Bleak house
Nov. 13th, 2003 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynHaving a hard time concentrating today, since I moved back into my new old space which is now devoid of anything resembling privacy. And then the new head guy (henceforth known as wanker) sent a mail round telling us that we shouldn’t put up any art in our spaces because we’re an image firm, after all, so we should only put up images that the firm has done. Not even my little ASPCA calendar. Fortunately our lead graphic designer said, now, wait a sec...
Anyways, strangely, all the people who’ve been so unhappy with Angel seemed to adore Lineage, whereas I’ve been having a good time with all the other eps, but liked this one a bit less than most did. The majority of this story I loved, but the Spike bits really bothered me. I don’t think Spike is deserving of canonization in the least, but this bizarre moron/assface behavior, then suddenly a switch to cool, cunning, vampire Spike, then moron/asshat again, then good guy, then... I dunno. I mean, I laughed when he tried to “comfort” Wes with the “I killed my mum when she tried to shag me” story. But I didn’t enjoy the chronic dumbass stuff. The whiplash left me reeling, I suppose because I’ve never especially liked Spike-as-moron much. I thought it could have been so much cooler if Spike had zeroed in on Wesley’s discomfort with his father, and acted in a manner similar to the way he was acting with Eve — figuring things out, playing with the info and the knowledge, doing something... well, Spike-like. But alas, this is my one quibble with Ultimate Drew, I guess, and maybe I just expect too much since I love him so much. But I did just looove the scene with Spike and Eve. Nice setup, there.
Since most people have said far more interesting things and this is so late, I figured I’d just skip the review, because everything else loved. It made me especially happy that Fred defended her right to be in the field and not be “protected” and all that, and there’s more with the prophecy that seems to be coming up — well, both prophecies, whether it’s shanshu or the father will kill the son. And of course, it’s great to see Knox, always.
But what I ended up thinking the most about afterwards was the idea of Dark Wesley. For a long time, I’ve referred to him that way, and I thought that what I liked most about him was that he’d grown dark and tough and all those qualities I usually love in a guy. Only, the more I thought about Lineage, the more I wondered if Wes really is that dark himself. I’m starting to believe maybe he’s simply gotten grayer, and that what he’s really done is learn to live within, and deal with, the darkness of the world he exists in. It’s not so much that he’s really dark and bitter and angry himself when you look under the surface, but that he understands this part of the world more now — through the breakup with Angel in S2, through the aftermath of the prophecy, through his affair with Lilah — and he has to deal with it.
His reaction to shooting his father made me wonder. He experienced no hesitation whatsoever in doing something that is, for most people, pretty unthinkable. Someone he cared for was in danger, and he did what he needed to do — and then kept shooting. Clearly he’s a wreck in regards to the issues he has with his parents. So his actions speak to both sides of Wes’s character now: the one who lives in this grim, cynical, blacker than night world, where he has to be tough and hard and make decisions alone, and then the boyish, easily hurt Wes, the one who’s never been able to live with his self-image, the Wes we first met on Buffy in S3. And it’s that latter part of his character that leads me to think maybe Wes isn’t quite the dark guy I’d been assuming he was.
If he was that dark, if he was that toughened and bitterly cynical and brittle, would he have reacted that way to killing his father (shooting him repeatedly in rage, throwing up, disbelief, etc.)? I’m not sure — he’d have just done what needed to be done, and then accepted it with cynical, silent suffering that this is who he is now. Instead, he’s haunted by the fact that he’s killed his father, even knowing it wasn’t his father; tortured by the knowledge the cyborg had of all the weak points in regards to his relationship with dear daddy; and spooked enough by the events to contact his parents, when he clearly doesn’t like doing that. It seems like someone who’d gone into such a dark place as I’d been thinking Wes has gone wouldn’t be as strongly affected by these events. Wouldn’t have been so tormented by Angel’s anger at him, or at having his failings pointed out at every turn, and so on.
Of course, maybe I’m just nuts, and Wes really is bleaker than thou, but I sort of like thinking about him this way. I’ve grown to love Wes so much in the past few years, the conflicts and torments he faces within himself and with others are feelings I understand and identify with deeply, so it almost makes him more interesting to me thinking that he’s not really dark, but that he’s accepting and understanding of the darkness around him. He knows how to deal with it, whereas before it nearly broke him. It makes him so much deeper (and maybe that’s what he’s really become, not darker, but just deeper) as a character, makes him so much more well-rounded and fascinating as a man, and to me, sexy as hell.
Now if Spike would just become corporeal and Wes would get over Fred, they could get together and give me some of that hot English boy on boy action I crave. ;-) Though I’m dreading next week — the return of the horrid WilliamWig! Arg! WHY can’t they get the Fool for Love wig? I’m deeply afraid.
Anyways, strangely, all the people who’ve been so unhappy with Angel seemed to adore Lineage, whereas I’ve been having a good time with all the other eps, but liked this one a bit less than most did. The majority of this story I loved, but the Spike bits really bothered me. I don’t think Spike is deserving of canonization in the least, but this bizarre moron/assface behavior, then suddenly a switch to cool, cunning, vampire Spike, then moron/asshat again, then good guy, then... I dunno. I mean, I laughed when he tried to “comfort” Wes with the “I killed my mum when she tried to shag me” story. But I didn’t enjoy the chronic dumbass stuff. The whiplash left me reeling, I suppose because I’ve never especially liked Spike-as-moron much. I thought it could have been so much cooler if Spike had zeroed in on Wesley’s discomfort with his father, and acted in a manner similar to the way he was acting with Eve — figuring things out, playing with the info and the knowledge, doing something... well, Spike-like. But alas, this is my one quibble with Ultimate Drew, I guess, and maybe I just expect too much since I love him so much. But I did just looove the scene with Spike and Eve. Nice setup, there.
Since most people have said far more interesting things and this is so late, I figured I’d just skip the review, because everything else loved. It made me especially happy that Fred defended her right to be in the field and not be “protected” and all that, and there’s more with the prophecy that seems to be coming up — well, both prophecies, whether it’s shanshu or the father will kill the son. And of course, it’s great to see Knox, always.
But what I ended up thinking the most about afterwards was the idea of Dark Wesley. For a long time, I’ve referred to him that way, and I thought that what I liked most about him was that he’d grown dark and tough and all those qualities I usually love in a guy. Only, the more I thought about Lineage, the more I wondered if Wes really is that dark himself. I’m starting to believe maybe he’s simply gotten grayer, and that what he’s really done is learn to live within, and deal with, the darkness of the world he exists in. It’s not so much that he’s really dark and bitter and angry himself when you look under the surface, but that he understands this part of the world more now — through the breakup with Angel in S2, through the aftermath of the prophecy, through his affair with Lilah — and he has to deal with it.
His reaction to shooting his father made me wonder. He experienced no hesitation whatsoever in doing something that is, for most people, pretty unthinkable. Someone he cared for was in danger, and he did what he needed to do — and then kept shooting. Clearly he’s a wreck in regards to the issues he has with his parents. So his actions speak to both sides of Wes’s character now: the one who lives in this grim, cynical, blacker than night world, where he has to be tough and hard and make decisions alone, and then the boyish, easily hurt Wes, the one who’s never been able to live with his self-image, the Wes we first met on Buffy in S3. And it’s that latter part of his character that leads me to think maybe Wes isn’t quite the dark guy I’d been assuming he was.
If he was that dark, if he was that toughened and bitterly cynical and brittle, would he have reacted that way to killing his father (shooting him repeatedly in rage, throwing up, disbelief, etc.)? I’m not sure — he’d have just done what needed to be done, and then accepted it with cynical, silent suffering that this is who he is now. Instead, he’s haunted by the fact that he’s killed his father, even knowing it wasn’t his father; tortured by the knowledge the cyborg had of all the weak points in regards to his relationship with dear daddy; and spooked enough by the events to contact his parents, when he clearly doesn’t like doing that. It seems like someone who’d gone into such a dark place as I’d been thinking Wes has gone wouldn’t be as strongly affected by these events. Wouldn’t have been so tormented by Angel’s anger at him, or at having his failings pointed out at every turn, and so on.
Of course, maybe I’m just nuts, and Wes really is bleaker than thou, but I sort of like thinking about him this way. I’ve grown to love Wes so much in the past few years, the conflicts and torments he faces within himself and with others are feelings I understand and identify with deeply, so it almost makes him more interesting to me thinking that he’s not really dark, but that he’s accepting and understanding of the darkness around him. He knows how to deal with it, whereas before it nearly broke him. It makes him so much deeper (and maybe that’s what he’s really become, not darker, but just deeper) as a character, makes him so much more well-rounded and fascinating as a man, and to me, sexy as hell.
Now if Spike would just become corporeal and Wes would get over Fred, they could get together and give me some of that hot English boy on boy action I crave. ;-) Though I’m dreading next week — the return of the horrid WilliamWig! Arg! WHY can’t they get the Fool for Love wig? I’m deeply afraid.
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bleak house
Date: 2003-11-13 05:32 pm (UTC)Another thought I had about this ep. It looks like there are two powers vying for control of Angel. I'm thinking that the shanshu Apocalypse is definitly in the future and Angel is still the guy who everybody wants to control. Still Shanshu vamp. Spike is a pawn in this parat of the Jossverse.