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revdorothyl at 11:05am on 22/01/2004 under angel episode commentary
revdorothyl at 11:05am on 22/01/2004 under angel episode commentary[all potential spoilers have been hidden behind the two cut lines.]
Or maybe I should say "Incidentally"? Never mind. This is by no means intended as a comprehensive or deeply insightful response to last night's "Angel" episode, "Soul Purpose". It's just what happened to strike a chord with me on first viewing. Since I'm not well-versed in the technical aspects of film and television, I won't even try to evaluate David Boreanaz' work as director on this episode.
First, let me get the kvetching out of the way, then I'll get to the good stuff.
For some reason, I didn't seem to be enjoying this episode as much as I thought I should -- I mean, there were several scenes including both Lindsey AND Spike, so what more could I want? And yet somehow I was not satisfied. Perhaps that was partly the fault of the director, or maybe it was just the writing, or the fact that Eve was in far too many scenes for my taste (for "far too many" read "any"). Whatever. The blue fairy thing kind of set my teeth on edge, but that may've been because it reminded me of "A.I.", a movie which pissed me off through shameless manipulation and hollowness (or maybe that was SUPPOSED to be the effect, since Angel was feeling so hollow and purposeless in his nightmares? I dunno). The nightmare scene where Angel sees Spike supposedly making love to Buffy on the other side of his own bed didn't draw me in at all, but only side-tracked me into watching for how they were going to try to cover the fact that Sarah Michelle Gellar would NOT be appearing in this or any other episode of "Angel" this year. Using two voice-only clips of Buffy dialogue from "Prom" (BtVS 3.20) didn't help much, since they didn't seem to fit with the scene very well (or at all), and so again I was distracted trying to make sense of those words by remembering them in their original context. Apart from Angel originally telling Buffy that someday she'd want a normal life and children, what sense were we to make out of Buffy's voice talking about jumping the gun and that she kills her goldfish? Was that supposed to be some indirect reference to Angel's soul being represented as a dead goldfish during Fred's 'exploratory surgery' scene? Does that mean that somehow Buffy killed his soul through lack of proper care and feeding? (Hmmm -- that could be, I guess: even though Angel walked away from Buffy, part of him blames her for ever having let Spike get so close, which then led to Spike getting his soul back, which led to Angel feeling like he has no purpose and no role in this world, because Spike's taking his place in everything, and so what good is Angel's soul now? And after he's already sacrificed so much, including his son and the world's memories of his fatherhood. Okay, so that's not such a reach, after all. Sorry for the digression.)
Granted, nightmares and hallucinations aren't supposed to make logical, linear sense, but artistic REPRESENTATIONS of nightmares or visions SHOULD make allow us to make some sense of them, eventually (that's the beauty of the "frame" around art, the limits it sets and how it focuses our attention on the crucial bits of information). Perhaps it was the fact that Angel's nightmares were being generated by some evil vegetative-state-inducing creature that accounts for the lack of focus or chaotic aspects, as compared with Buffy's dream conversation with comatose Faith in BtVS 3.22, or the nightmares-made-real episode from the first season, or the "Restless" dreams in which the First Slayer tried to erase Buffy's friends from future participation in the Slayer's business, etc.. Or maybe the seemingly immature imagery of the dreams was meant to come from Angel himself, suggesting that, in spite of his 200+ years on the planet, what lies beneath his soulful broodiness is a rather simplistic world-view and a longing for happy fairy-tale endings (the big rock candy mountain and blue fairy references being exhibit A), or simply a somewhat hidden fondness for mass-market pop culture (as in the reference to "Jaws" in his 'autopsy' nightmare, or his apparent enthusiasm for "Bonanza" in season 2 of AtS, compared with the Proust or Sartre he always seemed to be reading around Buffy).
But whatever the reasoning behind what appeared on the screen last night, I had the feeling that I was being served a too-rare piece of filet mignon or a too-young bottle of wine that could have become a first-rate vintage in time -- the feeling that this SHOULD be really good, but it's not DONE yet, and so it keeps threatening to activate my gag reflex. Of course, my real gripe about the "Spike's making love to Buffy in Angel's bed" nightmare was that it distracted me from the really IMPORTANT part of the scene: watching Spike semi-nude, whatever the reason. Is that so wrong of me?
On the plus side, there were lots of little character bits that I enjoyed (those not involving Eve, I mean), and some interesting reflections on moral compasses and what exactly the job of "hero" requires. For the rest of this entry, I'll be focusing on the latter aspects of "Purpose."
From the moment Lindsey introduced himself as 'Doyle,' part of me was trying to remember if Spike (during his visit to L.A. to try to get the gem of Amara away from Angel in AtS 1.03, "In the Dark") had ever bothered to learn Doyle's name (or had just called him "the Mick" or whatever) or had ever been told what role Doyle (and later Cordelia) played in Angel's champion business. I finally concluded, after way too much thought, that it WAS conceivable that Spike wouldn't recognize the name "Doyle" or the "vision-thing" set-up for the arrant theft and disregard of a real hero's memory that it was. But after that, I was interested to see what a bargain-basement, plagiarized version of Angel's early days in L.A. would look like from Lindsey's jaundiced viewpoint. The over-all theme seemed to be "spartan" and "humorless."
In a reversal of the role the real Doyle had played in Angel's life (encouraging Angel to live more like a human being, to get involved with and care about the people he's trying to save, rather than isolating himself when he's not actually killing evil things), Lindsey seemed to be trying to isolate Spike from the very human joys and comforts that had always set Spike apart from other vamps, with or without a soul. Maybe it's not his own jaundiced view of "Angel -- season one" that Lindsey's recreating, though -- maybe he's playing on what SPIKE thinks Angel's life was like in the good old pre-Wolfram-&-Hart-sell-out days. After all, Spike's hilarious voice-over commentary on Angel's conversation with a woman he's just saved in AtS 1.03 did seem to stem from some deep convictions about what the role of sappy-hero-vamp-with-a-soul entailed. In any case, while I wouldn't want to knock the importance of disinterested good works (doing good for no other reason than conviction, with no personal gratification involved) OR the benefits of a simpler life-style, I have my doubts about whether the requirements Lindsey has outlined for Spike are really what it takes to make a champion for good.
Maybe it's because I've just been reflecting on the Wedding-at-Cana/water-into-wine story in John 2, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Lindsey might not only be undermining Angel in the eyes of the Senior Partners by trying to make Spike seem the more likely champion, but also be undermining Spike-as-a-force-for-good by very act of making him seem like someone he's not. Somehow the image that comes to mind is the wine of Spike's unique strengths and weaknesses being turned into a watery imitation of Angel's particular calling and style. This cannot be good news for the forces of good. Spike's good deeds in the past may have been primarily motivated by personal gratification (the sheer pleasure of beating up on SOMETHING, even if it's only other demons, or the desire to protect or impress or ease the burdens on someone he cares about -- specifically, Buffy and Dawn), but does that necessarily undermine their value or virtue? Let's lay aside, for the moment, the fact that his only motivation for STAYING in the hellmouth to finish the job, after Buffy told him he'd done enough and should leave, seemed to be a genuine sense of responsibility (that this was his job, and he needed to finish it) and love with no hope of being able to "collect" on Buffy's good will later (since he knew he wouldn't survive beyond the next few minutes). Still, doing good in the world primarily out of love for one particular person is not such a bad motivation.
I mean, for all Angel's sporadic attempts to do good after being cursed with a soul, he never really managed to stick with it before he saw and began to care about Buffy. For all the generalized and specific guilt he carried for his sadistic soul-less past, Angel couldn't quite manage the generalized love required to do good for a (usually) not-too-grateful humanity (couldn't quite manage to forgive the woman in the hotel in the 1950's whom he tried to help and who had, in a moment of terror, turned on him) until he experienced a very specific love for Buffy, the champion of champions.
Experience suggests, furthermore, that an abstract "love for humanity" (philanthropy) which doesn't include or, better yet, stem from a personal love for specific individuals, can too easily become perverted or even demonic in its effects (becomes too easy to rationalize sacrificing the few for the good of the many, for example, which is never a good idea unless you yourself or your nearest and dearest are numbered among the few). I can't help remembering that, in the Gospels, the person who complained the loudest about breaking a jar of expensive ointment in order to show intense love for one individual when the money could have been used to benefit the poor generally was Judas Iscariot -- and look where HIS good intentions and desire to benefit his nation led him. I've always been struck by the moral compass which Lois McMaster Bujold gave to her heroine Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, "People, not principles" (or words to that effect) -- meaning that loyalty to abstract principles is far more likely to lead you into temptation and rationalization of evil than loyalty to specific people. Or I'm reminded of a book by J. Glenn Gray, THE WARRIORS, reflecting on his experiences serving in the armed forces during WWII, in which he comes to the conclusion that the love for one special comrade (the best friend, the guy you'd willingly die for) which some soldiers learn might be the best hope for peace in the future -- if you can value one individual's life to such an extent, then you may begin to understand that "the enemy" is also composed of individuals who are as beloved and irreplaceable as your best friend, after which remorseless killing becomes much harder to do. At the most basic level, the only way any of us will ever develop the capacity to love or care about the fate of strangers is through first knowing the love of one specific person (the "good-enough mother" or "primary caregiver" -- the person who is our whole world during infancy and early childhood).
At any rate, though I love seeing Spike in action against multiple opponents once again (even armed with Angel's old "stake-up-each-sleeve" gadget) and I REALLY loved the lines about the moral compass needle spinning around and how people don't change institutions like W&H, but rather the institutions change THEM, I'm really eager to see if and how this faux (at least as far as Lindsey and Eve are concerned) hero thing of Spike's develops in future weeks. Will all the lies actually, eventually, result in Spike learning to care for more than just the few individuals he holds in affection? Is that even necessary (after all, his words at the end of "Hellbound" about not ending up like Pavaine, cheating hell at the expense of others, sounded pretty darn close to altruistic to my ears)? Is it desirable, or ultimately for the good? Or is Spike supposed to complement Angel's strengths and help wake the gang up to the danger they're in, all of which becomes more doubtful as he tries to change to fill Angel's old shoes and as he cuts himself off from daily contact and inter-action with Team Angel? Stay tuned, I guess.
Or maybe I should say "Incidentally"? Never mind. This is by no means intended as a comprehensive or deeply insightful response to last night's "Angel" episode, "Soul Purpose". It's just what happened to strike a chord with me on first viewing. Since I'm not well-versed in the technical aspects of film and television, I won't even try to evaluate David Boreanaz' work as director on this episode.
First, let me get the kvetching out of the way, then I'll get to the good stuff.
For some reason, I didn't seem to be enjoying this episode as much as I thought I should -- I mean, there were several scenes including both Lindsey AND Spike, so what more could I want? And yet somehow I was not satisfied. Perhaps that was partly the fault of the director, or maybe it was just the writing, or the fact that Eve was in far too many scenes for my taste (for "far too many" read "any"). Whatever. The blue fairy thing kind of set my teeth on edge, but that may've been because it reminded me of "A.I.", a movie which pissed me off through shameless manipulation and hollowness (or maybe that was SUPPOSED to be the effect, since Angel was feeling so hollow and purposeless in his nightmares? I dunno). The nightmare scene where Angel sees Spike supposedly making love to Buffy on the other side of his own bed didn't draw me in at all, but only side-tracked me into watching for how they were going to try to cover the fact that Sarah Michelle Gellar would NOT be appearing in this or any other episode of "Angel" this year. Using two voice-only clips of Buffy dialogue from "Prom" (BtVS 3.20) didn't help much, since they didn't seem to fit with the scene very well (or at all), and so again I was distracted trying to make sense of those words by remembering them in their original context. Apart from Angel originally telling Buffy that someday she'd want a normal life and children, what sense were we to make out of Buffy's voice talking about jumping the gun and that she kills her goldfish? Was that supposed to be some indirect reference to Angel's soul being represented as a dead goldfish during Fred's 'exploratory surgery' scene? Does that mean that somehow Buffy killed his soul through lack of proper care and feeding? (Hmmm -- that could be, I guess: even though Angel walked away from Buffy, part of him blames her for ever having let Spike get so close, which then led to Spike getting his soul back, which led to Angel feeling like he has no purpose and no role in this world, because Spike's taking his place in everything, and so what good is Angel's soul now? And after he's already sacrificed so much, including his son and the world's memories of his fatherhood. Okay, so that's not such a reach, after all. Sorry for the digression.)
Granted, nightmares and hallucinations aren't supposed to make logical, linear sense, but artistic REPRESENTATIONS of nightmares or visions SHOULD make allow us to make some sense of them, eventually (that's the beauty of the "frame" around art, the limits it sets and how it focuses our attention on the crucial bits of information). Perhaps it was the fact that Angel's nightmares were being generated by some evil vegetative-state-inducing creature that accounts for the lack of focus or chaotic aspects, as compared with Buffy's dream conversation with comatose Faith in BtVS 3.22, or the nightmares-made-real episode from the first season, or the "Restless" dreams in which the First Slayer tried to erase Buffy's friends from future participation in the Slayer's business, etc.. Or maybe the seemingly immature imagery of the dreams was meant to come from Angel himself, suggesting that, in spite of his 200+ years on the planet, what lies beneath his soulful broodiness is a rather simplistic world-view and a longing for happy fairy-tale endings (the big rock candy mountain and blue fairy references being exhibit A), or simply a somewhat hidden fondness for mass-market pop culture (as in the reference to "Jaws" in his 'autopsy' nightmare, or his apparent enthusiasm for "Bonanza" in season 2 of AtS, compared with the Proust or Sartre he always seemed to be reading around Buffy).
But whatever the reasoning behind what appeared on the screen last night, I had the feeling that I was being served a too-rare piece of filet mignon or a too-young bottle of wine that could have become a first-rate vintage in time -- the feeling that this SHOULD be really good, but it's not DONE yet, and so it keeps threatening to activate my gag reflex. Of course, my real gripe about the "Spike's making love to Buffy in Angel's bed" nightmare was that it distracted me from the really IMPORTANT part of the scene: watching Spike semi-nude, whatever the reason. Is that so wrong of me?
On the plus side, there were lots of little character bits that I enjoyed (those not involving Eve, I mean), and some interesting reflections on moral compasses and what exactly the job of "hero" requires. For the rest of this entry, I'll be focusing on the latter aspects of "Purpose."
From the moment Lindsey introduced himself as 'Doyle,' part of me was trying to remember if Spike (during his visit to L.A. to try to get the gem of Amara away from Angel in AtS 1.03, "In the Dark") had ever bothered to learn Doyle's name (or had just called him "the Mick" or whatever) or had ever been told what role Doyle (and later Cordelia) played in Angel's champion business. I finally concluded, after way too much thought, that it WAS conceivable that Spike wouldn't recognize the name "Doyle" or the "vision-thing" set-up for the arrant theft and disregard of a real hero's memory that it was. But after that, I was interested to see what a bargain-basement, plagiarized version of Angel's early days in L.A. would look like from Lindsey's jaundiced viewpoint. The over-all theme seemed to be "spartan" and "humorless."
In a reversal of the role the real Doyle had played in Angel's life (encouraging Angel to live more like a human being, to get involved with and care about the people he's trying to save, rather than isolating himself when he's not actually killing evil things), Lindsey seemed to be trying to isolate Spike from the very human joys and comforts that had always set Spike apart from other vamps, with or without a soul. Maybe it's not his own jaundiced view of "Angel -- season one" that Lindsey's recreating, though -- maybe he's playing on what SPIKE thinks Angel's life was like in the good old pre-Wolfram-&-Hart-sell-out days. After all, Spike's hilarious voice-over commentary on Angel's conversation with a woman he's just saved in AtS 1.03 did seem to stem from some deep convictions about what the role of sappy-hero-vamp-with-a-soul entailed. In any case, while I wouldn't want to knock the importance of disinterested good works (doing good for no other reason than conviction, with no personal gratification involved) OR the benefits of a simpler life-style, I have my doubts about whether the requirements Lindsey has outlined for Spike are really what it takes to make a champion for good.
Maybe it's because I've just been reflecting on the Wedding-at-Cana/water-into-wine story in John 2, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Lindsey might not only be undermining Angel in the eyes of the Senior Partners by trying to make Spike seem the more likely champion, but also be undermining Spike-as-a-force-for-good by very act of making him seem like someone he's not. Somehow the image that comes to mind is the wine of Spike's unique strengths and weaknesses being turned into a watery imitation of Angel's particular calling and style. This cannot be good news for the forces of good. Spike's good deeds in the past may have been primarily motivated by personal gratification (the sheer pleasure of beating up on SOMETHING, even if it's only other demons, or the desire to protect or impress or ease the burdens on someone he cares about -- specifically, Buffy and Dawn), but does that necessarily undermine their value or virtue? Let's lay aside, for the moment, the fact that his only motivation for STAYING in the hellmouth to finish the job, after Buffy told him he'd done enough and should leave, seemed to be a genuine sense of responsibility (that this was his job, and he needed to finish it) and love with no hope of being able to "collect" on Buffy's good will later (since he knew he wouldn't survive beyond the next few minutes). Still, doing good in the world primarily out of love for one particular person is not such a bad motivation.
I mean, for all Angel's sporadic attempts to do good after being cursed with a soul, he never really managed to stick with it before he saw and began to care about Buffy. For all the generalized and specific guilt he carried for his sadistic soul-less past, Angel couldn't quite manage the generalized love required to do good for a (usually) not-too-grateful humanity (couldn't quite manage to forgive the woman in the hotel in the 1950's whom he tried to help and who had, in a moment of terror, turned on him) until he experienced a very specific love for Buffy, the champion of champions.
Experience suggests, furthermore, that an abstract "love for humanity" (philanthropy) which doesn't include or, better yet, stem from a personal love for specific individuals, can too easily become perverted or even demonic in its effects (becomes too easy to rationalize sacrificing the few for the good of the many, for example, which is never a good idea unless you yourself or your nearest and dearest are numbered among the few). I can't help remembering that, in the Gospels, the person who complained the loudest about breaking a jar of expensive ointment in order to show intense love for one individual when the money could have been used to benefit the poor generally was Judas Iscariot -- and look where HIS good intentions and desire to benefit his nation led him. I've always been struck by the moral compass which Lois McMaster Bujold gave to her heroine Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, "People, not principles" (or words to that effect) -- meaning that loyalty to abstract principles is far more likely to lead you into temptation and rationalization of evil than loyalty to specific people. Or I'm reminded of a book by J. Glenn Gray, THE WARRIORS, reflecting on his experiences serving in the armed forces during WWII, in which he comes to the conclusion that the love for one special comrade (the best friend, the guy you'd willingly die for) which some soldiers learn might be the best hope for peace in the future -- if you can value one individual's life to such an extent, then you may begin to understand that "the enemy" is also composed of individuals who are as beloved and irreplaceable as your best friend, after which remorseless killing becomes much harder to do. At the most basic level, the only way any of us will ever develop the capacity to love or care about the fate of strangers is through first knowing the love of one specific person (the "good-enough mother" or "primary caregiver" -- the person who is our whole world during infancy and early childhood).
At any rate, though I love seeing Spike in action against multiple opponents once again (even armed with Angel's old "stake-up-each-sleeve" gadget) and I REALLY loved the lines about the moral compass needle spinning around and how people don't change institutions like W&H, but rather the institutions change THEM, I'm really eager to see if and how this faux (at least as far as Lindsey and Eve are concerned) hero thing of Spike's develops in future weeks. Will all the lies actually, eventually, result in Spike learning to care for more than just the few individuals he holds in affection? Is that even necessary (after all, his words at the end of "Hellbound" about not ending up like Pavaine, cheating hell at the expense of others, sounded pretty darn close to altruistic to my ears)? Is it desirable, or ultimately for the good? Or is Spike supposed to complement Angel's strengths and help wake the gang up to the danger they're in, all of which becomes more doubtful as he tries to change to fill Angel's old shoes and as he cuts himself off from daily contact and inter-action with Team Angel? Stay tuned, I guess.
enthralled
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