The fight in the alley – anyone else flash on the Star Trek episode where William Shatner had split in two, and that whole thing about the good side and the bad side making one whole person?
I liked it, mostly, and I welcome any chance to see Willow. But I thought she was very sloppily written in this episode. First, I don’t like how they had her so casually mention her killing Warren. “I flayed a guy alive and then tried to destroy the world.” I get the joke; it was to show that Wesley was being all self-important with his “darkness” again. And normally, I don’t mind writers’ being silly or breaking continuity if it gets in the way of a good joke – but this undermines her whole character.
This is the worst thing she’s ever done. She was terrified to face her friends after doing it, even to the point of subconsciously casting a spell that made her invisible to everyone. And now she’s casually making jokes about it? It’s even more sloppy when you consider that this episode is Faith’s story; Faith’s whole story arc is that she killed a human being and is struggling to find redemption. And she even did it by accident but then realized she didn’t mind, whereas Willow willfully killed Warren (alliteratively speaking).
The other bit of sloppy writing/direction was having her go all vampy on Fred. Again, yes, it’s a joke, but it’s totally out of character. It’s bad enough having a character who’s been shy and retiring for seven years suddenly turn into Alpha Lesbian, but even worse when they’d established that she’s still feeling guilty about seeing people after Tara’s death.
Thanks, Mahaloth! The transcript picked up exactly where the show stopped on my WB station.
In light of the Conner situation does anyone else think that this episode should have been called Oedipus instead of Orpheus?
First, thanks to Eats Crayons and everyone else who helped me fill in the blanks. Now I’m even more upset I missed the ending, it sounded good.
Second, I’m wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on the old prophecy that “The father will kill the son.” It prompted Wes do start on his road to darkness, but now, I think it’s going to play a big part of the ending of this season. I’m only guessing here (I don’t like spoilers either), but I’m assuming the “son” referred to is going to be Cordy’s demon child rather than Connor. And it will either be Angel (Connor’s father will kill the (Connor’s) son) or Connor who offs the demon kid in the ending of this season. I think it’s plausible, and it is an explanation that allows Connor to stay on the show (for good or ill).
Finally, since Willow did a crossover, dare I ask for the best character in the Buffyverse to now appear on Angel. I speak of the one, the only…
CLEM!!!
The last line of that intro says “Use the invisotext, Luke.” A maybe-too-subtle hint. The text is hidden in the white space. Just use your mouse to highlight it like you would to read the text in a spoiler-box.
Hamlet, IIRC, the ‘father will kill the son’ prophesy was a phony, planted by the time travel demon to screw with Angel. Or is my brain going soft in my old age?
You’re right Cheese, it was planted by Sahjan (sp?). However, what if his planting that part of the prophecy actually a plant in itself? Kinda to throw people off when in fact the father really will kill the son (i.e. Connor killing the thing growing in Cordy, which he believes really is his).
I am still a member of the camp that states that being evil is part of Cordy’s higher-being-hood. Mostly, I want to avoid the finale where they suck some stupid parasite out of Cordy. I want this to be the real, the one, the only Cordy.
My stupid Fox affiliate (we don’t have a WB, and the Fox station picks up selected WB shows) started broadcasting the war at 9:45 PM. Angel is supposed to roll at 10:00. Needless to say, they haven’t STOPPED broadcasting, so I missed the whole friggen show. If anyone feels pity, I’d be delighted to reimburse you shipping and stuff for a taped copy…
Yet another reason to hate war.
It would be very cool if the Higher Powers are somehow evil, and have been scheming the whole time. But it can’t be that simple either. I do hope that Skip appears at some point to help clarify things though. 
Since sooooo many people got the last few minutes of Angel pre-empted by “war” coverage, the WB will be rebroadcasting last week’s episode on Sunday night at 9/8C. So save your postage money…
PS: Wasn’t the prophecy “the father will devour the son”??? Not “kill”, right?
Apos, I think you’re confusing the Powers That Be with the Higher Beings. I’m kind of forming an embryonic theory about the PTB- there are the Higher Beings, who are good, but uninvolved, and the Lower Beings, who are evil but uninvolved. Together, they try to maintain this thing called Balance, whatever the hell that is.
Neither the HB or the LB can directly interfere with What’s Going On In The Jossverse. They can only express pleasure or displeasure with the doings of some of the more powerful supernatural beings ; the LB were pissed at D’Hoffryn over the whole Anyanka fiasco, so D’Hoffryn is trying to get Anya killed in order to appease them. I imagine there is some similar, though less murderous, goings-on in relation to the HB vis a vis beings on the order of Lorneonlymoreso. I’m not even going to get into the subject of Whistler, except to say I would love to see him turn up in the season, and series, finale of BtVS, for reasons which will become obvious once everyone sees Episode 21.
It reairs this Sunday at 9:00
No, the prophecy Wesley was translating was “the father will kill the son”, which Sahjahn described as a “creative rewrite” of the existing prophecies. It’s a little ambiguous whether the “creative rewrite” involved changing the prophecy relating to Connor and Sahjahn to “the father will kill the son”, whether “the father will kill the son” was pure red herring, or if “the father will kill the son” might have been correct, but “rewritten” in such a way as to conceal its true significance. If it’s a rewrite for the purposes of concealing the true significance, it could actually have been about Connor and the child of Evil!Cordy.
The “devour” spin was what the Loa said to Wesley: “that the vampire will devour his son is certain.” The choice of words has been noted before.
I’m starting to wish I had watched the previous seasons of Angel. I never had much interest in the show about the boring dead guy, and I only started watching this season because I heard that there were going to be some thematic crossovers with BtVS then I started hearing about actual ones… Now there are a lot of holes in the storyline, at least from where I’m sitting, because I don’t have the earlier seasons as a frame of reference.
I do see a lot of parallels between the two shows. I see Wesley as S6 Buffy, Lilah as Soulless Spike, Lorne as Xander, only more likeable, Fred as Willow, only not gay now and not a witch-more the bookish computer nerd Willow of the first two seasons, with just a dash of Giles. Haven’t got Gunn figured yet. Angel is, of course, Angel. The boring dead guy.
The thing that gets me about Angel is that it became obvious to me when I first started watching the BtVS reruns on FX last spring that he was not so much a character as a plot device. Then he got all evil, and he was still a plot device. I know he was supposed to be the first love/betrayal metaphor archetype or whatever, but really he was just an excuse to have an apocalypse and give Buffy some angst. Hell, if Joss wanted to go that route, he could have at least found a good actor to play the role, like, maybe James Marsters… oh, wait. James is on the show playing an actual character. So then, we have this extremely uninteresting character and what does ME do? Hey, kids, let’s do a spinoff about n non-character played by an actor so wooden he makes Kevin Costner look animated. Fortunately, Joss in his wisdom gave the show a really great supporting cast, so Angel is actually a watchable show. But really, when people watch a show because they dig the supporting characters, but don’t really give a damn about the character the show is named after, something is very wrong. Same goes for BtVS Season Six, and a good chunk of the current season.
And the Big Bad is a fetus. That is so cool…
How can you not like a show in which a season’s main villian hasn’t been born yet?
Now if they’d just get rid of the boring dead guy…
Thanks, Tangent! I didn’t get it.
[Minor hijack] My theory is this. Every now and then, a channel gyps us out of the end of a show, or out of a substantial portion of a show, by switching to coverage of some news event. Often, the switch seems unnecessary. They don’t actually have any news to report, but they go on and on saying nothing, or they do have something to report, but it 's only about 30 seconds worth, yet they go on and on interminally. I think this is a blatent assertion of domininence by the news division. They’re thumbing their noses at the entertainment division, saying “Nyah, nyah, nyah! We can kick you off the air Any Time We Want To! So there!” [/minor hijack]
Thea, I don’t think you were missing out on much. I’ve watched (and bitched about) “Angel” off an on since the start, and IMO the current story arc is the best the series has ever been.
About the spin-off, don’t forget that Angel the character was a pretty big hit when “Buffy” started. Apparently good looks go a long way, and if you believe the hype machine, David Boreanaz is a good-looking guy. (I don’t see it myself, even when I’m forced to check out other guys.) Plus he (back to the character here) has the dark and tortured past, which makes the teen girls swoon. So the WB was all excited they had a potential hit with a “Dawson’s Creek”-style dreamboat, and Mutant Enemy were all excited that they could write a “dark and edgy” show and reveal the depth they were never able to with their high school comedy/action/soap opera.
Of course, it didn’t turn out that way, but that was the general vibe at the time.
**SolGrundy said
Me neither. I think he’s kind of dopey-looking, and way to beefy. Muscle on a guy is nice, but after a certain point, it starts to look freakish. David Boringanaz has passed that point.
And, due to some travesty of karma, teenage girls have more disposable funds than thirty-five year old women. Oh, the injustice.
OK, where’s that shirtless Spike wallpaper I’ve been hearing about?
I’m so shallow that I watched Buffy in large part just to see Angel. This season Boreanaz has put on quite a bit of weight and he’s not as handsome as he was on Buffy. However, when his face was all bone and angles and he had those shaded eyes and perfectly lean, sinewy body…oh my. Yup. He does it for me in a big way.
JW, in his commentary on BtVS, said that he was not altogether convinced that Boreanaz was right for Angel for a lot of the reasons you all mentioned. Too wooden. Questioned whether he could play anything other than understated and mysterious. Too physically beautiful. Whedon said what sealed it was when he finally stopped focusing on HIS reaction to Boreanaz and noticed that the women producers were “turning into puddles.”
James Marsters, on the other hand, is the antithesis of Boreanaz. He is thin and graceful, like a cat. Spike is extremely charistmatic. Flawed but fun. He has that great accent. He’s in tune with his feminine side. Great multi-faceted character. He’d make a great drinking buddy. Would I kick him out of bed? No, but only if Boreanaz wasn’t already in it.
To each her own.