Jasmine's plan for Angelus?

[RoJoHen]

Recently, I watched every episode of the Buffyverse for the very first time. It was awesome.

Now, over the last couple weeks, I've been catching the reruns of Angel on TNT. They're in the middle of Season 4, and I'm actually enjoying it more the second time around. But I'm confused...

Cordelia tells The Beast that she has great plans for Angelus, but what exactly were they? When she kills Lyla, she says the whole reason she let Angelus out was so he could kill people.

But this plan seems to go against Jasmine's whole "world peace" plan. So...am I missing something?

 

[JNG]

I didn't get any of this at all, either. I've been watching this part of the season on TNT HD.

She claims great plans for Angelus, but it doesn't get any more specific than the idea that he is going to kill people; as you have correctly pointed out, there doesn't seem to be any particular reason she'd want this (I wasn't sure about the Lilah death, either).

Then, before Angelus is re-ensouled, she tries to get Connor to kill him, which makes even less sense after all the trouble she had gone to to get him de-souled and free.

If there's an explanation, it certainly can't be particularly straightforward; nevertheless, I'd sure like to hear it.

 

[Rii]

Perhaps by "Angelus" she means "the absence of Angel". With everyone trying to deal with Angelus and The Beast, nobody takes much notice of Cordelia.

 

[Mr Light]

Jasmine's plan with Angelus was two-fold. 1) remove Angel as a player to stop her and distract his team from doing anything either. 2) unleash Angelus to cause as much death and destruction as possible. See, the entire pre-birth segment of her plan was to create as much chaos as possible, so that when their savior arrived mankind would be more willing to accept her. Kinda ruthless, but there ya are.

 

[JediKnightButler]

It was always my understanding/thinking that Angelus was being used as nothing more than a distraction for the rest of the team which, of course, worked out quite well because, by the time finally got Angel re-ensouled, Jasmine was almost ready to be "born". Jasmine probably wouldn't have wanted him alive for too much longer because, as is evident from what we already knew about Angelus by then is that he is nobody's puppet or "butt-monkey" and, in fact, Jasmine was apparently really working Connor over to get him to slay Angelus by the time Willow came to re-ensoul him. It is kind of ironic that Angelus ended up being the one to figure out how to defeat Beast- since that was the whole purpose behind the team "de-souling" Angel in the first place.

 

[JNG]

Still a little fuzzy on why she stabbed Lilah Morgan...that seems like maybe it was just to tell the audience she was evil (not that they needed much convincing after the Connor schtupp). I get that it was finishing off Wolfram and Hart's staff, a job the Beast had nearly completed, but what was that about again?

 

[JediKnightButler]

Still a little fuzzy on why she stabbed Lilah Morgan...that seems like maybe it was just to tell the audience she was evil (not that they needed much convincing after the Connor schtupp). I get that it was finishing off Wolfram and Hart's staff, a job the Beast had nearly completed, but what was that about again?

If you're asking why Jasmine wanted Wolfram & Hart out of the picture, then I would suppose that it would probably have to be so that she didn't have any "competition" to worry about, which was also probably why Angel and co. were "rewarded" by Wolfram & Hart at the end of S4 for stopping Jasmine and her attempts at achieving "world peace". One thing that I'm kind of curious about is why Jasmine didn't do anything about Circle of the Black Thorn- given that they were the REAL "power-brokers" on Earth in terms of advancing an opposing agenda (although it's possible the writers hadn't really conceived of them by that point).

 

[JNG]

^

But wouldn't they have, you know...worshipped or whatever like everyone else? I don't know...it just seems odd to think of Jasmine going, "Sure, my power works on Angel, but I really need to worry about that Gavin guy over at the law firm." I don't know. Maybe they'd have had some special protection from her charms in the building, but not from the Beast's pure physical force.

 

[Rii]

You're supposed to feel, not think.

 

[Admiral2]

The entire Jasmine storyline was written to cover the fact that Charisma Carpenter was pregnant during production. Don't strain yourself trying to make sense of it.

 

[Daneel]

I like Season 4, but some of it confused me too after all was said and done. A lot of that was likely due to the writers having to change stuff on the fly to incorporate Charisma Carpenter's pregnancy. Considering all the behind-the-scenes turmoil (including the exit of a new executive producer early in the season), I think it turned out rather well.

Anyway, as to Jasmine's plan for Angelus, it probably was mostly a distraction from what was really going on. Also, Jasmine/Cordy likely realized that Angel would try to stop her, but if she could bring back Angelus, and threaten him with being re-ensouled (as she did), she could control him and use him to her advantage.

As to why Miss Peace-and-Love Jasmine seemed to revel in her violent deeds (i.e. killing Lilah and others, arranging to have the Beast murder people, sacrificing innocents, etc.), well, I figure that was Cordy's influence. Yes, it was Jasmine who wanted Wolfram and Hart, as well as other competitors/threats, out of the way, and it was apparently necessary to her plan, but look at the way she acted in Cordelia's body compared to how she acted in her own. Granted, she did terrible, ruthless things in both, but she seemed to act way more overtly evil in Cordy's body. Jasmine was the driving force in Cordelia's mind, but I think Cordy's personality (which, let's face it, could sometimes be bitchy) was coming through much of the time as well. So while Cordelia was definitely possessed, her real self had some degree of influence on the possessor, namely Jasmine.

Of course, that's just my theory.

 

[CaptMurdock]

The Jasmine storyline suffers from the (usually not fatal) flaw in most Whedonverse arcs: great overall and some really killer themes, but you start on the details and you'll find some gaping holes.

e.g. Glory and the Key: why would the Key be disguised as virtually anything (said in various Season 5 Buffy episodes) but the ritual to use the Key to open up the interdimensional portal involves blood? You don't get much blood out of inanimate objects...

 

[Ethros]

^ Exactly. I love Season 4, my favourite Angel season, but at times its best not to think too much about it.
Kinda like Season 5. Why does Lindsey even go by the name Doyle? That's pretty friggin dumb, seen as Spike was still in contact with Angel & co now and again. He could have easily have idly said "oh I just this Texan guy called Doyle who has visions from the Powers That Be"
And he even tells him he lost his hand once

Although maybe that's the point; as Angel says, Lindsey's an idiot

 

[Ethros]

btw, whilst on the topic of Buffy/Angel, this is great

The audio to the Sin City trailer, mixed with video from the Buffyverse
See here


See the original here to compare

Am I sad for knowing instantly which episode all the clips are from?

 

[RoJoHen]

^ Exactly. I love Season 4, my favourite Angel season, but at times its best not to think too much about it.
Kinda like Season 5. Why does Lindsey even go by the name Doyle? That's pretty friggin dumb, seen as Spike was still in contact with Angel & co now and again. He could have easily have idly said "oh I just this Texan guy called Doyle who has visions from the Powers That Be"
And he even tells him he lost his hand once

Although maybe that's the point; as Angel says, Lindsey's an idiot

It was dumb of him to use the name Doyle, but it definitely stung me to hear it. You know how pissed Cordelia was when Spike told her about "Doyle"? That's how pissed I was, too.

 

[JNG]

It was dumb of him to use the name Doyle, but it definitely stung me to hear it. You know how pissed Cordelia was when Spike told her about "Doyle"? That's how pissed I was, too.

I hear the actors weren't super delighted with this little "twist," either, Christian Kane and David Boreanaz both having been friends with the deceased Glenn Quinn.

Plotwise, getting caught was definitely not a huge worry of Lindsey's.

The entire Jasmine storyline was written to cover the fact that Charisma Carpenter was pregnant during production. Don't strain yourself trying to make sense of it.

She was big as a house and most of the weight appeared to have gone to expanding her head. It couldn't have been more obvious (and at the time, I ached for the memory of the season one, long hair, damn-she-was-a-Chargers-cheerleader superfox Charisma Carpenter).

Embracing it with a mystical pregnancy was clever enough, but it's still odd how a lot of details associated with this don't seem to add up to anything. The Daneel theory of Cordy's personality influencing the actions is interesting, but sure reflects badly on supposedly true-hearted Cordy. Was the whole Higher Being thing true at all, or just more Jasmine fakery? (I remember Skip turned out to be working for her, didn't he?) If it was true, did they ever give any explanation for why she suddenly returned to Earth with no memories?

Yes, I'm looking too closely at this show I have really enjoyed watching all these reruns lately and noticing new things. Andy Hallett was playing such an over-the-top character that I missed a number of subtle touches in his performance the first go-round. I also feel bad for Vincent Kartheiser, who I feel was giving a coolly intense performance with an intimidating physicality and is given mostly jack shit to work with by the writers.

 

[RoJoHen]

It was dumb of him to use the name Doyle, but it definitely stung me to hear it. You know how pissed Cordelia was when Spike told her about "Doyle"? That's how pissed I was, too.

I hear the actors weren't super delighted with this little "twist," either, Christian Kane and David Boreanaz both having been friends with the deceased Glenn Quinn.

Plotwise, getting caught was definitely not a huge worry of Lindsey's.

Yeah, but I was pissed in a good way. From a strict storytelling perspective, it made Lindsey that much more deserving of the ass-kicking he later received.

 

[Reverend]

Was the whole Higher Being thing true at all, or just more Jasmine fakery? (I remember Skip turned out to be working for her, didn't he?)

From what I understood, Jasmine was one of the PTB (a rogue, presumably) so I think it was all real.

If it was true, did they ever give any explanation for why she suddenly returned to Earth with no memories?

I think it was explained that it was a side effect of the higher being descending to a lower dimension and that the evil Cordy/Jasmin persona only emerged after Lorne's memory spell. So amnesia Cordy really was "our" Cordy.

 

[RoJoHen]

^I don't believe they really "explained" her memory loss, but I took one of two ways.

1) Before I learned about Jasmine, I figured she pulled a Daniel Jackson and got kicked out of the Higher Planes when she interfered in the Lower Planes in the episode with the casino.

2) Jasmine knew that it would take some kind of catalyst to awaken her, so she wiped Cordelia's memories knowing that a spell of some kind would do the trick.

As for whether Cordelia really was a Higher Being, that was all true. It just wasn't true for the reasons we thought. Jasmine and Skip orchestrated Cordelia's ascension so that Jasmine could implant herself in Cordelia. That's probably one of the reasons Cordelia's Floating Higher Being Head was so bored all the time...she wasn't really supposed to be there.

Also, when Skip turned out to be a bad guy, I was soooooooo pissed off. Especially after that earlier episode (Season 3, I think) when Skip offered Cordelia the chance to have her visions taken away. Cordelia unknowingly chose to be Jasmine's pawn way before we even knew that she was a player.

 

[Daneel]

The Daneel theory of Cordy's personality influencing the actions is interesting, but sure reflects badly on supposedly true-hearted Cordy.

I knew I wouldn't be able to explain that perfectly. I'm certainly not suggesting that Cordelia herself is in any way evil, but somehow, the merging of herself and Jasmine in one body created a being that was nastier than each of them separately. We have Cordelia, who is a good person at heart, but is sometimes blunt, selfish, and insensitive (though I will admit she grew out of that considerably in the previous couple of seasons). We also have Jasmine, who wants peace on earth and happiness for everyone, but is completely ruthless and will do whatever it takes to achieve her goals, no matter who gets hurt along the way. I think it was this ruthlessness that was driving possessed Cordy to do the things she did. I agree that when it came to motivations and actions, Jasmine was in total control, but the less-endearing aspects of Cordelia's personality were definitely in play, and they resulted in a much more overtly villainous character than Jasmine on her own.

Of course, I could just be talking out of my ass, but that's the way I see it.