stakebait | Tonight's Angel

That? Pretty much rocked. I am impressed with DB as a director. He didn't do the self-indulgent thing at all. The look and feel and pacing was right -- and Angel spent practically the whole episode in darkness, confirming TBQ's call that Angel would be ambivilent at best about taking advantage of the necrotempered glass benefits.

I can so see Angel lashing out at hearing the "grey" thing yet again -- god knows that's how I reacted whenever they said "champion" -- and responding by wanting to take it back to black and white by maximum force, since not only does he kinda have a point, but that's often his impulse under pressure. I liked the throw away dialogue -- sci fi death ray -- and the sound effect of it being distant. I thought "the next billing cycle" was a bit over the top, though. We get it.

The Spike/Lindsay introduction was well done. Not the most original premise -- how many fics start with them meeting in a bar? Especially with a stripper named Sunshine. But it makes sense and Spike's reaction was so Spike, it worked. And I bought that Spike, who has no baseline for Lindsay, would not necessarily pick up on the ring of untruth, especially since he *was* skeptical. I actually gasped at the introduction of Doyle's name. And I adored the other differences between Spike and early Angel -- him scolding the victim for being an idiot. I love that Spike does not get off on the worship of the helpless and would rather they stop being helpless. But I so wanted to see Angel up on a roof making fun of him. Because sometimes I'm three.

I wasn't thrilled with Lindsay's sudden descent into meta with the analysis of Spike's changing motivations, partly because it smacked a bit too much of Telling Us What The Thing is instead of letting us get it from what's shown, partly because I am So Done With That Debate, but mostly for the same reason I didn't like Eve's assumption of intimate knowledge of Angel. Hello, you just met. I liked Spike calling him on it though.

Is every apartment in the Angelverse painted that blue? I swear I thought he was at Wesley's place. I don't honestly see why being a hero requires a spartan lifestyle or an empty bed, though. Bruce Wayne seemed to do okay.

Angel's fever dreams, while not large with the subtle, really worked well: as sheer entertainment, as what he would logically fear, and as a nice counterpoint to "Angel's retarded fantasy" of last season. The family he missed gathering with that same oversimplified approval around Spike instead of him. Parts I particularly liked: Angel burning with the Chosen special effect, as if he has no choice to turn into Spike if Spike, so to speak, turns into him. Fred hearing the ocean in his emptiness, a nice subtle reference to Connor, who would otherwise have been a glaring omission from the parade of horrors. Him in dorky clothes as the mailman, referring back to to the cautionary tale of Number Five. And for some reason I was really charmed by the soul as goldfish, and not just for being a tiny Willow shoutout.

I like the way they handled the Buffy thing too, considering the constraints of no SMG. They turned the fact that they had to use old sound footage into a plus, emphasizing Angel's fear that Spike is taking not only his future but in some ways his past too. And my slashy heart was amused by how unfazed Angel is to wake and find Spike fucking in his bed, at least until he finds out who. The bed looked awfully large and empty when he woke for real.

Plus I was impressed with how much everyone sounded like themselves. As everyone who's ever played in a low-probability fanficverse knows, that's the key to putting it over the top. And Fred's little "you probably should have had them removed a long time ago" was really very Fred. Lorne as Honkytonk was weirdly convincing. Even Dream Wes sounded like himself when he's Determined to Do the Necessary Thing.

And not that it was in the dream ballet, but I adored Gunn's confused half-apology for his heckling dream self. It was very deft.

I thought Spike explaining himself -- or not -- to Wes and Gunn was very convincing, both in terms of sounding like the Spike I know and love and in terms of dangling the implication and letting us impute the motivations we can believe ourselves. I'm still hoping for more better revelations about his state of mind at some point, but I'd far rather have less than more of the wrong thing. And I liked his point about the inside view. Though I'm not sure really why it *can't* be changed from the inside, albeit I agree that they aren't making much of a showing as yet. Spike's disinterested outsider observations are usually right, but I'm not sure this one is -- or if it turns out to be, where the hell they're going to go next. I don't want to lose that aspect of his character, but neither do I want him to be proved right if that means calling everything since Home a mistake to be undone rather than built on.

I wasn't quite as convinced by Wes and Gunn offering him a job. Not bothering tired!Angel with a non-crisis and going to check it out, sure. Wondering why Spike ever left if this is what he wanted to do, sure. The hint of turf possessiveness, absolutely. But actively recruiting Spike to come back without Angel's okay and then dealing with the fallout of Angel's reaction seems shortsighted in a way that Wes at least is not generally prone to. Not that Gunn is, but since he's changed so much I'm more willing to give the free pass. I did buy, and enjoyed, the funk it sent them into though. It made sense for their characters -- and it's nice to see them working as a team again -- and it also was nice continuity with the Yoko Factor.

I'm assuming Spike knew that "just helping the helpless," was Angel's slogan. If he did I love it -- it's snarky on so many levels, rubbing in that he's taken over the mission, that Angel's lost it, and that Angel himself is helpless. But I also love that Spike will jump to to save Angel, and as long as he's being all-knowing anyway, that Lindsay knows that will get to Spike when nothing else will. It's canon, I tell you.

Eve, as usual, was meh. I saw no chemistry even when Lindsay was being all hot and dommy and tousled, though that might have been deliberate since she was looking past him to the box. And fuck if I can make sense of this plan. Why two creatures and not just the big one to start with? Why have Eve be so clumsy as to announce that she's part of the dream, and change her clothes after Fred's seen them instead of just when she went in to see Angel? Did they want the gang to suspect Eve, or is she just being stupid for plot convenience playhouse? (And does Fred memorize everybody's jewelry collection?) I assume Spike rescuing Angel was to further demoralize Angel, but... oh, well. Presumably this will be further explained in subsequent episodes. And hey, maybe she'll die.

Her last line, sowing dissention in the ranks, was very her and well delivered for what it was, but if I were Angel that would not be enough to distract me from some fairly damning circumstantial evidence. I might look internally too, but I wouldn't stop looking at her.

Speaking of which? Previews yay! God only knows with their marketing department anything's possible and maybe the 100th episode is about them playing Scrabble, but so far I only see good things to come.

Oh, and is it just me or did Harmony look really different? Good, but different.

Mer

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luvs-phoenix.livejournal.com

Great write up! This is why I let others do the big posts, LOL. I just like to get my "Liked, or didn't like" in before I read the other LJs, *g*

BTW, Harmony had her hair in kind of ringlets tonight and I thought she looked VERY pretty. So did Fred in the last dream sequence.

I do love my girls purdy.

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Tonight's Angel

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