To solve the astronaut vs caveman fight, let’s consider a battle that has all ready occured between these two in the video game Time Killers.
Let’s consider “Orion” the bounty hunter from the future to being the equivalent of an astronaut. Let us also consider “Thugg” the caveman to be… the caveman.
Thugg, while being kinda slow and large, can bash his opponents and make them dizzy quickly, being vulnerable to decapitation. Orion relies more on jumping around and taking small slices at his opponents or kicks. In a lot of Orion vs Thugg battles, Thugg usually ends up bashing Orion enough times to either knock him out, cut off a limb, or go in for a quick decap. Orion, on the other hand, has trouble fighting off Thugg whenever he is faced with his running charge. If Thugg runs into the wall, he makes himself dizzy and Orion can take the opportunity to slice and dice him up good.
Most of the time, my money’s on Thugg (caveman).
::drives off in car powered by my own sense of self-satisfaction::
Great episode, with only one flaw: the plotline of having the show’s main female character be taken over by an ancient ultrapowerful bad guy which uses her body to gestate before hatching into the big bad was done on some show pretty recently :(. I wish it’d been a little more original.
I knew the relationship was gonna die, but I thought Joss was gonna be original with it: I thought that Angel was going to rescue Fred, and that the first casualty the demon caused as it left her body would be Wes. IMO, that would’ve been a lot cooler, a lot more twisty, and a lot meaner to the fan base. Imagine Fred waking up, healthy, in the cold arms of her lover.
Also, what, exactly, was Angel thinking? He refuses to kill tens of thousands of people to save Fred – okay, sure, I can see that. But really what he’s doing is refusing to kill tens of thousands of people to save humanity from a demon older than the concept of time itself.
Granted, we all know, and presumably Angel knows too, that the demon will kick his butt a few times, cause a few dozen deaths, and finally die in a spectacular light show that may or may not bring Fred back. But I’m not sure how plausible it is for the character to be certain of that.
But these are minor quibbles. The dialogue was sterling, and it was such a joy to see the cast functioning as an ensemble again, with each character given enough screentime to do their schtick. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.
Hey Left Hand, those are great points. Having the demon kill Wes would’ve been horrible…probably more horrible than what actually happened.
Also, it’s interesting how you bring up the fact that while all the people between LA and England would have died to “save humanity from a demon older than the concept of time itself”, Angel decided to allow the demon to be released. It may be interesting to draw parallels between this decision, and his decision to fight/kill Jasmine last year, who was supposedly bringing about “world peace”. I may need to think a bit about that.
Also on the Caveman/Astronaut thing, remember when Fred said “of course, the caveman wins”? I’m pretty sure they were shooting for the “demon older than time” being the “primitive” caveman, and W&H and all of their best and smartest scientist, demonologists, and all the technology at their disposal being the astronaut. Caveman won last night.
This demon (Llyria?) isn’t older than the concept of time itself; it’s just older than humanity (which always makes me wonder: If demons are wandering around slaughtering each other, how the fuck did humanity get here?).
And there’s no way that original Gunn would be in the white room. It’s the new Gunn that’s twisted, not the old Gunn.
Well, I don’t think it’s a continuity error yet. We still don’t have the full grasp on what the memory spell erased and what it left. Obviously only Angel and Spirit-Cordy remembered Connor. But the rest of the gang could still remember enough key events (with Connor conveniently omitted) to keep their character development. We just don’t know.
The memory spell was ambiguous enough that Joss could do pretty much anything he wants to relating to it, and still come out with no continuity errors.
I knew it was going to happen, but I spent the last 30 minutes going “don’t let Fred die, don’t let Fred die…” I was hoping for some last-minute rush to get the sarcophogus and Fred to England, so that they could enact the spell without having any souls in between to get infected. Or maybe to New Zealand (not sure which would be a shorter trip from LA).
But there wasn’t time.
Spike definitely kept things from spiraling too far down. “You want us to start annoying other people” was a perfect response to Angel. “Or the entrance to Christmastown” was great, especially the exasperation he showed when Angel didn’t get the reference. And “How many fingers am I holding up?”
I am wondering how the gang is going to handle the DemonFred situation. Wes already had to deal with losing Lilah (also a victim of a posessed friend), two girlfriends in as many years is rough (three if you count Cordy). Gunn is going to have some serious guilt issues to deal with. Lorne is going to take it really hard, although I wonder if he might have something like Xander’s “yellow crayon” speech coming up (I know, too much recycling). Spike and Angel seem to be ok on setting aside there differences when needed to, but will they both make it to the finale?
Some lingering thoughts:
Who’s the actor who played the guardian? He looked vaguely familiar, although it might just be a passing similarity to Brad Dourif (Wormtongue from LotR).
What would the “becoming airborne” have done to the people in between if Angel had exorcised the demon from Fred? Only painful death, or would the demon have multiple hosts to work within? Sacrificing thousands of lives for Fred might possibly be in Angel’s character (barely), but creating thousands of elder demon clones wouldn’t. I missed a few minutes here and there (like Gunn’s G&S apparently), but I couldn’t bring myself to re-watch the tape last night, maybe I’ll catch some more tonight.
I can’t believe you people!
The astronauts would so kick caveman ass. The only way they lose is if you rig the contest so that the astronaut’s chief advantage (big brains) is nullified. Like, if you held the fight in a locked room with no weapons. Sure, the cavemen win that fight, but not allowing the astronauts their advanced tool-using skills is like not allowing the cavement to use their brutal strength. At the very least, it should be in a natural setting where the astronauts can use items to fashion their own weapons, like Kirk did fighting the Gorn. But if you ask me, it ought to be the biggest, badest, toughest caveman from history, vs. Buzz Aldrin with an assault rifle. My money would be on Buzz.
Oh, yeah, the show. Loved it. Can’t wait for next week.
Now are we talking Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon here? Because given equal weapons, or lack thereof, a group of fit, well-trained astronauts would probably kick Neanderbutt, mostly because of the more highly developed sense of teamwork. On the other hand, if the astronauts were fighting a group of Cro-Magnon, I’d give it to the guys who had big brains and a highly developed sense of teamwork were physically tough from having to hunt down and kill their dinner and fight off megafauna predators,and also hadn’t lost their primitive instincts.
Which reminds me, it’s been what, almost two years since I’ve done the Barney vs. Puf’n’stuff poll?
Given the fact that they didn’t actually show the canister caving in Knox’s skull, I’d say Gunn didn’t kill him.
Lorne punching Eve was great. I love Lorne.
I didn’t tape the episode, but I’m pretty sure Drogyn said that Illyara would infect everyone between where Fred was and the sarcophagus if it was returned to the Deeper Well. Which could mean that Illyara would eventually be forced back into the box, but there would be unspeakable death and destruction along the way. Spike and Angel are probably betting that it will take Illyara enough time to figure out how its newly stolen body works, or to gestate, or whatever that they will be able to find a way to destroy the demon before it begins to wreak any serious havoc. Also, I think there are several inhabited islands between L.A. and New Zealand. And what if the other end of the Deeper Well is in downtown Christchurch?
Oh, and I want an Illyara/Fred action figure to go with my Puppet Angel doll.
“I’ve got access to Mother now, and I’ll get my own answers, thank you.”
Fred’s pet rabbit was named Feigenbaum, after Mitchell Feigenbaum, the mathematician who used bifurcation diagrams to experiment with (mathematical) chaos. It is unlikely (but not altogether impossible) that in the Jossverse there is also a demon with the name Feigenbaum, who also holds the title of “Lord of Chaos”.
How can you not love a character who names her stuffed bunny after a chaos mathematician? Cordelia grew on me, but I’ve always loved Fred. I really dig the way Joss writes brainy women, a la Willow and Fred.
That was some great acting from Amy Acker. Fred’s determination not to let a “monster flu” kill her after she’d lived through hell on Pylea was terrific.
Fred’s dad was great, too. “I slept in a drawer til I was three. Didn’t stunt me none.”
I may be alone in my hope that Knox isn’t dead. But the reason I want him not to be dead is because I’m so annoyed with the way he was written in this episode that I want another shot.
Why would he feign surprise or direct the delivery men to “Ancient Relics” at the start of the show when he knew that the sarcophogas (sp?) was supposed to be there? Why would he rush to Gunn’s office with the cryogenics idea and go through the motions of testing it when he didn’t want it to work?
The only reason he’d say and do these things is to misdirect the audience and I hate that. Not the being misdirected, but the misdirection for the sake of misdirection. It’s sloppy and irritating.
Or maybe Knox just didn’t want to get his ass killed before Illyara could become manifest and grant him the privilege of Being Eaten First. Thus, acting surprised at the delivery, and pretending to try to be helpful would help him achieve the end of not getting his ass killed.
I’m actually kinda disappointed that Knox turned out to be evil. I liked the character, except for the haircut. I liked the Holden do better.
And I really, really dug Lorne slugging Eve. I didn’t see that coming at all. Lorne as a badass. Who’da thunk it?
Well, I couldn’t catch any names in the credits when I re-watched it, so I went poking around the internet, and holy smokes, Drogyn is the Kwisatz Haderach!
Yeah, I’m right with you there, Otto. I wasn’t so mad at him going through the motions of the cryogenics, because it could be argued that he was just trying to distract Gunn, but the surprise at the delivery was just dumb. There was no one else there, so the only point to it would be, as you said, audience misleading. Hm. Maybe it’s a motif with Joss and the guy who plays Knox, because in his episode of Firefly, much the same thing was done with Mal’s big plan to save his life. Not so much with Conversations with Dead People, though, so maybe it’s a coincidence.
I thought it was obvious that Gunn killed him, though. There was even a dramatic pause with the canister lifted above his head. That always spells death.
I kind of didn’t like Wesley shooting that guy, either, 'til I remembered that it was at Wolfram and Hart, which meant, for one thing, that the guy was probably evil, and, for another, that they could just take him down to medical and patch him right up.
Now, how many of you, like me, started the astronauts versus cavepersons debate amongst your very own circle of friends?
I loooooved this episode. I was glad I was watching it alone cause I bawled like a baby from start to finish. Well, I laughed at the start, then started crying a few minutes in. How can this show be cancelled? How can the rest of North America not know that this is one of the excruciatingly few intelligent and funny shows around? First we lose Firefly (after no chance at all to succeed), then Buffy, now Angel. And there’s just nothing to replace them. There’s nothing at all on television that I enjoy as much as Joss’ stuff. Breaks my heart.
Anyway, Fred’s joke about waking up with all those guys in her room (which, by the way, was one helluva high concentration of drop-dead gorgeous dudes for one hospital room) was hysterical.
Here’s something I wondered - which Gunn came down from the White Room?
(Dang you, sciguy, I thought I was finally going to be the first one to give the name of some familiar face.)
Ah-ha! Upon re-watching, I realized something. Knox didn’t know what the sarcophagus was at first. The delivery guy made the whole “Already been signed for” crack because Gunn had (unknowingly) signed for it. Once Knox read the paper, he realized what was going on, but, in the scene from the teaser, he hadn’t yet understood the whole plan. Though I don’t quite get what he was doing, then, since his part in the great scheme seems to be to merely show up in L.A. and wait for the relic to arrive…
And, apparently, in selecting an appropriate vessel for his God, which might have involved some rituals or other preparation that we didn’t get to see.
I hate Joss Whedon
I love Joss Whedon
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