Angel

Date Posted: 23:36:10 03/08/04 Mon
Author: Clairel
Author Host/IP: adsl-67-66-249-39.dsl.okcyok.swbell.net / 67.66.249.39
Subject: Wow! Casting sides for 5.20 (spoilers)

It looks as if Buffy probably will appear at the end of the year, because Spike and Angel are in Italy looking for her. The sides are very fragmentary and I can’t tell for sure whether or not Buffy is in this episode, but Angel and Spike do show up at the Summers’ apartment in Rome at one point, and Dawn opens the door. So they must have gotten Michelle Trachtenberg back too.

As best as I can work out from the fragmentary sides, Angel and Spike have gotten word that Buffy is romantically involved by a sinister being known as The Immortal. Spike and Angel had a run-in with him back in 1894 in Italy. There’s a flashback scene in which The Immortal’s minions order Spike and Angel to leave The Immortal’s town; it is explained that The Immortal has lorded it over the place for 300 years or more, and he has powers that can destroy vampires. Angelus gets violent with one of the minions, but I’m inferring that Spike and Angelus probably end up having to leave The Immortal’s town, because in yet another flashback scene Spike and Angelus are talking about getting blood vengeance on The Immortal. In the present, Spike and Angel are very concerned about Buffy.

There is also a plot concerning the head of a Goran demon. When a Goran demon gets old, its head drops off like a ripe fig, and if the proper incantations are performed a new Goran demon will grow from the head, all whole and flourishing. For some reason I don’t understand, Spike and Angel are trying to help out a Goran demon clan with the head of the head of their clan (the Capo di Familia—get it?), which they’re carrying around in a bowling ball bag. This all seems to take place in Italy too. At one point Spike and Angel lose the bag with the head to The Immortal, and from then on they’re trying to get it back. This is in addition to trying to find Buffy.

There’s a scene in some sort of Italian nightspot where Spike and Angel have tracked Buffy, but it says at most a swirl of blonde hair is seen on the dance floor: Buffy and The Immortal are elusive. Eventually Spike and Angel conclude that they need help, so they decide to go to the nearest offices of Wolfram and Hart. The building is exactly the same as the W&H building in LA, but the sign says Wolfram e Hart and the people wear Italian suits and smoke cigarettes. A local W&H employee named Ilona greets Spike and Angel effusively. She’s a bleached blonde, a Cicciolina type.

Aside from the Spike and Angel scenes dealing with the demon head and the search for Buffy, the only other thing in the sides is a scene of Wes and Fred-Illyria. Fred-Illyria is somehow, mystically, replaying memories of Fred’s including something that I think is her farewell to her parents from the season 3 episode "Fredless" (or else some similar incident in which Fred was saying goodby to her parents). After going through this memory Wes asks Fred-Illyria if it was beneficial for her. She says it was. Then Wes coldly warns her not to do such a thing again. Possibly—but I’m just inferring this—the memory was something plucked out of Wes’s mind, because Wes did witness Fred’s goodby to her parents in season 3. Maybe Wes is warning Fred-Illyria not to pull memories out of his mind again?

I think that’s all that was in the sides.

Clairel

From Spoilerslayer.com :

ATS: Update On 20

Some new information has come out for Episode 20, which marks a minor change (which could be a major change) to the original. We also have an episode title, ’The Girl In Question’. There is just one minor change, and it’s strange that it really only changes the Dawn scene. There was an update to the pages for the scene with the demon woman who brings the head. As of the shooting script, it appears that Andrew answers the door, rather than Dawn. There were a few very minor dialogue changes in the previous scene with the demon woman.

Does this mean Michelle won’t be in the episode, it’s possible. Though you have to wonder, would they have even started writing her role if they didn’t have that finalized. Then again, sometimes certain scenes are written well in advance, and the pages that had her were from an earlier draft.

It could also indicate that she’ll still appear, but because of other changes, they’ve decided to move her later in the episode or to another episode entirely. Which, if Sarah does decide to do an episode, would make quite a bit of sense.

As I’ve mentioned many times, things are going to be pretty much up in the air for the last run of episodes. I expect changes to occur throughout, and I’m still thinking that there will be at least one surprise that they’re going to try to keep under wraps until the very end.