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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:22:55 GMT -5
Loved the episode. I think the thing that was different from Spike was the underlying . . . non-humanity, as it were, of this character. Spike, as a vamp, was alwyas too human. And John, underneath it all, is really really not. ITA with this Lola....Plus, for me, Spike's glory in violence was really about his own inner rage. He wasn't *really* enjoying all the blood and gore and destruction...he was smart enough and human enough as a vamp to say, 'This (vampirism) is what defines me, I've got to embrace it." while really still having a tiny piece of that sweet nerdy William still inside. (Despite what Buffy and Giles think-that the vamp has NO shared identity with the victim.) John, however, really does seem to be living beyond *human* morality. He might be what we call a good guy at times (rescuing that dude in the beginning) but he also has no qualms about extreme violence to reach a goal. Instead of reveling in the violence, he seemed more matter o' fact about it....except with the meeting with Jack, where the violence kinda rolled into the sex and heat and the emotion. John might be *moral* but based on a very non-human understanding of that word. I had a heart-thud when John asked to join the team....sure hope John is a recurring character and JM can work him in. I'm speculating that Grey is Jack's child. Looked like a child's hand being held in that dreamy sequence. Gotta watch again! Looked like a child to me too. But whether or not Grey is Jack's child is a good question. And, is Grey still a child, or is this an old memory?
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:31:14 GMT -5
Well, I'm gonna give this ep another shot, and try not to see all the sexual innuendo, 'cause it really was interfering with my ability to analyze the plot. I do wonder, if they're all still alive after Jack was gone for so long...if maybe Gwen is a better leader. I mean...one episode with Jack again, and the bad guy is getting the drop on them all over again. Also? Someone (can't recall who this second) said that they thought one difference between John and Spike was John's lack of humanity. I have to disagree there. He's all too human, actually. Still hung up on an old flame, willing to do whatever it takes to get rich, despairing of life meaning anything...and at least two of those humanizing factors were shared in common with Spike - the "old flame" bit - first Dru, then Buffy - and the "whatever it takes" to get not necessarily rich, but powerful. Gem of Amara, anyone? I didn't get the impression, at all, that he was hurting people for anything other than expediency, and he didn't kill when he didn't need to ("need" in the sense of making his con go off as planned) - in fact, he left them alive with a fair shot at survival. Had he wanted Gwen dead, he could have shot her in the head. Same for Owen (how many nonfatal gunshot wounds is Owen going to get? Not that I mind.). He could easily have gotten Ianto to run away by telling him Owen/Gwen/Tosh were still alive, even if they weren't. Why he didn't kill them is up for debate - IMO, we don't know the character well enough to really speculate. But one reason might be that he figured killing his team would make it less likely that Jack would run away with him. Another is that he doesn't kill unless it's required. Seems less likely, but possible. The first possibility makes him very Spike-like; the second illustrates that he is still human. Well, if you can see it without the innuendo, you're a better woman than I. Then again, I'm watching it partly for the innuendo, so . . . ;D ;D I guess I was usuing the word "humanity" because the Judge used it to Spike and Dru, but really, I'm talking about what he was talking about. They shared actual love, not just passion and sex, but love. So, to me, the comparison between Spike and John would be . . . Like, try to imagine Spike truly killing, with relatively little problem, a person he was in love with. No matter the temptation for him, he never killed Dru or Buffy, though he might have threatened it. And yes, John was a bit sad afterwards. But only a little. Jack made him angry by not wanting to join up again and he stood between John and the money. So, boom - take him out. Spike would rant and threaten and whine and all about a love of his life if they were causing him problems. But then he'd go back trying to do anything they wanted.
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:35:39 GMT -5
Well, I'm gonna give this ep another shot, and try not to see all the sexual innuendo, 'cause it really was interfering with my ability to analyze the plot. I do wonder, if they're all still alive after Jack was gone for so long...if maybe Gwen is a better leader. I mean...one episode with Jack again, and the bad guy is getting the drop on them all over again. Also? Someone (can't recall who this second) said that they thought one difference between John and Spike was John's lack of humanity. I have to disagree there. He's all too human, actually. Still hung up on an old flame, willing to do whatever it takes to get rich, despairing of life meaning anything...and at least two of those humanizing factors were shared in common with Spike - the "old flame" bit - first Dru, then Buffy - and the "whatever it takes" to get not necessarily rich, but powerful. Gem of Amara, anyone? I didn't get the impression, at all, that he was hurting people for anything other than expediency, and he didn't kill when he didn't need to ("need" in the sense of making his con go off as planned) - in fact, he left them alive with a fair shot at survival. Had he wanted Gwen dead, he could have shot her in the head. Same for Owen (how many nonfatal gunshot wounds is Owen going to get? Not that I mind.). He could easily have gotten Ianto to run away by telling him Owen/Gwen/Tosh were still alive, even if they weren't. Why he didn't kill them is up for debate - IMO, we don't know the character well enough to really speculate. But one reason might be that he figured killing his team would make it less likely that Jack would run away with him. Another is that he doesn't kill unless it's required. Seems less likely, but possible. The first possibility makes him very Spike-like; the second illustrates that he is still human. All good points I'm still thinking on but which have also made another tingle go off in my head about the difference between Spike and John. It seemed to me that Spike had to have someone to love to have a reason for being, but John just has to have a game to play. Those are both very human traits each so I agree with you that their difference isn't so much in that one is more human, but that one (Spike, if I need to say it out loud) is more humane. But they're what I see as big differences in the two characters. JM gave Spike that puppy-dog "love me" look a lot. But he gives off something different as John. He's not so emotionally soft. Spike's vulnerabilities are widely known and exploited and he lives with it by allowing it because he needs it. John's aren't. The most vulnerable he seems is with Jack, but how hung up on the old flame could John have been to push him off a roof? Unless it was in a "if I can't have you, nobody can" kind of way. Which didn't really get backed up by the way he didn't really express much regret over Jack's "dead" body. And in his last scene, John gives himself the emotional upper hand by making it clear that he knew (and possibly had access to) a major vulnerability of Jack's. Starting a new game to play to keep him going. And I think JM did all of that well. **nods** Sooooo loved that Western vibe! I practically heard that classic Western theme music as Jack walked in. The bar that everyone has cleared out of, one guy drinking alone, the swinging doors, etc. Perfect. ;D
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:36:35 GMT -5
**nods** With the accent and the sexy and the cocky bastard thing, I was expecting to have him be completely Spike to me as I watched. Only, not really. I mean, yeah, of course I had "oh, that's so Spike-ish" moments, but this was definitely a different character. There was the whole cool coat and boots thing, the sexy bad boy, the male-male love/hate thing, the amoral but funny AND the deep voiced quasi-British accent-- but what there wasn't was Spike. So great. Mmmmmm, yes. Cool coat and boots. Mmmmmmm! **goes back to happy sex-ay place**
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:44:23 GMT -5
Which didn't really get backed up by the way he didn't really express much regret over Jack's "dead" body.Which version of the episode did you watch? The one with the lip touching? seriously, there's two edits I've seen in the UK and I don't know if the US has one or the other or a whole other one. In one of them there was sniffing, like trying not to cry maybe, in the other he just picked up the cannister and left. I think he pushed him off the roof because he's failed rehabs and is messed up in the head and has a whole impulse control problem, plus possibly some cause/effect issues. I have a theory about the time loop they were stuck in - five years of having everything reset after two weeks? If it was a groundhog day thing. Don't know if either of them died in it, but... Would be enough to mess with the whole causality habit, yesno? I'm not sure he'd connected 'shove Jack cause he's angry' with 'no more Jack any more'. At least not in advance. Don't know though, could be he's just enough of a bastard he'll go around killing his ex for funnies. But then why not kill the team? *shrugs* Impulse, yes. Messed up in the head, yes. Really does need the murder rehab, yes. Angry about Jack not wanting to be together again, yes. But I'd also add, standing between John and his money. And I think he did expect there to be "no more Jack any more". Not in a long-planned "kill him" way. But in a "I will always kill or dispense with anyone hindering me" kind of way. Love, yes. Love and still kill, yes. Love and still kill and move on relatively easily, yes. Now, the reaction when he saw that Jack didn't die is very interesting and cool. And I put a lot of importance on the things that Jack said to him about it. "I can't die", but also the "you can't kill me". I think it freaks John out for there to be someone that he can't kill, can't use that as a solution with.
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:45:01 GMT -5
Which didn't really get backed up by the way he didn't really express much regret over Jack's "dead" body.Which version of the episode did you watch? The one with the lip touching? seriously, there's two edits I've seen in the UK and I don't know if the US has one or the other or a whole other one. In one of them there was sniffing, like trying not to cry maybe, in the other he just picked up the cannister and left. I think he pushed him off the roof because he's failed rehabs and is messed up in the head and has a whole impulse control problem, plus possibly some cause/effect issues. I have a theory about the time loop they were stuck in - five years of having everything reset after two weeks? If it was a groundhog day thing. Don't know if either of them died in it, but... Would be enough to mess with the whole causality habit, yesno? I'm not sure he'd connected 'shove Jack cause he's angry' with 'no more Jack any more'. At least not in advance. Don't know though, could be he's just enough of a bastard he'll go around killing his ex for funnies. But then why not kill the team? *shrugs* I watched the episode with the lip-touching. So I should have qualified: John's regret for Jack's death didn't get backed up for me. It could have been my bias toward (or against) the character, but I watched it more than once and the sniffing didn't register with me as anything much more than "Oh...I just murdered my ex-spouse...dang...what a waste of pretty.". And he took the wrist device first, gloating. That was just my take on it. I'm not sure I buy the whole disconnect between cause and effect, though. He sure knew enough about cause and effect to be able to put enough of a spin on why he was there to get them to help him. It's possible he killed his ex and not the rest of the team because either, as Owen said, he underestimated them or he just didn't think enough OF them to consider them worth killing. Jack, OTOH, seriously pissed him off, made it very clear that not only was there was absolutely nothing left between them, on a personal or "professional" level, but he was actively working against him now. Jack told John to move on and maybe that was his way of doing it, by killing him. In which case, I totally agree with your assessment of how messed up in the head he is. To be fair, I haven't spent time thinking about the mental/emotional ramifications of their 5-year time loop relationship at all. But I'm sure there will be a lot of slashfic about it. **nods**
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:46:10 GMT -5
I see the characters as different. John is greedy; a mercenary through and through. Spike was a failed romantic. Spike reveled in his emotional life. While John has feelings, they seem an inconvenience to him. He allowed himself a moment of sorrow and loss over killing Jack, then he moved on right away. Maybe he's a failed idealist. That would at least give him a rough parallel to Spike's arc. When I see John I see a cop or a soldier (whatever a time agent is) who for some reason, decides that the best policy is to look out for number one and abuses his position and knowledge to do it. He's more a character out of Kipling (think Michael Caine or Sean Connery in "The Man Who Would Be King"), than out of Whedon for me. Did I mention how I like your Kipling comparison? 'Cuz I do. I think it fits John and Jack both.
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 8:46:48 GMT -5
To be fair, I haven't spent time thinking about the mental/emotional ramifications of their 5-year time loop relationship at all. But I'm sure there will be a lot of slashfic about it. oh yes. and already some of it is even good. Of course the other possibility is - Jack said 2 weeks, John said 5 years... was Jack *in* the time loop, or did John spend 5 years with him and Jack only spend 2 weeks? I think they were both there, but I could spin fic out of either possibility. Oooooooh, now that's an intriguing thought / question.
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jan 28, 2008 10:20:08 GMT -5
I saw James as playing a completely different character, despite all the similarities to Spike. Any particular reason why? Mannerisms, the way he walked and carried himself, and the cadence of his voice, things that define a character, were completely different. Great actors, IMHO, like James, also IMHO, manage to completely change these things from character to character. It's like they let some one else's spirit possess their body. Good to decent ones usually just use their own, so they tend to be the same. If I were to compare the two characters, I would say that John is much less mercurial than Spike.
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jan 28, 2008 10:21:33 GMT -5
oh yes. and already some of it is even good. Of course the other possibility is - Jack said 2 weeks, John said 5 years... was Jack *in* the time loop, or did John spend 5 years with him and Jack only spend 2 weeks? I think they were both there, but I could spin fic out of either possibility. Oooooooh, now that's an intriguing thought / question. I was thinking maybe it was like the time O'Neill and Teal'c were stuck in the time loop together, mostly because I just watched that episode.
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Post by Lola m on Jan 28, 2008 14:13:28 GMT -5
Oooooooh, now that's an intriguing thought / question. I was thinking maybe it was like the time O'Neill and Teal'c were stuck in the time loop together, mostly because I just watched that episode. Ah, that ep! Spawned many a fan fic it did, with folks taking advantage of all the other things they might have decided to do, seeing as there are no repercussions once the time loop re-sets.
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jan 28, 2008 14:35:25 GMT -5
I was thinking maybe it was like the time O'Neill and Teal'c were stuck in the time loop together, mostly because I just watched that episode. Ah, that ep! Spawned many a fan fic it did, with folks taking advantage of all the other things they might have decided to do, seeing as there are no repercussions once the time loop re-sets. Hmm... I can imagine. ;D
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Post by Shan on Feb 1, 2008 20:34:15 GMT -5
Loved the episode. ITA with this Lola....Plus, for me, Spike's glory in violence was really about his own inner rage. He wasn't *really* enjoying all the blood and gore and destruction...he was smart enough and human enough as a vamp to say, 'This (vampirism) is what defines me, I've got to embrace it." while really still having a tiny piece of that sweet nerdy William still inside. (Despite what Buffy and Giles think-that the vamp has NO shared identity with the victim.) John, however, really does seem to be living beyond *human* morality. He might be what we call a good guy at times (rescuing that dude in the beginning) but he also has no qualms about extreme violence to reach a goal. Instead of reveling in the violence, he seemed more matter o' fact about it....except with the meeting with Jack, where the violence kinda rolled into the sex and heat and the emotion. John might be *moral* but based on a very non-human understanding of that word. I had a heart-thud when John asked to join the team....sure hope John is a recurring character and JM can work him in. I'm speculating that Grey is Jack's child. Looked like a child's hand being held in that dreamy sequence. Gotta watch again! Looked like a child to me too. But whether or not Grey is Jack's child is a good question. And, is Grey still a child, or is this an old memory? In one of the first episodes (maybe THE first), I think Jack made a reference to childbirth that made it sound like he had some personal experience with it.
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Post by Onjel on Feb 1, 2008 21:12:16 GMT -5
Well, I'm late, but I finally managed to watch this in its entirety. I saw no tangible emotional traces of the character, Spike. I did see similarities in the physical manifestation of John Hart and his swagger with the physicality of Spike. No surprise there since they are played by the same guy. The question of which character is more human/humane has been well and truly addressed by y'all. I'm in agreement with Shan. I was more intrigued by how Jack was trying to ingratiate himself with the team again. I mean, he all but came onto Gwen, focusing intently on Ianto and asking him for a date after the engagement thing came out. Jack was so clearly out of the loop and he was obviously feeling the chill. Funny how he first resorted to seduction to try and get back in. ;D In that way, he's not very different from John, who tried to seduce Jack into letting him back in (to Jack's life). I can't help it. I miss the blonde hair. But, JM looked good to me, if short. The innuendos didn't bother me. I thought they were silly-funny. What is distracting is the over-abundance of pretty with the boys on the screen. The hand that Jack saw leaving his hand looked to me like a child's hand too. Jack's perhaps? I'm betting either his or a young relative, a younger sibling, if he has such things.
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Post by Onjel on Feb 2, 2008 20:59:41 GMT -5
What if the child's hand was Jack's and he was remembering a moment of his childhood? Grey could be the adult holding the child's hand.
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