Angel 4/16/03 [spoilers]

Cafe Society
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I’m not as bothered by the whole “delayed” vs “not delayed” release from Jasmine’s spell as some of you. Fred didn’t even know she was under a spell, so it took the shock of seeing Jasmine’s “real” persona to snap her out of it. And things were happening too fast when she was with Angel. There was no time to explain things, so seeing Jasmine’s rotting face shocked the spell out of his system.

However, with Wes & Gunn, there was more time to explain Jasmine’s mojo, and it also allowed them to actually feel the sense that a spell had just been broken.

So to me it’s just not a major plot hole or anything. It just something that requires the viewer to think for a minute or two. Which is another reason I love the writing on this show. They don’t spoon-feed you everything–the writers actually respect the intellect of the viewers. Very rare indeed!

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'Nother note: We don’t see how long it takes for the spell to work on Lorne, Gunn, and Wes. Mind you, from the time they expected it to work on Conner, I doubt they were up there all night, but there still could have been a delay.

Geez people. Jasmine (or Cordy) blood + your blood = !Jasmine love.
Except for Conner.
Dum dum DUM!

43

Well, I’ll fill you in on the part I saw, which leaves out the first fifteen minutes or so. Anyone wants to tell us both what happened in the beginning, I’m sure we’ll both appreciate it.

Fred’s walking along a road at night. She sees a passing car, gets startled, and rolls down the embankment, falling into a whole occupied by a diminutive demon, who claims to be a vegetarian. He says he’s on the lam from Jasmine’s “anti-demon cult,” inadvertently reveals himself to eat human flesh, and gets a hatchet in the noggin.

Back at Angel Investigations, the hotel is turned into a regular cult compound, complete with cringingly bad acoustic guitar sing-alongs. A big deal is made out of finding Fred. Who, meanwhile, walks into a bookshop somewhere in town run by Jasmine’s faithful, and waits for her to show up. She finally does, with Angel and Connor in tow. Fred draws a gun and shoots Jasmine. The bullet passes through her, and hits Angel in the shoulder, thus mixing her blood with his and making him immune to Jasmine’s spell. Angel freaks out. Fred pumps a few more rounds into Jasmine before Connor knocks her out and flees with the wounded divinity.

Back at the hotel, Jasmine picks out three worshipers, takes them into her room, and does something terrible to them that heals her wounds but doesn’t leave any corpses: we don’t see what she does eactly, but it makes her temporarily glow a toxic green.

Angel takes Fred to a parking garage of some sort and revives her. They hear approaching people and pretend to make out, hoping the crowd will pass. It doesn’t, and there’s a brief fight.

Angel and Fred break into Cordelia’s room, where she’s still in a coma. Angel takes out a knife and moves to cut Cordy, but she grabs his hand. However, it appears to be a random muscle spasm: Cordy doesn’t wake up or further move. Angel cuts Cordy’s arm and drains a small amoung of blood. Just then, Lorne walks into to pay his respects to Cordy. Angel and Fred overpower him.

It cuts to Lorne, spell broken, being really bummed out that he’s not as happy as he was under the spell. He lures Wesley and Gunn unpstairs, and knocks 'em both over the head with a baseball bat.

Cuts to Gunn and Wesley both bummed out about the spell being broken. Angel says he won’t leave until he has his son. Connor is lured to the room, immobilized, and Cordy’s blood is mixed with his. He seems to calm down and come out from the spell, but as soon as everyone’s guard is down, he throws open the door to the room and yells for help. Cue the credits.

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Short recap from the start to where Miller left off:
Random guy driving, happy, listening to “Good Vibrations.” Suddenly Fred runs in front of his car, music stops. She’s being chased by Wesley and Gunn. She gives them the slip (and while they’re trying to figure where she went there’s a great exchange with a passerby to show how far Jasmine’s influence has spread) and hides out in the vast dark tunnel network that’s apparently underneath all of LA. Opening credits.

Fred is still on the run and very creeped out. She goes to the conspiracy bookstore to find more books about mass hypnosis. Creepy guy says that she’s the only customer he’s had in days; people don’t care about conspiracies now that they have Jasmine’s love. She tries to get more info but realizes he’s under Jasmine’s spell as bad as anyone.

Angel & Connor are exploring the sewers looking for Fred. Connor gives a few more details on how bad life was growing up in the hell dimension, but it made him a good tracker/hunter. Suddenly both sense that they are summoned by Jasmine. Meanwhile, Fred is seen checking into a cheap motel.

Back at the Angel Investigations hotel, Jasmine reveals that everyone under her spell is becoming connected. The group + Jasmine holds hands in a circle and concentrates on Fred, enabling Jasmine to see through all the eyes of her “faithful.” People at the cheap motel suddenly start glaring at Fred and chasing her. Fred runs away across the street and inadvertently causes an accident as the driver swerves his car to catch her. The car goes up in flames (unlike most TV car-accidents-explode-immediately scenarios, this one is somewhat explained in that a guy had a gas can out to refill his tank, and it was hit and toppled in the accident.) Anyway, accident driver is on fire but calmly gets out of the car, walking to Fred and calling her by name, telling her that Jasmine wants her. Cut to commercial, and then Miller’s synopsis takes over.

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And my opinion:

Another fantastic episode. I’m stunned at how much I like this show compared to how much I used to dislike it. It’s almost as if I’m under a spell…

Near-perfect combination of dark creepiness and humor. The bit with Wesley & Gunn at the beginning telling the passerby “She’s wonderful” in unison; most of the open-mic night at the hotel; the creepy asparagus demon; Angel’s pratfall into the hotel room; the whole fake-out kiss between Angel & Fred (I usually get pissed off at misleading previews, but I thought this one was great). I say “near-perfect” because of the Angel & Connor duet. From reading the other messages on here, I get the impression that it worked for a lot of people, but IMO the whole “Angel likes Mannilow” joke has just been beaten into the ground. It was funny the first time, guys! At least it was edited correctly so it didn’t go on too long.

At first the asparagus demon scene really bugged me, but it was cool to see Fred in charge, and in this case the zany-wisecracking-demon schtick didn’t bug me as it usually did with Skip. Instead, the whole scene kind of “grounded” the show back as The-Show-About-Demons-And-Such; it kept it from getting too Twilight Zone/Invasion of the Body Snatchers-esque. Plus, he got an axe in the head before he was given the chance to be annoying, and it was cool in that it gave Fred a moment of false hope that she might have an ally.

I’m a little disappointed that the whole gang’s in on it now; they’ve done a really great job the past two episodes of conveying the whole creepy feeling of Fred’s being completely alone. But obviously, they can’t keep that up forever, so I guess it’s back to Angel Gang vs. Big Bad Monster.

As to whether the spell were broken for Connor, I just took the whole scene at face value – the spell wasn’t broken. Jasmine took him aside last episode and told him how he was special, and also as others have pointed out, he’s the father so his blood is already infused with hers, however that works. Plus, counter-evidence to the “it’s broken but he hates them so much” theory is that the past two episodes have been the first time he really, genuinely got along with Angel. Of course, it still remains to be seen whether Connor is “different” only in that the blood-mixing doesn’t break the spell for him, or whether it’s deeper than that, and he hasn’t been mind-altered like everyone else, but sees Jasmine for what she really is but still thinks that she’s good.

Also: I have to wonder if the faithful’s treatment of Jasmine isn’t in some way a subtle commentary on fans’ treatment of Joss Whedon. Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I hear characters on the show going on about how great Jasmine is it reminds me only of how people constantly fawn over what a genius Whedon is. (Don’t get me wrong; the guy’s obviously talented and has now created 2 of my favorite TV shows, but I stop short of the messiah-speak.)

To sum up: I loved the episode, and I’m officially a fan of the series now. I’ll be extremely upset if it isn’t picked up next season.

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SolGrundy, I would counter your “he hasn’t been mind-altered like everyone else, but sees Jasmine for what she really is but still thinks that she’s good” supposition by reminding you that Connor heard Jasmine say she ate three people and his only reaction was “cool.” I can’t imagine him reacting so cheerfully to such a thing under normal circumstances.

Here’s another conundrum: The vampires at the bowling alley apparently weren’t affected by Jasmine. Neither was this week’s asparagus demon. Okay, so vampires and demons aren’t affected.

Except, Angel and Lorne both were.

?

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Thanks for filling me in on the beginning, Sol. That “see through the fiathful’s eyes” thing is a major plot point, and creepy as hell.

And the Barry Manilow thing: I don’t know why, but it makes me laugh. Every. Time. God, that duet killed me. I think I was tuning in for that moment more than anything else in the show. And, of course, they went and topped it with the deaf woman. “I want to crawl inside Fred’s skull… and explode her brain for rejecting Jasmine.” Jesus, that was funny. (Also informative, because apparently it’s not her voice that causes the enchantment, but it’s also not just seeing her, because her power works over the radio.)

Still, the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen in either show, possibly the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen on television, was Angel dancing in the first season episode “She.” I show that episode to anyone who wants to know why I never dance in public.

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That reminded me of another hilarious moment in the episode: when Angel is marvelling at how Jasmine is able to tell everyone exactly what they need to hear, she goes up to one man and compliments him (in Spanish) on the integrity of his mustache, and he just beams with pride.

Again, praise has to go to Gina Torres for pulling off that part. I could see how it wouldn’t be that easy to play – you have to be convincing as a benevolent being, but sinister and menacing at the same time. Go too far either way and it doesn’t work. Even after all the creepy stuff concerning Fred, whenever Jasmine came on-screen I found myself thinking, “Well, maybe she will turn out to be really good…” The world needs more hot actresses who can do fantasy/sci-fi and really act.

And last thing before I shut up about the show: I didn’t think that the timing of the spell’s being broken was inconsistent at all. My take on it was that the spell is broken immediately on contact with the blood, but you still have complete memory of what it felt like to be under the spell. All the characters explained that they still felt a huge sense of loss, even after a week. So when Fred was first exposed, she probably didn’t think much of it and wanted to go on as normal – it wasn’t until she actually saw Jasmine for what she really was that she got convinced that her feelings weren’t just doubts. And Angel was caught up in the heat of the moment; it wasn’t that looking at Jasmine broke the spell for him, it was that it distracted him enough to realize that the spell had been broken.

And Fiver: note that I don’t believe the “Connor hasn’t been mind-altered theory,” but was just saying that it’s still a possibility.

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SolGrundy. The thing about the Fang Gang being almost at full force again -
I liked the thing with Fred being alone and isolated, but the thing that’s done so well this year for Angel, is that they broke half an episode before it would become annoying.
Connor running out of the room wasn’t a very potent cliffhanger. This is also a sign of quality. We are glued to the show and don’t need a big cliffhanger for next week - also a sign of very good writing and directing. Which by the way was done by Jeffrey Bell who has a history - among other things - as story editor for X-files.

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Nitpick: We don’t know for sure that the woman was deaf. However, it’s a safe bet that she was mute.

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You know, now that I think about it, every time Joss is at a science fiction con he asks two or three fans to come up to his room. . . .

Daniel

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Yeah, but in his case its just for some freaky sex.

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Hey, he’s earned it.

Daniel

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Well, yeah, except some of us didn’t even start watching Angel until this year. I’m simultaneously watching Season 1 (on DVD - god bless the creator of DVD) and Season 4 and I thought it was a hoot.

Oh, and one other little detail about the first 15 minutes of the show. The little-demon-in-need-of-a-dentist at first seems kinda cool but in the end he attacks Fred and bites her shoulder. She hatchets him in the head. It’s when she looks at her bloody shoulder that she makes the “aha” connection that touching Jasmine’s blood made her immune to the spell.

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I always think of that “Angel dancing” inset from the first season as a perfect example of what’s right with this show. Buffy used to have that, I think they’re just getting tired now.

I don’t think the blood worked on Conner, he’s imune to it, being Jasmine’s father. I guess the small plot point of possessed Cordy getting some lovin’ from the Beast had nothing to do with Jasmine’s parentage.

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Maybe not. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me we don’t know for sure that Connor is actually Jasmine’s father. We only have Cordy’s word on the matter, and she wasn’t exactly being Ms. Honesty at the time. Could be she just told him that to get him to protect her.

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Correct, we don’t know for sure if Conner’s the father. But Jasmine and Cordy both went on about it for a while, I’m assuming that is why Conner is being kept so close to her. I think the immunity to the blood (or whatever is going on) would be a pretty big indication that he’s papa.

To me, it was like the whole thing with Giles not touching anything for a few episodes; something to confuse the issue, but eventually proven to be a red herring.

But Cordy and the Beast, ugh.

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Well, I can understand the Beast wanting to get it on with Cordy, at least. He looked pretty horny.

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It would be if it’s true. I think he was cured and is either in denial, or decided he still likes his “daughter” better than his dad even if she is all maggoty.

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Part of my brain has the nagging “oh, Og, no! Not another Connor plot!” notion that perhaps he is cured, but figures that he can now “betray” the others and fool Jasmine into still trusting him. Connor would be right at her side, close enough to kill her when the time is right.

But this was just my brain dreading the thought of another Connor plot.

BTW – I’d like Connor better if he didn’t say stuff like “cool!” He was raised by Holtz, you’d figure his speaking patterns would have roughly the same antiquated pattern as the guy who faught Angel over a century ago.