|
|
|
|
EPISODE 4.04 SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM Written by: Jeffrey Bell Directed by: Skip Schoolnick
The
Second Coming
Although born in
Dublin W.B. Yeats will forever be associated with the landscapes of rural
Ireland, especially the West of Ireland. Throughout
his life the haunting countryside of County Sligo would inspire some of his
greatest works. But perhaps more
interesting in the present context is his connection with County Galway to the
south. This was a place where he
lived for over thirty summers and from where a certain young man of the mid 18th
century called Liam hailed. So it
is interesting to say the least that it is in a poem by Yeats that the writers
find inspiration for the latest twist to Angel’s fortunes. Turning and turning in the widening gyre A shape with lion body and the head of a
man,
W.B. Yeats ANGEL as a series has often made very good
use thematically of literary and other artistic sources.
But never perhaps has an episode owed quite so much to one particular
source as “Slouching towards Bethlehem” does.
From the poem “Second Coming” by Yeats, it derives its title,
its theme and plot. So, it was
probably inevitable that I should begin my review not only by quoting the poem
in full but by spending a good deal of time analyzing it. After all if you want to understand this episode you have to
start with the poem. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” in the
immediate aftermath of what was at the time called The Great War.
It deserved this name not only because of the unprecedented slaughter that it saw in Europe.
It also caused social, political and economic upheavals on a massive
scale. Even at the time Europeans
remembered the pre-War continent as a vastly different place.
The Edwardian era came to be seen (rather inaccurately) as the high noon
of European civilization, a period marked by economic prosperity, social
tranquility and political stability. It
gained that recognition largely because it was familiar and comfortable. In contrast, the period after the war was marked by economic
stagnation, social disruption and political instability.
The Austro-Hungarian empire (a Reich that actually did last for almost a
thousand years) had vanished in the name of competing claims of national
identity. Russia, the last great
feudal state of Europe, had seen a revolution which placed the peasants and
workers (nominally) in charge. Germany
had not recovered from the shock to its self confidence and prestige of losing
the war. It, together with Italy was heading for a period of social
and economic chaos which was to see the rise of fascism to power.
Even in Great Britain, always the most stable politically of the Great
Powers and certainly one of the wealthiest, we see the fatal weakening of the
old ruling class (who suffered pro rata far more from the attrition of war both
in terms of life and property than anyone else) and the emergence of a newly
powerful and politically aware working class. Together with the enfranchisement
of women these changes meant that power in the land could no longer be simply
the function of a person’s property or “stake in the community.”
Things would never be the same again.
Above all in Yeats own native Ireland, more than four centuries of
British rule was coming to an end in most of the country as a result of a highly
successful guerilla campaign which led to the Anglo Irish Treaty of 1920. As Mahatma Ghandi later acknowledged this was the event that
signalled the end of the British Empire but more immediately it ushered in a
period of civil war as the newly formed Irish Free State faced a challenge from
those who were unhappy over the terms of the treaty and former comrades in arms
killed one another, in one case the Free State army using artillery borrowed
from the British for the purpose. For someone who had known the pre-war
period, this must indeed have seemed to be a world both totally unfamiliar and
spinning out of control. Perhaps in reaction to the confusion all around him
Yeats, like many of his contemporaries, developed an interest in synthesizing
different world views into one unified theory of human history. To this end he
studied Hinduism, Celtic history, Christianity, Buddhism, and the occult. As a
result he came to believe in a cyclical theory of history. At the beginning of
the poem we see a reference to the gyre, a spiral or repeated circling motion.
This is a symbol and a concept that Yeats used repeatedly in his poetry and
prose, and the poetics of "The Second Coming" illustrate the idea of
the gyre. The words in the poem enforce the idea of "spiral
images". The title itself suggest an
event being repeated. Not only does the falcon turn in a gyre, but
the shadows
of the desert birds “reel”. Moreover,
words and phrases, such as "surely" and "is at hand" and the
very title, "Second Coming", are repeated, thus suggesting the
repetitive movement of the gyre. Similarly,
repetitious or paired images give the same effect, as Yeats seems to cycle
through "the best lack all conviction"
to "the worst are full of passionate intensity". The title of
"The Second Coming" suggests that the poem will depict the Apocalypse,
described by St John, an impression reinforced by the description of the beast
slouching towards Bethlehem, the place of Christ’s original birth.
But biblical history is linear, not cyclical: it has a beginning
(Genesis), a turning point (the birth and crucifixion of Christ), and an ending
prophesied by the Book of the Apocalypse. So
what we see in “the Second Coming” is not the Christian concept of the
Apocalypse. Rather Yeats makes use
of the Biblical references for two purposes.
First of all the Bible is the Christian world’s primary work of
prophecy and Yeats’ use of it gives his own poem a tome of prophecy.
But more important still is the nature of the prophecy itself.
The cycles represented by the gyre were 2000 years long.
Just as Christ’s coming in Bethlehem had ushered in the Christian era so, in this poem, Yeats predicts that the Christian era will soon give
way apocalyptically to an era ruled by a godlike desert beast with the body of a
lion and the head of a man. And in Yeats’ vision this apocalypse
will arrive in a period of confusion, much like that through which he lived. “The Second Coming” can be divided into two parts.
The first describes the state of the world into which the beast is to be
born. And this state can best be
described as one of disconnectedness. Yeats
starts out with the image of a falcon which continues to wheel and gyre further
and further away from the falconer and his voice – the familiar things that it
understood and responded to. And
once the familiar is gone, society like the falcon becomes lost and
disorientated. The center is, of
course, that which holds things together and here it fails. When Yeats says
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate
intensity" he is also
suggesting
a dissociation between the best and the worst.
The former are riddled with doubt and are by implication ineffective.
So it is the latter who drive the agenda and they react to events not
with understanding but emotion. Instead of being checked by those who do understand and bring reason to bear we
have anarchy and a tide of blood which drowns “the ceremony of innocence”. This is a world of confusion and division where actions are beyond the
control of reason and understanding. This state of affairs is itself reflected
in the confusion of the reader. The speaker of the poem seems, at best, doubtful
of what he sees: he is a visionary who is unable to understand his vision. We,
the readers share this confusion in part because we are plunged into the
speaker's vision without any preparation. We do not even find out, for example,
that the poem describes a vision until late on (“the darkness drops again but
now I know”) when we learn that, the vision itself has vanished. The important thing here is that the sorry
state of things preparing the way for the second coming is a reflection of the
sorry state of the world as Yeats saw it at the start of the third decade of the
20th century (that’s the 1920’s – work it out).
This was a world characterized by confusion and division and conflict
between different groups, a world where former
certainties had vanished. And it
was precisely because of this that it was a world where violence
was endemic. And just as the first
stanza of the poem reflected this reality, so too we must assume did the second
stanza reflect what Yeats saw as the revelation that really was at hand.
This revelation is the coming of a vast image from the desert with the
body of a lion and the head of a man. This
creature is easily identified as the Sphinx which can of course be recognized
from "Oedipus" as a creature of riddles, a theme very much in keeping with the
central theme of confusion. What
precisely it is and what will transpire because of its coming the speaker does
not know. The vision ends ("the darkness drops again") before he does
which is why the poem ends in a question mark.
But still Yeats is certain that what is coming is bad.
The beast's eyes are "pitiless as the sun" and it is followed not by
the noble falcon, but by "shadows" (a very dark and suggestive word to
choose) of "desert birds," certainly vultures. And why would a vulture
follow such a beast? Vultures go
where there is carrion. This beast is not only pitiless, but it leaves a wake of
carnage. More specifically from the
point of view of Yeats’ cyclical theory it “slouches toward Bethlehem to be
born" into Christ's place, the Christ whose rocking cradle was the
beast’s own nightmare. Christianity
and the beast are mutually antagonistic forces and the beast’s arrival to
supplant Christ represents the advent of a new world order.
Illustrating
the Theme
Of
course the interpretation of “Second Coming” has been a matter of
controversy ever since the poem was written.
There are many schools of thought and each has its own adherents. There is, for example, a specifically Christian
interpretation which (contrary to the view expressed above) identifies the beast
with the second coming of Christ rather than as the ending of the Christian era.
And the one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that in the first
stanza, Yeats was describing the state of society as a whole rather than the
dynamics of a small group of individuals such as come under the microscope in
this episode. So, it would be
surprising indeed if the parallels between “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and
the poem from which the phrase is taken are exact.
Nevertheless, I think that there is a basis for a meaningful comparison
and that basis lies in the situations that the family in the teaser, Cordelia
and Wesley are all faced with and the way that they respond. One
technique that ANGEL as a series has used to good effect is to introduce within
an episode a little vignette that helps our understanding of the theme of the
episode. And
this is the role of the teaser here. First
of all, we see an ordinary suburban family completely out of their depth.
Their jeep has broken down and the father of the family evidently has no
idea how to fix it. They are trapped and unable to escape from a deserted part of
LA’s sprawling road system. There
isn’t even a passing car. Taken
from their familiar surroundings, they don’t know what to do next.
Then a sullen, badly dressed teenager appears.
The family clearly don’t quite know what to make of him but his mere
appearance and their own situation mean that they are more intimidated by him
than reassured. So they just want him to go away: Connor:
“You're in trouble.” Father:
“No, we're fine. “ Connor:
(to son) “I like your hat.” Father:
“Really, thanks for stopping, but, uh, but we've already called for help.” That, I think, was a lie simply
designed to make the young stranger go away.
If they really had called for help, the father would hardly still be
tinkering with the engine when he clearly had no idea what he was doing.
But this hardly matters. As
it turned out a tow truck with flashing lights did appear at that point and
Connor vanished. For the family
seeing the approach of the truck and the back of Connor is a cause for relief. But that is simply a case of bad judgment on their part.
If they had been paying attention they would have seen that the truck was
being driven very fast and very erratically and had loud rock music blaring from
it. This isn’t what you normally
expect from a breakdown service. And
sure enough this is a vampire attack, an attack from which only Connor rescues
the family, dusting one vampire and seeing another go up in flames. But far from
being grateful to him the father of the family gestures for him to leave them
alone. It seems that he cannot deal with the challenge to his
perceptions that the events he had just witnessed present. The family had been frightened and
unsure of what to do for the best. They
reacted to Connor and the truck with prejudice and emotion and without thinking
or understanding. A lone,
ill-dressed teenager in that part of LA was dangerous despite his offer of help.
A tow truck represented help and safety in spite of the way it was being
driven. And this brings us to
Cordelia.
She suddenly finds herself in a
place that is completely new to her. Ok
this isn’t too unusual. But she
doesn’t know how she got there. She
suddenly meets a lot of people she has never seen before and they reassure her
that they are her friends: Angel:
“It's OK. We're friends. You know us. Fred. Gunn. You're dazed or something
must …Thank God you're back.” Cordelia:
“So we know each other?” Angel:
“Yeah, really well.” Cordelia:
“OK, um... who am I?” And this is the rub.
Not only does Cordelia not remember Angel, Gunn and Fred.
She doesn’t remember who she is. She
is if anything in a worse situation than the family in the teaser.
All they wanted was to get home. Cordelia
too in her confusion asked to be brought home and even when she was (or at least
introduced to the detritus of her life) it was all unfamiliar and she was
reduced to trying to imagine the person she was by looking in the mirror. As she later
confesses: “I'm trying to
remember little things. Do I have brothers and sisters? What's my favorite food?
Who was my first kiss? There's nothing there. Just an empty... Do you know how
lonely that makes me feel? “ To her ears, Angel and the others no doubt
sound believable and sincere. And there is evidence to support
what they say. First she hears her
own voice on the answering machine. Then
she sees pictures of herself in the room in the hotel where all her stuff has
been kept. These include pictures
of her with Angel and a child. But
still she doesn’t know for sure whether she can trust the people she has just
met or even the
evidence of her own eyes. When you
don’t know the truth of a situation yourself and can’t tell whether people
are lying to you or not you cannot just accept what they are saying, even if it
is the most plausible scenario. Rather
you mind turns to all sorts of different explanations, no matter how bizarre.
So the sight of knives in the hotel lobby and reading about giant snakes
and flaming arrows leads her to ask whether she was a spy. And
when she sees and hears things that once would have made sense to her and which
she once would
have readily accepted - such as drops of blood on the counter of the
reception desk and a conversation between Fred and Gunn about a little demon
baby killing - she can only panic and grasp even more firmly at such nonsensical
explanations: Cordelia: “I get it now. You're all
spies. Probably all Russian. And you've brainwashed me, and want me to believe
we're friends so I'll spill the beans about some nano-techno-thingy that you
want.” Gunn: “So... I look Russian to
you?” Cordelia: “Black Russian.” Angel: “That's a drink.” Cordelia: “Says the head spy.” Cordelia’s explanation for the
situation she finds herself in is clearly absurd, but she clings to it because
it is the only way she can make sense out of the facts as she knows them.
The problem is that to her the truth makes even less sense: Cordelia: That's... everything?
It all makes perfect sense now. I
was a cheerleader, a princess and a warrior. And I have visions and super powers
and I'm the target of an evil law firm because I've spent the last three months
living on a higher plane, fighting for the forces of good, who wage a battle
against demons and evilies and squishy bug babies, 'cause all that stuff's real
and that's the world I live in. And I think I know why I don't remember any of
this 'cause, hey - who'd want to!
" Like
the family in the teaser, Cordelia is the falcon who cannot hear the familiar
and comforting call of the falconer. So she spirals away (literally) without
purpose or direction – until she meets Connor.
The first thing that recommends Connor to Cordelia is that he rescued
her. And that’s not to be taken
lightly. But more to the point he
is completely himself with her – warts and all.
When he sees the stuffed bear in the Natural History Museum his comment
is interesting: “I love that
one. I wish I'd killed it. “ In fact, he hides nothing about
who he is or what his relationship with the others is like: Cordelia: “This
is home? If you're Angel's son, why don't you live with him?” Connor: “Didn't
they tell you? I sunk him to the bottom of the ocean... to punish him.” Cordelia:
”You're serious.” Connor: “I
tried to kill you too. I was new to this world. Didn't understand. Put a knife
to your throat. Sorry.” Connor does not see the need to pretend to
be anyone else. Cordelia is someone
who by nature shares the same quality of “here I am and if you don’t like it
that’s your problem.” So she
would appreciate Connor for that anyway. But
after the dissimulation she has just experienced at the Hyperion, Connor’s
brutal honesty must have been very refreshing: “You're
the first person who's been straight with me, who has told me the truth. Means a
lot.” Normally I think we would be expected to see this as a good thing. But then I am reminded of the phrase from the poem: “The best lack
all conviction, while the worst When Angel decides to make things look as
normal as possible for Cordelia (hiding Lorne’s existence and the fact that he
drinks blood or the nature of his work) he explains it to Fred in the following
terms: Angel: “That
could've been a disaster. Hi. Welcome back, you're safe. By the way, there's a
green demon right behind you. “ Fred: “Don't
you think we should tell her? I mean we do live in a world of demons and icky
things. She's bound to find out. “ Angel: “Well,
yeah, sure, but I mean let's be smart. I want her to remember who I am before I
freak her out with the whole undead, drinks blood part of my resume.“ He was of course acting out of the best
motives. But here he was displaying
a complete lack of conviction in himself. Instead
of being honest with Cordelia right at the start the truth had to be dragged
from him when it was too late and only after Cordelia had discovered for herself
the fact that he was a vampire. If
Angel represents the best, I would not go so far as to say that Connor
represents the worst. But his
honesty is a manifestation of his own passionate intensity. He feels deeply about a lot of things and is not afraid
to let people know that. He is
first and foremost a teenager; his idea of a well balanced personality is to
have a huge chip on each shoulder. As
Cordelia instinctively understands he too has lost everything and he resents
that. When called Angel’s son he
mutters:
“It’s not like I got to choose.” But in the teaser he seems to identify
with the teenager and envies him not only his hat but his family.
Immediately after seeing this little family group bond in the aftermath
of the vampire attack, where does Connor go – right back to dear old dad’s
hotel. And whom does he see there
and immediately fixate on – Cordelia. He
feels a bond with her because she was once nice to him.
But at the same time he is a sexually inexperienced teenager and she is a
woman. She is in particular a woman
whom his father has an interest in and who finally chooses him over Angel.
Also, let us not forget that Connor has a tendency towards violence both
to affirm his own value and to solve his problems. And (judging from the way he
sneaks around the hotel) on top of everything else he has major trust issues.
This is an explosive combination. For
Cordelia to choose him instead of Angel is a piece of spectacularly bad judgment
made worse by her reasons: “I need
someone who won't lie to me... like you did. All of you, I know you were trying
to help, but the truth is the only way to do that, and that's what Connor's
given to me.” Connor told the truth about himself and
Cordelia’s need for honesty when she was so uncertain about who she was
mirrors the need of the family in the teaser to grab hold of something familiar
in the form of the tow truck. But
by doing so they ignored the warning signs just as Cordelia does here.
So both scenarios reflect the need of the people referred to in “Second
Coming” to believe in something full of passionate intensity at a time of
doubt and confusion. The reactions
are driven not by understanding, rationality or even common sense.
Rather they are driven by the need to resolve feelings of loss, confusion
and doubt. “Second Coming” left
no doubt where Yeats saw this leading society.
Left to their own devices, the family in the teaser too would have
suffered disaster. So what of
Cordelia’s decision? The
implication I think is clear. The
Betrayer and the Betrayed?
And speaking of bad decisions, let us now
turn to Wesley whose judgment also lets him down.
In “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, however, the reason why he got
things so wrong is understandable enough and it lies in the nature of his
relationship with Lilah. Wesley
clearly hasn’t changed his basic opinion of her.
This much is made clear by the scene in the “Previously on Angel”
montage where the following exchange occurs in connection with Wesley's rescue
of Angel: Wesley: “I had
to raise him. “ Lilah: “For
what?” Wesley:
“Fighting people like you.” This clearly confirms that Wesley's
continues to view Lilah as someone
who is promoting the cause of evil. But although he refers
to what goes on between the two of them as a “sordid” detail he almost
unconsciously later calls it a relationship.
This is something he clearly wanted to avoid and not only because
it lost him a bet. Wesley still
sees himself as on the side of the angels (if you pardon the expression).
He rescued Angel not for any personal reasons but because he was
necessary to the fight against evil. It
was in the same cause that Wesley himself organized and led his own team.
How can he have a relationship with someone so senior in Wolfram and
Hart? But he does and the signed
dollar bill is a symbol that the relationship is to him something real and
meaningful. And he believes that it
is the same for Lilah. That is why
he takes her at face value. This is
very well illustrated by the importance to Wesley of the fact that the dollar bills slipped
out of Lilah’s possession and is later found by him.
It was then that he started to believe that the relationship that meant something to him
didn’t mean the same thing to Lilah and it was with that realization that
he began to believe that he had been played by her. In
Wesley's feelings for Lilah we have trust and mistrust, attraction
and repulsion all mixed together, leading to this sad
exchange: Lilah: “If I'd
thought you'd ever trust me, I would've never played you like that.” Wesley: “It's
never simple, is it?” No, it isn’t and given how far from simple it was it is no wonder that Wesley got caught in the confusion. He read into Lilah's dropping of the bill something that may not have been there. Losing it may have simply been an accident but he read it as a sign of Lilah's whole attitude towards him. And it was because of this refusal to trust completely, this stubborn hold on the idea that Lilah was the enemy that when he thought he was taking the right course of action he is actually taking the wrong one. It seems to me that the distrustfulness of Wesley’s nature blinds him not only to the reality of someone like Angel or Gunn but also to the potential of someone like Lilah. It isn’t that she has done anything to deserve trust. But she isn’t demonic. As human she can always rise above her past and her self interest and start doing things for others. She can do these things because they are right or because it helps someone she cares about. The latter is obviously a different motivation from the former but in the case of a human doing the right thing because of a human connection with someone (a relationship) can lead on to other things. Despite the fact that he clearly feels something for her and despite the fact that he has formed a relationship with her, Wesley does not seemed to have considered the possibility that Lilah would act from other than purely evil motives. Yet for Lilah getting the information in Lorne’s brain was just a job but she could have killed Lorne but didn’t because of Wesley. And she also implied that if Wesley had trusted her she would not have betrayed him. But she knew he didn’t really trust her - after all he said so to her face. And so Wesley's lack of trust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lilah concludes that if he felt this way about her, she should not choose him over her job. So she simply exploited his lack of trust. And here, without I think stretching too much, we can again see parallels
between Yeats’ poem and this storyline. With
Lilah Wesley finds himself in new and unfamiliar territory, literally sleeping with
the enemy. In his internal struggle
about whether to trust or not, it was his attachment to his relationship with
Lilah that proved to be lacking in conviction while it was the passionate
intensity of the belief that she was evil and treacherous that prevailed. What Lilah seems to be saying was that she understood this
better than he did and it was his failure to commit himself to the relationship
by fully trusting her that allowed her to play him with such a lack of
conscience. And this is symbolized
by the fact that as Lilah points out Wesley was himself the author of his own
misfortune: Lilah: “You
played yourself.” Wesley: “On the
phone, you wanted me to hear that so I would tell Angel. “ Lilah: “Free
will. Look it up.” Wesley: “Lilah...
“ Lilah: “I was
just doing my job. You're the one who decided to take what you overheard and
give it to the good-n-plentys. So before you go all righteous fury, figure out
who you're really mad at here.” Lilah didn’t try to influence Wesley’s behavior. She merely provided him with an opportunity for his own lack of trust in her to come to the fore, confident that his own worst instincts would dictate his actions. And so it did.
Creating Traps For Yourself Now I am not saying that the theme of the
episode could not have been understood without reference to the poem “Second
Coming”. But I do say that by
looking at the poem we are in a better position to understand what the writers
are trying to describe, namely a situation where those who are supposed to stand
for good fall into unnecessary traps because of their own internal weaknesses.
Angel and his team are separated from Cordelia because they do not trust
themselves enough to say openly who they are, what they do and why.
Cordelia on the other hand is led from them by her trust in the
conviction of a slightly unstable teenager.
And all the while Wesley makes the wrong choice because of his inability
to accept and act on his positive feelings for someone and his willingness to
distrust them. And the thing I like
about all of this is that it rings wonderfully true to character.
Angel has never been comfortable about being a vampire.
That was why it was so important to him to be human.
And the seeds of doubt go beyond this.
For example having slept with Darla, Angel lied about it.
And when he went to see Holtz in “Benediction” he deliberately
omitted to tell Connor. In the
first example we see someone who doubts his ability to deal with the
consequences of his mistake and in the second we see someone who also doubts his
ability to win over the affections of his own son.
In doubting his ability to keep Cordelia if she knew the truth about him
he is being entirely consistent. On the
other hand Connor seemed to have no problem confessing to his own failings and he
scored points with Cordelia for doing so. But
then, as I have already suggested, here too we see the re-emergence of the
forgotten Cordelia – the person who bluntly calls things as she sees them
without worrying too much about what the listener thinks. And she still takes crap from no-one – as she demonstrated
when facing down Gunn with an icy stare and a threat that was not only empty but
would have sounded ridiculous except for the complete conviction with which she
uttered it:
Cordelia: “You keep telling me I was a higher being. Don't make me turn you
into a rat.” This is not only the real Cordelia (as far as I am concerned) but is also a far more believable and indeed interesting example of strength than the rather silly ninja-style action hero we saw in a fight with the Wolfram and Hart commandos. And then there is Wesley. In
his lack of trust and his willingness to allow his worst suspicions about others
to guide his actions, he proves he really learnt nothing from the events in
“Loyalty” and “Sleep Tight” Not only is all of this characterization good and interesting in itself. Again just as in the poem’s depiction of society, we see the this episode’s depiction of the various individuals concerned in the context of the imminent arrival of an apocalyptic beast. And just as Yeats vision is of a society disintegrating, it seems that the writers here too are telling us that this is what is happening to Angel Investigations. The team is riven by self-doubt. Gunn’s suspicions of Wesley seem to have been reinforced and Wesley, while beginning to move back into the orbit of Angel Investigations is still as distrusting as ever. Cordelia is keeping Angel at arm’s length, seemingly more attracted by Connor's crude and dangerous certainties and so he and Angel have yet one more thing to divide them. This is not a promising scenario for fighting some great evil. But it does give real pith and substance to the theme.
Plot
When we last saw Cordelia she was, as Angel described it, home where she belongs: “There was all
this light around her. And the light seemed to made up of - pure joy and
warmth." She certainly seemed to be aware of
everything that was going on below and perhaps had even helped Angel break the
spell put on him in “The House Always Wins”.
Notwithstanding her boredom, this did seem to confirm that Skip had not
after all misled her and that she did inhabit a higher plane where she was
helping people. Her sudden reappearance at the Hyperion
therefore raised a whole new set of questions.
Had she somehow fulfilled her destiny?
Was her return somehow tied to the revelation locked away in her mind?
Alternatively was Skip lying all along and appearances to the contrary
notwithstanding was there another explanation for her assumption and return.
Or, whether because she was unhappy or because she had broken some sort
of rule by trying to interfere in Angel’s life, was she simply thrown out by
TPTB as being unworthy? And
whatever the reason for her return, why the amnesia?
The questions are endless and none of them are answered or even
explicitly raised here. This is in
and of itself no bad thing. The
slow striptease approach of revealing information bit by bit is very effective
in building tension and keeping the audience both off balance and interested. But if the absence of explanation is not going to be too
distracting the writers need to fill the gap by concentrating our minds on other
aspects of Cordelia’s return, in particular her future.
And this is what “Slouching towards Bethlehem” essentially fails to
do in the first half. When Angel and the others arrived back at
the Hyperion at the end of “The
House Always Wins” and were greeted by Cordelia, there was a moment of
surprise. Her arrival had come out
of the blue. But when her first
words to them were: "Who are you people?" I must admit my attention was hardly
grabbed. Amnesia in these
circumstances is such a cliché. But
not only was the territory familiar, the progression of the amnesia also seemed
rather predictable. Is there much
doubt but that Cordelia will eventually regain her memory?
More to the point even if she did not or even if she did so only
partially would it make that much of a difference?
In short from a dramatic point of view what was there about the way in
which Cordelia’s amnesia was treated to make us care at all that she did come
back without her memory? In order to sustain our interest all we were left
with was a rather predictable comedy of misunderstandings as Angel in particular
tried to hide the truth and Cordelia kept on stumbling on evidence about the
truth and started making wild guesses about what it meant. The problem here was that this was all pretty obvious and
predictable stuff. So we had Angel
getting Lorne out of the way, hiding his blood supply and Cordelia overhearing a
conversation between Gunn and Fred about killing demon babies and jumping to the
wrong conclusion. In fact one of
the things that I disliked the most was the way that the episode (a little like
the gyre in Yeats’ poem) kept on repeating itself.
First we had Cordelia in her amnesiac state half-persuaded she really did work with these strange people
only to freak out when she overheard Gunn and Fred.
Then she was sufficiently calmed down to have a talk with Angel only to
freak out again when she saw his game face.
After having been restored to some sort of equilibrium for the second
time she was attacked by Lorne’s demon client and fled the building
altogether. Structurally this
is a very nice illustration of the theme as we see Cordelia like the falcon
circles around the falconer (the old life with Angel that she was familiar with)
gradually getting further and further away with each gyre.
But it is bought at a high price because dramatically it just doesn’t
work. Because there isn’t enough
to distinguish each gyre from the next it is simply repetitive. For me, the episode only starts to come together from a dramatic point of view once Lorne has read Cordelia and she leaves the hotel. We were already aware that Wolfram and Hart knew of her return and there were legitimate grounds for concern that they would try to seize her. After all, Lilah was already aware of Angel's interest in the Axis of Pythia and it was probably easy enough to put two and two together and guess why. When Wolfram and Hart did act, he rescue of Cordelia and Connor from their clutches at the least minute was conventional enough. We have see it too many times for it to mean that much. But as it turned out our concern for them was simply a misdirection and there was very neat twist to the tale. And like any good twist it was one we could have seen coming. Nothing was unfairly hidden. We could easily have deduced that Lilah knew Wesley had overheard her and would go to Angel and the others. That would have been entirely in character. So why persist in the attack rather than wait for a more opportune moment? Because all black hats do stupid things and it was this conventional expectation that led me astray. The real answer, however, was that the attack on Cordelia and Connor was a feint. From that point of view of creating a surprise this twist worked really well. The problem was that it was not really that credible.
But finally just as thematically what we
see here foreshadows the arrival of an apocalyptic monster, so too dramatically
will this be the episode’s lasting legacy.
In many ways this was intended to set up what will evidently be the main
arc in a series that is more and more becoming arc heavy.
Clearly the writers do not intend to divulge too much information to us
at this stage and to a certain
extent that has thrown them back on cliché. “Do the words
"slouching towards Bethlehem" ring a bell? Or how about despair,
torment, terror? And I'm not referring to little missy's choice of song, either,
although that was horrifying in its own right. What I saw was jumbled. It was
pieces, flashes. It was enough to make my skin crawl away and scamper under the
bed. Evil's coming, Angel, and it's planning on staying. “ With nothing concrete to back these words
up they do have the feel of hyperbole to them.
It’s hard to create a feeling of genuine menace from words alone,
especially when you have to be vague about the nature of the menace. But here is where the final parallel with Yeats’ poem comes
in so useful. As I have already
said, Yeats’ vision of the beast slouching towards Bethlehem was equally vague
but being a master of the English language he can conjure up a truly horrifying
vision even without being specific about it.
Through the parallels with the poem, the writers here can take advantage
of the power of his language. Overview
|
