Commentary: TD1.17 Life of Reilly
It’s taken sometime to get back to TD1 commentaries. Yes, commentaries. I have been calling them reviews, but they’re reviews….just my comments as related to the story of the episode.
The Life of Reilly Commentary
The commentary starts on a plane to Vancouver. Connor’s not on the plane, but I am. I’m going on a trip I didn’t want to make to make a presentation to unappreciative (and even worse) people. The presentation is the work I’ve been bustin’ my butt off all summer to do. So, feeling sorry for myself….I know, one should never do that, but I’m only human….I picked up the latest Thomas Moore (the Care of the Soul writer) book, entitled, “A Life at Work”, just to try to find some inspiration. It turns out that there wasn’t much in the book that I hadn’t read, but it was still a pleasant read. What did strike me is how much the problem laid out for Connor, the search for identify, was a theme of the book.
First a caveat: Some believe in a literal soul and some don’t. It doesn’t matter, the use of the word, “soul”, by Moore to describe part of our human experience works either way. And, besides, “soul” is literal in the Buffy/Angel/Connor-verse.
Moore uses the ancient concept of Alchemy as a spiritual discipline. Each person’s life’s work (not necessarily our job) is their Opus. The emphasis in the discipline is not the goal (like the Shansu prize) but the process. The metaphor of the alchemical process is the search for meaning and identity.
Curiously enough, Masq uses a chemical reaction, the dissolving of the Axe within the episode. Intentional or not, it’s very appropriate. “Attached to the top of the stand is a GLASS BOTTLE filled with an AMBER LIQUID. A long TUBE hands down from it….. A single drop of liquid forms there. It falls and hits the neck of the axe with a sizzle.” It’s a very alchemical image.
Moore could be speaking of Connor when he writes of people who are not doing their “life’s work”. They feel stuck - that they are getting nowhere. Without the alchemical reactions of the Orlon’s window in Ats S5 and, in this episode, the dissolving of the axe, Connor could be stuck in a Pollyanna world. Nice, but ultimately bland…Connor left as a Reilly, unconscious of his past, would have a difficult time becoming a deeper, more complex, more mature person. Connor, for a variety of reasons, doesn’t want to really face his past life….all of it. Like so many of us, he wants to pick and choose the parts that are nice, but that’s not the way of the Alchemist. Connor “just wanted the past in the past”. Still there’s something that draws Connor on to a desire to change despite his hope that “everything was going to be normal…..I was just going to be Connor Reilly”. That’s just existing and Connor knows it. Why else would Faith respond with, “But dude, if you really just wanted things to be normal, why the hell’d you start hanging out with me?”
To engage in the process of being the artist of one’s own life, an individual must respond to a unique “calling”. That implies a willingness to change - the alchemical process.
The Alchemist starts with the prima material, which is raw stuff; and Connor’s past is full of “raw stuff”. As Drusilla says, “But the beast’s already there, inside”. Drusilla is viewed by the others, including even Spike, as weird. Maybe that’s partly true, but it’s also because she has “inner sight”. Dru sees deeper than most. It just that her motives, as a vampire, screw up what she does with that deep insight.
That’s scary stuff; scary enough to want to remain Connor Reilly, but just who is Connor Reilly?
Connor: Where did the memories come from? The new ones?
Angel: Vail build them. That’s one of the things he does. Did.
Connor: Built them? Eighteen years worth? That’s a lot to just make up.
Indeed it’s a lot; and no matter how well Vail’s team did the job, the result is not going to be a rich personality, but a cartoon character.
Back to Drusilla, as Faith says, “Drusillas knows you. And she’s like psychic.” Strangely enough psychic is from psyche which means “soul”. Drusilla sees into Connor’s soul and in her twisted way wants to bring that soul out - or at least the beast part of it. That’s the very part that Connor wants to avoid:
Connor: I don’t want to talk about it.
With the raw stuff, the prima material, the alchemist subjects it to various level sa nd periods of heat and observes the reactions. Symbolically getting on with our life’s work requires that “we look at the vessel that holds our raw material. In it we can find our painful memories….. hopes and promises that didn’t work out, losses and failures, rejections…” Moore goes on, “Jung said that if you don’t have a pile of rotten stuff to work with, you should go out and get some.” Connor has no need to go out and get some, but he does need to look at the nigredo - the blackening of the raw staff as its heated.
From Moore’s book”
“Telling your unhappy stories, calling up memories you might rather leave untouched, and remembering people who didn’t help you much on your way is all valuable - your bad experiences are as much a part of you as the good ones, and to be fully present to your current work, you have to include them as well. This is only a phase - later your focus will shift to brighter ground. But you can’t omit the nigredo out of some sentimental focus on the bright side of things. If you do refuse the darker material, the alchemy will never truly get under way.”
Telling your stories requires friends that will listen - just listen. Fortunately, for Connor, he has such friends, Faith and Aiden, but he’s not yet ready.
Faith: I just want you to know…that I’m here if you do want to talk about it.
This is all critical for Connor, for, much like his Dad, his soul depends upon his attending to his alchemical work.
“The soul is your depth, like the rich earth nourishing a flower. It is always there, and it has always been there. From it you life emanates and blossoms. You glimpse it in your deepest emotions and the very roots of your thinking. It is hidden in your past and not yet fully visible in your actual life. As it shows itself, you realise how much of an individual you are, even eccentric and sometimes mad.”
Lorne: Yeah, I sort of knew about that, too. Well, not the details, but after I read Connor the first time, I knew who he was, and that I’d known him before.
So, what of Connor’s Reilly life? Curiously, now that his fake life has been created, it IS a reality and part of Connor’s past. To lose his life of Reilly would be to deprive him of that, now very real, past.
Type your cut contents here.xxx
The Life of Reilly Commentary
The commentary starts on a plane to Vancouver. Connor’s not on the plane, but I am. I’m going on a trip I didn’t want to make to make a presentation to unappreciative (and even worse) people. The presentation is the work I’ve been bustin’ my butt off all summer to do. So, feeling sorry for myself….I know, one should never do that, but I’m only human….I picked up the latest Thomas Moore (the Care of the Soul writer) book, entitled, “A Life at Work”, just to try to find some inspiration. It turns out that there wasn’t much in the book that I hadn’t read, but it was still a pleasant read. What did strike me is how much the problem laid out for Connor, the search for identify, was a theme of the book.
First a caveat: Some believe in a literal soul and some don’t. It doesn’t matter, the use of the word, “soul”, by Moore to describe part of our human experience works either way. And, besides, “soul” is literal in the Buffy/Angel/Connor-verse.
Moore uses the ancient concept of Alchemy as a spiritual discipline. Each person’s life’s work (not necessarily our job) is their Opus. The emphasis in the discipline is not the goal (like the Shansu prize) but the process. The metaphor of the alchemical process is the search for meaning and identity.
Curiously enough, Masq uses a chemical reaction, the dissolving of the Axe within the episode. Intentional or not, it’s very appropriate. “Attached to the top of the stand is a GLASS BOTTLE filled with an AMBER LIQUID. A long TUBE hands down from it….. A single drop of liquid forms there. It falls and hits the neck of the axe with a sizzle.” It’s a very alchemical image.
Moore could be speaking of Connor when he writes of people who are not doing their “life’s work”. They feel stuck - that they are getting nowhere. Without the alchemical reactions of the Orlon’s window in Ats S5 and, in this episode, the dissolving of the axe, Connor could be stuck in a Pollyanna world. Nice, but ultimately bland…Connor left as a Reilly, unconscious of his past, would have a difficult time becoming a deeper, more complex, more mature person. Connor, for a variety of reasons, doesn’t want to really face his past life….all of it. Like so many of us, he wants to pick and choose the parts that are nice, but that’s not the way of the Alchemist. Connor “just wanted the past in the past”. Still there’s something that draws Connor on to a desire to change despite his hope that “everything was going to be normal…..I was just going to be Connor Reilly”. That’s just existing and Connor knows it. Why else would Faith respond with, “But dude, if you really just wanted things to be normal, why the hell’d you start hanging out with me?”
To engage in the process of being the artist of one’s own life, an individual must respond to a unique “calling”. That implies a willingness to change - the alchemical process.
The Alchemist starts with the prima material, which is raw stuff; and Connor’s past is full of “raw stuff”. As Drusilla says, “But the beast’s already there, inside”. Drusilla is viewed by the others, including even Spike, as weird. Maybe that’s partly true, but it’s also because she has “inner sight”. Dru sees deeper than most. It just that her motives, as a vampire, screw up what she does with that deep insight.
That’s scary stuff; scary enough to want to remain Connor Reilly, but just who is Connor Reilly?
Connor: Where did the memories come from? The new ones?
Angel: Vail build them. That’s one of the things he does. Did.
Connor: Built them? Eighteen years worth? That’s a lot to just make up.
Indeed it’s a lot; and no matter how well Vail’s team did the job, the result is not going to be a rich personality, but a cartoon character.
Back to Drusilla, as Faith says, “Drusillas knows you. And she’s like psychic.” Strangely enough psychic is from psyche which means “soul”. Drusilla sees into Connor’s soul and in her twisted way wants to bring that soul out - or at least the beast part of it. That’s the very part that Connor wants to avoid:
Connor: I don’t want to talk about it.
With the raw stuff, the prima material, the alchemist subjects it to various level sa nd periods of heat and observes the reactions. Symbolically getting on with our life’s work requires that “we look at the vessel that holds our raw material. In it we can find our painful memories….. hopes and promises that didn’t work out, losses and failures, rejections…” Moore goes on, “Jung said that if you don’t have a pile of rotten stuff to work with, you should go out and get some.” Connor has no need to go out and get some, but he does need to look at the nigredo - the blackening of the raw staff as its heated.
From Moore’s book”
“Telling your unhappy stories, calling up memories you might rather leave untouched, and remembering people who didn’t help you much on your way is all valuable - your bad experiences are as much a part of you as the good ones, and to be fully present to your current work, you have to include them as well. This is only a phase - later your focus will shift to brighter ground. But you can’t omit the nigredo out of some sentimental focus on the bright side of things. If you do refuse the darker material, the alchemy will never truly get under way.”
Telling your stories requires friends that will listen - just listen. Fortunately, for Connor, he has such friends, Faith and Aiden, but he’s not yet ready.
Faith: I just want you to know…that I’m here if you do want to talk about it.
This is all critical for Connor, for, much like his Dad, his soul depends upon his attending to his alchemical work.
“The soul is your depth, like the rich earth nourishing a flower. It is always there, and it has always been there. From it you life emanates and blossoms. You glimpse it in your deepest emotions and the very roots of your thinking. It is hidden in your past and not yet fully visible in your actual life. As it shows itself, you realise how much of an individual you are, even eccentric and sometimes mad.”
Lorne: Yeah, I sort of knew about that, too. Well, not the details, but after I read Connor the first time, I knew who he was, and that I’d known him before.
So, what of Connor’s Reilly life? Curiously, now that his fake life has been created, it IS a reality and part of Connor’s past. To lose his life of Reilly would be to deprive him of that, now very real, past.
Type your cut contents here.xxx