Angel 5.19 Underneath - End of Days essay
For my official End of Days entry, I present this essay on episode 5.17: Underneath.
Underneath as an episode is really not meant to be watched. I hate to say it, but it's true. The direction is horrible, the emotional emphasis is in all the wrong places, and LA's skyline has visible seams in it. This is not Angel at its best by a long shot.
I've already commented elsewhere on some of the specific failings of the ep story-wise, but just to do a quick summary basically what we have is a large mistake in thinking that the audience would in any way be that invested in saving Eve, very bad handling of the direction on Wes and Illyria (the humor is forced to try to be funny in spite of music cues that indicate otherwise and Illyria's dialogue is far too long and boring), and in general an ep where all of the good punches have their legs kicked out from under them by either being telegraphed from a million miles away, or by being presented in the wrong fashion (jokes are presented dramatically, drama is presented as jokes).
But to a large extent that's not the show's fault. The news of cancellation hit more or less between eps 5.16 and 5.17, so we're seeing a cast and crew that's trying to buck up under difficult circumstances, and try to put together an amazing finale while having the budget of about fifty cents and a pack of gum (the latter of which was used to hold the LA skyline together, post-chewing).
However, if we step away from what the episode looked like (which sadly means moving away from Alexis Denisof's pretty, pretty eyes... though we can still watch those by freeze framing his bits and keeping the sound on the ep turned down in the meanwhile) and focus on what the episode was, what we actually have is something that's pretty good, especially in terms of the Angelverse and what kinds of issues need to be addressed as part and parcel of setting up the end of the show.
What Underneath does is sit down and deal with the true symbolism of morality in the Angelverse. What's good? What's evil? What makes us good or evil? Who is Angel and the gang in relation to the big fight, and what makes them the good guys?
In short, the answer is that life sucks, but that's the point. Now let's get into some detail.
The words "the hardest thing in this world is to live in it" are now a painful Buffyverse cliche, but the irony is that the sentiment is actually Angel's. The concept makes its first significant appearance in Amends, the episode where Angel is forced to look at who he is as a person and decide if he's worth saving. Angel being Angel, he opts for the easier solution of suicide. He wants to end the fight, because he has no hope and it's too hard to try. It's Buffy, the show's hero, who stops him from doing this and who tells him that life is fighting. Life is trying. Angel must keep fighting and living, because that is what makes him good. If he gives up and dies, then all he'll ever be is a monster.
This is a lesson that Angel takes to heart. From that point forward though he strays from the path from time to time, but his moral center is always on that struggle. He may not believe that he deserves it (as his difficulty with the Shanshu in season 5 shows), but he believes in trying to earn redemption.
The key thing is that Angel believes it not only for himself, but for other people. Angel the show is filled entirely with characters who at the very least believe themselves to be outcasts, and most of whom believe they've done something wrong that they need to atone for. (Even Cordelia, who later admits she thinks the pain of her visions is punishment for her previously shallow ways.) To a one Angel accepts them, brings them under his wing, and treats them with respect. He doesn't get involved with blaming them, or with self-pity. Instead he focuses them on the task: acknowledge the wrongdoing, then fix it.
It's a trait of Angel's that we see in this very episode, as he talks to Gunn about what it means to live with the guilt for killing Fred. Within that conversation, we also get a key to understanding what it means to be good in the Angelverse: Know that there is badness, and care about it. Angel believes that Gunn is a good person because Gunn suffers over what he did to Fred. But being good is more than suffering, it's doing. Gunn has to actively atone, actively work to not accept that darkness inside, and instead try to make things better.
This is a message that Lindsey later repeats. Heroes don't accept, heroes fight. (Which of course harkens back to the very lesson Angel tells Connor back in Deep Down. Champions live in the world the way it should be.)
This isn't an easy task. It's not meant to be, and that's something that's also highlighted within the ep. Angel tells Gunn that it hurts as much as it does because he's a good guy. Later on Lindsey reveals that people in the Wolfram & Hart holding dimension can only be hurt as much as they think they should be hurt - which again means that Gunn as a good guy is going to suffer more than Lindsey did.
But, as Buffy pointed out in Amends it's the fight that matters - and this is why it was so crucial that Angel the series ended in the middle of a fight scene. Angel is never about an actual ending. The canon would never and should never show us Angel finally getting a chance to retire to a home with a white picket fence and the ship partner of your choice. That's not the story this show is telling. In real life we don't get progress reports and messages from the Powers letting us know that our struggle is done. In real life we just keep struggling and living, and that's exactly what Angel does.
It's worth noting how the world of the Angelverse is part and parcel of this symbolism, and that's also something highlighted in this ep. Hell is earth, as Lindsey indicates and Holland Manners first told us back in season two. But by the same token, Hell isn't earth, and the reason why it's not is that yes, life on earth sucks. It's difficult, painful, gritty, chaotic, and horrible but it's real. It's ours. It's as good or bad as we choose to make it, and that choice is in our own hands.
After all, look at the three glimpses the show has given us of a "Heaven/Hell" senario. In s2 it's Pylea, which on paper has everything the gang would want but in reality is the worst place for them. In s4 it's Jasmine, who brings about peace on earth but only through death and slavery. In s5 it's Lindsey's holding dimension, which is a perfect suburbia except for the part where being trapped there is what kills you over and over and over again.
True happiness and goodness in the Angelverse isn't about being able to retire from battle, or finding out that you made it to the finish line. These things are false, and only serve as distractions from the problems of the world. No, in the Angelverse it's all about the negative space. We can have happiness and goodness but only in contrast to all the misery and evil that's around. As Angel's s2 epiphany tells us, when nothing you do matters, all that matters is what you do. The good deeds done under Jasmine's control don't matter as much as the good deeds voluntarily done by those who actually want to be good.
Wes talks about this bit of symbolism during his conversation with Illyria on the rooftop. Illyria, the former all-powerful being, can't cope with a life "boxed in" and limited. But Wes tells her that for humans this how they live. They can't handle the bigger truths of the universe, but they can work on the small scale. Naturally Illyria isn't impressed by this, but Wes still feels that humanity is something to be proud of anyway.
Throughout the ep, then, we get snapshot views of how everyone is dealing with both the big picture external struggle of good and evil, and the internal struggle. Through that, we also get foreshadowing of how it will end up. Lorne can't cope with reality anymore and sinks into the world of lies, which predicts him abandoning the fight after he kills Lindsey in Not Fade Away. Angel and Spike are heros, and will keep fighting because that's what heroes do.
Wes and Gunn prove interesting, in that the two of them had reversed fates. Back when there was supposed to be a season six, Gunn was the one on the docket for dying (which was heavily foreshadowed during the season, and J. August Richards confirmed that in later interviews). Symbolically this works perfectly as Gunn's act of self-sacrifice by staying in the holding dimension shows that Gunn accepts that sometimes the good fight means giving up everything. Gunn dying in the final battle would have been a natural extension of this.
But the show was canceled, which meant switching to a different level of symbolism for the final story to be told. Wesley, who has alwyas been the symbolic representation of the human damage that Angel sustains as a part of his struggle, had to die in the last battle that we ever see. If the show had gone on to a season six, seven, or even eight Wes would have died then. This then ties the emotional core of the show right back where it always belongs: with the guy who's got his name on the title. Gunn's death and the Gunn-specific meaning therein would've been fine for a season finale. For the show finale we need to see Angel both taking on damage (Wes dying) and continuing to fight ("Well, I kind of want to slay the dragon.") It's the essense of both the show and the character, tied up in one painfully beautiful moment.
Throughout the show's history we get glimpses, hints, and snatches of dialogue that sketch in the concept, but Underneath is what confirms it. It's the entire point of absolutely everything the show has ever done. Life is hard. Going from day to day isn't easy. But the battle is what makes us who we are. Some of us can't cope with it (Lorne), some can understand it even if they don't suceed at it (Wesley), some are far too accepting of it (Lindsey), some of us need to learn how to rise to the occasion (Gunn), and still others are meant to show us the way (Angel).
Hell might be right here on earth, and the Apocalypse might be so close that we're soaking in it, but it's the complete and utter horror of that which makes the actions of heros oh so good.
And that, my friend, is what they call layers.
Underneath as an episode is really not meant to be watched. I hate to say it, but it's true. The direction is horrible, the emotional emphasis is in all the wrong places, and LA's skyline has visible seams in it. This is not Angel at its best by a long shot.
I've already commented elsewhere on some of the specific failings of the ep story-wise, but just to do a quick summary basically what we have is a large mistake in thinking that the audience would in any way be that invested in saving Eve, very bad handling of the direction on Wes and Illyria (the humor is forced to try to be funny in spite of music cues that indicate otherwise and Illyria's dialogue is far too long and boring), and in general an ep where all of the good punches have their legs kicked out from under them by either being telegraphed from a million miles away, or by being presented in the wrong fashion (jokes are presented dramatically, drama is presented as jokes).
But to a large extent that's not the show's fault. The news of cancellation hit more or less between eps 5.16 and 5.17, so we're seeing a cast and crew that's trying to buck up under difficult circumstances, and try to put together an amazing finale while having the budget of about fifty cents and a pack of gum (the latter of which was used to hold the LA skyline together, post-chewing).
However, if we step away from what the episode looked like (which sadly means moving away from Alexis Denisof's pretty, pretty eyes... though we can still watch those by freeze framing his bits and keeping the sound on the ep turned down in the meanwhile) and focus on what the episode was, what we actually have is something that's pretty good, especially in terms of the Angelverse and what kinds of issues need to be addressed as part and parcel of setting up the end of the show.
What Underneath does is sit down and deal with the true symbolism of morality in the Angelverse. What's good? What's evil? What makes us good or evil? Who is Angel and the gang in relation to the big fight, and what makes them the good guys?
In short, the answer is that life sucks, but that's the point. Now let's get into some detail.
The words "the hardest thing in this world is to live in it" are now a painful Buffyverse cliche, but the irony is that the sentiment is actually Angel's. The concept makes its first significant appearance in Amends, the episode where Angel is forced to look at who he is as a person and decide if he's worth saving. Angel being Angel, he opts for the easier solution of suicide. He wants to end the fight, because he has no hope and it's too hard to try. It's Buffy, the show's hero, who stops him from doing this and who tells him that life is fighting. Life is trying. Angel must keep fighting and living, because that is what makes him good. If he gives up and dies, then all he'll ever be is a monster.
This is a lesson that Angel takes to heart. From that point forward though he strays from the path from time to time, but his moral center is always on that struggle. He may not believe that he deserves it (as his difficulty with the Shanshu in season 5 shows), but he believes in trying to earn redemption.
The key thing is that Angel believes it not only for himself, but for other people. Angel the show is filled entirely with characters who at the very least believe themselves to be outcasts, and most of whom believe they've done something wrong that they need to atone for. (Even Cordelia, who later admits she thinks the pain of her visions is punishment for her previously shallow ways.) To a one Angel accepts them, brings them under his wing, and treats them with respect. He doesn't get involved with blaming them, or with self-pity. Instead he focuses them on the task: acknowledge the wrongdoing, then fix it.
It's a trait of Angel's that we see in this very episode, as he talks to Gunn about what it means to live with the guilt for killing Fred. Within that conversation, we also get a key to understanding what it means to be good in the Angelverse: Know that there is badness, and care about it. Angel believes that Gunn is a good person because Gunn suffers over what he did to Fred. But being good is more than suffering, it's doing. Gunn has to actively atone, actively work to not accept that darkness inside, and instead try to make things better.
This is a message that Lindsey later repeats. Heroes don't accept, heroes fight. (Which of course harkens back to the very lesson Angel tells Connor back in Deep Down. Champions live in the world the way it should be.)
This isn't an easy task. It's not meant to be, and that's something that's also highlighted within the ep. Angel tells Gunn that it hurts as much as it does because he's a good guy. Later on Lindsey reveals that people in the Wolfram & Hart holding dimension can only be hurt as much as they think they should be hurt - which again means that Gunn as a good guy is going to suffer more than Lindsey did.
But, as Buffy pointed out in Amends it's the fight that matters - and this is why it was so crucial that Angel the series ended in the middle of a fight scene. Angel is never about an actual ending. The canon would never and should never show us Angel finally getting a chance to retire to a home with a white picket fence and the ship partner of your choice. That's not the story this show is telling. In real life we don't get progress reports and messages from the Powers letting us know that our struggle is done. In real life we just keep struggling and living, and that's exactly what Angel does.
It's worth noting how the world of the Angelverse is part and parcel of this symbolism, and that's also something highlighted in this ep. Hell is earth, as Lindsey indicates and Holland Manners first told us back in season two. But by the same token, Hell isn't earth, and the reason why it's not is that yes, life on earth sucks. It's difficult, painful, gritty, chaotic, and horrible but it's real. It's ours. It's as good or bad as we choose to make it, and that choice is in our own hands.
After all, look at the three glimpses the show has given us of a "Heaven/Hell" senario. In s2 it's Pylea, which on paper has everything the gang would want but in reality is the worst place for them. In s4 it's Jasmine, who brings about peace on earth but only through death and slavery. In s5 it's Lindsey's holding dimension, which is a perfect suburbia except for the part where being trapped there is what kills you over and over and over again.
True happiness and goodness in the Angelverse isn't about being able to retire from battle, or finding out that you made it to the finish line. These things are false, and only serve as distractions from the problems of the world. No, in the Angelverse it's all about the negative space. We can have happiness and goodness but only in contrast to all the misery and evil that's around. As Angel's s2 epiphany tells us, when nothing you do matters, all that matters is what you do. The good deeds done under Jasmine's control don't matter as much as the good deeds voluntarily done by those who actually want to be good.
Wes talks about this bit of symbolism during his conversation with Illyria on the rooftop. Illyria, the former all-powerful being, can't cope with a life "boxed in" and limited. But Wes tells her that for humans this how they live. They can't handle the bigger truths of the universe, but they can work on the small scale. Naturally Illyria isn't impressed by this, but Wes still feels that humanity is something to be proud of anyway.
Throughout the ep, then, we get snapshot views of how everyone is dealing with both the big picture external struggle of good and evil, and the internal struggle. Through that, we also get foreshadowing of how it will end up. Lorne can't cope with reality anymore and sinks into the world of lies, which predicts him abandoning the fight after he kills Lindsey in Not Fade Away. Angel and Spike are heros, and will keep fighting because that's what heroes do.
Wes and Gunn prove interesting, in that the two of them had reversed fates. Back when there was supposed to be a season six, Gunn was the one on the docket for dying (which was heavily foreshadowed during the season, and J. August Richards confirmed that in later interviews). Symbolically this works perfectly as Gunn's act of self-sacrifice by staying in the holding dimension shows that Gunn accepts that sometimes the good fight means giving up everything. Gunn dying in the final battle would have been a natural extension of this.
But the show was canceled, which meant switching to a different level of symbolism for the final story to be told. Wesley, who has alwyas been the symbolic representation of the human damage that Angel sustains as a part of his struggle, had to die in the last battle that we ever see. If the show had gone on to a season six, seven, or even eight Wes would have died then. This then ties the emotional core of the show right back where it always belongs: with the guy who's got his name on the title. Gunn's death and the Gunn-specific meaning therein would've been fine for a season finale. For the show finale we need to see Angel both taking on damage (Wes dying) and continuing to fight ("Well, I kind of want to slay the dragon.") It's the essense of both the show and the character, tied up in one painfully beautiful moment.
Throughout the show's history we get glimpses, hints, and snatches of dialogue that sketch in the concept, but Underneath is what confirms it. It's the entire point of absolutely everything the show has ever done. Life is hard. Going from day to day isn't easy. But the battle is what makes us who we are. Some of us can't cope with it (Lorne), some can understand it even if they don't suceed at it (Wesley), some are far too accepting of it (Lindsey), some of us need to learn how to rise to the occasion (Gunn), and still others are meant to show us the way (Angel).
Hell might be right here on earth, and the Apocalypse might be so close that we're soaking in it, but it's the complete and utter horror of that which makes the actions of heros oh so good.
And that, my friend, is what they call layers.