Review Time: 'Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been' [SPOILERS Angel 2ADH02]
Mattia Valente
guy is BAHAAAACK!!! (With Goats this week. Frobly's in the house once
more.)
I'm warning you now I may get a little (very) long winded (more so than
usual) and possibly a little lyrical in this review..
SPOILERS Angel 2ADH02, "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been"
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Wow.
That was quite some ride, wasn't it? The first (and certainly not last)
Tim Minear written episode this season (if you don't know who he is,
well, start learning..), and what a beautiful little ep it turned out to
be. I'll say this much about it: there's more to it than meets the eye,
and I'm not going to be able to touch on all of it right here, right
now.
The Story
---------
As stories go, it's quite simple, really. No large arc plots you need to
know about or keep track of, none of that kind of stuff; as a
standalone, this episode reigns as King, in my decidedly unhumble
opinion. To say that it's nothing but a standalone is, of course, silly,
since we're treated to yet more tasty juicy Angel character work..more
on that later.
Here goes: last week, whilst running away from demonic bounty hunters
with a pregnant woman, Angel found himself in the lobby of a large
abandoned hotel. We got the sense he'd been there before, and for some
reason he remembered it. This week we find out why: some 48 years ago,
Angel left the hotel and its inhabitants to the mercy of a Thesulac
Demon, a being that feeds on fear and paranoia; now, years later, he
senses its still there, and decides to make up for one of the many
wrongs he did in his life.
Diving into the Dark end of the Pool
------------------------------------
Now I'm going to get terribly long-winded. I don't have the time or the
will to edit, so bear with me or go read something else...
Angel puts the Fang Gang in research mode; they're to try and find out
everything they can about the Hyperion hotel (68 rooms, 68 vacancies),
built back in 1928 (when the troubles started with a roofer leaping to
his death, taking two people with him) and closed in 1979, after years
of murder and mayhem were ended with a bang (or rather, a few of them)
as the concierge made his wakeup calls with a shotgun. Granted, all of
this is disturbing and possibly supernatural, but why did Angel put them
on the case? This is all mightily confusing..
..and let the flashbacks begin...
We're treated to some beautiful stylistic shooting as we jump back in
time to 1952; a fade in blending from a black and white photograph into
the Hyperion in 1952, fade into one of a number of long one shots. Sets
the mood, we go up the elevator with the bellhop, and lo and behold,
who's the man in 217? Angel.
Roll the credits, and we're back in LA, anno 2000...but not for long.
Yet another oneshot starts as wel follow Angel walking around the lobby
of the Hyperion Hotel, and suddenly we're back in 1952, with a HUAA
hearing on television, the 'Red Threat' in the air, a starlet running
out on a seedy producer, a black family being told there aren't any
vacancies, and them straight into the elevator...never does the camera
linger on the beautiful set that was created, all of this is there to
set the scene, to show us, rather than tell us in so many words, the
fear, the distrust, the discrimination that was so much a part of the
1950's (and still persists to this day, in many ways.)
As we move upstairs, following our Dark Brooding Hero, he of the empty
stare, we see a suspicious looking character in a trench coat, and a man
with his homosexual lover, all of it very much hush-hush, very much
taboo..Angel walks out for ice, and something is whispering to a
salesman, something nobody but he can see. Angel, somehow, can't bring
himself to care.
Back in his room, we find Judy hiding from a PI. At first Angel doesn't
seem to give a damn, but then some of the DBH[tm] we know shines
through, and he stands up for the girl, throws the guy into the elevator
and then....shuts the door in her face, seemingly indifferent. Whoa. NOT
what we're used to.
This is clearly not the Angel we know. He's neither the Angelus of old
or the alley dwelling, rat eating Angel we say in 'Becoming'; he's
living in the world, but is even less a part of it than he is now. No
friends, other vampires shun him, a true loner. The result is a
darkness, an uncaringness that's quite a shock; it's not evil per se,
but neither is it good. This is illustrated very clearly with the scene
at the end of the first act where the Salesman shoots himself in the
head; Angel pauses a moment, and takes another sip of blood...
Swimming Toward the Light
-------------------------
In the meantime, Wes and Cordy are playing the 'who died horribly
because Angel screwed up fifty years ago' game, and turning up a whole
lot of odd occurences over the course of the years. Mayhem, death and
destruction have come and gone. The Bellhop was executed for the murder
of the salesman, we learn from the clippings, and we sense that things
went badly wrong...
On the other hand, we've got Angel opening up, a little bit, to Judy.
Despite his cold shoulder, she's intent on thanking him for what he did.
She's got a lot of secrets, Angel's pretty good at noticing that sort of
thing. Subsequently Judy opens up to him, tells him her story: she's
half Black, she's been passing for White since she was 15, she was found
out, she panicked, she stole a lot of money, and now she's screwed.
Something in her causes Angel to decide to help her; he begins to care.
He realises there's something wrong with the hotel, there's something
not quite right, and he decides not to let it all slide.
Judy is in a tight spot: she wants to get rid of the whole problem
caused, to a large degree, by the world she lives in. The fear of
difference, the intolerance of her employers, that destroyed her life,
and her reaction, rooted in fear, made her bolt with the money, and
she's been running ever since. She asks Angel "I mean, there is such a
thing as forgiveness, right?" The look she gets in return speaks
volumes; this is a question Angel himself has been asking for a long
time, and is still asking. Is there forgiveness, redemption? The Scrolls
of Aberjian indicate that for him, there is, but that day is a long way
off yet..
He hides the money, probably in an attempt to help Judy get out of this
mess, and we see that, 48 years later, that money is still there..
...Back to the Future (well, Present, anyway)...
Flash back to the now: Angel tells the gang what they're dealing with: a
Thesulac, paranoia demon that feeds off of peoples fears and
insecurities. And it's still there. Angel wants to raise it, make it
corporeal, to kill it. What happened to the 1950s attempt then?
...Back to the Past...
Angel gets into action: this is a lot more like the DBH[tm] we all know
(and some of us love); off to Denver's Boogedy-Boogedy store to get some
supplies, scaring and then confusing the hell out of this young man. A
Vampire who wants to kill a Demon to help some humans? It's unheard of.
It's against nature.
A Plunge and a little Swinging..
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However, things are degenerating fast in the wake of the suicide. People
are at each others throats, the cry of murderer and communist is in the
air, and all the while the Thesulac is whispering into people's ears,
feeding on the fear, feasting on the paranoia, driving people over the
edge.
Things come to a breaking point, and our nice little PI comes onto the
scene, and the mob of LA riffraff heads upstairs to deal with Judy, a
handy scapegoat for their fears; As Angel comes back with his Demon
slaying supplies, Judy sees him, and snaps. Rather him than me, she
thinks, and betrays his trust, pointing the finger, letting the mob
loose on him, something he never expected. He lies there, being beaten
and kicked, and his face asks 'why' as Judy stand, horrified, watching
the spectacle unfolding.
The mob carries him out, and hangs him. Most of them are subsequently
horrified by what they've done, shocked to the core; even our insane
little vengeful bellhop realises, in the end, that what happened was
wrong.
Of course, Angel's not dead. This we know. As he lets himself go, the
Thesulac, having just had a great big meal, a whole hotel's worth of
paranoid and scared people, comes forth to thank him, more or less..
Angel, betrayed, is alone again. The demon tells him that he'd managed
to reach Judy, that he'd restored her faith in people, and that's what
made the morsel so tasty, the meal so sweet and filling..There are
plenty of people that need his help now, but Angel is back to his gray,
uncaring self, he's in his own dark world...
"Take 'em all"
Redemption
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Now, 48 years down the line, after remembering what transpired all those
years ago, Angel wants to finish what he started, and get it done. They
bring forth the demon, still there, still feeding, and kill it.
Angel goes up a few floors once again, and finds that Judy, now an old
woman, is still there after all these years, that the Thesulac had been
feeding off of her for decades now, building on the guilt that she had
over getting Angel killed to save herself; as the voices are gone, the
now old Judy lies down peacefully and passes away. Perhaps this is a
touch melodramatic, a little cheesy, but to me it's a poignant moment,
one that brings a certain degree of closure to the case; he saved her in
the end, but only after in part destroying her life. It's a bittersweet
victory for our DBH[tm]; the long rocky road hasn't gotten any shorter
or any easier to walk.
Throughout this episode we see a continuation of the 'Redemption' theme,
something that's been running through all of Angel's existence, and as
such it's not a particularly big surprise. This time, however, we got a
very personal view at one of the things he's fighting to make up for;
something he did as a souled creature, not as a soulless killer, not as
Angelus. It adds another layer to the already onion-like DBH[tm]. It
builds further on some of the foundations laid in 'Judgment', shows us
what his little epiphany meant to him, shows us how he's back on the
right track.
He's still not very open, despite the new friendships. His 'loner' side
is still well developed and despite Wes and Cordy he's still not really
part of the world. He's fighting his own battles, with a little help,
although sometimes asking for that little bit more might be the wise
thing to do. It may not be the DBH[tm] thing to do, though...
This episode is a brilliant piece of work; visually its stunning, the
filming, the cutting, the fades and the great use of oneshots combine to
make an outstanding episode. Add Robert Kral's evocative score, the odd
50s popular tune here and there, and you've got what amounts to nothing
less than a masterpiece. There are certain things that I get out of it
that I will not mention here, since well...I won't even give you that
much. Suffice it to say that this episode just gets better with age,
there's more to discover than may be apparent upon first viewing. Just
trust me on this one.
A New Base of Operations
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Oh, yes, and guess what: we're moving in.
A few throw pillows, what's not to love?
Thus concludes my incredibly long winded and somewhat to summary as
opposed to review-like review of this episode. Hope I didn't bore anyone
to death.
Mattia
--
"My beagle went swimming today and now he's typing on my keyboard with
his ample nose. Oh, and he's the bestest handsomeest beagle EVER."
--Tim Minear, Salon.com, May 2001