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Thoughts about 'Amends'.
Firstly, just to get it out of the way - Frivolous Thoughts:
- Buffy really doesn't look great this season. It's all pastel colours, unflattering trousers and skirts and a whole regiment of cardigans. Not to mention the hair. It's not that she's ugly or anything, she's just so... twee. I guess it's to set her apart from Faith, but still - I keep expecting her to bake apple pies or something. She just looks so *wholesome*. (Or as Darcy put it last night: She looks like an '80s TV presenter.)
- Watching with Darcy is... entertaining. He finds Angel pathetic and B/A utterly mock worthy. F.ex.
Angel: "Am I a righteous man? The world wants me gone!"
Buffy: "What about me? I love you so much..."
Darcy (deadpan): "*I* want you gone!"
************
OK, onto the 'clever' bit:
Settling down to watch this last night, I thought something like "Yay. Bangel cheesefest, let the fun commence!"
But as the episode started (Dublin, 1838) something dawned on me: I wasn't watching Buffy - I was watching Angel. Literally - Amends isn't a BtVS episode, it's an AtS one. AtS of course didn't exist yet, but I think this is Joss trying out the format, seeing how well it works to have Angel as the main character.
See until then, whenever we've seen flashbacks to Angel's past, it's always been tied into the Buffy story. Most of the flashbacks were in 'Becoming', but they were all necessary for the show and the story: Darla's "Close your eyes", Drusilla's torment, the souling, Whistler's rescue.
The flashbacks in Amends are all Angel specific and have nothing to do with Buffy. As she said "I was in Angel's dream." Yes there are bits with the rest of the cast - Buffy and Xander reconcile, Willow and Oz make up, Giles helps out. But it could just as well have been the Fang Gang who helped out try to work out what was wrong. ETA: Just thought I'd point out that of course story wise this ep has to have the characters and events it does. But thematically it's all AtS. And the focus is solely on him - Buffy runs around trying to help, the way she always does. But she doesn't win.
Of course the whole thing revolves around The First tormenting Angel, trying to make him use Buffy to lose his soul. And this is where it gets really interesting. Pretty much everything it says ties into Angel's struggles on his own show:
Angel: You're not here.
Jenny: I'm always here.
Angel: Leave me alone.
Jenny: I can't. You won't let me.
[...]
Angel: I am sorry... for what I've done. What else can I say to you?
Jenny/Daniel: I don't wanna make you feel bad.
Daniel: I just want to show you who you are.
Angel: It wasn't me.
Jenny: It wasn't you?
Angel: A demon isn't a man. I was a man once.
Jenny: Oh, yes, and what a man you were.
Margaret: A drunken, whoring layabout, and a terrible disappointment to your parents.
Angel: I was young. I never had a chance to...
Margaret: To die of syphilis? You were a worthless being before you were *ever* a monster.
Angel: Stop it! Stop...
Jenny: I don't wanna hurt you, Angel, but you have to understand. Cruelty's the only thing you ever had a true talent for.
Angel: That's not true.
Jenny: Shh. Rest. You mistake it for a curse, Angel, but it's not. It's your destiny.
Now this is an interesting sentence. The First goes on to claim to have brought him back, just so he could kill Buffy and lose his soul ("Take her. Take what you want. Pour all that frustration and all that guilt into *her*, and you'll be free."), but I think it's lying. I think it was (inadvertently) speaking the truth before: The soul *is* Angel's destiny. As he'll find out once he discovers the Shanshu prophecy. He's a player in the Apocalypse, and *that* is why he was brought back - by TPTB. That's my guess anyway. But The First - the very incarnation of an opportunist - jumps at the chance of causing destruction in any shape. And isn't it interesting that Angel has this innate tendency to give up? Oh he doesn't sleep with Buffy - he just sits around waiting to burn. But 2 years later his despair is so much greater, because by then he's really tried to do good - to fight the fight, and yet it all seems to be for nothing. So he goes to Darla to do what he couldn't with Buffy now...
Anyway, here is another bit that's worth pondering:
Angel: I'll never hurt her.
Jenny: You were born to hurt her. Have you learned nothing? As long as you are alive...
It seems like Angel was born to hurt pretty much *everyone* he ever cared about. Poor guy.
It's easy to miss amidst the tears, but Buffy manages to impart *one* very important lesson, one that'll be a driving force on AtS:
Buffy: Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together.
AtS is *all* about the fight, about keeping going always. At the end of BtVS Buffy earns a respite - a choice to do what she wants. Angel never does. As long as he lives, he'll always fight, and (Buffy got this a little wrong) he'll always lose those he fights with (except for Spike. But that's another point), but he still needs people to keep him grounded, attached to the world. It's all being set up here. And yes that last scene is awfully soppy, but the thing is - Buffy can't help Angel. They had their moment, but they're now moving past each other. They're not connecting:
Buffy: "I know everything that you did, because you did it to me."
This illustrates it perfectly - she knows what he did, but only from the other side. Only as the victim. There is a difference between knowing and understanding, and this is why she can't get through. Maybe she would have, later, when she knew the other side of the coin. Maybe.
But of course then comes the snow. The fight goes away. The Powers obviously decided that they didn't trust Buffy to bring Angel round, so the fixed the problem for now. Preserved their Champion and in the process made Buffy and Angel think that maybe their love was meant to be after all. ::shakes head sadly::
Anyway, I have tons to do, so I'll leave you with this. I hope that was interesting. (*is totally too addicted for own good*)
ETA: Something just occurred to me. Buffy is Angel's weakness. (And vice versa) Their love can be used as a tool of destruction.
This is the exact opposite to Spike/Buffy: They're each other's strength. They can rely on each other, and their love acts as support.
This is all terribly obvious I know. But it just struck me.
- Buffy really doesn't look great this season. It's all pastel colours, unflattering trousers and skirts and a whole regiment of cardigans. Not to mention the hair. It's not that she's ugly or anything, she's just so... twee. I guess it's to set her apart from Faith, but still - I keep expecting her to bake apple pies or something. She just looks so *wholesome*. (Or as Darcy put it last night: She looks like an '80s TV presenter.)
- Watching with Darcy is... entertaining. He finds Angel pathetic and B/A utterly mock worthy. F.ex.
Angel: "Am I a righteous man? The world wants me gone!"
Buffy: "What about me? I love you so much..."
Darcy (deadpan): "*I* want you gone!"
************
OK, onto the 'clever' bit:
Settling down to watch this last night, I thought something like "Yay. Bangel cheesefest, let the fun commence!"
But as the episode started (Dublin, 1838) something dawned on me: I wasn't watching Buffy - I was watching Angel. Literally - Amends isn't a BtVS episode, it's an AtS one. AtS of course didn't exist yet, but I think this is Joss trying out the format, seeing how well it works to have Angel as the main character.
See until then, whenever we've seen flashbacks to Angel's past, it's always been tied into the Buffy story. Most of the flashbacks were in 'Becoming', but they were all necessary for the show and the story: Darla's "Close your eyes", Drusilla's torment, the souling, Whistler's rescue.
The flashbacks in Amends are all Angel specific and have nothing to do with Buffy. As she said "I was in Angel's dream." Yes there are bits with the rest of the cast - Buffy and Xander reconcile, Willow and Oz make up, Giles helps out. But it could just as well have been the Fang Gang who helped out try to work out what was wrong. ETA: Just thought I'd point out that of course story wise this ep has to have the characters and events it does. But thematically it's all AtS. And the focus is solely on him - Buffy runs around trying to help, the way she always does. But she doesn't win.
Of course the whole thing revolves around The First tormenting Angel, trying to make him use Buffy to lose his soul. And this is where it gets really interesting. Pretty much everything it says ties into Angel's struggles on his own show:
Angel: You're not here.
Jenny: I'm always here.
Angel: Leave me alone.
Jenny: I can't. You won't let me.
[...]
Angel: I am sorry... for what I've done. What else can I say to you?
Jenny/Daniel: I don't wanna make you feel bad.
Daniel: I just want to show you who you are.
Angel: It wasn't me.
Jenny: It wasn't you?
Angel: A demon isn't a man. I was a man once.
Jenny: Oh, yes, and what a man you were.
Margaret: A drunken, whoring layabout, and a terrible disappointment to your parents.
Angel: I was young. I never had a chance to...
Margaret: To die of syphilis? You were a worthless being before you were *ever* a monster.
Angel: Stop it! Stop...
Jenny: I don't wanna hurt you, Angel, but you have to understand. Cruelty's the only thing you ever had a true talent for.
Angel: That's not true.
Jenny: Shh. Rest. You mistake it for a curse, Angel, but it's not. It's your destiny.
Now this is an interesting sentence. The First goes on to claim to have brought him back, just so he could kill Buffy and lose his soul ("Take her. Take what you want. Pour all that frustration and all that guilt into *her*, and you'll be free."), but I think it's lying. I think it was (inadvertently) speaking the truth before: The soul *is* Angel's destiny. As he'll find out once he discovers the Shanshu prophecy. He's a player in the Apocalypse, and *that* is why he was brought back - by TPTB. That's my guess anyway. But The First - the very incarnation of an opportunist - jumps at the chance of causing destruction in any shape. And isn't it interesting that Angel has this innate tendency to give up? Oh he doesn't sleep with Buffy - he just sits around waiting to burn. But 2 years later his despair is so much greater, because by then he's really tried to do good - to fight the fight, and yet it all seems to be for nothing. So he goes to Darla to do what he couldn't with Buffy now...
Anyway, here is another bit that's worth pondering:
Angel: I'll never hurt her.
Jenny: You were born to hurt her. Have you learned nothing? As long as you are alive...
It seems like Angel was born to hurt pretty much *everyone* he ever cared about. Poor guy.
It's easy to miss amidst the tears, but Buffy manages to impart *one* very important lesson, one that'll be a driving force on AtS:
Buffy: Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together.
AtS is *all* about the fight, about keeping going always. At the end of BtVS Buffy earns a respite - a choice to do what she wants. Angel never does. As long as he lives, he'll always fight, and (Buffy got this a little wrong) he'll always lose those he fights with (except for Spike. But that's another point), but he still needs people to keep him grounded, attached to the world. It's all being set up here. And yes that last scene is awfully soppy, but the thing is - Buffy can't help Angel. They had their moment, but they're now moving past each other. They're not connecting:
Buffy: "I know everything that you did, because you did it to me."
This illustrates it perfectly - she knows what he did, but only from the other side. Only as the victim. There is a difference between knowing and understanding, and this is why she can't get through. Maybe she would have, later, when she knew the other side of the coin. Maybe.
But of course then comes the snow. The fight goes away. The Powers obviously decided that they didn't trust Buffy to bring Angel round, so the fixed the problem for now. Preserved their Champion and in the process made Buffy and Angel think that maybe their love was meant to be after all. ::shakes head sadly::
Anyway, I have tons to do, so I'll leave you with this. I hope that was interesting. (*is totally too addicted for own good*)
ETA: Something just occurred to me. Buffy is Angel's weakness. (And vice versa) Their love can be used as a tool of destruction.
This is the exact opposite to Spike/Buffy: They're each other's strength. They can rely on each other, and their love acts as support.
This is all terribly obvious I know. But it just struck me.
no subject
Oooh, I dunno - I reckon a lot of S6 is written to suggest that they're very much one another's Achilles heel. Spike's the one thing that can hurt Buffy (or do anything else to her), the one person he can hurt. She's the one thing that can really get under his skin, drive him to change, turn him from Big Bad into ... something else. Yeah, they can rely on each other. I think that's always true, and it's extraordinary. But they bring each other low, too.
no subject
Here's another thing: the issues in this relationship are inherent. They’ve always been there; they always will. When it works in Season 7, it works for the same reasons it doesn't work in Season 6. Their dependency on one another is as much a strength in Season 7 as it is a weakness for much of Season 6. It's about the way they deal with the issues, not the issues themselves.
What I meant in my very shorthanded way was that the FE uses people's weaknesses against them - in Angel's case Buffy. And it works beautifully. When it tries the same trick on Spike, it doesn't work at all.
no subject
no subject
no kidding! I'll have to start reading fanfic again one of these days...
In context of fighting the FE, it's a perfect point.
Not just that - I think in relationship terms, or coping with the loss of the relationship - it makes a big difference. To borrow words from Anna again:
I love it beyond reason when two characters are drawn inexorably to each other, the riveting chemistry that drives a story even when everything around it is standing still. But my other love story is this one: that when you're broken, sometimes the only thing you have that isn't broken are the relationships that keep hold of you even when you can’t keep hold of them. I never thought that would be Buffy and Spike. It was, and I am eternally grateful for it.
Buffy talks a lot in Season 7 about the fact that Spike has a soul. Of course it matters to her. It is everything to her, because she is the one who lost Angel his soul. That is who she is. That is what she is worth. She is the destruction of what is good and the end of hope, and she can save the world a thousand times but that will still hang over her. Until now. Because suddenly this is how much she is worth – she is worth a soul. She is worth a vampire going out and getting a soul for her, all for her, and yes, it matters to her. She is the Slayer and she can do anything and everything but she cannot earn back that soul, that damn soul that was lost at her hands and regained only for her to destroy it again, sending it to straight to Hell. But this time, this vampire takes it out of her hands. She cannot earn back that soul but he can. And what Buffy is only just starting to understand is what he can do for her is as much hers as what she can do for herself, that this gift of a soul is part of who he is, and who she is, and who they are.
I think what I love most about Season 7 is that over the course of it, Buffy and Spike become stronger and more dependent.
In a world that loves to tell us we should all be strong and independent there's something very extraordinary about that.