April 2004 posts
Fox News has been reporting since Friday... -- Vegeta, 08:48:55 04/19/04 Mon
Fox News has been reporting since Friday that the WB has agreed to SIX Angel TV movies next season. I haven't heard if this has been contracted or not yet. They also reported that this is due in large part to fan support.
While this is AWESOME news, I have one complaint...
If they do in fact pick up Angel for six TV movies, why not the whole season? I mean six TV movies is equivelant to 12 episodes, which is more than half a season. Why not just pick it up for a season and cancel that Jamie Kennedy drech!
Vegeta out!
Also Gavin made another appearance on 24 last night.
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Possible reasons -- Finn Mac Cool, 09:22:03 04/19/04 Mon
1) They can air the movies whenever they want, especially when other shows are in reruns.
2) They don't have to go back on their original position, thus not looking wishy-washy.
3) The TV-movies would be, in total, ten hours shorter than a regular season. At a budget of roughly 2 million per hour long episode, this adds up to saving 20 million dollars.
4) Fans, being aware that the actual show itself is gone, will watch the movies with renewed interest, like how we take water for granted most days but treasure it like a gift in the desert.
5) They can probably make one or two movies and see how well they do before deciding to make more, so it's less risky.
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Yep. What Finn said. -- OnM, 19:56:12 04/19/04 Mon
All are valid reasons, but I really think the money is the big factor. Half a season is half the cost, simple as that. Plus, there is the opportunity to work in a longer format than the usual 42 minutes. This might actually be advantageous for both cast and crew, with a less hectic production schedule spread over an entire season.
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Assuming the news is true -- Vickie, 10:00:50 04/20/04 Tue
If we have AtS TV movies to look forward to, it will be interesting to watch the casting olympics. DB implied he was glad to be finished with the role--and clearly there's no movie without him.
After Angel, which characters are mandatory and which are optional? I'd say you need at least one of Wes or Spike (both would make me happier, but...) and a couple of the more secondary characters (Gunn, Lorne). Sorry J. August Richards and Andy Hackett fans (and I am among you), but the way the show has been written this season, these guys are secondary.
Notice, no women. Illyria/Fred might be important, depending on how the character is written for the remainder of the season. And Harmony? Mere comic relief. I'd rather see Lorne, who is hilarious when well-written (and not being poignant).
Of course, which characters they need all depends on the story they write. This will be fun to watch. I hope it's true.
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Gavin, like Elvis, is everywhere. -- Gyrus, 10:30:46 04/19/04 Mon
Also Gavin made another appearance on 24 last night.
Daniel Dae Kim was a regular in the short-lived BABYLON 5 sequel series, CRUSADE, but now he seems to be making his living as a perpetual guest star. In addition to ANGEL and 24, I've seen him on STAR TREK: VOYAGER, ER, CSI, and LAW & ORDER.
Slayage Conference news -- MaeveRigan, 14:33:14 04/19/04 Mon
LOTS of fascinating stuff happening at the Slayage conference, and it's not too late to register, but time is running out!
Go to Slayage for information about the program & how to register.
BtVS book & essay authors & editors will be there, there'll be an OMWF karaoke sing-along at the Friday-night banquet, a panel discussion on the end of AtS: "Cancellation as Apocalypse," two sessions on fan-fic and a fan-fiction reading, three (3) sessions on BtVS & religion, two sessions on Spike, two on Xander (counting the session Xander shares with Riley).
Hope to see some of you there.
Picking up Excalibur is Easy; Doing good that is another story (S5 AtS Spoilers thru Underneath) -- heywhynot, 16:05:44 04/19/04 Mon
"The key to Wolfram and Hart: don't let them make you play their game. - You gotta make them play yours."
L:indsey Season Two
Games are defined by the rules by which they are played under. What was the rule for Angel & Gang in running the LA branch of W&H?
"This is the catch - I'm explaining the catch so you don't have to stand around wondering what it is. See, in order to keep this business running, you have to keep this business running."
Eve Season 5
They have to run W&H as a business, that was the rule that defined the game. And this is what Angel & gang did, they ran W&H. They played by W&H's rule, really W&H's only rule & as such Angel played the Senior Partners' game. AA instilled fear within those that worked at the LA branch in order to clean house, to do "good". And that is Angel's problem, he ran W&H, he wielded power. When wielding power, the tendency is to view the world with the mindset that the ends justify the means. Power is about manipulating fear of those "beneath" you. They have to fear you and you have to inspire such fear. Angel understood this point; he was without mercy in the season opener to send a message to the employees. He had to stop them from committing "heinous" acts and because the currency of power is fear, Angel did so by killing Hausser & in doing so inspired fear in the hearts of the other members of the "wet works". Of course, what Angel did not understand was that he did not have to wield power, did not have to play by W&H rules.
Angel like the song says was the new boss who was just like the old boss. Fear was how W&H was run before Angel. Angel did nothing to change that. Lindsey escaped back in season 2 because in the end he got it, he did not fear W&H. Without fear, W&H had no power over Lindsey. Power is what W&H is about. The Senior Partners want power, they want people to fear them. To them the means do not matter. If AA runs the LA branch for a bit and does acts of "good", that is alright in the big picture. W&H is still inspiring fear in the world & thus expanding its power. If you think about it AA purged W&H of some of its greatest liabilities to gaining & expanding power, those clients who seek power & are not as afraid of W&H as others.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. AA is filled with good intentions. Why is the road to hell littered with good intentions? Because people forget that when doing good, the ends do not justify the means. Angel and gang got wrapped up in the ends, sacrificing a few innocents to do good was acceptable. AA in a manner of speaking became Jasmine. What AA should of done was not to run W&H but to help the helpless. Who are the most helpless? Those without hope, those who have given up on the possibility of good and believe evil is going to win, those full of fear. They are the one's W&H preys on. They are the easiest to manipulate. Who are they? They are the employees of W&H. Angel's Avengers should of inspired the employees, given them hope again in the world, empowered them.
The sin of Angel's Avengers was not in taking the resources of the LA branch of W&H but what they did with such resources. They drew Excalibur from the stone and used it to strike fear, to wield power instead of inspiring.
Of course, what does Lindsey want? What is the game he is playing? I am still mulling that one over. He is opposed it seems to Senior Partners, but that doesn't mean he walks on the side of angels.
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"The side of the angels" -- BrianWilly, 16:52:29 04/19/04 Mon
The thing is, as you've surmised, Angel's side may very well be the wrong side at this point. So saying that Lindsey isn't on Angel's side may actually mean that he's on the right side, that he's the "good guy" in this situation. Even though Angel has had moments of severe doubt throughout the season concerning his role at Wolfram and Hart and at one point literally threw up his hands and quit, for the most part he has adjusted very well to his new occupation and mission. No matter how much he has whined, so to speak, he's still signing the checks and he's still playing the golf games and he's still compromising. So when we look at what Lindsey has done this season -- causing trouble and chaos at Wolfram and Hart, trying to take down the malcontent, misguided Angel -- do we really think that those things are bad things?
Yes, Lindsey adopted the name of "Doyle" and tried to deceive Spike into being his champion(presumably to turn him against Angel), but in a way this act has more fully ingrained the concept of doing good and being a champion in Spike's mind. Angel and Cordelia might look at Lindsey taking Doyle's name as somehow dishonoring their deceased friend, but honestly...I think what Angel has done with himself and with his mission over these years dishonor's Doyle's memory much more than anything Lindsey has ever done.
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Re: "The side of the angels" -- heywhynot, 17:37:18 04/19/04 Mon
My use of the "side of angels" was kinda deliberate. I did no capitalize angels for a reason, Angel might not be on that side right now. On the other hand, if the means do matter than I wouldn't say Lindsey is fighting on the sign of good. He was out to kill Angel, to unleash the "fail-safe" to get his revenge.
From You're Welcome
EVE
You're not worried at all?
LINDSEY
She's awake. That means the powers that be are getting nervous. Taking
an interest. Higher stakes. That likes me fine. Not sitting at the
$5 table anymore.
(kisses her forehead)
EVE
You know the house always wins.
LINDSEY
So the question becomes whose house are we in? The senior partners
gave that eurotrash vampire everything I've worked for. I couldn't
let that slide. They didn't see me coming. Maybe they're getting too
old for this.
EVE
(looks up at Lindsey)
It all comes back to Angel, doesn't it? He's still the center of your
universe.
To me, Lindsey seems to be playing his own game but not to inspire but to gain power himself. He does not walk on the side of the Powers nor the Senior Partners, he walks on his own. Which is not a bad thing. Revenge seems to play a big part in Lindsey's game. Not exactly the motivation expected of those on the side of good.
What is interesting is Lindsey and Eve are now two more elements that are unpredictable like Illyria arising in the shell of Fred. This has to drive the Senior Partners crazy, not knowing such uncertainty.
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Which begs an even more interesting question... -- BrianWilly, 16:43:54 04/20/04 Tue
What about Eve's intentions?
At first, everyone was pretty convinced that she was just a Lilah Jr., a weapon of Wolfram and Hart to further distract Angel from his real mission. And for the most part, people are still looking disfavorably towards her. But again, look at the main things that Eve has done this season: standing by her lover in his mission to bring down Angel and the Senior Partners. She gave up immortality...I emphasize immortality...for love. I agree with the almost Scooby-like concept that if true righteousness does not consider the end more important than the means, then Lindsey and Eve should not be considered good guys or even good. But both Angel's Avengers(teehee) and the show's viewers have this stigma of regarding those two as some sort of uncouth, immoral, and shifty bad guys, when in actuality -- if the things we've learned in last week's episode are to be trusted -- they're anything but.
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Re: Picking up Excalibur is Easy; Doing good that is another story (S5 AtS Spoilers thru Underneath) -- Finn Mac Cool, 20:25:31 04/19/04 Mon
Why, exactly, is it wrong to think the ends justify the means? I mean, are you opposed to Buffy stealing a rocket launcher to stop the Judge, for example?
I'm not saying the ends always justify the means; I personally just follow gut instinct for most moral decisions. But "the ends don't justify the means" has come to become a catchphrase I really detest.
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Re: Picking up Excalibur is Easy; Doing good that is another story (S5 AtS Spoilers thru Underneath) -- heywhynot, 03:49:26 04/20/04 Tue
I do agree there are times I would consider stealing to be alright, like the example you used. Always be a certain amount of grey. But those who let the ends justify the means, do things that go beyond being in the grey. Outright murder such as Giles killing Ben, Angel killing Hauser. It is a mentality where you consider yourself so far above the rest of the world that sacrificing a few people here or there is ok (see Gunn knowing some harm was going to come to someone else for his upgrade & yet went along with it). IT is no longer having hope in others, it is giving up on the possibility of good in others, believing you alone knows what is good for the world & justify any act accordingly. That is whatt AI was becoming That is Jasmine was about and it is where W&H want Angel. Heroes do not commit murder.
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And There's Another . . . -- Claudia, 15:48:07 04/20/04 Tue
"Outright murder such as Giles killing Ben, Angel killing Hauser. It is a mentality where you consider yourself so far above the rest of the world that sacrificing a few people here or there is ok (see Gunn knowing some harm was going to come to someone else for his upgrade & yet went along with it)."
You forgot one last example . . . Wesley's murder of Knox.
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That wasn't "ends justify the means" -- Finn Mac Cool, 17:07:35 04/20/04 Tue
At that point, killing Knox didn't really accomplish anything. It was done out of anger and vengeance.
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Re: That wasn't "ends justify the means" -- luvthistle1, 04:44:41 04/21/04 Wed
well, we really did not know the reason as to "Why" Knox brought Illyria back, so it can be argue that Wesley stop it.
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Re: That wasn't "ends justify the means" -- Joyce, 12:25:02 04/21/04 Wed
"well, we really did not know the reason as to "Why" Knox brought Illyria back, so it can be argue that Wesley stop it."
I realize that Wesley is a popular character and that Knox is a villain, but it sounds to me that you're trying to condone or excuse his actions. Wes had committed cold-blooded murder. Frankly, I see no excuse for his actions. He had murdered Knox and stabbed Gunn just as cold-bloodedly as Willow had murdered Warren Mears and Rack in BUFFY.
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I thought Giles killing Ben was certainly justified -- Finn Mac Cool, 17:15:34 04/20/04 Tue
If he didn't, Ben would change into Glory again and more people would die. There was no way of stopping the transformation or of restraining Glory once she appeared. It came down to either killing Ben or letting untold amounts of people perish later on.
Hauser, on the other hand, could be restrained. He was merely human, and W&H certainly has the resources to either hold him themselves or send him to jail while still keeping their name clean. As such, yeah, Angel killing him wasn't right (unless of course the gun going off was an accident, which is unlikely but possible).
The trouble I have with "ends don't justify the means" philosophy is that, under it, letting many people, perhaps even the whole world, die is the preferable course of action over personally taking one life. To me, while letting someone die isn't as repugnant as outright murder, allowing enough people die certainly adds up, I feel. In the Ben/Giles situation, their were no options available in which no one died, so Giles took the path of least harm.
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Utilitarianism, in this instance, wins through. -- BrianWilly, 20:59:12 04/20/04 Tue
And yes, I agree that Giles' murder of Ben was justified. The ends justified the means and was certainly preferable to the alternative.
Still, I personally have a weird thing against equating morality with practicality. And I know that's not what you've proposed, but the problem with using Ben's murder to support the value of ends over means is that the situation which instigated Ben's murder was, simply put, fantastic. Extreme. Rare, even, and even for the Buffyverse at that. It wasn't a natural situation which you would encounter in your regular life, and so using this unnatural situation to justify everyday morality is clearly flawed. Even in real life, we acknowledge that moral situations in which the ends don't justify the means outnumber the opposing situations by a vast amount.
Obviously, this is a fantastic show(in both senses of the term), and the writers are free to establish far-fetched or unnatural situations at their whim, so "life of one versus life of millions" scenarios are much more relatively plausible and of the norm. And certainly I'm not saying that "the ends justify the means" is a bad morality merely by the fact that situations which call for it are rarer than the alternative, but I do acknowledge that they are rarer. I am pointing out that instances in which this type of morality prevails are exceptions to the norm and not of the norm. In which case, the alternative morality, that of the means outweighing the ends, must logically be the one we apply normally. And that says a lot about both moralities.
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Re: Utilitarianism, in this instance, wins through. -- Finn Mac Cool, 21:52:26 04/20/04 Tue
I think it's got a lot to do with exploring all possibilities. Cause, if you can use unethical means to accomplish a goal that outweighs it, but there is the possibility of another route to take, it's often better to try exploring the other path in hopes that it has a better option open. However, you seem to be neglecting one of the biggest real life examples of ends justifying the means: legal penalties. If you steal something or kill someone for example, you're sent to jail. Locking someone up and taking away their freedom isn't right, but it's necessary to inflict these punishments in order to keep people from stealing and killing as they please. That seems to be utilitarianism at work, don't you think?
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Have to Agree -- Joyce, 12:28:50 04/21/04 Wed
"Still, I personally have a weird thing against equating morality with practicality. And I know that's not what you've proposed, but the problem with using Ben's murder to support the value of ends over means is that the situation which instigated Ben's murder was, simply put, fantastic. Extreme. Rare, even, and even for the Buffyverse at that. It wasn't a natural situation which you would encounter in your regular life, and so using this unnatural situation to justify everyday morality is clearly flawed."
I have to agree with you about this. In fact, your post reminds me of what Buffy had said to Giles in "First Date": that you cannot fight evil with evil.
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Re: I thought Giles killing Ben was certainly justified -- heywhynot, 11:09:04 04/21/04 Wed
Would killing Dawn be justified then? It was an option to stop Glory's plans. Ben was just as innocent as Dawn from the POV of Giles. Only Dawn knew that Ben accepted Glory's offer. Buffy was able to stop Glory & in the end beat the living daylights out of Glory, which is why Giles was even able to kill Ben. Do we kill people who are bipolar and have had a violent manic episode? They like Ben/Glory potentially could kill many other people. The answer is, we don't kill people with bipolar because of increased potential to do harm. People are (are least ideally) imprisoned for crimes actually committed as punishment & on some levels to allow the person time to learn/rehibilitate.
Killing Dawn would of been the easy way out. Buffy though found another way to save the day. As you (FMC) pointed out in another message in this thread, it is about paths. When the ends justify the means you open up many different pathways that wouldn't be open otherwise. The thing is they are paths where you usually have given up on hope in others and are usually the easy way out. They are usually the paths where you have to disconnect yourself from humanity in order to carry them out. They are the cold choices. Giles was never really the same after killing Ben. Heroes don't do that. To inspire, to empower others requires being connected.
From City of... (From www.buffy-vs-angel.com)
Doyle looks into the refrigerator that holds two bags of blood: "Because now I'm going to tell you what happens next. You see this vampire, he thinks he's helping. Fighting the demons. Staying away from the human's so as not to be tempted. Doing penance in his little - cell. But he's cut off. From every thing. From the people he's trying to help."
Angel: "I still save 'em. Who cares if I don't stop to chat."
Doyle: "When was the last time you drank blood?"
Angel whispers: "Buffy."
Doyle: "Left you with a bit of a craving, didn't it? Let me tell you something, pal, that craving is going to grow and one day soon one of those helpless victims that you don't really care about is going to look way too appetizing to turn down. And you'll figure hey! what's one against all I've saved? Might as well eat them. I'm still ahead by the numbers!"
Doyle: "You know I'm parched from all this yakking, man. Let's go treat me to a Billy Dee."
Cut to Angel and Doyle walking on the street.
Doyle carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag: "It's not all about fighting and gadgets and stuff. It's about reaching out to people, showing them that there's love and hope still left in the world."
Homeless lady comes up and asks him for some change.
Doyle (to lady): "Get a job, you lazy sow. (to Angel) It's about letting them into your heart. It's not about saving lives; it's about saving souls. Hey, possibly your own in the process."
It is what the show has always been about. W&H have gotten Angel off track. He is fighting demons still but he is not connected. He can no longer show people there is love and hope in the world. What it takes to overcome fear is having love & hope. Without it there is no balance, fear wins out. That is W&H's game to have a world full of fear w/out hope.
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Re: I thought Giles killing Ben was certainly justified -- Finn Mac Cool, 14:30:24 04/21/04 Wed
The difference between Ben and someone with a mental disorder is that Ben was not controllable. For example, I wouldn't support killing Oz, even though he changes into a blood thirsty monster. His wolf side can be contained; there's a risk that he'll escape and hurt/kill someone, but it's still possible to keep him alive and keep others safe. With Glory that isn't the case. First off, Ben transformed into Glory seemingly at random; they would have needed to keep him locked up 24/7, which they probably don't have the resources to accomplish. Second, even if they could keep Ben under constant imprisonment, as soon as he transforms into Glory, he's out of there. No prison on earth, least of all one the Scoobies could create, would be able to hold Glory. Containment would be impossible. Third, Glory has a desperate need to suck out people's sanity; as soon as she breaks out (which she would do) she'd probably do that. Add in her whimsical attitude towards killing, her hatred of Buffy that developed later on in the season, and her continuing desire to find a way home makes it 99.9999% certain that Glory would kill people again. If Giles hadn't killed Ben, it was certain (not just likely, but certain) that more people would die, and he'd be responsible for those deaths, having chosen not to take the only measure that could prevent it.
As for Dawn, I wouldn't advocate killing Dawn as long as it seems possible (even remotely) to save the world without her dying. However, once the portal was opened, and if Buffy's blood was incapable of closing it, I would have chosen to kill Dawn in order to save the lives of billions of other people.
Lastly, that whole reaching out to people thing isn't something I really feel the need to criticise Angel for not doing. He's good at averting mystical problems, saving lives, and stopping people from getting hurt, but he's not that good at reaching out to people. That's what friends, family, and psychiatrists are for. Some people don't have any of those things, and maybe Angel could try to play a bigger part in their lives, but it's not the sort of thing you can do too much of. How many rescuees can you offer continued support to before you don't have time for anyone else? I'd personally choose saving the lives of two dozen people over saving the lives and offering emotional support to a mere two. Besides, don't you think a big corporation taking an interest in saving everyday people from plagues and monsters is going to boost people's day a little?
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Re: I thought Giles killing Ben was certainly justified -- heywhynot, 06:30:32 04/22/04 Thu
We don't know if it was possible to constrain Glory back into her prison, Ben. That was the original plan by the two other Hellgods, to imprison Glory within Ben and make her live out her life in the backseat. She found a way out of her prison probably with aid from those that worshipped her. It was implied that Ben took drugs to try & contain Glory but eventually she broke through that. Given Willow's talents it is very possible she could of re-imprisoned Glory within Ben if she had the time.
Also, we saw that Glory was starting to be influenced by Ben's memories, feelings, etc. Her plan was to go home and after her defeat that was no longer possible. A higher being trapped in a human form without a purpose, informed by the memories of a human being. Why does that sound familiar? The universe is not as predictable as we wish it to be. Ben was not a threat at the time Giles killed him. Possibilities some horrible, some neutral, and a few pleasant still remained. Giles destroyed the possibilities. He gave into despair, lacked hope. Really he lacked it until Chosen, when Buffy (the hero for whom the means do count for something) reopened the possibilities, the hope in his mind.
The ends justifying the means is not about making a hard choice when no others remain, it is about limiting oneself from seeing hope. It is taking the easy out of a situation instead of thinking outside the box. It was easy to kill Ben, to wipe Connor of his memories & have him start with a new family, to try & kill Spike, to sign the customs slip & keep the mindboost, etc.
Angel connecting is not about him being eveyone's buddy, confidant, etc. It is about him inspiring people, to empower them, to overcome fear with hope. Angel had an entire office full of people who had given in, lost hope in the world and decided to sell out. If evil is going to win, mineaswell join the winning team thought. They are the helpless Angel should be helping. Angel should of been inspiring the employees under his care instead of instilling fear in them. As Marcus said, the way Angel had been running the LA branch was very profitable for the Senior Partners. It is the little things that matter in shaping the big picture. A butterfly in Africa...
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Re: I thought Giles killing Ben was certainly justified -- Finn Mac Cool, 08:47:11 04/22/04 Thu
a) Giles didn't know about Ben's memories informing Glory.
b) If two hellgods couldn't ensure Glory stayed trapped, did they really have much of a chance?
c) Even if it was theoretically possible for Willow to stop Glory from reemering, those sort of things take time. I'm 99% certain that Glory would have risen again before Willow could hope to do anything, and we'd be left with a big problem.
Are you meaning to say that there are never situations where all available options involve something bad happening, that there's always a way to avert harm without doing some other (but lesser) harm?
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Re: I thought Giles killing Ben was certainly justified -- heywhynot, 09:30:51 04/22/04 Thu
Of course there are always other ways, the question is do you have the resources, the means, the time, the brains, the open mind to think of them. Those who firmly believe the ends justify the means, blind themselves. They see life as very predictable. Giles mind was closed, he only believed that Glory would return and do harm to the world & in particular Buffy. He was blinded, believing he was doing the dirty work that she refused to do because she was a hero. He did it again with Robin in trying to kill Spike. Angel did it with Connor. Angel did act out of love but he was blinded, desperate, & had no hope to save Connor. There were other options. W&H obviously had the resources to hold & give Connor therapy. Angel made a choice then. Not a bad one. Connor is happier but Angel did not make the heroic choice. The choice not only affected himself & Connor, it affected others. It set a precedent in terms of Angel's behavior from which a pattern was born. Killing Hauser was next. Angel made his own prison of which he is only now beginning to emerge from.
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Ah, but having an open mind is only part of it -- Finn Mac Cool, 14:09:55 04/22/04 Thu
You can have an "ends don't justify the means" mentality, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have the time, resources, or brains to find a solution that fits your credo. In the Ben/Glory situation, regardless of Giles's position on ends and mean, I just do not see any remotely feasible scenario where no one got hurt. "Ends justifies the means" philosophy is for those times when all non-ambiguous choices have been made unworkable. Your statement that people who hold with this ethical belief innately don't see the non-harmful options seems, to me, like saying people who don't believe in a higher power have no real motivation to do good. Both are true in some (perhaps even many cases), but hardly the rule or the norm.
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timidly attempting to say something -- DorianQ, 16:51:57 04/22/04 Thu
It is true that we don't always have all the answers, and we can't stop harm coming to every single person. But we always have the choice of not doing harm ourselves and we can always keep looking for an answer. Giles didn't even try to look for another solution. Would more people have gone insane in the interim? Possibly, even probably. And whose fault would it be that that happened? Glory's. Not Giles. We can't help everyone and we certainly can't do that by harming people. Would talk more but I am late for a class. Hope I made some sense. It all comes down to which worldview you have.
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Allowing someone to do evil isn't OK -- Finn Mac Cool, 20:22:45 04/22/04 Thu
If a prison guard allows a deranged serial killer to escape just because he doesn't want to get violent against him, you're meaning to say he doesn't bear any responsibility for the people that man kills? If you know someone to be a danger and have it in your power to stop them but do nothing, you share in the responsibility. I wonder how long society would continue to last if people felt no guilt over allowing thiefs and killers to continue on their way.
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Re: Allowing someone to do evil isn't OK -- heywhynot, 07:36:38 04/23/04 Fri
The prison guard is accountable, it is his/her job, literally in the job description. The question is does the prison guard beat the living daylights out of the prisoner to the point of doing serious damage/killing the prisoner or does the guard subdue the prisoner with the least amount of force as needed? The prisoner after all is a deranged serial killer and will kill again & has shown he can escape. The mindset of the end justify the means is a way of looking at the world, where you take it in upon yourself to be judge/jury/executioner. I would not want to live in a world where people were running around with that idea. Jasmine was an example of this. Jasmine was going to bring peace on earth, no more wars, no more starving children, think of all the lives that were going to be saved. All good in her mind, but the means were horrible, no free will, hundreds to thousands would die, humanity was going to stagnate.
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Re: Allowing someone to do evil isn't OK -- Finn Mac Cool, 08:55:41 04/23/04 Fri
First off, I don't think the fact that something is our job should enter into moral debates.
Second, it might not be possible for the guard to restrain the prisoner without killing him, but I do agree he should try to do the least amount of damage possible while still not letting him get away. While he might try to escape again, they can still try their best to keep him locked up. Thing is, though, unlike the prisoner, short of killing her, the Scoobies could not keep her under control. The odds of Willow coming up with a spell to stop her quickly enough or of her choosing not to hurt anyone are so slim that they're not worth entering into the equation (like how we don't shoot at someone even though there's a chance the gun will misfire). A guard should keep the prisoner from escaping using as little force as necessary, but, with Glory's case, the necessary amount of force is death.
While you've brought up Jasmine, what she did was wrong in the sense that the ends didn't outweigh the means. The peace she brought wasn't worth the removal of humanity's freedom. However, saving the lives of many people is worth the loss of one life.
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Re: Allowing someone to do evil isn't OK -- heywhynot, 10:03:38 04/23/04 Fri
You view Jasmine's actions as the ends not justifying the means. Jasmine did not. She believed she was doing good. The terrorists who were involved in 9/11 believe they were doing good. A very small minority of anti-abortionists believe in killing doctor's who perform abortions because to them the ends justify means, saving what they believe is countless innocent lives vs. the life of one person. What Giles did was not kill a prisoner who was escaping. He did not kill Ben in battle. Glory was beaten up. Buffy literally beat up a Hellgod & came out in pretty good condition. Ben was lying on the ground helpless. Giles murdered a human who was innocent in order to stop the potential of one Hellgod emerging. He took it upon himself to play judge, jury, and executioner of another human being. There was time to try and think of other ways to deal with the possibility of Glory's return.
The mindset of the ends justifying the means is one where you can justify anything you do because it is for what you consider to be the greater good. The presumption is that you know what is best, in a manner of speaking that you are above other people, who you believe either lack conviction or are outright evil themselves. You distance yourself from other human beings.
The world is not black & white with shades of grey. It is a spectrum of colors of which only a tiny fraction you can see. Just because you can't see using conventional means doesn't mean the other options don't exist.
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A spot of metacommentary -- KdS, 13:44:51 04/23/04 Fri
One should take care to remember in this type of argument (not bashing anyone in the topic specifically) that fictional events should not be taken as evidence to justify a course of action or moral outlook in the real world, because fiction writers can always ensure that events work out so as to endorse their opinion. Joss strongly adopts a means-over-ends morality, but he caused The Gift to endorse that morality by writing a compromise in which Buffy was enabled to sacrifice her life for Dawn. A writer who supported ends over means would have had equal artistic justification to end the story with Buffy killing Dawn, or, as was briefly implied in the episode, for Dawn to voluntarily elect to kill herself to save the universe.
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It doesn't mean seeing yourself as above other people -- Finn Mac Cool, 17:05:16 04/23/04 Fri
Or at least, not all other people. However, there are some situations where people must take control of people's lives because they're either unable to stop a great tragedy from occuring (as Ben was) or have misguided morals (such as Glory). See, most people don't go out seeking to be put in these situations of deciding life and death; they're most often thrust into them, just as Giles was with Ben. He had to make a choice no matter what; letting Ben live would be just as much of a choice as killing him, and he'd be responsible for the consequences either way. You say that Giles didn't explore all the options; well, we're all anal retentive fans who think too much on this board, but I have not yet seen a single alternative to killing Ben proposed that stood any but the most remote, infintismal chance of actually working. If I ever hear of a way that Giles could have stopped Glory without killing Ben or anyone else, I will admit defeat. But so far I have not, and, frankly, never expect to.
James Marsters Shaves Head For Charity -- Liq, 19:40:25 04/19/04 Mon
Hey ES Sweeties.... James' manager sent this email today:
PLEASE HELP GET THE WORD OUT:
Actor James Marsters (aka 'Spike' from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and "Angel") will be appearing on the Ryan Seacrest Show, Tuesday, April 27, 2004 from 12 noon to 1 pm. James will be shaving off his famous platinum blonde locks to help raise money and awareness for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The top 10 donors will receive a personalized autographed photo along with a lock of James' hair. To make a donation go to: www.pedaids.org and make an on-line donation no later than noon on Monday, April 26, 2004. Be sure to mark your donation in honor of James Marsters.
Also, for those fans who can come to the taping, please do so. James will be making an appearance after the show in the courtyard sporting his new look!! This is for a great cause!
**Photo and lock of hair will be mailed out within a week of the event.
Thanks in advance for all your support,
Steve Himber
Manager for James Marsters
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Hey Liq! -- Masq, 20:13:35 04/19/04 Mon
Thanks for stopping by!
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Question is, will DB be next? -- cougar, 23:02:08 04/19/04 Mon
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Hmmmm...what I could do with a lock of his hair... -- O'Cailleagh, 16:29:08 04/20/04 Tue
So if anyone manages to get any...I'll only need a strand or two... <;-)
O'Cailleagh
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Cloning comes to mind ;-) -- angel's nibblet, 03:30:06 04/21/04 Wed
Or a super-cool wig!!!
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From hair to eternity -- Ann, 04:06:00 04/21/04 Wed
Spike, I am sure, would have been familiar with the Victorian practice of using the hair of the dead to weave jewelry and wreaths for small shadow boxes. I personally would use the hair to weave such a thing. Perhaps a few of Dru's dead flowers could be used intertwined with small ribbons. The possibilities are endless! ;)
Curious about the "distraction" angle mentioned in 5.17 -- Finn Mac Cool, 20:37:21 04/19/04 Mon
According to Lindsay, Angel was given control over Wolfram & Hart in order to distract him, take him away from his path as a hero. The problem I'm having is, if that's the Senior Partners' plan, why haven't they killed Angel and his friends by now? I mean, they've certainly had the opportunity (as Lilah said, they could have just blown up the limo). If the only reason Angel now controls W&H is to stop him from pursuing the heroic path, one would think this could be more easily accomplished by simply offing him and giving Woflram & Hart to someone who fits in more with their ideals of corruption and degredation. So, if Lindsay is right about the Senior Partners' plan, why is Angel still alive?
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Re: Curious about the "distraction" angle mentioned in 5.17 -- Rob, 21:21:25 04/19/04 Mon
The fact that the Shanshu keeps being brought up would lead me to believe that they still need him for the apocalypse, due to whatever prophecies they have. Alive for now, but distracted. Instead of actively trying to turn him dark as before, they keep him occupied until it's too late to reverse what they've set into motion. And by that point he'll either fight them and lose (since their plan is already underway) or give up and fight for them, since he has already been in place as the head of the L.A. branch for a while by now. Either way, W&H sees it as a win-win situation.
Rob
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Re: Curious about the "distraction" angle mentioned in 5.17 -- luvthistle1, 08:44:39 04/20/04 Tue
well, maybe Angel was meant to die in "Chosen", instead of Spike , after all it was W&H who gave him the amulet. Plus, Lacey ( Gunn's guide in Home) told Gunn, that Angel wasn't their only priority. so maybe they wanted the whole fang gang.
so , you must remember, the Senior Partners' plan, was never to kill Angel, ( he's a vampire, and could have been easliy dusted) but to turn him "dark". ... the interesting part is "Why"? do they want him dark, and since angel been working there he has became much darker. he killed 2 to 3 humans at the begining of the season, which is a far cry from Angel telling Faith that he do not kill humans because they have an chance to be redeem. ..ha! he do not think that way now I bet. who had angel actually hepped since he started working at w&h? ( besides saving the girl at the begining of the season) A.I use to help the hopless, so when was the last time they actually help someone in need?
hmm , Angel is the soul, while Angelus is the demon, so what become of Angel/Angelus if the soul become evil as well??
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People they've helped -- Finn Mac Cool, 09:09:05 04/20/04 Tue
"Conviction": Saved that little boy and the state of California, not to mention putting Fries in a position where he really couldn't carry his business out.
"Unleashed": Nina, the werewolf girl, the people she may very well have gone on to kill, and the future victims of the bizarre bistro.
"Hellbound": Spike, as well as Pavayne's future victims.
"Cautionary Tale": Saved people the demon would have gone on to kill otherwise.
"Harm's Way": Casualties of demon conflict.
"Damage": Dana and potential future victims.
"Why We Fight": Lawson's future victims.
"Smile Time": The kids the demon puppets were gonna prey off of, as well as that TV-show creator turned puppet.
This is in addition to largely offscreen help they've given, such as when Gunn mentioned banishing some pyro-warlocks and setting up a program to help the families of vampire victims. It seems to me they're helping quite a few people, they're just not doing the whole "get to know them" thing, which, from what I recall, Doyle suggested more for Angel's benefit than for any benefit it may or may not bring the the helpless they're helping.
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Re: People they've helped -- luvthistle1, 10:53:52 04/20/04 Tue
All in all, most of the people they saved, is not near the of Damage or lives caused by W&H. you see, it all gray, and when you do not put an face on it, it can turn all black. angel might have saved some people, but what about the people who are actually seeking help? they are not going to go into a law firm to seek it, exspecially if the law firm is the one who they are seeking help from.
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Plenty of people have gone to W&H for help in the past -- Finn Mac Cool, 13:59:48 04/20/04 Tue
Granted, they were evil people, but I don't see why Angel and company can't advertise themselves in a manner similar to what they did originally. I mean, AI's method of getting clients was hardly the best either (they couldn't even say what sorts of problems they handled; the fact that they got as many people seeking supernatural solutions as they did is a little odd).
Also, please list the people we know of so far that Angel's regime has hurt this season. I get the feeling you think there are more than I do.
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An analogy with tobacco taxes -- Ames, 11:45:41 04/20/04 Tue
Smoking is bad, tobacco companies are evil, they hook children on an addictive fatal drug and then supply it for a profit, right? So why does the government charge hefty taxes on their product and allow them to continue to operate legally and profitably?
Oh, but the government is trying doing good, helping to fight evil, really truly! The taxes and the mandatory warnings on the boxes are discouraging users, and the laws about not advertising or selling to minors are helping to keep children away from cigarettes, and by keeping it under legal control they're preventing rampant illegal use, so it's better to work within the system ...
Ok, sure, the government gets a lot of tax money as a side benefit, but that's not their motive...
Recognize anything familiar?
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Don't think the analogy works -- Finn Mac Cool, 14:06:36 04/20/04 Tue
First off, some politicians are genuinely undecided about the tobacco issue.
Second, you say the government keeps the tobacco industries under a modicom of control to stop illegal tobacco from spreading far and wide. But giving Angel and Co. control of W&H's LA branch only serves to distract/control Angel and Co. Other Champions for Good aren't affected, nor would they be if the Senior Partners just decided to have them killed one day.
Third, I'm assuming the Senior Partners do want to encourage the spread of evil, and so hiring people who still use some of the resources for doing good (fighting monsters, establishing a families-of-vampire-victims charity) is going to be kind of a problem. I mean, they probably could have found somebody who's both willing to all the evil the Partners want and still do a good job.
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But you're forgetting one big potential victory for evil (W&H) -- AngelvsAngelus, 15:09:30 04/21/04 Wed
I'm not going to follow up the tobacco analogy, because I'm obviously WAY more cynical about politics and politicians than others.
On Wolfram and Hart:
They are continuing to do evil, and not all of the company's resources are being directed at good. Its impossible for Angel and his pals to keep an eye on it all. That's one thing they've been compromising with all season.
But another huge victory in the continuing to do evil department would be successfully corrupting the champions of good. If Angel or his allies could be made to willingly even resign themselves to some evil things, W&H would be dealing a huge blow to the forces of good.
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It still doesn't seem to make sense for me -- Finn Mac Cool, 16:18:58 04/21/04 Wed
I mean, while Angel and Co. may be very good at their jobs, and so be very efficient when/if they actively perform an evil act, but as long as they continue to use some of the firm's resources to fight evil, it still seems like it would help W&H more to simply kill the Fang Gang and find someone else to be in charge of their LA branch. Now, if they managed to corrupt the main characters to a considerable extent, to the point where they don't just put up with doing some dispicable acts but actually engage regularly in behavior that benefits evil, then I could see it being worth W&H's effort. However, Lindsay's speech (or at least the popular interpretation of it) seems to indicate the Senior Partners simply want to distract Angel from their plan of slow degredation and from his quest to do good. This, to me, seems like it could be more easily accomplished simply by doing away with the Fang Gang. So, either the Senior Partners have more in mind than what Lindsay indicated, or they simply didn't plan this out very well. I'm personally hoping it's the former.
ANGEL's Leading Ladies -- Claudia, 12:23:03 04/20/04 Tue
One of the things that really disappointed me about ANGEL's Season 5, is the lack of a leading lady with any substance. Especially since Charisma Carpenter's departure. Come to think of it, most of the female characters this season, have not really been that promising. I believe it is due to the fact that during S5, ANGEL lacked an actress with any real presence and stature.
Okay, we have the show's regular and probably its leading lady - Amy Acker. Mind you, Miss Acker is an excellent actress. However, I'm afraid that she lacks any real presence to be a convincing leading lady, especially for a show with depth like ANGEL. She would make a good leading lady for something more lightweight, but on ANGEL, Miss Acker is at best, a good suppporting actress. And not even her transformation from Fred Burkle to the she-demon, Illyria, can overcome this.
Also on the show were Mercedes McNab as Harmony and Sarah Thompson as Eve. And that's it. Both are competent actresses - despite numerous complaints from many of the show's fans about Miss Thompson. But like Amy Acker, they do not have the presence to be a leading lady and they have been stuck with portraying female characters without any real oomph.
Gone are the days when ANGEL had Charisma Carpenter, who did an excellent job as David Boreanaz's leading lady for four years. Julie Benz, as Angel's former paramour, Darla, has not really made any impact since early S3. We haven't seen Juliette Landau (Drusilla) since S2. And ANGEL has really suffered from the lack of Stephanie Romanov, who had really rivaled Carpenter as a potential leading lady and did an excellent job as evil lawyer, Lilah Morgan.
Since Carpenter and Romanov's departure, ANGEL has suffered from a lack of memorable leading female characters. And despite her best efforts, Amy Acker cannot match their presence or stature.
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Re: ANGEL's Leading Ladies (S5 Spoilers) -- Evan, 13:15:19 04/20/04 Tue
Perhaps there's a thematic reason for this. I haven't thought much about this before, so I'm just improvising here..
They haven't been mentioning Cordelia much this season, but I believe that they're all thinking about her (what they remember of her, anyway). The lack of strong female characters on the show, and in Angel's life, is a constant reminder of her loss. And Fred's death/transformation into Illyria can certainly be seen to parallel Cordelia's "death" and transformation into Jasmine in the 4th season. The loss of her influence can also be seen in the questionable morality of this season which, if Cordelia was around, might not be happening... hmm... and Jasmine was responsible for her death, sort of...and the beast killed all the W&H management, leaving room for Angel to take over... could the senior partners have had some sort of deal with Jasmine where they "help each other", since I assume having Angel work at W&H has been the SP's plans all aong? (Although, I'm sure the SP's didn't tell her their exact plan... she probably wouldn't have approved, with the wanting to create world peace and all.)
Back to the women... Then, you have Eve and Harmony. Eve, who's quite evil, but also kinda weak. And Harmony, who's quite strong (physically), but also kinda evil - not the ideal portrayals of womanhood. And underneath all of this, we have Angel who can never let himself get too close to a woman in a romantic sense or else.....
I'm not too sure where I'm going with these half-formed ideas... I'd like to hear what others have to say about these topics.
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You Might Have Something There -- Claudia, 15:08:09 04/20/04 Tue
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Re: ANGEL's Leading Ladies (S5 Spoilers) -- luvthistle1, 04:31:00 04/21/04 Wed
....they cut out angel's heart and his brain, when they remove Cordy and Fred. which in a way fit with the show. Cordy and Fred were both someone of important to angel, they were someone he would listen too, trusted and respected. so, I do not think it was a mistake to remove them from Angel, it was more to show "angel" how alone Angel is. Cordy had always stood up to Angel, and Fred had always had Angel's ear, both Women was something that he needed in his life. but it was not just Cordy and Fred he lost, he also lost Buffy respect. so he lost three women he respected & and confide in. they were replace by two ( Eve and Harmony)he distrust.
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Ah, thank you, this completes my thoughts nicely -- Evan, 21:55:56 04/21/04 Wed
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Leading Ladies? -- dlgood, 05:24:35 04/21/04 Wed
One of the things that really disappointed me about ANGEL's Season 5, is the lack of a leading lady with any substance.
I submit that AtS has never really had one. It's been an ensemble show, with one leading man, for five years. Cordelia in seasons 1, 2, and 4 was a secondary character, and worked wonderfully in that role.
The closest to a leading lady the series got, was a stretch in S3 when Cordelia was elevated into that role, a stretch so disastrous storywise that she wound up getting written out. Which worked fine with me, as CC didn't have the charisma or acting chops to pull off such dramatic role.
Likewise, while Lilah, Darla, and Kate were significant female characters, they were secondary characters.
At it's best, AtS has been an ensemble show with one lead character, Angel, who happens to be male. If one likes or dislikes current female characters, it's up to individual tastes. (The poorly written Eve aside.)
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Secondary Characters -- Claudia, 07:57:40 04/21/04 Wed
"Likewise, while Lilah, Darla, and Kate were significant female characters, they were secondary characters."
I am aware that both Lilah and Darla were secondary characters, but I believe that both Stephanie Romanov and Julie Benz had a strong presence .. . . and had what it took to be a first-rate leading lady. As for Charisma Carpenter, she may not be as skilled an actress as Romanov, Benz, Elizabeth Rohm or Amy Acker, but like Romanov and Benz, I believe that she the presence to be a strong leading lady. Now, Acker may be a talented actress, but I feel that she doesn't have the same presence that the others do. Which is why I feel that she made an ineffective leading lady for Season 5.
If you would note that on BUFFY, even though Sarah Michelle Gellar was the star, she had strong leading men of caliber on her show - namely Boreanaz, Marsters, and Tony Head. I'm not quite so sure about Nick Brandon. I would have to think on that.
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Measurables -- dlgood, 08:47:47 04/21/04 Wed
I am aware that both Lilah and Darla were secondary characters, but I believe that both Stephanie Romanov and Julie Benz had a strong presence .. . . and had what it took to be a first-rate leading lady. As for Charisma Carpenter, she may not be as skilled an actress as Romanov, Benz, Elizabeth Rohm or Amy Acker, but like Romanov and Benz, I believe that she the presence to be a strong leading lady.
You speak in terms of things that are ephemeral, pure opinion, things that cannot be measured. "Believe" and "presence" don't have much meaning here. I guess there's just the difference to the world of ideas and reality.
Whether or not one believes that any of these women are or are not leading lady material, reality is that only during one stretch did AtS actually have a leading lady. And much as one speaks about Carpenter's "presence" and ability to carry it off, one must also consider that both she and that storyline bombed in the attempt.
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To Dlgood . . . -- Claudia, 13:25:54 04/21/04 Wed
"You speak in terms of things that are ephemeral, pure opinion, things that cannot be measured. "Believe" and "presence" don't have much meaning here. I guess there's just the difference to the world of ideas and reality.
Whether or not one believes that any of these women are or are not leading lady material, reality is that only during one stretch did AtS actually have a leading lady. And much as one speaks about Carpenter's "presence" and ability to carry it off, one must also consider that both she and that storyline bombed in the attempt."
Dlgood, what are you getting at? Are you trying to say that you don't agree with me about Amy Acker? Or what?
"You speak in terms of things that are ephemeral, pure opinion, things that cannot be measured. "Believe" and "presence" don't have much meaning here."
What in the hell are you talking about, here? What? I'M EXPRESSING MY OPINION! Just like everyone else is expressing an opinion. Why on earth did you think it was so necessary to criticize my post in this manner?
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Your original post stated it as a fact -- Finn Mac Cool, 13:57:07 04/21/04 Wed
By simply asking a question about why "Angel" doesn't have any good leading ladies anymore, you're acting under the presumption that those who read and respond to your post share the same opinion. Even a simple line saying you feel "Angel" doesn't have good leading ladies in Season 5, or even a simply "IMHO" would have worked. To do otherwise makes you come off as stating a fact, implying you believe your opinion to be objective reality.
No traveller returns (Angel Odyssey 5.17)(sp to 5.18 trailer, marked) -- Tchaikovsky, 04:43:49 04/20/04 Tue
With a little bit of luck
We can make it through the night
-DJ Luck and MC Neat
OK, I just quoted something written this millennium. Set Quote Machine to Purge...
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die; to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
That undiscover'd country from whose bourne
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd
Much, much better.
Hello everyone. Wow, I have 'Underneath' already. Having had my pleasures of the last week obliterated by revising for various exams, I hadn't read anything about the episode, so went in entirely without pre-conceptions, which is always the best way. This episode is an anomaly; it breaks boundaries of television serial storytelling, it tells whole sections of tales upside down (like the crazy alternate dimension), and it's fitted together so well thematically that, despite the fact it has no clear A-plot, B-plot, C-plot structure, it fits together in your subconscious memorably. That anyone could cancel this show after this Season, which will have to do something horrific not to finish as its best to date, is sadly no longer surprising. It's horrible, but it also makes me invest in the last six in a way I could never do with the final episodes of Buffy, which had departed so far from its usual style to some kind of self-indulgent 24-esque mystery show, and one with no third act (though as ever, Joss was alert to the criticism). Meanwhile, Angel Season Five revs up towards what could be the greatest departure of a television show since the field turned to poppies.
5.17- 'Underneath
People, and indeed organisations, spend large chunks of their time in this episode hiding their underneaths. And they do so in ways that may seem initially dissimilar, but end up all tying together. The hint is in the teaser, as Angel remembers the line 'Handsome man, save me from the monsters'. And so, throughout the episode, we are confronted by people who have slipped back into Pylea-caves, hiding their underneaths away from the outside world, prone-feeling and so not interacting as they could do- in that impossible, healing way where you share your wounds.
We start with Angel, sitting, bereft at the long table. It's a strange image, one that might at first seem to suggest that his loneliness is arrived at through his obsession with being at the head of the table, of being the Champion. And so the cogs start to whirr. Where have all these people gone to? They've been lacerated by the pain of losing Fred, a consequence of Angel's own decision to come to Wolfram and Hart. At the company, Angel has had to hide away his vulnerable, human side, and become some kind of omniscient CEO, offay with details and eschewing uncalled for sentiment. In doing so, he has started to shut down. Nobody remembers the good bits claims Numero Cinco, and Angel, who has had his own hand in such a truism, is left without any heart in his work, given the same calling card that the wrestler was fifty years before. Holland Manners is mentioned again in this episode, and his spectre hangs long over Angel's fate.
If Angel is hiding the human underneath side in his work, the decision to do is finely symbolic of this choice. He chooses to rid himself of the wonderful mess of fatherhood, and instead become a professional, ensuited and ensuite-ed, ready for anything thrown at him as long as it's not personal. And so Angel becomes a tough nut to crack, but with a walnut for a heart.
The other members of the company share and reflect Angel's nursing of his wounded underneath, and in this epoisode, post-teaser, the idea is set up in three triangular segments, so that when we return to the idea of Champion, of Angel and Spike, we consider it through the kaleidoscopic variations on the central theme. How's that for an episode structure? I'd call it innovative...
CASE 1: Lorne.
Lorne has always been the empath, the empathy itself, so often. He's the one who can read the characters' journey, the writer's substitute and the mirror which reflects back Picassos which aren't photo-realistic, but make more sense of someone, (rather like Angel as opposed to, say, Big Brother, I sippose). But something's going wrong with Angel's capacity for self-reflection when Lorne is lying to people about their fortune. Now he just tells them what they want to hear, rather than what might help them, the very sharp-edged truth. Back in the olden days of Caritas, it was Lorne's perception, the bohemian spirit, ear to the ground, who helped Angel through his bitterest moments. At Wolfram and Hart, he's something quite different. The dislocation of corporations is suggested by his big office. He can schmooze with the starts, but has forgotten the spirit of the music down on the streets. His capacity to judge has been obliterated by a prolonged assault on the centre of his identity- his music. He's now drowned his wonderful vulnerable underneath, his empathy, in a little more sea, and a little less breeze, and is like Angel locked at the bottom of the ocean, or indeed locked in his CEO office.
CASE 2: Wesley.
Wesley is as ever the most self-aware to his circumstance, and provides the hint that unravels the whole meaning of the episode. The joke, inherently Joss sounding, is about questioning just how many people there are in that bar. By the end of it, we go into reverse gear and wonder whether there wasn't in fact only one person in the bar after all- the outer surface visage of the man getting drunk. In the situation where the person hides away, Angel in his office, Wesley with Illyria, Lorne in the bar and Gunn in his hospital bed, the surface gets so far away from the inner core of the person, the mantle so distended, if you will, that 'they were never that close.' Of course, the joke is also a baroque commentary on Angel and Wesley, and he of the double barrel is clearly well-considered enough to have seen both angles. For he is the one who reels the deepest with loss, left with just the Shell, the outer surface of Fred, the inside of which has been filled up like water into a bottle, by someone else entirely.
CASE 3: Gunn.
And so to one of the best written scenes of the episode, which only gathers pace and intelligence by the subversion in the ending. Angel and Gunn together. Angel sees Gunn's surface, reading a gossip magazine, and realises that he to is nursing that hidden underneath, this time the eternal anger at himself for signing that flimsy, irrelevant piece of paper. And for a second, we wonder whether we're going to see Angel, not Angelus, use his barely controlled rage in the same way as he did to Wesley in 'Forgiving'. The fact that he doesn't is a relief to those, (myself included) worrying about the posthumous Canonisation of Fred's character (in reality, Fred and Angel were never that close), but is also a genuinely brilliant piece of writing, where Angel explains that Gunn's gnawing guilt is the signature of the fac that he is a good man, but that he must not let it control him. The Pylea-caves of Lorne, Gunn and Wesley are understandable, but they need to put down their optics and start seeing life again. Gunn needs to use his tragically-won enhancements for the Good; Wesley needs to get out of his completely immobile philosophising with Illyria; and Lorne needs to find his 'smile and a quip': because eventually, that's what the green guy does.
And so we have these three aspects of Angel's journey. Aside from Spike, who is doing a different job paralleling Angel's journey, these are the three main male reflections of himself since, hmm, well Season Two and Lindsey. And so we end up the first act in The Truman Show, or what could probably equally be referred to as Generic Toothless 50's Filmland. The music does a genuinely lovely job of confering this reality onto the scene in which a hundred identical people retrieve a hundred identical papers. The irony is, that in this densest of all first acts, Lindsey is the only person who has not chosen to coddle his Underneath. He's had it coddled for him.
Lindsey has been trying to find truth out about the Senior Partners, continuing on his mission begun in Dead End to not let them make you play their game, and to understand them from the outside. So when we come to the end of the episode and here Lindsey repeat Angel's Hero Speech from 'Deep Down', the amazing thing is how much both of them are just an echo of Lindsey in 'Dead End'. And while we know what's been happening all Season, it is still instructive to see how far Angel has come, how much he has changed, from the cynical fighter of the lawyers he was less than a year ago.
Meanwhile, after the first act draws many of the conclusions of the episode, the second and third acts give us the major action moments, before the fourth act tells us what we knew already, which, once combined with the earlier revelations, gives us the moral of the story. Seriously, watch it again: this is not the structure of an episode you're likely to see again any time soon.
Lindsey escapes from Suburban Hell, an apt and literal realisation of the oft-posited metaphor. In surburbia, it's the repetition and the blandness that will grind you down. Hiding not so very far under the surface, American Beauty style, is your spouse and child with uzis. Suburbia's pain is creeping, just like Wolfram and Hart's evil; invidious yet insidious. And eventually, you must abandon your real hopes and desires to keep living in this vaccinated, sterilised vision. In the basement of your sub-conscious, underneath the carefuly balanced lipstick smiles, is your heart, torn out over and over again.
Lindsey, put there without his consent, languishing in the blandness, and, on a surface level, quite enjoying it, is rescued, and Gunn steps into the breach. This is one of our major twists and conclusions. Gunn's sacrifice may, to the viewer who's tuned in for Merceds McNab's hotness, look like an altruistic, amazing act of humanity. It certainly gets the job done. But it's not good enough, for two reasons. The first is that Angel loses another part of the gang, and another aspect of himself. Lorne still telling people what they want to hear, chokes back his momentary disbelief that they left Gunn behind. They didn't used to make these sacrifices so easily. More importantly, Gunn has just done the exact opposite of what Angel needs to learn, and even what he claims he's going to do. There's no point, and indeed no way, of atoning without knowing what you did. The word 'atone' is a back-formation from 'at-one-ment'. To become 'at-one' with yourself, you need to reconcile yourself and all your memories to the grain of sand that is your present, and the vast desert vista of the future. Gunn, in walking into a sub-reality where he knows nothing of his previous life, is walking straight back into his Pylea cave, grossly unaware of his back-story.
The fourth scene tells us a lot of what we already know. Angel is being distracted by Wolfram and Hart by the imminent apocalypse. He has gone two men down due to the change being CEO has inflicted upon him. Lindsey allows him to see, in his own reflection, just how played he has been. And that in turn makes him call into question just what he took the bargain for.
(Spoilers for those who haven't seen 'Origin' trailer follow.)
For it was a bargain- a bargain for the life (or death?) of Connor. In Lindsey's world, involuntarily put into paradise, there are ripped-out hearts and machine guns. What is Connor's world like? He like Gunn cannot manufacture atonement from a life he doesn't understand. Like Gunn's decision, Angel's for Connor was the wrong one, since it sliced away what lay beneath, instead of introducing those two men in the bar to a deeper friendship. On Connor's fate hangs the denouement of the entire series.
(End spoiler)
A few oddments from the end section:
-We repeatedly see Illyria in the mirror this week. OK, inner outer woman, surface and underneath, but I can't help thinking that separately, the twin suggestion in her name is still being played with
-'I fell in love', says Eve, who has become mortal as a result. She is the one dismissed in this episode, and yet she doesn't appear to end up so unhappy: she has Lindsey back. She is the one most reconciled to an underneath she didn't even realise she had.
-'I reek of humanity' says Illyria. Does even she want to hide her vulnerabilities.
I'd love to know how much of Joss Whedon's own work lay underneath Craft and Fain's credit, but overall that's just trivia. Another wonderful episode, in a quite superlative Season.
TCH
Replies:
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Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? -- Rahael, 05:53:43 04/20/04 Tue
Excellent!
Now that I've seen almost as much of the season as you have, I can start to get a grasp on these themes.
Until I read your review, I hadn't noticed something, that you bring out throughout the review: memory.
Numero Cinco says nobody remembers the good stuff. The irony is that Angel has taken memories away, and while they may be painful, they were of AI doing their best in tough circumstances. Riding out the storms. Being relatively successful. (And if, one loves S4, as I do, it really is, "good stuff"!)
I was also thinking of your comments about Lindsay and Suburbia, which I haven't seen on the screen, but was thinking of parallels - the big job in the city. The nice office. Worldly success. And that image in Home, of Connor and his happy normal family. It's as if Angel gives Connor away, and then grasps at some grotesque simulcrum of the normal life, necro tinted glass and all.
Suburbia, Family, children and parents.
The theme of family (disjointed & dysfunctional as it has been this season, but on Angel, when isn't it?) has reappeared again and again. The missing sacrificed son (echoes of Angel as Abraham, but one who didn't stay his hand), Wes and his father, this time, it is the other way around, and yet again, the sacrifice is not quite 'real'.
Artifice, and reality. Connor and his memories. AI's altered memories. Wes' father, not quite the person he appears.
Illyria. Viola: "What country, friends, is this?" and is told "This is Illyria, Lady". A young man, who Orsino finds himself falling in love with (though he doesn't quite understand why). Viola says "I am not that I play".
It's a land where things are not quite as they are.
But it also parallels Illyria's despair when she arrives in LA and finds her army and her temple have long since crumbled away into dust. She is not in the land she expected to be. And Fred's face, and some new person - and her occasional reversions into more Fred-like behaviour...
I'm also reminded at Lawson's comments when he breaks into W&H - it's a little surprising to find Angel at the head of the evil law firm. And, Cordy's exclamation - "what bizarro world did I wake up in? Spike's saving the helpless and you're head of evil incorporated!" (I paraphrase from memory).
And then there's the whole puzzle of Lindsay, acting the part of Doyle to Spike, and Cordy who may nor may not have woken up.
My only question is, who is Feste? Spike, or Lorne?
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They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase/ Soil our addition -- Tchaikovsky, 06:24:21 04/20/04 Tue
And hence, perhaps the obsession with alcohol in 'Underneath'. It's all over the place. Indeed, it was also very prevalent in 'Shells', Spike's tiny bottle of Jack Daniels, not giving the succour required; Lorne's disappearance. And thinking back, Wesley and Fred getting drunk from nothing in 'Life of the Party', and Spike's hangover after he gets re-corporealised in 'Harm's Way'. In 'Harm's Way', Fred and Harmony's evening out, and the absinthe connotation [?] in the blue fairy (not green, but close). Alcohol is a recurring symbol this Season because it plays with memory, and could be considered a (failed) attempt at forgetting what's gone on before.
And if, one loves S4, as I do, it really is, "good stuff"
Losing all sense of restraint, I Went out and bought Buffy Season seven and Angel Season Four recently. You can guess which has been in my DVD player more frequently.
some grotesque simulcrum of the normal life, necro tinted glass and all.
That's exactly how it feels, both in this episode in Lindsey's alterno-world, and for me in the whoel Season. The office setting, while a fun change to work in, always feels slightly away from the roots of the show. And, rather than this difference merely being a result of the WB's fickleness, it seems also to be ME's attempt to use Office Life to jar against the earlier, more honest, 'turgid, supernatural soap opera'.
With artifice and reality, I'd put in 'perspective'. From where are we looking? How has Angel's vision changed, now being inside rather than outside. What things which were once small and close up, now seem big and very far away. Like Spike's bottle of Jack Daniels, is the whole Season 'a play on perspective'?
I suspect I'm ill-equipped to answer the Feste question, but I do wonder if it's possible that this entire thread could have subject lines from Shakespeare only. Just out of a quite pointless sense of fun.
TCH
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Love's not time's fool -- Rahael, 10:28:47 04/20/04 Tue
(though rosy lips and cheeks/Within his bending sickle's compass come)
I hadn't even noticed the theme of alcohol! It does seem very present (though I also saw a S7 Buffy vid called set a song called "Drop Kick me Jesus", which featured Spike and alcohol rather largely).
You bought both! I haven't even allowed myself to buy S4 yet (I keep promising it to myself, but I'm exercising restraint).
As for Feste, I suggested it because Feste is given the liebrty to say the truth, even when it is impolite, at the court of the Duke. And I very much got that sense with Angel and his little fiefdom early on in the season. But I haven't seen Lorne in this ep.
(Oh! I know what was also at the back of my mind re Angel as holding court - Lorne in "Smile Time" - "My little prince, what have they done to you!").
So, here's another Shakespeare court for King Angel:
......for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps death his court and there the antic sits
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh, which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable, and humoured thus,
Comes out at last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall and farewell King!
(now that was from memory, so excuse any glaring mistakes!)
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Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? -- Tchaikovsky, 05:48:39 04/21/04 Wed
Not yours of course, but Yorrick's and hence, perchance, Lorne's.
Lorne as the Fool in Angel is less a footnote than an entire essay waiting to be done. Under the apparent depiction of the character as different and rather irrelevant (Ken Dodd with shiny bells in the Branagh Hamlet, delectably), he tells people not only jokes that reveal the truth, but sometimes harsh truths dressed up as the more philosophical of jokes (though perhaps nothing quite so despairing as Wesley's joke to Fred). And Lorne, through the green skin and the singing and the fun of his bar, through 'the joke and the quip', ponders what exactly it means to be Angel, and hence to be human, (a non-human explaining a non-human's life and coming up with human profundities).
In previous Seasons he's been something of a touchstone, and a Touchstone. In 'As You Like It', while Jaques speaks elegantly but melancholically, (Wesley?), Lorne is the one who can deliver advice dressed in fun, while the Forest of Arden remains inhospitable around him. But now he has become a kind of Yorrick figure- irrevocably changed by death. In 'Hamlet', Yorrick is used to speed up the character's meditation on how all things pass (Hamlet's 'certain providence in the fall of a sparrow,' incidentally, is maybe my favourite Shakespeare speech, the softer, mellow opposite of Macbeth's 'Sound and Fury'), while hear Lorne, though not dead, helps the viewers' thoughts of death from a different perspective- one way of reacting to death.
Inside this formless nonsense, there's a well-structured essay screaming to get out!
Angel is indeed very Lear-ian. He's put his trust in various noble counsellors, and they've turned against him. Gunn his faithful Regan kills Fred, Wesley's Goneril loses all purchase on reality. And the faithful counsellor who told it true and Angel sent away. Connor plays Cordelia. No, not that one...
TCH
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Great episode and a great review! -- Pony, 07:04:50 04/20/04 Tue
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Embarrassed over the quotelessness of my header -- Pony... O shame, where is thy blush?, 11:10:49 04/20/04 Tue
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Alas Poor Yorick, I knew him well, a fellow of infinite jest (ATs 5.17 spoilers) -- s'kat, 09:26:52 04/20/04 Tue
Lovely post, TCH. Although if you want nothing but Shakespearene quotes in the subject lines - you may get few responses. I had to look up mine, the last time I read Hamlet was in 1988 and the book is far far away from me. ;-)
I agree with your assessment of Underneath. Amazing episode.
A few things...
1. Gunn.
The irony of the two scenes between Angel and Gunn - the first where Angel tells Gunn he must atone and not hide, and the second where Angel accepts Gunn's decision to stay and torture himself in the eternal loop - is that it depicts perfectly in some ways what Angel himself has done wrong since he got the soul.
We are discussing memory here - and you make the point of how you can't really atone if you don't remember or if you hide. Angel, when he gets the soul - attempts to hide. He goes into the gutters. Or he attempts to forget - in Becoming, Buffy sends Angel to hell and the Angel she sends does not remember what he did. He seems to have no memory of Angelus' deeds. Gunn likewise ends up in hell undergoing torture, yet has no memory of his deeds.
"conscience makes cowards of us all..."
The easy way out for Gunn is to jump into WR&H's eternal loop hell. To be tortured for his crime and forget it.
He does not have to learn from it. He does not have to look at the result. And he does not have to deal with who he has become because of it. Someone on this board once noted, it may have been sdeve, that guilt gets you nowhere - if you wallow in it.
Another interesting contrast to Gunn, is Spike. Gunn like Spike, in Chosen, puts on an amulet, which is also from WR&H. Like Spike in Chosen he remains in the dungeon to be tortured, while the heros dash out through the flames to safety. Like Spike in Chosen, Gunn's choice frees them.
And like Spike, Gunn is trapped by the amulet to re-experience the torture over and over and over again. But, Unlike Spike - Gunn has no memory of it. And Gunn's choice is more to punish himself than really save the world. The two amulets are alike, yet very different. Spike's amulet helps him break free yet preserves him in a hell of his choosing, Gunn's amulet imprisions him and preserves him in a hell of his own making.
2. 'I fell in love', says Eve, who has become mortal as a result. She is the one dismissed in this episode, and yet she doesn't appear to end up so unhappy: she has Lindsey back. She is the one most reconciled to an underneath she didn't even realise she had.
Love may be the answer here. Love after all is what freed Darla - when she sacrificed herself for Connor. And love is what freed Spike in a way, when he sought the soul for Buffy and wore the amulet. And love is what caused Buffy to jump of the tower of her adolescence and become an adult for her sister.
"Love is a funny thing" - Spike in Lover's Walk
"Love makes you do the wacky" - Buffy in one of the episodes can't remember which.
I can't help but wonder if it may be an act of love that frees Angel? Not sure, since we could argue that Angel has certainly loved before. But has Angel ever truly done a "selfless" act of love?
Oh - another little thing - MArcus frees Eve from her immortality clause and relationship with the SP with a pen and her signature. This reminds me of Wes' attempt to free Lilah from her clause, by burning her contract and the fact that the thing Wes got from WR&H was a pen. A pen Angel uses in that episode to kill a werewolf, an episode coincidentally enough, also written by Craft and Fain and featuring the same house.
3. Spike's role in the piece - surprised you haven't commented on this more TCH or figured it out yet, since you're the one who first pointed out that BTVS S5 and ATS S5 have similar trajectories.
Spike is in the Dawn role. The unwanted/beloved sibling/child of the hero. Like Dawn - people argue Spike is Angel's child not his brother. Like Dawn, Spike shows up out of the blue. Like Dawn, Spike is whiny in the beginning and alienated, slowly becoming more and more part of the group.
People have become so enamored of Spike as the jester or joker or fool on BTVS, that they are resistant, as is Angel, to the fact he's changed. Like Buffy suspected Dawn in BTVS, Angel suspects Spike. Spike isn't the jester any more. He retired from that role a while ago. He's in the Dawn role right now. He's the key - the person telling the hero to live. In S5 BTVS and S6 BTVS - it's Dawn who forces Buffy to see there's more to her role than just a slayer, she's also Dawn's sister. It's Dawn who keeps bringing the real world in. Spike on ATS keeps reminding Angel of the world. He drinks, Angel doesn't. He eats. He challenges him.
The jester in the play is actually Lindsey, which if you think about it has always been Lindsey's role on ATS. Tricksters/Jesters/Fools are characters that are more or less neutral/grey. We don't know what they will do next.
People keep complaining that they don't know Lindsey's plan or his true motive, well that's the Trickster. They are opportunists. They do what suits them. Lindsey in S5 ATS has shaken things up. Like Spike did to a degree in S5 BTVS.
He pushes Spike and Angel together. He brings Spike back.
He forces Angel to see how important Spike is and not just ignore him. He is the reason Cordelia wakes up long enough to slap Angel upside the head. Lindsey is the jester.
Spike is the sibling/the key.
4. We repeatedly see Illyria in the mirror this week. OK, inner outer woman, surface and underneath, but I can't help thinking that separately, the twin suggestion in her name is still being played with
I'm wondering if Fred may not be inside Illyria. You discuss memory above and how crucial it is. Illyria retains Fred's memories which seem to be like a virus, fragments, taking hold. We are after all what our memories comprise of.
As we see with both Gunn and Lindsey in the holding cell dimension - both are mere automatons without their memory.
I think it is a shout-out to Twelth Night - the play where the twins grieve for one another, only to realize they aren't dead. Just as Andrew was grieving for Spike, but Spike is not dead. There's only one true death in Twelth Night and that happens off stage, just as I believe to this point there is only one true death so far on ATS and that one happened off stage.
If I'm right, then Fred is caged within the shell of Illyria. The two have switched places. So while it is Illyria who speaks, Fred breaks through in slices, again like a pesky computer virus.
Again, lovely post.
sk
PS: anyone else having troubles with voy this morning? Or is it just me?
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Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized -- Tchaikovsky, 06:15:19 04/21/04 Wed
Love may be the answer here. Love after all is what freed Darla - when she sacrificed herself for Connor. And love is what freed Spike in a way, when he sought the soul for Buffy and wore the amulet. And love is what caused Buffy to jump of the tower of her adolescence and become an adult for her sister
I could cope with a resolution like that. Certainly there needs to be some moment of Angel really connecting with someone. This season, so far, the only time he's connected has been when he's connecting ove rhis own disconnection- Numero Cinco, Wesley after severing his family's closest tie (the Killed Father, Oedipal shorthand for isolation and lost past, interestingly), with 'Spike' in Shells after losing Fred, that human connection in the bureaucratic world. And most of all, Cordelia in their final kiss, but a kiss consummating their separation rather than their togetherness.
Spike's role in the piece - surprised you haven't commented on this more TCH or figured it out yet, since you're the one who first pointed out that BTVS S5 and ATS S5 have similar trajectories.
That's a really good point. The question is, can we see Angel dying at the end of the Season to save Spike. Probably not literally. But perhaps the motif is subtler- more internal, as Angel as a series is compared to Buffy (Angel's tagline: The Monster Within; Buffy's: 'The Monstrous World'). Angel must associate himself more with Spike; with his striving and failing.
I'd be most surprised if Fred wasn't hiding inside Illyria in some sense. How's about this? Though for much of the Season, the gang have been in their bodies, their perceptions have been altered by the mind-wipe. Illyria is the complement; the creature without the same visage, without the verisimilitude of a continuation, without the same name, but actually with Fred's memories. And so the mirror plays out.
TCH
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An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin -- s'kat, 07:43:29 04/21/04 Wed
But perhaps the motif is subtler- more internal, as Angel as a series is compared to Buffy (Angel's tagline: The Monster Within; Buffy's: 'The Monstrous World'). Angel must associate himself more with Spike; with his striving and failing.
I agree. I think it's a different twist. After all Angel is already dead or rather undead, and has died many times. What Angel hasn't done is learned to *really* live. He keeps hiding in caves of sorts. I think the answer more is in embracing the twin. I see Spike, in how they are filming him at least, as sort of the twin to Angel. Yin/Yang encircling each other. I think it's more a coming together - like Dawn and Buffy in Grave, fighting the monsters, than it is Dawn and Buffy on the tower, since
Spike is no damsel. That was Connor, last year. Angel already did his tower sacrifice after all - he sacrificed himself and his friends to WR&H in exchange for Connor's life and as Buffy reaped the consequences of her jump, Angel reaped the consequences of his. (It just had a darker twist than BTVS, but Angel is a much darker show.)
I'd be most surprised if Fred wasn't hiding inside Illyria in some sense. How's about this? Though for much of the Season, the gang have been in their bodies, their perceptions have been altered by the mind-wipe. Illyria is the complement; the creature without the same visage, without the verisimilitude of a continuation, without the same name, but actually with Fred's memories. And so the mirror plays out.
I think this is one of the major themes of the season.
The idea of hiding inside caves, repression. What lies "underneath" - the repressed self. Wes and his joke - one is the exterior Wes and one the repressed self, or Wes after the mindwipe and Wes' subconscious self that remembers it and his part in it, and that self is screaming, while the other stands calmly drinking in a bar.
Fred and Illyria - Illyria is super-strong, speaks beautifully, dressed in shades of blue, can't help but wonder if Fred is the repressed self hiding underneath.
And of course - You're Welcome - what was in the failsafe?
I keep thinking it may be Angel's repressed self - Angelus.
WR&H seem to be masters at boxing up things. (Boxing up - another synomnyme (sp?) for repression.) Such as Lorne's sleep. Everything is so orderly within the WR&H world - everything filed. And there are lots of box metaphors throughout the season - Lorne's sleep in a box, Spike's corporeality released by a box, a stick that can remove Angel's will kept in a box, and Illyria's essence escaping from a box. Oh and the Parasite that attacks Angel is kept in a box. Not to mention the things Fred removes from Angel in his dream are all placed within boxes. Also reminds me Saijhan - whom WR&H place in a box, by removing his corporeality, and Justine literally places in a type of box or container when Angel gives it back to him.
Angel and AI gang seem to be unboxing things, while WR&H are boxing them. They open up the "penalty box" to rescue Lindsey. They open up Illyria's box. They open up the box of Lorne's sleep. They open the envelope unleashing the amulet holding Spike. They open the box of Spike's corporeality.
So, we are dealing in a way with levels or layers of consciousness. Question is - what happens when you go to that bottom layer - where everything has been repressed?
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Full fathom five thy father lies -- Arethusa, 08:25:32 04/21/04 Wed
Don't forget Angel in a box under the surface of the ocean, as well as Angel and Spike underneath in a submarine. In becoming a vampire Angel was first boxed up in a coffin, then boxed himself up in hotels, in AYNOHYEB, the hotel in WWF, and the Hyperion. But he goes even further into his subconscious, going underwater in Deep Down and again in WWF. Angel repressed Angelus by shoving him back inside in Orpheus but he he doesn't go away, as Spike, who might represent Angel's repression, keeps popping up no matter how many times he is buried, under Sunnydale, as a ghost, in the W&H basement where the fail-safe lies.
When you get to the bottom layer, when you open the boxes, the monster is freed, to be slain/integrated, but not just the monster. Also freed is hope: W&H's code words for itself are "Pandora's Box." And therefore it might not be Angel's end that is coming, but rather his existential journey to find a place in the world, to find the hope that makes life worth living, as Wes said to Illyria.
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"Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds -- cjl, 10:16:39 04/21/04 Wed
LITTLE BOXES (w&m by Malvina Reynolds)
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.
And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
This song is closely associated with Weavers leader Pete Seeger and the folk music movement of the 1960s. Watching Lindsey strolling onto his lawn and grabbing the morning paper along with dozens of identical subarbanites starting me humming this song. Sorry, no Shakespeare reference; just thought you'd enjoy it. Carry on.
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Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome, -- Ann, 09:44:09 04/20/04 Tue
Great review as usual. Angel is enshelled in the s/hells of his own making. An I agree completely that releasing Connor (IMO - from his shell of a false life)as the selfless act of a parent, will be the denouement of the series and allow Angel to be free.
Once again Whendon uses names from Shakespeare. Marcius (Markus Hamilton). I have not read Coriolanus so others may be able to show these connections better than I.
Again great review.
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As the dead carcasses of unburied men, That do corrupt my air, I banish you! -- KdS, 10:53:50 04/20/04 Tue
There aren't any real Coriolanus parallels in AtS. BtVS7, on the other hand, might be thought to bear some parallels to Coriolanus with a happy ending.
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Love alters not....but bears it out even to the edge of doom -- Rahael, 10:46:11 04/20/04 Tue
You know, i was just thinking of something while I was composing my latest reply to TCH.
Joss loves Shakespeare. This season, we've seen Angel 'inherit' the earth. He's gained worldly power. He's the CEO of a large corporation, with people at his command, to do his bidding, cars at his diposal etc etc.
It's a court, and Angel's the king. He doesn't know which courtiers to trust - they may be loyal to the old one, whom he kind of usurped. He sits uneasily on his throne, and he is concerned with issues of good governance and the decisions of power.
Which is really bad news for Angel, if one looks at Shakesperian kings. They tend to fall hard. Or if they have successful reighs, we find out in the last scene that everything falls apart after they die.
You know what i think of Angel's decision re Connor - but another thing I realised just now. There are many opinions that Angel did the right thing, the best thing for Connor.
Well, that doesn't matter at all, because Angel's going to get punished anyway. That's what happens on AtS. Angel makes a decision, and then he suffers hard for it. Even on BtVS. Sleeps with Buffy and all hell breaks lose. I remember Joss' commentary on Innocence. He said he worried about the sexual politics of it, but in the show, they punished all decisions.
However ME show the final ending, and however they portray Angel's decision, though-- I'll always believe it was the wrong one. And even if that alternate life Connor is given is 'real' (even thuogh it's created by W&H, and look how they've turned out this season - the house of death, fred called it) everything you and TCH point out above shows that Connor can only truly be happy if he fixes the mistakes of the past. How happy can a lie make you?
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I could have sworn I was responding to a post from Masq -- Rahael, 10:59:39 04/20/04 Tue
that was titled "thanks" - was I deluding myself? It now appears I was responding to Ann, though Ann isn't saying the things I was responding to!
Urrm. No shakespeare quote on this post!
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You were! -- Masq, 11:03:45 04/20/04 Tue
I deleted it and replaced it with the same post, only with a Shakespearean subject line (see below). Trying to get into the spirit of things. ; )
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Nothing will come of nothing (unspoiled speculation this week's Angel) -- Masq, 11:18:03 04/20/04 Tue
That's what happens on AtS. Angel makes a decision, and then he suffers hard for it.
Oh, I have no problem with Angel suffering for this decision. I think he should. What is keeping me awake this week is that Connor will suffer for this decision, and that Angel's suffering will come as a result of whatever fate ME has in mind for Connor. Namely, I have mentioned elsewhere, ME's tendency to kill of characters they don't know what else to do with.
everything you and TCH point out above shows that Connor can only truly be happy if he fixes the mistakes of the past. How happy can a lie make you?
Plenty happy, unless that lie comes to prevent something else you want/need more. This is a show about redemption, and this particular story line could be seen as an attempt to show what happens when someone is prevented from having the chance to redeem themselves by someone else's actions.
Or maybe ME isn't going there. I don't know.
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For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds -- Rahael, 04:54:44 04/22/04 Thu
Well, you've seen last night's ep, and I haven't! So now you have more of an idea where ME is going, and where they aren't!
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The play's the thing, to catch the conscience of a king -- s'kat, 15:09:47 04/20/04 Tue
Joss loves Shakespeare. This season, we've seen Angel 'inherit' the earth. He's gained worldly power. He's the CEO of a large corporation, with people at his command, to do his bidding, cars at his diposal etc etc.
It's a court, and Angel's the king. He doesn't know which courtiers to trust - they may be loyal to the old one, whom he kind of usurped. He sits uneasily on his throne, and he is concerned with issues of good governance and the decisions of power.
Which is really bad news for Angel, if one looks at Shakesperian kings. They tend to fall hard. Or if they have successful reighs, we find out in the last scene that everything falls apart after they die.
You know what i think of Angel's decision re Connor - but another thing I realised just now. There are many opinions that Angel did the right thing, the best thing for Connor.
Well, that doesn't matter at all, because Angel's going to get punished anyway. That's what happens on AtS. Angel makes a decision, and then he suffers hard for it. Even on BtVS. Sleeps with Buffy and all hell breaks lose. I remember Joss' commentary on Innocence. He said he worried about the sexual politics of it, but in the show, they punished all decisions.
What's interesting here is that it is Angel who punishes Angel. Someone said something really interesting recently, and I wish I remembered who it was, (possibly Plin in her livejournal), that we go on and on about how cruel the Jossverse is to the characters, but is it the verse punishing the characters or the characters punishing themselves?
Hamlet's worst enemy in the play Hamlet was indeed Hamlet.
Just as Lear's was Lear. Or Macbeth, Macbeth. In each play, the final tragedy is set in motion by the principal character, sometimes ironically to punish himself.
Angel seems to be flaying himself this season quite a bit.
Spike keeps asking him why. He side-steps the question.
And he keeps wanting to bring up what Wes did, because now, he finally gets it - but wait, he removed Wes' memory of it so guess he can't.
Then there's his son - a boy who looks a great deal like the kid in the holding cell. The holding cell kid like Connor is dangerous - pulls out an gun the moment Lindsey tries to leave. And when Gunn insists on staying behind, to inflict whatever punishment he chooses to inflict on himself, Angel agrees.
I'm wondering if Angel hasn't been playing into WR&H's hands a bit by his insistence on flaying himself for his past choices. They say no one can beat us up more than ourselves, after all? Once we are made aware of our crimes, we punish ourselves far more than anyone else can concieve of.
This makes me think of something else - Hellbound, where Parvayne mentions that the ghosts Spike sees are his own construction. He plays on Spike's fears. You believe you deserve to be in hell - so I can throw you there. Just as Gunn believes he should be punished. Or Angel believes he should be cursed. Hell can be after all just a state of mind. You believe you should be in hell, you are in hell.
Not sure that really fits with the quote above, but I liked the quote ....sk
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Re: The play's the thing, to catch the conscience of a king -- Rahael, 09:55:28 04/21/04 Wed
(oooh, I'm cheating by keeping your quote on my header!)
I think it's very appropriate - will probably reply later in a manner that does justice to your points but am unwisely going to rant elsewhere about something else instead. (my priorities are hopeless!)
As for punishment - I think Angel punishes himself yes, but he's also very good at avoiding it at times. In one sense, he chooses one form of punishment to escape another. In S4, in Home, he doesn't appear to be fully convinced that that's where redemption lies, because he, or he and the writers, deny it to Connor.
He takes it upon himself, but that's not always the solution.
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Great review -- KdS, 10:47:48 04/20/04 Tue
Can't feel I can comment until I see the episode.
the greatest departure of a television show since the field turned to poppies
Edmund in Flanders' fields?
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Will be sending the episode this afternoon -- Tchaikovsky, 05:28:21 04/21/04 Wed
Edmund in Flanders' fields?
You got it.
TCH
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Oft expectation fails, and most oft there (spoilers for this week's ep trailer) -- Masq, 10:48:18 04/20/04 Tue
Thanks for finally articulating what it was that rankled me so about Angel's decision re: Connor in home.
Looking at it from Angel's point of view, it seems a father's act of supreme hope and compassion, giving my screwed-up son a better life. We can talk, talk, talk about how it is "all a lie", but everyone argues that it is a benevolent lie, a gift, a chance to start over.
But I always felt it was an act of weakness of Angel's part, an unwillingness to do the hard work of fatherhood and help his son to start over the hard way. Magic band-aid. People argued in return that though the real world without magic might necessitate that, but in Angel's world there's magic, and "any parent would have chosen the same, if they could".
What is Connor's world like? He like Gunn cannot manufacture atonement from a life he doesn't understand. Like Gunn's decision, Angel's for Connor was the wrong one, since it sliced away what lay beneath, instead of introducing those two men in the bar to a deeper friendship.
Connor has been put in a position where he cannot remember the things he did that hurt people, and even though we may feel sympathy for him, because it was his screwed-up life that lead him to hurt people, I always felt it did not make things better for Connor or the people he hurt that he was given this manufactured life where he simply forgot his sins (however motivated) and had no chance to work through them and find a real chance at redemption. The Connor running around with the manufactured childhood is not the Connor we know. The Connor we know is still frozen at the moment of his melt-down in the sporting good's store when his father's well-known paternalism shoved all he was deep down and replaced it with a happy lie.
At least, we assume it is a happy lie. It's a lie manufactured by Wolfram and Hart, so it may not be all that happy.
On Connor's fate hangs the denouement of the entire series
I hope you're right. With Connor coming back in episode 18 rather than a later episode, we may simply get ME wiping their hands of another pesky plot-point before getting down to the real climax of the season. And that seems all the more likely with every member of the gang who's memories were violated off somewhere else, dead, distracted or completely memory-less, and certainly not in any position to call Angel on his decisions.
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O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! -- Tchaikovsky, 05:57:34 04/21/04 Wed
I refuse to believe that Connor's return will be as little as a pesky plot point resolution. Not when they've been insistently referencing it as key to Angel's problems all Season. And I also don't see how they can do Connor's return justice in one episode. His is not the end of Cordelia, all ready to be packaged up and thrown away. I'm rather hoping he gets the run Faith got at the end of Buffy Season Seven- five interesting episodes; though hopefully, unlike Faith, it won't be at the cost of others' character resolutions.
At least, we assume it is a happy lie. It's a lie manufactured by Wolfram and Hart, so it may not be all that happy.
When you put it like that, it actually sounds a lot more sinister. What's the betting that there's some heart-ripped-out-type rider on Connor's oh so normal new life?
The amazing thing about the mindwipe is that even Minear, it appears, considers it a happy ending for Connor, (though not for Angel). I trusted him more, but in his commentary he explained that they were in fact going to kill Connor off entirely, but took pity on the character, and gave him a different ending instead. Now it's best not to take the events even of a full Season at face value (see 'Fool For Love' after 'Lies My Parents Told Me', to see how genuinely false and corrosive Spike's Lessons were), and I for one wouldn't be surprised if Whedon makes the line that bit greyer. At very least, here's hoping...
TCH
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What's done can't be undone (unspoiled spec, tonight's Angel) -- Masq, 06:35:55 04/21/04 Wed
I'm rather hoping he gets the run Faith got at the end of Buffy Season Seven- five interesting episodes; though hopefully, unlike Faith, it won't be at the cost of others' character resolutions.
Alas, they have not shown the respect for Connor as a character so far that Faith and many other minor characters got. I fear Connor will not find the redemption Faith did.
My expectations for Connor's return were high because of the constant references to Connor throughout the season, and I am unspoiled for what will happen, but I am pessimistic. The build-up Connor got in season 3--miracle child, had a big destiny, would kill Sahjhan, blah, blah got sidelined as he became a foil for Angel and then the writers wrote themselves into a corner they could only solve with death or dis-memory.
Connor did kill Jasmine, but he was not the one scripted to do that, Cordelia was, and then CC was unable to do it, so they had Connor do it. In short, all the implicit promise of the character of Connor was forgotten by the writers as they sorted out their season 4 trajectory.
So I don't really have much faith in ME to carry out the implicit promise of the season 5 episodes re: Connor. And I hope like hell I'm wrong.
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Nothing that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes. (future casting spoiler) -- Rob, 06:53:57 04/21/04 Wed
Just in case you want to rethink looking here, I'll put this in inviso-text. Again, it's only a casting spoiler, not a plot one:
If the casting spoilers are any indication, 5.18 is not the only episode for which VK is signed up to return. Which, at least, to me, indicates that this will be more than just a hasty completion of a "problem" plot point.
Rob
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DON'T OPEN THE PREVIOUS ONE...INVISO-TEXT FAILED!!! OPEN THIS ONE... -- Rob, 07:00:24 04/21/04 Wed
Okay, for some reason, every time I try to do inviso-text, it doesn't work, so I'm just going to skip a lot of lines...Remember, only a casting spoiler, not plot. I have no idea about the plot...
If the casting spoilers are any indication, 5.18 is not the only episode for which VK is signed up to return. Which, at least, to me, indicates that this will be more than just a hasty completion of a "problem" plot point.
Rob
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The above is a quote from the lost "Hamlet spoils the end of The Mousetrap" scene -- Pony, 07:15:34 04/21/04 Wed
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How did you know?!? I went out of my way to try to make that one as obscure as possible. ;-) -- Rob, 07:21:29 04/21/04 Wed
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The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon -- Tchaikovsky, 07:25:20 04/21/04 Wed
OK, that's not at all relevant, and may start a flame-war, but I wanted to get it in somewhere.
You're saying Rob, Rob of all people, has an extant text of the full unexpurgated (six hour) Hamlet. The one with the Horatio/Laertes slash scene? The one where Ophelia appears to Gertrude in a vision, telling her not to drink from the poisoned chalice? The one where Hamlet is resurrected from the dead by Horatio, and a giant snake comes out of his mouth?
Why does no one tell me these things?
TCH
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Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? -- Rob, 07:39:40 04/21/04 Wed
...Rob of all people...
Should I be insulted by that?
I'll have you know that not only do I have the entire "Hamlet," (along with the Rosencrantz/Guildenstern/Polonius menage a trois scene) but that I also have the long-lost final volume of Proust, loosely translated, If You've Made It This Far..., which is currently on the floor of my dining room, balancing out a table with a broken leg.
Rob
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Here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance -- Tchaikovsky, 07:49:01 04/21/04 Wed
Darn, I could just write subject lines all day long, and be deaf to the world...
What I of course meant was, 'Rob, of all people, the person with whom I have the most in common, the most giving and sympathetic, Rob who would post it to me in a second if he new I wanted a read'. I hear transatlantic postage is very reasonable these days...;-)
I would ask you to send the Proust while you're at it, but it probably wouldn't pass the weight limits on the 'plane.
TCH-getting so far off topic and self-indulgent on Masq's board that the phrase 'as I hate trolls, all spamming posts, and thee' can't be far away
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Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? -- Rob, 08:14:44 04/21/04 Wed
You're right. These Shakespearean subject lines are hella addictive! ;-)
What I of course meant was, 'Rob, of all people, the person with whom I have the most in common, the most giving and sympathetic, Rob who would post it to me in a second if he new I wanted a read'.
Oh, well, that's very different! And of course I would send it to you in an instant, but hmmm...I seem to have misplaced it.
Rob
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Off-topic doth bode well for this sweet board -- Masq, 10:13:50 04/21/04 Wed
It means we'll have plenty to talk about when the Fat Jossy sings.
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LOLOL! -- Rahael, 09:13:25 04/21/04 Wed
Umm, that's a kind of long lost Shakespearian quote too....
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Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown (sp to 5.17) -- fresne, 17:33:27 04/20/04 Tue
Although, as Edmund's father Gloucester might say, "It's better than a sharp poke in the eye." Ahem...
Illyria jaws cannot open large enough to emit a barbaric yawp from rooftops. Rather she who was a god to a god of infinite spaces is now a queen of finite space, trapped inside the nutshell that is the world. Inside the walnut that is Angel's heart. Inside the half known woman, buried under layers of Pylian girl. The inconograph, in whose orison's they all choose to have their sins remembered, symbolized, avatar walking in the earth. They don't even have a name for themselves. "Not Scoobies." Shifting as they did from Cordelia, who spoke the truth, to the girl with the boy's name, who wrote glyphs on the walls, to Illyria, who slides through topsy turvy twelfth night. Her gaze is fractured and glass. Cold. Demon. Smurf. The bean in the fruit cake. The trapped night's mare with kaleidoscope eyes. Other worlds undiscoverable countries that she dare not go. Fragile. Weak. Stinking. Night blooming jasmine long ago crushed.
"Back in the olden days of Caritas"
Back in the days when the world had Caritas. Before the place of Caritas was smashed and crashed and an infant was born in an alley in the rain. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Alas poor Yorick, Hamlet knew him well. Remembered him, until Hamlet himself is sung to sleep by angels.
Those few, those lucky few, those band of brothers, who've spilled blood and now drink and drown. But their troubles can swim.
And thus the native hue of resolution, is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and thought and thought. Thoughts so terrible that we cannot bear to look upon them too long lest they overwhelm and enterprises of great pith and moment their currents turn awry in wallowing.
The sea with its sweet soft breezes dancing layers above and dark currents curling spiral below. Full fathoms five lie father's bones to coral change, with a hey nonny nonny. Coral colonies for tiny creatures in their tiny office cube rooms accreting layers and layers until what is beneath cannot be seen. Volcanos pushing forth the stone that is liquid from below.
You're soaking in it.
Seabreeze. Vodka, a dash of Grapefruit and Cranberry Juice. Whiskey. Beer. Poison to dull the pain of meetings. I believe that I've been to that meeting. On repeat and longing for a bare bodkin or a Long Beach Ice Tea, which would make for interesting notes.
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Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things... -- Tchaikovsky, 06:38:11 04/21/04 Wed
None of which were interesting notes. Although I'd prefer it to urine any day. And I suspect that last sentence goes without saying.
Xander's Gloucester also had fun and games until he lost his eye. What we never find out is whether it decreases his perception (the one who sees, and needs a cape), or heightens it. The seventh Season grumbler emerges from me again, fangs from a vampire, claws from a cat. And so back to Season Five, the free associating poet who can draw coherence out of the bag. Season Seven Buffy's ersatz Tchaikovsky to Season Five Angel's fresne. It's only my vaulting ambition, and not Pavayne's kind, but Sergei Bubka. And then it gets self-indulgent...
The quality of Caritas was not strain'd, It dropped like the gentle rain from Heaven. Back in the olden days when we got rainfall. Before the desert of Angel's ambition, Illyria's tomb of Ozymandias, and the ruin of time. Out, out, damned tick. Time's arrow is but death's slow-marching leash. And Lorne, cajoling the sea back into its place. Windless or at least, with a little less breeze. The stoic, static Learjust going on with his work- to persever in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness Impious impishness of Lorne- the trickster Lindsey with the spark that lit the bonfire of Spike's pyromania. To be redeemed from fire by fire. If Spike is now the Key, what is now the Door? Connor and Gunn's incarceration in their own Pavayne-ian vault, with only slits for observation of life? Only observation? Couple it with something, Make it a word and a blow An apocalypse coming. Correction. The. 'Fight the Big Fight' quotes Lindsey incorrectly, or at least generically, in 'Underneath'. It should be 'Fight the good fight. But then, when it comes to it, is the fight that Good after all. Mischievous typo allows misquote from 'Dear Boy'- now perhaps Hamilton to Angel:
'Good doesn't want you. But I still do.'
The service and the loyalty I owe
In doing this, pays itself.
However that works.
TCH
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If music/philosophy be the food of love, play on -- fresne, 11:51:31 04/21/04 Wed
Ah, were there but world enough and time. I'd spin titles for a living and meander the woods on the edge of "the city" on the roads we lucky few travel by. And with a snicker-snack read the Vorpal blades as they Iron Chef beamish thoughts and brilling words, callooh, callay!
If, vaulting ambition, o'erleaps itself, then its best as you have done, to do it well. Which is to say, what a delicious thread.
Drunkenness and delirium that was once delight when the world was more "cruelly innocent" and dark dreams walked the earth showing their innermost fears for Illyria's pleasure. When the worlds lacked boundaries. Before the key locked the doors. Not that there don't appear to be plenty of cat flaps and ceiling cracks and fissures in shifting sands.
For some reason I think of Gaiman's Dream of Cats, a primordial world where once cats ruled and humans skippered.
Well, that and now and also now the image of Lorne standing on a lonely shore before tidal flats of mud and clay, the leaden sea pulled far away and gone. There are no shells, only gray sand and grey mud. For all Lorne sings and sings beneath the storm riddled and sky, the rain will not fall. The sea will not return. His boat lies dry and beached and pale in the dim leaching light. We leave men behind now.
Lindsey and Spike sit by a bonfire on that cold Northern beach drinking beer. The bonfire is so large, that they cannot sit close and are therefore warm on the front and cold where they sit in the sand. And Eve, whose expression bodes that the having of the thing is not the same as wanting it. Ah, then Angel, in his box, in his sea, beneath, submarine, crusting with busy coral office cubes and sinking into the soak.
What now is the door? Rather ask what is not. Like tectonic plates, they've been fragmenting from the main into islands. It seems the bell has been tolling all the while, but it was too bright to hear.
Mmm self indulgence feels good. Plus, fire pretty.
Why weren't any Angel S2 episodes written or directed by Joss? -- ghady, 07:02:44 04/20/04 Tue
See subject.
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That's not quite true -- Tchaikovsky, 08:12:19 04/20/04 Tue
He actually did direct Mere Smith's first script, Untouched, which was Angel's fourth episode in the second Season.
As to why he didn't do more, I'm tempted to believe that he had more faith in the burgeoning writing of Tim Minear, David Greenwalt, Mere Smith and Shawn Ryan than he did for the Buffy writing staff, including newbie Rebecca Rand Kirshner, in Buffy Season Five. Apparently the writing process on Buffy was also less autocratic and more Joss-centric.
TCH
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And he co-plotted 'Happy Anniversary' -- TCH- hands like quicksilver, head like a sieve, 08:14:55 04/20/04 Tue
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Re: That's not quite true -- heywhynot, 17:00:10 04/20/04 Tue
Plus lets face it, the arc of season 5 was something Joss had been alluding to/building towards/hinting at for two seasons. Season 5 was going to be Joss's focus that year.
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