EPISODE 4.19

THE MAGIC BULLET

Written by: Jeffrey Bell

Directed by: Jeffrey Bell

 The Magic Bullet

A magic bullet is usually defined as such a complete and easy solution to a seemingly impossible problem that it seems magical.  And in this episode we saw a magic bullet in just that sense.  Fred explains the effect of Jasmine’s blood:

“It was on the bullet that hit you. Somehow it breaks her spell when it mingles with ours. I think it must've got in my system when I was trying to get the blood off her blouse.”

So, not only was the blood the magic bullet which cured Angel of Jasmine’s influence – the blood was delivered to him by means of a bullet.  That was quite neat.

But the real significance of the term “magic bullet” in this episode is quite different.  While Fred is still on the run from Jasmine, she goes back to the Magic Bullet Book Store.  Its front door is painted with mystical symbols and has the slogan:

"Everything THEY don't want you to know."

prominently displayed.  The owner is clearly a conspiracy theorist.  And even though he too has fallen under Jasmine’s influence, so he remained:

“Wow. People used to think that I was paranoid. I mean, don't get me wrong. I still got the implants in my head. C.I.A. is still listening in. It just doesn't bother me anymore. Instead, I…I beam Jasmine's love up to their satellite, you know? Share the love with those M.K.-Ultra bastards.”

And it is this fact that explains the title of the store.  The “Magic Bullet Theory” is how the majority of critics of the Warren Commission view its finding that only one assassin shot President John F. Kennedy.  They claim that the bullet that killed the President would have to be magic to do everything the Warren Commission said it did.  Ironically, however, Jasmine reveals to him that there was no conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy:

“And to reward you for your faithfulness: Dallas, November 22, 1963—there was no second gunman. Oswald acted alone.”

It is a characteristic of conspiracy theorists that they believe that all is not as it seems.  For them actions openly taken or events that happen seemingly at random hide a deeper truth.  To them, these actions and events are arranged by clandestine groups working to advance their own hidden interests.  All too often however, the truth is that things are not what they believe them to be.  Jasmine was saying that the bookstore owner's cherished belief that Kennedy’s assassination was a conspiracy by the Mafia or the Cubans or the CIA was itself the illusion – an illusion that he believed in because he desperately wanted to.  And this is where we find the central theme of “The Magic Bullet”.  When we look at the world about us, we think that we understand the reality of what is going on.  But all we see is an interpretation of that reality.  And that interpretation is driven more by our own desires, fears and insecurities than we would care to admit.  We are so engrossed in our own concerns that we see events and other people only superficially and interpret them in a way that best suits our perspective of our own personal concerns.  So, a bookstore owner who could only deal with his own problems by interpreting them as malicious acts of a vast conspiracy, found comfort in the idea that a President too suffered from the effects of the same or a similar conspiracy.  Hence his need to believe that Oswald didn’t act alone, even though it had no direct bearing on him.

Through Rose Tinted Glasses

I can perhaps best illustrate this theme by reference to a strange little interlude in the middle of the episode. I have previously mentioned a technique that ANGEL as a series has used to good effect, namely the introduction within an episode of a vignette that serves little purpose in the context of the plot but helps our understanding of the theme of the episode.  Here, as Fred is running away from some of Jasmine’s acolytes, she falls down a hill and into a cave where she encounters a small demon.  This encounter was odd in so many ways.  It was unnecessary.  Admittedly when she kills the demon she gets a clue which helped her solve the mystery of why Jasmine’s spell on her had been broken.  But the little demon wasn’t necessary for that.  It was also highly improbable that she happened to find a weak spot in the roof of the demon’s cave when she fell down the hill.  Then there was the fact that, although she was being pursued when she fell down the hill, there is no sign of her pursuers and little sign she was concerned about hiding from them.  Given these improbabilities and inconsistencies why include the vignette in the first place?  The answer to that question I think lies in the way Fred reacted to the creature she met.  It was after all a demon.  And the first thing she noticed about it was its “large choppers”.  And it was scarcely a friendly one either.  So, initially, Fred naturally treats it with a great deal of caution and suspicion, even though the creature maintains he is a vegetarian.  But then Fred begins to believe that there was a more salient fact:

Demon: “I'm an executive demon, thank you very much. I had an office and an assistant and a beautiful porcelain cup for my tea. Now I live in a dirt hole because of those freakin' Jasmaniacs and their demon jihad!”

Fred: “Wait. You're here because of Jasmine? Me too. I'm a fugitive too.”

Up until that point Fred was alone in the world, hunted everywhere she went and without a single friend she could turn to for help.  Now she suddenly sees in the small demon an ally:

“Hey, I'm as new to this fugitive thing as you are. That's what I've been trying to suss out all night—how Jasmine controls people. We have to stop her!”

The operative word here is “we”.  Suddenly she is willing to accept the demon at face value – as a harmless vegetarian.  For Fred it is no longer human vs. demon but two victims of Jasmine joining forces.  Then she sees a pile of severed human hands.  The demon, realizing he has been found out, attacks her and she kills it.  But that was still only after she had bought into the illusion that it had tried to create, an illusion that she so badly wanted to believe in because she wanted someone she could rely on in the fight against Jasmine.

The odd thing was that this was the second time that Fred had made the same mistake in a short space of time.  Not too long before events in the cave she had a conversation with the owner of the “Magic Bullet” book store.  Each side to that conversation saw it through the prism of their own beliefs and needs.  And as a result each profoundly misunderstood what the other was saying.  Fred was alone and desperately seeking answers and help.  In the owner of the book store she saw someone who was predisposed to believing in far fetched theories about vast conspiracies working covertly to control the world.  He had no difficulty with the idea of mass hypnosis or mind control.  And his business had been adversely affected by Jasmine’s arrival.  From this she assumed that he would be willing to attribute Jasmine’s effect to mind control techniques, see the dangers in that, be angry at her methods and about the way they were hurting business and, accordingly, be predisposed to oppose her.  Hence the hopeful way she initially approached the following exchange:

Owner: “Not a huge demand for photo books of serial killer autopsies when you're living in a utopian wonderland. You know what I mean?”

Fred: “I hadn't really though it.   Must be hard.”

Owner: “Hard? Are you kidding? It's great.”

Fred: “Great? Really?”

Owner: “Yeah. Look at me. I've never been happier.”

Fred: “Uh, sure. I see it now. You're practically glowy.”

The owner of the book store for his part made the opposite mistake.  He was so consumed with enthusiasm for Jasmine that he naturally assumed that Fred was in the same happy state:

Owner: “I was flicking through the radio the other night—there's nothing really good on since Art Bell retired. But, uh, ended up listening to this woman talk.”

Fred: “Jasmine.”

Owner: “Yeah. You too, huh? What a breath of fresh air she is. I listened for almost an hour. I'm a new man. I…I used to be obsessed with mind control. I read everything I could get my hands on.”

Fred: “And you don't believe in it anymore?”

Owner: “I believe. I just don't worry about it anymore.”

Ultimately Fred was forced to give up her hopes and accept reality for what it was.  But the store owner didn’t discover his mistake until later.  But, in small ways and in large, a willingness to accept an illusion simply because it is what we wanted to believe is something we see again and again in this episode.

 First there was the woman who accepted the jacket from Fred because she was told that Jasmine wanted her to have it.  This woman assumed that Fred’s motivation for giving her the jacket was the same love for Jasmine that she had in her heart, not a desire to avoid Gunn and Wesley.

Then there is the conversation between Angel and Connor about the way the latter became such a good tracker:

Angel: “How old were you when you realized you could track like this?”

Connor: “I don't know. Five, six. We didn't exactly celebrate birthdays in Quor’toth. Holtz made up a game so I could practice.”

Angel: “What do you mean he'd hide things for you to find?”

Connor: “Kind of. He'd tie me to a tree and then run away.”

Angel: “What?”

Connor: “You know, so I'd have to escape and then find him. One time it only took me five days.”

Angel: “Five days. He abandoned you... Connor, that's terrible. That's…”

Connor: “Why I'm so good at tracking. “

The difference in perception of the same phenomenon is striking.  Angel is clearly shocked by this information.  For him it amounts to a form of child abuse.  For Connor it is simply the way he learned an important skill, no more and no less.

And of course there was the way that Angel jumped to the conclusion that Cordelia was awake just because she grasped his hand.  It was left to Fred to point out:

“Angel, people in comas—sometimes their bodies just do things— Mumble words, maybe even open their eyes. Doesn't necessarily mean they're waking up.”

All of these people perceive reality in a way that is essentially subjective because they are principally concerned with how people and events affect or relate to them.  Jasmine herself refers to this phenomenon in a conversation she had with Angel as she passed through a crown of adoring followers.  After she tells a pregnant Chinese woman in Mandarin:

“Your child will lead a healthy and loving life”

We have the following conversation

Angel: “How do you do that?”

 Jasmine: “Mandarin's not so tough when you've been around a zillion years.”

Angel: “No, I mean, how is it that you always know exactly what each person needs to hear.”

Jasmine: “Just look into their hearts. And sometimes, it's right on their face.”

Then she tells an Hispanic man:

“Your moustache provides you great strength and dignity.”

Obviously for the pregnant woman an optimistic future for her child is the most important thing in the world for her to hear.  And for someone whose cultural background values strength and dignity, Jasmine's words affirming those qualities in him are also very important.  And we are given further evidence of the subjective appeal of Jasmine when the acolytes  who were given the podium mike expressed their love for her in ways that were meaningful to them –

We will not dwell on Angel’s strange obsession with Barry Mannilow or his son's disturbingly similar tastes. 

The idea that we see and hear what we want to is not, however, of purely academic interest.  It goes to the heart of “Magic Bullet” because this episode is ultimately about Connor and how he relates to Jasmine.  Angel, of course, assumes that Connor is as much under her spell as he was. But that assumption owes more to his own subjective need to believe in his son’s sense of morality than it does to reason.  After all he worked out that Cordelia’s blood might be as effective in curing Gunn and Wesley as Jasmine’s own blood.

“It was Angel. He figured since Cordy gave birth to Jasmine, they might share a blood link as well as a mystical one.”

But Connor was Jasmine’s father.  He too would surely have the same blood link.  And if that was the case then he too would be immune to Jasmine’s thrall.  But the thought didn’t even occur to Angel.  So the fact that Cordelia’s blood did not cure him of his loyalty to her came as a complete surprise to him.

And if Connor was not influenced by Jasmine’s spell how do we understand his loyalty to her?  As soon as Fred was cured she saw the reality of Jasmine’s face and understood the evil of controlling people, as indeed had Wes and Gunn before they had become infected.  And that was before Jasmine’s other dangerous tendencies began to manifest themselves.  These include her willingness to sacrifice people’s lives to catch Fred, to ultimately kill both her and Angel and her need to eat people.  With the realization that Connor was not affected by Jasmine’s spell we now see that he knew the moral implications of all of this and accepted and supported Jasmine willingly nonetheless.

It is the theme of this episode that gives us the answer to this puzzle.  Connor was conscious only of what Jasmine meant to him.  Because he was so focused on that, he interpreted all her actions through that subjective prism.  I am afraid though that it is a serious weakness here that there is so little to give us an insight into exactly what the needs and wants were that so influenced Connor’s reaction to Jasmine.  To an extent therefore we have to fall back on what previous episodes told us.  Throughout the season Connor had been trying to figure out who he was.  He was, for example, concerned at suggestions that he was connected to the Beast. He was having problems over the fact that his father was both Angel and Angelus and that his mother had abandoned him.  And in this episode we are reminded how little like a real father Holtz had been to him.  “Soulless” seemed to suggest that for Connor this was a problem because it deprived him of the chance to define his own identity as part of a family.  The importance of family to him was illustrated by his reaction to the slaughter of the Svear Priestesses’ family.  And with the revelation that Cordelia was pregnant, we see the way he began to define himself and what was important to him in terms of this new family unit – himself, Cordelia and their child.  The crucial point here came when he disowned his father and mother in “Inside Out” and chose the part of Cordelia and their child.

With Jasmine’s birth he seems now to have achieved the sense of identity he so longed for.  That was why he said to her:

“You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.”

It was because she was family and it didn’t matter what she looked like physically.  He loved her.  And with that new found sense of identity it is notable that he and Angel had established the easiest and most tension free relationship that we have ever seen between them, including a harmonious if not exactly tuneful karaoke session.  The telepathic connection that both have achieved with Jasmine when they say simultaneously:

“Jasmine wants us back at the hotel.”

is symbolic of this new found harmony.  But it is also notable that when Angel loses his connection with Jasmine his relationship with Connor goes back to being adversarial again.  At first Connor is concerned:

“Dad, what’s going on.”

But when he realizes what has happened he says to him and not to Fred:

“You ruined everything. “

So, Connor looked at everything from Jasmine’s point of view.  He accepted the need for her to control others and the need to find and perhaps even kill Fred and Angel.  He even accepted her feeding from humans.  All of this was because he identified so completely with her and her mission.  And here the writers have taken the theme of our subjective view of the world to its logical conclusion and opened up the issue of moral relativism vs. moral objectivism

Relativism

Subjective moralists suggest that absolute, or general, rules for morality do not apply to the world. They would suggest that every culture or society has a different judgment on what is 'right', and what is 'wrong'. Each such judgment would be suited to the needs and circumstances of that particular culture or society and was as valid as any other. The subjective moralist would not overtly judge another man's morals. Furthermore, he or she would suggest that any attempt to imply absolute morals is simply forcing one's ideas on another.  And that is really the defense for Connor.  It’s not that he has abandoned any idea of right or wrong completely.  Rather, because of his attachment to Jasmine, he has chosen to believe that her mission to save the world and the way that she has gone about it is right and that any sacrifice for her success is worth paying.  The subjective moralist would simply say that Connor's morality reflected  the needs and circumstances of the new society that Jasmine was creating – one in which there was universal happiness, as exemplified by the happy, shiny people of the teaser.  And that moralist would further say that this morality was as valid as any other.

Objective moralists, on the other hand, suggest that there are absolute rules that apply to morality. There is 'good' and 'evil'. The killing of innocents intentionally is absolutely wrong. Controlling another person is absolutely wrong.

And the way in which the writers have approached this argument between objective and subjective morality is both clever and satisfying.  They have, as we have seen, emphasized that subjective morality is a reflection of the individual’s own needs and wants and of a superficial view of the needs and wants of others.  In other words it is inherently self-centered.  And this is a classic statement of the weakness of subjective morality.  By its very nature it is partial – in both senses of that word.  In the ante-bellum American South there was a robust defense of slavery on the grounds that it was both a traditional part of a Southern Society that was culturally different from the North and that it was necessary to maintain the economic well-being of that Society.  This was justifying the “peculiar institution” on grounds of subjective preferences and those subjective preferences emphasized what was convenient and comfortable for only White Southern Society and ignored the objective harm that the institution caused to slaves.  And that is the error that Connor fell into.  He justified in his own mind what Jasmine was doing because it suited him to do so, regardless of the actual harm that befell others.

But while what we see here is an intelligent critique of moral subjectivism, it does beg an important question.  Is it believable that Connor would fall into this trap?  As we have already seen, he is neither immoral nor amoral.  He has repeatedly shown that he does have a very strong sense of right and wrong – as indeed would anyone brought up by Daniel Holtz.  His problem has always been that his judgment about what is right and wrong is warped.  The best example of this was clearly his treatment of Angel in “Tomorrow”.  Although undoubtedly prompted by grief, Connor’s actions here were too cold-blooded to be simple acts of revenge.  Instead of killing Angel he chained him in a box beneath the waves so that he could live there forever - cold, hungry and unable to move.  The unflinching resolve and self-possession with which he went about this task marks Connor out as an inheritor of Daniel Holtz’s attitude towards evildoers.  It seems to me to  reflect a conviction that he was the instrument of justice, albeit a justice lacking fairness or empathy.   But there is a difference surely between Connor embracing a cruel and remorseless revenge in the name of justice and Connor standing idly by and even welcoming evil.  We saw the struggle that Connor went through before he participated in the sacrifice of the girl in “Inside Out”.  And even then he clearly felt the weight of responsibility of what he was doing.  I can understand how he might very well embrace Jasmine’s mind control of the population.  It would strike him as a very effective way of combating evil and it would be consistent for him to believe that this was a price worth paying.  But to show no doubt at all when Jasmine decided that Fred and Angel had to die and to think that eating innocent human beings was “cool” this does strike me as very hard indeed to square with what we know about him.

The Plot

The Teaser of “Magic Bullet” illustrates one of the strengths of this episode.  Through the pictures of a palm tree lined avenue, of people happily going about their lives and being nice and considerate to one another as they do so and of the California sun shining down on a world that moves to the sound of the Beach Boys, the writers instantly create the impression of an idyll.  This is the world as Jasmine wants us to see it.  But then suddenly the music is cut off and our concentration switches to a much darker matter – the pursuit of Fred.  And this pursuit ends up with her taking refuge in the sewers beneath the streets of LA.  The symbolism is pretty obvious.   In keeping with the theme of this episode, all is not what it seems.  Under the façade of happy shiny people and Jasmine’s expression of love for all, there is a darker and grimmer truth of obedience compelled and not freely given and of threat and menace where it is not forthcoming.  In my review of "Happy Shiny People", I said that preventing universal happiness, because it deprives people of their free will and is based on a lie, just doesn’t have the emotional resonance of real mayhem and havoc.  It doesn’t really hit home that hard as a danger.   But what we get here is a clear sense of what Jasmine is really all about – and its not peace or happiness.  It’s about power and control.  We see this in so many aspects of the episode.  

We realize, for example, the degree to which Jasmine asserts control over even the smallest details of peoples lives when we see how dependent Wesley, Gunn and Lorne have become on Jasmine for their day to day perceptions as well as for their sense of well being:

Lorne: “As scrump-dilly-icious as these hot dishes are, they'd be a whole lot tastier if our cocoa-colored queen were here.”

 Gunn: “I heard that. I keep shoveling pie into my hole and steel feel empty. Anybody else picking up on some weird hurdy-gurdy feelings?”

 Wesley: “Something's definitely off, but without Jasmine around, I can't sense it specifically. You getting anything?”

And the telepathic link between Jasmine and the members of Angel Investigations is downright creepy.  But the most extreme example of her mind control occurs when Jasmine begins to see and feel things through others.  They forget all about their own individual needs and wants and only become conscious of what Jasmine wants.  For example when Fred enters the motel complex where she had been hiding, people interrupt the ordinary course of their lives to find and pursue her.

And Jasmine abuses the trust that people show in her.   For her, all that matters is her own agenda and in pursuit of this agenda she is perfectly willing to sacrifice all and any who depend upon her.  She is single minded and ruthless in the way that she concentrates on the hunt for Fred to the exclusion of all other considerations.  She allows someone to immolate himself just so that she can send a message to Fred. Then there is the owner of the “Magic Bullet” book store who not only willingly burns down his own shop but depends upon Jasmine to give her permission for him to leave it. 

And most egregious of all is the way she uses her power to manipulate minds to choose victims for her to eat.

But above all we see evidence of her duplicity.  She claims to love Fred and Angel.  But then she says she wants both of them dead.  And the only reason for this change was that Jasmine now recognizes them as a genuine threat to her because they knew how to free people from her.  But she can’t or won’t own up to that.  That is why, when she is asked how Fred turned Angel she replies:

“My kindness turned him. By being loving to Fred, I opened the door to her hate. By trying to save Fred, I lost Angel. It won't happen again. We must eradicate their hate.”

This is at best a distortion of the truth.  And if Jasmine really did love Fred and Angel and if she really were kindly, it is a distortion she would not stoop to.  Rather it is a distortion that someone concerned only to protect her own power and her own face would resort to.  This is all about Jasmine and what Jasmine wants.

And it is this sense that Jasmine is a ruthless and deceitful megalomaniac that imbues Fred’s struggles with a meaning that it has really lacked until now.  And just as important is the sense of tension that her struggle creates.  Time and time again we are shown Fred so small and alone surrounded by seemingly endless numbers of Jasmine’s followers.  At first the only option she seems to have is to hide.  At this stage actually doing anything to counteract Jasmine’s influence seems beyond the question.  In this context I thought that her visit to the bookstore was especially effective.  Like Fred we too could begin to entertain hopes that some people were beyond the reach of Jasmine; but the fact that even the deeply paranoid bookstore owner gave her his full loyalty reinforced the idea of the impossibility to combating her influence.  And then, with Jasmine’s announcement of her telepathic powers, even hiding for Fred seems to become a dauntingly difficult option.

But there is more to creating sympathy for a person than putting him or her in a bad situation.  The test of a character is how they react.  And Fred showed a level-headedness, an intelligence and a courage throughout the episode that were very engaging.  Highlights included passing her jacket to a decoy to fool Wesley and Gunn and her plan to get Jasmine’s blood into Angel. 

But in many ways this was all a build up to the real shock – Connor’s betrayal of his father and of everyone else.  None of ME’s “blood magic” is terribly logical so I suppose we just have to accept that Jasmine’s blood renders people immune from her influence and that Cordelia’s has the same property, though I have to observe it didn’t prevent Cordelia herself from being completely controlled by Jasmine.  But given that somewhat crude plot device, Angel’s plan to free the other members of the team was sound and well executed.  Intelligent plotting is always welcome.  In fact things seemed to be going a little too smoothly and I was waiting for something to go wrong.  I thought that Jasmine herself might become aware that she was losing contact with her acolytes.  And in a way I am a little surprised that she didn’t.  But that didn’t really matter because the twist that came was both completely unexpected yet very logical.  I assumed that Connor too was under Jasmine’s spell.  But, as I have already said, given that he too shared a blood link to her, it made sense that he wasn’t.  And when he started to yell for the other to come and get Angel and the team it created a really powerful ending.

The fact that Angel’s son has voluntarily taken sides with the villain if the season and more or less declared war on his own father begs the question: what way back is there for him?  And more to the point, how does Angel react?  How does he now fight his own son?  And if he does so, how far does he go?  This represents a serious escalation of the stakes for the central figures of the piece.  Even at the risk of ending World Peace, Angel can still decide with clarity and certainly that Jasmine must be fought.  But he cannot bring the same single-minded approach to fighting his own son.  He must now not only defeat an external enemy, he must fight and win his own internal battles before he can do so.  And those are the most interesting battle of all. 

 Overview (B+)

This episode was really all about Connor.  Thematically it tried (though I do not think that it really succeeded) to show us how someone like Connor could take the side of evil without himself being intrinsically evil.  It did so by reminding us of human beings’ capacity for understanding the world very selectively and through the medium of our prejudices rather than cold hard facts.  I think this was an important issue, deserving of the attention it got not only in terms of what it says about humans generally but more particularly in the context of the developing arc.  Connor and Angel will be on opposite sides of the fight from now on and by understanding Connor’s motives it makes his actions both more credible and more interesting.  Dramatically too, I think the episode worked pretty well.  It certainly succeeded in showing us the creepiness and ugliness behind Jasmine’s face and that does give the fight against her real meaning.  Yet at the same time we are given a strong sense of just what a seemingly impregnable position that Jasmine now enjoys.  Even with the gang back together, this will not be easy and that gives the arc all the dramatic tension it needs as we now begin to move to the climax of the season.