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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.