Angel Season 3: That Vision Thing
Feb. 21st, 2011 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThis is an episode that has a moving premise, but the plot seems wrong in every respect. Although it relates to the ongoing plot, it has all the flaws associated with series that do have an ongoing antagonism, but reset the characters and situation every week.
My suspension of disbelief is very like a dam: it can withhold a certain amount without trying, but once it bursts, it stops holding back anything. The idea that Cordelia's visions were getting worse was very moving. As was Angel's choice to do something evil to protect her.
But the plot was an unfortunate example of one where the plot explicitly stated, and the implicit genre-convention assumptions completely fail to come together and provide any reason for the things that happen. The supposed plot is: Lilah hires a psychic to send misleading and damaging visions to Cordelia, at first tricking Angel into forwarding her plot to rescue a unknown but presumably evil guy imprisoned by the (presumed) representatives of the powers that be, and later blackmailing him with Cordelia's safety.
The problmes with this are:
1. We don't know anything about Skip (though he's very cute). It's unclear whether it's supposed to be obvious he's genuinely one of the good guys, or if we're supposed to assume it by narrative convention. I think it's supposed to be one or the other, otherwise Angel is a COMPLETE IDIOT FOR NOT EVEN CONSIDERING THE QUESTION. But whichever it is, it's kind of undermined later, when it turns out that Skip IS evil after all! Which is a pretty big "fuck you" to anyone trying to follow the plot, because we're NEVER TOLD what evidence, hints or certainty the characters had for believing him good in the first place, so are completely unable to judge the relevance of the reveal. Betraying narrative convention is funny once, especially in a novelty novel designed to make that point, but is pretty crummy in a drama! It's like, there's a night scene, and all of a sudden the fact that everything's blue is a plot point. It's taking advantage of the fact that the audience gives the story the benefit of the doubt in some ways.
2. We don't know if Lilah's psychic was the original cause of the increasing severity of the visions (which have been increasing slowly for a long time, longer than would seem necessary for her plot). (And ALSO seems like a betrayal of the audience previously taking on trust what little information about the visions was dribbled out.) At the end of the episode we're completely ignorant whether the problem has gone away for good or not.
3. Angel immediately gives in to the blackmail against Cordelia's life. Which is very understandable. But no-one mentioned the obvious question: once he'd given in to it once, why would Lilah ever let it go, and not just go on extracting whatever she wants from him? Angel plunges into the first task without planning on being Lilah's slave for the rest of his life.
4. And why doesn't Lilah seem to be planning this?
5. And if they want to hold Cordelia hostage, why the complicated set-up? What's wrong with a hired assassin with a telescopic-sight, either before this, or after this? They have lots of money.
6. In fact, why don't they START with that. The VERY FIRST CONVERSATION IN SERIES 1 is that if Angel goes on fighting by himself, without human friends, he'll start to lose himself, and eventually get tempted by Angelus. If they shot anyone he made friends with, he'd go mad in about two days flat.
7. Why do the so-called powers-that-be have that guy in a torture box to start with? If he's THAT evil they should have had him KILLED which (a) wouldn't involve ENDLESSLY TORTURING SOMEONE and (b) WOULDN'T LET HIM ESCAPE. I know many major belief systems hold to something similar, but it still raises the endless question of the powers-that-be: are we supposed to assume that eternal torture is automatically good in Buffyverse morals? Or to judge the powers-that-be negatively for it? Angel and Buffy and all the heroes have this whole "not killing a living human redemption blah blah" but don't even mention the TORTURE FOR ETERNITY thing?
8. OK, Angel makes the exchange, and then kills the psychic who's killing Cordelia. (Although he appears human, apart from the exposed brain, and hasn't been known to kill anyone else.) However, then, he arbitrarily fails to kill the evil guy and Lilah. If he'd killed the psychic as soon as he saw him, before making the exchange, he needn't ever have handed over the evil guy. Yes, they're both humans, and both may achieve redemption -- but they both show no remorse and are both going to kill dozens of innocent people, so why let them live and the innocent people die?
9. And why does Lilah go AGAIN into the open to meet Angel with no competent guards? Wasn't there anywhere more secure?
My suspension of disbelief is very like a dam: it can withhold a certain amount without trying, but once it bursts, it stops holding back anything. The idea that Cordelia's visions were getting worse was very moving. As was Angel's choice to do something evil to protect her.
But the plot was an unfortunate example of one where the plot explicitly stated, and the implicit genre-convention assumptions completely fail to come together and provide any reason for the things that happen. The supposed plot is: Lilah hires a psychic to send misleading and damaging visions to Cordelia, at first tricking Angel into forwarding her plot to rescue a unknown but presumably evil guy imprisoned by the (presumed) representatives of the powers that be, and later blackmailing him with Cordelia's safety.
The problmes with this are:
1. We don't know anything about Skip (though he's very cute). It's unclear whether it's supposed to be obvious he's genuinely one of the good guys, or if we're supposed to assume it by narrative convention. I think it's supposed to be one or the other, otherwise Angel is a COMPLETE IDIOT FOR NOT EVEN CONSIDERING THE QUESTION. But whichever it is, it's kind of undermined later, when it turns out that Skip IS evil after all! Which is a pretty big "fuck you" to anyone trying to follow the plot, because we're NEVER TOLD what evidence, hints or certainty the characters had for believing him good in the first place, so are completely unable to judge the relevance of the reveal. Betraying narrative convention is funny once, especially in a novelty novel designed to make that point, but is pretty crummy in a drama! It's like, there's a night scene, and all of a sudden the fact that everything's blue is a plot point. It's taking advantage of the fact that the audience gives the story the benefit of the doubt in some ways.
2. We don't know if Lilah's psychic was the original cause of the increasing severity of the visions (which have been increasing slowly for a long time, longer than would seem necessary for her plot). (And ALSO seems like a betrayal of the audience previously taking on trust what little information about the visions was dribbled out.) At the end of the episode we're completely ignorant whether the problem has gone away for good or not.
3. Angel immediately gives in to the blackmail against Cordelia's life. Which is very understandable. But no-one mentioned the obvious question: once he'd given in to it once, why would Lilah ever let it go, and not just go on extracting whatever she wants from him? Angel plunges into the first task without planning on being Lilah's slave for the rest of his life.
4. And why doesn't Lilah seem to be planning this?
5. And if they want to hold Cordelia hostage, why the complicated set-up? What's wrong with a hired assassin with a telescopic-sight, either before this, or after this? They have lots of money.
6. In fact, why don't they START with that. The VERY FIRST CONVERSATION IN SERIES 1 is that if Angel goes on fighting by himself, without human friends, he'll start to lose himself, and eventually get tempted by Angelus. If they shot anyone he made friends with, he'd go mad in about two days flat.
7. Why do the so-called powers-that-be have that guy in a torture box to start with? If he's THAT evil they should have had him KILLED which (a) wouldn't involve ENDLESSLY TORTURING SOMEONE and (b) WOULDN'T LET HIM ESCAPE. I know many major belief systems hold to something similar, but it still raises the endless question of the powers-that-be: are we supposed to assume that eternal torture is automatically good in Buffyverse morals? Or to judge the powers-that-be negatively for it? Angel and Buffy and all the heroes have this whole "not killing a living human redemption blah blah" but don't even mention the TORTURE FOR ETERNITY thing?
8. OK, Angel makes the exchange, and then kills the psychic who's killing Cordelia. (Although he appears human, apart from the exposed brain, and hasn't been known to kill anyone else.) However, then, he arbitrarily fails to kill the evil guy and Lilah. If he'd killed the psychic as soon as he saw him, before making the exchange, he needn't ever have handed over the evil guy. Yes, they're both humans, and both may achieve redemption -- but they both show no remorse and are both going to kill dozens of innocent people, so why let them live and the innocent people die?
9. And why does Lilah go AGAIN into the open to meet Angel with no competent guards? Wasn't there anywhere more secure?