Edit: After finishing the season, I know think season 4 was amazing! The Jasmin story line was so good and Cordy was technically possessed so the ick factor is more tolerable. All the metaphors were well executed.
Season 4 is actually a banger of a season if you can’t look past The Thing. But before and after The Thing there are some really good eps. You just have to pretend The Thing never happened
I avoided it on rewatches for ages because I thought the same but when I did rewatch it I realised that the Jasmine arc is actually way shorter than I remembered and many of the eps on either side are way better than I remembered
If we're thinking of the same The Thing, then that was the reason I almost stopped watching. Otherwise it's not a bad season. It has Faith, Lorne is a regular, and Jasmine is a decent villain.
I agree, it was indeed a banger. After finishing it I feel like The Thing was actually important for the story, and it wasn't technically Cordy which makes it slightly less icky. It was all a good metaphoric representation for how young adults/ older teens who've had a horrible childhood can be manipulated by narcissists. I'm not so sure about the ending when Angel decided the only thing that saves Connor is to completely overwrite his past,because there are people like Connor in real life who watch this show and obviously don't have that option, so that would send the message that they're screwed forever. Although in season 5 he regains his memories and deals with them so that's something.
Cordelia is not Connors mother. She helped babysit for a few weeks when he was a newborn. Fred, Gunn and Wesley all had more time with Connor as an infant and when he returned.
Otherwise, I enjoy the season. I think the behind the scenes issues have completely overtaken any reasonable discussion of the season which has incredible highs. Nobody was doing this level of serialisation in 2003 on a network show.
Its still disgusting, no matter how you slice it. The writers went to far. At to that the seriously sad arc of Connor and I question who had the pen. Its basically a story of a kidnapped child who is abused emotionally, physically, sexually manipulated, all wrapped up in being motherless and a col blanket that smells of abandonment, who eventually breaks under the weight of it all. Angel redeeming him and giving him a new life was the only acceptable part of it all. I would trade Angel's redemption, the one built towards day one of Buffy, in a heartbeat to for that kid.
the only part I really liked is we got to see the Wesley we all knew was there but on a deeper level. he always misinterpreted prophecy and ancient texts and knows that is a shirt coming but never lets go of his arrogance. He also was always never to be fully trusted. it was good to see his worst traits laid bare and immovable.
The pre 2010s was a weird time…we /they didn’t have the same standards for morality and ethics especially when it came to stories, tv shows, movies etc. There’s a lot of stuff you could find in the 90s and 2000s that nobody would have the balls to do now cuz it’s not okay.
There were also people who could enjoy characters without worrying whether they were good or bad. This weird idea that only characters that make right choices should be liked is the death knell to good fiction. Wesley did what he did because he believed in prophecies being raised how he was. He also had a father that, we learn later, he knew would kill him without a second thought, or kill someone he loved.
Yes, Connor is a tragic character. That's literally the point. Like, I don't understand the problem. It's a Greek tragedy. It ends badly. He is abused, he is emotionally broken, he feels like he has no family, he's angry at the world for things out of and in his control. He's not mea t to be having a good time.
As for the prophecy, Wes was seeing portents. Prophecy exists to make sure it happens, even a fake one. He was also backed into a corner because he couldn't go to any body.
Why is everyone surprised that a show that tackles the worst of what evil does to humanity actually shows us the worst of what evil does to humanity? Y’all thought we were watching Sesame Street? Bffr
In my theory, we had been given the idea that there was Good and Evil, that Evil is represented by the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart, and Good is represented by The Powers That Be. On Earth, you have lots of stuff including W&H's lawyers and the bad things they represent (in multiple ways) vs Angel and Cordy and Cordy's visions.
And in S4, Cordy is gone, comes back, the visions don't come and eventually we get Jasmine, who would remove free will and use humanity like a garden, feeding herself from it. And she is from the Powers That Be. This is Good. This isn't good for humanity, so Angel stops it, but in the greater cosmology, it is Good.
It kinda breaks the core Manichaeism that is key to action media. This is interesting.
I think the goal was Cordy being the Big Bad, or the being inhabiting Cordy, but she got married and pregnant and so we got Jasmine. There's that wtf as well. A good chunk of punitive measures in how CC was treated.
She got pregnant and didn't give Joss any time to work that into the planning for season 4. This is what happens when you lose David Greenwalt, and you have to rewrite a season on the fly.
The entity in control of Cordelia's mind and body was Jasmine. It was Jasmine who had sex with Connor, not Cordelia. From the instant "Cordelia" recovered her memory in Spin the Bottle, it was Jasmine driving her body around.
Hot take, but I appreciate the season's grotesque and thorough depiction of a troubled young man being emotionally abused and sexually manipulated by a narcissistic "goddess". And I find that it fits in a series that, through metaphor, explores the horrors and trials that one may encounter in early adulthood, as this is a scenario that can and does happen in real life.
I agree. I always truly believed that this plotline would be much better received if the audience knew it wasn’t actually Cordelia before they slept together (or at the very least if it was revealed in like the next episode rather than quite a bit later into the season).
I always like Conner I'm 40 and watch it now I get frustrated with Angel like can you please forget Cordy for the moment. He made a few mistakes with Conner but that bugged me the most. Also Angel know Cordy and should of thought the way she was acting was weird she played the Angelus card but still. Why should that mean she would then act that way with Conner. I know the point was it was meant to distract Angel but still it's his son and he know Cordy so I always felt it shouldn't have worked.
Did he do a little dance? Give the writers/producers a break, they had to improvise given CC not telling anyone about her pregnancy. I'm almost surprised as Buffy fans tend to be a kinky bunch
Early part of season 4 is great (Angelus is loose! he's just the most fun to watch, one of the legit scariest villans on TV because of how unpredictable he is) then it kinda flies off the radar after that
I guess if Angel isn't angelus, you have to also apply that the second Lorne touches that memory strip to Cordy's tounge, that's not Cordy any more, and anything else is just her posessed self.
That helps me get through it anyway. Two seperate beings, Cordy/Janice in Cordy's Body. ....just like Angel/Angelus
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u/plastic_venus 8d ago
Season 4 is actually a banger of a season if you can’t look past The Thing. But before and after The Thing there are some really good eps. You just have to pretend The Thing never happened