Angel || 4x09 || Discussion
Added 2023-01-04 20:20:01 +0000 UTC4x09: "Long Day's Journey"
Next: Angel 4x10 on Sat 1/7
GWEN IS BACCCCC!!! YESSSS SLAYYY MISS MA'AM I LOVE YOU!
And then Cordy comes bacc with a vision but BOOM ITS ACTUALLY A FUCKING MEMORY??? SHUT UPPPP. I am actually losing it thinking about where this can go... AHHH I AM SO HYPE!!!
hope yall enjoyyyy :D
Comments
@John Alexander I mean, that's debatable and actually easily refuted, but it's a spoiler...
Stargazer1682
2023-01-24 05:57:29 +0000 UTCExcept the fact that Angelus has memories that Angel doesn't completely contradicts this idea. Angelus & Angel being separate entities is the reason why one has the memories & one doesn't. The reality is that there isn't one "real" way that the whole vampire/soul/humanity works. It works however the writers need it to work at any given time
John Alexander
2023-01-24 05:01:05 +0000 UTCI love this season. It’s always been my favorite
Will
2023-01-14 02:18:29 +0000 UTCnot for me The Most Entertaining Season for me is Season 5
Lia Garcia
2023-01-08 00:11:00 +0000 UTCNo, that flies in the face of... everything either show has established. The analogy with "Who Are You" undermines your own argument that there's a distinction between entities; when the entire premise of Angel's arc is that he deserves to feel the guilt for his actions when he didn't have a soul. If "Angel" is not the same entity as "Angelus" - as in Angel is actually Liam only remembering the things the "the demon" did, he has no reason to feel guilty, he has no reason to atone, his entire arc is pointless. "Who Are You" and "Carpe Noctem" demonstrates that the the consciousness itself is its own mystical energy matrix, which can MAYBE be qualified as a katra, and can itself be transferred between bodies; and contains the personality, memories, and core essence of a person. There was no demon consciousness transferred between Angel and the old man; the old man didn't realize he was a vampire right away - for that matter, neither did Spike, when he lost his memory in "Tabula Rasa." There was no "demon" whispering in their ear, no demonic compulsion. "I've Got You Under Your Skin" establishes two precedents, which is that a human without a soul 1 ) has memories and their own personality, meaning a soul and consciousness are not mutually exclusive in the Buffyverse and are two separate things (which tracks with how Buffy could remember being in heaven, but vampires who've been re-ensouled, like Angel, Spike and Darla, have no additional memories of being anywhere else. 2) A human without a soul becomes capable of such a level of evil as to terrify an Ethros demon and make him pray for death when he gets trapped in Ryan; meaning, there doesn't even *need* to be a demon - you just need to remove a human's soul. Mutate them into something that's part human, part demon and give them a thirst for human blood and you've made an already bad situation worse. What Giles and Buffy contend in season 1 of Buffy is contradicted over and over after that - but there's a logical reason why they would make that argument, because it's a practical, strategic mentality to have. If you convince yourself that no part of the human remains, it's a very dispassionate way of allowing you to kill them. If you can't do that, like Buffy couldn't bring her to do in "Innocence" with Angel, that hesitation, because she was too invested in who he was, put everyone at risk. Under any other circumstance, that could have been a fatal move for her; and it ended up being one for Jenny. And Theresa, and a lot of others. If Buffy accepted the lie at that critical moment, she would have saved a lot of lives, at least in the short run.
Stargazer1682
2023-01-07 07:08:59 +0000 UTCWhat Henrik said. The notion of the vampire being a completely separate entity mainly comes down to Giles' dialog in the first (two-part) episode of Buffy, where he says that vampire Jesse is not Xander's friend, but is merely the thing that killed him, even if it has his memories and can mimic his personality. (there are a few other lines along these lines, but the same basic idea) Best interpretation seems to be that memories and certain basic tastes are stored in the physical brain, but "free will" acting on those tastes and memories comes from something else, which is the essence of what you are, the thing that persists into a heaven/hell dimension in the afterlife. For human beings, that "something else" is the human soul. For the vast majority of vampires, that "something else" is a demon that possessed the body at the moment it was sired. In the case of ensouled vampires like Angel and/or Spike, the human soul is restored, but we are left to speculate to what extent the demon is still present as a conflicting "free will" vs whether the only remaining influence is the vampiric physical desire for human blood. I like this interpretation of the lore, in particular because it means that William the poet was such a fundamentally good person that, even after ~130 years, the purely physical influence of his brain's habits were enough to compel Spike the demon to seek the restoration of his human soul in order to properly love Buffy,
Jeff Cornell
2023-01-07 06:26:27 +0000 UTCWell played sir!
Oxmustube
2023-01-06 02:44:30 +0000 UTCAnd it keeps getting better from here on out and doesn’t ever let up! Even with the c/c 🤮 thing this is still at the very least the most entertaining season imo.
Sun
2023-01-06 00:59:20 +0000 UTCWell it depends on if what defines the You is only your memories or if it is something more. Because everything with Vampires in BuffyVerse, including the Darla arc, can be explained by retained memory by whatever currently possesses the body. What if the device Faith used in "This Year's Girl" hadn't also transferred the memory when it transferred the "You" and e.g Buffy would have remembered everything that Faith did when possessing her body, would we then accuse Buffy of sexually assaulting Riley? I have a hard time believing that people would, so why handle Angel/Angelus differently?
Henrik Holst
2023-01-06 00:49:43 +0000 UTCI always suspected editor Alley lacked a soul 😱
Shashank
2023-01-05 22:58:26 +0000 UTCI mean, here again, Angelus isn't "the demon inside of" Angel; Angel and Angelus are the same person with an altered psyche without a soul. While there are a couple of mentions in the first season of Buffy of a vampire not really being the person that's been turned, and that a demon is walking around in their body; this has effectively been refuted by the narrative of both stories. Darla's arc on Angel alone is proof of this, in the way that her transition from human, to vampire, to human and back to vampire was linear, albeit with a mind fuck with the presence of a soul. And it didn't even have to be her soul. The effect of Connor's soul didn't bestow a new identity, but still effectively gave her the same benefit of the altered perspective that comes with having a soul. Why Angel doesn't remember he beast and all of the questions surrounding the events of this episode is a mystery to still be solved. But the distinction would be like asking you a question and you saying, "I don't know, ask Editor Alley."
Stargazer1682
2023-01-05 20:20:43 +0000 UTCCornor.
lurker1316
2023-01-05 16:08:16 +0000 UTCTo answer your "what happened with the portal" question Alley, I think he just facetanked it and didn't give a fuck, it looked like it worked for about a second and then he just came right back to show them how utterly little it mattered and do his plan anyway. With things like that and the kinda cocky, sneery attitude he has despite the few lines, regardless of how one feels about the Connor/Cordy stuff, I think "the beast" as he has become known (weird they all just start calling him that but I guess he needs a name) is a really, really cool design despite on paper just being your classic horned, cloven hoofed big demon guy. He just emanates menace... when he isn't like, jumping out of a window in a slightly poorly done way in this ep haha. He/it elevates this run of episodes a lot imo and gives it this ominous feeling the Buffyverse doesn't often have where the heroes are just on a massive, continuous multi episode losing streak. I think the only others times are like, when they have no idea wtf they're gonna do about Glory, when Angel is Angelus and killing people for half the season in Buffy S2 or when Angel is going all dark in S2 of his own show and fires the team. Sorta related to all the above one of the reasons I fell in love with the Buffyverse back in the day was the really cool demon designs like the hospital demon thing in S2, the Gentlemen obviously, things like that. Done with practical effects and makeup quite often as well. I think Angel mostly carries on with that throughout but (and I feel this might be a controversial opinion) I think Buffy Season 6 and 7 kinda moved away from it, to their detriment, and leant on just generic vampires a little too often in the later years. You still had occasional great designs like Sweet, Gnarl and the Ubervamp in his initial appearance where he was this terrifying monster but mostly when I think of cool monsters in Buffy, they're nearly all from pre Season 5. It kinda makes the world feel smaller weirdly when the show is clearly trying to go bigger in Season 7 with the First and the potentials and stuff, it feels like the First should have more weird minions than it does so far. Or like weird stuff should be bubbling up more because evil is ascendant and capital D Demons like D'Hoffryn are going "from beneath you it devours" all ominously.
Kongolor
2023-01-05 11:05:28 +0000 UTC53:25 “that’s why he’s a big, broody bitch” 😂🤣
Lostmyshoe22
2023-01-05 10:35:20 +0000 UTCClearly, they want us to build a bridge.
Shaun Houghton
2023-01-05 09:48:13 +0000 UTCI hear Cangle alot, but I always preferred Corgy.
The Mad Titan
2023-01-05 08:26:05 +0000 UTCSo what is the name of the Connor Cordelia ship? Condelia?
Mark Zima
2023-01-05 07:16:05 +0000 UTCThere is something that we, the audience, are supposed to add, in our minds, to the title: "Long Day's Journey" that makes it more meaningful. There is a very famous play by Eugene O'Neill that has the title: "Long Day's Journey Into Night." And of course, with the blotting out of the sun, this episode was indeed a journey into night. So we are supposed to get that unsaid part of the title in our own minds even though it wasn't fully written out.
Mark Zima
2023-01-05 07:11:28 +0000 UTCShe is probably trolling, she seemed more into Cangel which I despise unfortunately. I hate when the main leads kind of get forced into ships that kind of appear out of nowhere
Phoenix Dawn
2023-01-05 07:10:54 +0000 UTCWow, I have never met anyone that has said they loved the Conner/Cordy storyline. There have been a few people, very few, that have come out and said that they looked past it or that it was misunderstood, things of that nature. I am happy that someone truly enjoyed that part of the storyline. I am sure you aren't the only one you know either. That's a wonderful thing about the show. It can be looked at and enjoyed in so many different ways, but part of me feels like you're trolling.
The Mad Titan
2023-01-05 05:31:26 +0000 UTCThe fact that it got brighter in your room after Connor says "it gets dimmer, right? lol Can we talk about Wesley? Just think about his character on Buffy and in the first season on Angel. He's changed so much it was like he was re-cast.
Dusty
2023-01-05 04:25:01 +0000 UTCSeason 4's best yet to come and it is already really fun watching the build up!
Phoenix Dawn
2023-01-05 04:10:11 +0000 UTCYou think the writers had a hidden message for the fans with 'Get over it"?
Oxmustube
2023-01-05 03:29:31 +0000 UTCGwen and Manny are both amazing. I also feel like this episode makes a lot more sense once you’re seen the whole season. And a great ending to the episode but I’m immediately sad when I see the Glenn Quinn thing. RIP Glenn
Ray D
2023-01-05 01:12:30 +0000 UTCI will admit I'm not the biggest Angel fan, though I do love the characters, but this is a great season. I'm so freaking excited for you to see the rest of it! Also, I most definitely have a crush on Gwen, and I really enjoyed C&A's petty-thon this episode.
Ava Sinclair
2023-01-05 00:36:55 +0000 UTC
