Drusilla: Look. Jasmine.
Angelus: Night blooming.
From 'I only have eyes for you'
From 'Potential'
'It's not about Right.
It's not about Wrong.
It's about Power'
From 'Lessons'
Hello everyone. I've long maintained that Angel and Buffy, while functioning in the same universe, are fundamentally different concepts. They're different styles of show- and so, for example, Buffy as a character comes across less sympathetically in 'I Will Remember You' and 'Sanctuary' than on her own show, where she's in the centre. I really don't think (although I hold a minority opinion here) that much is to be gained from attempting to see conscious parallels in them. Yes, link all over the place, by all means. 'Everything's connected' after all. But when we leave Angel and Faith behind, we're stuck in a new world, without a conscious thematic overlap. There are links that can be made, but I don't believe it's all one tapestry, but two. That said, there have been quite a few little internal references in the last few episodes that have made me wonder. The three above are all pretty obviously related to these two episodes. There's been a lot of almost consciously intellectual hint-making going on in Angel this Season, more so than I can remember on any other Season of wither show, and it's probably partly to do with the enigmatic plot-lines and shifting intentions- the writers trying to make the audience guess what's happening, only to lurch off in a different direction. The clues are red herrings, or not so. In this case, there is a very obvious overall theme developing- that of free will and a deterministic universe. So to Angel in a second.
First, in a slightly illogical place, but that's the fun of pretending to be a writer, a very brief word on 'Lies My Parents Told Me'. I liked it. Not that I don't understand people who had other reactions to it, but I thought it was a well-crafted episode, whose eventual aim was to postulate the idea 'Mothers may act in different ways, but all love'. I felt that all three Mothers in this episode were supposed to be considered to be acting as best they could. Spike's mother clearly did love him, which is what he realised. He had to understand this to achieve a crucially important step in his transformation. But there's also the key scene between Wood and Buffy early on, where Wood tells Buffy she reminds him of his Mother. Then, at the end of the episode, we see Buffy, ever so tenderly, stroking Dawn's hair. Dawn got hurt in the line of battle, because Buffy was not protecting her from the world but showing it to her. This parallels Robin Wood, in that rainstorm in 1977. Buffy is not wrong to have allowed Dawn to get hurt, and perhaps not even wrong to claim that, if in saving the world she had to kill Dawn, she would do it. For her the first thing is the mission. The same is true of Nikki Wood. She tells Robin that the mission is what matters. Robin understands. Nikki loved him. Spike's story, as recounted in 'Fool For Love' and expanded on here, is false. Spike is reacting to being unfairly trapped and killed. He could in fact beat the trigger by self-reflection. What he says to Wood, the intimidation, is not what he actually believes. For, as much as Spike could have killed Wood, he doesn't 'because I killed his Mother'. He understands what that means- and he knows that Nikki loved her son. All three mothers- Anne, Nikki and Buffy- have difficult lives in which to bring up children, and all love them. For me, it was an affirmation of Mothers, not a broadside on them.
Incidentally, I also saw all the protaginists as entirely in character. Remember how Giles, has been finding it more and more difficult to be Buffy's watcher and father. He left in Season Six because he felt she couldn't grow. Then time passes, and he returns in 7.10, trying to re-negotiate his role with this strong, exhausted woman. And he struggles, and has a big argument with her over Spike, and eventually, using Buffy's own mantra about the mission, he does what she does not want him to do. It's happened before. He's wrong, and irresponsible, but for me, in character. The resolution, as someone mentioned, is the shutting of Buffy's bedroom door, closing Giles out of her personal life, but not the life of the mission.
I'm not all that keen to start up another raging debate about this, (although I am posting this!), but I did just want to put down why for me it wasn't toxic or even irritating. I think I accept the claim that some viewers may have mis-interpreted Spike's words after being attacked by Wood as a 'Uncomfortable Truth' moment, and thus that the timing and vehemence of the outburst was a bit misguided, but personally I understood the story as actually having a rather positive message about mothers. Less brief than I wanted!
'Inside Out' is a tidy, brooding meditation on just whether we have free will, or whether it is all plotted out for us in advance, and hence acts as a nifty pre-cursor to the beginning of the Jasmine arc in 'Shiny Happy People'. It's also a good piece of writing and first-time directing from Stephen DeKnight, who has to fit in a humungous bit of exposition and reflection on exposition into a short episode, and does so without it ever feeling like a ticked-off list, (like those over-crammed Harry Potter movies).
Let me clear up two of those three previous Buffy references first.
They both come from the mouth of Cordelia- who may be part-Jasmine, who knows? I side with the argument that Cordelia has been gradually more influenced by the spawn as it has grown, from 'Spin the Bottle' onwards, so that it started out with some wacky decisions in 'Apocalypse, Nowish', gestated into some good ole murder in 'Long Day's Journey', and culminated in her plotting various omens of doom after the release of Angelus in 'Calvary'. I'm sure there are almost as many theories as viewers, and of course I still don't know whether there's any further exposition left, but there's only four episodes left now, (I'm nearly caught up with everyone! How weird!).
1)There's 'There's no Good. There's no Evil. They're just concepts of reality'. Well now. Cordelia here starts to try to explain how subjective the Universe is to Connor. With the dubious character and desperate dilemmas of this Season, the troubled teen is more than happy to let the lines blur into into a puzzling mural of grey. Then he can disown responsibility for things he regrets, claiming they were in his concept of what was most advantageous.
2) Cordelia claims pretty much the opposite of what Xander claimed for Dawn in 'Potential': 'We're special. Our baby is going to be extraordinary'. Yes, Connor and Cordelia are different, she argues. Not like the 'ordinary people' who would be delighted even to help to bring forth their child. It's interesting to consider how Cordelia, Xander's ex, was the everyman of Angel for the first two seasons as Xander was the everyman of Buffy. Now, even possessed she has hit the opposite extreme, claiming superiority over mere mortals, she feels she is able to take lives to feed the new life inside her. She has turned her thoughts, her beliefs, 'Inside Out', as much as she is physicaly turned inside out by the birth.
Another inside out of this episode is Skip. It's interesting that there's been a bit of backing up done on the benevolent demons this year. Last year, Clem and Skip were introduced as being rather nice really. This year, for whatever reason, Clem has been outed as a kitten-eater, ('the sub-text is rapidly becoming the text') while Skip is a mere mercenary for whoever will pay him more or physically incapacitate hium less. I loved the idea of the terrifying demon who 'commutes' and has everyday problems in 'That Vision Thing', but here he reverts to a more stereotypical characteristic of his physicality.
How much am I enjoying Wesley's reconciliation with Angel and Gunn? A lot. It's been so hard-won and realistically portrayed by the writers. There was that little line about Wesley trusting Gunn in the Angelus act, seemingly there as a throwaway. Then the little scene at the end of 'Orpheus' with Faith. And now we get: 'Why should you care what happened to her?' 'Because you did'. How much more do those minimal, even inspecific little lines mean to the Angel/Wesley dynamic? Maybe one of the side-effects of realising how much Angelus lived in the past was an attempt by Angel to purge his character of any tendencies he had of dwelling in the past- in other words, to forget the year-old apparent treachery by Wesley, done with guilt and good intentions, but always felt as a betrayal.
And then we get Connor's choice, this worry , this anxiety over which mother to trust. Does he trust the woman who has been the only one to help him with his life for the last six months, the only one to understand what he is going through, to make things easier, the one who carries something wonderful that he has made, th eonly thing he has achieved? Or does he trust his deserting, megligent Mother, the soulless vampire, Angelus' partner, not even bothering to survive his Birth? We might not see it like this, and yet all these apparent facts, coupled with the fact that Cordelia was there first, swings the balance in Cordy's favour. By the time we see the return of Darla, Connor has already ingested Cordy's mantra, and gives his own spin on it; 'Good. Evil. There just words.' I suspect that Connor can feel how truthful some of Darla's words are. That he feels wrong about killing the girl. That his conscience, his soul even, the very soul Darla shared and enabled her to do her only good, is nagging at him. Along with this, there's all those little, odd details- Cordelia askign him to kill Angelus, the gang seemingly turning on her so that he had to rescue her at the end of 'Players', and how wrong it feels to murder people- always portrayed as an issue in the Buffyverse. And yet. This child, his ultimate achievement, and this guide, the one who gives him physical and emotional comfort, the only one, wins through. Connor decides to let determinism, being ruled to Cordelia, win out of free will, the free will that Darla exhibited in staking herself so Connor might live.
And this is an important point. For despite how there are claims in the next episode that Jasmine's arrival was scheduled by her in an elaborate turn of events, if Connor had trusted that he could change the world, had trusted his free will, then determinism could have been defeated. he could have made a difference. The newly enlightened, focussed Gunn, may have practised his speech, but it had that same quality as a Xander speech, and more perhaps, because it wasn't about one person's specialness, but about empowerment, belief in strength, for all:
Gunn: Look, mono-chrome can yap all he wants about no-name's cosmic plan. But here's a little something I picked up rubbing mojos these past couple of years. The final score can't be rigged. I don't care how many players you grease. That last shot always comes up question mark. But here's the thing. You never know when you're taking it. It could be when you're duking it out with the Legion of Doom or just crossing the street deciding where to have brunch. So you treat it all like it was up to you, the world in the balance, 'cause you never know when it is.
Darned right. Don't play by the rules, says Gunn. Forget the game-board, kick it over and start again. Just as Buffy does. It's like Angel's speech in 'Deep Down': 'We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.' One of the most abstract sentences ever uttered on Angel, and probably my favourite. Assume that you are making a difference every time, because one time you will be. I'm reminded of that West Coast review that OnM posted a link to, and the line about Eve giving us choice, giving us the chance to be wrong, to do evil, and not be couched on God's sofa. An inside out view of the world. The reaspn that, although redemption is hard, I love my free will.
I've just realised I didn't do a header for my episode review for 'Inside Out', which makes it a bit of a rarity. So in case you were worried, here's one for 'Shiny Happy People':
4.18- 'Shiny Happy People
First of all, let me note that reference from 'I Only Have Eyes For You'. It makes perfect sense in that episode, because Drusilla and Angelus are muddling through what it means to be a vampire while moving into his mansion place, with Spike the sitting duck in his wheel-chair. Here we get the same lines again. I suspect it's there to draw our attention to the fact that Angel likes the smell of Jasmine, and somehow associates the smell with his own plight. By this stage, it's fairly clear that Craft and Fain were gigantic Buffy fans before they were hired, otherwise the number of little references back to the mother series would be quite remarkable.
I'm a bit muddled as to what to make of this episode. It felt extremely unfinished and somewhat overlong for the idea being expressed. We had already seen the genuflecting, effortlessly bringing Angel and Connor into line, at the end of the previous episode, and this episode doesn't seem to enlarge as much on the idea as I would have expected it to. In a speedy plot Season, this episode was ponderous. Admittedly it raised some really interesting issues, but it managed to feel even more incomplete than usual in a shamelessly serial season, and I was left a little bit underwhelmed. But as usual, there was some good stuff:
-Interesting to not the order in which the four uninitiated AI members knelt down when they first saw Jasmine. Lorne, Fred, Gunn, Wesley. Are we supposed to trake this as an order from least cynical to most cynical? Certainly, one of Lorne's major problems as a member of AI has been his tendency to be too trusting of people. Wesley, who remains standing long after the others are on bended knee, is the man who has recently gone through the experience of trusting no-one. It certainly means something, but it comes as a bit of a surprise, taking this into consideration, that it is Fred who gets the vision of Jasmine with the maggots later on. The genuflection has already done something that, ironically, 'mother' Cordelia has been doing the opposite of right up unitl Jasmine's birth- it brings Angel and Connor together. But it quickly becomes apparent that Jasmine's influence is not a simply good one. Jasmine has opted for the opposite of what Gunn supported in the precious episode. That no-one should have free will or choices. It is in fact free will, quotes one famous theological argument, which is the reason for human evil. If we were incapable of making others suffer, we be robots, devoid of the ability to choose, and God would not have fashioned us in his own image at all, but as drones for his masterplan. Here Jasmine appears quite ready to waive humans' ability to think for themselves, instead allowing people to relax into only doing as she says. For Angel, it comes as a release from responsibility, one which in some part of his mind, he craves. And yet, it seems rooted right at the bottom of his psyche, he has the pre-dispositon to guilt, and is found by Jasmine desperately worried about having not done well by her.
Jasmine claims that the past lives of Angel Investigations was manipulated in a very specific way in order that her incarnation should come to pass. It required Connor, which in turn required Angel and Darla together. Beyond this, we are required to go right back to 'The Trial', (an incredible leap for an important point) for the argument that in attempting and succeeding in passing the tasks required to spare Darla from death, Angel won a life for Connor. Darla could not be saved, as the PG Wodehouse man explained, because she had already died. But Angel's acceptance of death so that Darla might live as a human put him, so to speak, one in credit. Later, Wesley, Lorne and Gunn's actions all led to the circumstance in which Connor and Cordelia consummated their ('weird and icky')relationship, so that it appears that the characters all were pawns. I'm not happy with this portrayal of events, and will continue to refuse to believe it until it is placed beyond doubt. Particularly while Jasmine is portrayed as such a flawed character with so many flawed thoguhts.
Firstly, she claims that they must all 'honour each other', (an interesting reference to 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'?) before dismissing the man who doubts her to a mental hospital. Her creed excludes those who do not fall under her spell. And Fred is so busy attempting to please her, maniacally scrubbing Jasmine's shirt, that she forgets all else- becoming obsessive about a small detail.
A few more thoughts.
-An important line, although a seeming throwaway is Lorne's
"It's, uh, it's too diva, isn't it? Diva, Deity, it's a thin line."
The joke is that the diva thinks herself a God. The importance is that this God, while powerful, is little more than a diva- someone on whom all attention must be focussed, to teh detriment of others, and others' relationships with each other.
-The origin of the phrase 'Shiny Happy People' is not entirely straight ahead with the cheerfulness. REM's irony is adopted here.
-I loved Lorne's "what is my life like?!" line: 'Nothing like a homicidal maniac to put a dampener on an impromptu spiritual gathering'. This from someone who ostensibly does believe in all the nonsense!
-This of course is about how difficult free will is, and how powerful it is. After Fred receives her vision, (the source of which is a complete mystery to me), she realises that all is not as perfect as it seems. Her only ally has been confined to the realms of the psychiatrists, and was hurt by her touch. Fred becomes a little like Winston Smith in 1984, walking alone along the streets, while the telescreens broadcast the symbol of the deity Big Brother Jasmine glaring out in each bar. I suspect I can hope for a rather less bleak finale than 'Fred loved Big Brother', but this is Angel and anything can happen. It's set up for an interesting final arc.
TCH