Previous February 2004

More February 2004

• A Slayer tries to absolve herself of guilt and pain she feels
  
• A force from Britain is sent to collect her
  
• A vampire acting outside the scope of the organisation attempts to console and comfort her
  
• Said vampire is finally thwarted by the organisation.

But, eventually, we get those lovely subersive hints about the new Story, about how life has moved on. Angel, the story runs in 'Consequences', is just getting somewhere with Faith, when Wesley interrupts and the Council attempt to take Faith. Here Spike, with excess baggage really not helping him, gets nowhere in rehabilitating Dana, other than to his own detriment. In the end, when Andrew backed by Slayers takes Andrew away, the viewer is left with the impression that she is in the safest hands, with Giles, Buffy and Andrew as equipped to deal with Dana, largely due to their experience with Faith, as anyone else. Giles has graduated, to be a new Quentin Travers, and one worthy of respect. Buffy, the head of the whole global organisation, if not as administrator then at least as figurehead, is in Rome, the centre of the Empire. What is she, Saint Buffy? No, the Pope presiding over cardinals, and a Caesar presiding over centurions. And you can't help feeling, a damn good one.

'Consequences' is dark and horrible, one of the best nihilistic Noxon offerings of Buffy's run. 'Damage' subverts the shadows and allows that pure, soulful burst of sunlight that encapsulated 'Chosen' to be shed upon the bleak subject of Dana. But what about the instigator of that Ray, the Sundance Kid himself?

Spike is fascinating in this episode, largely because he plays a whole host of subtly different roles at the same time, and all of them equally sum up sides of his character. First of all, we get him as dramatic foil and competitor to Angel, as we see the lifts to the psychiatric ward opening, and the two neatly paralleled. During the conversation that follows with the doctor, Spike shows the slight differences in how he would handle the situation, though mostly stylistic rather than intrinsic. At the end, when he decides to find Dana, he shows off his impulsive streak, his tendency, in a later to be gruesome metaphor, to be hands-on. Angel shows a little more guile in double-checking the story with the nurse, and therefore gets to the truth first- that Dana is a Slayer, mad and overrun by Vision Dreams which meld with reality. In 'Consequences', Buffy is drowning, being pulled down by Allan Finch until his body is washed up in the docks. Here the weight of Slayer lore is slowly asphyxiating Dana, and we have the tiny cell to represent it.

Angel can't help calling Spike a 'pathological idiot', but form the point of view of the sap Andrew, Spike is Gandalf, come back to him at the turning of the tide. Spike as a wise mentor, mighty in counsel, is perhaps a little daft, but there is at least a kernel of truth in Spike's development from the Grey vampire, tending only to do good due to his chip and his love for a Slayer, and now the White, a self-professed Hero. But as soon as we get anywhere near Spike as the Hero of 'Soul Purpose' or the bridge of Khazad-Dum, the text twists on us. It's Whedonland, not Middle Earth.

Spike is made to remember by Dana the deaths of both of the Slayers, and by association his other atrocities in the long years of the twentieth century. Goddard references the line in 'Fool For Love': 'I'm sorry love, I don't speak Chinese', and we're reminded just how callous and thoughtless he was as a vampire. When he comes to find Dana with Andrew, and Andrew gets knocked out, he leaves him and tracks his Slayer, showing his usual persistence in a task and warrior mentality in leaving Andrew. But when he finds her again, all sorts of symbolism comes to town. We have the needle with which Spike injects Dana. Literally, it is her confused remembrances switching Spike for her earlier torturer. But also, how much of that needle reflects what Spike helped do to Dana in 'Chosen'? Do we see Spike as inflicting strength and responsibility on people who have not taken the oath that they 'are ready to be strong'?

And then we get Nikki's reclamation of the leather duster through Dana, and the cutting off of Spike's hands. He's tried to be impulsive, but he's ended up once again leashed, like the wheelchair, the lovelornness, the chip, the trigger, and the ghostliness before this action. Spike the dynamic physical vampire in perpetual conflict with fate's compulsion with making him question his instincts, in pushing him against his cerebral, poetic side. In this case, his corporeal hands come back, but how much has the Spike Hero of 'Soul Purpose been dented?

Brief bites:
-Gunn playing nine holes of golf is a deliberately corporate and lovely detail in his hook, line and sinker approach to the company.

-The answer to the crossword clue [In a mellifluous manner (7)] is, I think almost certainly, 'treacly'. We get a hint in the teaser that Dana will be hanging about with the molasses, and that all fits together with Andrew's rather sugary exposition in Angel's office.

-There's a reverse shot of 'In the Dark' in the third act. Watch the scene with Andrew talking to Spike in an alleyway, and Dana stalking them up on the rooftop. Now the woman is higher, and has the power. Now Spike is the one being chatted up by Andrew, and now Andrew is the verbose (if less cynical), Spike. Neat work.

-Twelve vamPyre slayers for the twelve disciples of Buffy. Or twelve apostles, then leave in Dana, or Faith?, as Judas. Faith I think.

Angel and Spike's 'Nature of Evil' speech at the end is one of the highlights of the fifth Season so far. Angel has enough sympathy, and Spike is shaken sufficiently for them both to actually listen to each other. And, telling us once and for all that this episode is full of beautiful subversions, the final line of the episode is 'Once Upon a Time'. Brilliant writing.

Typing the 100th episode review as you read...

TCH

Replies:

[> Keeping in touch ctd (Angel Odyssey 5.12) -- Tchaikovsky, 07:57:26 02/25/04 Wed

5.12- 'You're Welcome'

What to say about how hard 'You're Welcome' hit me, even at eleven o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday, feeling a little sleep-deprived. In fact the reason why I'd been up until three the previous evening was, along with obligatory student alcohol, that I was finishing A S Byatt's Booker-winning 'Possession', a lovely novel, and one you should read if you get a chance to bite into something truly unfashionable and highly literate. Thanks to luna for the recommendation. At the end of said book, there's a truly heart-rending moment, where two characters who, according to evidence preserved for the following sesquicentury never met, do, thereby establishing a link that has all manner of gentle tragedy. And the book ends, not on this consolation, but on the loss of the record of the meeting, on how people and their feelings are ephemeral and float into the air. Much of what I felt with moistening eyes through 'Possession', ripped through me as I cried buckets over 'You're Welcome'.

It was a dreadfully simple line that did it, all quiet and unimportant. Cordelia, her old, self-assured sassiness, says that she assumed Angel would be lost without her. Angel, with 251 years of anguish contorted into only one face, almost whispers 'I am lost without you'. This isn't gentle, touching banter, it's absolutely corkscrew to the heart [copyright Dylan] sincerity, from a man who always locked himself back in his basement in the dark. The remaining scene, including Cordelia's not-quite-profession that she fell in love with him, just left me a wreck. By the time we got to Lindsey and Eve in bed, I was ready for a somnolent afternoon myself.

So, all well and good, but if you're going to have a reaction like that in a review which is supposed to have elements of objectivity, at least explain it. This is why. It's because Season Four had its own, brilliant, ulterior motive for existing, but that wasn't to do with finishing Cordelia's storyline of Season Three. At the end of 'Peace Out' I was of the conviction that Fury had provided a minor resolution, in explaining how Cordelia represented a character with no free will, perpetually buffeted by Fortune. She was what Angel could have become if he had submitted to Jasmine. But this was only the resolution to the story of Cordelia between 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' and 'Home'. We still had no real resolution to 'Heartthrob' through to 'Tomorrow', 22 episodes of build-up quenched and supposedly forgotten.

That's why I cried. Because it was about a long-lost friend, and about a long-lost series. The series didn't claim it was possible to revert to its old tenor- one of the greatest strengths of Angel is the dynamic change of its characters, the ability, as Zachsmind explained, to jump the shark repeatedly and provocatively and never lose it. But this was the nod, the moment where we got the old Cordelia back for just long enough, where Angel realises what that past means to him, and another tick in the Connor Lives! box.

This is the best kind of Cordelia- the combative Cordelia who annihilates Eve, (what a fulfilling moment for every viewer), the gently cynical Cordelia who helps Wesley with his research, the slightly brutal Cordelia who commands Angel to torture his lackey for information. The Cordelia to whom Doyle meant so much; his purity, his sincerity, and his sacrifice. This may be Charisma Carpenter's best acting on the programme to date, in her last appearance. When she gets really angry because Lindsey is posing at Doyle, the waves sunk right through me, while Cordelia always used to leave me amused but not quite connected. She explains to Angel that he has raped the memories of his friends (cf Willow in 'Tabula Rasa'). And Wesley's resolution- his profession that he knows heart as well as head that it was not Cordelia who killed Lilah, is a perfect moment, particularly bittersweet when played against Angel's perpetual residual mistrust of Wesley himself.

And so to smaller matters:

-Even in a finely crafted attempt, Fury still gives in to his necessity for pointless crude humour every so often. More positively, we get the repeated existential message of Angel repeated in the line 'I think God's out'.

-Later in the teaser, an effect of the mind-rape is played out, as Angel has to let Wesley and Fred go on their rider 'Even if [parallel dimensions] exist'. He's seen Connor taken to Quortoth after a portal was opened by Sahjihan.

-David Fury appears to be the only writer who still uses Angel's original house style of time passing between scenes with rushing traffics and hierarchical skyscrapers. I miss them, and here they remind us germanely of early Season One.

-Toner is getting obsessive. So, yes, of course it's not absolutely random, (There is no Cheese Man in Angel. Discuss) Toner is the thing that makes the photocopier clearly black or white. Angel is stuck in a multitude of grey: hence his employee's (and Sebassis' slave) strange obsession with drinking the stuff.

-The clothes scene, where they go to buy stuff for Cordelia is a reference back to the end of 'Disharmony', which I'd appreciate more if I didn't think that part of that episode was wildly misjudged.

-Colin Farrell's ubiquity recently but only recently is a fun little line, calling to mind 'Gatorade has a new colour...'

-Spike lost two hands to Lindsey's one. Spike's hands aren't Evil, and he seems to handle the possible playing by Lindsey extremely well, in a rather less impulsive manner than it at first appears. I liked the description of blood as wine, being 'astringent with a slight oaky flavour'.

-Doyle's video is just lovely, and a nice nod to a beautiful episode, and a lovely conceit. I suppose they thought 'We'll show you there are still heroes in this world. Is that it? Am I done?' maybe took the emotion a bit far a bit early. In any case, it re-doubles the impact since of course Glenn Quinn has died, and so the grief is real.

-Fury references his own episode with 'The House Always Wins', but this line seems to have more intelligence in it than the whole of the former episode. Just who is in control at Wolfram and Hart?

-When Angel is stabbed through the chest by Lindsey towards the end, I'm fairly sure there's a deliberate visual reference to 'Becoming', thus heightening the Angel/Cordelia, (and indeed Angel/Lindsey), relationships by inference. At a similar moment, there's one particular look Fred at Wesley which seemed kinda significant.

And then the end. I was dreading Cordelia turning out to be a faux!Cordelia, in the same way that Roger Wyndham-Price was. But they spared me this, and instead we had the real spirit of Cordelia, even if not all of her physically. It was like a concession from the Powers that Be, and a very beautiful one. The link between the Powers that Be and the producers can't be overlooked. Although Cordelia's arc is done, there is a lot she can show Angel about his own journey. Hopefully, she really has done so.

The final kiss, is, even as a person not totally invested in Cordelia and Angel's romance, powerful and meaningful. Because what a kiss means is consummation- the consummation and confirmation that Angel hoped to find at the beach in 'Tomorrow'. Now, when they finally get it, it is still a consummation. But now no longer of their togetherness, but of their loss. Cordelia has already explained she cannot be with Angel. The kiss seals not their love, but their separation.

From our bleak 'I think God's out' over the butchered nuns in the teaser, we reach an ending where Angel says thank you. And this gratitude is threefold. Gratitude to Cordelia, who as always has pre-empted it with her cheery 'You're Welcome'. Gratitude to the Powers that Be for granting Cordelia the final chance to help. And a metanarrative thank you from Angel and possibly David Boreanaz on his one hundred episodes. Achievement tinged with loss. A lot of that going round since the show's cancellation.

Which leaves us, blubbering like a whale's fundament, to think hard about what it is to lose someone, what it is to lose our series, how we'll miss the good times, and it will be painful to remember. For this, be it a romantic feeling or not, we need Rosetti, the stalwart of a thousand funerals:

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

One hundred episodes, one hundred memories. If ME says to me 'You're Welcome', I reply, belatedly, like Angel:

Thank you.

TCH

[> [> Re: Keeping in touch ctd (Angel Odyssey 5.12) -- Rahael, 08:45:41 02/25/04 Wed

Well, I haven't seen Damage.......

But I loved You're Welcome. I got a little moist eyed too. If this was Mary-Sue Cordy, well, what can I say? I loved it.

Very elegiac. And in this ep at least, the Cordy/Angel ship showed that it could have romance and tenderness and chemistry. In my opinion. I thought it was, in terms of Angel's Romantic Wish Fulfilment episodes, so very much better than IWRY. And even if you think about Angel's fantasy in Awakenings. Didn't Cordy have exactly the same curly tousled hair style in both these eps? Was it deliberate? After all, for most of S4 i think she had blow-dried sleek hair.

I think it showed us how Angel remembers Cordy, what she means to him. If the dead live again in us, and our feeling that they are still with us, only within us in the interactions and effect they had on us......it's no wonder that this Cordy shone so brightly, and gave succour to Angel.

I also think that this is why Doyle shows up in this ep. He hasn't been referenced for ages. Just as Doyle lived on for Cordy with his last kiss, the visions he passed on to her, Cordy kisses Angel, one last time....


What did she pass on to him?

Was it clarity?

She spoke bluntly to Angel. She knows truths that only Angel himself knows. It's almost as if he externalises his conscience.

In an earlier episode, Spike gets to be Pinocchio, gets to san shue, gets to get everything Angel was meant to have....

[> [> [> A couple of agreements -- Tchaikovsky, 09:21:48 02/25/04 Wed

If this was Mary-Sue Cordy, well, what can I say? I loved it.

Actually, I never even considered that label could be thrown at her until you mentioned it. She's not a new character, and she's not a faultless one in this episode, (her glee over torturing Eve, while perhaps shared by the vicarious audience, can't really be condoned).

I thought it was, in terms of Angel's Romantic Wish Fulfilment episodes, so very much better than IWRY.

As I suspect you've already guessed, I'm in wholehearted agreement here! Whereas Angel and Buffy's day together for me served absolutely no propulsive purpose, confused Season Three which had until then been an unadulterated masterpiece and did that strange distortion thing that happens to Buffy when she appears on 'Angel', Cordelia's return was very firmly locked into the course of the Season. Besides which, 'I Will Remember You' confused the Buffy/Angel resolution, whereas I thought 'You're Welcome' provided a Cordelia-Angel one, for reasons given above.


If the dead live again in us, and our feeling that they are still with us, only within us in the interactions and effect they had on us......it's no wonder that this Cordy shone so brightly, and gave succour to Angel.

An angle I hadn't seen, and absolutely true. The episode could be taken as a metaphor for just a vivd dream of Cordelia or something. The fact that in the reality of the show it wasn't, however, pleased me greatly, since I think assuming a character's real and then finding out they're not almost always cheapens the character development (see 'Lineage').

It's almost as if he externalises his conscience.

But it's double-pronged, because as much as Cordelia is an aspect of Angel's psyche, she is also a person on whom he can lay bare his Soul. That she is a person he can talk to straight is crucially important, given his disconnection from all his other friends; exacerbated by, wait for it...Connor.

So the short version of this post goes more along the lines of: Right on!

TCH

[> [> [> [> Lovely review -- KdS, 02:52:22 02/26/04 Thu

Actually, I never even considered that label could be thrown at her

You obviously weren't reading DLgood's reactions to this ep on ATPO and LJ, which were basically that Cordelia is so idealised here that she must be a W & H plant.

[> [> [> just 1 point for now -- anom, 11:26:51 02/25/04 Wed

"I think it showed us how Angel remembers Cordy, what she means to him. If the dead live again in us, and our feeling that they are still with us, only within us in the interactions and effect they had on us......it's no wonder that this Cordy shone so brightly, and gave succour to Angel."

Having the phone call come just as Angel is planning to quit Wolfram & Hart could allow us to look at what happens between the 2 calls (or are they really just 1?) as Angel hearing the news about Cordelia & thinking, "What would she have wanted me to do?" in an Owl Creek Bridge/Secret Miracle scenario. Much of what goes on seems to reflect Angel's view of the situation rather than how it's been shown to us up till now. But at the same time,

"The fact that in the reality of the show it wasn't, however, pleased me greatly...."

Me too. I'm glad that on this show, we can have it both ways. Maybe more than 2 ways!

[> [> [> [> Or indeed, 'It's a Wonderful Life' -- Tchaikovsky, 05:18:46 02/26/04 Thu

Eventually, he doesn't need Clarence to do anything to affect his life, he just needs some kind of reaffirmation of his worth. That Angel's should be through friendship rather than Jimmy Stewart's Vision Time is right up my street.

And sing hey for the multiple interpretations of episodes!

TCH

[> [> Great reviews! -- Pony, 09:03:20 02/25/04 Wed

In some ways I prefer your review of You're Welcome to the episode itself. As lovely as Cordelia's farewell was I'm hoping that God or the PTBs continue to stay out and that Angel can move past the need for affirmations, reassurances and certainties that he is special, that he does matter and that something, somehow, will see what he does and judge him as right and worthy.

[> [> [> Mothers, Fathers, the PTB (Spoilers, You're Welcome) -- Rahael, 09:16:47 02/25/04 Wed

Is that Cordy came from within Angel. Hence, she voices both his hopes and fears. His fear that he has made a terrible, terrible decision. His hope that somehow, everything will work out.

I was thinking....Cordy appeared here in a very similar way to Darla to Connor last year. In Inside Out, Cordy and Darla faced off as 'Bad Mother' and 'Good Mother'.

Two sides of the same coin.

What was so squicky about Connor/Cordy was that there was such a conciously maternal air about the way Cordy treated Connor.

In this ep, the 'good mother' vision of Cordy, claims also that the PTB sent her.

AtS S4 dealt so strongly with the mother/father relationship, that i wonder whether we can perhaps regard the PTB, and even the SP not as supernatural beings, but as parent figures. The people who guide us. Who give us meaning. Who give us structure and a world view. Who tell us what's rigth and wrong.

The mother and father who Angel killed. His 'other' mother, Darla, who turned him. Who re-made him.

Jasmine, the terrible mother.....Cordy, heavily pregnant, all consuming. Angel, the father bearing a knife.

Or maybe it's just me!

[> [> [> [> Re: Mothers, Fathers, the PTB (Spoilers, You're Welcome) -- Pony, 09:36:26 02/25/04 Wed

AtS S4 dealt so strongly with the mother/father relationship, that i wonder whether we can perhaps regard the PTB, and even the SP not as supernatural beings, but as parent figures. The people who guide us. Who give us meaning. Who give us structure and a world view. Who tell us what's rigth and wrong.

Yes. And "you're welcome" itself is a very parental phrase, a way of prompting a child to remember politeness and gratitude. Much of Angel's desire for judgement and approval I think comes from the internalized voice of his own father. How different is Angel from the PTBs from Connor's perspective? Angel makes the rules, creates the mission, re-orders the universe.

My problem with Cordelia's appearance in You're Welcome is my problem with the treatment of the PTB for the first 3 seasons - there was no doubt, no questioning. Faith is a wonderful thing (and way hot! no wait I didn't mean the character) but it always struck me as going against the very nature of the show.

[> [> [> [> [> The early seasons -- Rahael, 05:34:45 02/27/04 Fri

Yes, I think the PTB were portrayed differently in the beginning. I think Greenwalt had a different slant from Joss. But I think they were less 'Gods' than they were metaphors for Angel's continuing journey. I cannot see the desire to ameliorate bad situations, the search for meaning, the search for human connections in a bleak world as bad things. I think I see the first seasons as inherently darker than you - Angel really is alone. S2 shows him at his most complex and rebellious.

By the end of S3 to four, the PTB change as a metaphor. They start becoming concrete players, rather than a plot device. But I also loved that aspect. I do think that AtS got lighter.

My main point about the PTB is that in a culture where people kneel down to pray to 'Our Father', there's going to be quite an overlap. For centuries, Europe has seen the divine order and the patriarchal family as being in harmony. And I think Angel has been portrayed as a Patriarchal figure. (He also has a name that I think could faintly echo of divine right! but that's my fancy).

The irony is that this patriarch, adopted by the PTB is also rejected by God.

Finally, I think waht I was trying to get at is that we describe our GOd in the language that we know. Cordy describes her PTB one way, Gunn another, Angel yet again, differently. And so do the writers :). I think that the vision of the PTB and the vocabulary taht describes them could be the same that we give to the greatest authority we acknowledge from the very beginning, the authority that sets the parameters for our world, however unwilling or rejecting we might be of them. The theme of adolescence and growth in AtS S3 and 4 fitted in beautifully with the idea of Angel's greatest rebellion, and, echoes his own early conflict with his father.

[> [> [> [> Re: Mothers, Fathers, the PTB (Spoilers, You're Welcome) -- Arethusa, 09:54:58 02/25/04 Wed

There's an inherent contradiction between Angel saying there's no god here, and Cordy appearing to give a message from TPTB. I thinnk you're right that there's something very parental about TPTB and the Senior Partners, but look at what ME says about parents! Buffy learned both positive and negative things from all her parents, surrogate and otherwise, but in the end she depended on herself to decide what was right or wrong. Cordy reminded Angel of his Powers-given mission, but it was Cordy herself who gave his life meaning, who is the reminder of why he fights. Holland's speech that says evil is a part of mankind echoes Liam's father's harranging of Angel, telling him he's sinful and will never be good. And Jasmine is the sick mother, whose need for control overrides her desire to help her "children." When we grow up we reassess what our parents taught us, and learn to trust our own judgement, even over theirs. In other words, I agree with Pony.)

[> [> [> [> [> I don't think I named any positive aspects!!! -- Rahael, 05:25:58 02/27/04 Fri

I am after all discussing ME here. I didn't give the parental gloss to *praise* the PTB.

[> [> [> [> [> [> Heh. -- Arethusa, 06:27:20 02/27/04 Fri

I think the points you made in your post to pony are very important. I think there's a tremendous desire in people to have an hierarchal society although I have no idea if that's cultural or innate. I tend to think that we try to place an ancient notion of the family on most of our cultural institutions, with a "father" who lays down the law and rewards and punishes, keeping those under him safe. It doesn't matter whether its religion, business or politics, most people seem to be happiest under this type of structure.

In fact, this is the only way I can explain the popularity of our president. He presents an image of a patriarch, which is why his family pedigree is so important to his success. And when his wise and compassionate image is marred by reality, the administration tries to terrify the populace into running to the President of the United States of America for reassurance and guidance.

The need for guidance and structure is not a bad thing, but we still manage to do so many bad things to get it! I was thinking of Eve this morning, who has made Lindsey her entire world. She reminds me a little of Andrew, depending on those around her to create her world for her. (Does that make sense? ;) And it's because of Angel's need for his father's approval, which has become an endless loop of desire, control and destroy, that I think rejecting TPTB and the Senior Partners are an important part of his growth.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> guidance & structure -- Rahael, 07:03:38 02/27/04 Fri

Let me sit on the fence and advocate the middle way!

I think we cannot but help create ordered meanings to the world around us - we all fear disorder. Even if we were to look into the world and see only chance and occurrence, no guiding principles, we still see different patterns there. We still find resonances and harmonies even if we think - well, that wasn't meant, it's just the perspective I'm putting into what I'm seeing.

Some people's overlaid meanings tend to be more inclusive, less simplistic, less dichotomous. There is room for shading and multiple meanings. The understanding that standing at a different point will reveal a whole new way of seeing what's in front of us.

So, you can look at the divine monarchy, the king, the father of his nation, and see the perfect ordered commonwealth. Or you could perhaps see the desperate need for order in a time when so little was controllable, where massive social and economic changes were occurring, when the very notion of divine monarchy was simply only one political vocabulary at odds with another, almost equally powerful one - - that of commonwealth, of God-given covenants, of bad kings and good kings and the right of the political nation to assert their views.

In AtS, there is one vocabulary, espoused by, say, Doyle and Cordy and Inside-Out-Darla - the PTB, benevolent, good, just. Then there's another, Skip's & Jasmine's - of authoritarianism, of benevolent bondage. There's Angel, trying to find his way through - is he free? is anything he does meaningful? is anything he does actually a decision he makes or is it pre-ordained?

I think that rather than there being one vision of order and structure in AtS, there are many conflicting ones. This may partly emanate from changing storylines, and different writers. But I think the tension between the lost, dark, agency-seeking Angel and Angel, the pawn of larger forces, has been there from the very first episode.

It's this tension that I've always found most fascinating about AtS. To the last, the words that echo for me are Darla's marvellous ones:

"God doesn't want you. But I still do!"

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: guidance & structure -- Arethusa, 08:26:00 02/27/04 Fri

I think that rather than there being one vision of order and structure in AtS, there are many conflicting ones.

This is the crux of Angel's delimma. Does he go with tradition, find another structure, or create his own?

Darla's words are heartbreaking. She replaces the mother who did not defend Angel (I presume), the father who did not approve of him. When she rejected him he was lost until he found Buffy, a new touchstone. She gave him the strength to start to find this affirmation within himself.

And sitting on the fence gives us the best view of both sides. ;)

[> [> [> I'm of the same mind; I prefer the review to the episode -- MissB, 09:55:27 02/25/04 Wed


[> [> [> Angel's brand of special-ness -- Tchaikovsky, 05:15:21 02/26/04 Thu

I agree that Angel should move beyond the need to believe that he is special, as in a Super-man type character. On the other hand, I think the motif in this episode is just that we all need re-assurance from time to time. I didn't see the underlying message as Angel is better than you, the viewer, so he gets leg-ups from the Powers that Be, so much as Angel is an Everyman Hero, like Buffy, and he can be helped by his oldest friend. I saw the Powers That Be proviso at the end as no more than an ingenious plot resolution. For me it wasn't about fate, but friendship.

TCH

[> [> What a marvellous return to form! -- Rob, 10:54:53 02/25/04 Wed

Meaning, judging from your last batch of reviews we once again agree wholeheartedly on things. I was beginning to worry. ;o)

As always, your reviews are such a treat to read--so literate and incisive. But I would like to commend you even further for the You're Welcome review, for your ability to find any level of objectivity in analyzing this episode (and to explain so beautifully the difficulty in that). This was one of the rare episodes on which, after it aired, I read very few posts, and on which I posted very little, because I loved it so much that I didn't want to either overanalyze it or read a negative review that might have caused me to undermine my incredibly high opinion of the episode. Some episodes are brilliant in the respect that they are a feast of symbols, depth, and parallels with other episodes (episodes like Soul Purpose and Damage). That kind of episode I can't wait to get on the board and sink my teeth into. Other brilliant episodes, though, might have all of the same attributes but at the same time have an added charm to them that makes it seem a shame (at least to me) to analyze them, for fear of overanalyzing them and thereby stripping them of their emotion. I know I have said this before about other episodes, but I truly think that when all is said and done, You're Welcome might be my favorite episode of Angel. In the past, I've distinguished the difference in my definition between "favorite" and "best". In terms of quality of writing, symbolism, theme, philosophy, etc., I still hold fast to my claim that Peace Out is the best, finest episode of Angel (with Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?, Lullaby, and Sleep Tight right behind it, in no particular order). And yet You're Welcome reeled me in on a purely emotional level that I find very hard to describe or categorize. This may sound rather childish, but it made me happy as I can't remember another episode of television doing for a long, long time. Actually, I can. Storyteller, Selfless, and Once More, With Feeling all yielded a similar response from me--a feeling of complete satisfaction and wonderment that I could be so touched and personally awed by an episode of television. Each of these episodes have a sort of...magic...for me. And so far, you have captured my feelings on the episode better than anyone else I have read thus far. Thanks again for the great post!

Rob

P.S. Completely, utterly, and fully off-topic, unrelated, etc., but I'm halfway through Lolita, and you were right: I absolutely love it. If you'd care to have a discussion on it once I've finished, I'd definitely be up for it.

[> [> [> Agree and thank you -- Tchaikovsky, 00:52:55 02/26/04 Thu

Totally up for the Lolita topic once you've finished. I think it would be relatively spoiler-free to say it may not make you as happy as You're Welcome!

TCH