Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Setting aside for the moment the question of how much of last night's new 'Angel' episode was derivative or recycled from earlier seasons of 'Buffy' and 'Angel' ('cause I don't feel up to going into all that right now), and bearing in mind that I've only watched the episode about twice so far, here are my initial reactions to AtS 5.15, "A Hole in the World."

I. "All Hollows Evening"

Borrowing shamelessly from the moldy old joke about children mistaking "Hallowed" for "Hollowed" in The Lord's Prayer or the night before All Saints' Day, let me first deal with the many images of hollowness we encountered last night.

The fact that it was Fred who, in Angel's nightmare visions from "Soul Purpose", made the discovery that Angel was hollow inside, apparently soulless and empty after all, kept coming to mind as Fred herself was apparently hollowed out from within, transformed into a hard shell to contain the demon Illyria. Interestingly enough, it seemed her soul was the last thing to go, as she kept holding on to her love for Wes and her parents and all and her courage in the face of annihilation to the very end, while her internal organs were melting away. And in her delirium, Fred was seeing a great deal of the world around her as empty beneath its surface: "...Everything's so bright and hollow."

Then, it turns out there's a hole in the world that goes all the way through, and it's apparently lined with the sarcophagi of mostly-dead Old Ones, pure demons slain by their own kind (if they were all-dead, we'd be going through their pockets for loose change, presumably). As Spike remarks, it feels like we ought to have known there was a hole through the heart of our world. But we never seem to find that out until it's too late to do anything about it.

Will the loss of Fred (if she IS truly lost) turn out to be the hole through the heart of Angel and Co., the stab wound which they may not survive? (Unlike Spike's light-hearted running-through of Angel at the beginning of the episode, in order to kill the parasite on Angel's back -- not coincidentally managing to call to mind the time when Buffy had to run Angel through with a similar sword in order to send him to Hell and save the world.)

Or will this tragedy serve to reveal the basic hollowness and untenability of their attempts to do good by working through Wolfram and Hart?

In Fred's semi-delirium at one point she seemed to be saying that they never should have gone there, never should have thought they could change the institution, because it's just too big and evil and will only devour them all. ("Why did we go there? Why did we think we could beat it? It's evil, Wesley. It's bigger than anything.") If they hadn't gone to work at W&H in the first place, and if Gunn hadn't been seduced into selling his soul again for a renewed brain boost, then Fred would presumably never have been selected by Knox to be the vessel and sacrifice, or Knox's plans might have been permanently stalled at the Customs office. And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon (as Scotty once said), so I guess I'd better stick to what is.

Last but not least, Gunn has apparently been confronted with the truth that, when he thought he was empty (losing his enhanced knowledge and legal skills) he was actually comparatively full (still in possession of his soul and free will), and that now that he thinks his life is full again, it's actually empty -- that his life has ceased to be his own, it now belongs to the forces of evil as represented by the Senior Partners and the Conduit (at least from the Conduit's point of view), and he is finding it easier and easier to do evil (looking around to see if there are any witnesses before bashing in Knox's brains seemed very telling, as well as strangely reminiscent of Exodus 2:12, where Moses so unheroically kills an Egyptian after checking to see if he can get away with it, which only led him to that burning bush -- eventually -- and a chance to become a genuine hero).

In short, instead of being 'hallowed' (blessed, made holy, sanctified) by their efforts to fight the good fight and oppose evil, many of our heroes seem to be finding themselves 'hollowed' in one sense or another, emptied out or beset by a sense of futility, that all is indeed vanity and hollowness: "All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun." [Ecclesiastes 1:8-9]

II. "Arming the Astronauts" (or "Cavemen vs. Chaos Theory")

Of COURSE I got a kick out of Spike and Angel's proposed break-up (Spike: "Are you saying we should start annoying other people?"), but the more significant conversation, in terms of setting up the theme of the episode, seemed to be the 40-minute shouting match over who would win in a fight, the cavemen or the astronauts.

Naturally, Angel would argue that humanity has progressed (echoing, perhaps, Katherine Hepburn's famous movie line, "Nature is what we are put here on earth to rise above" -- I'm pretty sure that was said to Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen," rather than to John Wayne in "Rooster Cogburn", but I could be wrong), since he has good reason to be appalled and thoroughly gun-shy about what happens when HE's 'doing what comes naturally.'

And it comes as a surprise to absolutely no-one that Spike would take the side of the cavemen, arguing for 'fist and fang' and pure instinct over Angelus' well-known preference for elevating torture and death to an art and a science (as seen in "Fool for Love").

But when Wesley and everyone else in the building allow themselves to be drawn into a semi-serious discussion of this round of 'Quien es mas macho?', it bears further investigation.

The crux (at least as Fred understands the problem at one point) seems to be that the cavemen are allowed their fire while the astronauts are not allowed to use any of THEIR technology, and so go into battle unarmed against their ancient foes. No surprise then that -- as Fred later says in her delirium -- "Cavemen win. Of course the cavemen win." When the cavemen are ancient primal demons, or at least one such demon and its remaining acolytes, and the astronauts are a stressed-out Angel and his memory-impaired colleagues, fighting on enemy soil and with the enemy's weapons of choice (a fair description of the whole W&H experiment, it could be argued), it's no wonder that the astronauts seem to be losing.

The solution -- or the hopeful course of action, anyway -- would seem clear: the 'astronauts' need to employ their own weapons, return to what they know best and do best, fighting on their own terms, and let their differences from the enemy work FOR them, rather than against them. Easier said than done, sure. But letting their enemies set the rules and pick the ground has never worked for the good guys in the Jossverse. Buffy beat the First Evil by breaking all the rules governing the Slayer-Watcher relationship, from the time she was first Called to her decision that from now on all Slayers should be Choosers even more than they are Chosen. And (especially if this is to be 'Angel's last season), Angel & Co. may need to recover some of the irreverence and 'outside-the-box' strategies that have so often characterized them at their best.

Maybe that'll turn out to be Spike's big contribution to the coming fight -- his sometimes cheerful and sometimes soul-searing penchant for treading on the grass, coloring outside the lines, and completely blowing the vampire bell curve by falling in love with the Slayer and voluntarily reclaiming his soul. Maybe the fact that -- as Angel pointed out to the guardian of the Deeper Well -- amidst Spike's flow of words he often stumbles on the truth, will give Angel or Wes or SOMEBODY the fresh perspective or new idea they need at the crucial time.

Or maybe there's something about that toy rabbit (Fagenbaum, was it?) that Fred nearly forgot when moving to L.A. in the opening scenes and couldn't remember the identity of as she lay dying in Wes' arms -- something about that designation "Master of Chaos" which suggests that mathematics may win out over magic in the end? Or that Chaos Theory and something as apparently weak and helpless as that oft-cited butterfly flapping its wings can still overset the best-laid plots of ancient demon-gods.

In any case, it looks like our good guys need to seriously re-group, re-member, and re-claim their own sources of strength and courage, so that they can once more blow a cosmic raspberry at the forces which seek to annihilate them. "For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. ... Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness." [Ephesians 6:12-14]

III. "Advice from the Love-Lorne"

Just a quick note about Lorne and how much I have to adore him, even more so in this episode than ever before.

When his Freddikins is on the line, someone whose grace and affection and generosity of spirit has warmed his posterior (where his heart is, of course) over the past few years -- and that in spite of the fact that he bears a striking resemblance to some of the very demons who treated her like an animal for five years in Pylea -- Lorne can kick ass with the best of them.

And not only did he 'explain' things to Eve in a way that greatly expedited her cooperation (and choice of music), but he also then offered to PRAY (I assume it was 'pray' and not 'prey') for her, when everybody else was bringing their talent to bear on the problem of tracking down the cure. I hadn't thought he was particularly religious, at least as his own people defined piety (the sacred jousts, and all), but this 'demon' proves yet again that he's got more 'soul' than most humans.

IV. "There's a Hole in the Bucket"

Like that old folk song I learned in elementary school (in which, ultimately, you can't fix the hole in the bucket because you can't fetch water to sharpen your tools, etc., because there's a hole in your bucket), the world that confronts our gang of heroes right now seems to be a trail of dead ends, problems that can't be solved without creating more and worse problems and misery.

I just hope that all this emptiness can be converted into 'emptiness' in the Buddhist sense, an understanding of the way that all things are interconnected and interdependent, and impermanence can mean that not even the bad stuff is inevitable or set in stone.

Unlike what I've heard of the Gibson film (which I won't see until this Saturday), I'm hoping that there's a real redemption and resurrection and hopefulness at the end of all this current suffering and abandonment on 'Angel' (I'm resisting the temptation right now to be REALLY irreverent and come out with something like, 'my Joss, my Joss, why have you forsaken me?'--but I'm not resisting very hard). Instead, I'm hoping for renewal (in every sense, for the individual characters and for the series as a whole): "And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'..." [Revelation 21:5]