3/06: Billy

[Queen E]

Oy. Things are getting crazy up in here...

[Queen E]

This is such a disturbing episode, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. While it's interesting/disturbing, as Cordelia points out, that Angel is immune to misogyny because when he was evil it was about the pleasure of killing, I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that in most men, there is an "inherent" savagery or misogyny.

What I will say, in light of this episode, it's not entirely surprising that Wesley reacted the way he did. And my apologies; I'm not having a go at the character or saying he is hateful, but there is something a little "off" at times in the way he reacts to Fred...something that borders on objectification. I'm just wondering if, because his first impression of her was when she was half-mad that he tends to thing of her as needing to be rescued and then, later, as something to be acquired that, once possessed, will make him better or more worthy.

[Lola m]

Cordelia makes good points, as usual. That she needs to know how to fight, and to potentially have to fight Angel. (Which means her bluff in season one to druggd up faux!Angelus is maybe a bit right, eh? That she's always ready, in some inner part of her, for Angelus to come out again?) Also? The cheerleading sword stuff is awesome. ;D

Gavin and Billy, all friendly and smiley. Why are we not surprised?

And there's our first case of Billy-induced violence. It was a nice choice to have it happen at W&H, where we can't yet really know if this isn't just "business as usual" for them, so to speak.

Oh, I'd forgotten this was that ep - that ep where Wes' hesitance and insecurity truly sink anything that might have (possibly) happened between him and Fred.

Ah, the extra level of twisty-ness that they brought to this story by having this guy be the one they traded for Cordy's life. Also? Listen to Angel when he says neither of you are responsible for this. And, actually, can't really blame Lilah/W&H entirely (somewhat, but not entirely). Billy is the resposible one, people.

"I'm sorry, but this deep chivalric concern coming from the only man I know who definitely wants to kill me, is a bit much on a day like this." I've always loved the multiple layers that are in this conversation.

Billy just likes to watch, doesn't do it himself. The ultimate in creepy, eh? Just likes to watch, just likes to manipulate, just likes to force his will. And he's forcing his will on the men, in order to physically hurt the women.

And there goes Cordy, still feeling - not guilty, and (regardless of what she says) I don't think she really feels "responsible" exactly, but . . . duty-bound, perhaps?

I do like that we see all the women of the show working on this case, each in their own ways and with their own skills.

I also love the "I've seen his dark side" - "you really haven't" exchange.

Cordy manipulates Lilah so nicely. And Lilah even knows it, but she also knows she's gonna give up Billy. Because a deep part of her wants to. Lilah knows it and Cordy knows it.

The way they have the badness take over Wes? So scary. So creepy. So plausible. So bad-side-of-Watcherdom. And very likely, so very like how his dad was with him. Um. I mean, minus the sexual aspect, but the violence and the way it's couched in such over-intellectuallized smarmy way?

Fred. Run. Run like you know how to do!!

Everyone in the family knows the rules around Billy.

Heeeee! Angel all "Cordy thinks I'm melodramatic?" ;D

Now we have Wes doing his own warped version of The Shining.

I'm always fond of Cordy with a crossbow. Gotta love that.

This line really sums Billy up nicely, doens't it? "I don't hate women. I mean, sure, you're all whores who sell yourselves for money and prestige, but men are just as bad." (Also? Creepily spot on argument. One I've heard oh so many times before, in both nicer and nastier versions. )

So so so interesting to watch Gunn and Fred move from "so you're saying that Wes turned into a psycho killer because of that bloody handprint that I picked up and looked at?" thru "plan B, plan B, plan B" and "knock me out" to Fred's trap. Clever clever Fred and her building skills. Also? Did she have her traps built even before Wes went nuts or did she do them on the fly? I can't decide which I'd find more interesting as a concept.

Nice staging touch to have Fred keep falling down and being clumsy-ish and "typical" helpless girl, right up until she does each of her successful moves to protect herself. Like stabbing and kneeing Wes to get away, or clubbing Gunn or, of course, the trap.

Yay! Another excellent "whoa, Lilah" moment. This one is right up there with her going over/under Linwood's head in Deep Down.

This?

Angel: I never hated my victims, I never killed out of anger, it was always about the - pain and the pleasure.
Cordy: Huh. So I guess you could say that your demon-ness makes less petty than humans.

Sooooooo interesting!! Compare this conversation to the one that Angel and Spike have in Damange in season 5.

Ah, and we end with Wes. Oh so very fucked up Wes. Who should really really have listened and understood what Fred was saying to him. What she was really saying.

"It wasn't something in you, Wesley. It was something that was done to you."

The way his voice just keeps fading away with each sentence . . .


This messed with them all to some extent, more and longer than they ever really realize, I think.

[Lola m]

Jun 7, 2009 22:05:23 GMT -5 Queen E said:

This is such a disturbing episode, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. While it's interesting/disturbing, as Cordelia points out, that Angel is immune to misogyny because when he was evil it was about the pleasure of killing, I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that in most men, there is an "inherent" savagery or misogyny.

I'm not sure we're meant to take the "inherent" statement at face value. I mean, look who is the source of that - Lilah. W&H Lilah, in the midst of still deflecting and trying to not help Cordy. And on the other end of the ep, we have Fred reminding Wes (and us) that this was something done to him. Plus, we're shown how Billy likes to manipulate and has contempt for women, yes, but also men.

So, more complex than the "inherent" comment, I'm thinking.

What I will say, in light of this episode, it's not entirely surprising that Wesley reacted the way he did. And my apologies; I'm not having a go at the character or saying he is hateful, but there is something a little "off" at times in the way he reacts to Fred...something that borders on objectification. I'm just wondering if, because his first impression of her was when she was half-mad that he tends to thing of her as needing to be rescued and then, later, as something to be acquired that, once possessed, will make him better or more worthy.

Wes is still very much in a place where he needs to deal with his own issues. And he's not.

[Karen]

Jun 8, 2009 20:54:15 GMT -5 Lola m said:

....

Oh, I'd forgotten this was that ep - that ep where Wes' hesitance and insecurity truly sink anything that might have (possibly) happened between him and Fred.
.....

Oh! Interesting - your statement here made me think of how there was a similar story in Buffy - when Xander was manipulated by the demon into thinking he was seeing his future self with Anya and how that even when he found out it that it wasn't something that really was going to happen, he still believed deep down for some reason that it might.

He and Wes had similar assholes for fathers, as did Angel - or so it was perceived by him - which made for a convenient excuse to give into their fear about failing in a relationship.

Huh.

Thanks for the nice read this morning guys. I miss Angel.

[beccaelizabeth]

Difficult to watch Wes becoming creepy guy, because it's such a smooth slide, not the abrupt violence from the others. Wes goes creepy and makes a joke of it.
And as others have noted, it makes you worry about his home, that there's that kind of phrasing available to him. Where did he hear that joke? Those arguments? Did he just make them up?

Having spent a year studying medieval through renaissance texts I'd suggest Wes, the translator and go to guy for manuscripts, has sources other than experience that might have got into his head. There were entire books about How Women Are Evil. Not ones that had to argue the idea that women are all the bad things of the world, just ones that list the ways. Even in the texts that people still read and study there's some poison, and the ones we reject out of hand now are even worse. Wes spending a lot of intellectual time in the past would be spending time with attitudes that are quite sickening, and would be learning to ignore them to get to the data he needs.

But still, he doesn't sound like he's quoting literature much. So, we're left to wonder, along with him, where did he get it from?



Lilah in this was interesting. It's the same difficulty we're about to face with Darla - you've got a character who has done so much evil, but now something happens to them that just brings you up short. Lots of the time you get an evil character, you get a nice little happy glow when bad things happen to them. Not here. It's too much. And too specifically gendered. Even if it is Lilah who got Billy out to cause those things, to have them happen to her isn't something easy to see, let alone satisfying. This isn't payback, it's grotesque.
kudos to the makeup department, and *shudders*
So Lilah turns up and does killing. Yaay girl power?
Angel goes for the darker corners.

[Lola m]

Jun 10, 2009 9:54:23 GMT -5 Karen said:

Jun 8, 2009 20:54:15 GMT -5 Lola m said:

....

Oh, I'd forgotten this was that ep - that ep where Wes' hesitance and insecurity truly sink anything that might have (possibly) happened between him and Fred.
.....

Oh! Interesting - your statement here made me think of how there was a similar story in Buffy - when Xander was manipulated by the demon into thinking he was seeing his future self with Anya and how that even when he found out it that it wasn't something that really was going to happen, he still believed deep down for some reason that it might.

Oh, nice comparison!

He and Wes had similar assholes for fathers, as did Angel - or so it was perceived by him - which made for a convenient excuse to give into their fear about failing in a relationship.

Huh.

Yeppers!

Thanks for the nice read this morning guys. I miss Angel.

So do I. I still have the DVR grab the odd episodes on TNT in the morning.

[Lola m]

Jun 17, 2009 7:47:41 GMT -5 beccaelizabeth said:

Difficult to watch Wes becoming creepy guy, because it's such a smooth slide, not the abrupt violence from the others. Wes goes creepy and makes a joke of it.
And as others have noted, it makes you worry about his home, that there's that kind of phrasing available to him. Where did he hear that joke? Those arguments? Did he just make them up?

**nods** Knowing even just the smal bit we do about his home/growing up life? Has to make you wonder.

Having spent a year studying medieval through renaissance texts I'd suggest Wes, the translator and go to guy for manuscripts, has sources other than experience that might have got into his head. There were entire books about How Women Are Evil. Not ones that had to argue the idea that women are all the bad things of the world, just ones that list the ways. Even in the texts that people still read and study there's some poison, and the ones we reject out of hand now are even worse. Wes spending a lot of intellectual time in the past would be spending time with attitudes that are quite sickening, and would be learning to ignore them to get to the data he needs.

But still, he doesn't sound like he's quoting literature much. So, we're left to wonder, along with him, where did he get it from?

I think Lilah's comment about this being "inherent" could also apply to general atmosphere and what we're all "soaking in", perhaps?

Lilah in this was interesting. It's the same difficulty we're about to face with Darla - you've got a character who has done so much evil, but now something happens to them that just brings you up short. Lots of the time you get an evil character, you get a nice little happy glow when bad things happen to them. Not here. It's too much. And too specifically gendered. Even if it is Lilah who got Billy out to cause those things, to have them happen to her isn't something easy to see, let alone satisfying. This isn't payback, it's grotesque.
kudos to the makeup department, and *shudders*
So Lilah turns up and does killing. Yaay girl power?

Nicely ambiguous. Yaaay, and yet always with the complexity so it's not just simple "nothing but yaay".

Angel goes for the darker corners.

Always does.

[Spaced Out Looney]

I felt kind of ambivalent about this episode during other watch-throughs, but for some reason this time it really grabbed my attention.

I personally don't believe that men have cornered the market on the ability to hate and cause pain and violence, so if there is indeed such a thing as "primordial misogyny" then there would also have to be such a thing as "primordial misandry." However, I suspect that the ongoing "battle of the sexes" is actually far more of a cultural construct that it may feel at times. But I do believe that everyone is capable of great evil, and that anyone who doesn't puts themselves at risk to do horrendous things.

Intent aside, the episode is a successfully creepy horror story as well as some really interesting character development for Wesley.

My interpretation of Billy's power is that he brings out the anger and hate and violence in anyone, but, because of his own twisted predelictions, is only interested in targeting men when there's a good likelihood that they will direct that violence towards a nearby woman.

I don't buy Angel's explanation that he was wasn't affected because he lost all the anger and hate and so forth a long ago. Perhaps pre-soul he was simply motivated by the fun of it, but I think he was at least partially motivated by anger and hate during his reign of terror during BTVS season 2. What I will accept is that he has a lot of experience exerting self control over those darker urges, as Gunn would have some, having grown up in a very violent unstable environment. Wesley on the other hand had no such experience and probably was not self aware enough before this point to realize what he was capable of.

Interesting things about Wesley while he was "under the influence"
-how Billy's power manifests in him is all very Wesley, with the intellectualizing, as well as revealing his desires for Fred and how much he's idealized her
-his behavior I think would also shed some more light his (not fully disclosed) family life and upbringing, perhaps patterns subtly displayed in his parents
-it also reflects on the attitudes that the Watcher's Council held towards womanhood and the Slayer; since until quite recently he accepted all those ideas without question, I think they would be very deeply engrained.
-he tries to kiss Fred at one point, in the middle of all this stalking and trying to kill her. Interesting.

[leftylady]

Oct 5, 2010 17:00:41 GMT -5 Spaced Out Looney said:

I felt kind of ambivalent about this episode during other watch-throughs, but for some reason this time it really grabbed my attention.

I personally don't believe that men have cornered the market on the ability to hate and cause pain and violence, so if there is indeed such a thing as "primordial misogyny" then there would also have to be such a thing as "primordial misandry." However, I suspect that the ongoing "battle of the sexes" is actually far more of a cultural construct that it may feel at times. But I do believe that everyone is capable of great evil, and that anyone who doesn't puts themselves at risk to do horrendous things.

Intent aside, the episode is a successfully creepy horror story as well as some really interesting character development for Wesley.

My interpretation of Billy's power is that he brings out the anger and hate and violence in anyone, but, because of his own twisted predelictions, is only interested in targeting men when there's a good likelihood that they will direct that violence towards a nearby woman.

I don't buy Angel's explanation that he was wasn't affected because he lost all the anger and hate and so forth a long ago. Perhaps pre-soul he was simply motivated by the fun of it, but I think he was at least partially motivated by anger and hate during his reign of terror during BTVS season 2. What I will accept is that he has a lot of experience exerting self control over those darker urges, as Gunn would have some, having grown up in a very violent unstable environment. Wesley on the other hand had no such experience and probably was not self aware enough before this point to realize what he was capable of.

Interesting things about Wesley while he was "under the influence"
-how Billy's power manifests in him is all very Wesley, with the intellectualizing, as well as revealing his desires for Fred and how much he's idealized her
-his behavior I think would also shed some more light his (not fully disclosed) family life and upbringing, perhaps patterns subtly displayed in his parents
-it also reflects on the attitudes that the Watcher's Council held towards womanhood and the Slayer; since until quite recently he accepted all those ideas without question, I think they would be very deeply engrained.
-he tries to kiss Fred at one point, in the middle of all this stalking and trying to kill her. Interesting.

Interesting observation about Wes' reaction to Billy. foreshadows the rougher Wes at end of Season 3/beginning of Season 4 - with Justine in a closet.