I thought it was a great ep. I thought Tamika just coming out and telling Harmony that she was setting her up was a bit contrived, but the chopstick-fu more than made up for it. And the camel was just priceless. Harmony actually didn’t eff that one up, the caterers delivered it on the wrong day. Her only mistake was not checking with Angel on the matter, but Gunn probably could have filled him in. I thought the way he treated Harmony after she explained that camel meat was a delicacy, and the ritual for slaughtering the beast, was apalling.
I think that part of the reason this episode worked for me was that the writer/s had Harmony’s character down pat. The woman is shallow and not very intelligent, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think she ever did have a soul. And she is shaping up into a quite competent secretary- a job that requires a certain amount of skill, but not a lot of intelligence. Which actually makes her that much more impressive in this episode. She actually managed to get her brain working enough to do research on the customs of the two demon clans, and to figure out that she was being set up as not only a murderer, but also as the one who would wreck the chances of the demon summit being successful, and how it was being done. The only thing she got wrong was the who of it. But through it all, she was still the same ditzy Harmony we all know and, erm, well, know.
I’m kind of getting the impression that they’re trying to put Harmony into the position of BtVS S5 Spike- soulless, basically evil, but trying to do the right thing, and of course going about it in completely the wrong way. They haven’t really established her motive yet for going “off the human stuff”, which actually kind of bothers me. She doesn’t have the chip/being hoplessly in love with the main character combination.
I never really liked Harmony as a human character,possibly because she is the embodiment of about a half-dozen girls who made my life miserable in junior high school, but as a vampire, she has really grown on me. Incompetent and evil makes for much hilarity.(Let’s face it, it’s adorable).
I’m really not liking the way Spike is being written this season. The writers seem to be negating the development the character went through on the last season of “Buffy”. I think in large part it’s because they’re trying to play up the antagonism between Spike and Angel- both vampires are coming off as complete jerks in their interactions with one another, but Spike actually seems to be regressing. I would think that he would have more respect for Buffy than to use his relationship with her to goad Angel. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways he could get under Angel’s skin. He’s really only a jerk when Angel is around. He’s friendly with Gunn, almost affectionate with Fred (for obvious reasons, and I’m still shipping Spinnifred, but I don’t see it happening this season. Maybe next year…) and though his relationship with Wesley is strained, there seems to be some respect there. I think the writers could be handling the antagonism between the two vampires without having them both come of as complete assholes. I’m really getting the feeling that they just haven’t figured how to integrate him into the cast, and they don’t really seem to be trying.
I’m really bugged that Lorne seems to have been put on the back burner this season. He had become my favorite character on the show last season, and now, aside from “Conviction” and “Life of the Party”, the only time we see him is walking down the hallway with a cell phone growing out of his ear. Hilarious lines, to be sure, but dammit, Lorne is a great character, and it really bugs me to seeing him reduced to a prop.
