The one-week-late HELLBOUND review
Oct. 30th, 2003 05:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBefore I cut loose with my enthusiasm about last week's Angel episode, I have to share this: in the discussion at her lj, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
andrastewhite suggested future historians would be grateful to Mariel (the one of Londo's wives who tried to poison him and slept with G'Kar) if she were to write tell-all memoirs. (Though G'Kar's followers might regard this as heresy.) She's right of course. (Bestseller of the 23rd century: Mollari and G'Kar: An Intimate View.) Which make me wonder about other fandoms. What potential canonical sources of sleaze do we have there? Braca's memoirs about Leaders I Served Under in Farscape? Vash's revelations about Q and Picard in Star Trek: TNG?
Loved, loved, loved this episode. Am eternally grateful tocavendish for providing it. And to Steven DeKnight for writing it. Among the many things I treasured:
1) Fred wants a Magdalen Grimoire from Wesley. Clearly, someone has been reading the Sandman saga. Though not Fred, otherwise she'd knew how troublesome these are. But really, doesn't this call for another Sandman/Jossverse crossover? Even if it's just a correspondence between Wesley and Alex Burgess?
2) Angel, when Fred brings up Spike saving the world again and calls Spike a champion: "God, I hate that word." Hehe. Not when it was you (or Cordy) you didn't. I don't know about anyone else, but Angel's continued pettiness about Spike cornering the souled vampire/champion market amuses me greatly. Also, it's clearly Mr. DeKnight going meta on us since the fans hated the term as well.
3) Fred being totally aware that Spike is milking her for sympathy and willing to help him nonetheless. And her pointedly reminding Angel regarding that "doing what's right" thing. Go Fred!
4) The entire conversation between Angel and Spike. Though this bit
A: I never told anyone but… I liked your poems.
S: You like Barry Manilow.
Was clearly the highlight, I loved the bitterness and cynicism as well. It's fascinating to compare this talk with Spike with the other time Angel went existential on us, in the conversation with Kate in Epiphany, where he also expressed the idea that there is no ultimate reward and nothing they do matter, therefore everything does, but then he did it in a positive manner.
Moreover: did I mishear or did Spike call Angel "Liam" once?
5) Figures Spike's idea of hell would be dominated by basements. It's another symbolism than basements have for Xander, btw, but it fits neatly with his first weeks post-soul in early season 7.
6) Not that the Jack-the-Ripper predecessor wasn't presented as utterly loathsome, but the fate Angel comes up with for him showcases his infinite capacity for sadism again, with or without the soul. Reminds me of season 2 Angel between Reunion and Reprise.
7) There is also a direct parallel to the fate Connor had in mind for him when Connor believed him guilty of murdering Holtz.
8) Seeing Angel and Eve working smoothly as a team makes one realize W&H hit upon a winning strategy when offering Angel the firm. They could have been Holland Manners and a Flunky. Chilling.
andrastewhite suggested future historians would be grateful to Mariel (the one of Londo's wives who tried to poison him and slept with G'Kar) if she were to write tell-all memoirs. (Though G'Kar's followers might regard this as heresy.) She's right of course. (Bestseller of the 23rd century: Mollari and G'Kar: An Intimate View.) Which make me wonder about other fandoms. What potential canonical sources of sleaze do we have there? Braca's memoirs about Leaders I Served Under in Farscape? Vash's revelations about Q and Picard in Star Trek: TNG? Loved, loved, loved this episode. Am eternally grateful to
cavendish for providing it. And to Steven DeKnight for writing it. Among the many things I treasured:1) Fred wants a Magdalen Grimoire from Wesley. Clearly, someone has been reading the Sandman saga. Though not Fred, otherwise she'd knew how troublesome these are. But really, doesn't this call for another Sandman/Jossverse crossover? Even if it's just a correspondence between Wesley and Alex Burgess?
2) Angel, when Fred brings up Spike saving the world again and calls Spike a champion: "God, I hate that word." Hehe. Not when it was you (or Cordy) you didn't. I don't know about anyone else, but Angel's continued pettiness about Spike cornering the souled vampire/champion market amuses me greatly. Also, it's clearly Mr. DeKnight going meta on us since the fans hated the term as well.
3) Fred being totally aware that Spike is milking her for sympathy and willing to help him nonetheless. And her pointedly reminding Angel regarding that "doing what's right" thing. Go Fred!
4) The entire conversation between Angel and Spike. Though this bit
A: I never told anyone but… I liked your poems.
S: You like Barry Manilow.
Was clearly the highlight, I loved the bitterness and cynicism as well. It's fascinating to compare this talk with Spike with the other time Angel went existential on us, in the conversation with Kate in Epiphany, where he also expressed the idea that there is no ultimate reward and nothing they do matter, therefore everything does, but then he did it in a positive manner.
Moreover: did I mishear or did Spike call Angel "Liam" once?
5) Figures Spike's idea of hell would be dominated by basements. It's another symbolism than basements have for Xander, btw, but it fits neatly with his first weeks post-soul in early season 7.
6) Not that the Jack-the-Ripper predecessor wasn't presented as utterly loathsome, but the fate Angel comes up with for him showcases his infinite capacity for sadism again, with or without the soul. Reminds me of season 2 Angel between Reunion and Reprise.
7) There is also a direct parallel to the fate Connor had in mind for him when Connor believed him guilty of murdering Holtz.
8) Seeing Angel and Eve working smoothly as a team makes one realize W&H hit upon a winning strategy when offering Angel the firm. They could have been Holland Manners and a Flunky. Chilling.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-10-30 08:30 am (UTC)Yep. Now doesn't that just spawn a million backstory ideas in your head?
It does.
Date: 2003-10-30 09:24 am (UTC)Re: It does.
Date: 2003-10-30 09:34 am (UTC)from Buffyverse Dialogue Database (http://vrya.net/bdb/index.php):
SPIKE: Least I got company, eh? You and me, together again. Hope and Crosby. Stills and Nash. Chico and the-
ANGEL: Yeah, are we done?
SPIKE: Never much for small talk, were you? Always too busy trying to perfect that brooding block-of-wood mystique. God, I love that.
ANGEL: Not as much as I loved your nonstop yammering.
SPIKE: The way you always had to be the big swingy, swaggerin' around, barkin' orders...
ANGEL: Never listening...
SPIKE: Always interrupting...
ANGEL: And your hair. What color do they call that? radioactive?
SPIKE: Never much cared for you, Liam, even when we were evil.
ANGEL: Cared for you less.
SPIKE: Fine.
ANGEL: Good. (beat) There was one thing about you...
SPIKE: Really?
ANGEL: Yeah, I never told anybody about this, but I-I liked your poems.
SPIKE: (not flattered) *You* like Barry Manilow.
Vash tried to publish that book.
Date: 2003-10-30 08:33 am (UTC)First the publisher mysteriously lost the file. She retransmitted it but there was data corruption due to an ion storm and every vowel in the entire piece had disappeared. So she sent it via PADD through the regular mail, but then the mail run got hijacked by aliens who looked like nothing so much as pink furry wombats in tutus, who stole all the mail, including her PADD. So she went to the publishers' office in person to deliver the file, but discovered she had actually brought the wrong PADD, and this one was full of pornographic holos of herself in compromising positions with various Ferengi. At this point she figured out what was going on-- having never taken, nor had in her possession, any such holos-- and canceled the book contract. :-)
Typical.
Date: 2003-10-30 08:38 am (UTC)Re: Vash tried to publish that book.
Date: 2003-11-01 12:39 am (UTC)ctlly, wld smthng stll b rdbl f ll th vwls wr mssng frm t?
I guess not. :D
~~June
no subject
Date: 2003-10-30 09:07 am (UTC)Ah, I loved Fred acknowledging she was on to Spike's game. I've seen various fans obsessing over the implications of his flirtatiousness and Fred's eagerness to help him. Glad to see ME addressed this all quickly, establishing these two can be friends without it having to evolve into anything more. I'd much rather see Spike solo for awhile and become his own man.
I practically applauded Fred when she reminded Angel "It's about doing the right thing, remember?". With all his corporate responsibilities he seems to be forgetting the reason he accepted W&H's deal to begin with.
Seeing Angel and Eve working smoothly as a team makes one realize W&H hit upon a winning strategy when offering Angel the firm. They could have been Holland Manners and a Flunky. Chilling.
Excellent point. I'm not convinced Eve is even evil. But, the fact that the two have fallen so quickly into a good working relationship with budget concerns taking precedence over the mission is disconcerting to say the least.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-30 09:24 am (UTC)A: I never told anyone but… I liked your poems.
S: You like Barry Manilow.
Was clearly the highlight, I loved the bitterness and cynicism as well. It's fascinating to compare this talk with Spike with the other time Angel went existential on us, in the conversation with Kate in Epiphany, where he also expressed the idea that there is no ultimate reward and nothing they do matter, therefore everything does, but then he did it in a positive manner.
Moreover: did I mishear or did Spike call Angel "Liam" once?
This being the only part of the episode that I've seen I can answer that one. He did call Angel "Liam" and I've been trying to remember ever since if anyone else has since Angel was human. The whole conversation is fascinating but that and the references to the poems and Barry Manilow imply a great degree of familiarity with each other. I loved the whole scene.
no, I don't think anybody else did.
Date: 2003-10-30 09:52 am (UTC)Of course, theoretically the rest of the AI team knows Liam was his name ever since Spin the Bottle, but somehow I can't see Fred or Gunn being inclined to use it, either.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-30 09:59 am (UTC)I hate you with the fire of a thousand burning suns. Because that just screams BEST! PARODY! IDEA! EVER!
Glad to be of service.*g*
Date: 2003-10-30 10:41 pm (UTC)Re: Glad to be of service.*g*
Date: 2003-10-31 04:22 am (UTC)The seven virtues of Alfred Bester...
Date: 2003-10-31 05:06 am (UTC)http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1540531