I should be finishing up a take home test but instead I’m going to start this week’s Angel thread. I find I work best at 4am when I’m in a blind panic.
Overall I give this episode 9/10 and have to say I like where this season is heading.
Things I liked:
• The narration by Lorn. I liked it and really thought it worked for this episode.
• “I have a fool proof memory spell.” Sure ya do Lorn, sure ya do.
• Wes and Gunn confrontation. Would this relationship pattern be a love square or some other shape of overlapping love triangles? I’m bad at romance geometry.
• “Actually what she said is ‘May you orally please the gods.’”
• Reversion to youth instead of a total mind wipe.
• “Hell is a lot nicer than my place.”
• “Did anyone else have to take a personality disorder test recently? Where they ask about your bowel movements and if you want to be a florist.” (I think there was a third thing she mentioned, but my brain is fried from doing a take home test all day so I can’t remember).
• “Do you have any weed?”
• “I say its time the English got what’s comming to him. I’m rooting for the slave.”
• “I’m invisible.” “No you’re not.”
• “You know what would make this better. Some weed.”
• “Those were some exciting products weren’t they? Let’s all think about buying some of them.”
• “Your ass better hope I don’t look that word up.”
• The father discussion.
• Lots of other stuff that I don’t want to clutter the post with.
Things I wasn’t sure about:
• Connor and the whore. I’m still not what to think about it, even though I know it was setting up for Cordelia’s later promise.
• Who the hell was Lorn talking to? What kind of psycho talks to an empty theater or does Lorn get to break through the fourth wall now? When I saw he wasn’t telling the story to anyone I was a little wigged out.
Things I didn’t like:
• The trippy pre-memory loss part was kinda annoying to watch, just visually.
• Cop out on Liam’s accent. They should have used a taser in training David until he could get it perfectly. It would have given the episode at least a fourth of a point more.
Anyway next week’s looks like it’ll be neat. It looked like dead birds were crashing into the hotel, and that’s always a sign of good ol’ pseudo-Biblical the end is nigh stuff.
Yeah but . . . if Cordy’s memory regression was to 17 (I know I heard that age mentioned), then she should have remembered Angel, and vampires, and all the rest of about seasons 1-3 of Buffy.
Which is pretty much my only (very minor) gripe about the show. I was puzzled that Liam didn’t speak with an Irish accent, but the whole “something’s wrong with my voice” was actually pretty amusing, as was the bit in the bathroom where he finds himself changing back and forth and realizing HE’S the vampire.
And the return of the nebbishy Wesley was also fun, in an I-am-glad-he’s-past-THAT sort of way. His reaction when the multiply expanding blade popped out of his sleeve and kept expanding and collapsing was ahem pryceless.
" The government gave me bad hair!" I also loved Fred’s trippy paranoid rants, she must have been fun to know in high school.
I’m a bit unsure about the continuity here. I know 17 was the age mentioned, were they all supposed to be the same age? Cordy knew about vampires by the time she was 17(surely by the time she and Buffy are kidnapped by them senior year in “Becoming” or in “the wish” which was even earlier), and knew Angel well before that. BTVS started when they were Sophomores in high school, so to make her a young enough teen not to know Angel, at least, she would have to have been 15 or less, and probably not so overly concerned about the prom as she would be at 17.
Other than being puzzled by that, I’d say this the best episode of Angel I’ve seen yet!
Thougt the episode was great. I found myself laughing a lot. A couple questions though. Why wasn’t Lorne affected by the spell? It wasn’t because he was a demon, because it affected Angel. Also, is anyone else as annoyed by Connor as I am. Something about that kid just rubs my the wrong way. He is so whiny and creepy. I personally wouldn’t mind in the slightest if the writers just killed off his characterand got him out of the way.
Cordelia mentions a sophmore hazing ritual, so she is clearly at the start of her sophmore year. She is in driver’s ed that year so she is at least 16 (though California may be different than New York I’m pretty sure it has permit at 16). I think they reverted to somewhere in the 15 to 17 range. Regardless we know that Cordie is at the start of her sophmore year.
Lorn isn’t human and never was. I think that that is what prevented him from being affected and just knocked him out.
I was going to complain about Connor but I’m not sure if it is the actor, the character or some combination that bothers me. He seems sort of out of place on the show. On the other hand he played off Angel well during the fight and talk tonight. I think the thing that bothers me most about him is that he just wasn’t explained. At least I don’t remember hearing exactly how he came to be, does anyone else? Darla and Angel shouldn’t have been able to reproduce, but did and there is no explination of it.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the best, or even that it’s the best Whedon written/directed episode, but it was a solid hour.
Cordy knew that vampires were real for sure by the end of season 1. In the season 2 opener, she mentions fighting vampires and the death of the Master. As far as Angel, she had seen him in Season 1, but not really talked to him much, that I recall, before Season 2. She had heard he was a vampire in “Halloween”, but it isn’t clear to me when she actually believed it.
As far as being concerned about the prom at 15, Cordy was a high school social climber, and would have regarded at as a failure socially to not be asked to the prom by one or more upperclassmen. She clearly would have been one of those who went to the prom at least four times in high school.
Might be the effect of the no crossover rule on the continuity issue. I thought they were going to have everyone reset to when Cordy knew Angel was Angelus (or did she?). But the clean slate allowed for the more humorous exchanges.
Still- an all Joss episode is a good thing. It continued the dominance of Angel of Buffy though, a streak that has continued for nearly 2 years now.
I laughed really hard when Wesley had the inadvertant stake poppage, when he was in the basement with Fred.
I also enjoyed watching Connor get his ass kicked again.
And fourtunately, the memory thing is now done. Next week looks interesting.
It was a good reminder of how far the Wes character has come. Apparently even as Head Boy at the Watcher Academy (what do you think their school mascot was?) he was a prune. But under it all there was still a bit backbone. He told Cordy and Fred to run while he attempted to fight Angel.
I liked the fight between Angel and Conner. They’ve established who’s going to win a physical confrontation between the two, but would a 17 year old Angel remember all he knows now about fighting? I doubt he was as good a fighter as a kid.
Fred was a head case long before Pylea (how do you spell that?). She is definately my favorite character and you can tell the writers are having more fun with it.
Some other amusing points:
Cordy getting upset that Angel wouldn’t attack her first, then telling him to go for Fred since she’s half neck. I loved the look on Fred’s face as she tried to minimize her neck.
Angel as an adolecent, he was almost as bad as William the Bloody. Maybe it’s a trend for powerful vamps.
The interactions and tension between Gunn and Wes. Lots of good terrain to be mined there. Especially the “Some of us don’t have muscle to fall back on” line with accompanying weapon.
It was because Lorne had stumbled away and collapsed unconcious behind the desk, so either not being awake or being behind something shielded him from the bottle-smashing effect. He was affected by the first part of the spell, just not the second part.
Overall, it was a very funny and cute episode. Who remembered what didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason, but since it was a comedy ep, I just went with it and enjoyed the show. I loved the bit where Angel’s making the game face in bathroom, with the resulting noises… and his breathless reply of “I’ll be done in a second!”
Things just don’t look too good for Fred and Gunn. The scene when they were lying in bed said a whole lot about the current state of their relationship, as did Gunn’s treatment of Wesley. And I cheered a little when Wesley said “I got my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me.” I think the triangle sets up some good potential for future episodes.
Strangely, it was also nice to see Bitchy Cordelia back again, for a change. Did I see an allusion to a boob job, or was I reading too much into it?
I was also creeped out by Lorne’s lack of an audience. I mean, we heard laughing, and occasional clapping, and glasses clinking–where the hell were they? It shouldn’t have been as creepy as it was, but it worked. Great ending with Cordy and Angel, too; Angel reversing “Were we in love?” worked perfectly.
Good fight scene in the kitchen, especially as I was switching back and forth to The Sopranos during commercial breaks.
Most has probably been said, but I’ll cime in for the [boob job]? Or is Charisma Carpenter pregnant? She’s been out of her tight outfits all this season.
As with any good episode in the Buffyverse, it balanced drama, comedy and action very well. Very snappy dialogue:
I also agree about Boreanaz’s accent. It’s just painful when an actor can’t nail an accent (e.g. Kevin Costner in Robin Hood). And so dreamy when he can (e.g. James Marsters as Spike).
And I realize that I’m a heterosexual woman, but I liked Charisma’s figure better before the boob job. She used to look graceful like a dancer–which is what she was, no? Now she just looks top heavy. IMHO.
I was wishing Wesley would make a move on Fred, just to see Fred’s disgusted reaction at getting hit on by an old guy.
I about fell out of my chair when I heard this, I was laughing so hard. I loved hte episode.
And I didn’t want to chop Angel’s head so much. (That’s progress, right?)
You know what I was tihnking? If BTVS ends, Wesley, Spike, and Faith should get a spinoff together. All three of them on the screen together would probably melt my TV…
charisma carpenter HAS to be pregnant, or she gained a ton of weight in the soff-season. did you miss her ass or something. not complaining or anything, but she looks like she gained 20 pounds or something.
the only thing that bothered me about the episode was angel’s dialogue. okay, his accent was mysteriously gone, but his syntax was waaaay off. what year was it when he was 16? 15th century? angle is a great show, but the less angel the character the better. or at least stick to what he does best, which is basic brooding 101.
thirdshiftgrottoslack Angel is less than 250 years old, so…definitely not 15th century. People spoke Modern English( oposed to middle or old) from the 1500s on, so his syntax is ok.
oh, i thought he was upwards of 500 years old, my bad. only a recent buffy/angel viewer.
i can;t come up with any specifics, but it seemed like he used some pretty modern sayings. i mean, even my parents, who grew up in the fifties, for chrissakes, speak differently than i do. i don’t know, it just didn’t sound right to me.
[quote]
charisma carpenter HAS to be pregnant, or she gained a ton of weight in the soff-season. did you miss her ass or something. not complaining or anything, but she looks like she gained 20 pounds or something.quote]
Well, when they made her part demon last season, they had to put the demon somewhere…
And she said it in Pylean, which is a language they speak…where, exactly? Because if you recall when they went to Pylea back in season 2, everyone spoke 20th century North American style English, which is the sort of thing I just can’t stand…
Oh hell, I don’t have the energy to do this rant. It was a hella good episode, and so was the last one. DB not being able to do the accent was distracting, though they handled it as best they could IMO. Lorne breaking the 4th wall was off-putting. And I agree that Connor is creepy, I just don’t get him. Why is he calling himself Connor?
But overall, the show has had an incredible run this season. For the first time ever, I can honestly say I like it better than BTVS.
