Angel ep by ep; SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE-Jasmine is the way!

[saturn5]

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE

The Good;
Gina Torres is great. Certainly this is an ep that turns things on it's head!

The Bad;
Just because Jasmine's true face is ugly is that any reason to presuppose she's actually evil? I mean Lorne is pretty unconventional looking but he's a good guy?

Best line;
Fred; "There's been too much dismembering going on in that basement recently!"

Jeez, how did they get away with that?
Jasmine's true appearance and severed head bowling.

Apocalypses: 5

Angel Cliches

Inverting the Hollywood cliche;

In disguise; 8

DB get's his shirt off; 12

Cheap Angel; 6

Fang Gang in bondage:
Cordy: 5
Angel: 14
Wes: 6
Gunn; 4
Lorne; 4
Fred; 2

Fang gang knocked out:
Cordy: 15
Angel: 17
Wes: 6
Doyle; 1
Gunn; 2
Lorne; 6
Groo; 1
Connor; 1
Faith; 1
Fred; 1

Kills; 3 vamps and 1 demon for Angel, 1 vamp and 1 demon for Wes, 2 vamps for Connor
Cordy: 5 vamps, 3½ demons
Angel; 44 vamps, 58 and 1/2 demons, 5 zombies, 8 humans
Doyle; 1 vamp
Wes; 14 demons+5 vamps, 5 zombies, 2 humans
Kate; 3 vamps
Faith; 18 vamps, 6 demons, 3 humans.
Gunn; 11 vamps+ 13 demons, 5 zombies, 1 human.
Groo; 1 demon
Fred; 3 vamp+ 1 demon, 5 zombies
Connor; 16 vamps, 5 zombies, 2 demons

Fang Gang go evil: not so much evil as happily enslaved
Cordy: 3
Angel: 3
Gunn; 1
Wes; 1

Alternate Fang Gang: possessed Lorne, Gunn, Fred and Wes
Cordy: 4
Angel: 11
Fred; 2
Wes; 1
Gunn; 1
Connor; 1

Characters killed:
255
Recurring characters killed;
9;
Total number of Angel Investigations: CC out of it until season 5, Connor back in
Angel, Gunn, Fred, Lorne, Wes, Connor

Angel Investigations shot:
Angel: 12
Wes;2
Packing heat;
Wes; 8
Doyle; 1
Angel; 3
Gunn; 2

Notches on Fang Gang bedpost:
Cordy: 5 ?+Wilson/Hacksaw Beast+Phantom Dennis+Groo+Connor plus possibly the Beast
Angel: 5; Buffy, Darla and The Transcending Furies
Wes; 3; Virginia, the bleached blonde and Lilah, 1 possible, Justine
Gunn; 2 Fred and Gwen.
Fred; 1 Gunn
Groo; 1Cordy

Kinky dinky:

Captain Subtext;
Know the face, different character; 4

Parking garages;
6,

Guantanamo Bay;

Buffy characters on Angel; 16
Wetherby, Collins and Smith. Angel, Cordy, Oz, Spike, Buffy, Wes, Faith, Darla, Dru, The Master, Anne, Willow and Harmony

What the fanficcers thought;

Missing scenes;

Questions and observations;
Like the way you can spot CC's Sunnydale High cheerleader trophy in her room. Note that Angel now wears a lighter coloured shirt now he's no longer haunted all the time. The bowling scene is reminiscent of Fright Night pt2 (which features Buffy alumni Brian Thompson).
Well, Angel throws us another ball from leftfield, not so great in itself but speaks of interesting things to come.
Marks out of 10; 6/10

 

[MinwaraYana]

Just because Jasmine's true face is ugly is that any reason to presuppose she's actually evil?

That's what I always think. I don't like when people judge people from the looks.

This episode is kinda boring, though. But it's okay. They just wanna show us what Jasmine can do.

 

[GrrArghx]

One thing I've never got is that if

Spoiler

Connor could always see Jasmine's true face, why was he bowing down to her and all that stuff? I know he said he liked the lie better but it still doesn't make sense really.

Eh, I've said hundreds of times I hate the Jasmine arc,
and when I got to this ep, I really didn't wanna watch it. lol

 

[Anya2012]

I really HATE the Jasmine arc. I truly do. So I'll be giving these few episodes very low ratings.

4/10.

 

[LittleMissLikesToFight]

I honestly think the Jasmine arc saved the whole season. I hated the rest of the season, up until Jasmine. I thought the idea was SO interesting...wish there were more episodes that surrounded her.

 

[saturn5]

I honestly think the Jasmine arc saved the whole season. I hated the rest of the season, up until Jasmine. I thought the idea was SO interesting...wish there were more episodes that surrounded her.

REALLY? I thought the Angelus/Faith arc was fantastic, the Jasmine arc not so much

 

[Wesley]

I sincerely and truly enjoyed the 'getting the gang back together' phase, I thought the 'Beast' phase and the Faith arc was perhaps the finest the show was in its entire run. The Jasmine arc was probably my least favorite but I don't blame Jasmine, I blame the destruction of Cordelia Chase.

 

[Sunnydale Siren]

I honestly think the Jasmine arc saved the whole season. I hated the rest of the season, up until Jasmine. I thought the idea was SO interesting...wish there were more episodes that surrounded her.

Really?




I think the arc with Faith/Angelus is what saved this other wise dreadful season.

 

[dragx]

Just because Jasmine's true face is ugly is that any reason to presuppose she's actually evil?

I understood why Fred was shocked when she saw Jasmine's true face; she went from being a beautiful woman to a rotting corpse.. that would make me assume something was horribly wrong too.

But what I don't understand is why the first man (I think his name was John?) who saw Jasmine's real face was able to see it. Was there something I missed? I thought the only way to break the spell was to come in contact with Jasmine's blood? And from what I remember, Jasmine physically touched a lot of her followers and none of them were all bubbly and decrepit like the man put in the psych ward. Or did that only happen to the people who weren't devoted followers?

I think this is the only episode of the Jasmine arc I actually liked. The Faith and Willow appearances were really the only arcs that kept me watching. And of course Darla's appearance in Inside Out -- one of my favorite Darla scenes.

 

[Bungle Jerry]

Well, vive la difference, I take it.

My take on the maggoty face thing is that Jasmine casts a spell to let you overlook her physical flaws. The horrid appearance is more like a visual representation of that spell being broken, and people being able to see her for what she 'truly is'. TV being a visula medium, they needed a way to 'represent' Fred and others' seeing Jasmine for what she truly is. Connor coming from Quor'Toth is used to unspeakable ugliness, and can still find beauty in a warts-and-all Jasmine. Unique among all of them, he actually wanted to believe the lie.

I don't get why people dislike this arc so much. It came from left field, it's creative and adventurous, and it's another dip into the big muddy of moral ambiguity. I love it.

 

[GrrArghx]

But what about the others? Fred had to look at Jasmine for the spell to be broken, as did Angel. But when they mixed Cordy's blood with Wes', Gunn's, & Lorne's, Jasmine wasn't around to 'look' at and see her maggot-face. Noticed it when I rewatched those episodes a few days ago.

& I still don't get Connor. If the spell never affected him, why did it seem like it when she was first born?

I just really, really hate this arc.

 

[Bungle Jerry]

The only real way I can fanwank Connor's behaviour is to say that he might have been immune to Jasmine's enchantment, but perhaps he was still able to perceive what she represented, what she was capable of, from the moment of her birth, and made the conscious decision to surrender his free will to her.

I suppose you're right about Wes, Lorne and Gunn. I'd never really thought of that. It might be that the mixing of the blood is enough to break the spell, but Fred didn't realise the spell had lifted until she saw Jasmine (having no-one to guide her through the experience). Shrug.

 

[dragx]

The only real way I can fanwank Connor's behaviour is to say that he might have been immune to Jasmine's enchantment, but perhaps he was still able to perceive what she represented, what she was capable of, from the moment of her birth, and made the conscious decision to surrender his free will to her.

I agree with this theory.
Even before Jasmine was born, Cordelia religiously told Connor their baby was extra special, coming from two very special people (Cordy and Connor).. so he chose to believe that he fathered something magnificent.
Jasmine probably knew that Connor would be able to see her true face, so she fed him all that special crap through Cordy, the one person Connor loved and trusted.
And, like Connor himself said, he grew up in a hell dimension so it wasn't hard for him to see beauty and greatness in something so ugly.

I still want to know about the man in the psych ward that Fred went to see, though.
Why could he see her real face?

 

[GrrArghx]

He punched her hard over and over again, so I assume he busted his knuckles & maybe cut her from hitting her? That's what I always assumed.

 

[InsaneMystic]

I still want to know about the man in the psych ward that Fred went to see, though.
Why could he see her real face?

The same vampire who had scratched Jasmine in the attack scene before dug his claws into the psych ward guy... so there was a minuscule amount of Jasmine's blood, stuck under the vamp's nails, brought into his body.

 

[Kana]

About John Stoller, IM is right. The Vamp injured Jasmine and mixed her blood with John and hence he was the first one to break out of the spell. And Bngle Jerry is right about Fred. If you notice, Fred starts crying apparently missing Jasmine because she's not around (after her blood mixes with hers) but she is actually experiencing the depression that the other feel when the spell is broken and yes, Fred is able to explain the situation to others whereas Fred had no one to explain the loss she was feeling. Everyone else assumed it was just Fred being Fred.

As for Connor, Jasmine was the missing link to his identity crisis so believing in her gave him purpose and the family he always wanted. In other words, there is nothing special about Connor metaphysically, in regards to the spell being broken. It was broken for Connor in exactly the same way. The only difference is after the spell was broken he simply chose to follow her.