playing evil's game that he can win even in their own arena? Maybe. Or has he learned exactly the wrong lesson in this current "apocalypse," which is apparently already in late innings and the bad guys are winning, all with the good guys' naive help? We'll see.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Other than that, my only other observations have to do with the strangeness of Crazy Wesley - dude, what's with the creepy Renfield phase? Is there a point to Wesley going all bipolar? - and the head-scratchingly dumb fun of Secret Agent Lorne. Ben Edlund's dialogue was hot as usual - the guy really knows his superhero plot bunnies and how to work them; of our audience, everyone immediately identified "that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Enterprise blows up over and over" as a precedent, but the story did not reuse or overlap with that one in any way, nice! And I especially liked that everyone had something to do that looked and felt less like sheer filler (in the case of Secret Agent Lorne, the filler quotiet was implicit, but also useful in making wry commentary on Angel and how he's been losing the plot of his own plans). Spike comes off as not a total idiot - always a pleaser for me - and Illlyria's plight actually held my interest. There was some money spent on this episode - weird time effects, two expensive vampire dustings (dude, Angel's head rolled!), four guys in latex. Harmony had a great bit offering demons organic colas. Gunn and Wes buried the hatchet, so to speak, on the whole I-stabbed-you issue. Good stuff.
And now, my lingering questions.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?
Illyria's thing with names. When she first appeared, she appeared surprised at the idea that "things have names." In this episode, we see her call Wesley by name. Not so with Angel, her rival in leadership. Hm. And last week, she called Spike by name, wanting to keep him as a "pet," but this week, he's "the white-haired one." This raises a question in my mind about how Illyria rates status with names. Does assigning a name to something lower it in her mind, or raise it? Given the combination of disgust and respect she seemed to have for Wesley in "Underneath" ("you don't worship me at all, do you?"), a scene in which she never addressed him by name ("you" and "a human" were the preferred monikers), and the strange mixture of betrayal and disappointment in this episode, in which she does call him "Wesley," I'm not sure. Food for thought.
And on next week's trailer.
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
I held off from my usual citation of the strange South Park synergy until now, because here was the theme: to rescue the future, we must make the present a better place (okay, we're on track with where I think we're going with Angel so far), but the ultimate answer for future happiness is for guys to turn gay and have lots of sex. This just after a next-episode trailer in which we see Angel and Spike riding together on a Vespa... uhhhh. (And Angel gets on the scooter behind Spike with his arms wrapped around him, which makes him look like a teenage girl on a prom date with Marlon Brando; I'm mentally rearranging my image of who gets to be top and who gets to be bottom in this relationship even as I write.)
Anyway, next week deals with Buffy, the big rivalry over Buffy, and I can't say I'm really looking forward to it because you know, had enough heartache on that score, thank you very much, but maybe the flashbacks and some healthy guy bonding will salvage it. That's all I've really got to say.
All the quotes are from Hamlet.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 01:48 pm (UTC)Oooh, good points - Spike does start landing blows, doesn't he? And at the end, we see Illyria - hard but brittle in her inflexibility - literally crack open like an eggshell. (A shell! Chalk off another box on your bingo cards, metaphor-watchers!) Perhaps the lesson Angel learns from Illyria isn't just from her words, but from her example - that hewing to a rigid ideology, instead of adapting to your opponent and then outfoxing them, only gets you blowed up. I guess this kind of contradicts Lindsey's advice (hard to say for sure, since I didn't really understand it), but then again Lindsey is a villain...
Illyria picks survival, even at the cost of reduced power.
I dunno, from where I was sitting (on the floor, eating chili) it looked like she was pretty determined to go out as a huge crater, taking most of the western seaboard with her. Looks to me like Wesley zapped her against her will, once it was too late for her to stop him....
Speaking of Wesley and Illyria (groan), I'm thinking back to that line from last week's episode where Illyria asked him - I'm paraphrasing - "You now have Wesley's memories. Does this make you Wesley?" It belatedly occurs to me that her interest in this question isn't just impersonal curiosity; swap in "I" for "you" and "Fred" for "Wesley," and you have a question to which Illyria the Inflexible surely hopes the answer is "no."
Okay, I'm sucked in. These last couple eps have gotten me interested enough in the Illyria character that I'm even finding her interactions with Grim/Crazy/Erratic Wesley kinda fascinating. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 02:08 pm (UTC)Okay, you've got a point there - I'd assumed a certain amount of fatalistic acceptance there, since she just stood there and took it, but your reading is likely more accurate. So that would fit the idea that she's an example to Angel of what happens when you don't adapt, which makes his action at the end of the episode, deciding to play W&H's game, more comprehensible as well. It's likely that "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco" was meant to be seen this way as well, in retrospect - Number 5 couldn't go on being a hero without his brothers, he couldn't adapt, and so he fell from grace. It could be the point we're shooting for here is not Wesley's assumption, that Angel needs a goal to shoot for so he doesn't lose hope - we've seen enough hints that the Shanshu might darn well be a false hope anyway, as per the magic Mountain Dew in "Destiny" - nor that he needs to hold onto his identity as a hero, which Cordelia's spirit was boosting for, but that he needs to be flexible, open, changeable. I love this.
I note that also increases Spike's importance in all this - as the virtual poster boy of adaptability, he has a lot to teach Angel about getting back up after being knocked down, and his scenes with Illyria almost read as direct advice to Angel as well. Nice.
"You now have Wesley's memories. Does this make you Wesley?" It belatedly occurs to me that her interest in this question isn't just impersonal curiosity; swap in "I" for "you" and "Fred" for "Wesley," and you have a question to which Illyria the Inflexible surely hopes the answer is "no."
This also came up in her convo with Spike - geez, that was an immensely fruitful little economical scene, wasn't it? - when she asks how he can hit her, given that he had "affection" for Fred, and his response is "you're not her." So what this says about identity is a good question - Illyria is not Fred, surely, even if she has Fred's memories, just as Spike is not William and Angel is not Liam. This also makes me think of "Damage," and that line about Spike and Angel being "victims once." You never go back to exactly what you were before.
This is actually tying together a lot better than I expected. Coool.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 02:50 pm (UTC)That was echoed in Wes' line of after he "shoots" Illyria and Spike says that she seems the same and he replies "Everything is different"
Illyria says "Change is constant yet things remain the same." Either she's wrong or we're not seeing the whole picture yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-01 10:55 pm (UTC)Did you see that final scene as Angel deciding to play W&H's game? Because I'm convinced he's going to lock that door behind him and then scatter bits of Brethren all over the office. I totally took that line about 'serving our clients' to mean that he was going back to serving his *real* clients, the helpless, not making money for W&H. But then I also thought Angel took Illyria's words about not compromising very much to heart and decided yeah, I'm through serving any master but my own ambition, let's go out and help some hopeless!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-02 12:43 pm (UTC)I figured if he was gonna do that, then why get rid of Gunn, who at that point seemed to be on the verge of doing just that himself. It was Gunn's "what are you doing?" that convinced me that Angel was taking a different tack than just cutting the Gordian knot with violence. But I guess we'll see as of next ep.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-02 01:30 pm (UTC)See, that's where I'm cynical. I thought he got rid of Gunn to make a cliffhanger ending. If the moral issue had been a little less black and white I might have been swayed, but really, how likely is it that Angel is going to side with a bunch of demons who plan to make a kid drink urine for 13 years and then kill him? Still, as you say, we'll find out next week!
holy crap this got long
Date: 2004-04-29 01:53 pm (UTC)I got more of a Gollum vibe from Wes. With all the crouching and constant moving and the almost nervous movement. But yeah totally Renfield as well. Though I prefer this crazy Wes to the sullen broody Wes.
With all the talk about profits that makes Hamilton so much more of a go-getter than Eve, I have to wonder if somehow this is a Boo! Capitalism thing. Strange how all of Hamilton's speeches to Angel (and the one to Wes about the cancerpatent) are about profits and making money. The last time we saw this money!yay! concept was probably back when Connor was a baby and they had all those people in the offices at the hotel during "Provider" "Helping the helpless, finding Holtz, and making money are our *three* number one priorities." So I can't help wondering if all this money talk is just an episodic (is that a word?) thing or something we will see more of?
The confident Angel we end on is disturbingly similiar to good ol' Angelus's firm belief in evil
Pause for drooling and squeeeing over Angelus! *drool* *Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee*
Is Angel just that good at playing evil's game that he can win even in their own arena? Maybe. Or has he learned exactly the wrong lesson in this current "apocalypse," which is apparently already in late innings and the bad guys are winning, all with the good guys' naive help? We'll see.
You know, the most interesting thing about this is that I honestly don't know how I would like this to play out. It is too bad that we have to waste an episode on Buffy when the issue between them has pretty much already been resolved. I don't want to see them get dragged back into this because it seems that Spike and Angel have finally come to a point where they are comfortable with each other (andtheyaresomarried). As Jeff Bell says when asked who he would pair Buffy with - Angel or Spike...
"Oh Lord, I think all three would be very happy together. I guess I can't say that. I actually don't think it'd be Angel and Buffy or Spike and Buffy. I think it'd be Angel and Spike."
but the ultimate answer for future happiness is for guys to turn gay and have lots of sex.
*nods* Hell yeah ;)
But as for Angel/W&H I'd kinda like to see Angel "go bad" one last time, even if it's for a little bit, because sorry to say, Angelus is one of the best characters ever and he rocks like a rocking thing.
But then again I wouldn't want the season to end like that...
Re: holy crap this got long
Date: 2004-04-29 02:18 pm (UTC)That's a good point - it's almost as names go away once she's recognized you as a danger, which would also cover her "vermin" line to Wes. Like she said, "betrayer" used to be a neutral term, and real power is beyond words or names. (This also adds a sort of status to the fact that she killed Spike first, as if acknowledging that he was a danger to her.)
I don't want to see them get dragged back into this because it seems that Spike and Angel have finally come to a point where they are comfortable with each other (andtheyaresomarried).
I'd forgotten to mention this above, but we get that scene where Angel takes a stake in the chest to save Spike. Aw, it really is love...
But as for Angel/W&H I'd kinda like to see Angel "go bad" one last time, even if it's for a little bit, because sorry to say, Angelus is one of the best characters ever and he rocks like a rocking thing.
I could even go for faux Angelus. That was kind of my guess on the whole "I'm doing my job" thing, that Angel is going to pull out his inner Angelus to go toe-to-toe with these W&H guys, not necessarily go evil, but use that part of himself to hold his own in the battle. I can only hope.
Re: holy crap this got long
Date: 2004-04-29 04:24 pm (UTC)In "Anne" we have the "re-awakening of Buffy" when she says "I'm Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and you are?"
And a very similar moment in "You're Welome" when Angel says to Lindsey "Cause you know what? I'm Angel. I beat the bad guys".
When Buffy calls Spike William for the first time. Ok, the list goes on and on. These are all empowering moments. So it seems that using a person's real name can empower them. But at the same time, it can take that away when you refuse to use it.
Which is possibly what I said before, but it's now more clear in my head than when I typed it first :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 03:08 pm (UTC)I was actually thinking about the same thing. In this episode she says to Angel that "in my time [vampires] were known as 'the muck that eats itself.'" That's not exactly a name, but it is a clear label, a way of categorization. She also tells him that "'Illyria' was all they needed to know." Again, using a name, a label to wield power, or take it away.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 11:25 pm (UTC)Heh. This is why I love your analyses -- I would never have thought to apply this week's South Park theme to this ep., even though it's blindingly obvious that there is some sort of harmonic convergence going on here. Bring on the pile!
This just after a next-episode trailer in which we see Angel and Spike riding together on a Vespa... uhhhh. (And Angel gets on the scooter behind Spike with his arms wrapped around him, which makes him look like a teenage girl on a prom date with Marlon Brando; I'm mentally rearranging my image of who gets to be top and who gets to be bottom in this relationship even as I write.)
Then if you haven't already, you must immediately read Dynagirl's "Still Life With Birthday" here:
http://www.ficbitch.com/slashingtheangel/home.html
because it addresses this burning issue in a very entertaining manner.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-10 06:44 pm (UTC)And on no subject in particular
Date: 2004-04-30 10:01 pm (UTC)Re: And on no subject in particular
Date: 2004-04-30 10:29 pm (UTC)It was a spur of the moment name assignment... just trying for something superhero-y. (shrug) Can retract or change next time... Action Lass?
Re: And on no subject in particular
Date: 2004-05-01 06:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-03 07:23 am (UTC)Although, now the elimination of strong female characters (I’m not counting organic-cola-fetchers or pronoun-elusive god-kings) is beyond irritating, it's downright suspect. Cordy’s death, Fred’s death, coupled with the presumptive misogyny in Eve's characterization and arc? …I thought the whole point of the Whedonverse was to subvert stereotypes like that.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-03 10:07 am (UTC)Never mind the lateness - welcome! And thank you And thank you, although do I usually actually get these done on Thursday? I always feel like I'm bringing up the end of the tardy train for comments, but maybe I've just been more productive lately...
[In desperation at one point, I convinced myself that Eve was actually the original Little Girl from the White Room, since the actresses' mannerisms were very similar
Dude, that's a good theory! Wish I'd thought of that. Especially given that whole "The conduit's appearance is determined by the viewer" or whatever that just suddenly appeared all of a sudden to explain why no panther anymore? I mean, if Angel saw a little girl, then maybe it makes sense that the liason would be a grown-up verison of that little girl.
Although, now the elimination of strong female characters (I’m not counting organic-cola-fetchers or pronoun-elusive god-kings) is beyond irritating, it's downright suspect. Cordy’s death, Fred’s death, coupled with the presumptive misogyny in Eve's characterization and arc? …I thought the whole point of the Whedonverse was to subvert stereotypes like that.
Uh, yeah. I've been having some issues with that too, as you've probably seen. And while I'm starting to feel hope that AtS will end on a note that will redeem for me some of the messages that ME seemed to be sending with the ending of BtVS (with which I have serious issue), I'll likely remain a bit annoyed that it's been left to the boys' club show to have the final say on this universe, which was after all created to be a girl-friendly place. (grumble)