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truepennyI don't watch Angel as a general rule, but have been watching the past couple weeks for the Obvious Reason, and so have some scattered thoughts about "Release."
First off, I'm basically in agreement with Ekaleinnov and Sjes: give me the Faith and Wes Hour and forget this Evil!Cordy nonsense. I love Charisma Carpenter, and as Chesulker pointed out, she is eminently capable of being and projecting evil (see BtVS S1 & 2), but this is just ... lame. Lame lame lame. And I hate the "daddy" rhetoric she's using on that poor stupid manipulatable twit of a Connor. I am hoping for big nasty payback on that one, in the same way that I am hoping desperately that Angelus is going to turn around and bite Evil!Cordy in the ass. He doesn't take orders, chickie, and you may have him under your thumb, but you do NOT have him under your control.
Connor, on the other hand, I'm loving quite a bit. Checking for fangs! Like Buffy in "Earshot" checking for horns! He's so cute and sullen and teenaged and crushed out on Faith and earnest. And such a bad liar--"really hot soup" indeed. But I am puzzled (and all you Angel-watchers out there can probably explain this to me). After Connor got the smackdown from the sanctuary spell and it was clearly a Big Hairy Deal, I said to Chesulker, "Did we not think Connor was part-demon?" Because I don't watch the show, and so only know through other people's recaps wtf is going on, but what with Connor's, um, exciting childhood, I personally had assumed the poor schmo had demon bits coming out his ears. But apparently that was just me.
A confession: I like Fred. This may very well be because the first episode of Angel I ever saw was "Supersymmetry," and Fred in that ep punches all of my buttons: she's a wicked smart, geeky perfectionist with the ingrained respect for authority figures that makes one's life such a trial sometimes. Leaving aside the genius-at-physics bit, that's pretty much me, although I was mercifully never sent to a hell-dimension by my adviser. (Although the mental images that conjures up are REALLY funny.) So I like Fred. But Amy Acker (whom I also quite like) has chemistry with NOTHING. She doesn't even have chemistry with the chocolate-dipped sex on a stick that is Wesley. She does nerd so beautifully that they ought to leave her alone with that and not try to make her do romantic ingenue as well. Can't a gal be on a Mutant Enemy show and NOT have a sex-life? 'Cause people sometimes don't, ya know. Besides, for reasons which I can't explain, I don't like Gunn. There's no reason; I just don't. So the Wegured (as Sjes calls it) does nothing for me. My inner Vamp!Willow said "Bored now," and started looking around for things to kill.
Did I mention how much I don't like Evil!Cordy and her Voice of Camp? Because I really don't.
On the other hand, I do enjoy Angelus. As he has been since BtVS S2, he's just fun to watch. Chesulker and I got into this thing about the difference between Spike and Angel; my theory is that Angel has MPD (multiple personality disorder), metaphorically governed in honorable ME fashion by the ease with which you can decant his soul into a shiny thing. Chesulker's theory is much more complicated, and I think I'll let her explain it if she feels like, but it has to do with the possibility that there are varying degrees of demonness with which one can be infected.
Clearly, I've been saving the best for last: Faith.
[ETA: A tangential annoyance: why the FUCK are they all on about "Faith can't take down Angelus," when what Faith couldn't take down in "Salvage" was the Beast? Is everyone here very stoned?]
Full props to the Angel team for realism. In the teaser, she does look like she's genuinely had the shit beaten out of her. I especially liked--in that ow! oh god! ow ow ow! way--the tiny moment with her unfastening her bra. Also liked her attacking the shower, and Wes's crack about the security deposit (shades of "The Replacement").
Eliza Dushku seemed to spend a lot of this episode channelling SMG from "Helpless": staring silently at people with those big dark wounded eyes. It's a good look and I love it, but considering that we've only got an hour to work with, I really wish the writers had given her more DIALOGUE. Faith, like Angelus, has always been mouthy. That's part of why I love her. And I can't believe that she doesn't have things to say. She and Wesley need to get into it, and I needed it, frankly, about half an hour before the credits rolled. But I love her for refusing to play by the rules that both Angelus and Wesley think she should be playing by. It reminds me of Buffy in "Get It Done" (see my thoughts here).
I thought Faith and Wesley exploring the back of that skanky demon bar was a nice reflection back on "Into the Woods," where Buffy is too pissed off at Riley for them to get into the whole social implications of a vampire bordello. I liked the fact that Faith's reaction mirrored Buffy's very closely, without the setting things on fire, and the ecstatic little Doug Petrie in the back of my brain was cheering about lesbian subtext! all over again. And the whole Wesley-Faith-torture sequence was excellent.
That junkie girl's "Wanna make out with me?" was the most sensible thing anybody said the entire hour.
I am agreeing with Sjes again about the final fight scene. Too long and too much with the flyingsquirrelgelus shots. Although the scaffolding and the way they used it was really really cool (where the fuck were they, btw? a church with a bookstore in it?), we could have taken some of those seconds and used them for some honest-to-god CHARACTER INTERACTION between Faith and Wesley. Because that's the happening place in this episode, and there isn't nearly enough of it. Dammit.
First off, I'm basically in agreement with Ekaleinnov and Sjes: give me the Faith and Wes Hour and forget this Evil!Cordy nonsense. I love Charisma Carpenter, and as Chesulker pointed out, she is eminently capable of being and projecting evil (see BtVS S1 & 2), but this is just ... lame. Lame lame lame. And I hate the "daddy" rhetoric she's using on that poor stupid manipulatable twit of a Connor. I am hoping for big nasty payback on that one, in the same way that I am hoping desperately that Angelus is going to turn around and bite Evil!Cordy in the ass. He doesn't take orders, chickie, and you may have him under your thumb, but you do NOT have him under your control.
Connor, on the other hand, I'm loving quite a bit. Checking for fangs! Like Buffy in "Earshot" checking for horns! He's so cute and sullen and teenaged and crushed out on Faith and earnest. And such a bad liar--"really hot soup" indeed. But I am puzzled (and all you Angel-watchers out there can probably explain this to me). After Connor got the smackdown from the sanctuary spell and it was clearly a Big Hairy Deal, I said to Chesulker, "Did we not think Connor was part-demon?" Because I don't watch the show, and so only know through other people's recaps wtf is going on, but what with Connor's, um, exciting childhood, I personally had assumed the poor schmo had demon bits coming out his ears. But apparently that was just me.
A confession: I like Fred. This may very well be because the first episode of Angel I ever saw was "Supersymmetry," and Fred in that ep punches all of my buttons: she's a wicked smart, geeky perfectionist with the ingrained respect for authority figures that makes one's life such a trial sometimes. Leaving aside the genius-at-physics bit, that's pretty much me, although I was mercifully never sent to a hell-dimension by my adviser. (Although the mental images that conjures up are REALLY funny.) So I like Fred. But Amy Acker (whom I also quite like) has chemistry with NOTHING. She doesn't even have chemistry with the chocolate-dipped sex on a stick that is Wesley. She does nerd so beautifully that they ought to leave her alone with that and not try to make her do romantic ingenue as well. Can't a gal be on a Mutant Enemy show and NOT have a sex-life? 'Cause people sometimes don't, ya know. Besides, for reasons which I can't explain, I don't like Gunn. There's no reason; I just don't. So the Wegured (as Sjes calls it) does nothing for me. My inner Vamp!Willow said "Bored now," and started looking around for things to kill.
Did I mention how much I don't like Evil!Cordy and her Voice of Camp? Because I really don't.
On the other hand, I do enjoy Angelus. As he has been since BtVS S2, he's just fun to watch. Chesulker and I got into this thing about the difference between Spike and Angel; my theory is that Angel has MPD (multiple personality disorder), metaphorically governed in honorable ME fashion by the ease with which you can decant his soul into a shiny thing. Chesulker's theory is much more complicated, and I think I'll let her explain it if she feels like, but it has to do with the possibility that there are varying degrees of demonness with which one can be infected.
Clearly, I've been saving the best for last: Faith.
[ETA: A tangential annoyance: why the FUCK are they all on about "Faith can't take down Angelus," when what Faith couldn't take down in "Salvage" was the Beast? Is everyone here very stoned?]
Full props to the Angel team for realism. In the teaser, she does look like she's genuinely had the shit beaten out of her. I especially liked--in that ow! oh god! ow ow ow! way--the tiny moment with her unfastening her bra. Also liked her attacking the shower, and Wes's crack about the security deposit (shades of "The Replacement").
Eliza Dushku seemed to spend a lot of this episode channelling SMG from "Helpless": staring silently at people with those big dark wounded eyes. It's a good look and I love it, but considering that we've only got an hour to work with, I really wish the writers had given her more DIALOGUE. Faith, like Angelus, has always been mouthy. That's part of why I love her. And I can't believe that she doesn't have things to say. She and Wesley need to get into it, and I needed it, frankly, about half an hour before the credits rolled. But I love her for refusing to play by the rules that both Angelus and Wesley think she should be playing by. It reminds me of Buffy in "Get It Done" (see my thoughts here).
I thought Faith and Wesley exploring the back of that skanky demon bar was a nice reflection back on "Into the Woods," where Buffy is too pissed off at Riley for them to get into the whole social implications of a vampire bordello. I liked the fact that Faith's reaction mirrored Buffy's very closely, without the setting things on fire, and the ecstatic little Doug Petrie in the back of my brain was cheering about lesbian subtext! all over again. And the whole Wesley-Faith-torture sequence was excellent.
That junkie girl's "Wanna make out with me?" was the most sensible thing anybody said the entire hour.
I am agreeing with Sjes again about the final fight scene. Too long and too much with the flyingsquirrelgelus shots. Although the scaffolding and the way they used it was really really cool (where the fuck were they, btw? a church with a bookstore in it?), we could have taken some of those seconds and used them for some honest-to-god CHARACTER INTERACTION between Faith and Wesley. Because that's the happening place in this episode, and there isn't nearly enough of it. Dammit.
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no subject
Date: 2003-03-13 08:19 am (UTC)Curate's egg, you said
Date: 2003-03-13 09:39 am (UTC)Still, every so often there's this little click in my head of recognition.
Re: Curate's egg, you said
Date: 2003-03-13 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-13 07:29 pm (UTC)And I can understand him sort of believing he had never been anything but 100% human-- he grew up in an insane, comic-book-sort-of-hell world with only Holtz for company; and Holtz was preaching the human-chauvinist gospel 24-7; and it's not as though Connor had had other humans around for company and comparison with his own mutanty self.
In fact, I think I can believe that Connor, with Holtz's help, built a sort of abstract construction in his mind of the Humans: pure, mythological race of beings which must be protected and promoted and fought on behalf of.
So. Yeah. I bought his freak-out.
(This post brought to you by annoying teenage speech patterns. And irony. And... the number 3!)
>flyingsquirrelgelus
Dude. I love this phrase. I want to marry this phrase.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-13 07:48 pm (UTC)>flyingsquirrelgelus
Dude. I love this phrase. I want to marry this phrase.
Oh, I'm right with you. Yet another mot juste from the incomparable
no subject
Date: 2003-03-13 08:29 pm (UTC)Oh. <embarrassed> That would be me, girl-who-missed-the-first-half-of-the-episode talking.
Never mind....
no subject
Date: 2003-03-13 11:55 pm (UTC)No, no. Everyone knows that Connor's origins are mysterious and strange, but they all thought he was human — just, you know, an extra-skilled and strong fighter from growing up being trained to hack stuff up in the demon dimension. I so can't do chapter and verse, but there was stuff when he was born with them getting the doctors to check him out and saying he was a healthy baby, and I think there was even stuff with Wolfram and Hart testing his blood and finding him to be human. Huh. Maybe they even had Fred check his blood. I can't remember. This will bug me enough eventually to go find out, but not tonight. Anyway, whatever lives in the part of my brain that does Angel show context has no problem with his blue-aura ricochet thing and, in fact, I was surprised (although not shocked) and find it to be a compelling development.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-14 03:28 pm (UTC)