So yeah. Thoughts on Once More, With Feeling if you didn't quite catch it: Great episodes, some really catchy songs listened to some on YouTube, got spoiled about something that will surely happen this season in the sidebar recommended videos while listening to "I've Got a Theory", chuckled at myself for still being stupid about looking things up.
A little under halfway through Buffy Season 6/Angel Season 3.
Angel Season 3, Episode 8: The Quickening
This episode was purely set up, and I don't like that too much. The characters are great as always, but I don't like the Angel/Cordelia romance angle too much, and this baby birthing business is getting drawn out, though understandably I guess. This is a big deal. But yeah, there was a whole lot of setup and a whole lot of not much else, and that never sits well with me.. Darla is going through labor and that will probably take all of next episode, and then she'll finally give birth in the episode after that. She must be giving birth to the Kamehameha. (fun fact: Kamehameha is recognized as a real word in my computer's spell check. Is it a real word?)
Buffy Season 6, Episode 9: Smashed
This was a really interesting episode. I like where they are going with the Willow heel turn, bringing Amy back to help facilitate it while Tara is out of the picture. Also, Tara and Dawn's relationship is creepy. Tara is treating her like a lesbian lover too, which is odd. The Buffy/Spike thing took a good turn. I'm not too excited about this arc, but this newly discovered kink added of Buffy not being quite human and them just beating the **** out of each other before doing the dirty has me a little more excited about where they could go with it. Seeing vicious Spike again was refreshing. But yeah that final scene where Buffy and Spike are having at it in the abandoned house was really well done and I enjoyed it a bunch.
What do you mean, Tara is treating Dawn like a lesbian lover?
Tara is kind of like an adopted mother for Dawn. She's like an estranged parent now that she broke up with Willow and has left the house. Sounds like you completely misread that scene with the milkshakes >_>
I think it's really interesting how Spike could kill Buffy now, but that's not what he ended up doing. The scene where he tries to kill that one girl was so awkward too. Like he wasn't a killer let off his chain that immediately reveled in killing. It seemed like he was trying to convince himself he's still that killer and work himself up to it. He did end up going for the kill but it just didn't seem like him.
--
The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
Eh, I knew the intent of the Tara Dawn interactions, I guess I just forgot to mention that in my hurried writing. My comment was meant to say that it felt more suddenly overly intimate. I don't remember too many scenes where a point was made to show Tara as a mother to Dawn before those ones, though I'm sure they were there.
--
snowpork Zazi is posting from his cellular telephone
Also yeah I agree on the Spike point and I thought that was the direction they were going to go with it before it turned out the chip was still working.
--
snowpork Zazi is posting from his cellular telephone
Eh, I knew the intent of the Tara Dawn interactions, I guess I just forgot to mention that in my hurried writing. My comment was meant to say that it felt more suddenly overly intimate. I don't remember too many scenes where a point was made to show Tara as a mother to Dawn before those ones, though I'm sure they were there.
Dawn was basically being looked after by Tara and Willow (which lets be honest, was probably more Tara than Willow) while Buffy was dead. So basically that development happened between seasons. There are some little things but Tara is Tara (with all her family issues) so she backed off more when Buffy returned. Whenever Tara and Dawn interact without Buffy around you can see it more.
--
"Hope is allowed to be stupid, unwise, and naive." ~Sir Chris
Spotify is pretty awesome. It's got the Once More, With Feeling soundtrack on it. I should've consulted Spotify before YouTube. That way I wouldn't know Tara dies (though I figured she would since she is a character ripe for killing). Spotify truly does have practically every recorded and released song in the world.
This actually went along better than I thought it would. Holtz is really hard to get a read on, and that makes him a really intriguing character. He's a man twisted by vengeance working for the bad guys, but they always tease his shift towards morality. They did that here at the end, saying Holtz isn't going to show mercy, and I'm not quite sure what he means of that other than making Angel suffer by destroying his kid or something. I'm excited to see that come to light.
I enjoyed Darla's death, I mean, as much as you can enjoy death. They gave her an ending monologue, and a cool lead to it with "This child is the only good thing we ever did together...tell him that *STAB DUST*" I thought it was really well done.
The prophecy is a confusing mess and I'll be excited to see it get figured out.
Dammit why do they keep destroying Caritas? Lorne needs a home now. MAYBE HE CAN STAY WITH ANGEL INVESTIGATIONS AND WORK WITH THEM AND BE IN EVERY EPISODE BECAUSE HE'S AWESOME YES YES YES.
My only hope right now is that this baby doesn't become deadweight and hold Angel back. Excluding some crazy accelerated growth rules, I don't see how they have a child around for two and a half more seasons, so I'll be interested to see how they handle that.
So I found out today that Andy Hallett, aka Lorne, is dead. I just wanted to see what he looked like without the makeup on, and I find that. :( At least I managed to do so without spoiling anything for myself! But yeah, that's deeply saddening.
It is really sad, he was very talented. He wasn't even an actor or anything, he was the personal assistant to Joss Whedon's wife. They went out of drinks or something to some club and they were all just having a good time singing karaoke, they all saw Andy Hallett sing something. After this Joss wrote the Host for him to play on Angel.
--
The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
This was kind of an intense episode at the end. Amy seems like a ***** and I hope she gets hers soon. You had to feel bad for Dawn while everything was going on. The relationship between Buffy and Spike is an interesting one. It's weird how we were forced to infer that Buffy had gone over to Spike's crypt the night before, because they made a lot of hints towards it but never came right out and said it. It would've been easy to assume they were talking about what happened in the abandoned house. This was an okay episode, but not one I seem to be remembering too fondly.
Buffy Season 6, Episode 11: Gone
Invisible Buffy and rather than freak out, she embraces it and ****s with the brain of the social services lady and ****s Spike. Willow reverts back to super sleuth, which is eh. It seemed a little too easy for her to figure everything out. Now that Andrew, Warren, and Jonathan are figured out, I wonder how much longer The Trio have. I liked seeing Warren's mean streak there for a bit. An okay episode as well, though both of these have been slight letdowns from OMWF, Tabula Rasa, and Smashed.
Angel Season 3, Episode 10: Dad
Oh sweet Lorne moved in just like I hoped. Hopefully it's an extended stay. Lorne is such an important member of the Angel Investigations team and I'm so glad he embraced the role of helping them without ambiguity or catches now. He is the reason why that baby is safe, dammit. If he didn't figure out that Wolfram and Hart had the placed bugged, they would've never hatched the plan to keep the baby safe. It was interesting how committed everyone was to executing the plan. The only hint ever given was the note put in Angel's pocket. Honestly though, it's amazing how inept W&H are considering they have the ENTIRE HYPERION (save a janitor's closet) bugged. How have they yet to stop the AI team? Holtz is a very interesting villain, and I understand why he killed the demon mercenaries. That was awesome of him. But who is this Justine girl, and why did they make it a point to focus on her sister Julia a bit? As far as I recall, a Julia never showed up in Angel. Ahh well.
Angel Season 3, Episode 11: Birthday
The biggest thing to note from this episode is that it gave us more Skip. Skip is such a cool cat. It would've been cool to see him make an begrudging comments towards Angel given the way he got beaten up by him. But yeah, this was basically "The Wish" 2.0, but it wasn't as good as The Wish. It started interesting, but it got boring as soon as Skip gave Cordy her ideal life. And it reminded me of how much I missed Doyle. I was hoping for a bit that Lorne would be the one to get the visions, but I guess it's good that Cordelia got them. Keep her important. I didn't like how she had no trouble with them, though. Doyle was half-demon and he still got headaches. I'll be very interested to see where Cordelia's half-demon part shows up. Also, what the hell was Gunn's comment towards Fred? They better not start a love feud with Gunn-Wesley-Fred. That would be so annoying, especially while this Angel-Cordelia crap will be going on. Anyways, give me more Skip.
Holy **** this was the worst episode in awhile. So boring. A horrible MotW and no advancement of any of the character storylines. Buffy and Spike still have taboo sex. Willow is still having trouble with magic. Amy is still a *****. Anya and Xander continue to show doubts about their marriage. Dawn is still young and just there. Giles is still needs to come back because he's the best character on the show. The episode wasn't even all that funny. Get Buffy out of craptastic DMP and get her into some better job.
Angel Season 3, Episode 12: Provider
In this episode, my fears came to light. Wesley and Gunn are going to fight for the affection of Fred. Oh whoopie. Angel continues to obsess over his newfound fatherhood, which is understandable. Him caring so much about money just seems a little out of character. The guy has been alive for over two centuries. You'd think by now he'd have learned about the world and how to survive in it and be confident in at least that knowledge. But yes, I guess it's still understandable. I'll be glad once these "oh my god I have a baby" reactions end, though. I'm just paranoid that this baby is going to weigh Angel's character down. Also, Angel and Cordelia getting close. Not fun. All three cases were rather uninteresting, too. A down episode.
Yeah, you just went through a couple of the worst Buffy episodes, sorry. It didn't seem like you thought they were that bad, tho, which is good news. It definitely picks up from here, at least better than ****ing Doublemeat Palace. XD
I like Doublemeat palace because it nails working in a fast food place perfectly and it's funny seeing Buffy of all people thrown in there. In the words of Xander, I've swam these murky waters.
--
The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG
But who is this Justine girl, and why did they make it a point to focus on her sister Julia a bit? As far as I recall, a Julia never showed up in Angel. Ahh well.
A return to form for Buffy with this episode. I'm enjoying watching Warren continue to become more and more twisted. I also enjoyed watching Andrew begin to go along with him, and Jonathan staying reluctant to do so. The strained Buffy/Dawn relationship is interesting enough, and understandable. Normally I haven't liked "real life" problems on Buffy like money issues or family problems, but this is holding my interest for now. Buffy's internal struggles are even more interesting, and Spike being completely selfish about all of it contributes heavily to that. Seeing Buffy break down because there is nothing abnormal that would be making her embrace Spike's affection was actually pretty powerful, so props for that.
Angel Season 6, Episode 13: Waiting in the Wings
Another return to form. Despite it being romance-centric, I actually found myself caring about the relationships that were forming, so I'm rather impressed there. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of Angel/Cordelia, but ouch did that sting seeing the Gruuselag back. I guess it helps that a relationship I disliked more than Angel/Cordy was Cordy/stonefacedlonghairuglyguy. You can put me in team Angel/Cordy for right now. And then again, I really felt bad for Wesley seeing Gunn and Fred kissing. Those two (Gunn/Fred) are an odd couple right now, since it's brawn vs. brains whereas the Wesley/Fred brain and brain thing would seem more normal. This isn't a complaint, though. I'll reserve judgment until I see where these relationships get taken. Oh, and them girls was lookin' fiiiiiine this episode. It's too bad this wasn't an HBO show. Hello Charisma Carpenter breasts.
Sorry about that.
The song line from Lorne to Connor about not getting invited the play was amazing. I laughed pretty hard. I actually laughed quite a bit during this episode, though I can't quite remember the reasons for the other times. Also, Summer Glau was that dancer girl from the beginning of the play, no? When I saw her in the ending credits, that's where I thought it might've been her right away. I went back and checked and couldn't quite tell. Maybe it's just because I was looking for River Tam. Either way, great episode.
It's funny how "Waiting in the Wings" original purpose was to showcase Amy Acker's dancing talents (and Denisof's lack thereof) and she never got to dance. Instead, it introduced Summer to the world, and the 'verse was saved. There is a cutscene, but I do not
Repeat: DO NOT
Search for it until you finish all of Angel. There are massive spoilers in the related videos for every link I've tried.
Again, do NOT search out this scene.
I could not post this, but I fear someone else would come in and say something about the scene and I wanted to prevent you from seeing massive spoilers.
--
“So we’ve cornered Andy and Kyle in the Swarts stairwell and then this guy comes out of NO WHERE like ****ing Batman or something.” ; ExTha is the man
Oh, you are right. She is the dancer throughout. I just didn't recognize her with the accent and all that makeup. Again, I was just looking for River Tam, so that was my problem. I managed to do a Google image search, Mana. Are you talking about an actual scene of Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof dancing?
Also, my River quote sig needs to come up more often in this topic.
An actual dance scene cut from the episode. Again, do not search for it now. Wait until the end of Angel. Seriously.
Unless you've got the DVDs and the Extras on Season 3; then wait until probably the end of Season 3, I think.
--
“So we’ve cornered Andy and Kyle in the Swarts stairwell and then this guy comes out of NO WHERE like ****ing Batman or something.” ; ExTha is the man
I can wait for the end of Angel. No biggie. The only thing I know about later seasons is that Connor becomes a big deal (which isn't really that hard to guess, anyways). I intend to keep it that way.
--
snowpork I wanna be a SuperNiceDog when I grow up!