This is the episode of Angel I saw several years ago (be bar bs gur rcvfbqrf, fvapr V zhfg'ir yrnearq Ybear'f anzr fbzrjurer). I mostly just remember the Lubber demons altering Gene's equations and then the Host and Angel getting attacked on the street and the Host's defensive high note. And that Gene (the actor's name is Matt Champagne?) reminded me of Ira Glass with maybe a dash of John Linnell.

I didn't remember any of the Cordy, Gunn, and Wesley parts at all, or most of the Host's dialogue (I guess because I had no context for it?), which I think is why I didn't feel any need to start watching the show until much later.

So on page seven there's the jack o' lantern that I think I've seen a couple of times, but this time it's on a scarecrow-looking body rather than just being the head, and it's obviously a character from the Dreaming as opposed to an object. I think one of the pumpkin images was in a dream Morpheus travels through in "Passengers," but I can't remember where else I've seen it. I don't know what this means, but I'm now convinced that it probably means something.

I looked up Cecile Latour and Chateau Lafitte a couple of days ago when I first read this, because it seemed weird that we'd get a lionsblood-tasting Chateau Latour (19)28 in Angel on Wednesday and then an (18)28 Chateau Lafitte owned by a Latour family today. It turns out that Chateaus Lafite and Latour were owned by the same family in the early to mid-18th century, but didn't have much of a relationship in 1828 (they were split in 1760, then sold to new owners after the French Revolution). Cecile Latour (owner of Latour-Labille wines) doesn't seem to be connected to either estate, the "Latour" in Chateau Latour being a landmark rather than a surname.

I thought the Olaf actor seemed really familiar for some reason, and found out that he's the guy who played Roy Biggins, Jr. on Wings, as well as having been on an episode of The X-Files that I don't remember seeing. Also, his middle name is "Rubin Hercules."

"Trying to hit a puppy by throwing a live bee at it" just reminds me of Richard Ayoade and Noel Fielding on Big Fat Quiz of the Year:
[youtube OeraO8Pqjus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeraO8Pqjus youtube]

Since the rest of my notes are just random observations and questions that get answered in-isssue, I thought I'd post some of my more speculative ones:

”A king will forsake his kingdom” (Is this maybe the Endless who was said to have abandoned their realm? "Will forsake" implies that it's going to happen, though, whereas that Endless's abdication already has.) “Life and Death will clash and fray.” (Death is one of the Endless, but it doesn’t seem like life has the same kind of deal, unless Life is the other Endless and has just abandoned its domain to its own devices, so that Death is completely responsible for maintaining the boundaries between, but then he comes back and maybe tries to take some power/responsibilities from her somehow. Desire and Despair could be seen as parts of life, but then so could Dream and Delirium, who seem like they might be less likely to attack Death. Of course, it could be less literal; if Death is weakened, that would amount to the same thing. Also, fray could be synonymous with “clash,” but it could also mean that the lines between Life and Death are fraying like cloth--which would be appropriate since this is being said by the Fates--meaning the boundary between them is confused and there might be people/beings who are crossing between or are a mix of the two, like zombies.) “The Oldest Battle begins once more.” (Well, the oldest story is Cain and Abel, so maybe Biblical, but IDK.)

So Desire has minimalist white panels with sigils that seemed at the time to be in order from left to right, Dream has more ornate picture frames with the sigils in a different order (Desire, a heart where in Desire’s own realm it’s a face, was to the left of Death’s ankh), and Destiny has them as portraits which I think we can perhaps assume are in the correct order (I think he, more than any of the others, would probably want them to be in chronological order). Also, both Desire and Dream summoned them with “I stand in my Gallery, and I hold your sigil,” whereas Destiny says “I stand in my Gallery, and I summon the family to me.” It feels like I'm constructing models of these things out of my mashed potatoes while muttering "this means something." I think I’m possibly attributing undue importance to the issue of galleries and sigils.

Why would Delirium be upset to be the youngest of the Endless? Upset because she was Delight, which would mean that delight was the last of the major concepts that thinking beings understood and experienced, long after things like destiny and death and despair?

So there’ve been three lovers in Dream’s life: the little one from Greece (Calliope), the one from the pretty plane with all the twinkly lights (fairy lights, as in the Land of Faerie? Or maybe I‘m just thinking this because Faerie is IIRC the only place that‘s been called a plane so far?), and then Nada. Poor Nada.

I was thinking that it's probably relevant that both Death and Despair said they missed their brother whereas Desire blatantly doesn't, but I can't think of what that would imply about the Prodigal's identity. My first thought was that the missing D is a more negative (to us, at least) aspect of being, but then Death isn't necessarily negative herself, and Desire (who's after all a pretty destructive being) seems to have no problem with being the twin of gloom-causing Despair, so....

I'd say definitely intentional, since the image of the hands on the heart is so closely mirrored:

I think what some people did in the Battlestar Galactica reviews for the other site was write something like "TRIGGER WARNING for upcoming..." and then do the episode number/title whatever and the description in ROT13.

ETA an example. This one actually has the episode placement (though not the title) outside of ROT13.

If he goes back to seven reviews a week after Buffy season 5/Angel Season 2, he'll be done in mid-October, I think.

I think you can glue a spider back together as long as it's only the exoskeleton that's damaged. It won't work if it's like, legs that have come off or something like that (even though I think those grow back?). Superglue actually seals their wounds more quickly than the spider can do on its own, and then when it molts the exoskeleton is undamaged and as good as new.

Something I didn't realize until just now...

"S'e rknzcyr, lbh jbhyqa'g jnag gb zrrg hf nf gur Xvaqyl Barf."

Neerfgrq Qrirybczrag aneengbe: "Url, gung'f gur gvgyr bs bar bs gur ibyhzrf!"