#angel season 5

[thequeenofsastiel]

You know, technically, Spike never actually said that he and Angel were intimate only once. He says: "Angel and me have never been intimate. Except that one--" and then he stops himself. We have no idea what word he was about to say next. It could have been "time," sure, and that's probably what they meant. But since we don't know for sure, he could have also been about to say "year" or "decade". I choose to believe "decade". Because no one can stop me.

[angelustheimmortal]

Does Angel giving Harmony a reference make any sense after finding out she betrayed him? No. Is it hilarious and make Angel look like the sweetest boss ever? Yes and the scene will never fail to make me laugh.

[bloodlessmarriage]

god i hate angel the series for what the writers did to fred (and every other female character), but i gotta admit illyria is kinda slay like, "i wanna keep spike as my pet," girl same

[the-chosen-half-of-one]

[ID: A gifset of a grieving Wesley and newly resurrected Illyria having a conversation at the end of Shells (Angel, Season 5 Episode 16), staring down thoughtfully at Illyria's sarcophagus in the lab in the direct aftermath of her taking over Fred's body before discovering her own power ruined.

Illyria *walking toward the viewing area*: We cling to what is gone... *turning towards Wes*

Is there anything in this life but grief?

Wesley *stepping forward alongside her, but not facing her*: There's love.

There's hope... for some.

There's hope that you'll find something worthy.

That your life will lead you to some joy.

That after everything... you can still be surprised.

Illyria: Is that enough?

*She turns to Wes again, almost desperate* Is that enough to live on?

*Wesley merely looks at her, face unreadable, without responding*

End ID]

[rock-and-compass]

Angel 5.14 - Smile Time 

(I wrote this series of essays many years ago, probably around the time that the season 8 comics were being published. The were originally published on my LiveJournal and I'm reposting them here, mostly for personal archival purposes.)

Puppet (n) doll An artificial figure of various kinds, moved by wires, hands etc.; marionette. a person or group whose actions are controlled by another or others (adj) controlled by external forces 

How many times during season five (or previous seasons for that matter) have we heard others observe that Angel is a ‘puppet’, that he is being controlled by outside forces or has been manipulated into operating under the agenda of others? Not sure of the precise figure, but it’s quite a few to say the least. And we get it. We know that Wolfram and Hart co-opted him and his team specifically to control them and nullify their influence in the world. The move forces Angel and co. to dance to a new tune, they are allowed to think they are choosing the moves but, in reality, the piper is doing all the choreography. Yes, Angel is a puppet, metaphorically speaking; it’s been that way for a while, and it’s been demonstrated with stunning regularity throughout the season. Smile Time goes a step further. It uses the metaphor in a way that is about as subtle as being hit over the head with an ACME brand sledgehammer when metaphorical puppet Angel turns into literal puppet Angel. Ironically, in doing so Angel finally gets to see himself for what he is and is granted the opportunity to break free of some of the many, many strings that manipulate his every move.

The Set Up

Smile Time is a television program for children. It features cute puppets and catchy little ditties that are designed to teach its audience about self-development, number facts and the like; yet all is not as sweet and innocent as it seems. As a little boy watches Smile Time one of the puppets orders him to come and touch the television screen. When he does the puppet begins to experience orgasmic-like pleasure as the child’s life force is sucked out of him. Eventually the little boy collapses, drained and paralysed with a grotesque grin etched across his face.  And it would seem that Smile Time has been making a habit of this kind of thing, eleven children in three weeks have been similarly afflicted. The case is brought to Fred’s notice when mystical involvement is suspected. She zeros in on the medical science side of the problem while Angel notices that all the children all collapsed while watching television so goes to investigate that aspect of the case. So, here’s where the fun starts…

At the Smile Time studio Angel does a little snooping around and eventually finds himself standing before a door marked “DON’T”. But Angel does. He enters the room to find the perplexing sight of a man sitting in front of a giant egg with a towel draped over his head. “You shouldn't ... be here,” the man struggles to warn but it is too late. The egg is rumbling to life, it’s starting to ‘smile’ wider and wider. As the smile reaches its apex it shoots out a bright bolt of energy that sends Angel flying across the room into a pile of empty boxes. From beneath the rubble a hand pokes up. But it’s not a human-like hand, it's a little four fingered fabric puppet hand and it’s swiftly followed by a little felt head and body. Angel is now a puppet in the truest sense of the word. 

But we’ll get back to Angel in a little while…

First, it is interesting to note that Smile Time, like the sub last week,  is a blurred reflection of Angel’s situation at Wolfram and Hart. Smile Time is something good infected by something evil while Wolfram and Hart is something evil infiltrated by something essentially good (Angel and his people). Smile Time has an impeccable reputation that makes it possible for the demons to have their way with the children in the audience without arousing too much suspicion from anyone unschooled in manifestations of evil. Wolfram and Hart has a dreadful reputation, are renowned for aiding and abetting the worst of the worst, so makes Team Angel’s job at Wolfram and Hart fundamentally impossible – remember that ‘catch’ Eve told them about, to make the business work for them they have to make the business work. That has meant compromise on a daily basis. That means being mired in the perpetual grey, trying to navigate routes between various degrees of evil. Angel can’t be the “I’m Angel, I kill the bad guys'' kind of Angel while seconded to Wolfram and Hart because, well, he’s not killing them, he’s playing racquetball with them, and having meetings with them and signing off on deals with them… thus the Senior Partners have their way with Angel with hardly any suspicion being aroused as to what’s actually going on.

Angel, CEO of Wolfram and Hart (Los Angeles branch) and Mr. Framkin, creator of Smile Time now operate in figurehead positions. To the outside world they look like they are in control but in reality they are merely the ‘puppets’ of others. The demon puppets literally put their hands into a hole in Framkin’s back to make him bend to their will and exert their authority over him while the Senior Partners are more subtle. They use Angel’s position to create the illusion of power and authority while actually manipulating him (and his team) into confusion and, I was about to say ineffectuality, but that’s not really the right word; as Gunn regularly points out, they have achieved some excellent outcomes since coming to Wolfram and Hart, so maybe ambiguity or compromise are better descriptives.  Huh; there’s that word again, compromise. 

And let’s not forget that both situations are the result of ‘deals with the devil’. Deals made to achieve an end – high television ratings for Framkin and for Angel, a new life for his son. By the end of the episode the Smile Time devils have suffered the consequences, paid the price, gotten their comeuppance but Angel’s deal is still intact…for the moment. His stipulation was that no one should remember Connor but himself and he’s been willing to pay the largely personal price of surrendering his son and losing his own sense of identity. But he didn’t just bring himself to Wolfram and Hart; he brought others with him, others who didn’t get to look at the fine print of their employment contracts. What price will they pay for this deal with the devil that they didn’t consent to? 

And now the really bad news; to stop Smile Time, Angel’s team had to defeat the little devils masquerading as puppets, who were in fact, the puppeteers behind the whole thing. So, it would seem that in order to escape from Wolfram and Hart, should they ever want to, Team Angel will have to go after the ones pulling on their strings too.  

The crew from Smile Time sing a sweet little song that goes something like this:

Self-esteem is for everybody Self-esteem is for everyone You can dream and be anybody  But self-esteem is how you get it done

And this is essentially the theme or lesson to be learnt from this episode; the importance of self-belief and confidence in achieving outcomes. All season long we’ve seen Angel struggling with his identity; his concept of himself as a ‘champion’ has become increasingly shaky, he doesn’t feel particularly heroic, he’s progressively gotten more and more distanced from his ‘helpless’, the people he’s sworn to assist. The sacrifice of Connor, the whole deal and move to Wolfram and Hart and the arrival of Spike have seen to that. Angel has been lost and hopeless and the people who love him keep telling him not to lose hope and to keep on fighting but without intrinsic self-belief the words are just meaningless platitudes.  And then Cordelia visited and reminded him who he was, and who he wants to be, and showed him that he can dream and be anybody, be exactly the Angel he wants to be, but he needs that self-belief to make it happen.  

Brain Upgrades and Memory Wipes

And it’s not only Angel who has undergone personal re-evaluation, it’s his team too. This is particularly evident with Charles Gunn. With the move to Wolfram and Hart comes a brain implant that takes him from street-fighting muscle to being the legal backbone of the LA branch. A definite change in self-concept there; with it he’s able to forget about Charles Gunn, nobody and become someone whose opinions matter and who has power. It’s the best thing that ever happened to him and he’s happy to be official head cheerleader for the work that Team Angel undertakes at Wolfram and Hart. But the Senior Partners are tricky tricksters. They don’t want his enthusiasm or gratitude. They want to own him body and soul. 

Over the past couple of episodes we’ve seen Gunn struggle with the legal lingo a tad and now, in Smile Time he’s lodged the wrong form with the county clerk's office and it's not some crafty lawyer-move and he can’t remember which section under what act they can prosecute Framkin. Gunn is worried. He’s scared and he doesn’t want to go back to the way he was. 

He goes to see the doctor who did the original procedure for answers. After a quick examination the doctor determines that yes, the imprint is fading, almost completely reversed in fact. Now Gunn is beyond worried, he’s panicked. What he suspected has been confirmed. He doesn’t want to lose the law, the languages or the strategy. They are what define him now. The doctor is sarcastically sympathetic. He diagnoses acute “Flowers for Algernon Syndrome'' which essentially means that Gunn having experienced, courtesy of the brain implant, an almost instantaneous increase in intellectual functionality that has turned out to actually be only temporary is now incredibly loath to give it up and return to the way he was. Gunn wants it fixed but the doc ain’t coming to the party:

Doctor: Well, no offence, counsellor, but your insurance plan wouldn’t cover what I charge to wash my hands. You were given that upgrade because the Senior Partners wanted you to have it, and if you’re losing it, well, they wanted that too.

What the Senior Partners giveth, they can also taketh away and in doing so they tweak firmly on Gunn’s puppet strings. They (and the Doctor) know Charles has gotten attached to the power, got to the point where he can’t let his new abilities go and doesn’t want to live without them, can’t bear to go back to being that ignorant street thug that he was, he’s come to despise that guy. And so the Doctor has him exactly where he wants him, it’s all part of the plan. The doctor proposes a deal. He’ll scratch Gunn’s back if Charles will scratch his. The doctor has a particular artefact, a curio, tied up in customs. A permanent brain upgrade would give Gunn more than sufficient legal know-how to cut through inconvenient bureaucratic red tape. Charles resists:

Gunn: I don’t make deals with people like you

Oh, but you do Mr. Gunn, you do; everyday of your working life at Wolfram and Hart that’s exactly what you do. “Tax exemptions to nasty corporations, acquittals for the guilty” that’s the bread and butter of the firm and Charles and his upgrade actively facilitate the practice.

So, he makes the deal. We know he’s done it because when he walks into Angel’s office, he’s back to being confident and eloquent in his legal proficiency. He’s fully knowledgeable of the contract regarding Smile Time’s ‘deal with the devil’, the hard to locate fine print that put the demons in control. Mr. Legal know-it-all is back, bigger and better than ever and more a puppet to the Senior Partners than ever before. He’s made his own deal with the devil and now he’ll have to wear the consequences just like Framkin. 

Fred and Wesley also make some huge character strides during this episode too, but it is not so much work or epiphany related so much as interpersonal. Wesley has harboured affections for Fred ever since they bought her back from Pylea. But, somewhat surprisingly, for a short while Fred and Gunn formed an unlikely couple; the epitome of brains meets brawn. Wesley has made it abundantly clear that he loves Fred, but since “You’re Welcome” it’s become increasingly apparent that Fred’s feelings for Wesley have intensified too. On several occasions she tries to let Wesley know of her feelings. She’s kicked Knox to the curb, she’s not so much looking for someone as at, her car is in the shop and she’d really like Wes to take her home. Anvil sized hints if ever there was. Ironically, Wesley castigates Angel for missing the signals being flashed in his direction by another young lady all the while missing the messages meant for him. 

Fred and Wes work closely on the Smile Time problem, watching tape after tape of episodes looking for clues. Fred goes to make another move on Wesley when they notice an anomaly with the transmission. When the sound is muted they are able to see the little boy puppet, Polo, pressed up against the television screen talking directly to the audience. When they turn the sound back on the picture returns to normal with the puppets all singing one of their songs.

Wesley: When the song is playing it acts as a sort of cloaking spell allowing Framkin to address his target without being seen by the rest of his viewers

Here we are gently reminded of another nuanced piece of magic, a spell that cloaks memories, tricks the ‘audience’ into believing things are other than they are. And just as the Smile Time spell has been discovered we are left wondering how long the secrecy surrounding the memory wipe can be maintained.

When the team heads to Smile Time to take on the demon puppets, Wes and Fred head to the nest egg to do a reversal spell. The life-size puppet Ratio Hornblower follows, then attacks, determined to protect their cache of life force they have already collected as Wes begins the spell. As Wesley fights it Fred attempts to assist but Wes tells her to keep on reading the incantation. She does but is distracted by Wes’s predicament. She picks up a gun and shoots the puppet allowing Wes to gain the upper hand in the fight. She places Wesley’s safety ahead of the task at hand neatly parallelling the events of “Lineage” and giving Wesley a practical demonstration of her feelings. She finishes off the spell and succeeds in destroying the egg.

Afterwards, back at the office, Fred reports to Wesley that all the affected children are on the road to recovery. Wes goes to leave saying that they’ve all earned a break but Fred forestalls him, asking if he’s noticed anything different about how she’s been acting towards him. The words don’t come easily so she chooses a physical approach and kisses him. Actions speak louder than words and finally Wes gets the message. They kiss again with increasing passion and ardour.  A romance a long time in the propagation finally comes into bloom (but this is the Buffyverse, so…you know…).

And so to Angel…

Nina, (the werewolf girl from ‘Unleashed’) arrives at Wolfram and Hart for her monthly stay during the wolf-moon. She is obviously very interested in Angel. Angel is deliberately obtuse and fails dismally to recognise the signs, mainly because he doesn’t want to see them; girls, relationships, romance, dates – they are all big ‘Don’ts’ in Angel’s life. She puts the suggestion out there that they should have “breakfast” in the morning. The implication is all sexy and intimate but Angel ain’t taking the bait. He goes to see Wesley and voices his concerns that Nina may see him as other than just the provider of a safe and secure cell for three nights of each month. Wes confirms this theory. Angel is aghast. 

Angel: Nina’s down there right now, turning into a werewolf and liking me. I don’t – I can’t – I have no time for that kind of… I have no right. I mean, look, we know what happens if- Wesley: If what? If you achieve a moment of perfect happiness? Angel: I turn back into Angelus and we don’t want that!  Wesley is scornful, telling him that it’s an excuse. Most people have to, and do, get by with acceptable happiness and that he is: Wesley: Hiding behind your gypsy curse when there is a beautiful, engaging, all right, occasionally hirsute, young woman who actually wants you.

But Angel is adamant that nothing can happen between him and Nina, or any other woman for that matter, but it’s not so much the curse that’s the problem:

Angel: Because I’m not that guy. That guy is charming and funny and…emotionally useful. I’m the guy in a dark corner with the blood habit and the two hundred years of psychic baggage

No, in Angel’s mind that guy, the one that women like, is too closely associated with Liam, the human wastrel from which Angelus was born. Liam’s impulses were part of the reason that Angelus was what he was and therefore, should be kept firmly under control at all times. So it is easier to use the curse as a shield, an excuse for staying distant and not risking the possibility of intimate human interaction. So essentially, Angel is a puppet to the curse, he lets the curse control him and his actions. Sure he has the fairly damning evidence of his night with Buffy and the subsequent loss of his soul as proof that he and sweaty relations are unmixy things, but Wesley seems to believe that this was perhaps a unique situation brought on by the combination of a hundred years of pent up isolation, loneliness and uselessness released as he made love to the woman who inspired him to try and become a better person. Would it have happened again? We don’t know, Angel and Buffy never risked it again, (aside from ‘I Will Remember You’ when they again became lovers because Angel was temporarily human, and I won’t delve into the events of BtVS S8 #34 at this point in time) instead sub-consciously they categorise their love as dangerous because it was too perfect.  Would the curse take effect if Angel was intimate with another woman? Well, it didn’t when he slept with Darla, or Eve, but those encounters were never about love or perfect happiness. Angel was preparing to risk it for Cordelia, he was in love with Cordelia, but they never quite got the timing right to put it to the ultimate test. Wesley is right; perfect happiness is not the automatic outcome of sexual relations. The curse has simply become the crutch on which Angel relies to keep him from getting emotionally involved. Theoretically, as a father, Angel’s perfect happiness is much more likely to be invested in his son now rather than a woman and, if the curse is particularly linked to the sexual then surely knowledge of the catch (i.e. the loss of the soul) would preclude it from ever being activated again, as long as he didn’t get complacent. Sorry, just a little vague conjecture.

Besides, the whole don’t risk intimacy thing is just one of Angel’s many ‘don’ts’. When Angel goes to the Smile Time studio to investigate he comes across and enters the “Don’t Room”. It is a great analogy; Angel is ruled by ‘DON’T’. Don’t be too happy, don’t forget what you were, don’t forget what you still are, don’t forget what you did, don’t follow your impulses, don’t do anything remotely Angelus-like, don’t show emotion, don’t form connections, don’t let anyone see the real you, don’t think of Connor, don’t think of Cordelia…. just don’t!  But becoming a puppet allows him to transcend his self-imposed rules. When he becomes a literal puppet, he places himself in an emotionally vulnerable position with his team. He has no choice – he has to let them see him as a ‘wee little puppet man’ so they can help him. Even though he is embarrassed by his state of being, Puppet Angel trusts those closest to him with the truth. That’s not to say he wants everyone to see him like that. Initially he doesn’t let Nina see him in his puppet state, the shame and embarrassment too acute to conquer the barrier of intimacy. It’s too huge to breech but then Spike arrives and states the bleeding obvious:

Spike: You’re a bloody puppet!

Puppet Angel feels emotions intensely. He can’t push the anger and annoyance he feels for his ‘grandchild’ aside with a glib, cutting dismissal as real Angel would. Puppet Angel attacks and in doing so reveals his puppet state to all his employees. Spike forces Angel to confront realities about himself, just as he’s been doing since he emerged from the amulet. 

Once the truth is out Puppet Angel doesn’t scamper off and hide, no he assumes command. He is in control, he’s confident and authoritative. He’s everything that the real Angel wants to be. Puppet Angel displays a whole range of emotions – anger, excitement, frustration, love, affection, gratitude, humour, all of which are present in real Angel only in a firmly controlled, reigned in kind of way. Puppet Angel has the guts to go and see Nina to apologise for hiding and being rather rude to her earlier.

Angel: I didn’t mean to upset you this morning. I just didn’t want anyone- well, I didn’t want you to see me this way. It’s a little embarrassing, I guess. Nina: I’d call it insane. But…what do you care what people think anyway? Angel, you’re you, you know?  You’re this, I mean, god, you’re an actual hero, and, I don’t know, this may sound cliché coming from an art school chick, but, the vampire thing is kinda sexy.

Puppet Angel vocalises feelings and emotions where real Angel would have shut up tight as a clam. He recognises psychological motivations; that is, he understands his personal deficiencies and why he acts the way he does:

Angel: I’m not very good at any of this. I’ve spent so much time worrying about the past and the future and my very complicated life…it’s been a while since I looked up and really saw what was going on around me. It’s not my strong suit, you know? But I’m working on it. I’m paying better attention to-

But he’s not quite there yet, werewolf Nina is able to grab him from behind as he’s having his mini-epiphany moment. Still, puppet Angel takes steps forward in self-awareness while real Angel has for so long chosen not to.

Nina, in this story, has two functions. Firstly she’s an attractive female who is genuinely interested in Angel (an entity more than dangerous than all the demons and monsters in the world, at least in Angel’s opinion) whose very presence challenges all his personal boundaries and secondly, she’s an example of a ‘helpless’ that he’s helped since he came to Wolfram and Hart. She’s proof that the essential Angel still exists. She doesn’t care where he works or comprehend his identity crisis. She just sees him as a ‘hero’ as someone valuable, as a saviour. She’s proof that he can be the Angel Cordelia reminded him of.

Angel, bitten and ripped, makes it back upstairs and collapses into Lorne’s arms. Again we hear the mantra

Lorne: You’re going to make it Angel! Just don’t stop fighting 

Once stitched back together and the truth of Smile Time’s deal with the devil has been uncovered the team heads to the studio to fight. Puppet Angel is a leader, he relishes the leadership role that real Angel seems to have forsaken. And his team follows willingly. They don’t care if he’s technically a puppet, it’s not about the physicality, it's about the aura. Puppet Angel is heroic and action-oriented. He’s a doer who embraces the demon inside rather than perpetually fighting it. Puppet Angel knows that it’s part of what makes him what he is in a good way, rather than a purely negative one. 

Once the fight is over and won Angel, still a puppet, goes to see Nina and asks her out to breakfast signalling his willingness to entertain the possibility of stepping out from behind the curse and taking a chance on getting to know an interested (and interesting) female. Nobody’s saying that it’s love or some big thing; it’s just breakfast but it’s still a step in a brave new direction. 

So, at the end of all this fun and frivolity what have we got? 

We’ve got Gunn more a puppet than ever; we’ve got Angel finally acknowledging that he’s got ‘strings’ that need addressing and he makes the constructive step of challenging one of them, the curse, and how it has imprisoned various aspects of his life and offering hope that other, more restrictive strings may eventually be severed too, spurred on by his own (secret) personal beacon of hope, Spike, who’s comes and goes as he pleases, says exactly what’s on his mind and who is nobody’s puppet.

Next up: Angel 5.15 - A hole in the world

[enigmatist17]

I finished Angel season 5, and I've cried more in the last two days than I have in the last few months.

No one was allowed to be happy, and seeing both Cordelia and Wesley taken from us has absolutely gutted me, I haven't stopped crying yet.

I love Angel Investigations, and my heart breaks for them :(

[christopherburdett]

I am sharing makeup effects work I did 20+ years ago. Starting things off is part 1 of the Werewolf we made for the 5th season of Angel. LOADS of info and details on the blog - which has been flagged for adult content for some reason: https://christopherburdett.blogspot.com/2024/10/from-archives-werewolf-angel-season-5.html #buffythevampireslayer #btvs #angel #werewolf #monster #makeupeffects

[stormofstarlight]

Cavemen would easily beat astronauts in a fight. Astronauts actually get a lot weaker in space, their muscle mass decreases because there's less gravity so it takes less effort for them to do things. Meanwhile, cavemen generally lived very active lifestyles and would be used to fighting and hunting. They might even have prearranged strategies they use regularly. It might not even come down to a fight, they'd drive the astronauts off a fucking cliff

[wikiangela]

ngl I could see Fred with Spike before I'd even wanna look in the direction of Fred with Wesley lmao

like, I don't think I ship it, but Fred and Spike are having some moments rn and arguably having more natural chemistry than Wes and Fred ever had sns

[willowmosby]

I genuinely really love this cause it's not something that I've ever really thought about and I can tell you why if you care. If you don't care then feel free to skip this knowing I think Spike being in season 5 was one of the best things the writers ever did for the show.

I never noticed this really because Angel and Spike as well lived characters are exactly the type that would be petty and stupid about the whole situation. Angel the character isn't one that can learn a lesson after just one mistake. He makes mistakes (that are relatively similar) every single season, it's what drives the plot of the show. And He is not super secretly a deeply petty person. One who is also tortured by his mistakes. No matter how in the right Spike has been, is, or will be Angel will never not be a bit bitchy about it. He wants to be the hero, for better or worse, and he has for so long seen Spike apose that ( reminder we have no idea how much of Buffy S5, 6&7 Angel know the full context of). And I do think he understands Spike has changed but he personally is petty and bitchy about it. We, the audience, and many of the other main cast of characters go along with that as Angel is the main character and therefore are thematic and moral focus.

And I don't think that it's a narrative negative here because for as long as we have seen Spike and Angel they have had a bitchy and antagonistic friendship (and/or romance if you're feeling extra subtext-y). Even when they are both evil they would rather do anything than simply agree with each other, I mean Spike helps Buffy stop Angelus ending the world for what are mostly pretty petty reasons.

Plus Spike as a character needs something to rebel against and in this season part of it is the perception that Angel (and the team) have of him.

Ok, never watched much of Angel outside of s5, but I understand that the sort of thesis statement of the show/character is "If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do."

Explain to me why then, if this is the crux of Angel, everyone and their mother bitches about Spike getting his soul back? Implying that it's inherently selfish and because it was selfish, it means next to nothing?

This line presents the concept that action bears more weight than reason. It doesn't matter why you do good as long as you are doing it. Because to do good, regardless of why or what you may gain, is good.

You can never be perfect. You can never fix everything. But the things you do are your legacy. "If there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world."

I personally believe that Spike got his soul for himself as much as he did it for Buffy because the concept of man vs. monster had been a Massive part of his character arc. Pre-soul he couldn't be either and therefore was nothing in his own eyes (not helped by being repeatedly dehumanized either.)

Spike made a choice that Angelus never would've. He chose the man over the monster.

Regardless, Love is apparently not a good enough reason to get his soul back, according to some. They argue that because he fought for it from a place of romantic Love that it doesn't matter. That the reason behind the action was selfish and therefore meaningless.

But the fucking point of Angel is that action is more important than reason. That the struggle, the fight is more important than the why of it. Essentially, whatever gets you through it is, and should be, enough.

Spike fought his nature because he had something to fight for. Love is not inherently selfless or selfish, it isn’t good or evil. It's a feeling that can be turned into a verb, to action. What you chose to do with Love is what codes its nature.

Spike in the past has done horrible things. Despite the constant "Spike fans kind of forgot about" bullshit, no one argues that he hasn't done terrible things. But this one action/choice was singular. No one had ever done it before. No one ever Wanted to do it before.

Whether you consider it selfish, the Love Spike felt drove him to be better. Because of that Love, he chose to be better. He took action and fought to be better.

If nothing you do matters, all that matters is what you do.

Spike made a choice to be a man and not a monster and fought for it. That Matters.

Regardless of the fact that anyone with a soul can do good or evil, we know Spike does good with one, which reflects back and makes the action of getting it good. It's cyclical goddamnit!

With a soul, he is selfless. He remains by Buffy's side, not out of an inability to let her go, but because she chooses it. He stands his ground and sacrifices himself to save the world despite Buffy telling him she loves him and to leave. He doesn't waver because it's the right, good thing to do.

Whether or not you think he was selfish in the lead up should not matter. He is the only vampire to ever make this choice. Spike got his soul back and did good with it, by the ethos of Angel, that's what matters.

[kyri45]

We love MK, child of un-divorced. The next update will be more gay. And fluffier.

Shadowpeach Bio Parent AU (PREV / FIRST / NEXT )

before saying anything, read the stuff under the cut

About wukong and macaque

Both these bitches did wrong, but remember that MK saw the vision starting from the fight itself, not what happened before. He then read the chapters of the book and read that Macaque also attacked. I personally think he's mostly hurted by what Wukong did, not because it's worse of what Macaque did, but because he idolized Wukong for so long, and while he know he did so many wrongs in the past, his vision of a "hero" dissapeared in this moment. He s mostly dissapointed let's say. Of course it's not the best of things to put tour heroes on a pedal because you will always be dissapointed. I guess MK learned the lesson...

About what MK said in panel 8

Our monkey boy is remembering his own very stupid thing he sacrificied himself without trying to talk it out with the others AND using the circuit on Wukong.

About the posters

Yes they were Monkey King posters. MK ripped them immediately after the vision because he still was not sure was reality and vision and was scared.

About the eye

Because I would prefer no one dies of angst, his eye is fine, it s more like symbolism.

[thequeenofsastiel]

Anyone else notice how rare it is for Spike to use someone's name when he's talking to them? Like, I can't remember a single time when he actually used Xander or Tara's name. I feel like maybe he used Willow's name once or twice, and he'll occasionally use Giles' name, though it's rare for him to actually call Giles "Giles." Usually, he'll call him "Rupert," somehow managing to always make that sound like an insult. He'd sometimes use Dawn's name, but he usually called her "niblet" or some other term of endearment(though admittedly, that pet name was basically him calling her food). If Spike uses a name for someone at all, it's almost always something snarky. Even with Harmony, he almost never uses her full name, just usually calls her "Harm." The only people who we see him regularly call them by their name are Buffy, Drusilla, and Angel. And with Buffy, he doesn't start calling her "Buffy" until he realizes he's in love with her except for once in the last scene they share before he realizes. Which says something interesting about his relationship with Angel. The only other two people with whom he regularly used their name were women he was in love with. It suggests that despite the fact that Spike is abrasive with Angel and says he doesn't like him, there's a repressed love underneath it all.

[blorbodiaz]

mhmm

[kyliafanfiction]

I know that the official narrative of Season 5 is that Team Angel was losing their way at Wolfram and Hart, becoming corrupted, etc, but the writers did a very poor job of showing it.

Like, the worst you can say they did was Gunn helping an antiquity get through customs. Like, yes, that ended up being Illyria’s casket, but helping a guy make some money on illicit smuggled artifacts, all Gunn thought he was doing, in exchange for what he was able to do with the legal upgrade he was re-upping, seemed like a reasonable trade, because it *was*.

In Season 5, we see multiple times the good they could do working on the scale W&H allowed. If not for them, that one kid and his whole school would have been killed to stop the Black Tomorrow. And that bit with the cult leader who was too well-connected to go at directly... if he was too well connected for W&H to go at, do you really think AI would have been able to attack them (and successfully kill them all) without any problem? 

Or that bit where Gunn uses W&H’s resources to open the orphanage for vampire victims kids, banish the fire demons to another dimension and shut down the company dumping demon waste into the water?

The groxlar demons that ate babies? Remember how W&H was trying to get them to stop? We don’t see how the negotiation ended, but they seemed to be on a good start, and W&H has the resources to make that stick better than AI would have.

Without W&H’s resources and access they would have found out about the Smile Time demons far too late to do anything (it was only 7 kids by then)

Like, yes, the heroes made compromises, and as I’ve outlined before, if they really wanted to have the heroes try to take down or actively work to hurt in a big way Wolfram and Hart (a multinational, multidimensional law firm that goes well beyond L.A.) they had options, involving working to bring down the place within.

But it doesn’t mean they lost their way. and I object strong to the burn-down-the-system-all-compromise-is-bad core of the ‘moral’ of Season 5. Especially since it also all but asserts that throwing your life away ineffectively is heroic just because it is.

So yeah. Mutant Enemy can give me the official line on Season 5 all they want. They were wrong then, both in the big picture, and frankly, they were wrong about their own damn show.

Additional reading if someone wants to know more of my (many) thoughts on AtS Season 5:

(They’re all old posts because I don’t really write meta anymore, but I stand by pretty much all of them still)

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/150635189012/how-it-should-have-ended-angel-season-5

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/157834725517/how-it-should-have-ended-angel-season-5#notes

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/150615258627/i-would-love-to-hear-how-s5-of-angel-would-have

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/149954308962/also-probably-a-very-unpopular-opinion-not-fade

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/149112358992/alkenifanfiction-i-was-just-re-reading-the-rant

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/144988256222/so-much-about-angel-season-5-enrages-me-i-mean

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/149244529822/the-good-they-did-in-season-5

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/157834830487/i-will-be-forever-bitter-about-the-way-angel

https://kyliafanfiction-archive.tumblr.com/post/132502005942/re-angel-the-series-season-5-episode-22-not

[oxygenisachoice]

Watching supernatural for the first time in the year 2024

[rock-and-compass]

Angel - Episode 5.12 – You’re Welcome

(I wrote this series of essays many years ago, probably around the time that the season 8 comics were being published. The were originally published on my LiveJournal and I'm reposting them here, mostly for personal archival purposes.)

Sometimes when you are lost you go through a process of backtracking your steps in order to reorient yourself. You know you took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. At first you thought you’d just keep going and hope that somehow everything would sort itself out, that the feeling of unfamiliarity would dissipate as you got further along. But it didn’t and so finally you stopped and looked about and realised that it was worse than you’d feared; you have no idea of where you are or how you got there or what to do next. So now you’re stuck in alien territory, and you have three choices:

Stay put and get accustomed to the new surrounds 

Keep going, even though you don’t really know what direction to turn, or 

Go back, retrace your steps and try to work out where you went wrong in the first place in order to make an effort to get to where you really want to be.

And essentially, this is what this episode, “You’re Welcome”, is all about; Angel looking back to what has gone before in order to try and figure out where he is going.

As we left Angel in “Damage” he was made to realise what his tenancy at Wolfram and Hart has cost him; just a few little things like his identity, his self-belief, his mission, his reputation and the trust of one of his most symbolically important allies. Big problem indeed -  Compromise has cost him…well, everything. 

‘You’re Welcome’ opens with a practical demonstration. Angel, Wesley, Fred and Gunn arrive to investigate the scene of a crime. Fred uses a little gizmo to read the ‘trace signatures’ present. It picks up hair follicles, enzymes and blood - lots of blood; which is not so surprising considering the pile of dead nuns on the floor. Gunn is perplexed – why would their client, Mr. Greenway, do such a thing as this? He’d been promised probation in exchange for shutting down his ‘racketeering operation’. In short, Wolfram and Hart would arrange for Greenway to get away with his crimes in return for a change in future business activities. Angel can’t help but observe:

ANGEL: He's a Wolfram & Hart client. Our client, oh, and he's evil. What are the odds? 

Angel wants to find Mr. Greenway and kill him, and thus hand out his own particular form of justice but Wesley points out that the murders are ritualistic, that their client has killed five holy women in order to facilitate his departure from this dimension into another. Surprise, surprise – He’s also a practitioner of the dark arts. It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

ANGEL: That's it … I can't do this anymore … any of this; living with it, running Wolfram & Hart.  I quit. 

When Angel says, ‘I quit’, it’s more than him just saying that he can’t do this, can’t play by Wolfram and Hart’s rules anymore. It is Angel saying he doesn’t want to do it anymore. That it is wrong for him to be there. It is acknowledgement that the deal was not the ideal solution to his problems and that he recognises that compromise has been complete and that he wants to be better. It is also an admission that Angel knows that he is lost (on a lot of levels) but that he’s finally decided to stop wandering aimlessly, that now is the time to pause and work out how to get back to what he was, to what he wants to be. Whether co-incidental or not, there is a reward for finally getting to this psychological place: somewhere, in an anonymous hospital room in the City of Angels, Cordelia awakes. It’s a vision that does it – flashes of the symbols painted on Eve’s apartment, on Lindsey’s body and glimpses of Angel in peril. 

Back at the office Angel doesn’t want to discuss his monumental decision. His mind is set. He is resigning. The others are more cautious:

Wesley: What happened last night was tragic. It's a terrible setback, but—  Angel: Setback, Wes? It's status quo. Evil wins, 'cause instead of just wiping it out, we negotiate with it; or worse...for it. 

And that’s it in a nutshell – instead of fighting evil he inadvertently helps it. Fred gets defensive on the team’s behalf arguing that they are doing the best they can but, it’s not how they’re doing their jobs, Angel tells them – it’s that they shouldn’t be doing these jobs period. Gunn points out, quite rightly, that it would be naïve to think that they would be allowed to simply walk away just because they’d all had a belly-full of the place, “Let’s not start pretending that this was some lease with an option to buy”. So, it would seem that being at Wolfram and Hart is a problem yes, but trying to get out may just turn out to be a bigger one. The Senior Partners were keen enough to get Angel under their control, to negate his influence in the world that they would give him the L.A. branch. It doesn’t seem likely that they would simply let him waltz out the door now that they don’t want to dance no more. Angel doesn’t want to hear what he must know is true, so he turns it back on Gunn, the one team member who is most open about his commitment to the firm

Angel: Gunn, you really think they won't let us out? Or is it that you just don't want to leave?

Charles doesn’t argue, he believes in what they are doing and when Angel dismissively rejects his loyalty and certainty as a consequence of the brain upgrade. Gunn reminds him that they all got something out of the deal; Angel more than anyone – though the rest of the team don’t know all the ‘perks’ he got with his package or what they gave up facilitating it. The argument stalls with an unexpected phone call from the hospital.

When Wes and Angel enter the hospital room, they see a woman lying in the bed attached to all sorts of machinery. They hesitate, just because she’s come out of her coma doesn’t mean she’ll be in any condition to talk. But, oddly enough for someone who was recently comatose, she is. Cordelia walks out of the bathroom, a vision of hotliness, chastising them for leaving her in a hospital that smells like, well, a hospital. She’s exactly the Cordy we know and love. We ignore the clue that all is not as it should be because Cordelia has returned.  Angel hugs her tightly. It’s emotional and heartfelt and it conveys a sense of relief and joy that Angel has found his missing piece. Wes compliments her on her healthy appearance to which Cordelia responds by recommending the whole mystical coma, hijacking of the body by a higher power to give birth to itself package. She remembers everything. Her mind is intact. Like Angel she was exempt from the mind wipe. Angel shoots a self-conscious glance at Wes, worried that Cordy has said too much about things that Wes can’t remember. But, luckily, Wesley must put it down to post coma-related confusion and doesn’t pursue her cryptic comments. They promise to buy her new clothes which pleases Cordelia greatly, not only because it’s shopping but also because she’s not really ready to go back to the hotel yet.  Not a problem.

At Wolfram and Hart the elevator doors open. Wesley and Angel step out. Cordelia is downright reluctant. This is enemy territory and she knows it, doesn’t matter who’s in charge, she doesn’t want to be in its belly. It’s not scary, Angel tells her, just a normal office with normal people doing normal office jobs. He’s horribly contradicted by the sudden appearance of the blue skinned ‘pee pee’ demon last seen in “Life of the Party”. Apparently it has been living in the labyrinth that is Wolfram and Hart surviving off nothing but copier toner all this time. Nope, nothing normal about Wolfram and Hart, nothing normal about Angel and Co. being there no matter how much they want to pretend otherwise.

Speaking of Team Angel…they all proceed into Angel’s office excited to have Cordelia back. After greeting them all affectionately she asks:

Cordelia: So, where's Connor?

She’s met by blank looks and the question ‘who?’

Cordelia: What do you mean, who? Connor. Isn't he—  Angel, where's your s— 

Angel is saved from explaining as Harmony rushes in keen to see her old high-school pal. The joy is not reciprocated. This is the absurdity of the world that Cordelia has stepped back into; Angel and her friends work for their old enemy Wolfram and Hart, Connor doesn’t exist and Harmony, who last time they met couldn’t be trusted specifically because of the lack of a soul, is now his secretary. Cordelia’s discomfort only serves to heighten the inappropriateness of the entire situation. Angel is extremely protective of Cordy. He won’t allow the well-wishers to overwhelm her. He doesn’t want her to be upset or worried. He tries to reassure her, make it seem like everything is just peachy:

Angel: Cordy, I know there's a lot to take in, a lot of changes, but I promise you... things here are working out. 

And isn’t her very return some kind of proof that it was the right thing to do? But Cordelia is not fooled. She knows him too well to be fooled. Angel spouts the company line:

Angel: Well, yeah. With these resources, there's nothing we can't do, no one we can't save.   Cordelia: Except maybe yourself. 

Himself. This is no surprise. This is the truth he’s been trying to avoid since his arrival at Wolfram and Hart. He is in danger. He is at risk. It harks back to his original mission statement, given by Doyle, the real Doyle, in the very first episode of the very first season of Angel:

“It’s not all about fighting and gadgets and stuff. It’s about reaching out to people, showing them that there’s love and hope still left in the world…it’s about letting them into your heart. It’s not about saving lives; it’s about saving souls…Hey, possibly your own in the process.”

So it’s Angel who is in danger. Cordelia tells him so point blank. We know that. We’ve seen him nullified, compromised by the job. We know he fears irrelevancy. He’s been shown what his future will be if he allows the firm to control him. And now he gets Cordelia, who he loves, who he listens to, to tell him as well. And that’s not even connected to the vision that woke her, its truth based on her own observations of Angel since they arrived at the office just a few hours ago.

She’s telling him about the actual vision when Eve happens upon them. She’s cool as Cool Whip, on the surface at least, even though Miss Chase is talking about symbols and tattoos and pointing flashing neon arrows in her beloved Lindsey’s direction. Eve chastises Angel about the loss of ten million dollars in bail costs due to Greenway’s defection. Dead nuns they can deal with but being out of pocket affects the bottom line and that, according to Eve, is what really matters. It’s a very clear demonstration of the values structure of Wolfram and Hart; money, power and the business are what matters and people, not at all. So it is, fundamentally at odds with Angel’s mission of ‘helping the helpless’. Sure, they said with naivety, that they’d change the system from within, use Wolfram and Hart’s resources to help multitudes of helpless, make a real difference but they forgot the catch….to make the business run to their liking, they had to make the business run. And so they were sucked in, little by little, the place started to exert its influence to make Team Angel bend to its will. It won. Angel can’t be the Angel he wants to be at Wolfram and Hart. Cordelia knows it, tells him bluntly that he made a deal with the devil. Is she being overdramatic as Angel attests? Nope, don’t think so, if the red-skinned, pointy tailed, cloven hoofed and horned ‘gentleman’ with whom the boss man has a racket-ball date with is anything to go by.

Spike is busy playing video games when Lindsey comes-a-calling. Spike is not thrilled to see him, gives him a veiled threat to his well being if he persists on arriving uninvited. Spike gets himself a beer, but makes a point of not giving one to his guest. Spike doesn’t like Lindsey which is quite the opposite of Angel and his authentic emissary of the Powers That Be. Angel and the real Doyle became close friends, allies and confidantes, but not Spike and the false Doyle – there’s no friendship there. Lindsey tries to win some point by sympathising with Spike over the loss of his hands. He knows what that feels like all too well having had a hand chopped off (in A1.22 - To Shanshu in LA) and then reattached courtesy of Wolfram and Hart (A2.18 – Dead End), though he doesn’t confide the similarity of medical provider. Lindsey encourages Spike to get out on the streets again, the ‘Powers’ are counting on ‘their’ champion, there are helpless to help. Spike doesn’t want the pep talk, says he was planning on going out anyway, that he’ll jump at the first sign of a vision. Good boy, that’s what Lindsey likes to hear. What he doesn’t want to hear are complications. Eve rings to give him the heads up about Cordelia, her vision and the fact that all the clues lead straight to him. It’s not great news; it necessitates a change of plan…

In Angel’s apartment Cordelia watches an old video of an advertisement she and Doyle made for the fledgling Angel Investigations:

Doyle: If you need help, then look no further. Angel Investigations is the best. Our rats are low— Cordelia: Rates. Doyle:  It says rats. "Our rates are low, but our standards are high. When the chips are down, and you're at the end of your rope, you need someone that you can count on, and that's what you'll find here, someone who will go all the way, who'll protect you no matter what. So don't lose hope."

It’s a two-way message. When they made it, it was for the helpless that needed to be told that there was someone who cared, who could help them. But tonight, as they watch it says so much more. On one level it is about Cordelia – when you’re at the end of your rope (and Angel has certainly nearly exhausted his personal length) she is someone he can count on, who will go all the way, protect him and not lose hope. In Destiny, Buffy turned away, said she couldn’t trust him because of the situation he was in, but Cordelia, where Angel is concerned, is more steadfast. She won’t give up on him. She is his Champion. For Angel the message is a reminder of what he was; what was special about him and what he did, pre-high-tech gizmos, pre-money, pre-endless resources and pre-Shanshu promise. It’s a reminder that he can be this man again, if he doesn’t lose hope. It all comes back to hope.

Cordelia and Angel talk properly now. He tries to explain the reason for going to Wolfram and Hart. Cordy preempts him with a lot of talk of corruption, of being seduced by fancy facilities, money, manpower and a penthouse with a really spectacular view and she means spectacular. But when he throws Connor into the explanation mix, then she begins to understand. Cordelia alone gets told the truth:

Angel: Connor.  Cordelia: Where is Connor? Why did Gunn ask—  Angel: They don't remember him. It's part of my agreement to take this job. The senior partners altered reality. They gave Connor a life, a real family, and a childhood. Something I could never give him. He's got no memories of us. And no one remembers him - Except me and you….and Eve, for some reason. 

Cordelia is appalled. She lays it on the line:

Cordelia:  So, not only did you strike a deal with your worst enemy to give up your son, you let them rape the memories of your friends who trust you?

Angel tries to rationalise the decision saying that Connor was about to kill her and himself, that it was the only way to help him. Although she doesn’t argue with him, the silence is quite glaring, nevertheless. It wasn’t his only option. He could have let Connor and Cordelia die, accepted their fate as a consequence of the series of events since his son’s miracle birth, or, alternatively, as a consequence of his up-bringing (as suggested by Lila in A4.22 - Home) or at the end of the day, if he was that set on giving his son a ‘normal’ life he could have brokered a different deal that didn’t involve wiping his friends memories. Home shows most pointedly that Angel turned Wolfram and Harts offer to his advantage. He accepted the deal on his conditions, the condition that Cordelia would receive the best medical care, and that Connor would be given a new family, new memories, all traces of the past removed, and that no one, beyond Angel himself, would have any memory of his son (oh, and he’ll take that bauble and file for Buffy too).  These were not Wolfram and Hart’s stipulations; they were 100% Angel’s. In hindsight the deal and accompanying provisos look increasingly like yet another ‘quick-fix’ solution that hasn’t gone quite as planned, sure he made some sacrifices, his son, his autonomy and he did act out of love for Connor, but he also took liberties that he had no right to take and presented his team with the deal done, fait accompli, no questions, no considerations, no debate, no choice.

Angel doesn’t want the uncomfortable truth. Besides, they’re all doing fine here at Wolfram and Hart. They’re doing good work, making a difference. Cordelia wasn’t born yesterday:

Cordelia: Don't give me that, "everything's fine here" company line. I'm not buying it. Neither are you. And neither are the Powers That Be. Why do you think they woke me up, gave me that vision? They know you slipped the track, and they want me to help put you back on it.

But she’s wrong about the Powers, Angel tells her, they’re not in his corner anymore. Spike is their new champion. He’s the one working the streets, helping the helpless. He’s the one who saved the world. And Angel is running an evil law firm. What kind of freaking Bizzaro world is this? 

Cordelia: I naturally assumed you'd be lost without me, but this?  Angel: I am lost without you. 

Cordelia, his rudder, his truth teller, his confidant; She knows him better than anyone, she understands his struggles, she has pushed him along when he didn’t want to go, she has physically shared his mission, was passionate about their mission and her very presence here makes the audience feel exactly what the loss of her company and influence has meant to Angel, how significant it has been all along. She tells him that he’s just forgotten who he is. He asks her to remind him, but that’s for him to figure out, she says:

Cordelia: …I can tell you who you were. A guy who always fought his hardest for what was right, even when he couldn't remember why. Even when he was miserable, which was, let's face it, a not small portion of the time. He did right. And that gave him something. A light, a glimmer. And that's the guy I fell in— That, um... the guy I knew.  I see him around here, then maybe I'll start believing. 

If she sees that guy around, maybe then she’ll start believing all his propaganda about the good work they’re doing, and that life is just fine and dandy too. “Let me know if you do”, Angel asks sadly, an admission that that guy, that champion that Cordelia described, really is gone, lost. 

Cordelia:  Do you ever wonder... Do you ever think about if we'd met up that night and had a chance to—  Angel: All the time. 

His reply is swift and honest and pulsates with unfulfilled possibilities, what might have been had they ever managed to get their timing right. His ‘all the time’ speaks volumes. Cordelia is the woman he thinks about, the one he misses, needs and wants. It’s quite affecting, the understated romantic poignancy of it all. 

Lindsey and Eve are not so unlucky in love. Eve is incredulous that Lindsey can be so calm about the sudden change of events and the threat of exposure. But Lindsey takes a more optimistic view; the fact that Cordelia is awake means that the Powers are taking an interest, that they matter. But we also discover that envy is an unrelenting taskmaster, and that Lindsey is a slave to his. The motivation behind his slow and considered attack on Angel is jealousy. He resents the fact that this ‘Euro-trash vampire’ has been given everything he once worked for. He forgets that he used to be Wolfram and Hart's golden boy, was moving up the ranks with exceptional speed until he chose to walk away, chose not to be a part of the Wolfram and Hart machine after he had his blinkers removed by Angel (in the aforementioned A2.18). But hearing that Angel had been handed the reigns he once coveted must have burned beyond endurance and so reignited the flame of hatred and envy. Despite his denial to Eve, Lindsey’s world really does revolve around Angel.

The next day Wesley and Cordelia hit the books ‘old-school’ style. No extra help, no divisional involvement, just the two of them trawling through a myriad of mystical texts looking for answers just as they did in the old days. She turns Wesley’s head, at least momentarily, and reminds him of the way it used to work, before Wolfram and Hart were part of the team. With that nod to the past, so comes acknowledgement of past events that were none too pleasing, that have, for the most part, been swept under the carpet, forgotten. Cordelia apologises for her part, her body’s deeds acting under the volition of another, she just wanted to tell him that before… 

And then they find the images, the symbols they’ve been searching for. They are a form of protection rune used to cast concealment spells that guard the bearer from being seen by higher powers, mystics, seers or modern surveillance devices. Handy magic. Cordelia remarks that somebody really wants to stay hidden and…we see Lindsey entering the building, walking past security cameras and laser beams without detection. He is able to walk up unnoticed behind a particular demon, stab him in the back and retrieve a crystal from its throat.

In Contrast to Lindsey who seems to know the place like the back of his hand, Cordelia is kind of lost in the hallways of Wolfram and Hart. She describes it as a rat maze, complete with rats. She turns to see Spike walking towards her. She smiles and greets him like an old friend, perfectly willing to accept his change of motivation, though not without a classic Cordelia comment:

Cordelia: Well, well. I heard you weren't evil anymore, which kind of makes the hair silly. 

But Spike isn’t there to trade witticisms. He strides purposefully towards her, adopts his game face, grabs her by the shoulders and bites down on her neck. But then, almost instantaneously, he steps back and looks at her with a puzzled expression. A second later Angel punches Spike and a small scale scuffle breaks out. Angel full of wrath and warning in a ‘nobody messes with my Cordy!’ kind of way. Spike tries to explain:

Spike: She's evil, you gormless tit.  Cordelia: Excuse me? Who bit whom?  Angel:  Did you call me a tit?  Cordelia: I thought he had a soul.  Spike: I thought she didn't.  Cordelia: I do.  Spike: So do I.  Cordelia: Well, clearly, mine's better. 

[Ahhhh, this trio could have made magic together given but the opportunity!]

Cordelia: And you called this guy the big hero?  Spike: You called me a hero? 

Spike is clearly chuffed to have been identified as such by Angel. It is all he wants, Angel’s good opinion and recognition that he’s changed. But Angel’s not so ready to admit it in front of the boy just yet. He withdraws the compliment saying that he didn’t know that Spike was eating people again. In frustration Spike gives Angel a Liverpool kiss sending them both reeling in pain but gives the opportunity for further explanation. It was a taste test. Spike needed to know if what his source said was true. This is interesting because it confirms that Spike doesn’t trust Lindsey, the source of his information. Secondly, he says that Cordelia didn’t taste evil or demon-y at all. But she should, shouldn’t she? She is, after all, part demon and has been since Birthday (A3.11). Something isn’t right here…

What source, Angel wants to know. And so Spike tells them about his guy, the visions and the connection to the Powers. It all hits a little too close to home for Angel and Cordelia. Spike refers to the faux Doyle as ‘Tattoo Boy’ causing the proverbial shit to hit the proverbial fan. As the trio talk a very nervous Eve watches from the end of the corridor. Eve is right to be concerned. Angel quickly zeros in on her as a likely source of information. It’s the parasite from Soul Purpose that proves to be her undoing; the fact that Spike’s informant told him to rescue Angel from a bug that she put on him in the first place. The whole team is bought in. This is serious.

Meanwhile, the office has been deserted, whatever Lindsey is doing deep in the basement has triggered an evacuation warning. Without too much prompting Eve spills the beans about the ‘fail-safe’, a device that was designed to destroy Angel just in case he couldn’t be controlled by the Senior Partners, which to date, hasn’t been a huge problem, it’s still not a problem since the device has been artificially activated by Lindsey, not by Angel’s rabid insubordination. They quickly realise that the impostor must be the one behind it, so ask for more information from Spike. He doesn’t have much to add just that he’s an urban cowboy who once had a hand chopped off. The light bulb goes on; they’re in the dark no longer. They know exactly who they are about to face. Wes says he can try and remedy the concealment spell and takes Fred and Lorne to assist. Fred doesn’t want Angel to go alone but he doesn’t want to risk anyone he cares about. Spike volunteers and Angel quickly, too quickly, agrees. OK, so he doesn’t care about Spike, much, but on the flipside, he might just be beginning to realise that there are worse things than having Spike watching your back in a rumble. Cordelia is going too – Angel tries to dissuade her, but she’s determined. She’s a warrior and she wants to see a lawyer. Nobody gets away with messing with her guy!

The trio go down to the basement and set off the security system that Lindsey was able to deceive. It releases a horde of zombies. Spike volunteers his services to hold them at bay while Angel and Cordy go forward. They find Lindsey. He acts glib at their arrival. Should he get weak at the knees, promise to be a good boy?

Angel:  It's a little late for that, Doyle. 

Lindsey: There's always time for redemption. Isn't that your whole thing? 

To which Angel delivers his cutting rebuttal:

Angel:  You had your chance. I guess some people, they just never change

Angel finds it hard to believe anyone can change and even though Lindsey is making no pretense of real repentance, Angel’s belief that a leopard can’t change its spots, particularly a Lindsey-shaped leopard, will come to prominence later in the season.  Angel wants to finish things, so he goes to punch Lindsey, but surprisingly, Lindsey is able to stop it mid-thrust and sends him flying across the room. Huh, looks like he’s learnt a new trick or two in his absence. Lindsey threatens Angel with a small pen knife. Angel draws a samurai sword. Lindsey magically transforms his little bitty blade into once comparable to his foe’s. Angel charges Cordelia with shutting down the strange machine that Lindsey had activated.

So, they start to fight, swordplay, acrobatic moves and banter. They remember the first time they met, when Angel kicked his client out the window of a skyscraper. Good times. It’s another backward glance; what they were back at the beginning, the day he made an enemy of Wolfram and Hart, another reminder of the strange and unexpected journey they’ve taken.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Wesley, with assistance from the team, is working the mojo, reading the weird language, casting the spell. It’s another instance of looking back, returning to their roots; Wes, Fred and Lorne. Gunn is with them too but he’s a bit like a fish out of water. He remarks:

Gunn: Man, I should be down there. Got enough Betty Crockers. I should be throwing some hurt. 

That’s what he used to do. What brought him into Angel’s world was his hunting and fighting skills. But he’s not down there ‘throwing some hurt’, he’s upstairs with the suits. Unlike the others who actually return to their roots, Charles merely looks at his from a distance, observes the irony but does nothing about it. He is unable to reconnect with what he was because he has been fundamentally changed by Wolfram and Hart. 

Angel and Lindsey continue to fight, continue their punch strewn stroll down memory lane. Lindsey gains the advantage by plunging his sword into Angel’s heart. But it’s not the sword that stings, its Lindsey’s words:

Lindsey: Who is this? Who is this?  I came to fight the vampire with a soul. Guess you shouldn't have sold it, huh? Look at you, from champion to pathetic corporate puppet in just a few months. You used to have fire in your heart.  Now all you got in there is that big honkin' sword. How's that feel, champ? 

Fire in his heart? That seems so long ago, now all that’s left is a dried-up old walnut of a thing, or so it seems. But there’s life in the old nut yet. Angel pulls out the sword to continue the fight. As Angel re-engages, Cordelia has some success with the giant machine. It begins shutting down and returns to an unanimated state. Lindsey’s power diminishes with it – he can’t even throw a straight punch any longer. Angel, through this battle with the past personified is able to find himself again, the self he wants to be, confident, assured, purposeful and is freshly reminded of what it was he was fighting in the first place.

Angel: I'm Angel.  I beat the bad guys

This is no solo effort. Angel is able to win because of the efforts of his team. Sure, Angel did the actual fighting, but Cordelia cracked the machine, Wes and co. were able to make Lindsey’s protective tattoos evaporate and even Spike was able to take on the mundane task of holding off the zombies that enabled Angel to progress to the main feature. Teamwork wins the day, again.

So now the Senior Partners are alerted to Lindsey and the games he’s been playing. Angel is only too happy to let them have him. Oh yeah, Senior Partners are firmly in control here. Lindsey is sucked up through a smoky portal up to where the Partners hand out their punishment, perhaps never to be seen again. Eve is sent packing too. The whole family, including Spike and Harmony see her to the door and off the premises with the parting promise of vengeance courtesy of the Senior Partners should she ever show her face again, should she carry through with her threats of retribution. Lorne suggests a drink which meets with general agreement, if not enthusiasm, particularly from Spike who readily admits:

Spike:  Well, I've been prancing around thinking I had a destiny. Love to drown my embarrassment in a few pints. 

With the admission comes a sense of relief. He’s been released from a lie, a charade that never quite fit. His compass has been placed squarely back in his own hand, the needle points magnetic north. He needs no destiny to find direction. He can go wherever he likes.

Even Angel wouldn’t say no to a drink. It’s been a big day. It’s about to get bigger. 

Cordelia says that she and Angel will catch up to the others. Her first question, once they are alone, is how does he feel? He feels good, like Harmony in Harm’s Way earlier in the season, he finds that the unbridled hatred of another is quite a handy reminder of one's self-worth, though admittedly, he doesn’t think that beating up little old Lindsey qualifies as a real big deal. Cordy laughs at his obtuseness:

Cordelia: Boy, I really do fall for the dumb ones. You know how you're always trying to save, oh, every single person in the world? Did it ever occur to you, you were one of them?

Helping the helpless was the original mission, saving souls and in the process he just might save his own. He needed some help to remember that, and Cordelia was there to give it to him, get him back on the tracks. She’s just about succeeded.  

Angel:  Lindsey wasted a lot of energy trying to make me doubt myself. I know it's not even close to over, but I do feel like I can do this. Wolfram & Hart, whatever's coming, I feel like we can beat it. 

Through Cordelia’s guidance, Angel's finds self-belief and confidence. They fertilise the seed of hope and it germinates, allowing a sense of purpose to be reborn. So, did she really mean all that stuff about him having made a deal with the devil? True to the last, she doesn’t salve his bruised ego by lying to make him feel better: 

Cordelia:  Was God's honest truth.  But you're bigger than that. You'll win this in the end.  

The deal was wrong but, if he remembers who he is, he won’t be corrupted, and he’ll come through in the end. She has absolute faith in him. Then Cordy breaks the bad news – she won’t be around to see the outcome. This is not her gig anymore; he can explain it to everyone once he understands:

Angel:  That's gonna be never.  I need you here. 

So Angel, who never needed anybody, admits that he needs this one; Cordelia, who has been his best friend, his constant, his conscience, his guide, his support, his ally, his partner. How will he go on without her? But she’s given him the toolkit; be true to himself, remember who he was, remember who he is. Easy.

Cordelia: Don't make it hard, Angel. I'm just on a different road... and this is my off-ramp. The Powers That Be owed me one, and I didn't waste it. I got my guy back on track. 

Angel doesn’t understand. There’s more he needs to say but Cordy knows she’s slim on time. She touches Angel’s face tenderly: 

Cordelia: We take what we can get, champ, and we do our best with it. I'll be seeing you . . . Oh, what the hell. One for the road?  

As she walks back to him Angel smiles. It’s a genuine, real, emotional smile – an event that is so rare in Angel’s history. It is, perhaps, the happiest we ever see him, even though the moment is steeped in bittersweet sadness.  As they kiss a kiss a long time coming, the telephone rings. Cordelia says he really must answer it, which Angel reluctantly does. It’s the hospital with the news that Cordelia has died. At first he doesn’t believe, says it is impossible, says she’s standing right in front of him…

He looks for Cordelia only to discover that she’s disappeared. He chokes back tears and hears the truth. She never did wake up from the coma. Suddenly all her words take on a new significance. Her parting gift has been to get Angel back on track. The Powers owed her one and she didn’t waste it. So, the Powers don’t seem particularly interested in Angel per se. It was for Cordelia, used and abused at their hands that they stepped in and interceded (and perhaps to usurp the pretensions of the audacious Lindsey and his false claims to Power-provided visions). 

And it’s interesting too, the perpetual use of the descriptive “back on track” when describing Angel’s need to regain a sense of purpose. ‘Tracks’ imply a specific destination and thus a destiny. The ‘tracks’ take you somewhere pre-determined, you have no choice in the way the journey unfolds, the tracks make the decision for you. Contrast this to Spike and his metaphorical compass with which he is free to choose his own direction, destination and route and it’s not hard to see that Angel is still bound by his apparent ‘destiny’, no matter how much he denies adherence to such belief.  But still, Cordy has worked a miracle here; she’s managed to recover a smidgen of self-belief and encouraged the regrowth of hope and what could be bad about that?  What can he say but whisper a simple ‘thank you’ to the woman who had such a profound influence on his very existence.

Next up: Angel Season 5 episode 13 - Why We Fight