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Angel: Peace Out

Jasmine: "But you're not human!"
Angel: "Working on it!"

Jasmine's real name is "Ayooayuahhooou?"

Although it was Angel's episode, too, this was mostly Connor's episode. It felt like a farewell. I felt a lot of empathy for Connor. He has more in common with Dawn than I originally thought; he was created specifically to bring forth Jasmine, just as Dawn was created to camouflage the Key. He spent his childhood in a hell dimension manipulated by Holtz, and supernatural forces and misunderstandings have consistently kept him from the only person who truly loves and wants him: Angel. Connor desperately needs love and needs to give love, which explains his actions toward Cordelia and Jasmine.

In the church scene (with Cordelia as the Transcendent Mother), Connor talked to her about Angel, while the High Priest was simultaneously talking to Angel about Connor ("The boy is what you're fighting for. But you're going to fail. You're going to lose him, too"). But Angel can't lose Connor, since he never really had him in the first place. There was never a chance for that relationship. Is it over before it ever began?

We were theorizing on the list last week that Connor already saw Jasmine as she really was and had decided to follow her anyway — and it turned out to be true. It was fitting that Connor was the one to kill her (well, actually with Cordelia still in a coma, he was the only one that could) but his motives weren't clear. Was he taking Angel's side at last? Did he finally realize that Jasmine's world wouldn't work? Or was there another reason?

Jasmine was sincere about bringing love to the world, along with her salt and pepper. She was actually almost pitiable at the end... well, almost. I particularly liked the scene on the bridge. Jasmine said, "No, Angel. There are no absolutes. No right and wrong. Haven't you learned anything, working for the Powers? There are only choices." Jasmine was one of the Powers, wasn't she? Which means that they're not "good."

Lilah's arrival at the end signified that this was indeed the Apocalypse that Wolfram & Hart talked about, and as predicted, Angel/Angelus was indeed a major player in it. (Lilah misled us earlier this season by referring to this as another, conflicting Apocalypse, but geez, how many could there be?) I am now starting to wonder about the "Senior Partners." If there is no good or evil, what is this? Some sort of celestial crap game?

The preview made me wonder if Angel is going to get his promised reward. Is Angel going to become human next week?

Bits:

— My favorite part of this episode was Gunn and the prison door. "Never give up. Never surrender." (Yes, I know what movie that was from.)

— In the FYI but why should you care department, KTLA is the station in L.A. that airs Angel." I wasn't sure if "Tracy Bellows" was real, but she said something like "back to you, Hal," and there is indeed a news anchor on KTLA named Hal.

— Fred was calm, brave, and matter-of-fact throughout. I liked her like this; much more appealing than the dithering.

— The surprise ending was semi-ruined for me because Stephanie Romanov was in the opening credits.

— David Boreanaz looked excellent. In last week's review, I was betting he was shaping up for a movie role, and voila, he has one; he's going to be the villain in the new Crow movie. Can I call it, or what?

— After what David Boreanaz told a crowd a couple weeks ago about characters dying, I was expecting to see someone bite the dust this week. The one that came closest was Wesley, right at the beginning, but no one is dead yet. Tune in next week, huh?

Quotes:

Gunn: "People? She eats people?"
Fred: "Oh, no."
Gunn: "To Serve Man. It's To Serve Man all over again."

Fred: "Weird. Connor walking out like that, you know? Leaving us unguarded."
Lorne: "Yeah. If he's not careful, we might move about freely in our impervious ten by nine steel cage."

Gunn: "We got ourselves a ghost hotel."
Fred: "Garden's empty. This is incredibly creepy."
Lorne: "Only in a post-apocalyptic Night of the Comet kind of way."
That was a fun movie.

Only one more to go. And still no definite word on renewal. The uncertainty majorly sucks,

Billie
---
Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.

6 comments:

  1. It occurs to me Jasmin would have made a perfect end of series big bad. She beautifully represents our heroes' four-year journey and turns it on its head. After all, the LA scoobies have spent the last four years following prophecies and visions to do good.

    Not only does it make sense for the source of those prophecies and visions not to really believe in free will, it serves as an important final lesson for our heroes to realise what blindly following higher powers really means and to ultimately choose free will instead.

    All their inner conflicts and betrayals (the dark side of their souls) are the one thing that kept them from becoming creepy zealots. Maybe the world needs a Wolfram and Heart or, to hit you over the head with the metaphor, a devil's advocate.

    Evil rapist too-happy-preggy-to-be-evilly Cordy aside, I'm loving this season.

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  2. Yes, it didn't got staked! Billie. You need to steak/stake this retroactively.:-)

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  3. Well, I finally got my philosophizing, clumsily as it was handled. @Dimitri pretty much covered everything I want to praise about this ambitious season. It's still so very cool that they did *The* Apocalypse fully, even including the return of Christ.

    I remember Connor being fully aware who she was on this watch-through, but I forgot that the bug-people planet she abandoned still wanted her back, which to me really does sell the ambivalence of how bad she would've been for humanity. Happiness over free will, honestly a tougher choice for me than it should be. People should be able to be free (to be miserable) if they want though, and Jasmine was having none of that.

    "We loved her first!"
    And also that fucking scene where she smooches Angel and Connor arrives just in time lol. TURGID. SUPERN--ok

    I liked the first 2 episodes better, but this was decent too. Poor Gunn couldn't get a thank-you from Wes for busting them out? They never take a moment.

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  4. I don't know about you guys but it's 2022 and I for one welcome our overlord Jasmine into the world. Jasmine come back! Take our free will, take it all. I kid..sort of.

    But anyhow, fantastic episode. As it seems to happen frequently with plotlines in this show, at first I wasn't super enthusiastic about Jasmine but I really like the development and resolution of the story.

    I like Connor a lot so I hope he makes it to the next season as a good guy.

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