Chief Seattle Review S3 E5
Linda
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Episode title "Fredless"
First of all my apologies for being tardy with this.
Secondly (Spam warning) for those interested my new site is up and running.
It has all my season 3 reviews and a review of FFL form Buffy season 5.
I will be adding all new reviews here and in due course transferring the
reviews on the existsing site.
The url is
Finding a Place at Angel Investigations
I am of course a serial complainant when it comes to the way that Charles
Gunn was introduced into and found his place in Angel Investigations. One
moment he was the leader of his own gang hired on a case by case basis for
local knowledge and extra muscle; the next he was a part of the team and
his own gang were nowhere to be seen. There was no transition and no
attempt
to consider what the change meant for Gunn as a character. Well, it seems
that the ANGEL writers are determined to avoid similar complaints with Fred.
As a rescuee from Pylea and as someone who is still having difficulty
coming
to terms with this world, it was only natural that she should remain where
it was safe and she knew she was among friends. But as she recovered her
mental equilibrium the obvious question would be why does she remain with
Angel Investigations. Would it not be more natural for her to try to
recapture
her old life, as the best antidote to the trauma she suffered in Pylea?
As a qualified physicist would she not feel more at home in academia? And
in any event there is her family. Would they not be wondering about her?
Would they not want to re-establish contact with her? Would she not want
to see them again? The longer these last questions go unanswered, the more
problematic Fred's presence in the Hyperion becomes. So, I for one am very
glad to see them tackled now.
A Knight in Shining Armor
In season 3 so far we have already been made aware of Fred's attachment to
her cave, err...room, and her unwillingness to leave it. We have also seen
her crush on Angel. Given the fact that for five years her only refuge in
Pylea was her cave and that it was Angel who rescued her, these reactions
are not difficult to understand. But the clever thing about this episode
was the way that the writers fitted them together like pieces in a jigsaw
to give us a coherent picture of how Fred reacted to her situation
Let's look at Fred's attitude towards her home first. When she and Angel
are walking through the sewers, she feels quite comfortable:
Fred: "This has been the best night. First there's you takin' me out for
ice cream, and then there's the ice cream, and then that monster jumps out
of the freezer and you're all brave and "Fred, watch out!", and then we
get to chase it down into the sewers, which are just so bleak and
oppressive
and homey. I could build a condo down here."
Angel: "I'm glad you're having fun."
"Bleak" and "oppressive is a very odd description of what constitutes a
home-like
environment. The reason for her description of the sewers as "homey" was
obviously because it reminded her of her cave. But what was the
significance
of her cave? Angel later noted:
"She seemed pretty comfortable in the sewers - they're dark, cavelike.
She felt safe there."
And this indeed our immediate reaction. In Pylea Fred's cave was her refuge
from the monsters that pursued her. So, she would naturally want to
recreate
the look and feel of those caves in the Hyperion. That is why she covered
the bare walls of her room with the same mathematical calculations as she
had back in her cave. That is why she wanted to go even further and live
underground. But isn't there something odd about this? The caves in Pylea
may have been her refuge but by the same token they were also a symbol of
the danger she was in., If she wanted to escape from the monsters wouldn't
she want to forget all about the way that she had to hide? And after all
isn't there is a difference between saying that Fred was safe in the caves
and saying that they were her home. Indeed she makes it very clear that
they were not her home and never felt like it:
"Once upon a time there was a girl who lived all alone in a horrible cave
so far from home that it made her chest hurt. And every day in that
horrible
cave, the girl tried to figure out a way to escape."
So, why did she want above everything else to recreate that environment on
Earth? The answer came when she spoke to her parents for the first time
since being transported to Pylea.
Fred: "I was...I was five years, and so lost and at night I would... I was
all by myself and you weren't there."
Roger: "Fred, I don't understand...".
Fred: "I got lost, I got lost, they did terrible things to me but it was
just a storybook, it was just a story with monsters, not real, not in the
world, but if you're here and you see me then... then it's real, and it
did happen, if you see what they made of me... I didn't mean to get so
lost."
When confronted by a reality worse than she could bear, Fred did something
very typical of a human - she retreated from it. She built up a fantasy
world around her. In her cave with its mathematical equations she could
free herself from the horrific reality all around her and plan and dream
of escape.
Of course in the end her plans of escape came to naught and instead she was
freed from Pylea in a very unexpected way:
"one day, just like in a fairy tale, a handsome man rode up on a horse and
saved her, and took her back to his castle. Now you'd think that was the
end, wouldn'tcha? Dumb old fairy tales and their happily ever afters. But
see, the minute they got back to the castle, the handsome man went away
again. And even though she didn't mean to, didn't want to ... high up in
that castle... the girl just built herself another cave, hoping he would
save her again."
For Fred, Angel and Angel Investigations were just as much part of her
fantasy
world as the "Klingons" of Pylea. Whereas the latter threatened her, Angel
saved her and protected her. Her dependence on him was stressed from the
moment we first saw her literally counting the minutes he was away. She
was so happy when he invited her out for ice cream and as we saw she was
so impressed by his bravery and strength. But it was more than that.
Perhaps
despite Cordelia's best efforts in "Carpe Noctem" she also maintain the
illusion that Angel saw her as more than a damsel in distress - the happily
ever after was still possible. It was Buffy who had taken Angel away from
her the first time when they had returned from Pylea. It was also Buffy
who had separated them at the beginning of this episode. That was why she
was so interested in whether her Angel was going to get back together with
the girl with the goofy name.
But of course, if Angel were real and if he had really saved her from
somewhere
as terrible as Pylea then everything she had experienced there was also
real.
She would have to face up to that fact. And of course, if Angel were real
instead of some mythic champion always ready to dash to her rescue, then
Fred must have realized that she had no chance of being more to him than
"plain ol' boring ol' Fred" or the
"Nutty-ol'-goonie-bird-up-in her-room-doin'-nothin'-but-moochin'-off-Angel
Fred."
As she admitted herself, she would have no idea how someone like Angel could
put up with her.
All of this was why Fred desperately wanted to prevent reality from
destroying
her illusions. With Angel and the others she had a chance of doing this.
With her parents she had none at all. It wasn't just the fact that they
were her parents, symbols of her real life. It was the sort of people they
were too - down to earth, solid people who saw the world head on and had
few pretensions and few illusions either. There are so many small details
that bear this out like the fact that they let Fred's room after she had
been absent for four years. When we first see them, Roger takes the fact
that Wesley and the others were carrying out an inventory of mediaeval
weapons
in his stride. They both cut through evasion and obfuscation, as witness
the following exchange:
Roger: "So what exactly does Fred do for you people? It strikes me a little
odd - a physicist workin' for a detective agency."
Cordelia: "Well, Fred's ... gone through some changes."
Roger: "And whose fault is that?"
And of course there is the way that they adjust so rapidly to the shock of
the demon world and far from crumpling under pressure fully pull their
weight,
especially Trish. Is it any wonder then that when Fred sees them she
realizes
what meeting them will mean. An suddenly with Fred's reference to the
monsters
in Pylea the meaning of the Host's warning to her becomes clearer:
Host: "Yeah. You are in a bad place, aren't you, doll? You thought you could
outrun them, that maybe you were free - but those old monsters hunted you
down. I know why you're running away, Fred. And you know what your problem
is?
Fred: "I'm not strong enough to stay and face my fear?"
Host: "No. You haven't run far enough."
The monsters hunting Fred down are not her parents but the monsters from
Pylea, or at least the memory of them and what they had done to her. If
she stayed and faced the reality her parents would, in all ignorance and
innocence, have forced on her, it would have meant the destruction of the
illusions which, to Fred at least, seemed to be protecting her from the
horrors
of those memories. That was why she wanted to run. The endorsement of the
host for this course of action was surprising but he may have had his own
personal reasons for taking such a pessimistic point of view.
In any event, once Fred and her parents were reunited, Fred's course of
action
seemed to be dictated for her. Let her put things in her own words:
"I wanna go home. I'm... I'm just not cut out for this. I mean, if Angel
hadn't gotten me outta the way, you'd all be laughin', in the morgue right
now. Okay, maybe not laughin' but the point is, I think I should go back
home, where it's quiet, and safe, and monsters don't eat your family."
Without the illusions protecting her from reality, Fred felt very vulnerable
indeed. Angel had saved her life yet again. Only now she couldn't even
believe that this was because she was in some way special to him. As she
said rather matter-of-factly, it was what he did. That's all. She probably
felt that she was a burden on him, unable to contribute anything to Angel
Investigations and always at the mercy of her fears of the monsters in
Pylea.
That is why she wanted to go somewhere it was quiet and safe.
But what changed was the fact that it was Fred who saved the day in general
and Angel in particular. She was the one who figured out the truth behind
the bug attacks, that one of their number had laid eggs in the Durslar
demon's
head and when Angel brought it back to the hotel they had ended up tracking
him to reclaim the eggs. And more importantly than that, when Angel was
at a disadvantage and asking:
"Who's helpin' me here?"
it was Fred who destroyed the Durslar head with her little axe throwing
device,
thus releasing the newly hatched eggs to the adult bugs. The realization
that this event brought about within Fred was expressed in the following
terms to her parents:
"Look, I could go home with you and pretend the last five years didn't
happen.
I might even be able to pretend to have a normal life, but truth of it is,
well, I'm not normal anymore."
This was an acceptance that the monsters in Pylea were real and that they
had marked her - permanently. She had got to know enough about demons to
figure out what had happened with the bug eggs. More importantly she had
used her mechanical skills in a way that she would never even have imagined
as a "normal" physicist - to make a device which Wesley described as a
spring
loaded decapitation device. She now accepted that she did indeed have to
face reality but the fact that she was now different was reality and so
too was Angel Investigations. Remaining there was no longer a way of
preserving
her illusions but of confirming that reality. Hence we have the final
scene.
Fred's room is transformed from the cave-like den she mad made it will all
the writing on the wall into something brighter and more cheerful. This
indicates she doesn't any longer need to live in bleak and oppressive
surroundings
to maintain her illusions of a fairytale kingdom. And just as significantly
she paints over the stick figures of a hero on his horse rescuing his damsel
in distress. For her Angel would continued to be a champion but not the
knight in shining armor coming to rescue her she once needed to believe he
was.
For me, "Fredless" and its treatment of the latest recruit for Angel
Investigations
works but only to an extent. First, it avoids any niggling questions about
why Fred is still hanging around when she has a perfectly good alternative
career ahead of her. Let's face it, as a nutty old goon bird she would feel
right at home in academia. Given the problems we have seen with Gunn that
must be a major plus. Secondly, the way the writers opened up her character
for the audience was completely unexpected. As we have seen, Angel adopted
a very conventional view about why she felt attracted to her cave. It was
one I certainly shared and I suspect most other viewers as well. But as
it turns out we were wide of the mark. This shows that the writers thought
very hard about Fred and the implications of her journey to and back from
Pylea. They could after all themselves have gone for the obvious here.
But the fact that they adopted such an unexpected approach to her problems
means that the audience has to abandon its own conventional views about her
and instead think about they were saying. In particular we have to ask
ourselves
does this new take on Fred work?
Here I have to say I can certainly follow the writers analysis but I am
not completely convinced by it. As I have already said, it is entirely
understandable
that someone faced with the horrors of Pylea might choose to retreat from
reality into a pretend world. But it seems almost counter-intuitive that
Fred would maintain her pretend world even after she had escaped. LA 2001
is so very different from Pylea. It has tacos and soap. Would a person
who had convinced themselves that Pylea was all a nasty fairy tale not want
to grasp hold of the real world on Earth as a way of convincing themselves
that the different world of Pylea was not real? More importantly if a
person
did have such loving and supportive parents as Roger and Trish would she
really want to avoid them? This last point is especially problematic for
me and in many ways it is an obstacle to accepting the thesis of the episode
that I can't really get round.
The other problem with the characterization of Fred is that there is no
great
depth to it. At one point when the members of Angel Investigations are
wondering
where Fred has gone Gunn asks just what they know about her. And the answer
is not a lot. She likes tacos; she wants to live in a cave and she has a
crush on Angel. Indeed that is all we know about her and at the end of this
episode neither we nor they are any the wiser.
Having said all that, it was I think important that Fred come out of this
episode without looking whining or self-pitying and I think the writers
achieved
this end admirably. Indeed at the end of "Fredless" I like her much more
than I did at the start. A garrulous, eccentric genius is more likely to
irritate me than get me on her side. And I am notoriously resistant to
self-conscious
tugging of the sympathy strings such as setting Fred up for a fall by
showing
how big a crush she has on Angel and then letting FakeAngel play cruel
tricks
on her. The writers do not need to do that. Fred has been through a
horrific
ordeal. Her expectations for life afterwards must have been correspondingly
high, and that would in part account for her fantasies about Angel. The
disappointment of having to deal with the loss of those fantasies is
obvious;
but so too is the moral courage. That is moving in itself. For me Fred's
"Dumb old fairy tales and their happily ever afters" speech to Angel quoted
above was more real and more affecting than seeing her in floods of tears
in "Carpe Noctem."
Plot
I have noted before that one of the tricks that ANGEL as a series regularly
pulls off is to make us think we are watching one type of story only to
surprise
us with a twist that shows us we were in fact watching something very
different.
This is another example of that approach and I think a very effective one.
It was so effective because it used our own expectations against us. The
idea of bad parents - and especially bad fathers - who subvert the natural
bond of affections that should exist between parents and children is so
prevalent
in the world of both Buffy and Angel that every time we see an example of
the species we almost expect the same to be true. So, when Roger and Trish
arrived at the Hyperion looking for their daughter, we started to look for
suspicious things about them. And the writers certainly provided them.
First, when Fred sees her parents after so long a gap of time she just takes
off in panic. This is itself suspicious. As everybody agrees the very idea
of her going out into the world unaccompanied is strange. Then there was
the letter she may or may not have sent. It is certainly true that Fred
sneaking out to post a letter would be strange so they could have been lying
about that. But even if they weren't, why as Angel says would she tell her
parents not to contact her. Then there is the behavior of Roger and Trish
themselves, always muttering together. One of the few snatches we overheard
also sounded suspicious:
"We might have to call him in sooner than we thought."
And when they did start to search for Fred, her parents seemed awfully keen
to split up so they could look for her on their own. But of course the
clincher was when the Host started talking about monsters being after Fred
and the need for her to run further.
The strength of this is that everything had either a benign explanation or
was simply a case of the gang (and indeed us) reading too much into things.
After her parents did eventually catch up with her we came to understand
why she didn't want to see them and even the muttered comments eventually
came to make sense. Roger and Trish were obviously referring to their
lodger
and the need to let him know they would be needing Fred's room back.
There were only two pieces of misdirection that I could object to. The
first
was Cordelia continually saying there was something "off" about Fred's
parents
that she couldn't out her finger on only later to admit that the only thing
that was "off" about them was that nothing was "off" about them. I think
this was something of a cheat. Then there was the Host. His warning that
the monsters were still after Fred did eventually make sense. But his
advice
that she should run further did not. That suggested there was a physical
danger facing her when as we now know that wasn't the case. The other odd
thing was when he warned Angel that he needed to play the reunion carefully
because it was going to get messy. Now first of all the Host knew Angel
had the wrong idea about Fred's parents when he said:
"They found her once, they'll do it again. At least this time we can be
there
to protect her."
So, why didn't he just tell him that the parents were no danger to Fred.
Then wasn't saying things were going to get messy overstating things? How
were they going to get messy? To me that term implies a situation full of
awkward complexities with the potential for a disastrous outcome. But when
Fred was finally confronted by her fears, she was able to cope with them
without too much difficulty.
The one explanation that occurs to me for the Host's behavior here lies in
his own circumstances and not those of Fred. The attack on Caritas
obviously
took place some time ago and yet the place is still wrecked. There hasn't
even been a rudimentary attempt to clear it up. He is in a dilapidated
state
himself. Gone is the immaculate silk kimono. Instead he is wearing a cheap
bathrobe. The normally gregarious demon is actually hostile to Gunn and
doesn't want to see anyone at all and he especially doesn't want to be
reading
other people's auras:
"Bar's closed, good seein' ya, it's been fun, buh-bye."
And when pressed by Angel he is clearly preoccupied with his own concerns:
"Well I am not some mystical vending machine, here to spit out answers
every time you waltz in with a problem. I have a heart. Granted, it's
located
in my left buttcheek, but it's still a heart, and that heart is broken.
I mean, why is it nobody ever cares about my destiny? Everyone who walks
through that door is all about "me, me, me". Well, what about my me? My
me's important!"
It may be that with Caritas' reputation as a sanctuary gone, so too is the
potential clientele. Perhaps the Host has other things to worry about.
Perhaps he isn't really listening and his outlook on life is now more
pessimistic,
even to the extent of exaggerating the insolubility of problems. That would
make more sense of his role here. And it may also serve as a set up for
future developments. And that would be very neat. It would give the visit
of Rondell and his gang's to Caritas an importance that extended beyond
"That
Old Gang of Mine" and I always like to see that sort of continuity.
Anyway, we were so busy concentrating on Fred and her troubles that we saw
something of a mystery unfold before our eyes and largely ignored it. The
sight of the bug stalking Angel but not attacking should have alerted us
to the fact that there was some sort of twist coming to the plot. It was
unlikely to herald the introduction of an entirely separate "B" plot but
at the same time there seemed no connection between it and the events
surrounding
Fred. But the clever part was that there was a lot of information relevant
to the mystery right in front of our eyes. There was the unusual behavior
of the Durslar beast which we were specifically told about. There was the
presence of the crystals near where Angel found that beast and on Fred's
shirt after the bug attack. There was the fact that Angel had brought the
Durslar's head back to hotel (a very unusual move) and finally the bug
attack
itself. Of course it needed a big intuitive leap to actually piece these
clues together to make sense of them. But that is beside the point. The
point is that very little if anything was hidden from us so we really should
have known that the apparent solution of Fred's storyline would simply be
the prelude to an important twist. Indeed the fact that Fred chose to leave
with her parents was the final clue. It was unlikely that she really was
going to leave with Roger and Trish and they were now really above
suspicion.
So, what in the end would lead Fred to turn back.
But in spite of all that the writers still managed to surprise us. After
Fred had left the gang were lying around feeling a little sorry for
themselves.
It seemed nothing was amiss. But that was simply the writers lulling us
into a false sense of security because with lightning speed the members of
Angel Investigations were landed in the deepest ju-ju flops (to borrow a
phrase from the late great Douglas Adams). It was Fred's realization of
the truth that first alerted the viewer that there was a problem. But
the real twist came with the rapid sequence where first strange things
started
happening with the Durslar head while our heroes were unconscious of their
danger and then the sudden appearance of the bugs in numbers. It wasn't
just the speed but the seriousness of the danger that worked here. We had
already a graphic illustration of how hard it was to kill one of the bugs,
now they had arrived in force there seemed no escape at all. I though that
packed a terrific punch, aided I may add by the first class cgi effects.
No matter how good a set up like this looks on paper when you are trying
to realize a feeling of real danger on screen, any tension may collapse into
a fit of unintended hilarity if the cgi effect look weak. Perhaps ANGEL
is getting some benefit from its sister show's recent price hike here.
And it was the fact that there was no way for Angel and the others to fight
their way out of the situation which also for me made the denouement of the
episode so enjoyable. Throughout this episode there had been a great deal
of fun about how truly bad Angel Investigations was at the private detective
business. Gunn for example couldn't get over the fact that a real private
investigator had tracked Fred down from an unaddressed envelop (in present
circumstances FBI please note). Then they couldn't at first even work out
that Fred might go to Caritas for some guidance. As Angel said:
"Ohhhh. You mean the place she'd go for help and guidance. And we call
ourselves
detectives. I'll meet you there."
But in the end what saved them all was a piece of deductive reasoning by
Fred. Not only is this for me a very positive reaffirmation that not
everything
can or has to be solved by brute force and violence but it adds weight and
substance to Fred's realization that she does have a role in the team.
Before
she goes with her parents she describes the role that each member of Angel
Investigations has, implying that there is really no role for her. Well
perhaps, the way she solved the mystery of the bugs means that she is going
to be the only real private investigator in the firm.
B (8) This was a solid episode. In terms of characterization it was
lightweight
enough. We certainly learn nothing new about Fred. But we are at least
given a whole new perspective on her trials and tribulations and even of
I have some reservations about the writers' thesis here at the very least
we can say two things. First of all Fred had emerged as someone who is for
me a more sympathetic figure than ever before. Secondly she has beyond
peradventure
established a secure place within Angel Investigations. The real strength
of the episode though was the plot which I thought was very effective. It
contained a very nice balance of humor and drama. It was another example
of the series being able to poke a little gentle fun at itself, especially
the ay it handled the "parenthood" issues and the fact that Angel
Investigations
did not seem to be very good at investigating things. There was in this
context a very effective twist in which our expectations of the Angelverse's
parenthood issues were used against us to surprise us. And finally we had
a strong and dramatic ending. And all of this was aided by a very strong
performance by Amy Acker. She was able to switch very easily from ditzy
to confused and frightened to panicky to regret at losing something
important
and yet make them all real and believable. And as this episode turned
essentially
upon the audience believing in and having sympathy for her character, that
was key to its success.