BtVS S8.36 "Last Gleaming" Part 1

[aycheb]

Really I want to post vid recs but that would need code and this is easier for the html challenged.

Comments

[aycheb]

I've been mainlining old movies lately. They were my first love and may well be my last.

[norwie2010]

I'm smiling. :)

[aycheb]

\o/

[local_max]

Brilliant review! I say that in part because it agrees with my reading in my review, though you are more succinct and articulate than I. Angel as Hollywood golden boy, Spike as low-budget grindhouse character actor. Your connecting it to Boreanaz' "origin story" (tall dark and dogwalking) is brilliant. And Buffy is still in the thrall of Hollywood, still wants her dreams to come true

[aycheb]

Thank you! Although I'd put Hollywood's thrall on Buffy as being not so much about wanting her dreams to come true but that they have. She's a star she's a name and like the names Chain Slayer mentioned she's not a peron any more but the focus of hundreds of other people's hopes and dreams. I liked the point in your post about Spike being a bug. A gadfly, no?

The Master coming back (and the colour red) makes me strangely happy. Which is odd as in S1 he didn't do much but in the comic he seems to fit for all the reasons you articulate.

[rebcake]

No way is Harmony Hildy! Hildy is the star, the star reporter, the one who gets it done, the one who pulls miracles out of lost causes. Buffy is definitely Hildy. Angel could either be stolid what's-his-face, the humorless new boy, or he could be Walter, the manipulative but charismatic asshole ex. Walter gets the girl, unfortunately.

It's looking more like Gone With The Wind for the romance angle. Scarlett spends years pining for Wesley/Leslie/Ashley and belittling the fun, smart, dedicated guy right in front of her. When she finally has her eyes opened (still to come, Buffy), it's too late and she loses them both. (At this point, that's the best I can hope for. Even Spike can only take so much second banana billing, Cosmo be damned.)

[aycheb]

I actually meant Spike for Walter. He may not be as unscrupulous but he's funny and Angel mostly isn't. Also with Gone With The Wind I'd peg Rhett as the Walter type (apart from the marital rape thing). But I don't think Angel is much like Ashley or Spike like Rhett. Ashley's too much the milksop and Rhett lacks any of Spike's insecurities.

I also wouldn't say Buffy's been pining for Angel all these years. She comes across as much more self aware than back in the High School seasons. Like she told Holden, she targets the impossible ones because they'll never fail to live down to her expectations. Angel being the most impossible of all she loves him like no other but doesn't necessarily see that as a good or sustainable thing. In the comics she signs up for the sexing without having any idea it would end in some white picket universe and got the hell out of there as soon as she could.

[angearia]

I enjoyed this!

[aycheb]

My work here is done :-)

[ubi4soft]

Thanks so much for your fun review.

But i can't stop laughing at lesser than a bug Angel : Spike suggested colored jumpsuits but the bugs preferred to be identified by numbers contrasted with Angel being made famous with the appropriate outfit by a talking dog

[aycheb]

Blessed are the cockroaches for they will inherit the earth. They're already ahead on numbers.