Angel 1x9 - Hero

You know you’re tired when you almost, almost but not quite, almost, put orange juice in coffee instead of milk.

Anyway. amchau wanted to know the following:

”What do you think of Doyle's, err, ending? Setting the right dark tone? Needlessly losing viewers who liked him? Getting rid of an annoying character? Heartless and designed to torture?”

Hero is an episode that has a very good beginning and a very good ending and a really rather bad middle. The opening bit is deliciously self-referential; the familiar neon-light shot of LA suddenly seems utterly hilarious with a voiceover from Cordelia in total take-charge mode, trying to make a TV advertisement and get them money. Angel’s reaction to being called “the Dark Avenger” is similarly surreal. And somehow, the fact that Doyle caves and helps Cordelia with her advert is appropriate. He looks so uncomfortable, but he does it. He’d do anything for her. And the finished product – him looking at the camera and awkwardly saying “Our rats are low…”

“Rates!”

“It says rats!”

-is funny. Just that. Funny.

Then we have angst: Doyle confronting Angel about what actually happened in I Will Remember You, and Angel doing something that must be a first for him – telling someone about it, instead of brooding. Doyle’s reaction is melancholy and sympathetic, and maybe some of what he says is a little contrived, but I can live with that. It works.

Cut to Doyle explaining to Cordelia what happened, and then attempting to tell her his secret – that he’s half-demon. Of course, a vision cuts in. It looks, and is, extremely painful for Doyle, but somehow Cordelia makes it all better by asking: “Whoever it was you just saw – did they look like they could pay?”

All of this bit, which I remember so clearly, is good stuff. From here it gets blah and more than a little plot-holey. Judging from the previous episode, the enemy in this one will be apocalypse, end-of-days sort of people, but they’re really not. Just football-headed blah demons (who were, if I remember correctly, the demons in the Buffy episode Anne) who are all Nazi-ish and stuff. It’s not compelling. It’s blah. They want to kill half-breeds. Blah.

That said, I loved the flashbacks. This show is never particularly well-lit, but suddenly we’re dingier and darker than ever and seeing a younger but much worse-for-wear Doyle – sleepless, smoking and clearly very depressed. And it’s this version of Doyle whom we see get his first vision, painfully full-blown and intense, that then causes guilt of epic proportions. When it’s done well, I like angst.

But the Nazi demons themselves I’m not fond of. They’re not scary. And besides, didn’t Anya say once that there are no pureblood demons, unless they’re like the Mayor and really, really big? Anyway, the plot regarding them is holey. A kid runs off, has to be entices back. Yawn. The family have to be taken to safety. Yawn, again.

Angel does a good turn threatening the harbourmaster, though – I like the continuity of Angel being a good actor, which we saw first when he and Buffy were messing with Faith’s head. He then negates this by joining the Hitlerjugend for no immediately apparent reason. It’s all very random and incoherent.

Cordelia slapping Doyle is fun, though. She wrathfully chews him out for thinking she’d care about his half-demon side – “What do you think I am, superficial?” – then gets all girly and asks if he will ever ask her to dinner. And it’s cute – I really like the idea of Doyle and Cordelia, and I really don’t know why. Once again, they’re interrupted before they can get to it.

And then the ending. The big light thing is lame, lame, lame. It’s a big light. It kills people with human blood in them. This includes Doyle, Angel, Cordelia, all the people they’ve been trying to save, all the people in the immediate area, yawn. It’s basically a rehash of the demon Acathla (from Becoming I and II), who did the same thing. And what I don’t get is why they have to wait till it explodes. Surely the light it gives off achieves the same effect without an explosion?

That said, allowing for the total lameness, this is where it starts to get good again. Angel is all Angel about it, naturally. He gets to do the whole hero thing, go out in a blaze of glory, and Cordelia whispering, “It’s suicide, Angel!” only encourages him. And Doyle appears to understand, putting an arm around his shoulders (slashy, natch) and murmuring, “You never know ‘til you’ve been tested. I get that now.”

Then he punches Angel hard enough to knock him off the ledge. There’s your twist in the tail – the people’s chosen one was Doyle, not Angel – and it makes a great deal of sense. Angel is not a reluctant hero. He likes being a hero. He wears a big flapping coat and strides through dark streets looking heroic. He likes it. Doyle, on the other hand, is an ex-third-grade teacher who didn’t really want to do this at all.

So it makes sense for Doyle to turn round and kiss Cordy like he really has nothing to lose (passing on his gift while he does – you see the light pass between them). And jump and disarm the light as Angel tries in vain to make him stop. Doyle dies as a human, fittingly, and then there’s the big explosion and blah. Did I mention the light is totally, totally lame?

Actually, the coda is the stroke of brilliance. It’s worth the price of admission to see Angel and Cordy watching the tape she made of Doyle doing the advert. We have the same actor delivering the same lines intended for the same character in the same setting with the same mannerisms etc, etc – and what was funny before becomes ironic, what was stupid becomes poignant, and the last bit is heartbreaking. Doyle looks up, says, “Is that it? Am I done?” as we fade out.

Tragic. And in answer to the above questions, I do think it was needless – why kill off a charming character about whom we’ve had tantalising bits of backstory and real suggestion of potential? Like Giles, Doyle is Exposition Guy, but becomes more than that. Nothing against Wesley at all – I’m halfway through Parting Gifts – but why kill Doyle off first?

Huh. I need an icon. I’m going out tonight, so see you all tomorrow after I’m dead with tiredness and post-Christmas shopping. Argh.