Angel S3-06: The Short Review

'Billy'

Written by Tim Minear and Jeffrey Bell

Directed by David Grossman

"It's not the pain. It'’s the helplessness. The certainty that there is nothing you can do to stop it. That your life can be thrown away in an instant by someone else. He care. He’ll beat you down until you stay down, because he doesn’t even think of you as alive. No woman should ever have to go through that, and no woman strong enough to hold the mantle of 'vicious bitch' would ever put up with it. Where is Billy going?" - Cordelia.

'Billy' is one of the most unsettling episodes of Angel yet aired. This is not just attributable to the constantly bleak and oppressive atmosphere; it is because the episode also has an agenda, and I don't think the message is transmitted quite as clearly as the writers might have hoped.

I don't have a problem with the idea that all men, somewhere inside them, have a spark of aggression. Evolution made us hunters, after all. I don't even have a problem with the idea that all men, somewhere inside them, have an iota of frustration, or anger, or jealousy directed towards women. So I don't have a problem with the idea that Billy can massively amplify these traits, and cause them to dominate someone's personality (especially since it is referred to as a 'primordial misogyny', suggesting that what Billy actually does is bring to the surface ancestral traits that are normally totally dormant). And I like the irony that Angel, the one character whose inner beast we have spent time getting to know, is immune. What makes me uneasy is the reason given for Angel's immunity, that he lost all his anger and rage a long time ago. It seems to me that there is an alternative explanation that is simpler and more coherent: Angel has spent a century facing the darkness inside of him. It makes perfect sense that he'd be able to deal with it. Using this explanation would have meant that the episode ended on a positive note: Men can learn to control whatever base urges they have. OK, so in most men those urges are an evolutionary legacy that is extremely weak to start with, but this explanation would mean that all men can be good men. The explanation they gave, however, appears to lean more towards Angel being immune because of something that was done to him: Because he became a vampire. I find this a much less appealing explanation, because it implies that it is not possible for all men to learn to be good, that it is instead dependent on external factors outside their control.

Fortunately, there is much more to the episode than just the theme. The story is gripping and well told, with outstanding performances from the whole cast. Special mention must surely go to Alexis Denisof and Charisma Carpenter, who between them make this episode fly. Cordelia's survivor guilt is superbly and believably portrayed, as is her determination; her scene with Lilah, in particular, stands out. Denisof, on the other hand, moves from strong leader to chilling stalker to broken man with complete conviction. By the end of the episode, Wesley is in a very dark place indeed, and it's not at all clear how - or even if - he will deal with leading AI again.

The other major issue the episode raises that I want to deal with here, however, is how Angel deals with consequences - or rather, how he doesn't deal with them. After my first viewing of 'Billy', I came away convinced that when Angel claimed Billy's actions weren't his fault, he was wrong. He was the one who let Billy out, after all. However, it was pointed out to me that Billy has free will. Any acts that he commits after his release must be his responsibility, not Angel's. Still, Angel's blanket denial of his responsibility, and the fact that he didn't even consider going after Billy following his release, didn't feel quite right. The conclusion I came to is that whilst Angel was not morally obligated to hunt down Billy after he'd been released, it would have nonetheless been a good and mature thing to attempt to do. I've also realised that the reason he didn't do it is that living according to his epiphany seems to have given him a form of cosmic myopia. Because there are no grand plans or big wins, there are (effectively) no consequences, only day-to-day good acts. In this light, it's interesting to consider why the PTB decided to send Cordelia a week-old vision. Was it just that the time they sent it happened to be the best time to go after Billy, or were they deliberately hinting to Angel that he should have been after Billy already?

Overall, I enjoyed large chunks of this episode immensely. The plot moved like lightning, and there were too many great character moments to list them all. I have a sneaking suspicion that Billy's story will function as an overture for the main season arc, and that by the end of it Angel will indeed have realised that his actions do have consequences, and that it is mature to try to limit possible bad consequences. In the end, I think only the slight confusion about what message the episode was trying to send at the end keeps this from being one of the very best.