We don't really need much help in putting
these incidents together. As a child Bethany was abused by her father. This led
to the development of her extraordinary mental abilities. These are capable of
producing episodes of extreme violence but are not under her control. Instead
they are triggered by fear or anger caused by being attacked, by dreams of past
abuse or even by the mere mention of her father's name. Wesley later explains
the situation to Cordelia in a nutshell
"The sort of trauma that can
produce this level of psychic power usually involves abuse of some kind very
early on. You'd mentioned a sexual vibe, she made that crack about 'family
business.' Statistically speaking, the father was the best guess."
And here we get into the most interesting
and moving aspect of Bethany's plight. This lies in the clear link between her
lack of control over her telekinetic power and a lack of control over her life.
This was brought out most poignantly by the scene in the bedroom between her and
Angel.
Bethany: "I heard a voice in here
and thought maybe you were awake."
Angel: "No...I was having a
nightmare."
Bethany: "It looked like a pretty
happy dream. Or maybe the covers were just rumpled."
She came in looking for an excuse to
seduce him, not because she was grateful to him, not because she was attracted
to him but because she felt impelled to continue the cycle of abuse that her
father had started. For her, people (essentially I suppose men) are
"pathetic". They are really only interested in her for one reason.
"Do you think they'd notice or care I'm not there? Would you?"
And she had been taught through her own
childhood experiences that sexual attraction was the only thing she had going
for her, especially the way she looks "fragile and innocent", the
defining characteristics, it should be noted, of a child. So she doesn't seem to
think she is good for anything beside that. The shocking thing is not so much
the invitation she gives Angel but the flat emotionless tone in which she does
so:
"I figured we'd have some fun. You
know you could do stuff to me and you know we'll have some fun."
For her sex is where someone else does
thing to her. When Angel uses the words "make love" she is
incredulous:
"Make love? What are you, from the
18th century? I was just...I just wanted..."
But she cannot finish the sentence. The
truth is that she doesn't know what she wants to do. Her attitude towards her
own body is precisely the same as that towards her powers. It is something that
she has no control over. The language she uses to describe the former is
uncannily similar to the way she described the latter:
Bethany: "Do I love it? Who cares.
I'm...I'm like the chambermaid. I just leave. When a guy is on me I made up
the room, I showed him in and I leave till he's gone. I come back and clean up
the mess."
This is her defense mechanism. She
retreats from control of herself and her powers. Both she hands over to others.
So in her sex life she speaks of men doing things to her. When it comes to her
powers
"All these horrible things have happened, been done to me...guys have
died."
It is as if she was a spectator in her own
life. Things happen and things are done to her. She does nothing. That way she
avoids not only the power of control but the responsibility also.
But the paradox is that it is because she
gives away control over her powers, her life, even her body that she is unhappy.
She fears and distrusts others. That is why, when she was in turmoil, she chose
to hide somewhere where she could be alone - in a deserted warehouse or a high
and isolated room in an abandoned hotel. That is why she doesn't like being
touched. On three separate occasions Angel moves to do so and in all three
occasions she recoils or resists, on two occasions violently. But while this
proves her power to prevent others touching her, as she demonstrated on that
scene in the bedroom, she gives up that power. She lets herself be touched even
though she hates it and instead retreats from the reality of it somewhere within
her mind. The result is that instead of doing something about her unhappiness
she is making herself a victim. And the results are terrible. There is within
her a build up of fear and anger that, on occasion, explodes unpredictably and
violently. So, her behavior is not only destructive of herself but of those
around her.
It is this picture of misery that Angel
sets out to break. He dos so in a number of different ways. First of all he
tries to convince her that he view of the world is too negative. When Bethany
describes people as pathetic he replies:
"I like 'em. The time I've lived,
I've seen some horrors, scary behavior and a couple of fashion trends I'd
constantly pray to forget. But, you see people try. I've seen them try to be
better."
and later he says:
"I don't think everyone is as bad as you'd have them be".
Indeed, his own behavior in the bedroom
with her proves the point. This is a classic theme with ANGEL - the power of our
eponymous hero's own moral example. As Cordelia later said:
"The thing about Angel, he's old fashioned. Old fashioned. Like, age of
chivalry."
This may well have convinced Bethany that
her previous attitude may not have been entirely fair. Perhaps some men at least
are not only interested in her for sex and perhaps that isn't all she is good
for. The interesting thing about this is that it is that after talking to Angel
she does begin to control her powers, as the levitation of the scarf proves. And
again by showing her that she can control her powers Angel is showing her the
open door to the control of her life. But I think the crucial breakthrough
comes, not with Angel but with Cordelia. I reproduce the important conversation
here:
Cordelia: "I think you're kinda
dangerous. I'm not being mean. I like you, I do. But you come on all helpless
and I mean... the people that thought you helpless before died."
Bethany: "Those men in the
alley...I was only... they were gonna hurt me."
Cordelia: "You could have floated
them away or spun them 'till they puked. I don't know. You squashed
them."
Bethany: "You don't know how scary
it was."
Cordelia: "Yes I do. I had a vision
of you. That's how Angel found you. I felt everything. And those guys are
better off squashed, I truly think but somewhere in that moment of panic a
decision got made and I don't want something like that to happen to my friends
or, and I can't stress this enough, me."
Cordelia here is addressing the one issue
that Angel has not - responsibility. When Cordelia said she came over as all
helpless; she continued to identify herself as a victim and was , therefore,
abdicating responsibility for her own life and for the way her powers impacted
on people, including innocent people who were only trying to help her. Cordelia
was being sympathetic but she was also telling the cold, hard truth (a Cordelia specialty)
and she wasn't about to let Bethany dodge the issue. She was making Bethany
think.
The fruits of both her and Angel's efforts
were seen in the crisis that was precipitated by the attempted kidnapping. At
first Bethany reverts to past form. She behaves in many ways like a helpless
child, refusing to confront reality and accusing Angel of playing with her. The
inevitable consequence is another telekinetic episode. But Angel confronts her.
He tells her she is the one in control. She is the one with the power. This is
the message he repeats over and over again. She is the one who can stop others
from touching her. But he also confronts her with the responsibility of her
powers by asking:
"Are you gonna kill us? Are you gonna die? Then they win."
This does seem to have an effect on her
but the real test is when Lilah did indeed "pull the trigger". and she
opened the door only to see her father standing before her.
This moment was all about control. It was
the defining moment in the whole episode. Lilah's agenda all along was to exert
control over Bethany and her powers. She pretended friendship and instead tried
to manipulate her by gaining her trust, all to one aim as revealed by Holland:
"You know, some people might say
that you've lost control of this girl. If she's like this now what happens
when you pull the trigger. She's got the profile. But an assassin's no good if
she can't be controlled."
Lilah's expectation seemed to be that,
confronted with the reality of her abuser, Bethany would do what she had always
done before - lash out in an uncontrolled and directionless manner, killing
everyone in range. That seemed to be the extent of the "control" she
desired. At first it appeared that this is what would happen. But then after
hearing an
echo of the words her father utter in her dream to invite her
downstairs "just you and me" she does indeed take control of the
situation, being very selective indeed about her target. And once she had done
so Angel then spoke the crucial words:
"You've got the power. Use it. Finish it."
Bethany had never deliberately killed. She
had only killed when she abdicated control over her powers and allowed her inner
anger and fear free reign. Angel wasn't inviting her to kill her father but to
use her powers to take back control over her own life. This is what she did. She
didn't exactly float him away but what she did to him was cold and deliberate.
You could see it on her face. This was not a helpless child any more but someone
who had indeed taken back control over her life and in the face of the reality
of her abuser. This I thought was of great symbolic importance.
It is a criticism (often well justified)
of "victim of the week" episodes that the victims are largely
anonymous, little more than faces and names and that their fates are therefore
largely meaningless. This does not always have to be the case. Rebecca in
"Eternity" was one individual who did come across as a real and fully
developed individual. But even more than Rebecca, indeed more than any other one
episode character on ANGEL, Bethany in "Untouched" is a living,
breathing individual. Showing a character as having been abused can sometimes be
used as a lazy way to get sympathy. What we see here is very different. We see
the reality of Bethany's plight not in a superficial "damsel in
distress" kind of way. Rather we see it in fear and anger, the sense of
upset and confusion, the self hatred and neglect, even in a degree of self pity.
These are difficult, challenging emotions but they come across as so real, so
powerful that they make the picture of abuse and its aftermath live for us. And
once that happens then your sympathies can only be engaged. And in all of this
the writers were greatly aided by a quite wonderful acting performance by Daisy
McCracken, a name with which I am unfamiliar but of whom much more will I have
no doubt be heard. She ran through almost the full range of emotions and in all
of them carried conviction from the flat emotionless way she invited Angel to
have some "fun" to the near hysteria after the kidnap. But perhaps the
greatest strength of the episode is the concept underlying it.
Metaphor
There isn't a complete metaphor here in
the sense that we are shown supernatural events intended to be compared to
sexual abuse. Instead the episode takes the sexual abuse as its starting point
and uses metaphor to explore the consequences of that abuse. In particular it
suggests that the manifestation of Bethany's telekinetic powers were a direct
result of the abuse she suffered. Clearly, therefore, her ability (or otherwise)
to control those telekinetic powers is used to parallel her control or lack of
it of her own life because of the abuse that she has suffered. Because of the
lack of control over her own powers her subconscious feelings of anger and
resentment lead to destruction and death all around her. She does kill two
admittedly not so innocents. But on separate occasions she also proves a deadly
threat to Angel (three times), Wesley and Cordelia. In parallel with this her
own life is in a mess. Again her inner feelings of self hatred lead her to self
destructive behavior of the sort she described to Angel in the bedroom scene,
not to mention putting herself in a situation where she could be so easily manipulated
by Wolfram and Hart. In effect what had taken over her life was this rage and
fear caused by her treatment at the hands of her father. Conversely when she
confronted her father she proved she was stronger than he was. She was now able
literally to prevent him from touching her again. She demonstrated that by
throwing him out the window under perfect control. Once she had done that then
he ceased to be any threat to her.
It seems to me that the point being made
was that the anger and resentment that a victim of abuse feels towards the
abuser can often amount to a continuation of the abuse because the victim
continues to dwell on that abuse and on the harm that it has caused. He or she
thus unwittingly continues to give the abuser control over his or her life, even
when the abuser is no longer is a position to take that control. But when the
victim no longer allows thoughts of hatred and revenge to dominate them, then he
or she is on a position to take back control over their life and to move on,
thus truly consigning the abuse to history and depriving the abuser of any
further power over them.
I cannot claim to be able to judge how
perceptive this is as a picture. What I can say is that, on both an intellectual
and emotional level, it makes perfect sense to me. The depiction of the aberrant
behavior and the diagnosis of the underlying problem were both believable. The
parallels between that behavior and the lack of control over Bethany's powers
were exact. About the one difficulty I have with the scenario lies in the
completeness of Bethany's recovery, down to the ease with which she used her
powers to collect her suitcase, as if she had been doing it all her life. I
recognize the emotional need for a sense that she had put the past behind her.
And certainly the depiction of the stages in her recovery of control over her
own life made, for me, a great deal of sense. The final confrontation with her
father was, indeed, the perfect catharsis. But I am traditionally suspicious of
overnight "cures". These were enormously deep rooted problems. In real
life people struggle with rage and with feelings of inadequacy for years,
perhaps for the rest of their lives. The sudden ability of a person to put
problems of this nature behind him or her cannot but trivialize them. I would
much have preferred to see Bethany on the way to a recovery rather than being
presented as of she had made one.
Angel
If this had been all we saw in
"Untouched" it would still have been a more than worthwhile exercise.
But as I have already said this episode possessed another great strength. It
represented another important step in the development of the Darla/Angel arc.
Moreover it helped us understand the nature of the developments in that arc by
reference to Bethany's experiences. In "First Impressions" we saw
Angel slowly being sucked into a dream world which came to be more important and
perhaps more real to him than reality. This was because of the innocent sense of
pleasure it gave him. Here, however, we have left that pleasant interlude
behind. The dreams are quite different in nature. They become more and more
disturbing. Gone are the images of domestic comfort. Instead we see images of
urgent, often violent sexuality and inextricably mixed up in these scenes are
images of blood and death, with vampires feeding from one another and from a
human victim. This is a
fierce, animal passion without tenderness or love.
The purpose of Darla inflicting these
dreams on Angel is clear. She stated it out loud at they very beginning of the
episode:
"There's nothing so lovely as
dreams. Everything's in them. Everything hidden. Open those chambers, and you
can truly understand someone...and control them."
But how does she intend to use the dreams
to control Angel? The answer to this question comes in the parallels between his
case and that of Bethany. First of all, as Angel himself says:
"I just have some experience in dealing with the kind of power
that needs
to be controlled."
Here he is talking about the vampire
within and the need to keep it safely under control. And in controlling it Angel
must deal not only with his past but the viciousness of the creature within.
Bethany's inability to control her life and her powers comes from her feelings
of helplessness in the face of her father's abuse and the lack of self worth
that engendered. That was what led to her self-destructive behavior.
Interestingly her dreams of that abuse dovetail with Angel's own dreams of sex
with Darla. Only in those dreams it isn't Angel but Angelus. That is why we see
the emphasis on violence and passion. He is being reminded of just who is there
within him and what that creature has done, including the killing of the gypsy
princess. When Lilah asks:
"And what's hidden in Angel's chambers?"
Darla provides a one word answer:
"Horrors". Unlike his previous dreams, these provide no comfort.
Indeed Angel refers to them as nightmares, but he still seems drawn almost irresistibly
to them. He goes back to them only after a few hours awake and yet, as Wesley
notes he is getting more sleep but is less rested. These dreams seem to me to be
clearly intended to parallel Bethany's own experience of abuse. Darla is using
sex to control Angel. What he experiences is disturbing and frightening, yet he
seems powerless to prevent it. Indeed by returning to bed so frequently he is in
fact helping to perpetuate the pattern of abuse on himself. And here we see, in
the scene between himself and Bethany in the bedroom, the final parallel between
the experiences of the two of them. When she interrupts yet another one of his
nightmares we see in her behavior an indication of where Angel might be headed
as a result of his experience of abuse at Darla's hands - a feeling of
helplessness and a destruction of his belief in himself. With that what happens
to his ability to control his own power within? Might he not also unleash an
awesome destructive force?
For both Angel and Bethany the message is
clear. There are sometimes episodes in our past that cause us pain, perhaps even
frighten us. But we must control them. By doing so we escape their shadow. But
if we do not they will control us. And then we will simply be perpetuating the
pain and suffering of the past into the present.
The first thing to say here is that in its
treatment of Angel, "Untouched" gives the whole Darla arc a very clear
sense of direction. We can, I think, for the first time begin to see where she
and Wolfram and Hart are going and it is at once frightening and riveting. In
Angel we have a character of enormous discipline and self control. Indeed when
we saw him in "To Shansu in LA" he was for the first time ever seized
with a clear sense of mission and a belief in his own redemption. For the
writers showing how such a hero could be seduced to the "Dark Side"
was always going to be an enormous challenge. As the story arc has progressed
over the last two episodes I think they have proved equal to it by creating a
clear and believable possibility that he will do so.
In "Untouched" we are left with
a very powerful sense of someone who is a sitting target. He is in his enemies
sights but doesn't even know she is there. He knows something is wrong but does
not understand what and because of that he cannot change things. This gives rise
to tension within him. You can see this when he is more than usually snappy with
Wesley and Cordelia. He is perhaps even a little frightened. This is powerful
and credible characterization. Putting a hero under pressure like this and
asking how he will react creates enormous dramatic tension. Even if we do not
believe he will succumb we are left asking how he will cope with the strains on
him and what will resisting those strains cost. We will have to see where the
writers take us on this one.
Wolfram and Hart
As I have already mentioned the theme for
this episode was control. And one thing I loved about it was that it exploited
an angle (yes I did spell that correctly) that would have been so very easy to
overlook. One of the things that I enjoy most about Wolfram and Hart is the fact
that it is a collection of individuals. And even when individuals co-operate for
mutual advantage, they can't help but act on the basis of their own unique agenda. This leads to conflicts
and rivalries. And while Wolfram and Hart has a
power structure that should control these it actually tends to exacerbate rather than reduce
them as each member of the firm struggles to promote him or herself and hinder the
promotion of rivals. This was spelled out right from the beginning when Lilah
was discovered in Lindsey's office. She was quite unabashed about her reason for
going through his desk:
Darla: "Going through their things.
All the hidden pieces of themselves locked away, giving you a naughty little
feeling of control.
Lilah: "I just like to keep abreast
of his latest project. He's probably in my office right now trying to find out
about mine."
But "control" here is more than
just the usual corporate power play. The stakes in Wolfram and Hart are very
high. When Lilah tells Holland that Bethany is missing his reaction is very
instructive. By telling her about what "some people" are saying he is,
in a very understated way, laying down for her exactly what she has to do. In
the second interview Holland is even more direct. He gives Lilah an unmistakable
signal as to her relative lack of standing compared to Lindsey. He understands
the "big picture", something Holland evidently approves of. This
certainly suggests that he has taken very much to heart the little talk that two
of them had in "Blind Date". But it leaves Lilah out in the cold, all
the more so as her mishandling of Bethany (and that is clearly what Holland
thinks of it) is now interfering with Lindsey's plans. The warning is
unmistakable:
"Get her out Lilah. And not just for the sake of the big picture, for
yours".
The civilized, quiet veneer of Holland
covering a cold and ruthless heart make him one of the scariest and creepiest
villains on Angel. This is not a man who bluffs. And we can, I think, take him
to be a barometer for the way power and control flows as between Lindsey and
Lilah. The way their two pet projects conflict with one another, the apparent
success of Lindsey and failure of Lilah and the evident preference Holland shows
for Lindsey is a clear demonstration of how individuals compete within a
corporate structure and how the competition is resolved. It takes no great
imagination to guess how this particular corporation deals with
"failures". This adds yet another layer of subtlety and interest to
Wolfram and Hart. It was a very nice touch.
Plot
Like a lot of Angel episodes this season
"Untouched" is primarily a character study. We establish the fact of
Bethany's powers almost from the outset. And once that happens we are only left
with four basic questions to be answered. The first two are linked: who is she
and where did she get the powers from? Secondly why (since she was evidently
capable of defending herself) did TPTB call on Angel to intervene? Finally what
is her connection with Wolfram and Hart? But we cannot really call any aspect of
the plot a mystery. Finding answers to these questions was not the purpose of
the exercise. Rather we were left with things to find out as a way of keeping
our attention on the character of Bethany while the writers set out all the
information we need to understand the character and her motivations so that they
could properly explore these for us. And here I have to say I really do like the
way that the information was fed to us in a way which led up to a precipitating
crisis. First we were told of the connection between telekinesis and emotional
distress. Then there was the revelation about the abuse and finally the
cathartic moment which made plain in an explosion of violence the connection
between the abuse and Bethany's powers.
I only have one reservation. From a
strictly plot point of view I would have preferred not to have seen the dream in
which we were given an overwhelming clue that Bethany's father was abusing her
before Wesley put the clues together. This did sort of pre-empt the climactic
scene in which he confronted her about her father. However in order to establish
the parallels between Angel's dreams and Bethany's history of abuse I think this
was unavoidable.
Another thing I like is the fact that, at
this stage, we are still unaware of the real nature of the problem. What Bethany
had disclosed was that she was a danger to anyone in range of her powers. The
issue at this stage therefore simply looked as if it involved teaching her to
control those powers. The unexpected twist here was her behavior when she
wandered into Angel's bedroom and had that creepy conversation with him in which
she revealed for the first time the true nature of her problems. That was
totally unexpected and really gave the remainder of the story its driving force.
I have already mentioned the ways in which
both Cordelia and Angel tried to help her but the crisis which resolved the
episode was precipitated by Lilah. This was a plot thread which had been
bubbling under from very early on. Initially it looked as if the important
question was what Wolfram and Hart wanted Bethany for. With the first reference
to Lilah controlling her as an assassin I thought we might see a conventional
plot where Angel raced to stop her being used to kill someone against her will.
It was much more subtle and interesting than that. The reference to her being an
assassin was merely a plot device to explain Wolfram and Hart's involvement. The
real importance of that involvement lay in the mysterious reference to
"pulling the trigger". This was what set up the real resolution of the
episode. Wolfram and Hart's attempts to control Bethany (the ambush by the
thugs, the false friendship Lilah offered and the kidnap attempt) all gave us a
perfect counterpoint in this final scene to Angel's repeated message to Bethany
that she had to power to control her own life. And when Lilah pulled the trigger
it created the crisis. This was another strength of the plotting. I would
never have guessed that "pulling the trigger" meant sending her father
to see her. It was the perfect surprise.
The whole theme of the episode was then distilled into
the one question of what Bethany would do when confronted by her father. And the
answer to this question remained in doubt to the very end. Would she yield to
his control? Would she give in to her own anger and fear as she had done
earlier? Both outcomes were at one stage indicated. It was in fact only when we
thought that she had decided to kill her father and the issue seemed past the
point of retrieval that the real outcome became clear. I thought that this was
an object lesson in how to write a climax.
Other Matters
I will be brief here but there are one or
two other matters I think I must touch on. I have already mentioned Cordelia.
Wesley and Gunn fared less well. Wesley was important in establishing Bethany's
history but was summarily dismissed, almost in the same way as Cordelia was
written out of "Sanctuary". I don't regard this as a criticism. It is
better for a character to do something important and then leave than for him to
be kept around just for the sake of an appearance. This seemed to be the fate of
Gunn this week. He had some very nice interaction with Angel during the visit to
the hired thug's apartment and that whole scene was worth it just for the moment
when Angel fell through the door and Gunn's subsequent comment:
"You're a very graceful man. Have I ever mentioned that?"
But aside from that he didn't have that
much to do.
On the other hand we had perhaps the most explicit
attempt to reinforce the "family" atmosphere of the Fang Gang that we
have seen this season. So we have Wesley and Cordelia sniping at one another
throughout the episode yet when Cordelia thinks Wesley is being unfairly fired
she stands up to Angel for him. And then there was of course the way she angled
tirelessly for Gunn to be paid for his efforts.
The real villain in all of this was
Bethany's troubled history. And there is no more powerful or irresistible demon
than a purely internal one. But the person set up as principal adversary was of
course Lilah. In this role she did not carry a very powerful threat. She never
really seemed in control of the situation. But oddly enough I think that is what
made her so effective in this episode. We have already seen the cold eyed
ambition and ruthlessness as well as the subtle maneuvering to gain an advantage
over her colleagues. But here we get a clear picture that things are not going
as well as she had planned. She is clearly loosing to Lindsey and worse still is
being evaluated unfavorably on her performance. In her final telephone call of
the episode, the one in which she pulled the trigger, she is less controlled and
more angry than we have ever seen her. There is even a hint of desperation about
the precipitate way she set Bethany's father up. Things are beginning to look
very interesting here.
Finally the action sequences were
spectacular. The moving bodies and objects were all very well done. The
explosion of the top floor of the Hyperion was brilliantly conceived and great
to watch. But my own favorite was the car chase in which Angel leapt from the
hood of his own car to the moving van.
Overview
9/10: This episode tacked a topic of
undeniable importance and did so with great sensitivity. At no stage did it
resort to cheap sentimentality. Nor did it give a sanitized picture of a
helpless victim. It was much more subtle than that. It made Bethany a very real
and believable figure. She was someone who had very real problems and weaknesses
and the writers were not afraid to show these. But at the same time we
eventually got to see the her inner strength. As a result they created a
sympathetic character the hard way, by making her human and giving her a human
interest story that really was interesting. Whether the metaphor really did capture
the truth of the experience of victims of abuse I will leave to others to judge.
For my part all I can say is that it came across to me as a convincing picture.
More than that, however, the parallels between her experiences and those of
Angel were, I think, inspired. Together they produced an atmosphere that was
genuinely scary and creepy. This was adult fare in the best sense of that
phrase. Apart from Angel there was once again very good use of Cordelia as a
character. Her practical, down to earth style suited the message she gave to
Bethany perfectly. And in the case of Lilah we are beginning to get behind the
controlled, ruthless master manipulator. There was indeed the hint of some very
interesting times ahead for her. Add in a very well structured plot with an
explosive climax and it is the complete package.