Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

[CONTAINS NO PROMO SPOILERS]

After years of hearing the word ‘apocalypse’ used in the Buffyverse to mean only ‘world-ending catastrophe’, I was thrilled to pieces to discover that Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft, writers of this week’s new Angel episode, were apparently using the word in its original sense, as well as its popular sense. After all, the Greek word apokalypsis literally means an ‘unveiling’ or ‘revelation,’ and ‘apocalypse’ only acquired its popular meaning from the fact that so much of the biblical book bearing that title, the book of Revelation (the Apokalypsis Ioannou or ‘John’s Revelation’ in the Greek New Testament), seems to be describing the end of the world in a series of horrendous battles and disasters. But in the AtS episode “Underneath,” apocalypse seems once more to mean uncovering the hidden, peeling back the layers, finding out what’s really going on underneath what we think of as reality.

I. Apocalypse as Strip-Tease.

After two years of teaching the Bible to reluctant undergrads, I’ve learned that the one sure way to recapture my students’ attention (if only briefly) is to mention anything having to do with sex. [At least, that works really well with the guys; my current class, which is almost 90% female, doesn’t seem as appreciative of my shameless attempts at pandering to the lowest common denominator.]

Thus, inevitably, when we get around to studying the book of Revelation, at some point I compare revelation to a strip-tease, or a “dance of the seven veils” from some fevered Hollywood fantasy version of the ancient near east. As layer after layer—or veil after veil—drops away, John’s readers get an increasingly graphic look at what’s underneath it all.

A less salacious way to describe it is to talk about the theatrical backdrop called a ‘scrim, ’ which seems like an opaque surface when lit from the front, but when lit from the back, suddenly a whole new world is revealed ‘behind the curtain,’ a different, heavenly reality and battle paralleling and affecting the battles we see in our own world. John periodically switches the lighting to highlight first the reality in front of him, and then the heavenly reality that lies behind it, and back again.

Regardless of whether or not one believes that there’s some secret code or predictions of future history hidden within all that wild imagery and symbolism [I don’t, but some of my students do], the main point John seems to be trying to communicate to his contemporaries is that ‘the fix is in,’ and though the battles may rage and the forces of evil may seem to be gaining ground for a while, the end result is already guaranteed: the good guys win and usher in a new heaven and a new earth, where everyone can live in peace, free from fear and want and ignorance. So, John seems to tell his fearful, persecuted, or wavering readers, ‘don’t give up,’ and don’t let anyone tell you to just accept the way things are and ‘go along to get along.’ Or, in other words, resistance to the ‘powers that be’ in this world is not futile.

That’s how I read Lindsey’s big ‘revelation’ near the end of this week’s episode: as a lifting of the last veil that obscures Angel’s understanding of what’s been behind the Senior Partners’ interest in him all along:

Lindsey: ...It’s here. It’s been here all along, underneath. You’re just too damn stupid to see it.
Angel: See what?
Lindsey: The Apocalypse, man. You’re soakin’ in it.
Spike: Seen an apocalypse or two in my time—I’d know if one was under my nose.
Lindsey: Not “an” apocalypse: The Apocalypse. What’d you...you think a gong was gonna sound? Time to jump on your horses and fight the big fight? Starting pistol went off a long time ago, boys; you’re playin’ for the bad guys. Every day you sit behind your desk, and you learn a little more how to accept the world the way it is. But here’s the rub: heroes don’t do that. Heroes don’t accept the world the way it is. They fight it.
Angel: You’re saying, everything we do...it’s a distraction. Keep us busy, from looking under the surface.
Lindsey: Ding! We got a winner. World keeps slidin’ toward entropy and decay, and what do you do? You sit in your big chair, and you sign your checks, just like the Senior Partners planned. The war is here, Angel, and you’re already two soldiers down.

As revelations go, this may not be the most shocking news ever—at least, not for the fans who’ve been saying all along that W&H was devouring and corrupting our heroes by giving them all these ‘goodies’ to play with. But as a return to the root meaning of apocalypse, and as a confirmation of all our worst fears, it certainly seems significant to me.

And what did shock me a little bit was the realization that Spike -- who’d been telling Angel from the second episode of this season that dwelling in the belly of the beast was just another way of saying you’ve been eaten, and who had been so eloquent about the graying of Wes and Gunn’s moral world when they’d come to recruit him in “Soulless” -- was also numbered among the co-opted and blinded, now. Spike had good reason to be worried by Marcus’ comment welcoming him to the W&H team, it turns out, however noble or selfless his motives for allying himself with Angel might have been at the end of “Shells.”

II. Climbing Up the Walls of the World

As with the ability to see the reality of Dawn’s shiny green Key-ness in season 5 of BtVS, it seems that the second-sighted and the ‘sanity-challenged’ have an advantage when it comes to seeing the unpleasant reality behind the opaque backdrop of W&H’s stage. And that vision is more than enough to make one crazy, this episode suggests, even if one were not heading in that direction already. In one way or another, the truth has people climbing the walls in desperation and frustration (even the relatively insensitive Illyria).

Lorne and Wesley seem to be the strongest voices expressing the despair and dissolution of self presumably being experienced by all our heroes, while Gunn expresses it in action, taking Lindsey’s place in the other-dimensional “penalty box”as his first major act of atonement, with full knowledge of what that will entail: forgetting his true self and getting his heart ripped out on a daily basis (so, not that big a change from working at W&H, one could say...if one were inclined to be flippant about major acts of self-sacrifice, which I’m actually not).

In the first scene after the opening credits, Lorne is trying unsuccessfully to drown his sorrows in alcohol, and ends up spilling his guts to the innocuous demon bartender who made the mistake of asking Lorne what he thought:

Lorne: What do I think? I think I’m tired. I think I’m sick and tired of wearing bells on my toes and making like everything’s gonna be okay. I think it’s pathetic that lately I’m too scared and sad to tell people the truth, so I just say what they want to hear, instead. Most of all, I think the term “happy hour” should be banned from the English language. There’s nothing happy about this hour, or any other. ... What I know is I started drinking the moment that I found out that a girl I loved was gonna die. Every time I get to the bottom of the glass, I hope that last drop is gonna take me the distance.... A simple plan, that failed utterly. Which is why I’m gonna heave my toucas [sp?] off this stool, strap the bells on, and with a smile and a quip, go back into the belly of a very ugly beast, and pretend like I can help. ‘Cause that’s what the green guy does.

Beyond all the references to “seeing how deep I go” and “falling through the earth” and “peeling back the layers” in Wesley’s earlier scenes, Wesley’s big chance to take the implicit and make it explicit comes in that scene with Illyria on the rooftop:

Illyria: Your world is so small. And yet you box yourselves in rooms even smaller. You shut yourselves inside, in rooms, in routines.
Wesley: There are things worse than walls, terrible . . . and beautiful. If we look at them for too long, they will burn right through us. Truths we couldn’t bear, not every day.
Illyria: We are so weak.
Wesley: Yes...yes, we are.

Wes highlights the fact that most of the time, we don’t want to know the truth, what’s really real or really behind it all (like Neo’s betrayer in the first Matrix movie, we’d rather having the comfortable illusion, thank you very much, than the truth which makes us feel small and vulnerable and terrified). We don’t want to break down the walls or see through them, because then the world could get at us, force us to face the truths that sear our souls.

Of course, no matter what the subject, Spike always seems to have something to say, so I’ll conclude this section with part of his conversation with Angel in the opening boardroom scene:

Angel: ...I should never have let her [Fred] come here. Bad things always happen here.
Spike: Hate to break it to you, mate, but bad things always happen everywhere. ‘Sides, she wanted to be here. It was her choice.
Angel: Was it?
Spike: Bugger. You’re fixin’ to do something stupid, aren’t you?
Angel: Done it. Came here. Spend every day lying to myself, about making the world a better place.
Spike: Welcome to the planet. We all paint on our happy faces every day, when what we really want is to pound the neighbor’s missus, steal his Ben Franklins, and while we’re at it, not think about the third of the world that’s starving to death.

III. Angel’s Avengers (or, “We so need a secret lair.”)
[Okay, so that’s a quote from this week’s Tru Calling, not Angel, but I thought it was a cool line, and when else am I gonna be able to use it, huh?]

So, now (we hope) our heroes get back to the business of being heroes? Or at least they begin the process of digging themselves out of the very deep hole in the earth they’ve fallen into, while they were telling themselves that they were just trying to fight the good fight in the most efficient way possible.

And a cool group name might not be a totally terrible idea, come to think of it. Oh, maybe not the name Spike tossed out and which Angel seemed to find strangely attractive, but a name, nonetheless.

Once upon a time, they were “Angel Investigations,” but for most of the past year, they’ve been the L.A. face of “Wolfram & Hart”.

If you’re going to try to regain your sense of self, or build a new self on firmer ground than before, getting a new name (as one does when one goes through an important rite of passage in most cultures, or when being baptized, or confirmed, or bar or bat mitzvah’d,... as well as when taking on a secret super-hero identity, with or without the spandex costume) is an important part of that transformation. And a secret lair might not be a terrible idea, either.

[Sorry, I’m suddenly flashing on Spike’s satirical voice-over from the opening scenes of AtS 1.03: “...To the Angel-mobile, away!” I’d better sign off, now, before this entry devolves any further.]