Angel - Season 2 impressions (episode 2)
Dec. 18th, 2005 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thalia_seawoodAre You Now Or Have You Ever Been
A summary for this episode can be found here.
- What a brilliant, brilliant episode! I guess I shouldn't be surprised I like this episode so much. It was after all written by Tim Minear, the king of flashback episodes. :-)
I love the way the story is told, how the present and the past are merged so seemlessly in many of the shots, how we gradually piece together what happened along with Wesley and Cordelia researching the Hyperion Hotel.
I love that this episode introduces the Hyperion Hotel as if it is a character by itself. In this regard, it reminds me slightly of Firefly's ep Out of Gas that explores the history of the starship Serenity and was also written by Tim Minear.
- In the first scene, Cordy once again plays the role of caretaker when she prepares English Breakfast Tea for Wesley (I approve!) and blood with cinnamon (*g*) for Angel.
- The first flashback scene rocks.
The bellhop is so obviously scared and the dark hotel corridor with the convoluted patterns on the carpet is menacing (it totally reminded me of the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick's movie Shining). So I admit I was scared by the unknown terror residig in room 217. (The room # seems to be another hommage to Shining by Stephen King/Stanley Kubrick. The haunted room in the Overlook Hotel is also # 217 - at least in the book. I think the movie changed the room number to # 237 for reasons unknown to me.)
When I then saw that Angel is the resident of # 217 I was surprise. For one, he is not living in the streets feeding on rats, but has managed in some way to adjust to his soul. Of course, he still has a hard time coping with life. Everything he does seems to take an effort of will, he's constantly fighting against giving up.
The bellhop seems to pick up on it when he say: "Ever look into his eyes? - There's nothing there."
But with regards to what happens later on I'm not entirely sure that the bellboy doesn't see his own darkness reflected in Angel's eyes.
- The episode deals with the themes of whispers and lies, how gossip can get out of hand. Fear makes people do stupid things as Angel states later on. It's very fitting that this episode plays in the era of McCarthy and we see a small part of the McCarthy hearings being broadcast on TV in the second flashback scene.
Voice: " ...that I have to teach this committee the basic principles of Americanism..."
Gavel bangs and another voice (McCarthy) interrupts: "That's not the question! That's not the question. The question is: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?"
One nitpick: The story plays in 1952, but weren't the McCarthy hearings broadcast in 1954?
- A lot of things are going on in this hotel and Angel observes some of them, e.g. the actor who's obviously having an affair with Larry, the suicide in the room next to him, Judy. Even though, the events don't concern him: He's like a rock in a fast flowing river. Things happen around him, but he doesn't want to be drawn in. Things change when he decides to help Judy.
- The whispers intruding into people's life and confronting them with their own worst fears are very well done. Even without a demon, hotels can be depressing places, IMO. So many people close together, most of them just passing through, but some being stuck. And even though you're surrounded by all these many people, in a hotel room you are essentially alone.
- Wesley: "Frank Gillnitz. He worked as a Bellman the year that Angel was in residence, we put him in 1952."
Cordy and Wesley are sitting on the floor in front of a bunch of folders laid out by year.
Cordy: "But he wasn't executed until 1954. Shouldn't we put him there?"
Wesley: "He wasn't executed until 1954, *but* the crime that he committed, the murder of the salesman and the storing of the body in the hotel meat locker *that* occurred in 1952."
Cordy: "It's kind of like a puzzle. The 'who died horribly because Angel screwed up 50 years ago' game?"
Creepy and ironic. The bellhop gets convincted for a murder that didn't happen, but doesn't get punished for being part of the witchhunt. And since the salesman died in 1952 and his body was found in 1954, this means that they had a chopped up body stored in the meatlocker for 2 years. Yuck.
- Judy: "Nobody believes that! Not even my *mother's family*. I'm not one thing or the other. I'm nothing."
Angel: "I know what that's like."
Judy gets quite then puts a hand on her stomach: "Yes. Yes, I am. - I *am* something. (She sinks down in a chair and looks up at Angel) I'm a thief! (Gasps) I've never stolen anything before in my life. It's just - god, the things that they called me."
Angel: "Fear makes people do stupid things."
Judy: "It was stupid. And I wish I'd never done it."
Angel: "I didn't mean you. I meant your former employers. They were afraid. That's why they fired you."
Judy: "What am I going to do? I'm trapped!"
Angel shakes his head: "You're not trapped."
He walks over to the bag of money.
Judy getting up: "I am! Look, if I leave now it'll look too suspicious, but if I stay here and the cops find this..."
Angel: "They're not gonna find it. (Judy stares at him) 'Cause I'm gonna help you."
I'm very fond of this scene. I'm wondering if this is the first time since Angel received his soul that he tried to connect to a human being. He did try to rescue the missionaries in Shanghai, but otherwise I don't know yet if he tried to help anyone or if he just drifted through the years without connections to other vampires or to humans.
- The episode brings up three things that would make you an outsider in the USA of the early 50s: Being in any way connected to the communist party, being homosexual and being coloured.
Basically everyone we see in the Hyperion Hotel in the flashbacks scene has something to hide: The actor is gay, the writer is accused of communist tendencies, Judy pretends to be white. And none of this should matter. The only really criminal thing going on is the manager and the bellhop hiding the corpse.
- Judy to Angel: "I mean, there is such a thing as forgiveness, right?"
Love how this question plays a bigger role in the episode.
- Judy betraying Angel is an extremely painful moment. Judy is not only betraying Angel, she's also betraying herself. You can see right this instance that this moment will haunt her for the rest of her life. Angel on the other hand has reached out to someone for the first time in many years - yet his good intentions only cause him pain. I'd like to know what he does afterwards. Is this what casts him into even deeper despair and when he starts living on the streets again? - My personal take is that he just goes on for a while, to numb to feel anything.
- The actor playing the Thesulac demon does a good job, but compared to the creepiness of the whispers beforehand the actual demon isn't very threatening.
- My inner nitpicker wanted to know how Judy got food and clothes all the years she hid in the hotel. Did the demon run a room service?
- Love this moment. It gives Angel the chance to forgive someone when he's the one who needs so much forgiveness himself:
Judy holding on to his hands: "I'm so sorry I killed you. Can you forgive me?"
Angel looks down at her: "Of course."
- Lovely final scene:
Cordy: "70 years of violence, mayhem and paranoia - bad vibes."
Angel: "We're moving in."
Cordy: "I mean, a few throw pillows - what's not to love?"
Wesley: "Angel, surely you more than anyone must appreciate, how for the better part of the last century this place has been host not only to a malevolent demonic presence, but the very worst faces of humanity! - This is a house of evil."
Angel still looking around the hotel: "Not anymore."
Wesley takes a look around himself then leans in closer to Angel.
Wesley: "Angel - you don't - find me - especially paranoid, do you?"
Angel: "Not especially."
Wesley: "Oh, thank god! - I was worried."
Small wonder the demon focused on Wesley. He's still so very insecure...
And Judy as sort of protective spirit inside the hotel? I like the idea.
A summary for this episode can be found here.
- What a brilliant, brilliant episode! I guess I shouldn't be surprised I like this episode so much. It was after all written by Tim Minear, the king of flashback episodes. :-)
I love the way the story is told, how the present and the past are merged so seemlessly in many of the shots, how we gradually piece together what happened along with Wesley and Cordelia researching the Hyperion Hotel.
I love that this episode introduces the Hyperion Hotel as if it is a character by itself. In this regard, it reminds me slightly of Firefly's ep Out of Gas that explores the history of the starship Serenity and was also written by Tim Minear.
- In the first scene, Cordy once again plays the role of caretaker when she prepares English Breakfast Tea for Wesley (I approve!) and blood with cinnamon (*g*) for Angel.
- The first flashback scene rocks.
The bellhop is so obviously scared and the dark hotel corridor with the convoluted patterns on the carpet is menacing (it totally reminded me of the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick's movie Shining). So I admit I was scared by the unknown terror residig in room 217. (The room # seems to be another hommage to Shining by Stephen King/Stanley Kubrick. The haunted room in the Overlook Hotel is also # 217 - at least in the book. I think the movie changed the room number to # 237 for reasons unknown to me.)
When I then saw that Angel is the resident of # 217 I was surprise. For one, he is not living in the streets feeding on rats, but has managed in some way to adjust to his soul. Of course, he still has a hard time coping with life. Everything he does seems to take an effort of will, he's constantly fighting against giving up.
The bellhop seems to pick up on it when he say: "Ever look into his eyes? - There's nothing there."
But with regards to what happens later on I'm not entirely sure that the bellboy doesn't see his own darkness reflected in Angel's eyes.
- The episode deals with the themes of whispers and lies, how gossip can get out of hand. Fear makes people do stupid things as Angel states later on. It's very fitting that this episode plays in the era of McCarthy and we see a small part of the McCarthy hearings being broadcast on TV in the second flashback scene.
Voice: " ...that I have to teach this committee the basic principles of Americanism..."
Gavel bangs and another voice (McCarthy) interrupts: "That's not the question! That's not the question. The question is: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?"
One nitpick: The story plays in 1952, but weren't the McCarthy hearings broadcast in 1954?
- A lot of things are going on in this hotel and Angel observes some of them, e.g. the actor who's obviously having an affair with Larry, the suicide in the room next to him, Judy. Even though, the events don't concern him: He's like a rock in a fast flowing river. Things happen around him, but he doesn't want to be drawn in. Things change when he decides to help Judy.
- The whispers intruding into people's life and confronting them with their own worst fears are very well done. Even without a demon, hotels can be depressing places, IMO. So many people close together, most of them just passing through, but some being stuck. And even though you're surrounded by all these many people, in a hotel room you are essentially alone.
- Wesley: "Frank Gillnitz. He worked as a Bellman the year that Angel was in residence, we put him in 1952."
Cordy and Wesley are sitting on the floor in front of a bunch of folders laid out by year.
Cordy: "But he wasn't executed until 1954. Shouldn't we put him there?"
Wesley: "He wasn't executed until 1954, *but* the crime that he committed, the murder of the salesman and the storing of the body in the hotel meat locker *that* occurred in 1952."
Cordy: "It's kind of like a puzzle. The 'who died horribly because Angel screwed up 50 years ago' game?"
Creepy and ironic. The bellhop gets convincted for a murder that didn't happen, but doesn't get punished for being part of the witchhunt. And since the salesman died in 1952 and his body was found in 1954, this means that they had a chopped up body stored in the meatlocker for 2 years. Yuck.
- Judy: "Nobody believes that! Not even my *mother's family*. I'm not one thing or the other. I'm nothing."
Angel: "I know what that's like."
Judy gets quite then puts a hand on her stomach: "Yes. Yes, I am. - I *am* something. (She sinks down in a chair and looks up at Angel) I'm a thief! (Gasps) I've never stolen anything before in my life. It's just - god, the things that they called me."
Angel: "Fear makes people do stupid things."
Judy: "It was stupid. And I wish I'd never done it."
Angel: "I didn't mean you. I meant your former employers. They were afraid. That's why they fired you."
Judy: "What am I going to do? I'm trapped!"
Angel shakes his head: "You're not trapped."
He walks over to the bag of money.
Judy getting up: "I am! Look, if I leave now it'll look too suspicious, but if I stay here and the cops find this..."
Angel: "They're not gonna find it. (Judy stares at him) 'Cause I'm gonna help you."
I'm very fond of this scene. I'm wondering if this is the first time since Angel received his soul that he tried to connect to a human being. He did try to rescue the missionaries in Shanghai, but otherwise I don't know yet if he tried to help anyone or if he just drifted through the years without connections to other vampires or to humans.
- The episode brings up three things that would make you an outsider in the USA of the early 50s: Being in any way connected to the communist party, being homosexual and being coloured.
Basically everyone we see in the Hyperion Hotel in the flashbacks scene has something to hide: The actor is gay, the writer is accused of communist tendencies, Judy pretends to be white. And none of this should matter. The only really criminal thing going on is the manager and the bellhop hiding the corpse.
- Judy to Angel: "I mean, there is such a thing as forgiveness, right?"
Love how this question plays a bigger role in the episode.
- Judy betraying Angel is an extremely painful moment. Judy is not only betraying Angel, she's also betraying herself. You can see right this instance that this moment will haunt her for the rest of her life. Angel on the other hand has reached out to someone for the first time in many years - yet his good intentions only cause him pain. I'd like to know what he does afterwards. Is this what casts him into even deeper despair and when he starts living on the streets again? - My personal take is that he just goes on for a while, to numb to feel anything.
- The actor playing the Thesulac demon does a good job, but compared to the creepiness of the whispers beforehand the actual demon isn't very threatening.
- My inner nitpicker wanted to know how Judy got food and clothes all the years she hid in the hotel. Did the demon run a room service?
- Love this moment. It gives Angel the chance to forgive someone when he's the one who needs so much forgiveness himself:
Judy holding on to his hands: "I'm so sorry I killed you. Can you forgive me?"
Angel looks down at her: "Of course."
- Lovely final scene:
Cordy: "70 years of violence, mayhem and paranoia - bad vibes."
Angel: "We're moving in."
Cordy: "I mean, a few throw pillows - what's not to love?"
Wesley: "Angel, surely you more than anyone must appreciate, how for the better part of the last century this place has been host not only to a malevolent demonic presence, but the very worst faces of humanity! - This is a house of evil."
Angel still looking around the hotel: "Not anymore."
Wesley takes a look around himself then leans in closer to Angel.
Wesley: "Angel - you don't - find me - especially paranoid, do you?"
Angel: "Not especially."
Wesley: "Oh, thank god! - I was worried."
Small wonder the demon focused on Wesley. He's still so very insecure...
And Judy as sort of protective spirit inside the hotel? I like the idea.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-18 05:51 pm (UTC)I Can't Read This...
Date: 2005-12-18 06:57 pm (UTC)Re: I Can't Read This...
Date: 2005-12-18 07:47 pm (UTC)I'll love to read what you make of Drusilla, Spike and co., when you've reached season 5 of Buffy.
A Buffy tarot deck should be a fascinating project. There's a lot of imagery hidden in the series that invites tarot interpretations.
Re: I Can't Read This...
Date: 2005-12-18 08:24 pm (UTC)(I've finished all of Buffy and seen most of them more than once. But I'm still watching Angel.)
Buffy
Date: 2005-12-19 04:29 pm (UTC)(I was thinking to myself that Spike might connect to her via this, but might get burned in the long run. Inside she's way tougher than he is.)
Re: I Can't Read This...
Date: 2005-12-18 07:58 pm (UTC)This one you should be able to read if you've seen Buffy up to season 5. It contains one detail regarding Darla's past that's from season 2 of Angel, but it's not overly spoilery.
I'd love to read your take on this subject.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-18 09:29 pm (UTC)In the meantime, thoughts upon rewatching some Angel episodes. For some reason, I started with Are you now or have you ever been...? in season 2, which I think manages to be a splendid stand alone and a continuity heavy ep at the same time. Also, Tim Minear deals way better with MacCarthyism than he does with the Nazis in Hero, so even if I hadn't loved him already for his flashback episodes at that point, I would have for this one.
Before I get into the continuity aspect, let me admire the shiny. I really believe this episode is set in the Fifties, and you quickly get out of fingers when you count the homages - Angel's red James Dean jacket (and James Dean hairstyle) which he wears at the Griffith Observatory when meeting Judy (who looks like Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause and has the name of her character); the P.I. with his Jack Nicholson in Chinatown (another retro homage to the 50s) look; the homosexual actor who is obviously styled after Rock Hudson; Judy having stolen money and ended up in a seedy public accomodation, like Marion in Psycho; and yikes, the bell boy with his hair cut and chewing gum.
Like I said, the real life background isn't nearly as heavy handed as in Hero. We catch a climpse of the McCarthy hearings on tv, and the actor accuses the screenwriter during an argument of being a "Commie", but no one makes a speech of how the Red Scare was a bad, bad thing. There is a parallel drawn between Angel's vampire lifestyle and the enforced hidden sexuality of gays, but again, no speech, just the scene in the hotel floor with him and the homosexual actor who has just said goodbye to his companion looking at each other before going into their respective rooms. Racism is a larger issue, due to Judy being a main character, but we're expected to catch the significance of the black family being told there were no free rooms without the camera lingering on what is just a very brief scene. Most importantly, the episode doesn't leave you with a self-satisfied "lord, the people in the 50s were prejudiced - aren't we so much more enlightened now?" feeling, and here we get into the significance of the episode in terms of series continuity.
Angel, in the 50s, is as cut off from humanity as he (spoiler). ( He connects with Judy and tries to help her; in her fear, she turns against him and betrays him; Angel in turn reacts by telling the Paranoia demon: "Take them all." Which obviously foreshadows what he does with the lawyers at the end of Reunion, locking them up in a cellar with Darla and Drusilla. And it highlights Angel's capacity for vengefulness and cruelty with his soul fully intact.
The episode ends on a note of grace: Angel meets Judy again and forgives her unconditionally. (She is the first person he forgives, instead of being on the forgiving end himself.) That, too, is something he's capable of. (Not always. Ask Wesley.) It's the side of him that helps Faith, tries to help Darla, and is there for (spoiler). The Hyperion, that trap for fear, hatred and self-flaggelation, obviously an allegory for Angel himself, will be filled with life once again and gets another chance. Again, roughly what happens later in the season. More about the Hyperion which later on becomes a metaphor for the family Angel forms with his friends in (spoiler).
no subject
Date: 2005-12-20 10:43 pm (UTC)Like you I really enjoyed the subtlety of the episode: A couple of issues are brought up, but there's no preaching about how wrong everyone was.
Just realised: The Hyperion Hotel can be seen as a metaphor for Angel, Serenity can be seen as a metaphor for Malcolm Reynolds. There are definitely some similarities between Angel and Mal as well.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 03:38 am (UTC)I also have to put in a word for my OT3, by noting my love for the Wes/Cordy/Gunn banter in this ep.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 05:51 pm (UTC)I'm also so happy that Cordy is "just" friends with Wes, Gunn and Angel and that so far there is no romance between any of them. So nice to have a female character as a good friend and not as romantic lead.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 06:13 pm (UTC)oh you'll so love season 3. you'll just LOVE it. (irony alert)
I have to admit to all kinds of fannish 'shippage among Wes, Cordy & Gunn -- though I'm happy about the 'gen' tone of this stage of the canon.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-20 06:32 am (UTC)And yes, alas, to the more general thing re: female characters...
no subject
Date: 2006-03-09 08:21 pm (UTC)Actually, it doesn't really have to mean that. In the Cordy and Wesley discussion:
Cordy: "But he wasn't executed until 1954. Shouldn't we put him there?"
Wesley: "He wasn't executed until 1954, *but* the crime that he committed, the murder of the salesman and the storing of the body in the hotel meat locker *that* occurred in 1952."
it specifies that he wasn't executed until 1954. That means that the 'murder' aand arrest took place in 1952; the trial took up more time and whenever anyone is sentenced to execution, there are lots of Appeals to be gotten through, so someone can be executed years after being sentenced. In fact, the 2-year difference is really a short period of time.
Just wanted to put your mind at rest that it doesn't mean the body parts were in the meat locker all that time. *g*
no subject
Date: 2006-03-09 08:27 pm (UTC)Just wait! We continue to get flashbacks that flesh out Angel's story over the years.
Wesley: "Angel, surely you more than anyone must appreciate, how for the better part of the last century this place has been host not only to a malevolent demonic presence, but the very worst faces of humanity! - This is a house of evil."
Angel still looking around the hotel: "Not anymore."/i>
This has a lot of resonance for later seasons.
Lalala . . . not saying anything more.