So I'm about a third of the way through Season Two. Only one mediocre episode so far, this being 'First Impressions'. All the other seven have been, without exception, splendid. This is a brilliant season so far. Just to take a touch of the sheen off this, Angel still hasn't made me cry. I'm not sure how much I empathise with the characters. But the plot-lines and thematic resonances and often marvellous direction is putting up right up there with Buffy's Season Five for me. If I were forced at gun-point to give my favourite three episodes out of the 16 which comprise Buffy 5.1-8 and Angel 2.1-8, they would be:
2.6 Guise Will Be Guise
This is an episode where you can learn an awful lot form the title. It's basically hitting on two pretty simple and connected ideas. How do people in general differ in reality from how they portray themselves? And just who is Angel?
Coming between 'Dear Boy' and 'Darla', this episode had to be absolutely note-perfect to not be seen as out of context. 'Dear Boy' ends on one of those ultra-powerful moments you get in the Whedonverse occasionally. 'Darla' is another blinder. So to put a humourous episode in here is a risky business. Who ya gonna call? Jane Espenson. I cannot express enough how I love Jane Espenson's writing. It is absolutely hypnotic for me to watch, time after time, for a particular reason. With the exception of Joss himself, Jane is definitely the funniest writer on the staff, and I laughed out loud several times during this episode, which is fairly unusual for me. So in her episodes there is always a sense of a rather superficial but funny plot going on, (here Wesley pretending to be Angel). This will hold the interest of most less committed viewers. But underneath there are, rather covertly, a lot of important cohesive themes going on. These might escape the attention of someone who's tuned in to watch David Boreanaz be majorly hot, but is always there simmering. In this particular episode, I believe my case can be made by each of my three favourite funny lines.
1) The line where the faux-swaami claims 'You're deeply ambivalent', and Angel claims 'I am but I'm not'. Funny, but not redundant. This is dead-on to what Angel is thinking.
2) The, (I suspect famous) line about breaking a little blonde's heart to get over Darla. Funny, but does it throw a whole different light on the Buffy/Angel relationship? Was Buffy to an extent just a rebound from Darla? Angel's conception of the 'good' Darla?
3) The whole scene of Wesley taking command, with Angel asking sheepishly, 'Can I have my coat back?'. This is funnny, but actually shows up a slightly shifting dynamic in the group. As Angel is obsessing about Darla, Wesley has started to move more towards the centre of the group, and is gaining physical as well as psychological confidence. I really enjoyed him trying on the role of 'The Dark Hero'. Wesley sure ain't 1-D any more ;-)
Who is Angel? Of course, we see how psychology is often about common sense. The heavy is a pretty good swaami. Angel's car does represent him- a person who feels he must always put extra hardship on himself. Wesley portrays his idea of Angel, but can ultimately not stop himself coming through. And of course, the point is that Wesley is to a degree a Hero, just not a figurehead. It's not the coat that makes him powerful and impressive, it's the belief. This episode reminded me of a right-on-the-button Shakespeare comedy. The two unrelated plot lines melt together tidily. More or less everyone is playing a game of deception. Virginia is not virginal. Her father is not over-protective but selfish. Wesley is not Angel. Angel is not the tough guy in the black suit. They are all using the idea of 'guise' to represent themselves. But at the end, nothing is really hurt, except the one relationship which had never been healthy, Virginia's with her Father. Wesley gets the girl back. Angel seems momentarily distracted, and it all ends with the crazy disjointed conversation, which reminded me very much of the four weddings in 'As You Like It'. That's right, you heard it hear first. Jane Espenson is Shakespeare doing comedy.
2.7 Darla
And Tim Minear is Shakespeare doing tragedy, mostly. I am almost starting to become a mini-heretic. You know how you sometimes you mention that a novel or a film is good, and get startled stares? I think I'm going to get some of these after contending that I might prefer Tim Minear as a writer to Joss Whedon. I still know Whedon created it, is a better director, wrote the best episode ever ('Restless'), and is the bigger deity, but compare their writing outings:
Welcome to the Hellmouth vs Sense and Sensitivity
The Harvest vs Hero
Prophecy Girl vs Somnambulist
When She Was Bad vs The Prodigal
Lie To Me vs Sanctuary
Innocence vs AYNOHYEB
Becoming 1 vs Darla
I score this 4-3 Minear. Dissent away.
Very interesting to compare this episode to 'Fool For Love' which I prefer. I think Spike's struggle is shown slightly more clearly, and Buffy's angle is slightly more interesting than Angel's, and that ultimately, there's nothing to quite match the emotional power of the three best moments: Buffy telling Spike 'You're beneath me', Spike's 'Doesn't have a death wish?' line, and the final scene of the episode. But 'Darla' runs it close, and there are some really fun directorial tricks being played with the shared scenes.
I mis-understood this episode at first, because I didn't read the title carefully. Shouldn't be hard- it's only five letters, but I thought this was a story about Angel. It's not. It's Darla's life-story. Exactly as 'Fool For Love' is Spike's life-story. And there are comparisons. Buffy is the modern character trying to understand Spike's journey. Lindsay is the modern character trying to understand Darla's journey. Both pretty much fail ultimately. Angel deep down understands Darla, and Drusilla, despite, (even even partly due to) leaving Spike understands him. Which brings the audience back to the really incredible scene of the four menaces walking together through the Chinese wreckage. The four who try to understand each other better than anyone. A couple of irritated quibbles before I launch into another bout of praise. 'Virginia, 1609'? Mayflower 1620, anyone? Surely that should have been picked up. There was no need for it to be so early. And Drusilla saying 'OK' to Darla in 1898 seemed wrong. Interested to here anyone fill me in on when OK came into common usage.
As for the Virginia thing, it's interesting to consider if we're supposed to remember Virginia Bryce from the previous episode. Is there an oblique link being made between Darla and Virginia? Both women who shouldn't have been having sex, and have been a lot. Both women who are saved, (by Wesley and The Master respectively) but in diametrcally opposed circumstances? I'll leave that hanging.
To the good stuff. Darla's 400 year life is shown wonderfully, with all the little nuances. A lot of the cuts between 2000 and 'The Past', were done with great skill. The Master's line to Darla: 'God never did anything for you, but I will', mirrors uncannily Darla's line in 'Dear Boy' 391 years later 'God doesn't want you. I still do.' An intriguing parallel.
Darla chooses virility and joie de un-vivre over power and tradition, choosing Angelus over the Master.In doing so, she oddly prefigures Buffy's journey, choosing personal strength over the Council of Watchers and tradition. These two characters are linked. The Master has chosen Darla's name, and we see how this represents her identity crisis. Is she Darla the vampire? No. Is she the woman who she can't even find a word for? Possibly, how she would love to make it all simple again. To stop the heart beating. And as we are shown Darla casting out Angel in 1900, it becomes clear how it must end. Darla cannot stand the torment that Angel took. Angel's strength may be the flip-side of his horrible evil as a vampire. He broods for a century, but he still comes through due to an innate belief in his own value. It must end with Darla wanting to become what she has been for as long as she's had her name, and it must end with Angel casting Darla out, as Darla cast Angel out. Now they are 'soul mates', but they still cannot find their way back to each other. Despite centuries of company, Angel cannot bite Darla, just as Drusilla cannot keep Spike's interest away from Buffy. Ultimately, the selfishness and individuality of the vampires breaks them apart.
A couple of notes on the repeated scenes. Spike's complete despair about being rejected by Cecily is shown for just a couple of seconds as Angel and Darla whine at Dru. Reminds me of 'Musee de Beaux Arts'. One person's tragedy is another person's irrelevance. And where all four are walking together, Spike's leap up into the air is very important. He is the one who has killed the Slayer and won Drusilla. He is the new power in the group, as Darla is downhearted about Angelus, and Angel conflicted. When we see Dru in Spike's arms, we see how Angel's pet project has been torn away from him, and also the distance from intimacy between himself and Darla. Watching the repeated scenes, you are focussed on quite different aspects of the conversation, precisely because, as shadowkat regularly contends, you're in a different point-of-view.
Really good episode, and enjoyed learning more about Darla. For me personally, didn't quite scale the emotional heights of 'Fool For Love'.
2.8 The Shroud of Rahmon
This is the only one of the three episode titles not to give a lot away. Which is pretty much mirrored by the teaser, which leaves even the most perceptive viewer, (and certainly me), in total confusion and horror. Has Angel bitten someone? Is his slide towards evil continuing at an advanced rate?
Whether you like this episode, I suspect, is partly down to whether you enjoy narrative gimmicks. I'm a complete sucker for them. When you get the end told at the beginning, I love seing how the story contrives to return itself to the first scene, now told so that you understand it more deeply. In this particular episode, there is an acknowledged 'The Usual Suspects' feel. We see Angel set light to the shroud by pouring on oil and then dropping the flame, just as Keyser Soze does on the boat in the movie. And of course, like that film, we are supposed to be thinking, just who is the bad guy here? And we suspect everyone and everything, because we haven't been told for sure. And there's a similar ending to 'The Usual Suspects', when everything is turned on its head in a second. Because, you see, as I was totally unspoiled, I was ready to believe that a mad Angel had bitten and killed Kate Lockley. When she turned up, I was for a second totally confused. And then we see the same bite scene from a different angle, rather like in 'Darla', and it all makes sense again.
Very beautiful directing by David Grossman, and I think one of the nicest looking episodes of 'Angel' so far. I am becoming more of a visual watcher since I started listening to the Buffy DVD commentaries. Here I noticed a couple of things. The whole episode was extremely physically dark. This worked well, representing confusion, the secret underground and the darkness of Angel's journey all at the same time. And there were a lot more shots of people in profile than usual. This stumped me at first, and then I wondered whether the fact that we're not seeing them 'straight on' is the point. Grossman, like the writer Jim Kouf, is playing with perspective. As we don't see the whole character, we don't see the whole face. A lot is hidden or ambiguous as we are being told it.
So we're here really thinking about the gap between reality and imagination, between thought and action. There's a lot of non-philosophical stuff in this episode, which I tend to ignore, (not a big fan of action stories), but I took it to be showing what we do and what we'd like to do. And of course this idea is re-inforced by the final terrifying shot of Angel drinking deeply from Kate. What, deep down he'd like to do.
A couple of extra quick thoughts:
-Don't really like Cordelia's new hair. I prefer her hair long. Hey, I can be shallow too, can't I?
- I got the Al Pacino impression! Wow, I'm starting to be able to pick some of those weird American accent variations. It's always been like separating sheep from sheep for me.
-Cordelia's feminism about virgins was very funny, a wink to the fact that the idea of female empowerment is often completely lost in Angel, but is still going strong on its mother show.
-I quite liked this episode, but without the conceit, (which I can imagine others finding a little trick-sy), I could see others finding it a little tame. Certainly not quite up there with the best of the season.
I'm really starting to love this Odyssey. And thanks for all your feedback- which inevitably enriches my limited viewing abilities.