Angel 1.9: "Hero"
Written by Howard Gordon and Tim Minear
Directed by Tucker Gates
In which Doyle is forced to consider his life when he comes face to face with a secret from his past, one that requires the ultimate sacrifice from someone at Angel Investigations…
Status Report
There are a lot of theories about why Glenn Quinn was asked to leave the series. The most prominent, and the one backed by Joss Whedon and rest of those involved in the project, is the theory that Glenn knew that Joss intended to kill off the character because he’s always wanted to do that with a main character. Nearly as many people believe that the network wanted to boost the ratings by bringing in another character from “Buffy”, so someone had to go. And then there are those who maintain that Glenn had a serious drug problem, and as everyone knows, Joss will not hesitate to cut someone from the cast if they have personal issues. He might smooth over the truth with a sweet lie, but he’ll send them packing, all the same.
Glenn’s death of an apparent drug overdose certainly fueled the fires of rumor and doubt. This is especially true when his exit felt all too rushed. The script, if planned, was poorly conceived and seemed to include Doyle’s heroic sacrifice only because it had to do so. Before this episode, the series was taking its time, and the sudden focus on apocalyptic events seemed to be the usual early twist, the one that always seems to come around episode 8.
It would be very easy to believe that this episode was originally meant to provide more information about Doyle’s past, and then had to be altered to work thematically as a final appearance. But that would ignore the fact that this episode was primarily written by Howard Gordon, a writer who has been rather successful despite his shortcomings.
Gordon is best known for his work during the early season of “X-Files”, and on that series’ writing staff, he developed something of a reputation. Very often, Gordon’s ideas would be strong. He had great ideas, and some of them were actually worth exploring. Two things usually went wrong after that point: Gordon would fail horribly at making that idea or concept work within the confines of an episode, and then he would try to insert some kind of social commentary to make up for it.
Gordon now commands a large percentage of the production and writing duties for “24”, and as fans of that series can easily attest, the man hasn’t learned his lesson. The ideas are all there, but he simply doesn’t seem to put the pieces together in the right way. The result is usually something that tries to communicate a message well beyond the capabilities of the material.
While on “X-Files”, Gordon would often realize that his episodes were not working out, and he would turn to Chris Carter (the series’ creator/producer) for assistance. Sometimes that would work; most of the time, it did not. This episode of “Angel” has the same going against it. At some point, one gets the feeling that Tim Minear was brought in to salvage the episode, and perhaps make Doyle’s exit work.
The episode actually recycles a scene from the original second episode script written by David Fury, a hook that turns into one of the more powerful moments. Coming off the faux ad created by Fury, meant to mock Angel’s Batman-esque roots, Cordy recruits Doyle to stand in for Angel. The final product is a thing of beauty; placed in two very different contexts in the episode, the reading goes from incredibly awkward to beyond poignant.
It doesn’t take long for Angel to tell Doyle about the events of the previous episode, including the part where Doyle has been conveniently leaving out information that Angel would really like to have about the visions and The Powers That Be. Doyle is amazed that Angel would choose his role as Champion over the chance to be human. When he tells Cordy what he’s learned, he gets another shock to the system: Cordy is getting interested in him, and the time seems right to tell her about his half-demon status.
Of course, that’s interrupted by a vision, and rather quickly, things get inconsistent. It’s a clear sign that things are being rushed when the people hiding under the trap door magically toss a carpet over said door. Suddenly Angel is the Promised One, meant to help liberate the Lister half-breed demons from the Scourge. It’s hard not to imagine that this is right out of the Gordon textbook, especially when the Listers are practically wearing Anne Frank’s discarded clothing.
The flashbacks to Doyle’s first encounter with another Bracken demon, however, are very well done. Doyle’s memory, augmented by the powerful score, gives the Scourge a focused brutality that all the Nazi allusions in the world can’t convey. Connecting Doyle’s first vision to a Scourge slaughter of Bracken demons is also a little too convenient, since it makes his final sacrifice for the Listers a bit too symmetrical.
Of course, in the scheme of things, Doyle’s visions were probably not the result of some karmic punishment. It’s more likely that Jasmine took advantage of the fact that Doyle was in the right place at the right time to become a vessel for the visions. Sure, TPTB could have initially imbued Doyle with the visions, only to have them co-opted by Jasmine, but it makes more sense from the perspective of the fourth season for Doyle’s part in the story to relate entirely to Jasmine’s long-term plans.
There’s also the small issue of the Scourge itself. The writers for “Buffy” had made it very clear, at the end of the third season, that the demons on Earth were not pure. They were all, in some way, tainted by their presence on Earth. Pure demons were very rare on Earth, because it took something like an open Hellmouth to get them back into the Earth dimension. If that’s the case, then how could there be an army of pure demons running around, in jackboots no less, killing off half-breeds in plain sight?
The answer, of course, is that Gordon’s metaphor wouldn’t work without something akin to the Aryan ideal. And thus, the Scourge had to be an army of pure demons, wiping out the weak mongrels of the human world. It doesn’t seem to matter that a little bit of exposition could have cleared up the whole mess. Why not make the Scourge be related to the same demons that were running the sweatshop in “Anne”, the third season premiere for “Buffy”? Or perhaps suggest that the Scourge sees “purity” in terms of demons who don’t breed/intermix with humans in some fashion?
Whatever the case, the rest of the episode is rather simple: Angel and Doyle want to help the Lister escape the country, and they have to avoid the Scourge for that to happen. Along the way, Doyle even gets a lesson or two about how his perceptions about himself have been all wrong, since Rieff the Annoying Lister Boy gets to complain about how Doyle doesn’t understand the plight of his people. This also gives Doyle a chance to remind the audience that this is an episode about what it means to be a hero.
The plot gets more ludicrous as the second half of the episode marches on. It makes no sense for the Scourge to allow Angel to live, when they are supposedly single-minded in their hatred of half-breeds. By all available logic, they should have staked Angel and been on their way. Instead, he’s brought into the fold in record time, and even shown the secret plan for eradicating all human life. (Perhaps this is why the Scourge has never been successful!)
After a pseudo-Nazi propaganda speech, which feels like it will never end and really beats the metaphor to death, the Scourge unveil their secret weapon: a big ass lantern. A beacon, no less, which kills when its “cleansing light” falls on something tainted with humanity. It takes about a second to realize that this is the worst plot device ever, since if the weapon were to work as advertised, Angel would immediately be killed when the beacon shines on him!
One of the better scenes in the final act is the confrontation between Cordy and Doyle. Doyle is utterly shocked to discover that Cordy has so many other priorities when it comes to a man, to the point that getting over any lack of money or stature pretty much covers the whole “half-inhuman” angle. Unfortunately, the entire scene is rushed in order to give the episode enough time to resolve the whole threat of the Really Bright Light.
Again overlooking the fact that the beacon is already shining its Evil Light on the Listers and everyone else, the stage is quickly set within the freighter hold for a heroic sacrifice. In another gigantic plot hole, the Scourge (who supposedly don’t give up, no matter how many are killed) disappear as soon as Angel defeats their leader. That leaves Angel, Cordy, Doyle, and a whole lot of cowering Listers staring at the Evil Light, all very much intact and taking their sweet time with the thrilling heroics. The entire situation feels incredibly contrived, especially when Doyle knocks Angel on his butt and then gets the farewell kiss with Cordy, all without much urgency being communicated by anything other than the dialogue in the process.
Closing the episode with Doyle’s earlier monologue is a nice touch, and it does give his sacrifice some sense of meaning. But it would have been far better if his sacrifice had been attached to a less dreadful plot device. The beacon is perhaps the most lame killing device ever conceived, and that’s saying something. Also, the second half of the episode is so rushed and flawed that Doyle’s death seems like a fairly unnecessary act of heroism. Why, for instance, didn’t someone just sever the power cable with something? Or shatter the beacon, for instance? The situation wasn’t nearly as clear cut as it could have been, and since it felt rather contrived as it is, that’s not a good sign.
If Doyle’s exit from the series was planned well ahead of time, then Joss and the writing staff did a horrible job of planning out that exit. Not only was it very abrupt and contrived, but it flies in the face of all the character development that had come in the earlier episodes. Why spend so much time on a character that has no future? One could say that it’s all about making the episode care about the character, but there are other ways to achieve that. In particular, if the relationship between Cordy and Doyle was always meant to culminate in the transfer of the visions, it wasn’t as smooth a transition as it could have been, since the relationship felt like it was rushed at the very end to allow for Doyle’s departure.
The tone of the episode is so fragmented, as if two separate plots were forced together into one episode, that it’s hard not to conclude that Doyle’s departure was not meant to happen in the original form of the story. It’s quite possible that the full story of Glenn Quinn’s exit will never be told, especially since so many theories exist that the truth would just be dismissed as another guess. Whatever the case, for the sake of the audience, a better version of Doyle’s sacrifice could and should have been devised. As written, the episode only contributed to the overall impression that the series was struggling out of the gate.
Memorable Quotes
ANGEL: “I’m the what?”
CORDELIA: “The Dark Avenger!”
ANGEL: “I’m the Dark Avenger…”
CORDELIA: “Our boss is in a funk. You know that he’s only happy when he’s fighting evil. Now let’s drum up some!”
DOYLE: “I don’t know what we need evil for when we got you right here…”
CORDELIA: “I heard that!”
DOYLE: “I don’t see Angel putting on some tights…oh, now I do, and it’s really disturbing…”
CORDELIA: “While this may look like a popular brand of breath freshener, it’s really a cunningly disguised demon repellent!”
DEMON: “Wintergreen…”
DOYLE: “Is that it? Am I done?”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode was a disappointment. It’s rather clear that the episode is intended to render a character’s final sacrifice as something heroic, but the plot is so contrived and filled with holes that the act seems unnecessary. Instead of allowing an actor to leave with dignity, the hurried nature of the plot seems to add fuel to the rumor mill. The events of this episode would leave the audience with serious doubts about where the series was originally meant to go, and how much was changed as a result.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
Directed by Tucker Gates
In which Doyle is forced to consider his life when he comes face to face with a secret from his past, one that requires the ultimate sacrifice from someone at Angel Investigations…
Status Report
There are a lot of theories about why Glenn Quinn was asked to leave the series. The most prominent, and the one backed by Joss Whedon and rest of those involved in the project, is the theory that Glenn knew that Joss intended to kill off the character because he’s always wanted to do that with a main character. Nearly as many people believe that the network wanted to boost the ratings by bringing in another character from “Buffy”, so someone had to go. And then there are those who maintain that Glenn had a serious drug problem, and as everyone knows, Joss will not hesitate to cut someone from the cast if they have personal issues. He might smooth over the truth with a sweet lie, but he’ll send them packing, all the same.
Glenn’s death of an apparent drug overdose certainly fueled the fires of rumor and doubt. This is especially true when his exit felt all too rushed. The script, if planned, was poorly conceived and seemed to include Doyle’s heroic sacrifice only because it had to do so. Before this episode, the series was taking its time, and the sudden focus on apocalyptic events seemed to be the usual early twist, the one that always seems to come around episode 8.
It would be very easy to believe that this episode was originally meant to provide more information about Doyle’s past, and then had to be altered to work thematically as a final appearance. But that would ignore the fact that this episode was primarily written by Howard Gordon, a writer who has been rather successful despite his shortcomings.
Gordon is best known for his work during the early season of “X-Files”, and on that series’ writing staff, he developed something of a reputation. Very often, Gordon’s ideas would be strong. He had great ideas, and some of them were actually worth exploring. Two things usually went wrong after that point: Gordon would fail horribly at making that idea or concept work within the confines of an episode, and then he would try to insert some kind of social commentary to make up for it.
Gordon now commands a large percentage of the production and writing duties for “24”, and as fans of that series can easily attest, the man hasn’t learned his lesson. The ideas are all there, but he simply doesn’t seem to put the pieces together in the right way. The result is usually something that tries to communicate a message well beyond the capabilities of the material.
While on “X-Files”, Gordon would often realize that his episodes were not working out, and he would turn to Chris Carter (the series’ creator/producer) for assistance. Sometimes that would work; most of the time, it did not. This episode of “Angel” has the same going against it. At some point, one gets the feeling that Tim Minear was brought in to salvage the episode, and perhaps make Doyle’s exit work.
The episode actually recycles a scene from the original second episode script written by David Fury, a hook that turns into one of the more powerful moments. Coming off the faux ad created by Fury, meant to mock Angel’s Batman-esque roots, Cordy recruits Doyle to stand in for Angel. The final product is a thing of beauty; placed in two very different contexts in the episode, the reading goes from incredibly awkward to beyond poignant.
It doesn’t take long for Angel to tell Doyle about the events of the previous episode, including the part where Doyle has been conveniently leaving out information that Angel would really like to have about the visions and The Powers That Be. Doyle is amazed that Angel would choose his role as Champion over the chance to be human. When he tells Cordy what he’s learned, he gets another shock to the system: Cordy is getting interested in him, and the time seems right to tell her about his half-demon status.
Of course, that’s interrupted by a vision, and rather quickly, things get inconsistent. It’s a clear sign that things are being rushed when the people hiding under the trap door magically toss a carpet over said door. Suddenly Angel is the Promised One, meant to help liberate the Lister half-breed demons from the Scourge. It’s hard not to imagine that this is right out of the Gordon textbook, especially when the Listers are practically wearing Anne Frank’s discarded clothing.
The flashbacks to Doyle’s first encounter with another Bracken demon, however, are very well done. Doyle’s memory, augmented by the powerful score, gives the Scourge a focused brutality that all the Nazi allusions in the world can’t convey. Connecting Doyle’s first vision to a Scourge slaughter of Bracken demons is also a little too convenient, since it makes his final sacrifice for the Listers a bit too symmetrical.
Of course, in the scheme of things, Doyle’s visions were probably not the result of some karmic punishment. It’s more likely that Jasmine took advantage of the fact that Doyle was in the right place at the right time to become a vessel for the visions. Sure, TPTB could have initially imbued Doyle with the visions, only to have them co-opted by Jasmine, but it makes more sense from the perspective of the fourth season for Doyle’s part in the story to relate entirely to Jasmine’s long-term plans.
There’s also the small issue of the Scourge itself. The writers for “Buffy” had made it very clear, at the end of the third season, that the demons on Earth were not pure. They were all, in some way, tainted by their presence on Earth. Pure demons were very rare on Earth, because it took something like an open Hellmouth to get them back into the Earth dimension. If that’s the case, then how could there be an army of pure demons running around, in jackboots no less, killing off half-breeds in plain sight?
The answer, of course, is that Gordon’s metaphor wouldn’t work without something akin to the Aryan ideal. And thus, the Scourge had to be an army of pure demons, wiping out the weak mongrels of the human world. It doesn’t seem to matter that a little bit of exposition could have cleared up the whole mess. Why not make the Scourge be related to the same demons that were running the sweatshop in “Anne”, the third season premiere for “Buffy”? Or perhaps suggest that the Scourge sees “purity” in terms of demons who don’t breed/intermix with humans in some fashion?
Whatever the case, the rest of the episode is rather simple: Angel and Doyle want to help the Lister escape the country, and they have to avoid the Scourge for that to happen. Along the way, Doyle even gets a lesson or two about how his perceptions about himself have been all wrong, since Rieff the Annoying Lister Boy gets to complain about how Doyle doesn’t understand the plight of his people. This also gives Doyle a chance to remind the audience that this is an episode about what it means to be a hero.
The plot gets more ludicrous as the second half of the episode marches on. It makes no sense for the Scourge to allow Angel to live, when they are supposedly single-minded in their hatred of half-breeds. By all available logic, they should have staked Angel and been on their way. Instead, he’s brought into the fold in record time, and even shown the secret plan for eradicating all human life. (Perhaps this is why the Scourge has never been successful!)
After a pseudo-Nazi propaganda speech, which feels like it will never end and really beats the metaphor to death, the Scourge unveil their secret weapon: a big ass lantern. A beacon, no less, which kills when its “cleansing light” falls on something tainted with humanity. It takes about a second to realize that this is the worst plot device ever, since if the weapon were to work as advertised, Angel would immediately be killed when the beacon shines on him!
One of the better scenes in the final act is the confrontation between Cordy and Doyle. Doyle is utterly shocked to discover that Cordy has so many other priorities when it comes to a man, to the point that getting over any lack of money or stature pretty much covers the whole “half-inhuman” angle. Unfortunately, the entire scene is rushed in order to give the episode enough time to resolve the whole threat of the Really Bright Light.
Again overlooking the fact that the beacon is already shining its Evil Light on the Listers and everyone else, the stage is quickly set within the freighter hold for a heroic sacrifice. In another gigantic plot hole, the Scourge (who supposedly don’t give up, no matter how many are killed) disappear as soon as Angel defeats their leader. That leaves Angel, Cordy, Doyle, and a whole lot of cowering Listers staring at the Evil Light, all very much intact and taking their sweet time with the thrilling heroics. The entire situation feels incredibly contrived, especially when Doyle knocks Angel on his butt and then gets the farewell kiss with Cordy, all without much urgency being communicated by anything other than the dialogue in the process.
Closing the episode with Doyle’s earlier monologue is a nice touch, and it does give his sacrifice some sense of meaning. But it would have been far better if his sacrifice had been attached to a less dreadful plot device. The beacon is perhaps the most lame killing device ever conceived, and that’s saying something. Also, the second half of the episode is so rushed and flawed that Doyle’s death seems like a fairly unnecessary act of heroism. Why, for instance, didn’t someone just sever the power cable with something? Or shatter the beacon, for instance? The situation wasn’t nearly as clear cut as it could have been, and since it felt rather contrived as it is, that’s not a good sign.
If Doyle’s exit from the series was planned well ahead of time, then Joss and the writing staff did a horrible job of planning out that exit. Not only was it very abrupt and contrived, but it flies in the face of all the character development that had come in the earlier episodes. Why spend so much time on a character that has no future? One could say that it’s all about making the episode care about the character, but there are other ways to achieve that. In particular, if the relationship between Cordy and Doyle was always meant to culminate in the transfer of the visions, it wasn’t as smooth a transition as it could have been, since the relationship felt like it was rushed at the very end to allow for Doyle’s departure.
The tone of the episode is so fragmented, as if two separate plots were forced together into one episode, that it’s hard not to conclude that Doyle’s departure was not meant to happen in the original form of the story. It’s quite possible that the full story of Glenn Quinn’s exit will never be told, especially since so many theories exist that the truth would just be dismissed as another guess. Whatever the case, for the sake of the audience, a better version of Doyle’s sacrifice could and should have been devised. As written, the episode only contributed to the overall impression that the series was struggling out of the gate.
Memorable Quotes
ANGEL: “I’m the what?”
CORDELIA: “The Dark Avenger!”
ANGEL: “I’m the Dark Avenger…”
CORDELIA: “Our boss is in a funk. You know that he’s only happy when he’s fighting evil. Now let’s drum up some!”
DOYLE: “I don’t know what we need evil for when we got you right here…”
CORDELIA: “I heard that!”
DOYLE: “I don’t see Angel putting on some tights…oh, now I do, and it’s really disturbing…”
CORDELIA: “While this may look like a popular brand of breath freshener, it’s really a cunningly disguised demon repellent!”
DEMON: “Wintergreen…”
DOYLE: “Is that it? Am I done?”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode was a disappointment. It’s rather clear that the episode is intended to render a character’s final sacrifice as something heroic, but the plot is so contrived and filled with holes that the act seems unnecessary. Instead of allowing an actor to leave with dignity, the hurried nature of the plot seems to add fuel to the rumor mill. The events of this episode would leave the audience with serious doubts about where the series was originally meant to go, and how much was changed as a result.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
posted by John Keegan | 17:35
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