Monday 20 September 2004

  • My Happy Ending by Avril Lavigne

     

    When I awoke this morning I found myself unable to remember my dreams.  This, combined with the fact that my mind was still disturbed by the television I had watched immediately prior to going to sleep, caused me to be aprehensive enough to skip the things I planned to do when I got up in order to journal this out of me. 

     

    At 02:00 hours I watched the only episode of Buffy I have ever seen that was non-stop scarey.  It featured nightmare dream sequences which were authentically presented, authentic so many ways.  In fact, I'm still somewhat disturbed by the episode some eight hours later, so this will now rank as the best Buffy episode I've ever seen.

     

    Then at 03:00 hours I watched the most heart-breaking episode of Angel I have ever seen.  It featured final redemption, true love requited, and a heart wrenching, heroic sacrifice of it all, including the very existance of those events from the timestream.  The melancholy produced by the episode will now rank this as the best Angel episode I've ever seen.

     

    So what were the chances that two very powerful episodes would hit me back to back like that, hitting my two deepest fears.  Previous volumes detail my childhood nightmares and my eventual conquest of my dreams.  Now whenever a nightmare starts I can enjoy it like a good horror story, only changing things as needed to maintain control of the dreamworld.  Yet the episode in question brought back those feelings of knowing what would happen and not being able to do anything until Buffy was targetted at the end of the episode and coould save us all.  That helplessness in the dreamworld fit on like an old glove, despite not having been worn in many years. 

     

    Then to not remember my dreams from last night, that seems wrong.  Surely I dreamed.  The fact that my mind fell asleep thinking about these episodes only to awake thinking of these episodes leaves me curious as to what I dreamed that I decided to forget. 

     

    Previous volumes, and prehaps even this one (I don't feel like checking right know to make sure), have chronicalled my hopes and fears about love.  Who wouldn't want a true and completeling love?  I remember being in love once.  It wasn't true and completeing, but even that was a powerful, rich, and rewarding experience.  At least until it caused so much pain that evetually I had to remove myself from everything I knew and start anew.  In fact, I have never since had a group of friends I felt as close to, a best friend I felt mutual trust and understanding as deeply, nor a woman I felt I could risk loving.  Take all that and multiply it a hundredfold for the usual tragic hero love story.  Yet this episode took that and multiplied it even further. 

     

    All this takes excellent writing, directing, and acting.  Now JW's writing comics, a non-free medium.  The actors are rarely seen anymore (with SMG and AH having the occasional movie success and ASH still a success in the UK).  So I'll just have to enjoy the syndicated reruns and await the next big characterization success.