In my kitchen there's a mug, which says on its side, 'What did I do to deserve this?'. My housemate is very smug when he occasionally brings me a cup of tea in it. Now if Angel Season Three was a drink, it would be perfectly justified in bringing itself to me in the mug. Five episodes in, I loved everyone. The new dynmaic is excellent, this season is possibly the funniest so far, and there's still the good old angst simmering away underneath. I think the end of 'Fredless', possibly one of the cheeriest ends to an episode ever, is a sure omen that things are about to take a really bad turn for the worse. But for the moment, I'm really enjoying the group dynamic, which as I mentioned before, is a little like the Scooby Gang around the time of 'Family'. So here goes with the next two episodes.

3.4- Carpe Noctem

This is probably the only place where I might be proved wrong on this, but I believe the play on words in the title comes originally from the Latin aphorism 'Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero', which roughly translates as 'Seize the day, and pay the least attention possible to the future'. So 'Carpe Noctem', seize the night, is at its most simple level a re-enforcement of Angel's nocturnal life. But in light of the full sentence, it goes a little further.

It is not necessarily true that the writers are dismissing this sentence, but certainly the results of the old man's transmigration were very bad. He 'seizes the night' while in Angel's body, and in consequence manages to alienate nearly everyone in double quick time. Including Lilah after one of those moments which pays homage to far-fetched fan fiction. The body switch is interesting, because it highlights some of the things that Angel ignores completely. The behaviour is so much more blatant than, for example, Faith's in 'Who Are You?' however, that it doesn't take to long for the gang to figure out what has happenned, although it does take Wesley finding books about vampires, so it doesn't come automatically.

There are quite a few parallels between the old man in Angel's body and Faith in Buffy's, and these are presumably deliberate. Angel's magnetism in the nightclub strongly parallels Faith's in the Bronze scene, where she plays out that sweltering scene with Spike. There is a shot of Angel in the old man's body, looking at the mirror, which has a dual purpose. Firstly, we again compare it to Faith trying out Buffy's persona- but also there is the eternal slight excitement that Angel gets from having a reflection, even in a different body. It really does symbolise something important to him. Finally, there is the suspicion that the old man could completely destroy Angel's life and relationships before he comes back. He is implicitly racist to Gunn. And, due to the sheer shallowness of his obsession with women, he manages to almost break Fred's heart again, in a scene possibly even more disturbing than Willow's discovery of Xander and Cordelia in 'Innocence'. Amy Acker can do big eyedness too, even if she's not quite in Alyson Hannigan's league. Her face just melts.

The scenes between the old man and Cordelia are interesting. We have been seeing a build-up in trust and understanding between the two this Season, and yet, as Angel changes violently and seems completely distracted, Cordelia continues as normal. It is as if the last year has taught her that violent swings in Angel's mood are to be expected.

There's a lot of good old Shakesperian mistaken identities going on, and Lilah's reaction to Angel is really quite telling. Just like Spike to Buffy early on, through the adversarial nature of their relationship, there shines through a fascination which can border on obsessive passion. She does appear genuinely hurt though when she realises ANgel didn't mean anything by it. One of the reasons I like Lilah is that there is an essential humanity under her evil. The despairing cry in 'Reunion' summed it up well. There's a real, vulnerable person underneath the cold, manipulative lawyer.

Then the final few lines: and well, if you've been reading these for any length of time, you'll know I can't refuse over-analysing literary references. In the touching final scene between Fred and Angel she says, :'It?s like something out of Fitzgerald. The man who can have everything but love'. This is clearly a reference to the eponymous Jay Gatsby. He lives a luxury lifestyle in the relatively bohemian America of the 1920's, but his obsession with the idealised version of a woman he knew, Daisy Fay. He finds not only that he is happily married to a rather mundane man who he despises, but also that he can't stand the real Daisy. He only ever loved the idealised, distant woman he had in his mind. How this relates to Angel and Buffy is anyone's guess. It is clear what Fred thinks of Angel, and how she is ultimately wrong. Angel doesn't really have everything but love. His life has numerous other flaws of well. It may have eluded Fred's reading that Gatsby also, despite having a fervent belief in the American dream, makes much of his money illegally. Everything that Gatsby idolised is ultimately a lie. That's the philosophy behind the tragic story which leads to his death. Gatsby doesn't just lack love, he is a hollow man, even if a very giving one. Whether Angel is ultimately hollow is a big question. Ultimately, the answer is probably no, because he is fighting for a cause in which he believes, and he is good at it. But Gatsby has more troubles than his fantasy love, and so does Angel. The ultimate question to be asked is this: when Angel is told that Buffy is alive, does he race back to see her in a vain hope that the old idealised Buffy he has painted in his mind since her death is there, or does he go more pragmatically? Although we don't have much evidence for the former, it might just be there in Fred's innocent reference? Does Angel have his hopes dashed when he sees an under-the-weather, struggling Buffy? We never see the re-union, but it may be something brought up at the end of this Season. Who knows?

I've just been reading Masq's and yabyumpan's replies to the first half of this section. They said that these are the weaker earler episodes of the Season, and it gets much better. Goodness. Here I was about to write a blistering review of 'Fredless', and I wonder whether it's rather like getting to fortissimo when you're still supposed to be mezzo-piano. Oh well.

Incidentally: music on the brain. This review has been delayed by a reheasal for a concert tomorrow. We're singing Prokofiev's Alexander Nemsky overture, and Britten's Welcome Ode. The Prokofiev has given me the opportunity to learn to read Cyrillic, which is very interesting. Unfortunately, there aren't the right letters to start writing Tchaikovsky in Cyrillic on this board, because otherwise it would just be too pretentious for me to resist. The Britten Ode has a very clever musical motif at the end where, to highlight its light-heartedness, the final note is a beat later than the audience is expecting. I realised on the third or fourth time through that it's an almost exactly similar effect to the one Whedon uses at the end of 'I'll Never Tell'. The bloke has the musical nuances as well as speech nuances. Sometimes life's just not fair. Anyway...

3.5- 'Fredless'

Talking of Whedon, one of my favourite Whedon episodes is 'Family'. I like some of the episodes where he's not being so flashy, as mind-blowing as some of his experiments are. 'Family' is just a tidy, emotional story, with that extra flourish which Joss does. And I think this is its counterpart on AtS.

I know it's deeply silly, but I absolutely loved the Cordelia/Wesley acting out of Buffy and Angel. Cordelia's simmering antipathy to Buffy's dramatic life really came through, and it's always good to see an American actor who's character is British pretending to be American, (I think JM's 'Zaaynder' in 'Doomed' still has it, but AD was close). I laughed three or four times, because some of the lines were just spot on. 'I love you so much I almost forgot to brood'. Really funny. It's not really worth breaking down comedy, but two bits added to it. First, the underlying metanarrative that to Cordelia, Buffy made a meal of her life because she wasn't in the position of the audience, so the melodrama seemed overdone. Of course, we saw how hard Buffy's life was, and so sympathise a lot more, (hopefully). Secondly, the flumoxed Fred, who looks on extremely confused by all the in-jokes, ('My soul can go to hell', 'But my gypsy curse', and the 'Possibly more?' line which is so reminiscent of Spike's 'Love's Bitch' speech in 'Lover's Walk'. OK, I'll stop analysing now. Lorne has a very interesting role in this episode, which reveals a lot about him. It appears that when he tells Fred to run further away, he is taking into account how relentlessly negative he himself is feeling. I suspect that, considering Lorne knows that Fred's parents are normal but are going to be confused by her disappearance, that in his care-free Season Two mindset he might have told Fred to approach his parents. But now, his insecurity about Caritas means that he is unable to face the idea of moving on and resolving issues, and therefore he gives Fred the advice of his mindset. This is of course coupled by his whole experience in Pylea, where his half-hearted attempts at reconciliation with his family failed miserably. Poor old Lorne- which is not something one regularly says. This particular episode, the more I think about is, is slightly too much like a Polo. There isn't really enough of an A-plot to sustain the excellent B-plot going on underneath. Of course, in Buffy and Angel, the character-driven B-plots are often more important, or even evolved by, the monster A-plot, but in this particular episode, I thought the crystal plot-line was a little too skimpy, meaning that the soap opera aspect had rather a lot of space to fill. I enjoyed it, and it gave Mere Smith the opportunity to show she's a good comic after the relative sombriety of 'Untouched', 'Redefinition' and even 'Over the Rainbow', but it seemed a touch plot-light.

That's pretty much where my criticisms end though, because I was entranced by the main plot. I've pretty much loved Fred from the outside. I love the well-observed timidity but the resilience and obvious intelligence. Her tendency to babble is nicely observed- there's always something substantial in with her para-sequiturs. Amy Acker really plays the childlike aspects of her fear of finding her parents very well. There's the slightly half-hearted mislead of 'Are the parents evil?', which is luckily dispelled early on, instead of being dragged on. Fred's reason for being scared to accept her parents is believable. In blocking out the past, living only in the now of the Hyperion with Angel as her Protector, she can block out the idea of falling into 'a fairy tale', and reside in scientific certainties. Yet in doing so, she also denies her childhood. There's two separate stages to go through for her in this episode. First, she must accept that her childhood happenned. Second, she must realise that even though it's real, she is no longer a child, and must continue with her life. I have to say that she handled the second step surprisingly quickly for me, although not incredibly [in the strict sense] so. It just shows again how perceptive she is when given the chance.

I really look forward to seeing how the veneer of innocence which she has had built for her by the rest of AI breaks down though. She is a grown-up, and despite apparently having the emotions of a girl of around 11, that won't last for long considering her intellect. As with Willow and Dawn, we will slowly see the maturing process start to happen, and it will be interesting to see the character really develop.

Meanwhile, it is nice to see that Fred has no fewer than two good parents, which I believe is a record. Buffy's Mom, (despite some flaws [!]), is a generally well-intentioned parent, but Willow, Xander, Wesley, Liam and Tara all have difficult parents and Cordelia, Anya and Giles appear to have forgotten theirs entirely. The Burkels not only have Fred's best interests at heart- they are also quickly ablke to forgive her for her disappearance, and able to accept that she needs to grow on her own now, (with only that perfectly observed 'We'll stay for a couple of weeks...days then').

Key to the Season as it now hangs is Fred's summation of the team as it stands. 'Angel is the Champion. Wesley is the Brains. Gunn is the Muscle. Cordelia is the Heart'. Interesting how Cordelia has the same role as ex-lover Xander, and that both of them are the every[wo]man of their gang. In this episode, Fred's claims are quite true. In fact, for much of the season, this simplistic roles have fitted credibly well. However, Fred's trouble has already been seing things too simplistically, and here her schematic is rather like a fairy story. And it has to be said that here, 5 episodes into the Season, I feel like I've been going peacefully and happily but with a sense of foreboding up a roller-coaster. It's nice to see the group happy for once, and the five regulars allows a clever camaraderie rather like Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles and one [Oz, Cordelia, Wesley, Angel etc] in early Buffy. But it's not going to last for long. And by the end of the Season, it's quite possible that any or all of the characters could have completely lost the role that Fred has just given to them. Because on Angel's show, no-one is safe from the jerky, speedy character developments which are really extremely akin to real life.

I want a Wesley episode now please. I've had Gunn, Cordelia, Fred and Angel, so its only fair. Alexis Denisof has been there acting beautifully so far this Season, but he hasn't had a showcase.

And I finish on yet another excellent joke:

TRISH-
I mean, Rog's always had a thing for those
disgusting "Alien" movies all the slime and
teeth. He just can't get enough of 'em.
(thinking about it)
Except for that last one they made
I think he dozed off.
Perfect.