At the same time, by keeping her employed, he risks that next time she WILL end up causing a resumption of bloody hostilities between two feuding demon clans. Someone as incompetent as her shouldn’t be in a sensitive position, and I find it implausible that Angel doesn’t realize that.
Characters need to be likeable, competent, or unkillable, at the very least. Xander was likeable but incompetent and killable; Ghost-Spike was unlikeable and incompetent but unkillable; Jayne (from Firefly) was intensely unlikeable, killable, but very competent.
Harmony can microwave blood. Everything else she gets wrong.
First, none of the three who were closeted (heh) were key to the demon clan plot. Lorne had no involvement and Fred would have had no involvement were it not for the murder. So that critique doesn’t hold up.
My only really big gripe with the ep has already been expressed, that it was weak in relation to the cliffhanger that came before it and the loooong hiatus. Out of that context I thought it was good, better than, for example, the werewolf ep from earlier this season.
My other, minor, gripe is the semi-deus ex machina thing they’re doing with Gunn. I cringe at the notion of future scenes of “Oh, let me just tell you about this other thing that they stuck in my head, in addition to the law, G&S and an assortment of demon languages!” It becomes a crutch and I hope that the writers will toss it.
Fair enough. Still, it IS a law firm whose bread and butter involves servicing evil clients. There probably aren’t many jobs in the building that A) are simple enough for her to do, and B) are innocuous enough to keep her out of trouble.
Microwaving blood, making coffee and lunch reservations, and answering the phone aren’t huge skills, but there’s generally not a lot of chance for error, either.
Huh? Lorne was, along with Angel and Gunn, one of the three key organizers of the event. 'Sides which, he IS The Host, and knows more about keeping peace between hostile demons than anyone else.
And Fred would have had no involvement were it not for the murder. But there WAS a murder, and therefore she WAS involved. The whole reason the two sides were likely to kill each other was because of the failure of the firm to discover who the murderer was – and which employee was engaged in researching this salient point when Harmony knocked her out and stuck her in the closet?
It was OK, parts made me smile, other parts I went “enh?” The W&H promo at the begining was fun, did anyone lipread what Angel said during the part without sound? I missed that.
I liked the Harm at home, brushing her teeth and going vamp-face to get the pointy ones, lifting the dresser to get her shoe, tossing the body down the garbage chute…
No, she’s not a main character (and hopefully won’t be) but I like episodes that follow the secondary characters as a change of pace. And the moral at the end, her life has meaning because someone hated her enough to kill, that is a moral in the Buffyverse.
Did anyone else catch the shoutouts in the W&H teaser? I caught Yoyodyne (from Buckaroo Banzai) but missed the rest due to laughter. What were the other firms mentioned from? Anyone?
Apparently it was Wayland-Yutani, the major corporation in the Alien movies. Whedon wrote the script for the last one, hated the results, and blamed the director; this was probably a quick nod to that.
It was OK - not great, but I’ll never look at cheap chopsticks the same way again. And the promo mentioned Yoyodyne! Buckaroo Banzai reference! I love these people.
Ah, I forgot about the Yoyodyne reference until just now; it gave me a giggle. I highly enjoyed the Wolfram & Hart promo video, along with “non-human resources.” The law firm’s such a great opportunity to spoof and satirize corporate culture, just as Buffy worked so well in high school, and I like to see it when the writers and directors take advantage of the characters being in that environment. And for those reasons, I also rather enjoyed the episode, watching Harmony trying to befriend bitchy co-workers and try to do her job, as inept as she might be. Actually, based on the camel incident, I got the impression that if only Angel and everyone else didn’t treat her as an assistant and perhaps gave her a little more guidance, Harmony could be more of an asset and not a liability.
Oops, was I wrong about that? I may have been half-out of it due to blowing my nose, but I thought the camel was something like a traditional meeting ritual or some such thing. Can someone explain it to me in better detail? How’d Harmony eff it up, other than booking it on the wrong day? At any rate, I still think if they treated her better they’d be able to get more use out of her.
I liked the episode. In the aftermath of having watched it, I realized–and this is why folks should show a little more love for her–that Harmony is now one of the top two in terms of seniority in the Buffyverse; with the disappearance of the Buffy regulars, she and Angel are the only ones left who have been playing their characters from season B1. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember whether or not she appeared before Angel in the Buffy pilot (as one of the Cordettes) or not; if so, then she would be the oldest character still going in the Buffyverse. How about some dap for that?
It was a traditional meal. They would rip its hump off, and Angel would stab it in the heart with a poker. Evidently, while Harmony was technically correct with regards to the camel, practically it was a bad idea as Camel slaughter not high on the boss’ list of ways to start off the meeting.
From a corporate standpoint, she overreached in ordering the camel for the bloody ceremony requiring Angel to stab the poor beast without checking with Angel, Gunn or Wes first.
BTW- it was Wes who put Harmony in that role, more because she was the rare known quantity at W&H- which was important given the assistant’s proximity to them and the fact that half the firm wanted them dead at the time. Its like finding out the new Red Soxs owner is George Steinbrenner- a move that is not going to be popular with the troops.
Maybe this is just how humane societies work, but before I order a large grumpy animal for my boss to bloodily and viciously dispatch on behalf of murderous demons, I like to check with my boss first.
She didn’t, and that’s part of why she’s incompetent. Kudos on finding out about this ritual; bad idea not to run it past the bossman first.
And don’t give me any froofraw about this showing initiative on her part: her boss was obviously pissed, and his opinion about it is what matters.
The third evil company mentioned along with Yoyodyne and Weyland-Yutani was Newscorp, owner of Fox. Fox recently canceled Firefly, Whedon’s other show.
I saw it as a light-hearted poking of fun at themselves, and a remembering of the roots of the entire Buffy megalopolis. Buffy was a funny movie. The show began as a funny TV show. Not sit-com funny, but definitely tongue in cheek stuff.
The ad was cool, but out of place. Reminded me of Ky Fried Movie.
I don’t like Harmony, but thought it was a great effort to make things a little less symbolic heavy deep etc. Loved the fight scene. Because it was just a wonderful put on of all the Buffy fight scenes. Here’s the great big slayer fight scene and who’s puttin’ on the moves? Harmony!
Plus, while I missed Amy Acker’s long limber legs, Fred was back in nerdish costume, which is more appropriate for the character.
And the fact that Harmony settled the dispute by offing the other vamp on the table. . .good! Though I do wish they’d have kept the actress. She was kind of interesting.
“I don’t have a soul, so I have to try a lot harder than you do.”
I kind of thought this was important. Apparently any vampire can sort of become good if they have the proper motivation. Kind of cleared a few things up for me at least.
Of course, if Harmony gets a soul, I’ll swear off all of Joss’ shows forever.
Well, they also produce Buffy & Angel. I think they own the Buffyverse franchise, too
As for this episode. I find Harmony grating in larger doses than one-liners, so I didn’t enjoy the ep. Trying to be more objective about it, I agree with most posters that it was an ok one-off ep and that it’s nice to see the show go off on a tangent. However, worst? Go Fish, Ted, Bad Eggs? There are easily 10 episodes I dislike more in the whole Wheadonverse, and that’s including my disliking of Harmony.
And what’s up with Fred? Somebody styled her during the hiatus? She looked a lot more womanly and almost pretty in some scenes.
I don’t recall that we ever found out that Harmony was actually right about the camel. And we’ve seen nothing to indicate that Harmony has particularly good research skills.
