In Defence Of Pylea

"Talk about screwed up values. A world of only good and evil, black and white, no gray. No music, no art...just champions roaming the countryside, fighting for justice. Bor-ing. Got a problem? Solve it with a sword. No-one admits to ever having actual feelings and emotions, let alone talks about them. Can you imagine living in a place like that?" - The Host

"Bad things always happen here" - Fred

It's probably safe to say that for many people, Pylea is an unsatisfactory end to a good season. Certainly, it's easy to see why; on the surface, it is a drastic change in tone and direction from earlier stories, and it even seems at first glance to be irrelevant to the major season arc. However, scratch beneath the surface and things become rather more interesting. The story is thematically linked to the events of previous episodes; indeed, to a certain degree it is fair to say that the episodes from 'Disharmony' to 'No Place Like Plrtz Glrb' constitute a six-episode 'mini-season' - a bridge between the larger arcs of S2 and S3.

The key is in the nature of Pylea. 'Angel', like 'Buffy' before it, has always used the supernatural as a metaphor for real-world problems. Pylea is specifically conceived as a background against which the themes of the season can be seen from a new angle. If I had to sum up the theme of the Pylean story in one word, it would be the title of the first episode to feature it - belonging. Indeed, if I had to sum up the theme of the entire season, that would also be the word I would choose. The first eighteen episodes were about changes in our heroes' lives and the events surrounding those changes. This story is about our heroes accepting those changes, and accepting their new place in the world.

Pylea is a world in which you can never be more than one thing. You can be a princess or a cow, but never both. The Groosalugg is a hero to the Pyleans only because Silas, the head priest, says he is - his deeds are irrelevant. Crucially, this literal-mindedness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; when Wesley is seen as a leader, he steps into that role and becomes a leader. Most obviously, Angel is metaphysically either a human or a vampire, never both. The sense of balance - of shades of gray - that we have in our world is absent in Pylea.

So much for the metaphysics of Pylea. Unfortunately, the actual appearance of Pylea is less adventurous. It is the type of fantasy world we have seen countless times in clichéd adventure serials. However, that would seem to be part of the point; it is an homage to those old serials, from the 'shock endings' of each instalment to the over-the-top nature of the Pyleans themselves. How well this works is a matter of taste. In some cases, it grates - many people, for instance, are vocal in their hatred of the Groosalugg. In other cases, it just seems implausible. All these demons speak English? And where do all the cows come from? And how come the demons haven't developed any kind of advanced technology? And at some points, it just feels as though the show's reach has exceeded its grasp - notably in the final assault on the castle in 'No Place Like Plrtz Glrb'. However, at other times I would argue that it works very well, in its externalisation of the problems facing our heroes. To nit pick is, I think, to miss the point of the exercise. Apart from anything else, whilst Pylea may not have been a total success, I'm damn pleased that the writers were willing to try something this different.

In the following sections, I will discuss the successes and failures of Pylea as a story, and in relation to each of our heroes.

Structurally, Pylea fulfils a function that is rarely seen on TV, and certainly has not been used in a Mutant Enemy series before. It is an extended coda; a reprise of the themes of the season, seen from a new perspective, with eventual resolution of some of the key issues surrounding those themes. As such, it makes a lot more sense once you know what you are watching. As the last four episodes of a season, Pylea is disappointing; as a single three-hour story, it is a lot less so.

'Belonging' acts as a mission statement for the story. It sets out the characters' lives, emphasises how they don't fit in, and foreshadows numerous later developments. Notable points include:

• Whilst filming her commercial, the director refers to Cordelia as 'princess' but Angel says he treats her like a slave. In Pylea, Cordelia is both a slave and a princess.
• Angel walks in the fake sun of the commercial; later, in Pylea, he can walk under a real sun.
• In LA, Cordelia asks why people keep asking if she's OK after a vision. In Pylea, she wonders if anyone is going to ask if she's OK after a vision.
• Angel threatens to rip the director's head off for Cordelia; in Pylea, Angel loses control of his demon side and very nearly rips Gunn and Wesley apart.

As an individual episode, 'Belonging' suffers for not having a strong central plot. It is all about setup, about moving the pieces into position. As the first quarter of a three-hour story, this is a lot more appreciable, because events don't stop until a resolution is achieved.

However, it is probably 'Over The Rainbow' that gains the most from being watched as part of a single story. As a standalone episode, it feels strangely pointless. It is an entirely linear story; our heroes start out at point A, and finish at point B - but for various reasons, point B doesn't seem to make much sense. The major problem - Cordelia's mystery ascension - is remedied shortly into 'Through The Looking Glass'; Wesley acknowledges that it doesn't make sense, and the Host reveals the prophecy that explains it. The function of 'Over The Rainbow' is to introduce us to Pylea, and in the process lull us into a false sense of security. Its flaw is not that it is badly written, but that the demands of the overall story require a linear 'journey' episode with no real beginning or end.

It is in 'Through The Looking Glass' - which remains the best of the four episodes - that the pace is upped. It becomes rapidly apparent that Cordelia is no more than a prisoner in a gilded cage; Angel discovers that he's lost his balance; Wesley and Gunn are captured by bandits; and the Host loses his head. Then, in 'No Place Like Plrtz Glrb', all of these events are resolved.

This classic serial structure, with rapidly resolved cliffhangers each week, strikes me, as I said, as deliberate. It is also a straightforward quest scenario, with our heroes in pursuit of a single goal and en route causing revolution and the establishment of a new social order. As a result, the majority of the pacing problems facing the four individual episodes do vanish when the story is viewed as a whole. In places, it also looks simply stunning - the moment when Fred lures the Angelbeast away from Wesley and Gunn is fixed in my mind as one of the defining images of the season - and it is an excellent example of ensemble writing. Every cast member gets a significant storyline; if the writers can keep up this kind of balance, merely shifting the emphasis from character to character every so often, then the addition of Fred to the regular cast won't be a problem at all.

I would argue, then, that a significant part of the animosity towards Pylea is based on its position as an extended denouement. As a story in itself, there is nothing much wrong with it - it is fun, despite its flaws. As a continuation of the season, it also works; but as a conclusion, the pacing of it feels undeniably strange.

"The monster. They saw what I really am. I can't go back - not now. I can never go back..." - Angel.

In Pylea, Angel is forced to deal with the inner darkness he's been struggling against all season. He has to learn to accept that, and deal with it, and he does so with the help of his friends.

In 'Belonging' it is clear that the rift between Angel and the A-team is not fully healed. This fact is pointed out from the very first scene, with the apparently empty seat in the restaurant and the emphasis on Wesley and Gunn's new camaraderie. Angel's attempts to help Cordelia on the set of her commercial also backfire on him; it's very obvious that to see Cordelia treated in such a fashion distresses Angel, but he doesn't know what to do to make it better. Later, Angel unconsciously takes the lead when the Host asks Angel Investigations for help dealing with the drokken. It seems that Angel may have gained a new outlook on life, but he isn't sure how to turn this principle into an applied fact.

The appearance of Landok and the description of Pylea also play on this sense of discomfort. Landok is Pylea's equivalent of Angel: A champion. Meanwhile, the wistful, longing look on Angel's face when the Host describes his home dimension speaks volumes about the predicament in which Angel now finds himself. The sense of frustration is further emphasised by the appearance of the Wolfram and Hart lawyer Gavin Parks.

And, indeed, once in Pylea, it initially seems to be the perfect place for him. He can walk in the sun, and see his reflection. To the Pyleans, his exploits are unquestionably those of a warrior - it is unthinkable to Landok that he could be considered a cow. It is clear Angel relishes this adulation; some part of him feels it is his due, I think. And, as the Host points out, Angel starts to see himself as the Pyleans see him. There are no pesky moral ambiguities in this land; his actions at the end of 'Reunion' would have been unquestioningly accepted as those of a hero.

Soon enough, however, things start to fall apart. Angel's refusal to kill Fred is met with confusion; how can a hero act this way? And, faced with a contradiction, the Pyleans can no longer see Angel as heroic. That alone would be dangerous enough, but soon after we see the re-emergence of Angel's demon side. However, as Wesley points out, in Pylea there is no half-way, no balance. Where earlier in the season Angel was deliberately trying to go as far into the darkness as possible, here it swallows him whole - and he very nearly kills Wesley and Gunn as a result. Small wonder that Angel is shocked and disgusted by events.

But, as Fred says early in 'No Place Like Plrtz Glrb' - we all got our demons. Angel, like the rest of us, has to accept, once and for all, that there is evil in him. As Holland points out in 'Reprise' (in the shooting script, at least), when Angel locked those lawyers in that cellar, he was as close to being human as he has ever been. In Pylea, his first response is to hide, to refuse to go back; he is only jolted out of his brooding by the discovery that the Host has been (so he thinks) killed. But Wesley's insistence that he is 'a man with a demon inside, and not the other way around' has weight. Wesley himself isn't certain that Angel can overcome the demon, but he knows that to have any chance at all Angel has to believe that he can. And so it proves; he gives in to the darkness in his fight against the Groosalugg, but finds his way back again. As an added bonus, we get a last insight into Angel's state of mind in 'Reunion' - he says that he was firing the A-team to protect them from that darkness. I think there was more to it than that, but it was certainly a factor.

Angel's experiences in Pylea, then, can be seen as a direct reprise of his journey through the rest of S2; and at the end of it, he has accepted his nature more fully than ever before. It's also interesting to note that Pylea - the land of extremes - brings balance to Angel; in certain respects, his worldview post-'Epiphany' was just as unbalanced as it was beforehand. Pylea helps to fix this.

CORDELIA: You can't take my visions - I need them. I use them to help my friends fight evil back home.

GROOSALUGG: And I will use them to fight evil here, just as you have done.

CORDELIA: Groo...I can't give up my visions. I like them. OK, I don't like the searing pain and agony which seems to be getting steadily worse. And lately, until the vision gets solved: Anxiety overdrive.

GROOSALUGG: You are pure human. You are not meant to carry such a burden.

In Pylea Cordelia, like Angel, reaffirms her identity and her sense of purpose. The above conversation is an extension of Wesley's remarks to Angel in 'Epiphany'; now we see that even when presented with an opportunity to walk away from it all, Cordelia won't.

This is important because 'Belonging' and the episodes leading up to it emphasised just how much Cordelia had sacrificed to the visions. She was no longer carefree; she no longer had the friends or the status she enjoyed in high school; and the visions were - and, presumably, are still - becoming progressively more debilitating. Even acting, the one dream she had been holding on to (somewhat self-deludingly), is seen to be unsatisfying and indeed degrading. Cordelia desperately wants to be valued for who she is, and not because of the visions. What Pylea causes her to realise is that the visions are as integral a part of who she is as anything else.

Another thing Pylea highlights is just how much the men of Angel Investigations care for and try to protect Cordelia. Of all the people that could have been sucked through the portal, it is clear that for Angel, Wesley and Gunn, Cordelia was the worst. Angel grows increasingly frantic in his desire to save her - and then it turns out that she apparently doesn't need saving.

For, once in Pylea, Cordelia is rapidly elevated to monarch. Unsurprisingly, she is rather pleased with this, because, well, throne. She knows it doesn't make sense, but she chooses to ignore that fact; like Angel, she feels that she's found the perfect place for her - compared to LA, at least - and she indulges that feeling. This is another example of the Pylea Effect in action; the respect and admiration accorded to her on her rise to princess makes Cordelia see herself that way - at least for a while.

The Groosalugg is extremely important to this part of the story. He embodies the very best and the very worst of Pylea - he is, as Cordelia says, an honest-to-god hero, but he is that only because the Covenant decrees that he is, and his literal mind world, and believes in that place. However, his open nature and unswerving devotion to his princess unsurprisingly endear him to Cordelia. Yes, he is also a walking cliche; but as is often the way at Mutant Enemy, the cliche is used to make some important points.

The Groosalugg's honesty and unquestioning devotion allow Cordelia to open up to him in a way that she is reluctant to do with her colleagues. She knows, deep down, that her life in Pylea is a dream, and not reality. As in Angel's case, however, the dream turns to a nightmare. It becomes horribly apparent that the Covenant view Cordelia merely as a tool, a means to an end - and in the midst of the struggle, a way appears for Cordelia to rid herself of the vision. A way that doesn't involve pain, or angst; a way that hands them on to someone else who wants to do good with them. However, Cordelia knows that she has to keep the visions. She knows that they are a part of who she is now. She needed to admit those things to herself, though, after all she's been through in the past year. She needed to confirm that she continued to deal with the visions after 'Reunion' because she wanted to, and not because she had to or because Angel left her no other choice.

Cordelia's story, then, like Angel's, is a recapitulation of her journey over the season. Post-'Reunion' she accepted that she had to keep fighting the good fight, even at the expense of her personal happiness. Because of who she is, she feels compelled to help the people she sees suffering. In Pylea she found that even if she could have that happiness, it would be hollow without that sense of purpose.

"You try not to get anybody killed, you wind up getting everybody killed" - Wesley

Wesley's development over the course of S2 has been very much about growth in self-confidence. Specifically, he has to learn how to lead - something that does not come naturally to him.

And in the course of the Pylea arc, he has to learn it all over again. At the start of 'Belonging' is one of the finest scenes of the season - Wesley's birthday phone call to his father. The gradual demolition of all the hard-won confidence accumulated over the season is compelling and distressing to watch. It hits Wesley hard, and its repercussions are felt throughout the next few episodes. Later in 'Belonging', for example, he is hesitant and unsure during the drokken hunt. There is a sense that Wesley has been waiting to fail - and when Cordelia is sucked through the portal, there is the sense that Wesley feels he has failed, completely ('How could I have let this happen?').

Once in Pylea, Wesley's path is in some ways the inverse of Cordelia and Angel's. He doesn't receive the sense of place that the other two do, at least not immediately. Instead, he is confronted with more failure. First, Angel Investigations are captured and imprisoned; then, when released he fails to rescue Cordelia from the palace. Lastly, he is captured and sentenced to execution by the rebel warriors (Cutting off heads seems to be the standard method of execution in Pylea; Angel refuses to do it, Wesley and Gunn nearly have it done to them and the Host does have it done).

However, Wesley and Gunn's fortunes undergo a dramatic reversal when they fight alongside the rebels against the palace guards. Very quickly (albeit unwillingly), thanks to the Pylea effect, Wesley is elevated to the position of rebel leader. Initially, he attempts to defer leadership to Angel, but when Angel refuses Wesley begins to shine. He shows himself capable of planning and carrying out a large-scale battle; and he shows himself capable of making the hard decisions that that entails. He also shows, as in 'Epiphany' and 'Disharmony' that he understands and forgives Angel's actions. He knows that Angel needs to have faith in himself, and does his utmost to give him that faith.

Pylea allows Wesley to prove that he can stand on his own, even under the toughest of circumstances. At the end of it, he is fully ready to lead Angel Investigations.

"I don't wanna leave 'em to get themselves killed...I do that enough" - Gunn

More than any other character, Gunn has been in search of a place to belong in S2. Gunn seems to be motivated by two main drives: Respect, and a strong protective streak. Early in S2, it was his respect that tied him to AI; later, when Wesley and Cordelia were fired he stuck with them because he felt they needed his help. However, this set up a conflict with his old crew. In the Pylea arc, we see Gunn attempt to reconcile these conflicted loyalties - and fail.

At the start of 'Belonging', Gunn is firmly in the Angel Investigations camp. He has clearly bonded with and grown to respect Wesley. However, George and Rondell come to him for help. Not help with planning, or with the execution of the plan; they merely want to borrow Gunn's truck. This hurts Gunn, and reminds him that they need his help, too. But, he still wants to help everyone, so he balances the options and decides AI's case is the more urgent, telling his crew to wait for him.

Gunn's crew, however, are disillusioned. They don't listen, and go ahead anyway - and as a result, George dies. It's questionable whether Gunn would have made much of a difference, had he been there, but it is very clear he blames himself. As a result, when faced with the choice between a potentially one-way trip and staying behind with his crew, he initially chooses to stay. However, it was clearly not an easy choice, or one that he is happy making ("I guess that makes me...I don't know what that makes me"), and when Angel leaves him a message, it's enough to make him waver and rejoin AI. Throughout the episode, then, it is clear that Gunn is confused - and in some ways, the viewer is left just as confused. But when viewed in conjunction with the rest of the Pylea episodes, a clearer picture emerges.

Once in Pylea, Gunn's fate is bound up with Wesley's, and in 'No Place Like Plrtz Glrb' we get to see a very clear contrast between the leadership styles of the two. Gunn wants to save everybody ("I wouldn't split my crew up that much if I was leading this charge") - hence his dilemma about whether or not to go with Pylea. Wesley knows that you can't do that and, watching him, I think Gunn starts to learn that, and by the end he might blame himself a little less for George's death.

For me, the astonishing thing about this situation is that it's dealt with at all. Accepting that you can't save everyone is not a fashionable position on a television show of this kind - but it is the reality of such situations. If for nothing else, the Pylea arc has to be applauded for making this statement.

HOST: Aggie, I'd rather have a hydrochloric acid facial. I'd rather invite a hive of wasps to nest in my throat. I would rather sit through a junior high-school production of 'Cats' - you see where I'm going with this?

AGGIE: Not Pylea.

HOST: Exactamundo.

The Host's main function in this story arc is, as ever, comic relief. However, the writers take the opportunity to add some depth to everyone's favourite lounge lizard - and surprise, surprise, he's got issues as well. He acts as our (reluctant) guide to Pylea, and along the way he makes several key observations - from the initial description of its metaphysics to the observation that people become their images.

Because he's not a main character, his storyline is by far the slightest of the cast. He merely learns that he had to go home to learn that he didn't have to go home. Like the rest of them, he belongs in LA - the city where nobody belongs. It's also reassuring that he doesn't reconcile with his family; it wouldn't have been true to Pylea, and it wouldn't have been true to the spirit of the show.

"She's Fred. She does that, too" - Angel

One of the most heartening things about the whole Pylea trip is that it isn't just an excuse to have some fun. It means something; it has consequences. Our heroes may have accepted that their fight is a good fight, but that doesn't mean all of their problems are instantly solved. Cordelia still suffers from the visions; Wesley still has to lead Angel Investigations; and evil - as represented by Wolfram and Hart - isn't going to go away. Quite where our favourite law firm's interest in the Hyperion will lead is anyone's guess, but I'd lay odds that we're going to see Gavin Park again.

Of course, the most interesting loose end from Pylea is Fred - lost and alone and a little bit mad, found by Angel and brought home. What role will she play in Angel Investigations? My guess is research, although I hope against hope that her physics knowledge will not be called on. I also have a sneaking suspicion that she may have a crush on Angel, although I would be surprised if it is reciprocated.

"My psychic friend told me I had to come back here - I didn't believe her. Then I realised I did have to come back here, because I really always thought I had to come back here deep down inside, you know? I had to come back here to find out I didn't have to come back here. I don't belong here - I hate it here. You know where I belong? LA. You know why? Nobody belongs there. It's the perfect place for guys like us." - The Host.

Compared to earlier episodes in the season, Pylea is comforting - simplistic, even. And, as a series denouement, it is unusual. However, viewed as a fun three-hour story, I think that overall it is a success; the pacing isn't perfect, but most of the problems are inherent in the nature of episodic TV, and not flaws in the writing. Events such as the Host's non-death, for instance, become much more reasonable when resolved within five minutes. Thematically, it also works; each of the four main characters reprises their development over the season and takes the next step. And if nothing else, it's a joy to watch an ensemble cast handled well in an ensemble story.