Names are magic, as is blood. But discovering one magical weakness in a supernatural foe is too fairy tale for me. Rumpelstiltskin is my name? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice? I'll try not to feel too disappointed until I see how it plays out.
Jasmine, a.k.a. the Devourer, was eating five people at a time. Her healing and communication powers were accelerating along with her creepiness factor. I'll admit at this point that she is much scarier than Glory, probably because Gina Torres can act rings around Claire Kramer. Sorry about that, Claire.
Angel was very much the fearless, heartless leader guy, giving the tough orders, grimly beating up Connor (I never get tired of that), and ready to sacrifice anyone to save the world, including himself. Angel said at the beginning, "Someone who knows the truth has to live through this," and Wesley said it back to Angel before Angel left for Dimension X to seek out Jasmine's true name. Will Angel return in time before one of the gang dies?
Speaking of which, did Jasmine eat Cordelia? Probably not. Cordelia is too important a character to die in such a pointless way, and she is physically Jasmine's mother. Jasmine said that Cordelia was "where I want her to be," so maybe Cordelia is in another dimension or something.
I honestly thought Connor would at least question Cordelia's disappearance, but it was like it didn't happen. Jasmine was working hard on Connor, which could be very bad. Fred was right and Angel was wrong. They should have taken Connor along, even if they had to bind, gag, and blindfold him.
Okay, nitpicks. L.A. is a huge city that runs into a lot of other cities. What are the odds that Gunn would run into someone he knows in the sewers? And Gunn said Randall Golden stole Gunn's car. I thought Gunn was very poor and only had a truck that he literally sold his soul for? And while I'm bitching, how come Gunn and Fred had to stop at an extremely urgent moment and talk about murdering the professor?
Bits and pieces:
— David Boreanaz has been looking better in the past couple of episodes. What did he do, take up yoga or go on the Hollywood Diet? Maybe he has a shot at a big movie part. Whatever it is, I like it.
— The skitter critters were more gross than scary. Yuck. But the skitter critter dimension was cool-looking. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.
— Lorne got a lot of great lines here: "I hear good things about Belize," "I ever tell you I suck at sports?" Loved him explaining demon prejudice to the sewer gang, too.
— So where should Jasmine build her temple? Disneyland? Universal Studios? Hollywood and Highland? The Santa Monica Pier?
— Is it me, or does "Love is sacrifice" sound a lot like "Death is your gift?"
— Gray Davis is dissolving his administration tonight? Please, Jasmine, fly to Washington immediately. And if I'm going to make a political comment, let me add that it was nice to hear Lorne mentioning the current appalling media bias. Hear, hear.
Quotes:
Radio announcer: "In related news, the L.A. Archdiocese has stated to the press that it will remove all false idols from its churches, replacing them with images of she who walks among us. Way to go, Catholic Church."
Gunn: "So that's our big plan? Just keep running?"
Lorne: "I hear good things about Belize."
Wesley: "A being of her immeasurable age, you think she'd already have a name."
Lorne: "Well, maybe it was embarrassing, like Hester or Peanut."
Angel: "I guess it's time to shoot the messenger. Or, you know, chop the messenger into little bitty pieces. Whatever."
Lorne: "And that's why when we use words like 'ugly-ass' and beastie,' we can sometimes do more damage than we intend to. It ain't all about sticks and stones, my young friends."
Two out of four stakes. Is there really only two more to go?
Billie
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Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.
This episode didn't do much for me, but I did like the creepy, skittery dude.
ReplyDeleteThat bug-person mimicking Wes's "Fair enough" made me laugh for some reason. "Fair enough! Fair enough-enough!"
ReplyDeleteWish Jasmine wasn't being so openly villainous here (claiming that Gunn had beaten the kid to a pulp, for no proper reason and relishing the lie) because I think it makes for a fascinating topic to wonder whether she really is a force of hidden malevolence or whether she just fell prey to despair. You know like Dark Willow's motivation to end the world. Cull the suffering one way or another, and this is certainly better than death. Ultimately never worth losing your freewill, for ANYTHING, of course but... this could be more philosophically interesting than it's portrayed. Why isn't Jasmine being more sympathetic?
Speaking of which I find Gina Torres incredibly attractive (especially her character Zoe on Firefly, I love her) but I like how unsettling her smiling expressions are. I think a conventionally beautiful actress would've had a different effect, or even no effect at all besides annoying me. That kind of exaggerated grace needs an underlying creepiness behind it to make a villain work.
Liked the ending scene, that's an image I remember clearly for some reason. Angel walking into the portal while the remainder face Connor and the horde