Angel: 3x6 Full Reaction
Added 2025-01-19 16:00:04 +0000 UTC"Billy"
Comments
You were probably taking notes during the previous hints that Wesley likes Fred... that's an unfortunate aspect of the watch along format + you taking notes
madfem
2025-02-16 23:12:40 +0000 UTCLove this episode and season. Can't wait for more Darla and Wolfram and Hart.
Ahmad
2025-01-21 03:14:46 +0000 UTCAngel's explanation of why he wasn't affected by Billy is essential to understanding Angelus. Whenever the question of what makes Angelus different from other vampires or demons comes up (and it always does with BtVS reactors) I always make a point of explaining that he was a sadist. What Angel says to Cordy at the end confirms it: he didn't act out of hate or rage, or even hunger. "It was all about pain and pleasure," the pleasure he got out of inflicting pain. Sadism in its purest form.
DanielOrme
2025-01-21 00:17:26 +0000 UTCI mean, Angel and Lilah could both just be wrong about how Billy's power works. Neither of them is a scientist or demonology expert, Wesley's research into Billy implies that his rage powers aren't in his books (since they're examining Billy's blood rather than looking through Wesley's many, many demonology texts,) and Angel has seemingly never encountered someone like Billy before. Maybe they're just guessing and wrong. As for what's actually happening, here are some alternative ideas: Billy's power is not as specific as Lilah says it is, and is able to drive people to attack others more generally. He's just never been interested in using it for anything except forcing men to attack women and neither knows nor cares what else it can do. If he were some other kind of terrible fucking person, it might have different effects - maybe if he were a virulent racist, but nothing else about him was different, it'd cause infected men and women to commit racist hate crimes. And Angel's immunity could just be because he's a vampire, rather than having any kind of emotional basis. We've seen vampires display immunity or resistance to certain kinds of magic that affect humans before - like Spike being the only one who remembered Ben and Glory share a body after seeing Ben change - and the demon inhabiting a vampire's body can sometimes fight off attempts by other demons to take it over, like when Eyghon was tricked into possessing him and Angel's demon killed it. ...Or, well, it's implied in a few episodes that Angel, with a soul, still sometimes wants to murder and torture people (he mentions to Buffy during the episode Angel that he wanted to kill her that night, for example, which only makes sense if his demon is still acting as a sort of devil on his shoulder when he has his soul - the circumstances definitely didn't warrant that response) and just chooses not to do it because he knows it would be morally wrong. So unlike Billy's human victims, he's had decades of practice at resisting violent intrusive thoughts. He also has a habit of keeping his thoughts and actions secret from his friends if he's embarrassed by them, like not mentioning his erotic dreams about Darla the first few times they happened and lying to Cordelia about sleeping with Darla. This all means that the idea that Angel WAS affected by Billy, but was able to resist it due to decades of practice, and then lied to Cordelia about wanting to bash her head in because he was ashamed of those thoughts, is also possible.
Holy Stregas
2025-01-20 18:21:01 +0000 UTCThe episode where all the ATS misogyny subtext fully becomes text
Isaiah Bryant
2025-01-20 14:48:32 +0000 UTCIt's been low-key but there have been a few instances of Wesley stepping in to protect Fred. He physically put himself between her and Gavin the first time he came by the hotel, he scooped her up to keep her safe in the face of Gio's attack on Caritas etc
Preaching to the Horse's Mouth
2025-01-19 20:37:52 +0000 UTCThere's definitely a few very subtle hints in the previous episodes that show Wesley likes Fred. They're much easier to catch on rewatches!
Rebecca
2025-01-19 19:04:05 +0000 UTCOoooh, perfect timing, this popped up just as I was about to have lunch so I could watch it right away. This episode is quite controversial in the fandom, and according to some is one of the worst episodes of the series. I think because it makes misogyny and sexism the direct main focus, instead of obscuring it with metaphor. I'm not one of them, but they're vocal sometimes. I never like saying that misogyny is "primal" or "buried deep in all men" because it gives an excuse to the people who succumb to it. "He couldn't help it" and so on. Every man who ever beat his wife, or assaulted a woman who turned him down, or even just talked behind the back of a woman who got the promotion instead of him, made the CHOICE to do so. Just like every man who HASN'T done that has also made a choice. Like James Smith said, the effects of Billy's powers are a little inconsistent in the episode itself, so we can't say for sure how they actually work. Angel is correct that for almost all the vampires we see, they don't show hostility or hatred towards their victims. The pain they cause is about giving themselves pleasure. Just like we -- humans in real life -- don't hate cows or chickens or other food animals. We eat them to give ourselves sustenance, not because we want the chickens to suffer. So the idea that Billy's powers wouldn't work on a vampire make a kind of sense...until you consider that vampires can GROW anger and hostility when they are beaten by people and form a rivalry. The Master grew to hate Buffy when she kept him trapped underground, Spike hated Buffy when she kept foiling his plans (until his feelings changed to something else), Angelus hated Buffy for making him feel something as Angel, etc. So if vampires CAN feel anger, and Billy's power is bringing it out, then why was he immune? That part of the script could have used another few passes.
JBK405
2025-01-19 17:56:51 +0000 UTCWhat I like about this episode is that the actors/characters got to get out of their traditional roles. Cordelia got to be the hero detective that chats with the Wolfram&Hart lawyer which is usual Angel's role. Obviously the biggest change up is that Wesley gets to be an antagonist and go around the Hyperion Hotel like he is Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'. What I don't like about the episode. The monster metaphor seems to work differently for the background characters, Wesley, and Angel. The background characters all seem to have violent misogyny thrust upon them and other characters note that it seems against their usual temperament. Wesley seems to think that this was something actually in him brought to the surface so he can be told that it is not. And Angel's explanation says that this hasn't been a part of him for awhile and that Angelus never hated his victims, which would seem to make Wesley's assertions correct (it was in Wesley and was brought to the surface but wasn't in Angel thus no effect). I'm not sure if this was the result of multiple writers and they didn't have time to 'unify' the script but I have a bad feeling it may have been on purpose to muddy the waters (wouldn't want the label of misogynist on the show's main characters, so just make the exact mechanics of Billy's powers so confusing and contradictory that no definitive arguments can be made)
James Smith
2025-01-19 17:15:24 +0000 UTCNot me watching the clock now for the next 3.5 hrs until I'm done work now
Preaching to the Horse's Mouth
2025-01-19 16:19:39 +0000 UTC
