From: "macha" To: "tea at the ford" Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2003 7:12 PM Subject: sense, insensate, and insensitive: AtS 1.06 Sense and Sensitivity Starts in an alley. Wanna make something of it? See, there's a blonde, and a bad guy. Hey, this time, though, the blonde's the one doing the menacing. It's Kate, bringing down her... man, a cheap crook. Kate does a great horizontal kick thing and she makes the bust: "Gosh, Spivey, sorry. I guess I have trouble expressing myself verbally. It's something I struggle with.... You have the right to remain silent. But I wouldn't recommend it." Welcome to the world of Tim Minear. This is his first script of the season: he wrote or co-wrote, credited or not, 11 of the 22 episodes. He came in on Howard Gordon's coattails, and immediately found home. The voice of AtS at its best, the shape of it, the tone, the arcs, owe probably as much to TM's skill at execution as to Joss Whedon's vision or Dave Greenwalt's ability to get things done. They hadn't figured out yet what they wanted, so Tim sat down and simply started to write. He loved writing for Angel, and for Kate. He reinvented Darla, three times. He wrote almost all of Holtz. He wrote basically all the major season arc episodes during seasons two and three. He wrote the only whole flashback episode about Angel in the twentieth century. The noir tone, too, is probably mostly associated with his work. In the fourth season, off doing Firefly in partnership with Joss, he wrote only the last episode, 4.22 Home. But with Joss he still set up the arc for that season. Not gonna do the Jane Austen thing. If anyone else wants to tackle it, though, I'll just report that I recently came across a list of Joss's favourite movies that included Sense and Sensibility. What I mean to talk about instead is what Angel feels and does not access or share, and why, because we've been talking about that here. It's a central issue in the Angelverse, and this is the first episode to tackle it headon. Angel is all closed-off, and Cordy's used to being the center of attention. She doesn't like it, and she means to make him deal. One thing about Cordy, she has no trouble expressing herself verbally. Angel has the right to remain silent, but with Cordy in the house it's not likely to do him much good. Bad enough she's down in the sewers with Doyle dismembering octopus-from-the-deep-type demons once he's killed them, but Angel doesn't even acknowledge her pain: C (looking at Angel's rapidly retreating back:): Okay, am I wrong in thinking that a please and thank you is generally considered good form when requesting a dismemberment? D: Well, he appreciates us, in his own... unappreciative way. C: You know what I think? (Some of the tentacles have gone live, and have a stranglehold on Doyle, but she has her back turned and doesn't notice.) I think he uses his tortured creature of the night status as a license to be rude and insensitive. Sure he's polite to the helpless and the downtrodden, but he ignores the people that are closest to him, the people that matter the most, you know. Can you say clueless? (Well, actually, Doyle can't, because of the stranglehold factor, though he is gamely wriggling.) Cordy's apparently read Amy Vanderbilt's immortal words on the subject of etiquette for dismembership requests from immortals. Angel at least killed the Thing before he departed (well, thought he had, anyway), but he gets no points for that. Any irony about her insensitivity to those who are closer to her and really matter, like Doyle for instance, is completely lost on Cordy who, sadly, gets along well enough with Doyle but doesn't think he matters and remains tightly focussed on Queen Cordy, center of the known universe and any others that might be handy. Endearingly single-minded, she tackles Angel as soon as she returns to the office, all splattered with Thing goo that probably won't come out at the drycleaners and trailing Doyle (so she must have noticed the tentacle problem eventually). Angel, of course, hasn't got the slightest idea what she's on about. Okay, he's dead, and a vampire, but mostly he's just a guy: A: What are you talking about? C: You do remember leaving us in a sewer with a giant calamari? A: Yeah. And you're both here, so I assume it went okay, right? C: Yeah. It went okay, of course it went okay, okay? That's not the point. A: So there is a point. C: Being that it is possible to brood and show a little interest in the feelings of others.... (Clearly she expects something here. Angel throws in the towel, glancing at Doyle and shaking his head.) D: Ah, she thinks you're insensitive and, not to bring up the irony but, consider the source. A: So I'm a little reserved. It doesn't mean I don't care. C: It's like you don't have a pulse. A: I don't. C: Well, spend a little time listening to how the living interact. She's deploring that disconnected thing Doyle warned him about. Though, in Cordy's version, it may also involve a neon sign around Cordy, flashing 'pay attention to me, me, me'. She's completely oblivious to Doyle's insensitive crack in her direction. When Angel tries to fend her off with "it doesn't mean I don't care" (can't you just hear EvilSpike using that line to express 'doesn't mean I do'?), she's completely unmoved. "How the living interact" is also a joke, because, enter Kate. Kate and Angel are quite comfortable with one another, but if they got any more 'reserved', they'd never acknowledge one another at all: A: Kate. K: Angel. Got a minute? A: Sure. Coffee? K: I'm fine. Both visibly relieved to have the social interaction thing over and done with, they retreat to Angel's office. Cordy calls them "Mr and Mrs Spock". Later, Angel's evidently consulted with Doyle on the mystery that is Cordy, and tries an awkward speech of appreciation. "Cordelia, I wanted, you know, to thank you so much for going through the coroner reports, because I can imagine how not-fun it is to read about, you know, coroner stuff." This is way past his comfort level, but Cordy fails him on his effort anyway: "Lame". Kate needs to find a kind of Sopranos-type bad guy, Little Tony, and recruits Angel. Angel wants to do it for free, but she'd rather pay him under the table than owe him a favour. So, not-friends, armor, and arms'-length is Katie's comfort zone. Meanwhile, the bad guys have plenty of feelings. Cordelia comments on Little Tony's anger-management issues. Little Tony tells his henchmen to water the plants while he's gone: "talk to them. They like that." Ah. Cordy's a sensitive plant, and Angel hasn't figured out yet what she likes. Meanwhile Angel nabs Little Tony by failing to follow Kate's orders and impersonating Herb Saunders, in Hawaiian shirt, from Baltimore. Where in the Angelmobile is Angel keeping all these Hawaiian shirts anyway? He's great at pretending to be a dork, in the shirt, though the hat is too much. How many points would either Cordy or Kate give to Herb? Straight zeroes, and Angel goes home to brood. No joy there, either: the Cordy and Angel show continues. She's the shark, and he's the clownfish: C: You've got pensive face. A: I've always got pensive face. C: Pensive-er face. He's thinking about the Little Tony problem. Cordy comes round the desk, and stands in his space, drawing attention to her feet in an obvious troll. He doesn't clue in at all. She pounces: "I just find it endlessly fascinating that your instincts are so highly attuned, when it comes to boring old evil, but you have yet to make any mention of these new shoes." Angel acquires a hunted look, and falls back desperately on the guy thing: "Look, Cordelia, women's shoes -- Men, they just don't --" Doyle enters, and glances in their direction. "Great shoes. New?" Meanwhile, back at the bar, Kate wants to be respected by the guys and loved by her dad and maintain her distance all at the same time. Her dad is basically the one that matters to her, and she's as insensitive as Cordy is to Doyle to the guy who likes her ("I'm not hugging you, sweat guy"). Kate's interaction with Little Tony in front of Lee Mercer, his creepy W&H lawyer, has resulted in the whole precinct having to take sensitivity training. The trainer (this is apparently the classic EST model) describes this process as helping them to "experience the full range of human emotions". In the pitch it sounds perfect for both Angel and Kate, guaranteed to make them "better people", help them "diffuse volatile situations in the field", and allow them to "manage some of [their] aggression". The trainer hands Kate the talking stick and tells her: Genuine emotion makes you uncomfortable. That's okay. Your inappropriate sarcasm masks anger. And do you know what anger is, Kate? It's just fear. Fear of being hurt. Fear of loss. You've been hurt, haven't you, Kate? And you're afraid of being hurt again. Who're you afraid is gonna hurt you? At first this seems to be working. Kate apologizes for her behavior at the pier, thanks Angel for bagging Little Tony for her, and invites Angel, as a favor, to the retirement party thing for her dad. She's afraid of giving the speech, and Angel tells her the audience in underwear trick: she looks him up and down and replies "Way ahead of you". Oho. The speech, however, is all too revealing about her problems with her father as a child, after her mother died: You said, gone's gone and there's no use wallowing. Worms and dirt and nothing forever. Not one word about a better place. You couldn't even tell a scared little girl a beautiful lie. "Worms and dirt and nothing forever." Where does Angel, whose lack of affect is compared to Kate's throughout this ep, live inside, in the everyday? And would it help to share? Everyone in the bar, affected by the sensitivity training seminar Lee Mercer ("that makes me feel all warm inside") has forced on them all, begins to share their pain, and a free-for-all ensues: Harlan: You call that a breakthrough? You're completely blocked. Boss: Your need for catharsis is not the issue here. Harlan: I'll give you catharsis. (They fight.) Angel rescues Kate, brings her to the office, and calls Cordy and Doyle in to babysit while he investigates. It's a relief to get out of there: K (to A): You have the most intense eyes. I see such an old soul. D: He gets that a lot, you know. K: I thought that enigmatic thing was just an act to get women. The truth is, you don't have an insincere bone in your body, do you? Hmm. He escapes. But Cordy and Doyle fall victim to Kate's dual urges, to relieve her feelings and to unleash her aggression: I have this... gun, and I don't want to come off as insensitive, but if either of you try to stop me, I'll have to blow you the crap away, because I'm gonna find my dad. Angel finds the trainer, Allen Lloyd: AL: Do you know what anger is? It's just fear. A: Yeah, well I know what fear is. I can smell it right now. AL: That's good. Give yourself permission to open up. What were your parents like? A: My parents were great. Tasted a lot like chicken. Why don't you talk? Uh-oh. This opening up business is tricky, especially if you're Angel. He uncovers the evil scheme, but gets a dose of the talking stick that is the source of all the trouble. He meets Cordy and Doyle outside the police station, and proceeds (to Cordy's horror) to share some of his feelings: A: Okay. I think someone needs a hug. (He embraces them both, goofily beaming.) C: Okay, eww. Eww.... Hey, what's your damage? D: I think he just found Mr Sensitivity. A: Hmm. He was right in here all the time, just waiting to come out. Gosh, what our folks do to us, huh? Oops. "He" who? And all brimming over with true family feelings, complete with a taste of chicken. "Cordelia", he says sincerely, "do you have any idea just how precious you are?" Oho. Now he's ashamed of himself, cause he threatened someone with (he can hardly bring himself to say it) "physical violence". Could that be Liam? Who's in there anyway? Not a Champion, unfortunately. They're having trouble getting him to do the needful: D: Angel, man, you gotta snap out of this. C: Right now. It's time for you to get all vampy and grr. Kate needs you. A: I don't want to. You both withdraw when I go vamp. I feel you judge me. C: We won't judge you. Give it a try. DB is hilarious as the violence-challenged hopeless helper. And Cordy's not at all comfortable with the whole package: she doesn't want Mr Sensitive at the moment, she wants her Hero back. Now, it's about the mission. First they have to break into the precinct (this scene was added by TM when the ep ran short): C: You need a rock. A: I can't say I'm really comfortable with all this.... Wow. That's vandalism. D: Ah, we'll take care of it later. A: We should leave a note. C: Would you come on? A: What's the magic word? C: Gaah. A: I don't believe gaah is the magic word. If one would call it a word. And even then certainly not a magic one. C: We don't have time for this. A: There's always time to be considerate of others, Cordelia. C: Oh, please! A: See? That wasn't so hard now, was it? So they move Angel, still protesting, in the direction of Kate, so he can do the saveage thing. But Angel's all full of Issues. "Hey! I'm feeling some serious negative energy in this room." Kate and Angel assess Little Tony's projection problems with him: K: I'm sure he'd say the same thing, but that gun really makes you come off as hostile. A: That and the body language. It's so closed. They're trying to be helpful, but that negative energy has to be dealt with: D: Fight, man, don't talk. C: We're so dead. A: Why don't we just sit down together and process this? But at the last moment, Angel ("okay, now I'm feeling unheard") fights, channelling his aggression usefully, and wins. Angel and Kate eye one another from the perspective of a Harlequin novel: K: You. A: No, you... K: Come here. (They embrace.) Then they survey the carnage in their wake: A: It's so sad, isn't it? K: Some people just need to live in the problem. All's well that ends well. Lee Mercer at Wolfram&Hart abandons Little Tony to his fate, while the firm targets Angel for the first time as a top-priority problem. Angel and Kate both, without discussing their interactions, withdraw to a safer distance. Kate's dad rejects her one more time, while Angel watches unseen and then, in a sensitive solution to having witnessed her private pain, just walks away. Both Angel and Kate have trouble expressing themselves verbally. Rather than show themselves, they exercise their right to remain silent. It's partly because of who they are and it's partly because of where they've been, but both of them are closed off. They isolate themselves. They'd rather not invest in feeling. Too much sensitivity while they're working, everyone could wind up dead. Cordy's just the opposite. Getting her to stop talking, when she's got something she wants to say, you'd pretty much have to kill her. But Cordy's got boundaries she sets, and by her lights it's okay to crowd other people, but she won't put up with being crowded. For all her insistence on improving Angel's aura, nobody's ever going to crown her Ms Sensitivity: it's principally Cordy she looks after at this point in time. Still, she's got a new thing she's trying, and it inovlves concern for two things outside herself: the mission of helping/saving people, and the state of Angel's being. In one way, on both these issues her concern is shallow, like Cordy herself before the visions: she doesn't want to ruin her clothes with the Thing goo, and she wants Angel to pay attention to her. Still, Cordy is changing. And Angel has really helped her by giving her a place in the world. But what does she want, on both fronts? To her credit, she doesn't see herself as The Hero, and she doesn't refuse the dirty jobs, but she forces Angel, even as Mr Sensitive, to focus on fulfilling the mission. She wants Angel to notice her shoes, but she's grossed out by the hug, and ignores the nice things he says about her while he's spilling. "Cordelia, do you have any idea just how precious you are?" She tells Angel the truth, and she anchors him to the world. And to both Cordy and Doyle, he says "Your closeness is too important to me right now." He's admitting to the experience of, and the importance of, connection. He's afraid of losing it. Having the family he's making judge him and withdraw when he becomes Himself. But he's also afraid of Losing It. Becoming the monster inside. In accessing his inner self, how many selves is Angel accessing? First one out of the box looks like Angelus ("tasted a lot like chicken"). Is the second one Liam, Mr Sensitivity making with the hugs, "right in here all the time, just waiting to come out", afraid of physical violence, being judged, vandalism, and the impolite, but always looking for consideration and happy to kiss the girl? Is Angel the one who emerges from Door #3 to do the actual fighting? It isn't entirely clear. Does that mean there's an integrating self inside? "Some people really need", Kate says sadly, "to live in the problem". Angel's got a problem, boy does he ever. He can't just give himself permission to open up. He can't just unblock. He's got anger-management issues. Angelus is the one who feels all warm inside. His fear of loss has layers. Things get better when he feels unheard. "Worms and dirt and nothing forever." But Cordy tells him to be himself: "It's time for you to get all vampy and grr.... We won't judge you. Give it a try." And this is where, I think, he begins to trust her judgment. Because she sees him clearly, and tells him the truth. Because she keeps him on-mission until the mission's done. Because she doesn't have any idea how precious she is, and still she never stops coming at him. She knows how dangerous he is, but she's not afraid, and she cares about him anyway. Lear: So young, and so untender? Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true. (Shakespeare's King Lear, Act I Scene 1) macha