Blazing Saddles: Not Your Father's Western

I'm not sure if this comparison has ever been made, but Brooks' Blazing Saddles is somewhat akin to Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in that both works attack ideas of racial inferiority by continuously having the antagonists use racial slurs and put forth ideas of inferiority. Huckleberry Finn remains one of the most frequently banned books in American history because people don't understand that Twain was attacking stereotypes. And I have met a few people who find Blazing Saddles to be one of the most racist and offensive movies ever produced. In reality, Blazing Saddles is both a send-up of various Western movie cliches and an attack on the way minorities (especially blacks) were treated in the 19th century and continue to be treated today.

Using a plot that formed the basis of too many Westerns to name (an illegal land taking), Brooks tells the story of Bart, the first black sheriff in the ol' west. Bart starts the movie as a poor railroad worker who is continuously abused by the white construction bosses (all of whom are much less intelligent than Bart is, allowing Bart and his fellow workers to play practical jokes on their unsuspecting employers). Meanwhile, State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr wants to run the citizens of Rock Ridge out of town in order to buy the land at a low price; a new railway has to be diverted through Rock Ridge, and the land will skyrocket in value as a result. After the traditional method of pillaging fails to work, Lamarr decides to get the town to implode by appointing Bart as sheriff. At first, the plan looks like it will succeed, as the citizens of Rock Ridge try as hard as possible to make life hard for Bart. However, as with the railroad overseers, Bart is much smarter than pretty much everyone in Rock Ridge, and he is able to stay out of trouble through his wits. When Bart saves the town from Lamarr's savage flunky, the citizens finally realize that Bart is a good sheriff.

Bart is aided by his new deputy and friend, Jim "The Waco Kid", a former gunslinger who turned to alcohol after accidentally shooting a kid who spooked him. Jim is strangely tolerant for someone from this era, but he has to be for the message to work. In the film, the people who are intolerant are either antagonists or they learn to be tolerant. Bart needed a friend to help him get through the early rough patch in Rock Ridge, and he and Jim make a good pair. By the end, the citizens of Rock Ridge are still not models of tolerance, but the experience with the intelligent, competent, and charming Bart has shown them not to judge someone based on the color of their skin.

The movie is hilarious in addition to moral. The film satirizes Western cliches and continuously breaks the fourth wall, which is something Brooks is known for. People often confuse Hedley Lamarr with actress Hedy Lamarr (who wouldn't have been born yet in the year the film takes place), and the entire ending sequence was meta heaven. The infamous campfire scene may be the first fart joke in a major studio film (oh Mel Brooks, what hath thee wrought?). The film was truly a landmark for comedy films.

Up next: Abbie someone...

Spaceballs: A Parody Far Far Away...

Before ever seeing this movie, I knew almost half the lines, thanks to the endless quoting carried on by the members of my Boy Scout troop (it was this and Monty Python and the Holy Grail that were repeated ad nauseum). This was the first Mel Brooks movie I saw and it was a great entryway into his movies; it isn't his best, but it is a great movie. Skewering the Star Wars films as well as a few other sci-fi franchises (Star Trek, Alien, and Planet of the Apes) and various real-world ideas, Spaceballs follows the heroic Lone Starr and his first mate Barf as they try to save Princess Vespa from the evil Dark Helmet of Planet Spaceball. President Skroob, the corrupt leader of Planet Spaceball, squandered the planet's air supply and now their only hope is to steal the air from their neighboring planet, Druidia. Druidia is guarded by an air shield, and Skroob and Helmet plan to use Vespa as a bargaining chip to get the code to the air shield from Vespa's father, King Roland.

It sounds simplistic, and it is, but so are the Star Wars movies, if you think about. Good and evil are very clearly defined and the first movie is about rescuing a princess from a a man in a black suit who is trying to use her to find the location of a planet. But that isn't a slight against either Spaceballs or Star Wars; each film has plenty of greatness to elevate the films to the greatness they are remembered for. First off, the world(s) of Spaceballs is extremely well done, and the visual references to the Star Wars universe are incredible. The Spaceballs' uniforms are very similar to those of the Empire, the Dinks are dressed similar to Jawas, and the detention center evokes the same scene in Star Wars. But Brooks was able to use these similarities to accentuate the absurdity of many aspects of the Star Wars universe in particular and space operas in general. Spaceball-1, the flagship of the Spaceball fleet, is so enormous that it takes almost two minutes for it to go across the screen in the opening scene. Star Destroyers and Super Star Destroyers were enormous, and seeing Spaceball-1 makes us think about why the Empire needed such huge ships. Spaceball-1 needs to be so big in order to accomodate a mall, a 3-ring circus, and a zoo. The Spaceball infantrymen are clearly graduates of the Stormtrooper Academy of Marksmanship, seeing as how none of them can hit any of the heroes, but Vespa, who has supposedly never used a gun until the events of the movie, can mow an entire battalion down with one shot for each man. And the multitude of buttons and dials on ships that seemingly have no purpose was parodied when Dark Helmet went to look at the radar screen only to be confused as to what he was looking at. Col. Sandurz, his second-in-command, had to explain that the screen was not radar, but a coffee maker (Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones wouldn't be made for another 15 years, but there is a great example of this effect in that movie; there is a scene in which Padme pushes a button, one among many, in her spaceship which does one function, and with a second press of the same button, it performs a completely different function).

Brooks also makes fun of the marketing of the Star Wars films by filling the film with Spaceballs merchandise. Yogurt, a wise Yoda analogue, runs a store devoted to the movie full of shitty items with the Spaceballs logo on it, including a breakfast serial, a plush doll of himself, coloring books, and a flamethrower (the kids love that one). Throughout the rest of the film, various characters are seen using Spaceballs merch; Helmet and Sanders watch part of the cassette of the film to find where Lone Starr and Vespa escaped to, Skroob uses toilet paper with Helmet's picture on it, and Helmet plays with action figures of the various characters (including himself).

None of Mel Brooks' regular actors appeared in this film (except Brooks himself and Dom Deluise in a brief cameo as Pizza the Hutt), but the film still had a wonderful cast, with special praise to Rick Moranis as the Napoleonic Dark Helmet, John Candy as the half man/half dog Barf (parodying Chewie), and George Wyner as Col. Sandurz, the second-in-command on Spaceball-1. Sandurz is somewhere between Kif Kroker from Futurama (the voice of reason) and Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (a bit of a coward).

With few exceptions, everything in this movie worked. The plot-based jokes and the meta-jokes were very funny, and the actors did wonderful jobs with their characters. Spaceballs is definitely the gold standard of Star Wars parodies.

Up next: Black Bart...

Pushing Daisies: Second Touch, Dead Again... But Not Forever

Before I get into the Mel Brooks goodness, I had to do this post covering the "series finale" of Pushing Daisies. Last night, the final episode produced aired, meaning that for many people, the adventures of Ned, Chuck, Olive, Emerson, Lily, and Vivian are done. Bryan Fuller and co. modified the ending of "Kerplunk" to act as a kind of wrap-up, which was fine enough (I'll get back to it later), but many plotlines are unresolved, and will be picked up in comic book form later this year. There are also rumors of a movie, but I am less hopeful about that than I once was.

In one sense, "Kerplunk"'s story was fitting for a series finale because Lily and Vivian finally got back into the pool to become the Darling Mermaid Darlings again. The theme of the episode was new beginnings, which mirrors the pilot (Chuck got a new beginning). However, the episode was originally meant to be a turning point, not an "ending" (although, as the ending narration pointed out, and ending is nothing but a new beginning); Lily and Vivian get back into show business because of the death of a member of their rival synchronized swimming team, and the manager of an aquatic showpark needs a replacement. Oh, and by the way, the death was one of the most fantastic of the series, and that is saying something. The surviving member, a prima donna who is known as a spotlight hog, does everything to stay in the show, and when she fails, she tells Vivian Lily's dark secret: Lily slept with Vivian's fiance, leading to the birth of Chuck. The rival also allows us to see into Lily's soul; the rival team was also composed of sisters, and the surviving sister slept with the murdered sister's husband. Instead of sympathizing with her, Lily grew to hate the rival even more, because she saw herself in the rival, and, as the narrator said, there was nothing Lily hated more than herself.

Chuck and Ned, meanwhile, had to deal with the aunts' new success when they booked a tour through Europe. Ned, who helped broker the deal, thought Chuck would be ecstatic about their success, but it actually made her very upset. Chuck knew that she couldn't actually speak to her aunts, but as long as she could be near them, everything would be fine. If they were to go to Europe, she would have to choose between following them and leaving Ned behind, or staying with Ned and worrying about her aunts. I don't know if the episode would have ended the same if it hadn't been retooled, but I'm not sure how else it could have ended. Chuck finally revealed herself to Lily and Vivian, which helped break up their fight over Chuck herself (Vivian was in the process of throwing Lily out). I'm fairly certain that Bryan Fuller wanted a Chuck/aunts reunion before the series finale because (1) it would make for good stories and (2) they could only keep the aunts in the background for so long.

Emerson and Olive were important in the episode, but they didn't have any huge revelations/plot lines aside from helping in the investigation of the death. As usual, though, they got some of the best lines and actions. Every time Olive tried to imitate the oppressed male aqua-robat was hilarious, and Emerson's speech at the end about Ned and Chuck was extremely touching, and showed that, under all his sarcasm and anger, Emerson truly enjoyed the company of the Pie Maker and the girl named Chuck.

Finally, the show ended with a monologue from the narrator as the camera panned through Papen County, visiting the various locations we've seen throughout the series (the windmills from "Pigeon", the lighthouse from "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy", the nunnery from the beginning of Season 2, and the sewers, with a CGI Oscar Verbinius), taking moments to stop and give updates on the various characters. Olive and Randy Mann got together and Olive opened a macaroni restaurant called The Intrepid Cow, while Emerson's pop-up book finally brought his daughter back to him. These were likely hints at what was to come had the series continued. Sadly, we didn't hear anything about Ned's father and why he left Ned or why he saved his life in "The Norwegians". Charles Charles didn't return (by the way, how is it that Lily and Vivian have the surname Charles as well?), and we still don't know who hired the guy who killed Chuck (though maybe that was never supposed to come back as a mystery). We don't know why Dwight Dixon wanted the pocket watches or what his true connection was to Charles Charles and Ned's father (we still don't know Ned's surname). Hopefully, we'll get the answers in the upcoming comic book, and maybe, MAYBE a movie. A man can hope.

Up next: There goes the planet...

A Sampling of Mel Brooks

I wonder why I haven't even mentioned Mel Brooks yet in The Other Worlds. He has made some very iconic films that have influenced films to this very day (however, often with lackluster results). He parodied numerous different genres with spectacular results and proved time and again that he could make light of various cliches, foibles, and icons. He and his talented actors (he had a few people he worked with constantly, like Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Harvey Korman, and Cloris Leachman) went where few filmmakers had gone before in order to get laughs, and they succeeded admirably.

I am going to focus on at least three of his movies, Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein (that is the order in which I saw them), and I may possibly go over History of the World, Part I, though I don't remember that one as well as I do the others. He has plenty of other movies, some of which are fantastic (High Anxiety), some of which aren't (Dracula: Dead and Loving It), but I selected the ones that mean the most to me.

Up next: The end for now...

Coraline: The Other Other World

I read Neil Gaiman's novella of Coraline in late 2007 (I was about 21). The story is technically written for kids, but it still succeeded in creeping me out (I mean that in the best possible way). Coraline is a young girl who feels neglected by her parents, and when she finds a bizarre door in her house leading to an alternate world similar to, but more interesting than her own, she can't resist the thought of staying there forever. However, not all is as it seems; all of the residents of the Other World (I had read Coraline before I started this blog, but I don't think I intentionally stole the title from the book) have big black buttons over their eyes, and although her Other Mother and Other Father seem nice and fun, she quickly learns that the Other Mother has sinister plans.

The film version of Coraline, directed by Henry Sellick (he also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas), is extremely faithful to the book. The basic plot is the same, and the characterizations are nearly spot-on from the book. The largest difference is the inclusion of a character named Wybie; Sellick created Wybie so that Coraline would have someone to talk to on her journey, rather than speaking to herself during many parts of the narrative (though that worked in Alice in Wonderland). For the most part, Wybie was a good addition to the story; my only gripe is the way he affected the climax (in the book, Coraline relied completely on her wits, whereas in the movie, Wybie intervened).

But what made me happiest was the way the film faithfully kept the book's dark tone. Whenever Coraline was in the Other World, even when things still seemed great, there was a sense of foreboding, a "not-quite-right" feeling. Yes, I knew what was coming, but the button eyes, sickly sweet disposition of the Other Mother, and unnatural aspects all created a creepy vibe for the audience. I still have a hard time believing how relatively successful the movie was because of the tone (then again, Nightmare Before Christmas is a cult classic); I knew that Gaiman and Sellick fans would go see this, but I wasn't sure how much mainstream appeal it would generate.

Not only did the movie do fairly well at the box office, it was critically acclaimed. This is one of the best non-Pixar animated films I've ever seen, and the critics agreed. After seeing this, I finally became convinced that we could finally get a Good Omens movie; in the past, movies based on Neil Gaiman works have been poorly received and/or ignored by moviegoers, but now, we have seen that a Gaiman-based film can succeed on both counts.

Finally, I think this was the first theatrical movie I saw in 3D, and until seeing it, I had been skeptical about the new format. I wondered if it would be able to translate to the home theater format, and I was afraid that a lot of movies would resort to "cheap 3D tricks" (to quote Muppet Vision 3D from Disney MGM Studios). Coraline, however, was able to use the 3D technology effectively without throwing in any 3D gags (my fear was based on the Monsters vs. Aliens trailer, which was full of them, such as a guy playing with a wooden paddle and ball).

Up next: The art of parody...

Animation Domination

I have a planned series to do, but first, I wanted to write a brief post on the movie Coraline. I was thinking the other day about movies that I've seen this year and how, for the most part, they've been pretty lackluster. I think the only two absolutely good movies I've seen so far in 2009 have been animated; one of them is Up, which I already wrote about, and the other is Coraline (also, both movies have been in 3D).

I think that I meant to do something about Coraline a little while back, so I have decided to go over it now.

Up next: A dream come true...

Firefly # 1: Out of Gas

Episode 8
First Aired October 25th, 2002

The first time I saw this episode, I thought it was fine, but nothing spectacular. I'm not sure why it didn't click with me, but one reason may be that it wasn't action-packed and it didn't drive the plot forward. What it does do is show how much Mal loves his ship, which is much more important than I initially realized. The episode also weaves three timelines together in a way that accents what is going on in the present through flashbacks and still allows us to follow what is going on in the present.

The present narrative begins with a wounded Mal holding a machine part. These segments have absolutely no dialogue (except for recorded warnings from Serenity herself) and feature no character beside Mal as he makes his way from the cargo bay to the engine room. These segments are full of hauntingly sad music as Mal struggles to save his ship. The second narrative starts about a day earlier and works up to the beginning of the present narrative. It shows how Serenity became damaged, where the rest of the crew went, and how Mal got injured. The third timeline consists of flashbacks detailing how everyone got on the ship (except Simon, River, and Book, because in the unaired pilot "Serenity", we see them get on Serenity for the first time). The episode sometimes misdirects us with these glimpses into the past; when Mal and Zoe hire Wash, Mal notes that now they have a pilot to go with their genius mechanic, who turns out to be someone besides Kaylee. The best misdirect comes at the end, but I won't say what it was.

"Out of Gas" is a beautiful episode that shows the crew at their most desperate. It also shows us just how devoted to each other this crew is; Wash is willing to defy Mal to keep Zoe safe (she was injured in the explosion that crippled Serenity), but he also figures out a way for Mal to call the crew back in case he is somehow able to fix the ship. There is also a rather meta explanation to the beauty of this episode; as I said, Wash rigs a button to send out a signal to the two shuttles carrying the crew in case Mal is able to repair the ship. He tells Mal that when his miracle arrives, push the button, and the crew will return. Alan Tudyk, who plays Wash stole that button from the set, and when the network cancelled the show, he gave it to Joss Whedon, telling him that if some miracle occurs, he could use the button to call back the cast members. Like Mal, Joss was eventually able to use the button.

Up next: Brief movie update...

Firefly # 2: Ariel

Episode 9
First Aired November 15th, 2002

"Ariel" is probably the episode that is the heaviest on the science fiction aspects of the series. It is the only time we ever see a central planet (the titular Ariel) and we see some of the most technologically advanced equipment ever shown in the 'verse. Serenity is in port on Ariel so that Inara can have a routine check-up to keep her companion's license, and Mal forbids anyone from leaving the ship. However, the group is strapped for cash, and Simon proposes a lucrative job: if the crew can River and him into a hospital containing an advanced brain scanner (kind of an advanced MRI machine), he will instruct them on how to steal extremely valuable medicine from the hospital's store room.

As is usually the case with Firefly, things don't go according to plan. This time around, Jayne causes trouble by alerting the police that he will have the fugitive Tam siblings. Believing he will get a huge payday, the officer making the arrest double crosses Jayne and plans to claim the reward himself. Before the fearsome Hands of Blue agents arrived to claim the Tams, Simon showed that he can remain calm in tough situations as he tried to stall for time to allow Jayne to subdue their captors. Jayne and Simon were able to work together to escape their captors, and when the Hands of Blue finally arrived, they were upset to find the prisoners gone. But what they found even worse was that the officer spoke to River; for this, they used a strange device that caused his blood vessels to burst, leaking blood out of his eyes, mouth, and fingertips.

Jayne, Simon, and River were eventually able to rendez-vous with the ship. Thinking that they were in the clear, Jayne let his guard down, only to get knocked out by Mal. Mal figured out what happened and nearly killed Jayne in response. The scene between the two of them, with Jayne in the airlock with the hatch door open as they were about to leave the planet's atmosphere and Mal safely on the other side of the door was fantastic. We learned just how much Mal cared about his crew, including Simon and River, and how far he would go to protect them.

Up next: Firefly #1...

Firefly # 3: Objects In Space

Episode 14
First Aired December 13th, 2002

Sadly, Firefly only got one season, but while it certainly wasn't perfect, it was by far the best opening season of Joss Whedon's first three shows (not a single episode from the first seasons of Buffy and Angel made their lists, but first season episodes from both shows were considered). Ok, the comparison isn't exactly apt because I have nothing else to compare the 14 episodes of Firefly against (the film Serenity doesn't count because it was a film), but the episodes of Firefly were so good that I have a harder time thinking about how much better it could have gotten than I do thinking about how much the first season episodes of the Buffyverse could have improved (I of course believe that it COULD have gotten better, especially knowing what I know from Serenity).

"Objects In Space" was a great season finale, but it was not meant to be a series finale. The first time I saw it, I didn't like it because it didn't answer any questions (and Serenity hadn't been announced yet). Upon watching it again, I realized that it was indeed a terrific episode that would have been an incredible season ender. The main purpose of the episode is to finally have River become a full member of the crew; all season, she was an outcast, unable to do anything except make trouble for the crew of Serenity. "Objects In Space" showed us that she would continue to make life difficult because of her status as a wanted fugitive, but it also showed us that she may be able to pull her weight on the ship and can come back from her insane mindset.

On the surface of the episode, the plot is about a bounty hunter sneaking onto Serenity to capture River. He effectively neutralized the various crew members with methods tailored to their personalities; he attacked Mal and Book (further proof that Book was more than a simple man of the cloth), locked Zoe in her room with Wash, and sadisticly threatened to rape Kaylee if she made trouble for him. He then captured Simon and tried to force him to help him find the missing River. River meanwhile was hiding and was able to use the ship's intercom system to speak with the various crewmembers to put a plan into motion to retake the ship.

The episode also is very philosophical; the bounty hunter wonders aloud to Simon about the meaning of various objects. He talks about the way of the world and how it is unfair in some ways (though many of these ways are twisted outlooks on life). River also thinks about meaning, but her warped worldview is what causes her to make these statements. When she holds up a gun, she sees it as a stick, and states that it is just an object. That is true, but to her, it is a harmless thing, but the rest of the crew feels differently.

"Objects In Space" is a great way for Whedon to express some of his philosophical views in both ways he agrees and disagrees with, and the episode makes for a great way to end the season. Too bad it ended the series... sort of (the episode that aired last was actually the two-part pilot, "Serenity").

Up next: Firefly #2...

Angel # 1: Reunion

Season 2, Episode 10
First Aired December 19th, 2000

I thought about including the preceding episode "The Trial" and/or the following episode "Redefinition" along with "Reunion" but ultimately decided to present it on its own. "Reunion" was a pivotal episode in Season 2; it kicked off the "beige Angel" arc and changed the direction of the season. The previous episode ended with Angel and Darla realizing that even though Angel couldn't save Darla's life, he had saved her soul. Then Lindsey and a bunch of Wolfram and Hart security personnel showed up with Drusilla, subdued Angel, and had Drusilla re-sire Darla. This episode begins immediately after and the first part follows Angel as he tries to find Darla before she awakens as a vampire again. Unfortunately, Wolfram and Hart did a pretty good job keeping her hidden, and even the Powers That Be try to keep Angel from succeeding; when he finally figures out where Darla is being kept, Cordelia receives a vision telling them to go the other direction.

Angel later confronts Holland Manners, the W&H lawyer in charge of the Darla "project"; Manners was quite pleased with himself, and looked forward to the massacre Darla and Drusilla would commit in Los Angeles. Ironically, reviving Darla would be the end of Holland and 20 other W&H lawyers. That night, Manners hosted a wine party in his cellar for his colleagues, including Lindsey and Lilah Morgan. Unfortunately, Darla and Drusilla showed up to get revenge for the way they treated Darla; they brought her back as human, used her as bait for Angel, knowing that she would eventually (1) regain her conscience (and feel terrible about her deeds as a vampire) and (2) succumb to syphilis. Before the two vampires could begin their feast, Angel showed up at Manners' house, but instead of saving the attorneys, he locked them in the cellar with Darla and Drusilla. Lindsey and Lilah would be the only survivors. When Angel returned to the Hyperion, Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn expressed their growing unease with the way Angel was conducting himself, so he fired them, to allow for his all-out war against Wolfram and Hart.

Up next: Firefly #3...

Angel # 2: A Hole In The World/Shells

Season 5, Episodes 15 and 16
First Aired February 25th and March 3rd, 2004

"A Hole In The World" (which, for whatever reason, I always initially write as "Whole") is one of the most emotionally charged episodes of Angel; two seemingly minor events that happened in the previous episode ("Smile Time") come back in a big way. First, Wesley and Fred are now a couple, and Gunn signed papers to release some strange package from customs in exchange to make his legal education imprint permanent. I turns out that the package was a mysterious sarcophagus, and it was delivered to Fred's lab. When she touched it, it released dust that blew into her mouth and nose. Although the infirmary determined that the dust didn't do anything to her, the group quickly learned that it infected her with the essence of Illyria, an ancient demon. The various team members react to the situation differently. Lorne, the pacifist, becomes violent when questioning Eve about the situation. Gunn bargains with the doctor who gave him the imprint to remove everything from his brain in return for saving Fred. Wes obsesses over saving Fred, and demands that the entire staff of Wolfram and Hart devote all their time to finding a cure. And Angel and Spike head to England to find a cure; both of them care very much about her and are willing to do anything to save her (Fred endeared herself to Spike by not giving up on finding a way to restore him to corporeal form at the beginning of the season). Or at least, anything but the only way to save her, because it would sacrifice the lives of millions.

The episode ends with Fred dying in Wes' arms. The final shot is the resurrected Illyria examining his/her new body. "Shells", on the other hand, is a much more action-packed episode. Its main purpose is to show us Illyria's power and to set up where Wes will be going for the rest of the series. The death of Fred was a powerful blow to him, and he becomes absolutely ruthless; he visciously attacks anyone he believes responsible for Fred's death, including Gunn. The episode features some very good fight scenes between Angel, Spike, and Illyria, even though the two vampires barely pose Illyria a threat. Emotions were certainly running high in this episode, and it was a great way to leave the series before the final 6 episodes aired.

Up next: Angel #1...

Angel # 3: Smile Time

Season 5, Episode 14
First Aired February 18th, 2004

I feel a little bad putting this episode on the list because to fit it in, I had to cut out the Faith two-parter from Season 1, which is much more emotionally powerful than this episode. But "Smile Time" is just so hilarious and well-produced. The idea of Angel turning into a puppet sounds so silly, but the execution was incredible. That's basically the episode: Angel becomes a puppet, and the group needs to figure out how to break the spell. Ok, Wes and Fred finally got together, Angel decided to date Nina the werewolf, and Gunn made a fateful decision, but mainly, this was all about puppet-Angel.

Joss Whedon co-wrote this episode with Ben Edlund (who has done some work on The Venture Bros.), and there are few funnier episodes of either Angel or Buffy. The various reactions to Angel as a puppet were incredible, espeically Spike's "wee little puppet man". The script called for Spike to laugh uncontrollably, but I've heard that James Marsters blew takes because he was laughing too much. The puppet choreography was really good, especially the puppet fight at the climax. And then there were all the various puppet jokes ("Is there a Gepetto in the house?").

This episode didn't significantly advance the plot of Season 5, but it did plant the seeds for things to come. And it was absolutely hilarious.

Up next: Angel #2...

Angel # 4: You're Welcome

Season 5, Episode 12
First Aired February 4th, 2004

"You're Welcome" is the 100th episode of Angel. It set up the rest of the season (and series) and it very beautifully gave Cordelia Chase closure. At the end of Season 4, she fell into a coma because of the stress of birthing Jasmine, and at the beginning of this episode, just as Angel was starting to give up on himself as the CEO of Wolfram and Hart, Cordelia finally woke up. She came back to a world she barely recognized; Angel was the CEO of Wolfram and Hart and Spike had a soul and was helping the helpless. Unbeknownst to Angel and his friends, Spike was going out at night to save people, much the way Angel did in the first two seasons of the show. In fact, Spike was receiving tips on where to go to save people from someone who called himself Doyle. "Doyle" claimed to receive visions from the Powers That Be of people in need.

When Spike told Angel and Cordelia about this, they both became quite upset, because Doyle was their original partner. He received visions of people in trouble and directed Angel to their location. Even worse was the fact that Doyle was in fact Lindsey McDonald, who had set up the situations for Spike. He and Eve were working on a plan to bring down Angel's self-esteem by making him think that Spike was the subject of the Shanshu Prophecy.

Cordelia helped reassure Angel, and he and Lindsey met for a showdown in the bowels of the Wolfram and Hart building. However, when things looked like they were finally going to turn out alright for Angel and Cordelia, Angel got hit with a realization. The final twist made complete sense based on previous comments made in the episode, and it was very sad but dramatically satisfying. Cordelia's role in the episode put Angel back on track in ways that won't be quite clear until the end of the season, and in ways beyond what she did in her waking state.

Up next: Angel #3...

Angel # 5: Reprise/Epiphany

Season 2, Episodes 15 and 16
First Aired February 20th and 27th, 2001

There are a stretch of episodes in the second season of Angel the producers refer to as the "beige Angel" arc when Angel (not Angelus) decides that instead of helping the helpless, his duty is to take down Wolfram and Hart any way he can (the beige comes from Lorne stating that his aura has changed to a beige color). Angel "fired" his friends from Angel Investigations and began a guerrilla campaign against the evil law firm. He was willing to hurt the innocent in pursuit of the greater good.

His crusade eventually brought him to an opportunity to kill one of the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart (other-worldly demons) and get to the "home office" to finish off the firm once and for all. When Angel carries out his plan, he is confronted by Holland Manners, one of the LA branch's leading partners. Angel was indirectly responsible for Manners' death, so seeing him again came as a bit of a shock; Angel, and the audience, learned about the Wolfram and Hart policy that keeps employees under contract long after their deaths. Manners agrees to take Angel to the "home office", and throughout their journey, he talks about the goals of Wolfram and Hart, its purpose, and its history. But when the pair arrive, Angel learns that the "home office" is our dimension. The wicked side of human nature makes the firm possible. Utterly defeated, Angel returns to his home, only to find Darla ready to kill him. Instead, he decides to violently have sex with her, believing that he has no reason to retain his soul any longer if he cannot make a difference. "Reprise" ends almost exactly the way the Buffy episode "Surprise" ended, with a thunderclap awakening a post-coital Angel.

However, "Epiphany" does not begin like "Innocence"; Angel does not lose his soul. The key to breaking the curse isn't sex, but happiness, and Angel fucked Darla out of despair. He retained his soul and had an epiphany. He realized that he had become no better than Wolfram and Hart, because even though he technically represented "good", he wasn't helping people. He had turned away from the people he cared about most and the people who cared about him the most, and allowed them to be put in harm's way. Angel set out to apologize to his friends and even offered to work for Wes, who had become the boss of Angel Investigations after Angel fired him, Cordelia, and Gunn.

In one important scene with Kate Lockley, who also reached rock bottom, Angel explained his new outlook on life, and I have tried to use his philosophy as a basis for my own life. He explained that if there is no greater meaning to life, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world. Kate also gave him hope for the world by explaining that there may be a higher power working for good out there after all; Angel broke into Kate's apartment to revive her after she attempted suicide, but one of the rules about vampires in the Buffyverse is that they cannot enter a home uninvited, and Kate had never invited Angel in before.

These episodes showed Angel hit his bottom, rebound, and receive a new outlook on life. They also sowed the seeds for the third and fourth seasons of the show.

Up next: Angel #4...

Angel # 6: Orpheus

Season 4, Episode 15
First Aired March 19th, 2003

It was a tough choice between this episode and the preceding episode, but I ultimately went with this one because it nicely wrapped up the Angelus and Faith storylines. And because it had an Angel vs. Angelus fight. The previous episode ended with Angelus biting Faith in order to turn her into a vampire. "Orpheus" begins right there, but Angelus quickly learned that Faith intended for him to bite her, and she injected herself with a bizarre drug, called Orpheus, in order to incapacitate Angelus. She felt that capturing Angelus was so important that she subjected herself to the effects of the drug too, and it had a much more powerful effect on her because although Angelus had the drug "filtered" through Faith's blood, she got the full blow from it.

Orpheus is a mystical drug that induces visions that are supposed to torment the user. Angelus and Faith can communicate to each other in their comatose states and they simultaneously get the same visions. Angelus is forced to rewatch the best deeds that Angel performed, including saving a puppy in 1920s Chicago, while Faith has to watch Angel's worst and most desperate deeds, such as failing to call the police after a robbery so he could feed off the victim. Their visions climax with a suddenly aware past Angel taking on Angelus and trying to tell Faith what it means to be alive.

In the waking world, Cordelia desperately tries to stop Willow from restoring Angel's soul and eventually reveals her "pregnancy" to the rest of the group. She also further turns Connor away from the rest of the group.

The end sets up Faith's story in the remainder of Buffy and brings Angel back to the group.

Up next: Angel #5...