"Soul Purpose"
Jan. 22nd, 2004 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrew_jorgensenI may be the only person in the known fanoverse who liked "Harm's Way." I, unlike some, quite enjoy farce. What I don't particularly like is when ME does camp. And that's ultimately what confused me about "Soul Purpose": the gradually increasing campiness of Angel's fantasies. The first one, in which Wesley stakes him, was perfectly chilling, but about the time Fred starts making walnut jokes and quoting Jaws it started to lose me. "Restless" mixed the absurd with the terrifying, but facing absurdity is always a little terrifying. Here, with the Blue Fairy and "Honkeytonk" and all that, it was just too over the top to be taken seriously.
Especially contrasted with Lindsey's infiltration of Spike's natural skepticism. The way that Lindsey was able to ferret out Spike's own sense of duty was masterful. Honor was paid to Spike's lack of concern with reward, but in a sense, feeding his egomania is it's own reward. Certainly, even while evil he prided himself on being more direct, more real than Angelus; tonight he refers to himself as of the "working-class," the image he has worked so hard to maintain.
Lindsey's reference to himself as Doyle, and his appearance as a Whistler-like figure to Spike, in fact the whole ep as a remix of bits and pieces the first two seasons, were wonderful. There was certainly enough intertextuality and metanarration to keep ATPo happy (assuming anyone ever posts about an Angel ep over there). But any episode that hinges on latex Alien-derived parasites is going to have to work hard to get my love, and this one didn't have even the Gorches.
Eve was excellent in her scene with Lindsey: the mutual manipulation is obvious, though its ends are not. She was less convincing at the end, though. Somehow, after she says, "Perhaps you should look inward," I would imagine the dialogue running:
WESLEY
She did it.
FRED
Oh, totally!!
GUNN
Can we kill her now?
That said, I was pretty happy with this episode, but I would have liked to have seen the dark tone of the realistic sequences seep over more into Angel's later fantasies. It went from staking and cutting and degenerated into worries over losing one's voice and pushing a mailcart (nice shoutout to "Numero Cinco" though). It seems to tie all of Angel's worries about being "empty" to Spike's ability to sleep with Buffy without her killing his goldfish. But there is a dog who does not bark: if there is any allusion to Connor in this most allusive of episodes I missed it.
Especially contrasted with Lindsey's infiltration of Spike's natural skepticism. The way that Lindsey was able to ferret out Spike's own sense of duty was masterful. Honor was paid to Spike's lack of concern with reward, but in a sense, feeding his egomania is it's own reward. Certainly, even while evil he prided himself on being more direct, more real than Angelus; tonight he refers to himself as of the "working-class," the image he has worked so hard to maintain.
Lindsey's reference to himself as Doyle, and his appearance as a Whistler-like figure to Spike, in fact the whole ep as a remix of bits and pieces the first two seasons, were wonderful. There was certainly enough intertextuality and metanarration to keep ATPo happy (assuming anyone ever posts about an Angel ep over there). But any episode that hinges on latex Alien-derived parasites is going to have to work hard to get my love, and this one didn't have even the Gorches.
Eve was excellent in her scene with Lindsey: the mutual manipulation is obvious, though its ends are not. She was less convincing at the end, though. Somehow, after she says, "Perhaps you should look inward," I would imagine the dialogue running:
She did it.
FRED
Oh, totally!!
GUNN
Can we kill her now?
That said, I was pretty happy with this episode, but I would have liked to have seen the dark tone of the realistic sequences seep over more into Angel's later fantasies. It went from staking and cutting and degenerated into worries over losing one's voice and pushing a mailcart (nice shoutout to "Numero Cinco" though). It seems to tie all of Angel's worries about being "empty" to Spike's ability to sleep with Buffy without her killing his goldfish. But there is a dog who does not bark: if there is any allusion to Connor in this most allusive of episodes I missed it.
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Coolness.
Date: 2004-01-28 06:31 pm (UTC)Oh, THANK YOU; here I was thinking I was the only one...
Eve was excellent in her scene with Lindsey: the mutual manipulation is obvious, though its ends are not. She was less convincing at the end, though. Somehow, after she says, "Perhaps you should look inward," I would imagine the dialogue running:
Hmm...not so certain that Eve is the One with a Plan, really; to me, she seems awfully like someone who tries to play in the sand-box with the big kids but lacks the big pink shovel-- she seems like a pawn, not a queen, let alone a player.
But I may be wrong; it's been known to happen. & ;-)