Tag Archives: Cordelia

June 10, 2011 · 12:55 pm

Cultural Catchup Project: The Disc Stands Alone (Angel)

The Disc Stands Alone

June 10th, 2011

I’ve been falling behind a bit on my Angel catchup, although it isn’t without reason. After finishing the first disc of Season 3, I found myself confronting three very different episodes that were slightly more distinctive than I might have expected. Some offer standalone stories which gesture towards future developments, some look to focus on our supporting characters and their journey to this point, and some offer a more general thematic consideration as facilitated through a carefully designed monster of the week.

There just wasn’t any sort of hook for me to focus on which would unite “That Vision Thing,” “That Old Gang of Mine,” and “Carpe Noctem,” and the recent heatwave zapped away my energy to dive any further into the series to try to find that thread.

And so, while I would like to offer something more, here’s a fairly basis episode-by-episode rundown of the remainder of Disc 1.

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Tagged as Amy Acker, Analysis, Angel, Carpe Noctem, Cordelia, Daniel Dae Kim, Darla, David Boreanaz, David Denman, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Fred, Gavin Park, Gunn, Julie Benz, Kal Penn, Lilah Morgan, Merl, Review, Season 3, That Old Gang of Mine, That Vision Thing, Wesley, Wolfram and Hart

May 18, 2011 · 6:42 pm

Cultural Catchup Project: Angel – “Heartthrob”

“Heartthrob”

May 18th, 2011

There’s a bit of whiplash in covering “Bargaining” and “Heartthrob” back-to-back. Whereas Buffy seems to be heading into a period of intense transition, dealing with a whole lot of plot development that necessitates an eventful and complicated premiere, Angel is in a far more stable place without any of the same broad upheaval.

This may be considered a viable reason to watch the two series entirely separately, but for me it offers a nice juxtaposition that does much to highlight the strengths of both series, and the strengths of Angel in particular. While “Heartthrob” ends up being pretty simple, and more than a bit on the nose in regards to its central theme, I think there’s an economy to the storytelling that is equally matched with a certain swagger (which was understandably absent in “Bargaining”). While Greenwalt has to deal with questions of grief after the conclusion of Buffy’s fifth season, he’s far enough removed to be able to have a bit of fun at the same time.

Although “Heartthrob” may not have the same emotional resonance of “Bargaining,” it also feels more finely tuned in its shorter running time and in its thematically (rather than narratively) convenient standalone storyline which also proves a stealth transition into the budding mythology introduced at episode’s end. “Heartthrob” is in no position to become an all-time great episode of the series, at least based on what I’ve seen of the series thus far, but it quite comfortably lives in this particular moment while laying the groundwork for the season that comes.

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Tagged as Amy Acker, Analysis, Angel, Buffy, Charisma Carpenter, Cordelia, Darla, David Boreanaz, Dennis, Elisabeth, Episode 1, Gunn, Heartthrob, James, Pregnancy, Premiere, Review, Season 1, Season 3, Season Premiere, Television, The Host, TV, Wesley

November 25, 2010 · 2:28 am

Cultural Catchup Project: Defying Seriality – The Catharsis of Pylea (Angel)

Defying Seriality – The Catharsis of Pylea

November 25th, 2010

Gee, do you think Pylea and Oz might have something in common?

The Pylea arc, which concludes Angel’s second season starting with “Belonging” and ending with “There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb,” (with “Over the Rainbow” and “Through the Looking Glass” in between) is obviously playing on the classic story through episode titles, explicit references (Cordelia’s first instinct, for example), and in the general theme of being taken away to a different world to save the day and learn something about yourself in the process.

To get it out of the way, this was a highly enjoyable arc: Pylea offers some strong story possibilities along with some surprising connections to the series’ mythology, the introduction of Fred and the prominence of The Host are most welcome, and seeing Cordelia front and center has been two seasons in the making. Plus, the Pylea arc offers some of the series’ strongest balancing of suspense and comedy yet, successfully mixing some strong emotional moments with some truly hilarious ones.

And yet the Pylea arc wants to be more. Instead of being your traditional conclusion to a serialized season of television, resolving ongoing tensions, it introduces something entirely new. It wants to be a sort of catharsis, an exciting adventure to another world where every character is offered a sort of trial run for their lives back in Los Angeles. Cordelia discovers what it is like to be revered, Angel faces the true potential of his inner demon, Wesley must take a society’s future into his hands, while Gunn…well, Gunn sort of learns a lesson along the way, I guess?

While I think the arc largely works extremely well, there are moments where this sort of fantastical allegory for their real world problems becomes a bit contrived. This has been a complicated season of television, and at times the story tries too hard to speak to arcs which were developed to varying degrees during the year. Some individual stories do risk being a bit on the nose at the expense of Pylea itself, but as a broader coming together of our central characters, a realization of their friendship and a true reconcilation in the wake of Angel’s return to the fold, the arc works well.

Especially considering the gutpunch at the end.

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Tagged as Amy Acker, Analysis, Andy Hallett, Angel, Belonging, Charisma Carpenter, Cordelia, Covenant, David Greenwalt, Demon, Doctor Who, Fred, Groosalugg, Gunn, Lorne, Numfar, Over the Rainbow, Pylea, Review, Season 2, Shawn Ryan, Television, The Host, The Wizard of Oz, There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb, Through the Looking Glass, Tim Minear, TV, Wesley, Wolfram & Hart

September 17, 2010 · 8:20 pm

Cultural Catchup Project: “Disharmony” (Angel)

“Disharmony”

September 18th, 2010

When Harmony arrives in Los Angeles, it is a bit of narrative pleasure for me as a viewer: the realization that Cordelia wouldn’t be aware that Harmony had been turned into a vampire was downright delightful, and seeing Harmony dance her way around the issue was yet another comic highlight for Mercedes McNab. Because I have been watching Buffy alongside Angel, I understood the disconnect between the characters’ awareness and my own, and it framed the early scenes in “Disharmony” in a very clear fashion.

However, watching the episode made me realize that Angel viewers without the same knowledge would have read Harmony’s arrival in the opposite fashion: where Harmony’s transformation into a vampire was almost a joke for those “in the know,” it might have been legitimately suspenseful for those without that knowledge. “Disharmony” is so impressive because it manages to overcome this potential disparity, coming together as a compelling investigation of friendship in the wake of Angel’s epiphany regardless of one’s level of Harmony-related knowledge.

Although I much prefer intertextual pleasures, I must admit.

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Tagged as Television, TV, Review, Analysis, Season 2, Episode 17, Angel, Willow, Cordelia, David Fury, Harmony, Mercedes McNab, Vampire, Doug Sanders, Disharmony, Phone Call, Pyramid Scheme

August 20, 2010 · 9:56 pm

Cultural Catchup Project: Moving On while Moving Apart (Angel)

Moving On while Moving Apart

August 20th, 2010

When a series makes a pretty substantial change to its basic structure, we usually respond in one of two ways: either we fret over how the series will handle that change, or we shrug our shoulders and presume that things will be back to normal eventually. This is not to say that we don’t enjoy this change, but as someone who is averse to change as a general rule it makes me anxious when I see a favourite series taking a glimpse over the edge as if it plans on jumping, even if that jump ends up being a spectacular sight.

However, I honestly didn’t flinch when Angel fired his staff at the end of “Reunion.” This isn’t because I am not enjoying the series, or that I am not engaged with its characters, but rather because the series is naturally suited to these sorts of changes. Admittedly, I knew in advance that reinvention was one of the series’ strong suits, but I didn’t expect for those reinventions to feel so purposeful: when Angel fires his staff, it feels like a logical progression of his character, and the crisis it creates doesn’t feel like an effort to shake things up for the sake of ratings. Indeed, instead of feeling shocking, the range of episodes from “Blood Money” to “Reprise” feel decidedly normal, a statement that even a substantial shift in the character dynamics of the series needn’t disrupt its basic themes or structures.

They aren’t the strongest episodes of the series, but they serve an important role: while they make the argument that Angel and his former employees will not remain apart forever, they also demonstrate how their separation only broadens the series’ potential, continuing a strong second season.

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Tagged as Television, TV, Review, Analysis, Season 2, Kate, Gene, Loneliness, Angel, Cordelia, Darla, Virginia, Anne, Zombies, Wesley, Wolfram & Hart, Elisabeth Rohm, Lindsey, The Host, Blood Money, Happy Anniversary, The Thin Dead Line, Reprise, Angel Investigations, Julia Lee, Lilah

August 1, 2010 · 12:53 am

Cultural Catchup Project: Fighting the War (Angel)

Fighting the War

July 31st, 2010

At first glance, “The Shroud of Rahmon” was a fairly unimportant episode: caught between “Darla” and “The Trial,” it seems strange to offer a standalone tale of Gunn’s cousin getting in over his head, featuring a mysterious shroud which brings out the worst in those in its presence. It’s not the worst story in the world, tying in with Elisabeth Rohm’s Kate, but it seems like a distraction from the fact that Darla is somewhere out there, and I don’t need to see someone sing karaoke to know that the series’ destiny very clearly awaits her return.

However, as the series embraces its destiny in the episodes which follow, we see that the Shroud was a bit of foreshadowing, a sort of preview of what we were about to see. While Angel’s previous high point to date, the Faith crossover, was in some ways dependent on our connection to Buffy and the arcs which started on that series, the run of “The Trial,” “Reunion” and “Redefinition” feels as if it wholly belongs to this series, even with a number of familiar faces in the mix.

This is largely because these episodes are not about Darla, or Drusilla, or about Wolfram & Hart – rather, they are first and foremost about Angel, about who he has become and what precisely he believes he can do. It is not that these other characters lack nuance, or that their stories stop progressing, but rather that their actions all work to force us to reconsider Angel’s heroism. What was once brave becomes reckless, and what was once heroic can very quickly become inhumane – Angel makes decisions which would to an outside observer make one believe that Angelus had in fact returned, but we see enough to know that his soul is perfectly intact.

It is simply the soul of a soldier, is all.

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Tagged as Television, TV, Review, Analysis, Reunion, Season 2, Destiny, Julie Benz, Angel, David Boreanaz, Cordelia, Darla, The Pacific, Drusilla, Angelus, Wesley, Wolfram & Hart, Lilah Morgan, Holland Manners, Sam Anderson, The Host, The Shroud of Rahmon, Juliet Landau, The Trial, Redefinition, Massacre, Powers That Be, Lindsey McDonald

July 24, 2010 · 5:02 pm

Cultural Catchup Project: The Function of Mystery and the Mystery of Function (Angel)

The Function of Mystery and the Mystery of Function

July 24rd, 2010

The second season of Angel isn’t really that different from the first.

Certainly, the show is introducing new elements (The Host and his Karaoke Bar), new characters (bringing Gunn further into the fold), and new villains (the newly resurrected Darla). However, the way each episode is structured is more or less the same as it was before, so the show hasn’t gone through some sort of radical invention or anything – in fact, the premiere was very much designed to ground the series in Angel’s day-to-day investigations rather than the overarching prophecy.

However, the following episodes of the second season indicate where the differences between the two seasons lie. The first season, as a result of the character swap with Doyle and Wesley at the mid-way point, was always building an aesthetic foundation or building a character foundation, rarely feeling as if they were taking things to that next level. The episodes which start Season Two are not that fundamentally different than those which came before, but there is (to varying degrees) a mystery and an uncertainty about their function: while there are still Wesley episodes and Gunn episodes which aspire to clear patterns, there is that added level of complexity both with the overt serialized arc as well as the sense of possibility which comes with it.

It doesn’t truly change the show, but it ratchets things up a notch in a subtle and effective fashion.

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Tagged as Television, TV, Review, Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, Analysis, Season 2, Catchup, Tim Minear, Karaoke, Julie Benz, Cordelia, Darla, Drusilla, David Greenwalt, Dreams, Wolfram & Hart, Lilah Morgan, Gunn, Dear Boy, Guise will be Guise, Shawn Ryan, The Host, Hyperion Hotel, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been, Untouched, First Impressions

July 21, 2010 · 4:54 pm

Cultural Catchup Project: “Judgment” (Angel)

“Judgment”

July 21st, 2010

There is no question that the conclusion to Angel’s first season, “To Shanshu in L.A.,” was a bridge to the second season, with the return of a figure from Angel’s past and a prophecy which indicated that there might be, to quote Angel, “light at the end of the tunnel.”

However, it’s important not to mistake momentum for structure, and “Judgment” makes it extremely clear that not everything is as clean as it seems. The show doesn’t abandon the ramifications of the first season finale, but it does indicate that moving on isn’t an immediate process: rather than clearly establishing a path to salvation, providing the series with a distinct sense of direction, the premiere instead focuses on how the characters are confronting their new reality, and how they will continue to confront it for the rest of the season.

“Judgment” is not interested in turning the series on its ear so much as it desires to establish that nothing has changed but the determination of our lead characters, which sets the stage for an engaging, and unpredictable, second season.

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Tagged as Analysis, Angel, Battlestar Galactica, Champion, Cordelia, Darla, David Boreanaz, David Greenwalt, Episode 1, Faith, Gunn, Joss Whedon, Judgment, Karaoke, Mandy, Procedural, Review, Season 2, Serialized, Television, Tribunal, TV, Wesley, White Board, Wolfram & Hart

July 11, 2010 · 2:53 am

Cultural Catchup Project: Two Steps Forward, Few Looks Back in “To Shanshu in L.A.” (Angel)

Two Steps Forward, Few Looks Back in “To Shanshu in L.A.”

July 11th, 2010

“To Shanshu in L.A.” is no “Prophecy Girl.”

I can’t resist the comparison, as both episodes find their respective series still searching for their identity while closing their first season, looking for a source of momentum. Don’t get me wrong, I like “To Shanshu in L.A.” just fine, but what felt so natural for Buffy (a final showdown with the season’s “Big Bad,” a first glimpse at the evil which sits underneath Sunnydale) feels comparatively contrived when it happens to Angel. While Wolfram & Hart have been built up all season, and there is some really successful subtle serialization in the episodes leading up to the finale, the finale leaves nothing to the imagination beyond the mysteries of “What Does the Prophecy Mean?” and “Who’s in the Box,” which really won’t matter until next season. The resolutions to these mysteries are exciting, and I very much like where the show is heading in terms of its plot, but the episode plants its thematic flag at base camp instead of trying for the summit.

If a great season finale wraps up the season’s storylines while looking forward to what happens next, “To Shanshu in L.A.” is only really successful with the latter, although that’s by design: the show is clearly not done with a majority of the elements introduced this season, so it makes sense that it wouldn’t feel like “Prophecy Girl.” Yes, I’d argue that the episode reflects some of the ways in which Angel lacks the momentum inherent to the conclusion of Buffy’s first season, but it’s yet another example of the show charting its own course, and even with some of my concerns about the way the episode is designed I’ve very excited by the world it has created and its potential moving forward.

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Tagged as Analysis, Angel, Blind Date, Cordelia, David Boreanaz, David Greenwalt, David Nabbit, Episode 22, Finale, Gunn, Holland Manners, Lilah Morgan, Lindsey, Oracles, Prophecy, Prophecy Girl, Review, Sam Anderson, Season 1, Season Finale, Shanshu Prophecy, Television, To Shanshu in L.A., TV, Vocah, War Zone, Wesley, Wolfram & Hart

July 8, 2010 · 1:40 am

Cultural Catchup Project: One Faith, Three Narratives (Buffy and Angel)

One Faith, Three Narratives

July 8th, 2010

When I wrote about the first crossover between Buffy and Angel, I wrote that it wasn’t so much a crossover as it was ancillary elements (a returning Spike, the Gem of Amara) crossing between the two series and created largely independent stories which happened to share a basic foundation. However, Spike was a fun villain at that time as opposed to a neutered anti-hero, and the Gem of Amara was a simple MacGuffin without much meaning, so the episodes were meaningful less for what crossed over and more for the stories which those elements created for each series’ respective arc.

As we arrive at the final crossover event (stretching, technically, over five episodes) of the season, what’s clear is that the rules have changed: while the awakened Faith is, like Spike, a character-based connection between the two worlds, it is a connection with much more baggage than Spike’s villainy, and one with wide-reaching complications for both narratives. Whedon is very interested in Faith’s story, which remains diverse and compelling over the course of these episodes, but he is acutely aware of the different role her story plays in each series: while there is technically a clear thread which charts Faith’s behaviour over the course of the four episodes in which she appears, there is a distinction between how much each series focuses on her story as opposed to the story of those around her.

The result is three separate stories, unquestionably connected but distinct in terms of their sense of momentum. While a single narrative of Faith’s awakening stretches over both series, and Buffy and Angel travel back and forth between the two shows working out some of their lingering issues, Faith’s impact on Buffy’s narrative (in “This Year’s Girl” and “Who Are You”) is very different from Faith’s impact on Angel’s narrative (in “Five by Five” and “Sanctuary”), her story finding the series in two very different places which result in unique consequences.

For Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Faith’s return is a continuation of a past storyline and a thematic reminder for the series’ ongoing arc; for Angel, Faith’s return is a turning point for the series’ sense of narrative momentum and character dynamics. Throw in Faith’s individual narrative, and you’ve got the sort of television event that you don’t see every day, and one which helps justify the decision to watch the two series simultaneously even in its quasi-fractured structure.

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Tagged as Adam, Analysis, Angel, Anya, Body Switching, Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia, Crossover, David Boreanaz, Eliza Dushku, Faith, Five by Five, Identity, Joss Whedon, Lilah Morgan, Review, Riley, Sanctuary, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Season 1, Season 4, Spike, Tara, Television, The Initiative, The Yoko Factor, This Year's Girl, TV, Wesley, Who Are You, Willow, Wolfram & Hart, Xander