Angel’s quest comes to a head, Gunn kicks open the cell door that held Angelus (!), Conner the dad undertakes some tough love, and whoever wrote the opening credits should be shot. All this and more on a seriously nifty conclusion to the Jasmine storyline.
Okay, well…considering her true name seems to be “Ahhhiiiihhhh,” which could be just about any dámņëd thing, I’m going to stick with my opinion that she was Lilith. So there, nyaah.
Man does this show rock. I’m not just talking the national reveal of Jasmine, or the gloriously circular conversation with the keeper of the word (as opposed to the keeper of the name), or the fact that, blast them, they actually made me start to like (gulp) Conner, or the fight scenes, or the serious Excedrin headache that Conner gave his daughter. I’m talking in that all the years of both BTVS and “Angel,” we’ve never had a Big Bad do such a terrific job of explaining just exactly why they’re not a Big Bad at all. In the real world, evil is never in black and white, but shades of grey. Evil never believes it’s evil. It always believes it’s serving a greater good. Jasmine is the first Big Bad in the Whedon-verse that I can think of who had that very realistic attitude. The only scene to come close to her “You iiiiiidiot!” chat with Angel was Glory’s tete-a-tete with Dawn in which Glory made a laceratingly accurate description of mankind and described herself as the original one-eyed queen in the kingdom of the blind.
It’s all so simple. Just give up free will and the desire to think for yourself, and you’ll be happy. And really…isn’t that what we’re always being told? Embrace what Madison Avenue is selling, and you’ll be happy. Embrace a particular religious dogma, and you’ll be happy. Embrace the right -ism, and you’ll be happy. Just turn off your brain, give yourself over, and Don’t Worry About it. Jasmine was really the logical culmination of what we do to ourselves every single day, which is why the story worked so spectacularly.
The only fly in the ointment: In the past, when a surprise person shows up at the end, they put their name in the end credits to maintain the surprise. So there’s Stephanie Romanov’s name, and I’m thinking, “So Lyla’s in the episode? Nice trick.” And of course, she’s the big surprise reveal at the end…except since time was ticking away, it was pretty obvious what that “surprise” was going to be. So, y’know, I’m glad Romanov got her up-front credit, but I wish they’d saved it for the end.
Next week, from what I hear, serves “Angel” almost as a backdoor pilot for their own series. Whedon’s been talking about a “paradigm shift,” wanting to sell the network on a new take for “Angel.” Next week’s episode is obviously it. I’m not sure I’m ecstatic about Wolfram and Hart coming back to life. Should the Senior Partners have *that* much power? On the other hand, hey…another shot at Wesley and Lyla, so, y’know…
All in all, great job. Kudos to all concerned, on the off chance they read this blog.
PAD
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Behind as always in the UK but someone please tell me Cordelia has been killed off because after Charisma’s awful performance as the big and secret scary I never want to see her again, she’d be ruining the season single handedly for me if she wasn’t getting such capable help with Angelus being back, it’s just not working for me, especially with Angel/Angelus being portrayed as seperate entities. It’s just seemed like half a season of plot and alot of filler. Buffy on the other hand has gotten me more involved with the characters, Anya and Xander seemed very believable cause no one breaks up in one go, it’s like pulling over a coke machine, you’ve gotta rock it back and forth a few times. Andrew won me over in Storyteller even though I didn’t see the point in his existance, I’m very much looking forward to Lies My Parents Told Me, it’s just getting me more involved, with Angel I just don’t care this season anymore, except where Wesley is concerned, I’m just going through the motions waiting for the end to come.
For me, perhaps the only good thing to come of the destruction of BUFFY in the last two seasons is this: They detach neatly from what I’ve come to consider the “real” end of the story (year five)and can be lifted right out. And two crappy years does not take away, for me, five really good ones (ok, four really good and one
uneven). That ending gives Buffy a heroic death and avoids the shark jump that was to come; not the least problem of which was Dawn’s continued existence when her storyline was over. In fact that’s one of the biggest problems they’ve had: Too many characters and not enough to say with them. If the show had to continue past season five, then yes, Dawn should have died instead of Buffy…and everybody should have forgotten she ever existed…*except* Buffy. That’s long been my fantasy “fix” for the series.
Angel has the same “too many characters” problem, and Connor is a perfect example. The problem isn’t in the character, the problem is in making him a regular and having to come up with things for him to do every week. He should have been a recurring
character who works completely seperately from his dad, but sometimes they have to call on one another for help. He should have been the leader of the “Sunset Blvd Irregulars.” I’ve been assuming that Connor was added to up the “pin-up” factor of the
series (which is also why Spike stayed around so long, speaking of characters outlasting their stories). As for why JM would say that he might move over to Angel if its not a possibilty…to hype the audience, in the name of which all lies, misleading statements
and half-truths are justified. Or so I was told when I complained about Joss saying Tara wasn’t going anywhere.
I was able to skip past Noble’s spoilers and have heard only one or two things elsewhere (I don’t
go looking). But it doesn’t surprise me to think that the series ending might anger fans. What surprises me is that more fans aren’t angry at the way the series has *already* ended up.