Television! Teacher, mother (secret lover)...
Come family, let us all bask in television's warm glowing warming glow.
Homer J.

I've been struck with the literary qualities of some of my favorite TV personalities this week. (Working overlong, the most recreation I've had has been TV). So it occurs to me, recently, that Angel has become less of a whiney git and more of a true tragic figure. And I'm not sure how the transformation occurred, but I'm intrigued by it all the same. The pivotal moment came for me when he tried to kill his friend for kidnaping his son. No regard for the motive. Never mind that the friend thought he was going to kill his son, so the motives were just and probably jutified as well. But even though the rational explanation was perfectly adequate, he still reacted like a grief-stricken parent and lashed out.

And that said more about his humanity than any of the mea maxima culpa chest-beating he's been engaged in for the last couple of seasons. Having been cursed by Gypsies with a Catholic soul, he doesn't have much wiggle room there. But he was moved to kill in retaliation for the loss of a child, a child who represented (not surprisingly) redemption of a sort he could not achieve on his own.

Which brings me to the whole issue of innocence, infancy, redemption and parenthood. And not necessarily in that order.

As a parent, I think I would have done the same thing. Though at the time I was struck by how irrational the whole thing was. But maybe that's the point.

Anyway, it's just TV.



posted by MT at 9:41 PM |