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Episode 2.20: Go Fish | Episode 2.22: Becoming Pt. 2
Characters:
| Buffy | Angel | Xander |
| Willow | Giles | Cordelia |
| Spike | Oz |
Overall (7/10)
Buffy:
We see from the very start that Buffy is ready to end the whole Angel thing. She's wanting to take the fight to him and get it over with. That way it's not hanging over her head.
Her resolution to finish him off, though, wavers when she and Willow discover the restoration spell. Whereas before, Buffy felt she had no hope of getting her Angel back...she suddenly does.
This brings us to the wonderful scene in the library where the Scoobies argue about whether to restore Angel's soul or not. This is a debate that's almost impossible to take sides in. There's no absolute right or wrong. And every side is colored by personal feelings.
For Buffy's part, she doesn't immediately rush to cure Angel. She seems torn. She knows that Angel has done horrible things without his soul. However, yes, a part of her does want her boyfriend back. To Buffy's credit, she is able to put that desire to the side. She asks Willow to do the spell as a safeguard in case she can't kill Angel. This is a tactical decision on Buffy's part. It can't be doubted that what Buffy really wants to do is give Angel back his soul then and there.
It's also fascinating to see Buffy pre-Slayerhood. She is, as we've heard hints of, rather Cordelia-esque. Worse, even. She fumbles in her first fight with a vampire. And we see the disintegration of her parent's marriage, and the effect it has on her.
At the end, we again get Buffy falling into the "All About Buffy"-syndrome, like we did in When She Was Bad. This time, though, Angel uses this to his advantage to get her away from her friends so he can swoop in and kidnap Giles.
Angel:
This episode is All About Angel. We find out that Angel has been a pathetic loser for pretty much his entire existence. Gee, what a surprise. The guy seems to have very few redeeming qualities. As a human, he was a drunk thief who solicited prostitutes (with a horrendous accent, at that). Finally, he becomes a vampire. However, when he gets his soul, he ends up in alleys feeding on rats. He winds up pulling the stalker-guy routine on a lolita-esque Buffy. We find out in S3's Helpless that he fell in love with her then. And if that's not squick, I don't know what is. Angel has the emotional maturity of a snail.
But this does seem to be the entire point of the character. The title of the episode is "Becoming". Angel is, literally, a nobody. He's pathetic. Can he become something better than what he is now? Well, there's nowhere to go but up. Ironically enough, Angel never actually redeems himself in this season. He fights for world destruction till his soul is returned to him. Then it is up to Buffy to rise above and kill him. As far as Angel's existence up through the end of S2, he's failed at his attempt at redemption.
I wish that this history somehow made Angel more interesting, but it doesn't. It makes me wonder why the hell I should give a damn about a character so woefully inept. It doesn't help that David Boreanaz's acting skills just aren't up to the challenge of this character. I can't help but think that a more skilled actor with a better grasp of subtlety would make Angel a more interesting character. As it is, I find myself rather bored during the flashbacks (That's when I'm not being creeped by the pedophiliac past of Angel).
We also get the introduction of Whistler, the deus ex machina of this two-parter. I wish that this character had been introduced earlier in the season. Hell, I think we should have had some Angel flashbacks earlier. It would have made the drama more gripping and made the character more understandable. As it is, Whistler gets brought in at the end, and he just doesn't work for me. He feels like he's too conveniently put there to goad our characters into action.
We find out in the next part that Whistler knew that Angel had a destiny with Acathla. He assumed that Angel was going to save the world from the demon. However, we soon see that his destiny is the opposite. Imagine if we knew about this insight from the beginning of the season? That would have been a great mislead as we're geared up for Angel to be the hero, only to find him become the villain of the piece.
Unfortunately, learning about this as late as we do, it doesn't have the same affect.
Let's get to present-day Angel, though. Apparently, he stopped recruiting. And, at the beginning, we can see that he's still stalking Buffy...even when he said that he was finished with her. Now, he decides to end the world.
Angel seems to have a touch of ADD here. End the world? Seems a little strange for a guy who was so hell-bent on torturing the Slayer. This is one of the big flaws in the season's arc. Angel's interest in ending the world just seems a little too out of the blue. True, he took an interest in Innocence with The Judge, but he was just picking up on what Drusilla had already started.
Xander:
You know what I'm gonna discuss here, right? Let's just get on with it.
Xander finally gets to put his two cents in in the library scene. While hearing the others discuss the possibility of giving Angel his soul back, Xander can't help but speak up with his opinion. Any surprise what this opinion is? Xander doesn't care about the soul. He wants Angel dead. In his mind, Angel has killed and deserves to die. Forgiveness doesn't come easily to Xander.
Of course, jealousy does partially motivate Xander's actions here. Notice his final remark to Buffy about her wanting her boyfriend back. He doesn't want her boyfriend back. However, to cast aside his arguments as those made out of jealousy is to trivialize Xander's concerns.
Yes, Xander has always had it in for Angel. But he reluctantly accepted him regardless. But Xander also sees things in very black and white terms. Demons are evil. He has to believe this, otherwise he probably wouldn't be able to come to terms with killing his friend in The Harvest. Given the fact that he killed Jesse, he feels that Buffy should be able to kill Angel.
Add onto that the fact that, yes, Angel has killed Jenny, and Xander has very valid reasons for wanting him dead. He (and we) knew that Angel committed many atrocities before being cursed, but they're able to overlook that given the fact that they happened before they were born. However, Jenny's death is personal and affects them. It drives home how evil Angel can be.
Let's add onto that the concerns of "What if Angel loses his soul again?" and we see that Xander isn't too out of line for his viewpoint. Is it right? Not really. As I mentioned before, there is no right or wrong in this argument. It's right for Xander, though, and completely justifiable given his own experiences.
It is important to notice, though, that Xander does go along with Buffy's plan without any more complaint. He even wishes her luck when she's leaving at the end to meet Angel.
If you've seen the entire series, you have to have had a little shudder when Giles warns Willow about using magic. His warning comes to full fruition in S6.
However, this early on, Willow is just eager to help. She's always been supportive of Buffy. Is it any wonder that during the argument in the library, she doesn't state her own opinion? She turns to Buffy and asks what she wants to do. For Willow, Buffy's opinion is the one that matters, and she'll back her no matter what.
She is very excited to be trying the restoration spell, though, which is surely very difficult magic.
Let's start with the magic thing. From the beginning, we can see Giles' unease with Willow's interest in witchcraft. This tension continues all the way up until S6's Flooded where Willow outright threatens Giles. At this point, however, his concern is just barely touched on. But he realizes even now that Willow's nature could lead to trouble in the future.
When the issue of Angel's soul is brought up, Giles takes the middle ground. He doesn't immediately jump up and decide to give Angel his soul back. But he knows that that was what Jenny died for. If nothing else, this fact alone would convince Giles to try the restoration spell. It was the last wish of the woman he loved.
Actually, of the group, Giles is the one arguing from the most emotional place. Buffy is able to keep a hold of her own emotion to think reasonably about what would be best. Xander, while definitely speaking with reason colored by jealousy, also brings up rational points. Giles, however, is only thinking about what Jenny would have wanted.
Not that that's not a valid point. Jenny did die for that spell. There's something to be said for honoring her memory by attempting it.
As a side note, it's interesting that a high school librarian would be called in as an expert by a museum curator. This is the first hint we get that Giles actually has an academic reputation in the area.
Cordelia actually gets little to do. She supports Xander when he's taking a stand in the library. Other than that, she's just helping the rest of the Scoobies.
And Spike is very obviously not happy with the whole Acathla-gig. He takes a great amount of pleasure in Angel's failure to take the sword. While Spike may not be able to reveal his hand by fighting back physically right now, he's definitely making use of that sarcastic wit to get his point across.
His unhappiness with the Acathla plan is a direct lead-in to his truce with Buffy coming up in the next part. If you can find the original shooting script, there's actually a cut scene between Dru and Spike where Spike is gently trying to coax her out of destroying the world. As it is, James Marster's performance does the job quite well.
Oz gets one scene in this episode. It's cute, yes. But not very telling. He'll get more in the next part.
Angel and Dru want to destroy the world with this demon called Acathla. But first they need to kidnap Giles to tell them how to do it.
Angel.
Well, this is the start of the big conclusion of the arc, ladies and gents.
This is largely Angel's episode, what with the flashbacks. Unfortunately, I'm not a big Angel fan so I wasn't overly impressed with it. The non-flashback scenes, though, were a nice set-up for the following episode.
Special performance award goes to Sarah Michelle Gellar for somehow pulling off the lolita thing in Angel's flashbacks.
7 out of 10. The scene in the library bumped it up a point.
If you read this review carefully, this should be obvious. The argument in the library over whether to restore Angel's soul. It's so wonderfully done, and is such a complex argument. Kudos to Joss for not trying to sugar-coat or simplify the issues. He just lays it all out there.
Episode 2.20: Go Fish | Episode 2.22: Becoming Pt. 2
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