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butterflySo, I'm rewatching season five and tracking four things:
1) obvious foreshadowing.
(As in how the psychic spitting up blood on Fred foreshadows Fred doing the same and dying in AHitW)
2) how the relationships between the main characters shift.
(Focusing mostly on the Fred/Wes and Angel/Spike connections)
3) references to Connor.
(Like how Wes, Fred, and Gunn in Shells is a twist on Angel, Connor, Wes in Forgiving)
4) and the color red.
(A hint to Cordy's dead status lies in the fact that she wears white and blue, but no red -- she gets subdued or etheral colors, not vibrant, blood-driven red.) My preoccupation with the colors that the characters wear amuses my dad -- I get excited when watching a show if two characters are aligned by the color of their outfit and proceed to explain how that symbolizes how they're aligned in other ways.
Unfortunately, I can't start at the beginning. The tape with Conviction on it got munched by my roommate's dog (and I am much more careful about making sure the door shuts all the way now) and I never had Just Rewards on tape. The one time I saw it was on my computer, from a download. And the picture sucked. Probably my computer's fault. I doubt that I could have picked out the colors that the characters were wearing. Conviction I remember somewhat, but not enough to base any sort of review or tracking off of.
This is the episode that introduces Nina, who is a huge symbol. She's a big blinking light screaming, "Look at me! I represent the conflict between Angel's demon and his humanity! I'm an artist! Like Angel! And a mindless monster! Like Angel! Look! Look!" She's also totally Angel's type, being blonde and stronger than she looks. She gets to play an Angel-role through much of the episode, including keeping her loved ones in the dark (also, like Angel, when she cuts people out, she reduces their relationship to the shallowest level - "Find a new babysitter" vs "You're all fired" -- she even gets a parallel to Angel's speech to Buffy in Amends). This episode, like Shells features a song that could be be called 'un-Angel', but the seeming light-heartedness of the moment is in reality a gloss over the ugliness underneath.
Spike dismisses the innocent victim persona of Nina as irrelevent the moment that she has a bit of monster in her, a reaction that will return again in Damage. Spike puts far more weight to the now than to the before -- Nina may have been an art student, now she's just a werewolf. Considering his own situation, it's an interesting reaction for him to take (he tends to dismiss Harmony the same way). Spike knows full well that a demon can return from the darkness, yet he doesn't hesitate to convict Nina as hopeless. And he's wrong. He's wrong about her, wrong about Dana, wrong about Harmony. All female, all presumed monsters, all of whom were also victims. All of whom feel like a whole lot of foreshadowing for Illyria, who is both victim and monster, presumed evil. Like Nina, Dana, and Harmony, Fred is taken over by a demonic force. Hers, however, is much older than any of theirs -- it has never walked in the world of humans before. While Nina, Dana, and Harmony all already know the rules of human society (and each reacts in an individual way), Illyria doesn't. That's why it has a guide. And once again, in Shells, Spike dismisses the demon-possessed as doomed -- but this time, Angel's with him in the end.
This is where we see the first hints of suspicion towards Gunn -- the arc was always there, under the surface. Gunn tries to downgrade his brain-upgrade to the same level as what the rest of them got, but that's just not so -- of course, we know that Angel also allowed W&H to mess around with brains, and we later learn that so did Lorne. The two of the original group who did not fall to that level were Fred and Wes. The ones who don't take advantage of the firm's tempting and dangerous offers are the ones that get destroyed by what other people in the firm cause, and both of the eventual causes (Knox and Gunn) are put under suspicion here. All three members who had brains messed with ended up feeling responsible for letting Fred die.
We'll see much more of this in Life of the Party, but hints are available, even now -- Lorne doesn't catch the bad guy. His senses are tricked and if it weren't for Spike and Fred, then all would have been lost for Nina (the Angel-proxy). Spike is the one who unknowingly leads Fred to the truth, and to saving the girl. Fred is the one who takes out the lower-level minion, the one who brings the full weight of the situation to the attention of everyone. And Lorne can't really help. He offers a few helpful suggestions, but his key skill is rendered useless.
Fred -- this is the episode where she assumes the mantle of protector. She's the one who travels with Nina, she's the one who finds the vial. But she hasn't fully come into her own -- she carries tranqs, not bullets. She's interested in Knox at this point -- science, knowledge. Someone who rejoices in destruction but doesn't cause it himself. It isn't until her interest turns toward Wesley that she's seen with a gun in season five -- Wesley has always been master of death from afar. Wesley causes pain and doesn't rejoice in it. In the teaser of the episode, she's the only character wearing red -- very often, Fred is in red, symbolising her place as the heart and lifeblood of the team. She symbolises why they fight, what the point of it all is -- she can be in an evil lawfirm without being corrupted by it. The time when she isn't wearing red is when she doesn't succeed -- when she's with Nina and isn't prepared for the kidnappers.
Wesley chooses where he shoots and with what, though -- for Nina, he uses tranqs but when they go to the 'dinner', he has bullets. Wesley knows where the limits are and he doesn't hurt innocent people. Wesley is very rational and contained at this point. Except, and this is telling, except when it comes to Fred. When he's talking about Gunn's possible in with the SP, he's calm -- when it's about Fred and Knox, he's obviously bothered. Fred is the one thing that breaks through all his walls. After all, he can't stop the beating of his own heart.
"Spike is a distraction." Very telling words. Up until he aligns himself with Angel, Spike is completely a distraction, a red herring. Time and time again this season, Spike's not the guy (I wouldn't be shocked if the pattern continued, but it's also possible that the shifting situation has also shifted him).
Nina wears pink in the beginning of the episode - not red and not white, hovering in the nebulous area between innocence and experience. She hasn't yet felt the pull and draw of monster.
When Angel kills the werewolf, we hear part of Angel's theme, but dark and lost -- he just killed a human and the music is appropriately sober, a far cry from the rousing rendition we hear in You're Welcome (more experienced music fans could probably mention just what the differences are).
"Thought he had to fight it alone and ended up with nothing worth fighting for." So much of this season is about the why of fighting. What is being fought for? Why do we fight? Everyone on Angel is searching for something worth fighting for -- for a reason, for a why. Angel doesn't have one (apart from 'the work itself', which he does not find inspiring enough). Spike did find one in Shells. Wesley had Fred -- she was his why. She was what made the world worth fighting for. Gunn tried the law, tried the brains, and found it lacking when it cost him his friends and the life of a loved one. Knox died in the service of his reason. Lorne and Harmony mostly seem to fight to be on the team ("I'm part of your team..."/"I can torture for the team."). They're all searching for 'something worthy'.
Fred wears warm, vibrant colors in this episode (and, tellingly, she suggests to Spike that he go to Wesley for help on his problem -- she has a lot of faith in Wes' abilities). Here and in Hellbound are where we really seeing Fred and Spike connect, and why he likes her -- she's helpful and caring while refusing to take his drama queen act seriously. But she's not wearing red full-time yet, there are still parts of her that aren't blood and heart.
Doctor Rice foreshadows Knox's eventual betrayal - each is serving a power outside Wolfram and Hart for their own enjoyment and advancement. Each fools Lorne's mind-reading, each is responsible for a woman being sent to a horrible doom (Angel saves Nina, but can't save Fred -- things get worse as they go on -- "life's a song you don't get to rehearse and every single verse can make it that much worse").
After Nina's been bitten by the wolf, her clothes are darker colors, showing how her inner world is darkening. She's still in pink, but it's a darker pink, closer to red and to blood. And not to be negative, but the human-to-wolf transformation kinda sucks. It looks fake. Once Nina's at W&H, she wears drab, brown clothes - Wolfram and Hart.
Wes is the one to take Nina out of commission, just as he later does with Dana. In a sense, he may also be the one to take Illyria out of commission, if it does let him guide it.
"You saved me."
"I was too late."
Angel's always a little too late when it really matters. A pattern established in the very first episode, when he doesn't arrive at the apartment in time to save Tina.
"[vampires] can control themselves if they want to."
True. As seen in the example of Harmony, even an unsouled vampire can control itself if given sufficient reason.
Here, Fred reacts to the idea of Angel and her being couple-y with a "God, no." She's way moved past that crush. She's over Angel, over Gunn. She gets over Knox fairly fast. I wonder how long Wes and Fred would have lasted if she hadn't died. Her track record isn't terrific -- of course, Wesley treats her differently than any of the other guys. Though he can get insanely protective, he doesn't try to take away her choices (unlike Gunn and Knox).
"If you separate yourself from the ones you love, then the monster wins."
Angel tries to reconnect with the gang, but just as Nina is still lying to her family, Angel is still lying to his. The connection and the trust are false. Fred stands out of the circle, their connection to the world at large -- a fragile connection, as it turns out.
1) obvious foreshadowing.
(As in how the psychic spitting up blood on Fred foreshadows Fred doing the same and dying in AHitW)
2) how the relationships between the main characters shift.
(Focusing mostly on the Fred/Wes and Angel/Spike connections)
3) references to Connor.
(Like how Wes, Fred, and Gunn in Shells is a twist on Angel, Connor, Wes in Forgiving)
4) and the color red.
(A hint to Cordy's dead status lies in the fact that she wears white and blue, but no red -- she gets subdued or etheral colors, not vibrant, blood-driven red.) My preoccupation with the colors that the characters wear amuses my dad -- I get excited when watching a show if two characters are aligned by the color of their outfit and proceed to explain how that symbolizes how they're aligned in other ways.
Unfortunately, I can't start at the beginning. The tape with Conviction on it got munched by my roommate's dog (and I am much more careful about making sure the door shuts all the way now) and I never had Just Rewards on tape. The one time I saw it was on my computer, from a download. And the picture sucked. Probably my computer's fault. I doubt that I could have picked out the colors that the characters were wearing. Conviction I remember somewhat, but not enough to base any sort of review or tracking off of.
This is the episode that introduces Nina, who is a huge symbol. She's a big blinking light screaming, "Look at me! I represent the conflict between Angel's demon and his humanity! I'm an artist! Like Angel! And a mindless monster! Like Angel! Look! Look!" She's also totally Angel's type, being blonde and stronger than she looks. She gets to play an Angel-role through much of the episode, including keeping her loved ones in the dark (also, like Angel, when she cuts people out, she reduces their relationship to the shallowest level - "Find a new babysitter" vs "You're all fired" -- she even gets a parallel to Angel's speech to Buffy in Amends). This episode, like Shells features a song that could be be called 'un-Angel', but the seeming light-heartedness of the moment is in reality a gloss over the ugliness underneath.
Spike dismisses the innocent victim persona of Nina as irrelevent the moment that she has a bit of monster in her, a reaction that will return again in Damage. Spike puts far more weight to the now than to the before -- Nina may have been an art student, now she's just a werewolf. Considering his own situation, it's an interesting reaction for him to take (he tends to dismiss Harmony the same way). Spike knows full well that a demon can return from the darkness, yet he doesn't hesitate to convict Nina as hopeless. And he's wrong. He's wrong about her, wrong about Dana, wrong about Harmony. All female, all presumed monsters, all of whom were also victims. All of whom feel like a whole lot of foreshadowing for Illyria, who is both victim and monster, presumed evil. Like Nina, Dana, and Harmony, Fred is taken over by a demonic force. Hers, however, is much older than any of theirs -- it has never walked in the world of humans before. While Nina, Dana, and Harmony all already know the rules of human society (and each reacts in an individual way), Illyria doesn't. That's why it has a guide. And once again, in Shells, Spike dismisses the demon-possessed as doomed -- but this time, Angel's with him in the end.
This is where we see the first hints of suspicion towards Gunn -- the arc was always there, under the surface. Gunn tries to downgrade his brain-upgrade to the same level as what the rest of them got, but that's just not so -- of course, we know that Angel also allowed W&H to mess around with brains, and we later learn that so did Lorne. The two of the original group who did not fall to that level were Fred and Wes. The ones who don't take advantage of the firm's tempting and dangerous offers are the ones that get destroyed by what other people in the firm cause, and both of the eventual causes (Knox and Gunn) are put under suspicion here. All three members who had brains messed with ended up feeling responsible for letting Fred die.
We'll see much more of this in Life of the Party, but hints are available, even now -- Lorne doesn't catch the bad guy. His senses are tricked and if it weren't for Spike and Fred, then all would have been lost for Nina (the Angel-proxy). Spike is the one who unknowingly leads Fred to the truth, and to saving the girl. Fred is the one who takes out the lower-level minion, the one who brings the full weight of the situation to the attention of everyone. And Lorne can't really help. He offers a few helpful suggestions, but his key skill is rendered useless.
Fred -- this is the episode where she assumes the mantle of protector. She's the one who travels with Nina, she's the one who finds the vial. But she hasn't fully come into her own -- she carries tranqs, not bullets. She's interested in Knox at this point -- science, knowledge. Someone who rejoices in destruction but doesn't cause it himself. It isn't until her interest turns toward Wesley that she's seen with a gun in season five -- Wesley has always been master of death from afar. Wesley causes pain and doesn't rejoice in it. In the teaser of the episode, she's the only character wearing red -- very often, Fred is in red, symbolising her place as the heart and lifeblood of the team. She symbolises why they fight, what the point of it all is -- she can be in an evil lawfirm without being corrupted by it. The time when she isn't wearing red is when she doesn't succeed -- when she's with Nina and isn't prepared for the kidnappers.
Wesley chooses where he shoots and with what, though -- for Nina, he uses tranqs but when they go to the 'dinner', he has bullets. Wesley knows where the limits are and he doesn't hurt innocent people. Wesley is very rational and contained at this point. Except, and this is telling, except when it comes to Fred. When he's talking about Gunn's possible in with the SP, he's calm -- when it's about Fred and Knox, he's obviously bothered. Fred is the one thing that breaks through all his walls. After all, he can't stop the beating of his own heart.
"Spike is a distraction." Very telling words. Up until he aligns himself with Angel, Spike is completely a distraction, a red herring. Time and time again this season, Spike's not the guy (I wouldn't be shocked if the pattern continued, but it's also possible that the shifting situation has also shifted him).
Nina wears pink in the beginning of the episode - not red and not white, hovering in the nebulous area between innocence and experience. She hasn't yet felt the pull and draw of monster.
When Angel kills the werewolf, we hear part of Angel's theme, but dark and lost -- he just killed a human and the music is appropriately sober, a far cry from the rousing rendition we hear in You're Welcome (more experienced music fans could probably mention just what the differences are).
"Thought he had to fight it alone and ended up with nothing worth fighting for." So much of this season is about the why of fighting. What is being fought for? Why do we fight? Everyone on Angel is searching for something worth fighting for -- for a reason, for a why. Angel doesn't have one (apart from 'the work itself', which he does not find inspiring enough). Spike did find one in Shells. Wesley had Fred -- she was his why. She was what made the world worth fighting for. Gunn tried the law, tried the brains, and found it lacking when it cost him his friends and the life of a loved one. Knox died in the service of his reason. Lorne and Harmony mostly seem to fight to be on the team ("I'm part of your team..."/"I can torture for the team."). They're all searching for 'something worthy'.
Fred wears warm, vibrant colors in this episode (and, tellingly, she suggests to Spike that he go to Wesley for help on his problem -- she has a lot of faith in Wes' abilities). Here and in Hellbound are where we really seeing Fred and Spike connect, and why he likes her -- she's helpful and caring while refusing to take his drama queen act seriously. But she's not wearing red full-time yet, there are still parts of her that aren't blood and heart.
Doctor Rice foreshadows Knox's eventual betrayal - each is serving a power outside Wolfram and Hart for their own enjoyment and advancement. Each fools Lorne's mind-reading, each is responsible for a woman being sent to a horrible doom (Angel saves Nina, but can't save Fred -- things get worse as they go on -- "life's a song you don't get to rehearse and every single verse can make it that much worse").
After Nina's been bitten by the wolf, her clothes are darker colors, showing how her inner world is darkening. She's still in pink, but it's a darker pink, closer to red and to blood. And not to be negative, but the human-to-wolf transformation kinda sucks. It looks fake. Once Nina's at W&H, she wears drab, brown clothes - Wolfram and Hart.
Wes is the one to take Nina out of commission, just as he later does with Dana. In a sense, he may also be the one to take Illyria out of commission, if it does let him guide it.
"You saved me."
"I was too late."
Angel's always a little too late when it really matters. A pattern established in the very first episode, when he doesn't arrive at the apartment in time to save Tina.
"[vampires] can control themselves if they want to."
True. As seen in the example of Harmony, even an unsouled vampire can control itself if given sufficient reason.
Here, Fred reacts to the idea of Angel and her being couple-y with a "God, no." She's way moved past that crush. She's over Angel, over Gunn. She gets over Knox fairly fast. I wonder how long Wes and Fred would have lasted if she hadn't died. Her track record isn't terrific -- of course, Wesley treats her differently than any of the other guys. Though he can get insanely protective, he doesn't try to take away her choices (unlike Gunn and Knox).
"If you separate yourself from the ones you love, then the monster wins."
Angel tries to reconnect with the gang, but just as Nina is still lying to her family, Angel is still lying to his. The connection and the trust are false. Fred stands out of the circle, their connection to the world at large -- a fragile connection, as it turns out.
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Nice pickup
Date: 2004-03-08 02:40 am (UTC)And it isn't just a SPike-on-AtS phenomenon - remember how post-Smashed he was toying with the idea that Buffy was a demonic predator who needed to get in touch with her own evil?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 06:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 08:41 am (UTC)Re: Nice pickup
Date: 2004-03-09 12:12 am (UTC)I remember Spike, in Destiny, telling Angel that the reason Angel behaved as he did was because he needed to believe that there was someone lower than himself. As usual with Spike, I suspect that the jab can more accurately be pointed at Spike himself. Angelus was pretty self-confident, really (Liam was too, actually -- it wasn't until he lost his soul and his lover that Angel doubted himself).
Correction -
Date: 2004-03-09 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-09 12:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-09 12:16 am (UTC)I loved Unleashed on first viewing -- though, honestly, mostly for the shallow things, like the stacked blonde who was willing to show off her (very nice) body.