Angel - Season 3 impressions (episode 1)

[thalia_seawood]

Heartthrob

For a summary click here.


- I've watched up to episode 5 by now and so far I consider the season opener the best episode in season 3. But hey, there are still 17 episodes I haven't seen yet.

- Three months have passed since Buffy's death and what happened on Pylea.
Have to say that the longer hair really suits Wesley.

- WESLEY: It's sad. The only way some people can find a purpose in life is by become obsessed with demons.

Here's some nice irony. Good thing the team is aware of it. :-)

- Hm, Angel speaks Tibetan. Not bad.

Side note: In fandom, usually Spike seems to get the credit for being the one to speak many different languages. However, in canon it appears to be Angel who's the one of knows exotic languages (e.g. Chinese or Tibetan).

- Love Angel's return with hugs and gifts for everyone:

Cordelia: Oh, my gosh, it's gorgeous! [...] And look how it brings out my breasts.
Wesley: Oh, I can't wait to kill something with it.
Gunn: Cooool." [...] Thanks for the head, bro.

- So Fred is living with the gang now. (And the actress got a place in the credits.)

I see some parallels to Dru here:
Like Drusilla before she was turned, she's a nice, gentle girl.
Like Drusilla, Fred is mentally unstable, though she is no risk to anyone.
Now bearing this in mind, I get the impression that Angel by being kind to Winifred is in some way making up for what he did to Dru.

As I have mentioned before I also see Cordelia as representing an aspect of Drusilla. She shares "that vision thing" with her - and we have seen that these visions have nearly driven Cordy into permanent madness before and pose a continuous threat to her.

- Nice flashbacks, especially the contrast between James/Elisabeth and Angel/Darla.

I love this scene because it captures the relationship between Darla and Angel perfectly:
ELISABETH: I heard he trapped you both in a barn and- (to Darla) -you fled, leaving him to die.
JAMES: (uncertain, to Angel) It's not true.
ANGELUS: It's entirely true. (still gazing at Darla, who smiles) She hit me with a shovel, wished me luck, and rode off on our only horse.
DARLA (seductively) Life's full of surprises.
ANGELUS: Ah, life is boring. *You're* full of surprises.
DARLA Of course, when he finally did catch up to me in Vienna I had to pay for my sins. Again and again. (walks away)
ANGELUS: (watching her go, addresses James) Can you even begin to fathom the things we did? (with disdain) Of course not ... you're in love.

The flashback scenes made me realise who Angel and Darla remind me of: The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont from "Dangerous Liaisons".
In both relationships, the woman has a lot of power and can be seen as the real boss.
In both relationships, the word "love" is avoided, even though it's clear that the characters admire and respect one another and are strongly attracted to one another. In fact, even though the word "love" isn't used, the characters have such a strong connection that you could call it "love" or "passion". The reason is that they understand one another on a fundamental level.
In both cases, the woman loses the man. In both cases, the reason for the breach is that the man becomes attracted to innocence, e.g. the good cause and/or and an innocent woman.

As for Angel implying that his feelings for Darla aren't love:
William/Spike is full of emotions he admits openly; love is one of his driving motivations. (Not that love makes him all kind and good. After all he loved Drusilla for over a century and nevertheless killed a lot of people and enjoyed violence.)

Liam/Angelus/Angel is just the opposite: He doesn't trust love. When we see flashbacks to Liam, it's obvious that his mother doesn't play an important part in his life and that he wants the approval of his father, but doesn't get it. Unlike William he isn't a romantic around women, he tries to seduce as many as possible.
My theory is that Angel in all his incarnations is afraid of intimacy. He wants to be strong and love makes you weak.
The first time, he openly loves is when he falls for Buffy. However, even this relationship doesn't last. They would have a chance, but first Angel decides to go away so Buffy can live a normal life and then later on when he's turned human, he asks the Powers That Be to turn back time so he can stay a vampire and therefore better protect Buffy.
Quite frankly: The reasons Angel gives don't convince me at all. I don't think a Slayer ever has the comfort of a normal life. And despite being a vampire, Angel wasn't there to protect Buffy when she fought against Glory.
So I'm convinced Angel loves Buffy, but that he's afraid of getting too close.

- We get our first glimpse at Holtz.

Angelus doesn't seek out the risk and is more wary of Holtz than James, but when he's confronted he doesn't hold back with verbal slurs. He totally reminded me of Spike mouthing off. Even when it would be much smarter to just be silent, they try to rile up their enemies.
(I always love to see how alike and yet different Angel and Spike are. So much fun to compare them.)

- I really liked this argument. It brings up the question what to love really means.

JAMES: You loved someone. (skeptical) With all your heart.
ANGEL: (softly) Yeah.
JAMES: No you didn't. Because if you had, you wouldn't be standing here playing games with me. You wouldn't be able to. Because when she died ... or when some bastard killed her, it would have killed everything in you.
[...]
ANGEL: This your idea of love, James? It's not real unless it kills you?

- I'm definitely not keen on Angel/Cordelia, but I liked this conversation. Cordelia makes a very good point here and I totally agree with her.

ANGEL: I am okay.
CORDELIA: (confused, softly) Then ... what's the problem?
ANGEL: That I'm okay. That losing Buffy didn't kill me. That I could deal with it. (pauses) In all those years ... no one ever mattered. Not like she did. And now she's gone. Forever.
CORDELIA: And you're still here.
ANGEL: Yeah. It just feels like I'm betraying her somehow.
CORDELIA: (firmly) No! If you were a loser, if you were a sick obsessed vampire, then you'd go to a snod demon or whatever and get your heart cut out. But, you're not. You're a living, breathi- (pauses, reconsiders) well, living, anyway... (Angel smiles) ...good guy, who's still fighting and trying to help people, and that's not betraying her, that's honoring her.

- Darla:
Ohhh. I thought vampire ladies can't get pregnant?
Am wondering if this had anything to do with the ring Angel gave Darla when they had sex. Hm....

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

As you know, I'm no fan of season 3, but it does have better episodes than the opener. To wit, The Ones Where My Darling Girl Comes Back, the Ones Where Stuff Happens With Wesley and The Two Near The End When Spoiler Becomes My New Other Favorite Character Of The Show.

Can't tell whether or not you're going to like Billy (aka The One Before My Darling Girl Comes Back), which is much praised by the majority of fandom - londonkds once called it his favourite episode of the show - but which I have several problems with that stop me from loving it. It does have fab stuff for Cordy, Wesley, Lilah and Fred.

In fandom, usually Spike seems to get the credit for being the one to speak many different languages. However, in canon it appears to be Angel who's the one of knows exotic languages (e.g. Chinese or Tibetan).

True. I think it was Peasant who pointed out that Spike's reputation for many different languages has no canonical backing other than him speaking Fyarl (A New Man in season 4), and a season 7 ep where he shows William must have learned some smattering of Latin and Greek at last. But otherwise: Spike needs another vampire to translate for him in season 2 (the poor guy with the glasses), and canonically can't speak either Italian or German (of of which we find on screen in season 5 of AtS), whereas as you say Angel is actually shown talking other languages on screen. (And yes, does understand German, as point of interest to you and me.*g*)

Angel(us) and Darla as Valmont and Merteuil: very valid comparison, as I said before. And I love that dialogue too, for that reason. More on Angel and love a bit later in the show, though.

The big pregnancy reveal: what amuses me in retrospect was that I remember several posters insisting it couldn't be Angel's child, it had to be Lindsey's, simply because they didn't want Angel and Darla to have a child together. Leaving aside my own theory about Lindsey and Darla never reaching the actual sex stage, I never thought that for a moment because obviously letting Darla be pregnant against all the established rules for vampires had to be a major thing for the main character of the show. I'm not sure whether it was at this stage or a bit later, but I do remember having the theory that it was connected, not to the ring but to that life Angel earned for Darla but was never given in The Trial before a character makes the same speculation on screen.

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

Nah, I never thought the child could be Lindsey's. Darla just thought he was an amusing pet. She sees it as a favour to him that she spends time with him. She definitely wouldn't pay him with sexual favours.

but I do remember having the theory that it was connected, not to the ring but to that life Angel earned for Darla but was never given in The Trial before a character makes the same speculation on screen.

Oh, that's a great theory!

Totally different subject:
Do you also see James and Elisabeth as proto-William and -Drusilla?
IMO, they are the fluffy version of them, i.e. romantic William without the combination of hero worship and hate for Angelus and romantic Drusilla without the madness.
Am convinced James and Elizabeth bored both Angel and Darla to tears in no time.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Do you also see James and Elisabeth as proto-William and -Drusilla?

Yes. Though I don't think Angel or Darla sired either. Which leads us to...

Am convinced James and Elizabeth bored both Angel and Darla to tears in no time.

Same here. They were just too on the surface - what you saw was what you got. Whereas Dru and Spike, even as newly turned William, had layers and presented challenges, thus entertainment. Of course there is also the fact Angel(us) did create Dru to be his masterpiece, plus the way he did basically made Darla her second sire, too, and Spike was Dru's, so that added a family bond that wasn't there with J. and E.

But it's interesting that Darla and Angel seem to have been on the lookout for younger company now and then...

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

But it's interesting that Darla and Angel seem to have been on the lookout for younger company now and then...

I'm sure they wanted to have another couple around so they could play bridge or other fashionable card games. ;-)
Or Darla and Angelus simply wanted to have someone to boss around.

[spikeylover.livejournal.com]

canonically can't speak either Italian or German (of of which we find on screen in season 5 of AtS)

But watch TGIQ.. Can he or can't he? ;)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

One "strada" does not commandment of Italian make.*g*

[spikeylover.livejournal.com]

True, but Angel seemed a bit taken aback by it, so I wondered if Spike was playing him.

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

It's probably impossible to evaluate how good Spike's knowledge of foreign languages really is.

Here's my theory on this topic:
Angel came from a merchant family and didn't have any leanings towards gathering knowledge. Since he was a disappointment to his father anyway, he just stopped trying altogether.
When he became a vampire, he wanted to be different from his human self. Maybe he discovered that knowing foreign languages gave him more power, maybe he simply enjoyed gathering information and the intricacies of langues.

Spike is the opposite:
He apparently comes from a better social background than Angel - although his family certainly isn't rich or Cecily would never have refused William. I'm sure he got a better education than Angel, but as far as I can see hated school. I see William as a typical dreamer whose thoughts would have wandered in class and who would have been punished for it.

When he became a vampire, he creates a different persona for himself, i.e. the Big Bad. In this role, he tries to appear uneducated, e.g. he gets himself a working class accent. This means: Even if he was really good at Latin or Greek at one time, he wouldn't admit it.
I don't know if in his new persona he could be bothered to learn foreign languages. If he did, he would still try to appear ignorant. But it's entirely possible that he disliked his studies so much as a child that he never cared about learning more.

I don't believe that Spike is less intelligent than Angel. It's simply that their agendas for the vampire selfs are very different.

By the way, we see something similar with Darla and Dru: Darla used to be a prostitute. I'm sure she was a very elegant prostitute, but still must have come from a low class background. As a vampire, she dresses and behaves like a lady.
Dru comes from a middle class background: As a vampire, she dresses as elegant as Darla, but as far as I can tell she talks with a lower class accent since she was turned. (Which makes me wonder if William changed his accent originally to imitate her and build a stronger connection to her.)

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Hearththrob. I kind of wonder if it was written or at least conceived before they realized that Buffy would, in fact, be coming back.