Season 4 opinions?
POSTED BY: RhymePhile
UPDATED: Saturday, June 25, 2005 17:25
VIEWED: 21761
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PLEASE NOTE: I am discussing events of Season 4 in this post. If you are just watching on TNT, please DO NOT READ this post!! I DID NOT include spoiler protection.
Angel Season 4 DVDs come out on Sept. 7, and I have to write a review of the season for my job at a dot-com. I thought I would ask for some opinions on what everyone thought about Season 4, because I know many people have varying thoughts about the season overall.
Personally, I think this season was a strong one, with a continuing arc that started, really, with Cordy's ascension in Season 3.
I like how the entire season revolves around Cordy and the Beast (although we don't discover Cordy's duplicity until later).
Of course, the highlights of the entire season (for me) is the redemption of Wesley and the return of Angelus. I'm not sure if Angel's forgiving Wesley was all that convincing, though. Wes did save Angel's life when he didn't have to, but Angel was pretty riled for a while there. I wonder if he forgave him too easily.
Sometimes David Boreanaz can go over the top with Angelus, and there are moments of it during this season, but I really enjoy watching him portray Angelus. He does a great job of keeping Angel/Angelus completely separate, and gives Angelus a kind of wide-eyed wonder at being evil I find hilarious.
I'm sure I'm not alone in loving the episode "Awakening" when a shaman supposedly can extract Angel's soul and place it in a bottle; and "Spin the Bottle" when the gang reverts to teenagers; and "Apocalypse Nowish" with the shotgun-totin' Wesley (sorry, I love Wes). Ooh, and the return of Faith. Faith! This season (the good stuff) rocked.
Okay, now what I didn't like: when the gang heads to Las Vegas to rescue Lorne from a casino. Gah, terrible. But the only really weak episode of the bunch until we get to...
Jasmine. When I first saw this, I was like, whaaaa? What the? It did surprise me that Connor and Angel bowed down when she was "born" and they didn't go after her. It was almost like a second season began right there. Weirdness. Of course, it is Gina Torres, but I didn't quite "get" where they were going with this. Angel shouldn't have killed her because she brought peace? Angel should have killed her because she was a demon? I never figured it out.
And that whole arc sets up Connor's fall and the subsequent attaining of Wolfram & Hart, which in my opinion was a mistake, because now Angel and Co. had no evil "big brother" plotting over them. That leads into a fairly weak (IMO) Season 5 with stories that went nowhere and several really poor episodes because now Angel is in charge of the baddies.
Overall, however, this season was a huge continuing arc that worked really well. It got a little weird with the Jasmine stuff. I can overlook those bits for the great writing of this season.
What does everyone think?
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All of me is beautiful and valuable, even the ugly, stupid, and disgusting parts.
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**BILE ALERT**
Stop reading now if you love Angel S4.
For me, S4 is the worst Angel season by a huge margin. Here's why...
- Connor was ruined in the first episode. Watch A New World from S3 and then have a think about what Connor would be like after Quortoth. He was raised by Holtz, a puritanical religious type (who also has an English accent...) and presumably Holtz was the only human Connor knew until he escaped Quortoth. Would Connor (and his American accent) really degenerate into a horny teenager in a couple of months? I think not.
- Cordelia. The first three eps have those irritating 'floaty' scenes that just seemed totally ridiculous. And when she finally comes back she's still the strange Cordelia of latter S3 :( It's also hard not to be distracted by the increasing obviousness of the pregnancy. This season was a pretty poor end for a well-developed, enduring character.
- Wesley/Lilah. This as an idea doesn't bother me but we get tons of pointless dirty talk scenes that really add nothing to either the show or the character dynamic.
- Guns. Apparently now the solution to all Wesley's frustrations is to shoot things. Repeatedly. A horrible reminder of the ghastly That Old Gang Of Mine from S3.
- Angelus as a character is ruined. Angel and Angelus should NOT be kept separate. They are intricately entwined personalities - the whole point of Angel's character is how close these two personas are to one another. That's what makes him dangerous for crying out loud! I also thought it was pretty weak how few people Angelus actually killed (if any - I have only watched these episodes once).
- Gwen. Really, there was no point.
- The Beast. Worst. Villain. Ever. ME seem to have a fascination with invincible, indestructible enemies, in other words, the worst kind.
- Faith. Another character butchered (not so much here as in Buffy afterwards though).
- Lorne. Lorne is an immense character but he was criminally underused for most of this year, as he was in S3 too.
Personally I thought the Jasmine conclusion actually saved some face (no pun intended ;) ). From Shiny Happy People onwards things got a lot better, more thoughtful and considered. There was still plenty of duff moments (Connor and his bomb - dear oh dear) but on the whole not too bad. Season 5 was a huge recovery IMO. The group dynamic wasn't quite there for a while but there were tons of great standout episodes as well as the far more insidious arc cooking in the background. I'll take subtlety over invincible villains and messed up characters any day ;)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
- Cordelia. The first three eps have those irritating 'floaty' scenes that just seemed totally ridiculous. And when she finally comes back she's still the strange Cordelia of latter S3 :( It's also hard not to be distracted by the increasing obviousness of the pregnancy. This season was a pretty poor end for a well-developed, enduring character.
The pregnancy is distracting, I agree. Also, remember Cordy has been essentially taken over by Jasmine the moment she ascended with Skip's (who we find out later is evil) help. He's been planning this all along, so the "real" Cordy we loved has been gone since Season 3.
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- Wesley/Lilah. This as an idea doesn't bother me but we get tons of pointless dirty talk scenes that really add nothing to either the show or the character dynamic.
This I definitely agree with. And I could never quite get behind (so to speak) the whole Wes/Lilah thing anyway. It's there to mark his descent into darkness. Less sex would have been appreciated.
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- Guns. Apparently now the solution to all Wesley's frustrations is to shoot things. Repeatedly. A horrible reminder of the ghastly That Old Gang Of Mine from S3.
I think it's a mark of how far he's fallen. He recalls this with the quote to something to the effect of "Have your throat slit and left for dead, and have your friends abandon you will do that to you" when he was talking to Justine in the season opener, as I recall. And yes, in his mind, shooting things is a solution, because the man that intelligently researched things and thought them out is gone.
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- Angelus as a character is ruined. Angel and Angelus should NOT be kept separate. They are intricately entwined personalities - the whole point of Angel's character is how close these two personas are to one another. That's what makes him dangerous for crying out loud! I also thought it was pretty weak how few people Angelus actually killed (if any - I have only watched these episodes once).
What I meant here is how DB portrays each character. When he's Angel, you know it, and when he's Angelus, you definitely know it. I enjoy watching him have fun with Angelus. And I agree that Angelus didn't kill enough people. He talks too much.
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- Gwen. Really, there was no point.
I look forward to some commentary on the DVDs on this. The character was intriguing and had really cool powers, and they dropped her without explanation.
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- The Beast. Worst. Villain. Ever. ME seem to have a fascination with invincible, indestructible enemies, in other words, the worst kind.
Of course, nothing is invincible, but it's stretched out across the season as if it were. The Beast was just a pawn in EvilCordy/Skip/Jasmine's plan. And the creature FX/makeup was kick-ass.
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- Faith. Another character butchered (not so much here as in Buffy afterwards though).
I thought Angel maintained the strained relationship Faith had with Wes and Angel this season, and how she was able to step in despite misgivings and help out. How was she butchered in Buffy?
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- Lorne. Lorne is an immense character but he was criminally underused for most of this year, as he was in S3 too.
He's actually in more episodes this season than he is in Season 5...and we won't even mention what they did to his character in the season finale of Season 5. That was sad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All of me is beautiful and valuable, even the ugly, stupid, and disgusting parts.
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I really didn't enjoy the end of season 4 until I rewatched the entire series again, and I have a different interpretation of how things happened to the way it's portrayed on screen. Maybe it's not meant to be read the way I read it, but I think it makes a lot more sense.
W&H are supremely powerful. They have outlets all over the world, a constant presence everywhere in which they are planning everything that happens. They (and not Jasmine, though she is involved) have been changing things slightly throughout history to get everyone into the positions they're in during season 5.
The end of season 1, and the summoning of Voca. A demon who wears a mask to cover his decaying maggot filled face (sound familiar), who has been brought forth by W&H to bring about the end of days, something which involves the shanshu prophecy and Darla.
Season 2 deals with Angel turning bad, and finally sleeping with Darla. Many think W&H planned this to make him lose his soul, personally I think they're smarter than that.
Season 3 deals with the pregnancy, birth of Conner, Darla's death and Conners fast aging. Then Cordy's "ascension" which even Skip says she never deserved. Would the PTB even let her in if she didn't deserve it? Wouldn't they give her something to do once she was there?
Season 4 has Conner and Cordy having sex to bring about Jasmine. We assume W&H are out of the picture because their building is destroyed, however as we see later the staff are still around (people comment on previous years' halloween parties). It's just a show for Angel's benefit, so he doesn't realise the truth. W&H are still watching, just because a building is destroyed doesn't make them less powerful. Then Jasmine turns up, a being like Voca, another tool of the senior partners. They know Angel will topple her, and in doing so they can trick him into taking over W&H, leading nicely into what is (IMO) the best season of Angel they did.
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[Sorry for the length] I loved season 4. I thought seasons 3 & 4 were the best of the series. Pretty much everything that happened in season 3 and a lot from the first two seasons had a strong effect on the 4th season. Seasons 3&4 were basically one big flowing story arc when you look at the series as a whole. The first time I watched season 4 I did not quite know what to make of Jasmine. However, after watching all of the eps again and examining Jasmine a little closer it all came together for me and it became possibly my favorite of the series.
[Warning: Rant following] IMO Jasmine as a story arc is a lot easier to accept when you look at her as a metaphor for the religious right movement. When I look at Jasmine and her followers in that context it makes total sense to me. Being a moderate I have a real problem with the religious right constantly talking about how their rights to freedom of religion are being taken away when to me it is quite the opposite. Instead I think our rights to adopt a religion or not and live our lives without being bombarded by proselytizing faiths are being taken away a little bit every day. I was raised a southern baptist (not a follower anymore obviously), and it almost makes me cringe when I hear the leader of that faith talk about how it is his mission to visit all 50 states and baptise over a million people this year. It seems to be a numbers game, bring in as many people as you can (which goes hand in hand with tithing increases)and you earn special favor in heaven. They also reject anyone who feels differently as a heathen, instead of someone who chooses to think for themselves and not be some mindless automaton. They are prejudiced against homosexuals and women in general and use the bible or koran or whatever as an excuse. In my opinion most of the religious right are so caught up in the structure of their faith that they are missing the forest for the trees. [By the way, I am not an Atheist and I am not trying to condemn anyone who has faith in a deity, just trying to explain where I am coming from.]
Anyway, back to the topic, a lot of the things that Jasmine and her followers say and do remind me of present and past religious right followers. I also began to understand Connor a little more upon subsequent viewings. He was raised almost from birth by a puritanical man bent on revenge. Connor had been taught all of his life that his father was evil incarnate. Suddenly he is thrown into this strange new world (ours) with millions of people (many of the opposite sex) and the father that he was taught to hate. A teenage boy that is already dealing with his changing body then has to deal with this strange new world is bound to make some bad decisions. Also, I think that the only "religion" that this boy grew up with was revenge and violence. The revenge part was personal, taught to him by Holtz; and the violence part was necessary to survive. Then he comes here and everything he thought he knew was turned upside down except for the violence. The violence was a constant in his life and all he wanted deep down was to rest, to be without all of the constant fighting; whether it be with demons & vampires, wolfram & hart, his father, or the rest of the gang. So when Jasmine offered him the false hope of eternal peace on earth, even though he himself was not under her thrall like the rest of the world was or was about to be, he went along with it because he saw it as his only chance to end the violence that had dominated his life up to that point. But as I said above it was indeed a false hope and he realized that it could not last. So he decides to go out with a bang. Lucky for him wolfram & hart came to angel & gang at that time to give them the keys to their castle. Seemingly to reward them for ending peace on earth, but in reality it was to keep a close eye on them and keep them distracted from the ultimate plan of the senior partners. To coin a phrase: keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
As for Wes (my favorite character of any ME sh
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I thought the end of the season was easily overshadowed by Angelus and the Beast. Up until evil cordy and jasmine the season was going great. Angelus was back and stirring things up. There was an invincible Beast to fight. Faith returned and was just as amazing as ever. Then we lose Angelus, Faith and the Beast and instead we get Cordy doing some of the worst acting of her career and some weird baddie that really isn't all to scary.
Orpheus was a great episode though. One of my favorite.
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Quote:
Originally posted by RhymePhile:
The pregnancy is distracting, I agree. Also, remember Cordy has been essentially taken over by Jasmine the moment she ascended with Skip's (who we find out later is evil) help. He's been planning this all along, so the "real" Cordy we loved has been gone since Season 3.
Yes but Cordy was already messed up at the end of S3 when she returned from vacation with Groo. And the 'possessed by Jasmine' excuse isn't good enough because if she doesn't behave the way we expect her to then Jasmine isn't the great deceiver she's supposed to be. Forgot to mention Skip before - for me, what made Skip great was that he was this monstrous looking creature who actually served good. To make him evil was to completely negate the worth of his character.
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Originally posted by RhymePhile:
I think it's a mark of how far he's fallen.
I understand what it's supposed to represent but that doesn't mean I agree with ME choosing to portray his fall this way. There were plenty other things they could have done.
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Originally posted by RhymePhile:
What I meant here is how DB portrays each character. When he's Angel, you know it, and when he's Angelus, you definitely know it. I enjoy watching him have fun with Angelus. And I agree that Angelus didn't kill enough people. He talks too much.
The character continuity is upset though. Go back and watch Buffy S2 and compare the two versions of Angelus. In S4 Angel he is petty and crude, in Buffy S2 he's this quiet psychotic type - far more effective.
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Originally posted by RhymePhile:
I look forward to some commentary on the DVDs on this. The character was intriguing and had really cool powers, and they dropped her without explanation.
She was too much of an X-men rip-off for me. There was little or no (meaningful) back story - this was a 2D character amongst a 3D crowd. Compare Gwen to Bethany from S2's Untouched. Both have mutant-like powers but look at the depth they achieved with Bethany in only one episode.
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Originally posted by RhymePhile:
Of course, nothing is invincible, but it's stretched out across the season as if it were. The Beast was just a pawn in EvilCordy/Skip/Jasmine's plan. And the creature FX/makeup was kick-ass.
Care to explain the plan? It doesn't really make any sense.
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Originally posted by RhymePhile:
I thought Angel maintained the strained relationship Faith had with Wes and Angel this season, and how she was able to step in despite misgivings and help out. How was she butchered in Buffy?
She says 'Yo' a lot. Nuff said ;)
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Originally posted by RhymePhile:
He's actually in more episodes this season than he is in Season 5...and we won't even mention what they did to his character in the season finale of Season 5. That was sad.
The ending for Lorne's character was absolute classic ME material. One of the finest moments of a solid, if not great, season. I only wish we could have seen these story threads taken further.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
{Originally posted by me) Of course, nothing is invincible, but it's stretched out across the season as if it were. The Beast was just a pawn in EvilCordy/Skip/Jasmine's plan. And the creature FX/makeup was kick-ass.
Care to explain the plan? It doesn't really make any sense.
Um, no, because the plan confused the hell outta me. I was totally befuzzled with the "birth" of Jasmine at the time, and only learned later that they all were working together. It seemed like they got most of the way through the season, and then bam, decided to add Jasmine to the mix and had to come up with a reason. I was happy with the Beast and Angelus through the season, and completely mystified with Jasmine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All of me is beautiful and valuable, even the ugly, stupid, and disgusting parts.
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Quote:
Originally posted by RhymePhile:Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
{Originally posted by me) Of course, nothing is invincible, but it's stretched out across the season as if it were. The Beast was just a pawn in EvilCordy/Skip/Jasmine's plan. And the creature FX/makeup was kick-ass.
Care to explain the plan? It doesn't really make any sense.
Um, no, because the plan confused the hell outta me. I was totally befuzzled with the "birth" of Jasmine at the time, and only learned later that they all were working together. It seemed like they got most of the way through the season, and then bam, decided to add Jasmine to the mix and had to come up with a reason. I was happy with the Beast and Angelus through the season, and completely mystified with Jasmine.
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All of me is beautiful and valuable, even the ugly, stupid, and disgusting parts.
Yes, I totally agree with this. It seems like they had a great season going and then bam they quickly switched directions with a poorly designed excuse and just sort of patched some things together at the last minute. I always thought that cordy leaving the show was the reason..."oops cordy's leaving...eh lets just say she was possessed with some evil dealy".
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