BtVS S8.36 "Last Gleaming" Part 1
Really I want to post vid recs but that would need code and this is easier for the html challenged.
So this is the end my beautiful friend. Except it’s the beginning, or even before the beginning. Enter Angel, stage left, crashing through the ‘O’ in Hollywood but at least this time he kept his clothes on the way back from hell. Anyway, Hollywood. Is this the one about tough sledding in the chorus until the star breaks her ankle? Or that was the Broadway dream, this is the one where he’s walking the dog and a casting director comes right up to him and tells him to audition for this new little show on the WB. Except now the casting director is the dog but he still gets the part. He’ll have to change his name of course, learn how to talk (like Superman) how to dress (who is that masked man), how to fly. Stardom can turn a boy’s head. Every Don Lockwood needs his Cosmo if he’s not to turn into another Lina Lamont. Angel’s lost touch with his though. Spike entering stage right and in a different movie all together. A funnier one, more of a cult sci fi hit, its star still able to go under the radar, while everyone wants to talk to Angel. Tinkers, tailors, passing avians.
Skip to the now, a lifetime in Hollywood later and Angel’s big comeback movie has crashed and burned. Like Ishtar, like Heaven’s Gate. Despite the most (human) costly publicity campaign ever, Twilight emptied its theatre before even the opening credits had a chance to role. Stardom, however, has its own protective inertia, look at Tom Cruise, look at Norma Desmond. Angel still preparing for his close up and this movie is old school, black and white, silent, the dialogue belongs on title cards. George can write this crap but nobody can say it. Not sure Buffy can, she keeps a straight face talking about the last time she saw Spike or how the demons they released will target slayers but in the more romantical scenes she looks like Veruca Salt gurneying for Willy Wonka’s goose. It works however. Norman Maine heads out to sea leaving Esther to face the music back on ship.
Genre flip, tragedy to comedy. This is screwball romance, meet cute, hate at first sight. Although not first sight this is Hildy facing up to Walter, lovers who know each other too well. The Awful Truth not It Happened One Night. Really no more real than The Dueling Cavalier but intentionally funnier and I fall for it every time. First round goes to Spike. Buffy’s stopped smiling, she’s holding herself rather like the time when the realisation that the future was real hit her in Frayworld. It’s been her bestest weirdest best weird day and nobody she knows has died since she came back to save them all but she’s not in Twilight now, it’s not Daffy Duck land and she isn’t Bugs Bunny able to fix everything in a re-write. Back to earth, back to Sunnydale, back to the Master and the seed of all wonder. It matches his eyes.
The Master is old Hollywood, Nosferatu old. “My first gift will be my last." Death was her Gift but he gave it to her. The other possessed dialogue fits him as well. Referring to Buffy as that cheerleader. Calling Angel simple. Speaking in prophecies. Setting them up to be self-fulfilling.
So this is the end my beautiful friend. Except it’s the beginning, or even before the beginning. Enter Angel, stage left, crashing through the ‘O’ in Hollywood but at least this time he kept his clothes on the way back from hell. Anyway, Hollywood. Is this the one about tough sledding in the chorus until the star breaks her ankle? Or that was the Broadway dream, this is the one where he’s walking the dog and a casting director comes right up to him and tells him to audition for this new little show on the WB. Except now the casting director is the dog but he still gets the part. He’ll have to change his name of course, learn how to talk (like Superman) how to dress (who is that masked man), how to fly. Stardom can turn a boy’s head. Every Don Lockwood needs his Cosmo if he’s not to turn into another Lina Lamont. Angel’s lost touch with his though. Spike entering stage right and in a different movie all together. A funnier one, more of a cult sci fi hit, its star still able to go under the radar, while everyone wants to talk to Angel. Tinkers, tailors, passing avians.
Skip to the now, a lifetime in Hollywood later and Angel’s big comeback movie has crashed and burned. Like Ishtar, like Heaven’s Gate. Despite the most (human) costly publicity campaign ever, Twilight emptied its theatre before even the opening credits had a chance to role. Stardom, however, has its own protective inertia, look at Tom Cruise, look at Norma Desmond. Angel still preparing for his close up and this movie is old school, black and white, silent, the dialogue belongs on title cards. George can write this crap but nobody can say it. Not sure Buffy can, she keeps a straight face talking about the last time she saw Spike or how the demons they released will target slayers but in the more romantical scenes she looks like Veruca Salt gurneying for Willy Wonka’s goose. It works however. Norman Maine heads out to sea leaving Esther to face the music back on ship.
Genre flip, tragedy to comedy. This is screwball romance, meet cute, hate at first sight. Although not first sight this is Hildy facing up to Walter, lovers who know each other too well. The Awful Truth not It Happened One Night. Really no more real than The Dueling Cavalier but intentionally funnier and I fall for it every time. First round goes to Spike. Buffy’s stopped smiling, she’s holding herself rather like the time when the realisation that the future was real hit her in Frayworld. It’s been her bestest weirdest best weird day and nobody she knows has died since she came back to save them all but she’s not in Twilight now, it’s not Daffy Duck land and she isn’t Bugs Bunny able to fix everything in a re-write. Back to earth, back to Sunnydale, back to the Master and the seed of all wonder. It matches his eyes.
The Master is old Hollywood, Nosferatu old. “My first gift will be my last." Death was her Gift but he gave it to her. The other possessed dialogue fits him as well. Referring to Buffy as that cheerleader. Calling Angel simple. Speaking in prophecies. Setting them up to be self-fulfilling.