Ahhh Angel
Apr. 15th, 2004 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSo much in last night's episode of Angel to analyze and play-with. Did I love it? Yes. Made me laugh,a lot, which is rare right now. Although the commercials for that horrid show Charmed did get in the way. Envying Tivo watchers who can avoid the commercials.
Lots to play with here. I'm just going to touch on stuff I saw.
1. Spike and Angel scenes - they really are playing with the idea of Spike and Angel being mirrors for one another this season. Spike seems to be as much Angel's mirror, if not more so, as Faith was Buffy's. I'd say more so - since they haven't made Spike more evil than Angel. Actually
Angel was more evil than Spike. Angel's the Faith character. Interesting.
At any rate - if you watch the episode, note how many times the direction has Spike mirroring Angel's moves or vice-versa. Both now have the same long leather jacket. Both put their hands on their hips, one behind the other when confronting the new liason to W&H. Both react to the sunlight coming into the camero with the same expression and hand movements. It's far to exact to be coincidence. They don't fight the monster in the basement together - each takes him on separately, being thrust aside in a similar manner. The writers keep them distinct throughout - Spike makes snide remarks, Angel is quiet or just reacts to them, Angel may cross his arms in front, Spike in back. Spike drinks beer at the meeting. Angel makes a point of not drinking anything. But even the differences seem to be mirrors.
Also if you go back over their history? More mirrors. Spike is mother issues, father is completely absent until he meets Angelus, who isn't really a father so much as a brother. Angel is Daddy issues, mother is barely referenced or absent until he meets Darla, who isn't really the motherly type at that point. Spike is blond. Angel dark headed. Spike wants to kill Buffy but falls for her. Angel falls for her but then wants to kill her. Angel attempts to open the mouth of hell and gets sucked in. Spike burns up closing it.
Looking at Spike and Angel together makes me think of an MS Escher painting or one of those Yin/Yang stones with the white and black swirling around one another.
2. Speaking of Mirrors - we have Gunn and Lindsey who similarily mirror one another. Lindsey who trained for the knowledge, Gunn who has it implanted. Lindsey who uses supernatural edifies to make himself physically strong or a fighter, Gunn who is naturally strong and a good fighter.
Both come from poverty. Gunn from urban. Lindsey from rural. Both find their personal hell in the area between the two : suburbia, where there is no poverty but no riches either. It's all nice and bland. And perfect.
Lindsey deliberatly betrays the senior partners and deliberately co-opts EVE, the child of the senior partners, and tries not to get in hell and has no interest in atonment. Gunn inadvertently betrays Angel and accidentally co-opts Fred, who isn't exactly Angel's child so much as little sister, and chooses to take Lindsey's place in hell to atone for what he's done.
Which brings up an interesting corollary - Eve and Fred/Illyria. Eve loses her immortality for falling for Lindsey and Lindsey has done. Fred becomes an immortal demon goddess for what Gunn has done.
3. The Joke in Wes's Dream - Wes tells a joke to Fred in his dream. The joke is about two men in a bar, one is calm, placid, gets a drink, the other falls into the earth in pain, screaming mass. The temptation is to think the two men in Wes's dream are Wes and another character. Which makes sense since that's what the writers are doing with everyone else. But think of who else is in Wes's dream and who is in the room? Fred - Illyria. So it stands to reason, that the two men in the joke are the two sides of Wes - the surface and what lies "underneath". The episode in some ways is about handling grief or the loss of someone close to you and what part you played in that loss.
In the episode Wes is not crying, he is calm, placid even, drinking. He shows little emotion except an occassional wince. (Great acting from AD btw). His body is still. But inside he's a roiling mass of pain. The man in the joke who is placid is Wes that we and Illyria see onscreen - the shell, the man who falls into the earth screaming, inconsolable and in pain - is what lies underneath.
The joke - is that we feel the need to keep up the pretense. It's like Illyria states - I can't open my jaws wide enough in this form, I'm caged in this small room. Then on the roof top - your world is so small, yet you make it smaller still by choosing to live in small boxes and routines. Walling up the pain.
4. Back to Gunn and Lindsey - the hell and the torture used is interesting. Everyday they get their hearts torn out. Over and over. Yet in their surface world they have the kid, the wife, the great job - the lovely house. But each day they have to go down to the basement and have their heart ripped out in order to continue the "holding" pattern of that nice neat sheltered life in the cul-a-sac of identical homes.
Lindsey and Gunn's hell can also be interpreted as Angel's dream of mortality. Living with the blond wife who resembles Darla (or Buffy or Nina), blond son (Connor), nice job, enjoying the sunlight, cheery, but everyday getting his heart torn out for his sins - which is apt description for Angel's view of atonement. Is this hell or holding cell - truly Lindsey and Gunn's nightmare/dream or in reality Angel's? OR is it possibly a metaphor for the holding pattern Angel has been in for the last five years?
I recently rewatched Deep Space Nine, S1 episode The Emissary. In that episode Commander Sisko is forced by alien entities known as the prophets to re-examine memories. Over and over again he finds himself stuck at the moment of his wife's death. He keeps explaining to the alien entities how humans have a linear life-span. But the entities state - how can this be, you exist in your mind, heart and soul at this one time - that's not linear, that's static. You choose to stay here not move on or forward. You exist here. Sisko realizes it and finally makes the break-through to move on.
I think Craft and Fain and the ME writers are examining a similar concept metaphorically in this episode. How do you deal with grief or pain? Do you remain in the moment forever? OR break from it and move on? Angel has in some ways placed himself continuously in a holding pattern. Lindsey and Gunn's holding cell is the dream Angel may have had regarding Connor and Darla which he can't let go of.
If so, it's interesting that it is Angel who tells Lindsey (in many ways his shadow self) that the life Lindsey is living is a lie. It's not real.
Just as the life he gave Connor at the end of last year is a lie (literal) and the dream he hoped for and in some ways still exists in is a lie(metaphorical).
5. Fred again - in Wes's dream. Fred tells Wes to look deeper, see what's underneath the first layer.
This touches on my problems with the Fred/Wes relationship which I'm beginning to suspect aren't coincidental but deliberate. I'm supposed to have problems with this relationship. Wes doesn't really know Fred, any more than Gunn did. They see the first two layers. Illyria mentions how Wes doesn't worship her. Yet, he worshipped Fred and as a result never saw beneath that first layer.
In some respects, Wes knew Lilah far better than he knew Fred, perhaps because he didn't hold her in high esteem or place her on a pedestal.
In death, Fred remains in Wes' head an unknowable queen of perfection. But what if she is still inside Illyria, beneath the layers?
6. Hamilton and Eve - more mirror oppositions.
Hamilton is a giant, bigger than Angel or anyone else. Eve is a tiny woman, smaller than everyone else. Hamilton exudes masculainity. Eve is all feminine - a little girl. Interesting choice of contrasts. Eve can be subdued and tortured by Harmony. Hamilton throws Harmony across the room with little effort. Eve loses her immortality because she fell in love with ex-lawyer Lindsey.
Hamilton seems in some respects to resemble the attorny Gunn was emulating complete with suite and ingratiating smile.
7. Shadowselves - Lindsey has always been to some degree Angel's shadow in the series, he is very similar in some respects to the role Faith and possibly even Spike played in Buffy.
We'll see Lindsey taking the choices in ATS S1 and S2 that Angel turns down. The deal with W&H Holland Manners in Blind Date. The decision to make Darla a vampire again so she can live. Also both desire Darla. Both sleep with Eve, one loves Eve, one just fucks Eve. With Darla - same thing, one loves, one fucks. Sorry the word is actually appropriate here.
Now here's Angel pulling Lindsey out of a hell that seems in some ways to represent Angel's deepest hopes? Angel telling Lindsey the blond wife and son are lies. And then on the other side, what does Lindsey advise Angel?
He tells him the same thing that he told him in Dead End, S2 - don't play by W&H's rules, make them play by yours. The same thing Gunn says to Fred in Inside Out - flip over the playing board.
And in a way it's a comment the writers may or may not be making about the world we currently find ourselves in - fight for the world you want.
If you hate reality shows? Don't watch reality shows. Or if you want to get a new pres in office - vote for someone else. OR protest. Or get out of that cushy office and cushy house and do something.
It may even be a shout-out to the SavingAngel folks who are fighting for quality entertainment like David against Goliath.
What Lindsey tells Angel in effect is "you sold out". I'm not sure anyone below the age of 30 can possibly understand this speech. (Although it's possible). You have to know what it is like to go to a job you "hate", work for a company that does things you *don't* believe in, and be afraid to quit. And I'm not talking about those temp jobs you get in your teens and twenties when you're trying to figure out what to do, I'm talking about a job you've had for six years, and you're stuck and scared to leave but know you should even though going is like cutting out a chunk of your heart. And you wonder how did I get here? I didn't plan on this? How do I get off this path? I have no where else to go. What will I do? Who will support me? And I don't want to give up that benefits plan.
Evil is a weird thing. Sometimes it's the evil of the everyday that gets us - the ruts we get stuck in, our comfort zone, where we stay in a holding pattern and never do anything to jump out of it.
We put up with shit, because we are afraid of alternatives. This shit can be anything from sexual harrassment, bullying, random insults to people around us that we choose to ignore, hurting others to climb the ladder, intolerance by our religion or our company towards people of different sexual orientation or creed or race or what have you. It's little things. Things examined for instance in Harm's Way. Actually Harm's Way does a lovely job of tabulating all the little things that Angel is ignoring as he signs his checks and papers and holds his meetings and grieves for his son. We think it's the melodrama -the monsters in the street, the clearly nasty people and clearly good - but to be honest, I think the writers are actually hitting at the more mundane evils that threaten to unravel us.
Just a few initial thoughts.
Episode? Great. Probably the best Craft and Fain have done since Soulless. And a lovely companion to Harm's Way in some respects. Also? I love the new credits.
Lots to play with here. I'm just going to touch on stuff I saw.
1. Spike and Angel scenes - they really are playing with the idea of Spike and Angel being mirrors for one another this season. Spike seems to be as much Angel's mirror, if not more so, as Faith was Buffy's. I'd say more so - since they haven't made Spike more evil than Angel. Actually
Angel was more evil than Spike. Angel's the Faith character. Interesting.
At any rate - if you watch the episode, note how many times the direction has Spike mirroring Angel's moves or vice-versa. Both now have the same long leather jacket. Both put their hands on their hips, one behind the other when confronting the new liason to W&H. Both react to the sunlight coming into the camero with the same expression and hand movements. It's far to exact to be coincidence. They don't fight the monster in the basement together - each takes him on separately, being thrust aside in a similar manner. The writers keep them distinct throughout - Spike makes snide remarks, Angel is quiet or just reacts to them, Angel may cross his arms in front, Spike in back. Spike drinks beer at the meeting. Angel makes a point of not drinking anything. But even the differences seem to be mirrors.
Also if you go back over their history? More mirrors. Spike is mother issues, father is completely absent until he meets Angelus, who isn't really a father so much as a brother. Angel is Daddy issues, mother is barely referenced or absent until he meets Darla, who isn't really the motherly type at that point. Spike is blond. Angel dark headed. Spike wants to kill Buffy but falls for her. Angel falls for her but then wants to kill her. Angel attempts to open the mouth of hell and gets sucked in. Spike burns up closing it.
Looking at Spike and Angel together makes me think of an MS Escher painting or one of those Yin/Yang stones with the white and black swirling around one another.
2. Speaking of Mirrors - we have Gunn and Lindsey who similarily mirror one another. Lindsey who trained for the knowledge, Gunn who has it implanted. Lindsey who uses supernatural edifies to make himself physically strong or a fighter, Gunn who is naturally strong and a good fighter.
Both come from poverty. Gunn from urban. Lindsey from rural. Both find their personal hell in the area between the two : suburbia, where there is no poverty but no riches either. It's all nice and bland. And perfect.
Lindsey deliberatly betrays the senior partners and deliberately co-opts EVE, the child of the senior partners, and tries not to get in hell and has no interest in atonment. Gunn inadvertently betrays Angel and accidentally co-opts Fred, who isn't exactly Angel's child so much as little sister, and chooses to take Lindsey's place in hell to atone for what he's done.
Which brings up an interesting corollary - Eve and Fred/Illyria. Eve loses her immortality for falling for Lindsey and Lindsey has done. Fred becomes an immortal demon goddess for what Gunn has done.
3. The Joke in Wes's Dream - Wes tells a joke to Fred in his dream. The joke is about two men in a bar, one is calm, placid, gets a drink, the other falls into the earth in pain, screaming mass. The temptation is to think the two men in Wes's dream are Wes and another character. Which makes sense since that's what the writers are doing with everyone else. But think of who else is in Wes's dream and who is in the room? Fred - Illyria. So it stands to reason, that the two men in the joke are the two sides of Wes - the surface and what lies "underneath". The episode in some ways is about handling grief or the loss of someone close to you and what part you played in that loss.
In the episode Wes is not crying, he is calm, placid even, drinking. He shows little emotion except an occassional wince. (Great acting from AD btw). His body is still. But inside he's a roiling mass of pain. The man in the joke who is placid is Wes that we and Illyria see onscreen - the shell, the man who falls into the earth screaming, inconsolable and in pain - is what lies underneath.
The joke - is that we feel the need to keep up the pretense. It's like Illyria states - I can't open my jaws wide enough in this form, I'm caged in this small room. Then on the roof top - your world is so small, yet you make it smaller still by choosing to live in small boxes and routines. Walling up the pain.
4. Back to Gunn and Lindsey - the hell and the torture used is interesting. Everyday they get their hearts torn out. Over and over. Yet in their surface world they have the kid, the wife, the great job - the lovely house. But each day they have to go down to the basement and have their heart ripped out in order to continue the "holding" pattern of that nice neat sheltered life in the cul-a-sac of identical homes.
Lindsey and Gunn's hell can also be interpreted as Angel's dream of mortality. Living with the blond wife who resembles Darla (or Buffy or Nina), blond son (Connor), nice job, enjoying the sunlight, cheery, but everyday getting his heart torn out for his sins - which is apt description for Angel's view of atonement. Is this hell or holding cell - truly Lindsey and Gunn's nightmare/dream or in reality Angel's? OR is it possibly a metaphor for the holding pattern Angel has been in for the last five years?
I recently rewatched Deep Space Nine, S1 episode The Emissary. In that episode Commander Sisko is forced by alien entities known as the prophets to re-examine memories. Over and over again he finds himself stuck at the moment of his wife's death. He keeps explaining to the alien entities how humans have a linear life-span. But the entities state - how can this be, you exist in your mind, heart and soul at this one time - that's not linear, that's static. You choose to stay here not move on or forward. You exist here. Sisko realizes it and finally makes the break-through to move on.
I think Craft and Fain and the ME writers are examining a similar concept metaphorically in this episode. How do you deal with grief or pain? Do you remain in the moment forever? OR break from it and move on? Angel has in some ways placed himself continuously in a holding pattern. Lindsey and Gunn's holding cell is the dream Angel may have had regarding Connor and Darla which he can't let go of.
If so, it's interesting that it is Angel who tells Lindsey (in many ways his shadow self) that the life Lindsey is living is a lie. It's not real.
Just as the life he gave Connor at the end of last year is a lie (literal) and the dream he hoped for and in some ways still exists in is a lie(metaphorical).
5. Fred again - in Wes's dream. Fred tells Wes to look deeper, see what's underneath the first layer.
This touches on my problems with the Fred/Wes relationship which I'm beginning to suspect aren't coincidental but deliberate. I'm supposed to have problems with this relationship. Wes doesn't really know Fred, any more than Gunn did. They see the first two layers. Illyria mentions how Wes doesn't worship her. Yet, he worshipped Fred and as a result never saw beneath that first layer.
In some respects, Wes knew Lilah far better than he knew Fred, perhaps because he didn't hold her in high esteem or place her on a pedestal.
In death, Fred remains in Wes' head an unknowable queen of perfection. But what if she is still inside Illyria, beneath the layers?
6. Hamilton and Eve - more mirror oppositions.
Hamilton is a giant, bigger than Angel or anyone else. Eve is a tiny woman, smaller than everyone else. Hamilton exudes masculainity. Eve is all feminine - a little girl. Interesting choice of contrasts. Eve can be subdued and tortured by Harmony. Hamilton throws Harmony across the room with little effort. Eve loses her immortality because she fell in love with ex-lawyer Lindsey.
Hamilton seems in some respects to resemble the attorny Gunn was emulating complete with suite and ingratiating smile.
7. Shadowselves - Lindsey has always been to some degree Angel's shadow in the series, he is very similar in some respects to the role Faith and possibly even Spike played in Buffy.
We'll see Lindsey taking the choices in ATS S1 and S2 that Angel turns down. The deal with W&H Holland Manners in Blind Date. The decision to make Darla a vampire again so she can live. Also both desire Darla. Both sleep with Eve, one loves Eve, one just fucks Eve. With Darla - same thing, one loves, one fucks. Sorry the word is actually appropriate here.
Now here's Angel pulling Lindsey out of a hell that seems in some ways to represent Angel's deepest hopes? Angel telling Lindsey the blond wife and son are lies. And then on the other side, what does Lindsey advise Angel?
He tells him the same thing that he told him in Dead End, S2 - don't play by W&H's rules, make them play by yours. The same thing Gunn says to Fred in Inside Out - flip over the playing board.
And in a way it's a comment the writers may or may not be making about the world we currently find ourselves in - fight for the world you want.
If you hate reality shows? Don't watch reality shows. Or if you want to get a new pres in office - vote for someone else. OR protest. Or get out of that cushy office and cushy house and do something.
It may even be a shout-out to the SavingAngel folks who are fighting for quality entertainment like David against Goliath.
What Lindsey tells Angel in effect is "you sold out". I'm not sure anyone below the age of 30 can possibly understand this speech. (Although it's possible). You have to know what it is like to go to a job you "hate", work for a company that does things you *don't* believe in, and be afraid to quit. And I'm not talking about those temp jobs you get in your teens and twenties when you're trying to figure out what to do, I'm talking about a job you've had for six years, and you're stuck and scared to leave but know you should even though going is like cutting out a chunk of your heart. And you wonder how did I get here? I didn't plan on this? How do I get off this path? I have no where else to go. What will I do? Who will support me? And I don't want to give up that benefits plan.
Evil is a weird thing. Sometimes it's the evil of the everyday that gets us - the ruts we get stuck in, our comfort zone, where we stay in a holding pattern and never do anything to jump out of it.
We put up with shit, because we are afraid of alternatives. This shit can be anything from sexual harrassment, bullying, random insults to people around us that we choose to ignore, hurting others to climb the ladder, intolerance by our religion or our company towards people of different sexual orientation or creed or race or what have you. It's little things. Things examined for instance in Harm's Way. Actually Harm's Way does a lovely job of tabulating all the little things that Angel is ignoring as he signs his checks and papers and holds his meetings and grieves for his son. We think it's the melodrama -the monsters in the street, the clearly nasty people and clearly good - but to be honest, I think the writers are actually hitting at the more mundane evils that threaten to unravel us.
Just a few initial thoughts.
Episode? Great. Probably the best Craft and Fain have done since Soulless. And a lovely companion to Harm's Way in some respects. Also? I love the new credits.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-15 03:39 pm (UTC)Starting to wonder the same thing. They are moving closer and closer together in the trajectory of the season. Really see a Butch and Sundance vibe going on here - which reminds me of the Wild Bunch. Maybe we did get that Casablanca ending at the end of Chosen?
The 'burbs are where people go to escape reality. As you say, they are a lie, where people go to hide from "real" life, which has crime, dirt, litter, noise, traffic, and people of other races, religions, and ethnicities. They are often literally walled and guarded from the outside world, creating the illusion of safety and peace, at the cost of one's soul. There you can safely ignore those in need, those different from you. It's an illusion
Oh god yes. And what was really odd was that the house Lindsey came out of was the exact same house Nina lived in with her sister and niece in Unleashed. (Probably used same lot). It reminded me of the cul de sac in Poltergeist - where everyone has lovely identical, yet they are living on a graveyard. OR the plastic black and white existence of Pleasantville and the Truman Show. OR the Stepford Wives. Lovely illusion. But untold horror underneath - as you peel back each layer...
It's so much easier to hide one's pain and ignore others'; if we listened hard enough we would realize that the world is full of people screaming in pain, dying of hunger, somthing to horrifying to live with. (Don't put the body bags on the news, it might upset the voters.) It'll tear your heart out if you listen to it, so don't ever stop smiling, moving, earning, spending, talking.
Like Lindsey says to Angel - we distract ourselves. Spike also comments on it at the beginning of the episode, mentioning in an odd inverse of Angel's comment to Spike in Hellbound - how we just keep ourselves going, keep trying to do good, not dwelling on the pain.
In a way - what we see in the episode is four ways of handling grief:
Lorne - drinking then deciding to put on the happy face and try to help
Gunn - choosing to exist in that moment, getting his heart ripped out day after day after day to atone for what he did.
Wes - walling himself up in her memory.
Angel/Spike - attempting somehow to keep the memory alive by moving forward and changing things
Interesting episode. S5 is actually turning out to be my favorite season of the series. I didn't have the problems other people have posted about. But then I watched it by myself and it touched on issues I'm dealing with in a way that could make me laugh. Honestly I think even our entertainment is a play on perspective. What we see and what entertains us is such a personal thing, isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-15 06:43 pm (UTC)All the men are dealing with pain in ways very characteristic to ther personalities. Which makes me wonder if ME is saying that there is a reason we put on these public personas, that they are our very individualistic ways of dealing with grief, with life's pain. It's how we cope, and if we can understand that we can possibly see beneath the first layer, the hard shell we put on like chainmail, to protect ourselves from the world and to keep our emotions stuffed inside.
God, I love this show.