In which “Smallville” has a fine episode damaged by TMI, “Angel” displays an impressive package, and “Tru Calling” is confronted by the Fab Five…all dead.
SMALLVILLE—Never have I seen an episode of a television show so thoroughly and completely screwed by the promotions. Without the promos, what we have is a compelling and gripping “Gaslight”ing of Lex Luthor. Is he nuts? Is he being driven nuts? Lana gets trampled by a horse, Clark has gobs of guilt heaped upon him, and driving in Smallville continues to be the most hazardous pastime in prime time as some poor schmuck gets to bypass the traditional flipping over of his vehicle and instead just gets hauled right out of it. “Smallville” is at its best when it’s Clark and Lex…so much so that when Lana tells Clark she’s steering clear of him, you find yourself saying, “Oh thank God, let her mean it.” So how, you ask, did the promos screw it up? Because for the past week viewers of the WB have been hit with, “A shocking episode! Shocking, I say! You will not believe the last five minutes! You must see THE LAST FIVE MINUTES! The last five minutes are the twists in “Citizen Kane,” “The Sixth Sense,” and “The Crying Game” all rolled into one with a cherry on top. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING will prepare you for the last five minutes!” Okay, maybe they didn’t say that exactly, but that’s how it came across. And while they were telling us this, there were repeated shots of Lex in a straitjacket and a padded room. So…what happens? In the first act, Lex says to his psychiatrist, “You and my father are working together to drive me insane!” And the big reveal at the end is…the psychiatrist and Lionel are working together to drive him insane, and he ends up in the straitjacket and padded room we’ve been seeing for the past week. Someone should bìŧçh slap the WB promo people to Pasadena and back.
ANGEL—It’s not enough that offices have to worry about Anthrax when they open their packages. At Wolfram and Hart, you have to worry about flashes of light that turn ghosts into flesh and drive everyone in the office insane. Have to hand it to the producers as far as judging timing: Just when we’re getting sick of Spike as a ghost, suddenly, just like that, poof, he’s not anymore. Which puts us smack into the middle of two alpha males fighting for dominance…and an episode which accomplishes a great deal while, simultaneously, accomplishing nothing at all. A hëll of a lot goes on, but at the end of the day we still don’t know why or how or who…until the brilliant (dare I say it) last five minutes wherein the gradually intriguing Eve is shown to be in bed with the enemy…except it’s not only the enemy of Angel and the Fang Gang, but of Wolfram and Hart themselves. Lindsay? Brilliant. I’ve always said the best kind of twist is the one that you didn’t see coming but, once it’s here, you go, “Of course! What else could be more logical!” Covered with tats, bøffìņg the evil babe, Lindsay the W&H cast-off is packing serious heat. The question is, is he the Mastermind…or the Mastermind’s right hand? Wheels within wheels, and a major Angel/Spike smackdown that serves as Angel’s greatest defeat. He’s been beaten physically before, but never have we seen him take this kind of a morale hit. In essence, the student has surpassed the teacher…or worse, the idiot son has surpassed the father who never believed in him. Which really goes back to Angel’s own origins and his relation with his own father. The ultimate parental curse is, “I hope you have children who treat you just like you treat me.” Basically, that’s come true with Angel, the grandsire and father figure to Spike. My only quibble: In the flashback sequences, William was speaking with his modern day Spike accent instead of the more posh accent he sported until somewhat later in their chronology. Usually they’re more attentive to that kind of thing. On the other hand, I’d be willing to let them slide on Angelus’ accent in flashbacks if it meant we never had to hear David Boreanaz attempt an Irish brogue again.
TRU CALLING—I am REALLY getting into this series. First, there’s the “A” plot, in which Tru is asked for help by not one, not two, but five corpses sitting up in what has got to be the creepiest sequence in the show’s (admittedly short) history. As a result, she finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery that hasn’t even happened yet, and the writers deftly keep you guessing as to what’s coming next. Plus, even better, there appear to be ongoing plotlines with the show’s other continuing characters, and the developments with her sister underscore the old saying that you can’t help someone if they don’t want to be helped…even if you get multiple chances at it. Tru’s sister, in the first “reality,” is fired from her job when she gets nailed in a random drug test. In the replay, Tru’s attempt to make sure her sister is clean backfires when the sister—now alert and paranoid—prepares in advance to fool the drug test and pulls it off. The firing might well have been the wake-up call that got her to pull her life together. Instead, Tru has made the situation with her sister worse, and doesn’t even realize it. Yeah, you can tell people from “Angel” are working on this show.
• 
There’s no doubt that was Lindsey. The actor, the voice, it was him. Given the designs all over himself and the apartment, I’d be willing to bet they are some version of anti-scrying spells so that the Senior Partners don’t realize he’s back in the game.
I agree with Angel for what it’s worth. Spike fought to get his soul back because he wanted in Buffy’s pants. I still haven’t seen any remorse for what he did as a vampire, nor have I seen him want to try and be a hero.
I wasn’t reading anything on the internet back when Spike fought to regain his soul. And Spike never said anything concrete about what he was trying to get. While it was kind of implied that he might be trying to get the chip out, it was never stated. We were hypothesizing from day one that he might have been going after a soul. And it didn’t take long into the next season to find that to be true. I think they showed plenty of evidence that Spike went after his soul.
I didn’t even recognize Lindsay when Eve got into bed with him. My wife asked me who he was and I said “I guess he’s the new Big Bad this season.”
“Yeah, but who is he?”
“I have no idea.”
I don’t know if it was the long hair, the extra muscles, the tatoos or the fact that I was extremely tired but I was completely clueless until people mentioned his name on message boards.
Josh Wilhoyte, you’re thoughts on the purpsose of all those symbols on the walls and on Lindsey match mine. I wouldn’t have considered that if they hadn’t been plastered all over the walls, but their presence there indicates the Lindsey is trying to protect himself from something.
No remorse for what he did as a vampire? Didn’t we see cuts on his chest in the first episode of Season Seven and hear him say that he “tried to cut it out”? He certainly was having some real problems. I also recall him mentioning that the things that he’d done bothered him, but overall he did seem to get over it after “three weeks moping in the basement.”
ANGEL — Great flashbacks. Cool knock down drag out between Spike and Angel. Clever Mountain Dew product placement. Spike listens to Dead Kennedys (sweet!). Looking forward to seeing how Lindsey factors in to what’s been going on.
SMALLVILLE — I’m REALLY getting tired of the pop music soundtrack thing. Buying radio-friendly music and plugging it into your show is lazy lazy lazy… Please employ TV music composers again so they can stop begging for money on the freeway offramps and earn a real wage!
Using Johnny Cash’s version of ‘Hurt’ during Lex’s sanitarium scene took me right out of any involvement I was having with the story (which wasn’t much to begin with). Outside of the powerful video that Cash himself produced for that track, you’d have to pretty much show news footage of coffins coming home from Iraq to match that level of intensity. Contrived Smallville drama does not earn the right to utilize Cash’s ‘Hurt’. Someone from Cash’s end or Smallville’s should be swiftly fired.
TRU CALLING — I keep forgetting to set my VCR timer for this show. Not a good sign.
ENTERPRISE — Why is it that Star Trek spin-offs don’t start getting good until their third season? Three well-written well-acted episodes in a row. Let’s see how long they can keep this up!
I agree with Doug Hancock. I likewise had no idea that was Lindsey. But who played Sirk? He looked awfully familiar, but his name wasn’t in the credits, either.
Didn’t Eve express disappointment that Spike didn’t kill Angel? Why not put holy water into the cup, instead of a soft drink, then?
And weren’t Angel and Darla right there when Drusilla “turned” Spike? Why was Angel surprised?
ANGEL: The Angel/Spike fight reminded me of Hulk #350. I love seeing the underdog win. I almost wanted to hear Spike say, “You could take me, Liam!”
And even if Spike fought for his soul in order to get “into Buffy’s pants,” that still makes him better than Angelus who fought to *not* recover his soul and who was incapable of loving Buffy in any capacity (Spike was at least capable of somewhat selfless acts because of love — Angel was only driven to destroy Buffy because of how she had made him feel when ensouled).
I found it of great interest that Spike’s first thought after become a vampire was to help someone. Angel slaughters his whole family, Spike tries to help his mother. Is this acting out of kindness as unique to Spike as I think it is?
1. William the Bloody Awful Poet tried to heal — and by “heal” in this context, we of course mean “turned her into a soulless bloodsucking demon” — his mother because he was a mother’s boy who couldn’t bear the thought of eternal life without his mother.
2. About fifteen minutes after this act of “kindness” he staked her right dead through the heart.
It’s interesting to wonder what would have happened if Angelus (without a soul) had a chip implanted in his brain to stop him from hurting people. I think Angelus would have found other ways to hurt Buffy (maybe psychologically). He would never have become “housetrained” like Spike was in season 5. Angelus seemed to be completely incapable of any affection.
Spike, on the other hand, was able to develop genuine affections for Buffy, and was even capable of compassion, even when he was still “evil.”
I think Spike’s love for Buffy is much more real than even the love between Angel(souled) and Buffy because it transcended the boundaries between good and evil. When Angel lost his soul, he also lost his love for Buffy. Spike fell in love with Buffy even without a soul.
My thoughts on Smallville and Tru Calling (great show BTW!)
Smallville
-Hmm…Patrick Bergin replacing Rutger Hauer as Morgan Edge…think I like Rutger better but then again he couldn’t play the role again because of scheduling sooooo..it was neat that they made Edge get a makeover or whatever
-There were some parts that I really could not help but laugh…I don’t know (one of them being when Lex, Clark, Lex’s bodyguard, and Lex’s psychiatrist are at the mansion and Lex is delusional…or is he…thinking everyone is against him and so he blames Clark for calling his doctor and Clark’s like “Why would I call her I have no idea who she is.” )Heh…I don’t know why I find it funny I just do.
-Now that subplot so to speak about Lex killing his baby brother Julian has really gotten me curious…like “what exactly DID happen?”
-Yea I agree with some others that Clark when shoving Lex outta the way of Edge’s car, he should’ve went with him NOT guard himself against the car. But then maybe it happened all at once and it was probably instinct to Clark to shield himself?
-I must say this episode seems to have set up this season EVEN more..hopefully there’ll be more subplots following this episode and the writers won’t just leave it hanging…there’s a LOT of issues to be explored.
-I must say I like the way they utilize some songs with certain scenes and there are other times I don’t if it doesn’t fit well with the scene(felt like saying that in reference to Tro’s post)
Tru Calling
-5 males calling out to Tru to help them solve their murder…FREAKY!
-Just trying to guess and eliminate who would want to poison whom (heh and saw that one of the males was played by Matthew Bomer…who has been heavily pursued to play Superman on the big screen)
was interesting
-I am definitely looking forward to more episodes of it….kick myself for missing the pilot 🙁
Angel sidenote.
Just a quick comment about Spike’s chip, recall that after Buffy was brought back to life Spike could hurt her. He didn’t need to get rid of the chip to hurt her anymore. In fact it was Buffy who took it out in Season Seven when it started to malfunction.
By the way, loving this season of Angel, despite it’s slow start to the season. And that was definately Lindsey…can’t wait to see more!
Spike staking his mom…
… to be fair, it was kill or be killed. He wouldn’t have been much of a character if he’d let himself be killed, right?
If she hadn’t turned on him, he wouldn’t have killed her, I believe.
Excellent use of music in the end, too. A good song with lyrics that fit the situation,
Posted by Varjak @ 11/22/2003 02:31 PM ET
A more appropriate choice might have been Matchbox 20’s “I’m Not Crazy” ^_^
>>SMALLVILLE — I’m REALLY getting tired of the pop music soundtrack thing. Buying radio-friendly music and plugging it into your show is lazy lazy lazy… Please employ TV music composers again so they can stop begging for money on the freeway offramps and earn a real wage!<<
I’m sure Mark Snow, who scores every episode of Smallville and does a great job, has no need to visit the freeway offramp…
Originally posted by Raymond:
Why not put holy water into the cup, instead of a soft drink, then?
Have you ever had Mountain Dew? That sh*t is the Cup of Eternal Torment.
Cue my Vague Prediction For Season Five:
I know nothing of any particulars, and I’m not reading spoilers this season, but given that Eve and Lindsey seemed pretty happy to put one over on the Senior Partners, I’m betting that they want to eventually replace the Partners with themselves, and have maneuvered Angel Investigations into W&H to help them do it.
Don’t ask me how; I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. Give me another couple of episodes…
…please. Soon.
Great ANGEL episode last Wednesday, with terrific acting by JM and DB. It will be a long wait until January for ep 9.
As far as Spike and his soul goes, did I miss something?
Yes, you probably missed Season 6’s “Beneath You,” when Buffy asks Spike why he got a soul, and he replies: “To be the kind of man who would never… to be a kind of man.” That part of the episode was written by Joss Whedon (the rest was written by Doug Petrie) so I think we can take it as canon regarding Spike’s wanting a soul and his motivation for seeking it.
After getting the soul he never approached Buffy physically — in fact, he offered to leave town, and their end-of-season cuddling was always initiated by Buffy herself — so the “get in Buffy’s pants” thing was, I think, the writers’ nod to arguments that get tossed around in the Spike/anti-Spike fan wars. FWIW, Joss called the relationship between post-soul Spike and Buffy a “mature and beautiful romance.”
Re why Spike tried to help his mother as soon as he was turned, while Angelus’ first act as a vampire was to slaughter his entire family
Joss Whedon answered this (at the San Diego ComicCon, I think) by saying that Spike was a different vampire than Angelus because William was more evolved as a human than Liam. David Fury said that Spike was an anomaly among vampires because he always retained a bit of his human soul.
Nobody’s mentioned the quasi-resemblance between the tattoed Lindsey to Peter David’s Captain Marvel villain Karl Coven… (hey, I’m not trying to bring up the whole Peter David ripping off Joss Whedon idea, if anything- this is Joss ripping off Peter David heh)
*point brought up tongue in cheek*
eddie