Wednesday Night TV

[eruthros]

These are, of course, totally random and non-linear.

Smallville:
Clark and Lex not only didn't talk, they weren't even in the same room together! *sighs* And it was all about Clark and Lana. Again. I'm starting to get the impression that the writers can't even remember who broke up with whom and why. Clark's all "I broke it off because it was dangerous for her." Huh. I seem to recall that you broke it off because there were things about you that she didn't like that you couldn't change (gay now?) and you couldn't tell her your secrets and so on. Blah di blah blah blah. Lana: "At least my stalker of the week told me the truth about his abilities!" Me: Except the part where he was manipulating your mind, which I think is kind of a crucial omission. Lana: "Shut up! He told me the truth and now I must whine to Clark because he doesn't love me enough to do exactly as I say!"

Everyone wonders why Lana doesn't seem to be a meteor mutant despite years of exposure. Well, kryptonite appears to grant wishes in a backwards way, so I predict that Lana was really wishing that everyone would love her. Hence the stalkers of the week.

I don't understand why we keep focusing on Lana (well, I do; they think she's pretty) when Chloe has character and kissed Clark in such a standard slash-cliche we're-not-spying way. Clark looked so stunned! Hee.

The prison had much better decor than when Clark was there. Did they have to remodel after he burnt it down?

Stalker/mutant of the week is Magneto. Baby Magneto, obviously, as older!Magneto would hopefully be smart enough to see through Lana's princess routine. I guess this means he gets to grow up to be Ian McKellen.

Lex smolders at two teenage girls (ewwww!). Although at least Chloe and Lex have interesting interactions. More Chloe and Lex would be just fine as long as they don't sleep together (ewwww! she's dependent on him now for protection from Lionel! so many issues of consent! ewwww!).

Angel:

We focused an entire episode on Wesley! (squees again) And he had a John Woo-flying-sideways-with-two-guns-in-slow-motion moment! (squees some more) And he carried many weapons easily accessable on his wrist! (further squeeing) Also there was a plot. With Wesley in! Ex-watcher with guns! And then he stuttered about his father and tortured cyborg ninjas! And he tried to resurrect poor dead birds as a child! And he was semi-undercover playing weapons-agent to get information! And there were suede jackets and guns at the same time! A-hem. Sorry.

Wes gets nervous around his father, who insults him in such a terrific way (plot-wise, anyway), and gives him backhanded compliments. The instant he gave Wes what seemed like a real compliment, you had to know he was about to do something Evil. I adored Wes' father issues, and I think Fred was wrong at the end: Wes did seem to think that was his dad. And he still shot him multiple times. (And threw up afterwards.) He's a sharpshooter; you can either argue that he was rattled and nervous about his father and wasn't sure he could make a shoulder shot, or you can argue that he's really in love with Fred again (?), or that he's still grey-Wes trying to protect his friends, or that he's got bigger father issues than everyone seemed to think. Any way you cut it, poor, poor Wesley. Both Angel and Spike were trying to comfort him, although both did it badly. He needs some seriously cuddling. Or therapy. Or both.

One Wes-related decision that I didn't understand was his "if you shoot me, I drop this ridiculous stick and the crystal breaks and your plan, whatever it is, is foiled, even if I die." Okay. So why not just drop the ridiculous stick to start with and then deal with your father? You could argue, I guess, that his father rattles him that much. (Poor Wes!)

I really did like this episode a lot, except for the few standard problems we seem to be having this season. Like Eve. Why was she hanging around watching them do the autopsy? Why was she there when Angel was dressing down Wes? I was so, so pleased when she got stuck in the elevator. She's going to have big plots later, fine, but why in hell should that mean that we have to watch her bore us to tears now?

For a while I was baffled by the robots (come on. Robot ninjas?) but I've reconciled that as either a symbol of Rigid Good (a la Buffy or the Council): we do good and can accept no ambiguous moralities at all. Angel's got a soul now, but we still won't shake hands with him, because of the evil he did. So they could be symbolic. I think Angel's "well, they had access to your files" is really not an explanation for the behavior of Wesley's-father-bot, so I could also see them being the minions of the remaining Council. They've lost most of their staff, but that's okay, as they can replace them with ninja cyborgs, who will never falter and never disobey them. There are lots of Slayers now, but Buffy and Faith and Willow are probably telling them about their female-power, which means the Council probably isn't controlling them as they'd like. So I can see the father-bot being programmed by Wesley's father, or by the council, or being controlled by Wes' father from a distance, or something. Especially since he's a father, and this is a ME show, so he must be evil. Even if he wasn't in this episode, he's probably being an evil bastard from a distance.

Still confused about what everyone remembers about the period of time with Connor in it. Wes seems to remember Lilah (re: cutting up last gf), but on the other hand he seems to be going after Fred again, even though he should remember that that didn't work out. Ulterior motive, maybe? The whatever-Wolfram-and-Hart-did-to-erase-Connor-from-everyone's-memory didn't work on Wes, and but he's trying to pretend it did, and he's got some sort of Giant Plan? Or he doesn't remember Lilah, and that was just something he made up to irk his dad? But why'd he make it up? *sighs* I think I'll stop thinking about it. It hurts my brain.

Also confused about the father-bot sneaking a gun in inside the dead ninja. This assumes that a: the ninja will die and b: that they will take it to W&H and no-one will notice the gun and c: that the father-bot will have access to the ninja. If W&H's security is so good that he can't take a gun in, why didn't they see through the glamour and realize that he was a ninja-cyborg? If their security is so good, how did the six ninja-cyborgs get in so easily, and how come security didn't take down at least one of them before they made it to the lobby (especially since they started on the roof, fergodsakes)? What happened to the clean-up team with the van and the big guns? Angel only killed one of them! The rest should be around, ready and willing to kill many people!

Next week: triangulation. Er, I mean much heterosexual angst. They both really wanted Druscilla! Really! Absolutely! It was all about Dru all along, and they've never had any sexual tension! Ever!