And this is where Angel becomes the Wesley show. So I am writing them as one episode.
I admittedly went back and forth a lot on whether or not he was doing the right thing. I think if they had built a little more doubt about the prophecy it would have worked vaguely better for me. But as it stands, I think Wesley probably could have confided in someone else and not shouldered the burden entirely himself. And I don’t always buy him going to Holtz. I bought it the first time when he was following Aubrey but the second time it did feel like an unnecessary betrayal.
I kind of wish Sahjan had a better reason for going after Angel. But that’s exclusively because I find the concept of “This baby is going to do big things so I must kill this baby” kind of … dull. I think it’s mostly because I like babies and all but they don’t have a lot of personality so it feels like putting big plot points on a blank slate.
I like Lila. In the absence of Lindsey - who I definitely did not think was going away forever - they have actually made her really interesting.
I don’t love dark-Angel-taking-vengeance for his son. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because I am dead inside and I will only understand it in the extremely far, far far extremely far away future in which I give birth to children. I think I just officially hate the whole baby plotline.
I freaked when Wesley got his throat slit. Freaked. Viewing Companion had a pretty uncomfortable hour to follow that. It’s not necessarily how I’d want to see Wesley go - and I don’t want to see Wesley go - but putting him in such DIRE circumstances (throat slit, passed out in a park for many hours) and then having him be mostly okay…seems like a TV cop out. I think they can only mortally wound Wesley so many times before I stop caring.
I am extremely uncomfortable about where the show is about to go. Which is a good thing. But still.
Justine sucks. Fred punching her was the first time I felt on board for Fred.
Oh - by the way - real mixed feelings about why Cordelia was gone for so long. Can someone do the wikipedia research on what was up? Was Charisma not available? Were they just needing to put her plotlines on hold? What is going on? On that note, I think it’s pretty likely that Wesley would have confided in Cordelia if she was around. And nothing bad would have happened.
Oh awful. Awful awful. This might be my least favorite episode ever. Worse than the run of Riley episodes.
Oh Awful. Awful. Awful.
The plotline of Willow is addicted to magic worked for me when it was subtle. But this? Seriously? Jonesin’. A magic crackhouse? Withdrawel? The fun of these shows is when you can do themes writ large. You can take things and make them BIG and you’re allowed to because you’re dealing with big concepts. To take the idea of a witch being overwhelmed by her attachment to magic and reduce it to a drug addiction? Oh my god. And then she got behind the wheel of a car while “high” and went on a joyride that hurt someone she loved. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Hate. So much hate.
Amy is still fun.
Hate. And I don’t buy trying to set up the parrell that Buffy is addicted to Spike. She’s not. It’s not his darkness that attracts her because on the Bowie scale he’s skewing more to feminine than dangerous right now even after their fight. If Buffy had gone back to Spike after the first time, I would have bought it. But once really is just a transgression even if we were building to it for an entire season. I think the more interesting thing is that Buffy is drawn to the emptiness of Spike. If they really want us to buy that she’s drawn to HIM - then they’ve been sending way too many mixed messages. And I think that’s the biggest problem with that entire plotline. It God Damn changes everytime a new writer take it on. When it’s Fury, Spike’s crush is (most interesting) just a damaged monster craving something. And when it’s Joss even Buffy’s attraction is to Spike’s lack of expectation. Even though he wants more from her than anyone else in Sunnydale, he also expects the least. But when heartbreaker Marti is behind the typerwriter it’s all “I love you, and now I’m inside you and you’ll be coming back and there’s something here you can’t get away from and blah blah blah.” It’s not ambiguous. It’s dizzying.
And going back to Willow - once they decided to start riding this magic addiction thing so much of Willow went away. There were flashes of her in this episode - when they first went to the den and when she was on the bed with Buffy. I’m glad they finally vocalized that magic was where Willow’s fake-confidence came from. And I’m glad we’re there now so that she can grow past it. But it’s also kind of like they’re working to resolve the most interesting thing this season. I’m not going to lie, there was a tiny part of me that was secretly hoping that Willow was the Big Bad this season. Or that she became a Watcher.
I just feel like rather than deepening Willow, in some ways the entire magic thing after Season Three took Willow away. That’s obviously not totally true but there are elemenths of truth in it. Obviously, everything really when to shite when Oz left.
Kidding.
Maybe this is just a product of my pedestal but once they decided to start growing Willow’s confidence, they sometimes lost how to balance that with her Willow-ness. In entire arcs, she’s kind of faded into the background as a blank slate. As Tara’s character started to fill some of the old Willow holes (oh god…ignore that I wrote that…move on) Willow kind of just became magic person/Tara’s girlfriend.
Am I just reading back the last few episodes as if they were a trend or is there some truth in that?
Oh. Sigh. One of the things I loved about Angel was that it didn’t bother doing relationships. It didn’t need it. TV relationships are hard. Admittedly, they’ve had some big successes on Buffy’s - couples that are fun when they’re together and that aren’t drama or tortured when they’re apart. But I buy almost none of the couples they’re building to here. I don’t buy Angel’s crush on Cordelia purely because he struggled so much with his feelings for Buffy and then that ended so badly. I buy that Angel has strong feelings for her but I would love for them to be … more interesting about it than to assume that if an attractive man and an attractive woman are on the same TV show we must deal with them romantically at some point. And I like Cordelia making herself stronger in order to not be a victim but I think the concept of trying to build her up as an equal for Angel is almost totally implausible. The truth is, they haven’t nailed Cordelia since Season Two of Buffy. I don’t buy Wesley’s crush on Fred - ESPECIALLY after “Billy.” I know - I have a crush on Wesley so I’m probably not seeing clearly but I would think he’d be smarter than attempting to pursue the woman he almost murdered. It just comes off as predatory. Especially because even if they are close in age Wesley seems so much older and Fred seems so childlike. I buy Gunn’s crush because I think he’s drawn to think that need protection AND he’s still a kid. And they also planted that seed in kind of slow ways during Fred’s early episodes. But overall, I don’t love Fred. They just want you to like her so much that she ends up feeling kind of empty. To be fair, I am probably responding to her from a certain level of girl-jealousy. But still.
Again, I don’t love the baby stuff. BUT if we’re going to have it, this isn’t a bad one-off to play with. With or without the baby as a motivating factor, seeing Angel Investigations take on multiple cases and then fail in various ways works for me. And anything that invokes the use of Lorne makes me happy.
I love bringing back Amy. I think. We’ll see how it plays out. In theory, I like the idea.
And I like Xander being vocal about his disapproval for what’s happened to Willow. And I like Anya’s description of what happens when responsible people get a taste of darkness. Bad Willow, anyone?
And I love Spike’s realization about being able to hurt Buffy. And then their sex is … fine. It’s something. It’s a choice. We’ll see where it all goes. This episode was mostly set-up for things to play with later.
This episode should have happened at the end of last season. It felt like we’d kind of moved on from Cordelia’s vision issues without actually resolving them. So I guess it was necessary. And at least it took a break from the baby.
I like the alternate reality, I like the flashback of another woman with visions, I love that they brought Skip back. I wish we’d spent more time in the alternate reality but things had to happen.
And ultimately it’s the right resolution - to make Cordelia part Demon.
A minor issue - there was no reason for Cordelia to want to see Angel so bad. Her attachment to him in Season One was because she had no friends in LA. But with her successful life … I don’t buy it. I don’t buy the affectionate gentleness she had for him.
I also hated the kiss. But I also hate everything about Angel/Cordelia.
Well. I don’t like TV babies.
And I’m saying that as someone who loves real babies.
But I don’t like babies on TV shows.
Watching Darla and Angel deal with the concept of parenthood was interesting but actually seeing Angel with a baby feels … comical. And incongruous. And maybe it’s supposed to but … eh.
I don’t like that red headed vampire slayer that Holtz recruited for his vengeance army. She seems like the made for TV movie version of a vampire slayer.
And I would care about Angel’s threat of Linwood if Linwood wasn’t just another random Wolfram and Hart higher up who had only been brought on for this arc.
Also, Angel should be careful about how much he likes this baby because if he gets too close to bliss…he will eat it.
Loved testing the charm on Caritas by hitting Gunn.
I loved Darla’s breakdown and subsequent choice to save the baby by staking herself. Un-believable.
I don’t undestand why Fred was there when that happened though. Not necessary and it might have meant more if Angel was left alone with the baby.
Did I say that I hate that other Wolfram and Hart lawyer yet? I do.
