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Date Posted: 07:24:16 11/22/05 Tue
Author: Tchaikovsky
Subject: And other things drunken (Angel Odyssey 6.15)

Two weeks late and a thousand or so words short, I’m afraid. I read this in one of the brief gaps I seem to get nowadays between riotously busy work and riotously busy leisure time. There is significant evidence to support the fact that things that usually get done as regularly as clockwork haven’t been recently- I haven’t seen ‘Have I Got News For You’ in a month, which is unheard of- and there is a corner of my apartment that looks suspiciously like it belongs in a house which has been uninhabited for several centuries. As a result of this, I haven’t made any notes on this episode. This has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the episode (which is as high as ever), or the amount of stuff in it which there is to discuss, most which I’ve simply forgotten through my ailing memory. I did want to comment on a few things though.

6.15- ‘Some Things Wicked’

The episode plays with the arc of the Season, moving it gently forward, without ever feeling like the information overload which can lead to fatigue that blights even some of the better arc-y episodes of Angel Season Four. I think it largely does this by using an introduction in which some really good, meaty conversations are had- between Michael and Spike, between Angel and Spike, and between Angelus and Darla. This is a little like the structure of a classic Buffy episode, and may ideally be a template for all drama- an establishment of an emotional connection with a group of characters in a low-activity scenario, and then a gradual build-up of action, tension and emotion throughout the various acts. Of course, this is released by moments of reflection, and we should end in a one-off drama with a little reflection and resolution of what’s happened. In serial drama, the end of the episode can be a big plot-twist to be dealt with next time, or the reflection on the episode’s big drama which came at the end of the third or during the fourth act.

And then come the subversions. Taking all this structure as given, Whedon shows bang against the structure relentlessly, trying out different ways of speaking, so to speak. We have ‘The Body’, where all the action happens in the ‘Previously’ and the point is very much that there is no resolution even at the end: Dawn never gets to touch the body. We have ‘Once More, With Feeling’ where the villain is Whedon/Sweet for making everyone sing and dance in the first place, and the supposedly big drama of Xander owning up to causing such anarchy is dismissed as an irrelevant side-issue- the emotional B-plot trumps the structural A-plot. And in a show that has recently been swiping Buffyverse actors, Alias, (I’m yet to see any Veronica Mars, if you thought that was where I was headed), the first Season used a deliberately subversive structure in which the resolution would come more or less at the end of the third act, with a whole new episode’s concerns being foisted upon the viewer in the last act, leading to both a structurally and emotionally effective cliffhanger. It’s like the programme was always one act ahead of where it would traditionally have been in a show.

All of which to say is, this is apparently a very well-behaved two-parter that suddenly twists into a ‘To Be Continued’ right at its end. In many ways, the action takes a usual cause. We’re lured into thinking that Michael’s predicament might be the focal point of the episode’s end, only to find out eventually that it’s in fact all about Angel and his residual Angelus cruelty. We should have known. A couple of the acts end with flashbacks, and each time, it’s not what we’d usually associate with a threat so much as a victim. Drusilla being picked upon as a plaything ruthlessly by Angelus. I’m not sure if it ever occurred to me until this episode that the reason Drusilla was originally presented with a dolly on whom she doted was that it was a gothic interpretation of the common clause that the abused become abusers. Of course Drusilla would have a dolly who she treats like a real person, and with cruelty. Her entire vampire being has been shaped by being played with like a dolly even though she was actually a real person. The echo is brought to life here very vividly.

Meantime, anyone who had felt like complaining about Spike’s lack of prevalence in the last few episodes, (rather illogically, but I’m sure they’re out there), is hushed by the care and time devoted to him here. Spike is playing the loyal side-kick, which is an amusing idea given how rarely he’s stuck with someone when he felt they were not doing the right thing in the past. It’s a measure of how deeply Angel and Spike had grown together by the end of Season Five, and how they continue to do so during this Season Six, that even after the humanistic Gunn and the God King Illyria have more or less disowned him, Spike doggedly remains at the same table, sharing the spirits. Of course, he won’t do it without dissent- in a sense it’s the playing out of the idea that it’s only those who really care who will tell you how completely wrong you are about something. But as a self-appointed intermediary between Michael and Angel, Spike is cautious and diplomatic. If Angel is prone to seeing Senior Partners where there is just rubble, hard feelings and desperation, at least he has the advantage of wanting to understand the cause of the devestation in order to better understand the road to resolution. One might say that the hard toil of Gunn’s bringing people together is the plan espoused by the Angel of ‘Epiphany’, but in situations like the end of the last episode, where several days’ of good work tumbles into the abyss out of an inability to overcome ancient prejudice and ill-will, one starts to wonder whether trying to bring gangs together on the fly doesn’t rather over-simplify the situation. Gunn is starting to remind me of Ridley Scott in making the film ‘Kingdom of Heaven’. A film which was earnest and heartfelt and espoused a simple and eventually simplistic truth: that Muslims and Christians are more alike than you’d think. However, the eventual problem is that this is not enough- the fact the Orlando Bloom character treats the outsiders with respect cannot ultimately solve the aching wounds of human beings slain. I start to wonder whether it is a mixture of finding a root cause, (even if not the Senior Partners) and working at a logistic level (with Gunn and Lorne) is mandatory for overcoming the essential impasse of the Season. In terms of symbolism, it’s not going to be until each side of the Fang Gang’s schism realise the essential truth behind the other side’s position that they will be able, collectively to overcome what currently feels like the end of the world.

And acknowledging once again the shortness and vagueness of this, I thank the writers for an episode deserving of better attention, and bid the rest of you to keep reading. We’re getting close to crisis point, if I’m not mistaken.

TCH

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