Now, when I said...the next four episodes are a bit of a faff, I was also including
‘Redefinition.’ Yes, I remember that scene is in there. And that one too.
If it’s been a little while since you’ve seen it and you’re wondering what I’m on about,
let me ask you a question before we get to the summary: those two scenes aside,
what is the plot of this episode? Do you remember? Redefinition is certainly the best of the
next four, followed by ‘Blood Money.’ It’s pretty entertaining but, with one exception,
it’s also just a lot of monologues full of vague and confusing motivations,
some potentially unintended camp, and little else. All it’s nothing looks stylish as hell,
but, after the brilliantly written season we’ve had up until this point, an arc episode
like this feels supremely anticlimactic. I mean, I know I’ve always said that I’d
love an episode of these characters just...hanging out together at the
DMV but here comes ‘Redefinition’ like... Giles: “I’d like to test that theory..”
Summary
The episode opens immediately on the heels of the previous. Team Angel Investigations (now just Team
Investigations) is looking shellshocked leaving the Hyperion. I love how Gunn doesn’t have a box.
He sums up the problem of where to go from here... W: Angel hasn't been himself lately.
Perhaps he'll change his mind. G: He locked 20 lawyers in a roomful of psychotic
vampires. I'd say his mind has changed enough. Gunn’s line is the last reference to the evil
that Angel participated in. The rest of this episode will be them
processing their fee-fees over getting fired. Well, my nose skins angry. And hurt. And...
Disappointed? We’ll get into why the arc downplaying what
Angel did is a problem, but it leaves me feeling like Oz in Surprise for the rest of this one.
“Hey does anyone remember when that guy got turned to dust?”
Angel makes a big dramatic show of letting go of alive Darla by burning his drawings of
her in a sort of...vampire ex-wife effigy. Ron: Leslie I was married two times. Both
ended in divorce. And a burning effigy. Leslie: Wait, weren’t you married three times?
Ron: You’re right. I get to burn another effigy. Angel being a dark pouty melodramatic sulk after
the events of the season makes a certain kind of sense and I like a good training montage as
much as the next person. But almost everything he says in voiceover makes the episode more confusing
and is unintentionally hilarious. I'm not ready yet.
Too many years spent sleeping in soft beds - living in a world where I don't belong.
This would just be silly fun if it weren’t for the fact that flanking it is some of the most
actually horrifying content in the entire series. Because of that, it feels episode breaking...
...as if to emphasize the point, we cut to Lindsey waking underneath a pile of dead lawyers.
There is an absolutely fabulous twisting shot that visualizes his own rising from the dead. He
thinks he’s the only tasty morsel that Darla and Dru sent back to the chef but is disappointed to
discover Lillah is still kicking. Virginia and Wesley ponder
his future. Angel still montage’ing “When Wolfram and Hart take a life, they do
so at a distance. I don’t have that luxury.” Doesn’t have the luxury? I’m not sure what
he calls locking 20 of his foes in a room with two tigers and walking away.
“I’m not on their level. But I can get there.” Not on the level of an evil law firm? I’m not sure
what he calls locking 20...you know what? Xander: ...nevermind.
But, okay, he’s not ready yet. Fine. Lillah and Lindsey wonder why they were left to live, then
find smokeshow DnD waiting in Lindsey’s office. D: I've decided to keep the lines of communication
open between us and Wolfram and Hart. L: I don't think I understand. What is it exactly
that you want, Darla? D: Power.
Uhh...K. Angel is still monologuing in a scene that deliberately evokes the cold
open of the series as he takes out a large band of vamps while wearing the iconic wrist stakes.
“I’ve got the moves. I’m ready.” “Oh, my God. Let’s go back the other way.”
“No, just go up and talk to him.” “Are you kidding? I’m so
embarrassed. Look how funky he is.” Okay, he’s ready.
Team Investigations run into each other at the oracle, each looking for some direction.
Angel tortures Merle in a mercifully voiceover-free scene.
At a demon fight club (yep, bringing back that from the first season) Angel creeps on Dru and
Darla from the shadows. 21:48 “I’m not ready…”
Okay, now he’s not ready. The gang is now drunk at
Karitas having a bizarre conversation. Wes: Blown over? Angel is obsessed
with Darla. It wouldn't have blown over. Cordy: It didn't help that you shamed him into
firing us... Oz: "Hey, does anyone remember when...
“WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS” *Champion counter The three of them singing ‘We are the
Champions’ as a prelude to going into business for themselves is just perfect. WE, as in they,
are the champions. Not just Angel. And that’s kind of a little beautiful. My
favorite thing to come out of this weird-ass episode. Cordy gets a vision and Team
Investigations goes to the rescue of its subject. DnD are still trying to, for some reason, recruit
a demon gang and that’s when they happen upon… Ron Swanson: “The key to burning an ex-wife
effigy is to...toss the flaming bottle of isopropyl alcohol from a
safe distance. Do not stand too close when you light an ex-wife effigy.”
*quick jump cuts of sequence Lillah and Lindsey both get
promoted to co-head of special projects. And the episode ends with Wesley telling
Angel they’re keeping the agency open and Angel laying one last egg.
“Let them fight the good fight. Someone has to fight the war.”
Review Great bits
Sure. So...Redefinition is
incredibly well made and entertaining. There is a bunch here that I really
enjoy. The best bits of story are the ones having to do with Team Investigations and,
the reinterpreting of Reunion’s ending aside, I love them all showing up at
Karitas by happenstance (any excuse to have more Andy Hallet is a good one,) commiserating
together about their circumstances, and then the payoff and use of the Queen song.
Their arc in this one is pretty satisfying. 29:37 “Angel has walked away from his duty.
We’re not going to.” The direction and cinematography by
Michael Grossman and Herbert Davis feels crisp and stylish. I love a lot of the framing and camera
movements. Shots retain a similar cool color palette to the first season but are starting to
evolve and look updated and sexier. Sometimes steeped in neon and looking more neo-noir
than just the first season’s classic look. *blinds outside Kates room
And that imagery and feel permeates everything in this one including the costuming. Especially
with the memorable fire sequence, this might be one of the best looking episodes in Season 2.
The big problem is that none of it ends up being service of anything interesting.
The downplaying of what Angel did The first issue, just to make sure
this horse is good and flogged, is that the writers themselves don’t seem in agreement
as to how much of a problem Angel locking lawyers in a room with Darla and Dru was.
Was it just a Frank Castle anti-hero level of darkness or was it an Injustice Gods Among Us
lapse into outright evil? I made some broad arguments for the latter in my
‘Reunion’ video that I’m not going to rehash here but mechanically, and divergent though
their tones may be, Buffy and Angel have a clear and expressed guideline: the soul.
Both shows have stuck with the soul as the rule for where the protagonist’s authority to act
exists. And, while we can hem and haw about a handful of specific instances that actually prove
the rule, it is only for the unsouled that both Buffy and Angel can act as judge, jury,
and executioner. They are the warriors against the Supernatural world, and ANYTIME a character
had a soul the line was clear. When Faith stabbed Allen she tried to make the ‘he
was essentially-evil-as-a-lawyer-anyway’ argument and Buffy was having none of it.
“It is not like we get to pass judgement like we’re better than everyone else.”
And that’s because Allen had a soul. Angel tries to off himself in Amends
for the things he did and Buffy won’t let him because, since he has the soul…
“Angel, you have a chance to do real good. To make Amends.”
When Faith comes to LA and wreaks some genuine havoc on the team, Angel refuses her attempt at
death-by-cop the same way Buffy refused his. He then goes to bat for her against BOTH Wesley…
“In case you forgot, we’re not in the business of giving up on people.”
...and Buffy. Because what this was really about was...
“Buffy this wasn’t about you. This was about saving somebody's soul.”
And because Faith has a soul, every passing minute she is capable of turning things around,
doing real good and making amends for what came before. The show itself in ‘I Will Remember
You,’ has touched on the idea of time as it comes to issues of identity and redemption,
philosophically rejecting the idea of endings, happy, sad, or otherwise because there is
always another day and that’s what matters. Season 6 of Buffy has some souled characters
committing unforgivable vile acts and the arc is STILL written from the perspective that angry
protagonists seeking retribution against them for it is wrong. And Season 7 of Buffy then reinforces
why it was with a certain redemption arc. In Reunion, when Holland flaunted his
indifference to Angel because Angel didn’t kill humans, Angel’s retort…
“You don’t qualify…” ...felt like the hollow
frustrated attempt of a powerless and downtrodden hero to strike at and fight back against a titan.
Hollow because OF COURSE, Holland qualifies. All the evidence of both shows to this
point has said that a soul is a soul. The tantalizing dramatic potential of this
arc that was setup seemed like it was going to be Angel not needing to lose his soul to descend into
some Angelus’ing. “Take em all.”
“My boy is still in there and he wants out.” “You don’t kill humans.”
Joker: “And tonight you’re going to break your one rule.”
Angel didn’t just walk away from the massacre at Hollands the way he left the Hyperion in ‘Are You
Now or Have You Ever…” surrendering to his descent into nihilism. He. locked. The. door. Preventing
anyone from escaping is no different than pulling the trigger or...inserting the...teeth himself
at that point. Compartmentalizing murder doesn’t remove culpability.
But, from the opening of Redefinition, minutes after the end of Reunion,
the narrative attempts to reframe the meaning of that event and change our focus. This isn't
about Angel risking darkness. Gunn: Angel wants to go all
commando? Hm-mm. No skin off my nose." This is about Angel just going lone commando.
*naked cut from earlier in the season The heavy use of training montages and
his hammy Batman, Angel-is-the-night style monologues reinforce that reading. The team
isn’t worried about what he might do now or what is going to happen to him.
"Well, my nose skin is angry - and hurt! And..." Wesley: "..disappointed?"
And reframing the big problem to being about Angel’s firing the team
doesn’t just break Angel’s moral compass but the moral compass of every good guy in the episode.
It’s one thing for Angel to have darker greyer stories. I love that about the
series but it still needs to have as clear an understanding as Buffy does of it’s own ethical
underpinnings that drive its narrative. Angel aiding in the murder of 20 ensoulled beings,
according to the established ethos of the universe, was a huge moral break and
needed to be grappled with. Redefinition offers almost zero ambivalence about it.
Dark Angel (Jerk Angel) There are still bits of the original ‘More Angelus
than Angelus’ setup from the arc but they now feel either profoundly dissonant or in contradiction to
this episode's anti-hero redirect. As in cutting from goofy, Top-That, Angel-is-the-night training
montages to Lindsey literally waking up under a pile of bodies that Angel helped create.
Angel-is-the-night also briefly smokes like Angelus, the Buffyverse equivalent of having
facial hair on OG Star Trek. Though it doesn’t add much to a post-Reunion
character study of Angel. I’ve always interpreted the cigarette as he knew Darla and Dru would read
it as a telltale Angelus affectation and used it as bait to lure them into gasoline range.
And, of course, like Angelus, Angel-is-the-Night also does voiceover. For those who didn’t
watch Buffy or don’t remember, Angeluseses voiceover was in the Buffy episode Passion.
“It rules us. We are its slave.” In a season where he was a big bad,
his voice over was about being slaves to an emotion. And, on a show driven by the philosophy
of choice and the necessity for its freedom, his voiceover was a wonderful contrast in one
of that season’s most memorable episodes. Angel’s voice overing in Redefinition is
gibberish nonsense mouth farts. “Someone has to fight the war.”
“I’m not ready.” “I’m ready.”
“I’m not ready.” “I’ve got the moves.”
TOP THAT. Evoking the Series Opening
It’s too bad too because instead of the implied more-Angelus-than-Angelus fall it seemed like
we were going to get, this all just amounts to a return to the pre-Doyle Angel that the show
started with. With its sewer vamps sequence, the episode even deliberately evokes the
first scene in the series: Angel in the alleyway using the iconic wrist stakes.
But there is actually a very significant if subtly delivered difference between the two scenes that I
never noticed until this runthrough because it disappears beneath Angel’s cloying bleu cheese
voice over. Angel in the alleyway was saving two victims. The sewer vamps come into their scene
talking about how delicious the victims they just had, were. THAT is philosophically significant
and speaks to good stuff we’ll talk about in Epiphany. Not only that but it’s eerily evocative
of something else very important in Angel’s life. “It is not justice we serve. It is vengeance.”
Evoking the cold open with a nice subtle shift, and the ramifications of that are so
interesting but Angel’s at-11 monologuing power washes the scene into being irrelevant Batman’ing.
And none of it makes any SENSE. “‘I’m ready.”
Ready for WHAT? He could do all of the kicky fighty business at the start of the series. He
could do all the kicky fighty shabanging in the middle of the series. Why was he not ready before
and now he’s ready and then he’s not ready? He doesn’t have a spoken line of dialogue in
this episode and, if the episode had just run with that idea, leaving us guessing at what
was happening internally this might’ve been so much more compelling. It would’ve forced us to
try and identify. To wonder. To worry. Is he grieving? Is he depressed? Is he lost forever?
Instead the voiceover abandons that intrigue and puts us inside the head of a character that has
been watching Die Hard 2 on repeat. “Let them fight the battles. Someone
has to fight the war.” WHAT, war? Against whom? Holland is
dead. His entire department except for Lindsey and Lillah got...uhhh...furloughed, but Angel probably
doesn’t even know Lindsey and Lillah are alive yet. So...wait…his...whose...plan was, what...now?
Whose Plan was...what, now? It isn’t just Angel though,
the motivations of everyone outside of Team Investigations feel blurry or underwritten,
with a number of characters playing the Holland Manners game of, “Haha, don’t worry
there IS a plan...a big one...you’ll see.” 34:20 “I doubt [L&L] even have any idea what
Wolfram and Harts plan for Angel really is.” But, let's be honest...Wolfram and Hart probably
don’t know their plan for Angel, either. And Lindsey and Lillah’s job is literally to spend
this entire episode just waiting. Darla now wants money, power and connections...because reasons.
“I was powerless and Wolfram and Hart’s pawn. I didn’t like it…”
Darla, a former prostitute in the new world, who over centuries of immortality,
worshipped a Master in the sewers, once slept in a barn with Angel to avoid a mob,
got kicked out of China during a revolution, and returned to attending to a Master in a
hellmouth crevace now wants power...because of a couple bad months as a human? In some ways
Darla was always defined by having a patron, be it in her human life
or as a vampire...feeding Angel victims and doting over him or likewise with the Master.
“You’ve tasted it…” And, in Reunion there was a nice
moment where she’s attacking Dru until Dru’s weeps her loneliness. That turns the scene.
Darla has someone to take care of again. It’s in character. If she were interested in MONEY
in this episode that would be one thing. Darla always wanted a view, but this switch to a
desire for power feels shallow and confusing. Darla: D: We're looking for creatures who not
only excel at devastation, but revel in it. Our crusade is one of malevolent joy.
Hunh? What crusade? What is she talking about? The problem is, this kind of vagueness and mystery can
work fine but only if it one hundred percent pays off in a later episode. If it doesn’t,
then the episode only works once and I will say that, knowing how the rest of this season plays
out and which of these threads gets dropped or just forgotten about by the next episode,
makes ‘Redefinition’ work less and less for me on rewatches.
Tree bad. Fire pretty. In fact...the more I watch
it the more I think it all comes down to that ending sequence, which certainly is
one of the most memorable and visually cinematic sequences in the series. There is so much care
and construction devoted to the filming of it. It is beautiful. Harrowing. Dramatic. A new visual
high bar in the series. And, other than Team Investigations b-story, the entire episode feels
like it was created just to have this moment. It’s foreshadowed from the cold open by Angel
burning his pictures. It explains Darla and Dru going to demon fight clubs: The episode’s plot
needed them to so that Angel had a way of getting ahead of them, killing off all the attendees
in advance, and being in the same place at the same time. All to have one very cool sequence.
Because, you know...tree bad. Fire pretty? But the sequence itself ends up working as a
symbol for the entire episode. Angel’s motivations make no sense. Why did Angel do this? If he was
sending a message, what was the message? “I’m HOT. And You’re NOT.”
Nothing is accomplished. Darla and Dru get away. He doesn’t try to slay them. And nothing
changes. Which makes the sequence JUST an exercise in style. The scene is so harrowing and graphic
and Darla asks with pinnacle melodrama: Darla: That wasn't Angel. That wasn't
Angelus either. What was that? But the moment, which would’ve been so
on rewatches anyway, is already undercut by the episode itself. Because of the awful voiceover
we already know: that was just Angel, who apparently set them on fire to be...mean?
Instead of a fallen Angel, the episode gives us Jerky Angel having a sassy pout. And that
just isn't a satisfying payoff for this moment. Again, Redefinition is fun. I just find it so
curiously highly rated in the fandom. At the time of this writing, it’s sitting at a very
high 8.7 on IMDB, which puts it in close company with Damage, There’s No Place Lke Pltz Glrb,
and Dear Boy. And ranks it above a whole bunch of Season 1 episode gems, including...
In the Dark Somnambulist
The Prodigal Rm w/a View
All of which are episodes I thought were less polished but much more interesting.
Most frustratingly, with the exception of a breather episode here and there, the path to
get to Redefinition has felt tightly written and incredibly meaningful. It’s one of the best runs
in the series that is full of ruminations on love, blood, family, abuse, loss, and tragedy. And it
culminates with three stunning game changers. *Dru in Reunion/Angel climbing
the stairs/Angel Firing Whatever dark place those
episodes were leading to, Redefinition doesn’t feel like the original intended
destination but a stop along the route of a different storyline altogether.
And because most of us have been down Season 2’s road more than once,
we know the real answer to the question Da rla asks: Angelus was never THIS big of a drama queen.