Well, I liked it. And I must say it feels good to be able to like this show again, after the confusing morass of most of the second half of last season. A few observations:
I am profoundly relieved that Cordy is still in the show (though the prospect of a romance with her and Angel still doesn’t feel right to me, it feels much less wrong than it would have in season one). What they did with her in the last ep of last season smelled very strongly of a poorly planned gimmick for writing her off the show on short notice. Not to mention, she was actually absent from the show for a string of 4 or 5 eps last season, something for which I’ve yet to see an explanation.
She wasn’t in much of this ep, of course, but that “I am sooo bored!” was pitch perfect. I look forward to seeing her more in later eps.
Lorne is coming back too, and there are actually some shots of him in the opening credits. I’m glad he’s coming back, too, but not as glad as I am about Cordy.
I will join everyone else in saying I really like the direction they are going with Wesley, and Wesley/Lilah. Bad ass indeed. Do not stab that man in the back. Or the neck. Yikes!
One quibble tho…how did he handle the logistical challenge of transporting Justine from the closet to the boat every night for their “fishing expeditions”?
They’ve added a new main character, as they have at the start of every new season, with alternating genders. This is the first time, though, that I’m not particularly pleased about it. Connor’s character still looks like an uninteresting blank slate to me. He still could develop into something interesting, of course, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Gunn and Fred seem quite happy together, and we all know what that means. The only question is, will it come crashing down this season, or next?
Wesley obviously isn’t the only one with Bad-Ass potential. Fred, of all people, also seems to have it, if you push her hard enough. Remember, for most of the ep she was more or less protecting Connor from Gunn. After she found out what he did, Gunn had to hold her back. You go, girl.
pepperlandgirl: What thematic crossovers? I do urge you to give the show a try. I doubt very much you are going to stop hating Angel, but there are a number of other interesting characters on that show as well. You must remember Wesley from Buffy season 3. Look what they’ve done with him…
You’re right that it is of the utmost importance to W+H that Angel be around for the Apocalypse, and they haven’t just gone ahead and staked him for that reason. It still seems to me that they could have tried something similar to what Conner and Justine did. Weld him in a cage, or pour 100 tons of quick-setting concrete on him and drill a feeding hole, or trap him in a pocket dimension and throw a few rats in every once and a while. A company with their resources and morals should have been able to think of something to keep Angel out of the way without interfering with the prophecy, instead of just observing as he continually screws with their operations. I got the idea that Lila is going to try to explore something along those lines. Not that any of her schemes will work in the long run, but at least they’ll be more interesting to me than the old strategy.
I knew you were going to ask. Some of these I noticed on my own, some of them have been pointed out at the Stakehouse and the Buffy Cross and Stake.
1-The obvious fracture of the gang(s). Angel/Cordy/Wes, Buffy/Willow/Xander. Of course, there is a slight difference, because Buffy and Xander reconnected over the summer.
Both Spike and Angel are having hallucinations. At first, you may blame them on the soul and extreme hunger, respectfully, but what if it’s more than that? Spike says in Beneath You that he’s dreamed of killing Buffy, and Angel dreams of killing the ones he loves too. Either way, neither start the season in good mental health.
Lilah points out that they have been working on this little project since the beginning of time. The Master says they are going back to the Beginning. Halfrek points out that something older than the Old Ones is coming.
Angel’s speech to Connor. I dont think the direct “Champion of the People” reference on BTVS can be ignored. Also, I don’t think the direct reference to BTVS can be ignored either, especially since there have been several references to early seasons so far, and it looks like the episodes are subtle reworks of past. (ie Beneath You is the same concept as Beauty and the Beasts. Better done, though.)
4a) Also, to me, Angel’s speech meant that Connor could change and become a champion of the people. This seems to contradict Giles saying “In the end,we are who we are”…or does it?
Ok and 5) this might me stretching a bit. But remember in Angel’s dream where he kills Connor? Before he does, they fight a handful of vampires. Angel sees a bleached-blonde vampire and smiles. Vampire asks “What are you laughing at.” Angel says, “I’ll tell you later.” I don’t know, maybe if there wasn’t that pesky “no crossover” rule, that may have been Spike. It certainly could work. After all, Spike points out that “Angel should have warned me…”
And I will continue watching for the following reasons
i watch enough tv during the week, over the weekend i try and get out some, which means no tv. and even though i’ve grwon kind of fond of the show, i guess it’s no more angel for me.
I’m amazed that quite a few of you remembered & mentioned Gunn’s line, but no one caught Angel’s rather accusatory line which follows (and I am paraphrasing):
“I was sent to a hell dimension for 100 years by my girlfriend, blah, blah, blah.” Please note: I tuned out after the beginning of the sentence.
I ran to my husband and said, “What’s he talking about? He’s making it sound like Buffy was responsible for him being in that hell dimension, when we all know perfectly well that Angelus was responsible for awakening & silencing Acathala. He always makes it seem like he has no part in any of the bad things that have happened to him.”
I liked the episode, but I’m always reminded that Angel causes most of his own problems. Really dig Wes & Lilah (always liked her - she’s a hardcore bitch! Gotta love that)!
And a note to pepperlandgirl: I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a crossover of any sort. It’s been a year already and I’m sure the WB is still pissed about the Buffy move. But in this situation, I would love to be proven wrong.
Whoa there!! Buffy most certainly was responsible for Angel being in the hell dimension. Angelus awakened Acathala, not Angel. Since Angel’s soul wasn’t there, Angel wasn’t there.
More to the point, Buffy recognized that she sent Angel to the hell dimension. It was the right thing to do, but she felt immense guilt over it.
W&H doesn’t just want Angel around for the Apocalypse, they want Angel around and on their side. The prophecy is that Angel is going to be a key fighter in the Apocalypse, and may indeed hold the key to victory, but the prophecy doesn’t make clear whose victory - the forces of good or the forces of evil.
So tossing Angel into the clink until the Apocalypse won’t serve any purpose for W&H - they need to turn him.
I was pretty sure I saw a dripping Wes and a dry Justine in the crane scene.
As I said(and several others have said the same) Justine's spirit is broken. Wes can dive without worrying that she'll take the boat or call for help. OTOH, Justine might see Angel and tell Wes it's just another shopping cart, or wrecked speedboat. Her statement that the blip might be a shopping cart indicates that the sonar isn't enough to identify the crate by. From Wes's POV, there's always the chance she has a last spark of rebellion and will lie about finding the crate. He can either work out some kind of helmet-cam, or dive himself.
Re-Lorne, I believe you’re right. But what danger lurks in Vegas? Hmm could it be that Sigfried and Roy really can perform magic? Dark magic meant to summon an army of tigers and Nokia phones? Have the pawn shops started a massive soul buying ? Does that pyramid hotel whose name I’m not sure of (Dunes? Egypt? The Pyramid? Mister Pointy?) of harbor a secret order dedicated to Egyptian necromancy?
I’m pretty sure that it was Justine who went down. Wesley seemed to toss her a wetsuit before the scene cut to the water, and the eyes behind the mask looked too wide to be Wesley’s. And that makes more sense, too. If Wesley went down, he’d have to rely on Justine to keep the boat where it is. Not only might that be beyond Justine’s competence (currents are fun!), but it also would give Justine an opportunity to escape while he wasn’t looking. (He could chain her, of course, but then if she actually needed to do something involving the boat, she’s stuck.) If he sends Justine down, he pretty much knows she’s coming back. (Ocean is dark, deep, wet, and who knows where the shore is when you’re boating around at 3 in the morning?) As to why Justine wouldn’t just lie about finding Angel, I think that Justine had pretty well figured out that Wes would keep on doing this search every night for the rest of their lives, and so lying would simply mean more days in the closet and nights on the boat. She could lie just to be difficult, but she’s not so dedicated to the mission that she’s willing to live out her days in the closet listening to Wesley and Lilah screwing.
Justine was clearly shown wearing a wetsuit after Angel’s crate was hauled up. Wesley was shown in street clothes while freeing Angel. Logically, why would Wesley, knowing that Angel could suffer permanent brain damage, take the time to change out of his wetsuit and back into street clothes before opening the box? And if he did change, why did we his adoring and horny public not get to watch?
Good ep. I love Cordy’s “I’m so bored” line-- and Wes being a true badass.
I have a feeling that Justine was still chained while in the boat, but she was definitely the one diving.
Don’t place too much faith in the opening credits-- just look at one of the final Buffy episodes last season, when Amber Benson gets put in the opening credits just as her character dies…
As for Cordy vanishing for several episodes-- she and Groo went on vacation.
But would your skin be more wrinkly than Angel’s after spending three months in an air-tight casket? 'Cause that’s what Angel was in-- he wasn’t in water. Hence, no wrinkles.
Luxor. And, no the hotel doesn’t figure in the episode at all, except maybe as scenery. The episode was shot at the Tropicana and downtown (no, I didn’t go downtown on my night off to observe. Now, James Marsters I’d make trip to ogle. Boreanaz just doesn’t do it for me.) There were spoilers in the article in the Las Vegas Review/Journal about the shooting of the episode, one of which was Gunn-related. That’s all I’m going to tell you.
I think I’m going to watch the Vegas episode, just to see how geographically accurate it is. A lot of times in movies and on TV, parts set in Vegas do things like have the Golden Nugget, which is downtown, next to the Mirage, which is on the Strip, or the use apparently old stock footage of the downcown casinos, in scenes where the characters are driving past them, which hasn’t been possible for several years because Fremont Street from Las Vegas Blvd to Main Street was blocked off to vehicle traffic and is now a pedestrian mall.
