“Soul Purpose”

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Episode 10 of Season 5

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“And the compass needle keeps spinning. And the world gets murkier and murkier.”

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Original US airdate: January 21st, 2004

Rewatched: August 23rd, 2024

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• Writer: Brent Fletcher

• Director: David Boreanaz

• Guests: Sarah Thompson, Mercedes McNab

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This episode circles back to this season’s main theme – is Angel still a hero? First, two interesting things about this episode are it’s David Boreanaz’s debut as a director and his knee surgery meant Angel needed to have a lot of sitting/lying down scenes. This need led to an episode centered on Angel’s dreams, something that was more common on Buffy than on Angel so far.

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It starts with Angel dreaming about the events in “Destiny”, in a slightly altered form, then Angel dreams that Wes stakes him. Later he dreams that Fred dissects him, finding that his heart is indeed a walnut and that his soul is a (dead) goldfish. Once Fred gets everything out, she says that Angel is an empty shell. Angel also dreams that Spike and Buffy are having sex in his bed (it is not Sarah Michelle Gellar in this scene and the dialogue is taken from “The Prom”). Next, he dreams it’s the apocalypse. Spike ends up shanshuing, Angel ends up ignored, working as a mail guy for Wolfram & Hart, like Numero Cinco. Then he dreams that Lorne is a honky-tonk singer, but Angel is unable to sing for Lorne to read him. In his final dream, Angel is in an armchair in a field. His friends visit him and tell him that he can be finished if he wants to be and spend the rest of his life like this. Between the first and the later dreams, Angel does worry out loud about the gray areas of working for Wolfram & Hart. It’s very clear that joining his enemies and having Spike around make Angel worry he is not the hero he once was. He could give up, let Spike be the hero, let it all go. But the dreams also show that deep down, Angel doesn’t want to do this. If he could be happy giving up, he wouldn’t be dreaming about being left behind by Spike.

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In addition to the dreams, Spike’s storyline is picking up. His choice to remain in LA has him at somewhat loose ends, until he is approached by a guy in a bar. Viewers recognize that it’s Lindsey, but he introduces himself as Doyle (Spike met Doyle, but never knew his name, so the ruse can work). Lindsey as Doyle claims responsibility for sending the amulet to Wolfram & Hart and de-ghosting Spike. He heavily implies the Powers had a hand in it (which may not be a lie). He claims to have visions and wants Spike to work for him. Spike plays the hero with Lindsey, saving a girl in an alley from vampires. Spike them berates her for being in an alley alone at night. Lindsey comments that Angel didn’t save his first girl. Finally, Lindsey sets Spike up with an apartment. Wes and Gunn later find Spike there and offer him a job at Wolfram & Hart, which Spike turns down, saying he doesn’t want to join the evil empire. It’s a Spike-inflected version of “City of”.

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The final storyline involves Eve, who is together with Lindsey. Lindsey has some great new tattoos that keep him off Wolfram & Hart’s radar, allowing him and Eve to hatch plans. It seems that Eve has been planting a demon parasite on Angel, which weakens him and causes him to hallucinate. If not stopped, Angel would eventually never recover. To keep Team Angel distracted, Eve brings an artifact that the Senior Partners want to know more about (this may be true) and uses the need for info to keep Angel’s friends from checking on him. It seems that Eve and Lindsey want to build Spike up and tear Angel down, hoping the Senior Partners decide they’re backing the wrong vampire. What’s interesting is that Lindsey sends Spike to save Angel, claiming he had a vision. Spike gets to save the day, and Angel is back (it should be noted, there were two parasites, but Angel did kill one, necessitating Eve to come back and place a 2nd, this is the one Spike killed).

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Later as the gang discuss the events, Angel realizes Eve’s role in it. However, he can’t prove it and with Eve being their liaison to the Senior Partners, it’s hard to go after her, so she faces no tangible consequences. The question of what aims Lindsey (and Eve) are following remains unanswered. Spike seems to be becoming a hero in his own right, unfortunately based on lies. And Angel is still doubting himself. Season 5 is getting interesting.

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Finally, in the audio commentary to this episode, Christian Kane notes that Angel both living and working at Wolfram & Hart makes it like a prison – he can’t escape the gray areas ever. It’s interesting that in all seasons, Angel has lived where he worked, but it has perhaps only come to play a negative role in his life now that he is at Wolfram & Hart.

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“Damage”

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Episode 11 of Season 5

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“Once upon a time.”

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Original US airdate: January 28th, 2004

Rewatched: August 30th, 2024

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• Writer: Steven S. DeKnight and Drew Goddard

• Director: Jefferson Kibbee

• Guests: Tom Lenk, Mercedes McNab, Navi Rawat

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Sunnydale meets LA in this episode. The central storyline has Angel and Spike trying to save a young woman named Dana, although they are not able to work together this episode, with each one trying to out-do the other. They both suspect she’s been possessed by a demon, but in the end, it turns out she’s a Vampire Slayer. Before Willow (and Buffy) made all Potential Slayers real Slayers six months ago to have an army to face the First Evil, Dana was a catatonic patient in a psychiatric hospital. Her family had been murdered and she’d been tortured, and she’d never recovered. Now, fueled by Slayer dreams, she has become akin to the First Slayer – driven by instinct, she’s slaying whatever gets in her way (even humans). While her intentions may be good, the outcome is not safe for bystanders.

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While Spike and Angel try to get the situation under control, Andrew enters the scene. Sent by Buffy and Giles to help Angel, Andrew, although now a Wachter-in-training, seems his old self. He is ecstatic to find Spike alive. He tells silly tales about vampyres, eats cornflakes from his lunch bag, and tastes a penny when Spike tells him that’s how blood tastes. He also seems to be his old, scared self. When Spike is kidnapped by Dana, Andrew is in shock. When Dana faces Spike, the Slayer dreams and her memories mix, making her think that Spike was the one who hurt her as a child. She decides to torture him, removing his arms before trying to kill him. Angel, however, arrives before she can dust Spike.

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Once Angel detains Dana, with plans to take her back to Wolfram & Hart, Andrew intervenes, showing that he has grown in some ways. Backed by a Slayer army, he tells Angel that Dana is theirs, not Wolfram & Hart’s, and that the orders come from Buffy. He does not back down in the face of Angel’s hostility to the idea. Evidently, the Scoobies put little trust in Angel now that he has joined the evil law firm. Spike, however skeptical he has been of Wolfram & Hart, does trust them to re-attach his arms. Although on its surface a happy end of sorts, it is more complicated than that.

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The encounter with Sunnydale fans the flames of Angel’s doubts. If Buffy, the love of his life, cannot trust he’s made the right decision, then has he really made the right one? Dana, on the other hand, represents two things. First, she shows that for all the good a world full of Slayers entails, it also means Slayers like Dana, who are not able to fight the good fight and need to be contained. Dana also represents the corruption of innocent lives through evil, as Spike and Angel ruminate on at the end of the episode.

Spike: The lass thought I killed her family, and I’m supposed to, what, complain ‘cause hers wasn’t one of the hundreds of families I did kill … For a demon, I never did think that much about the nature of evil. I just threw myself in. Thought it was a party. I liked the rush. I liked the crunch. I never did look back at the victims.

Angel: I couldn’t take my eyes off ‘em. I was only in it for the evil. It was everything to me. It was art. The destruction of the human being. I would have considered Dana a masterpiece.”

[…]

Spike: … she’s too far gone to help. She’s one of us now. She’s a monster.

Angel: She’s an innocent victim.

Spike: So were we. Once upon a time.

Angel: Once upon a time. 

This passage underscores how different Spike and Angel were as vampires, as has been a theme in several episodes this season, but also highlights what they and Dana have in common. None of them chose to become what they are. This episode seems very straightforward, monster of the week, but in the end reminds viewers of the main themes of this season.

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Two final notes. In this episode, it’s mentioned that not just Slayers have the dreams, but also the Potential Slayers. Then, Gunn still seems the most at home at Wolfram & Hart, and very happy with all his new skills (which include golf). As he says this episode, “You have to work the system before it works you”, but it’s still unclear whether Gunn is working the system, or the system him.

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“You're Welcome”

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Episode 12 of Season 5

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“We take what we can get, champ, and we do our best with it.”

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Original US airdate: February 4th, 2004

Rewatched: September 6th, 2024

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• Writer: David Fury

• Director: David Fury

• Guests: Charisma Carpenter, Christian Kane, Sarah Thompson, Mercedes McNab

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It’s the 100th episode of Angel and, a bit differently than the last episode, this one also reminds viewers of where Angel started.

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First, the episode starts with Angel deciding to quit Wolfram & Hart. He’s tired of the gray areas. He’s  tired of not being able to stop his clients from killing. He doesn’t feel like a hero. His team doesn’t take his decision to quit well. Although everyone protests to some extent, Gunn is the most vocal, again showing that he feels most at home at Wolfram & Hart:

Gunn: [… ] Any thought about what would happen to us if we tried to say bye bye? […] You think the Senior Partners are gonna just let us breeze out the front door? […] I’m saying we knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this gig. […] We all got something out of this.

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Deciding on the matter is cut short by news from the hospital. Cordy is awake. She says a vision woke her up, something related to Lindsey and all his new tattoos. The gang is excited to welcome Cordy back, but she is skeptical of their move to Wolfram & Hart. Lindsey, in the meantime, tells Spike Cordy is back, but that she’s evil. Spike bites her, which makes him realize she’s not evil. Despite Spike and Angel having a tense relationship at times, they do show again and again that they can work together, and Spike realizes he needs to tell Angel about “Doyle”. Lindsey decides that things are a bit out of his control, and he decides to activate the fail safe at Wolfram & Hart, which is some giant beast trained to kill Angel. Eve evacuates the building. In the end, Gunn, Fred, Wesley and Lorne perform a spell to make Lindsey’s protection disappear. Angel and Cordy confront Lindsey at the fail safe. While Cordy turns it off, Angel faces off with Lindsey, who has learned some powerful fighting mojo. Although it looks for a minute like Lindsey may best Angel, Angel eventually gains the upper hand. As Angel wins, he tells Lindsey that “All those tattoos, all those new tricks you’ve learned just don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you try. It doesn’t matter where I am or how bad ass you think you are. You know what, I’m Angel. I beat the bad guys.” The fight ends with Lindsey being sucked through a portal by the Senior Partners. Eve is sent packing. Angel decides to stay at Wolfram & Hart. Team Angel can go celebrate. Maybe.

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The main tension this episode is whether Angel is still a hero, the main theme of this season. In the beginning of the series, Angel was unsure of his true road. He’d left Sunnydale and Buffy and was trying to find his feet. Doyle and Cordy helped him be a hero. Doyle died first, then Cordy was hijacked by a has-been Power and was in a coma. Her return helps Angel explore who he is now that he has joined Wolfram & Hart. Cordy’s initial skepticism indicates that leaving might be the best plan, but in the end, she lets him know that he can be a hero even at Wolfram & Hart, he just needs to find a way. It starts with a first conversation mid-episode, when Angel interrupts Cordelia watching the advertisement she had Doyle tape:

Cordy: Doyle pissed me off so righteously, going out like that, but he knew, knew what he had to do, didn’t compromise. Used his last breath to make sure you’d keep fighting. I get that now. […]

Angel: We’re doing fine here. I mean, we’ve done some great work here.

Cordy: Don’t give me that ‘everything’s fine here’ company line. I’m not buying it. Neither are you. Neither are the Powers That Be. […] They know you slipped the track, and they want me to help put you back on it.

Angel: You’re wrong about the Powers. They’re not in my corner anymore. It looks like Spike’s their new champion. […]

Cordy: You just forgot who you are.

Angel: Remind me.

Cordy: No. That’s for you to figure out, Bubba. 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 […] He did right and that gave him something, a light, a glimmer. And that’s the guy … I knew.

Although Cordy’s speech may be ignoring dark Angel of season 2, it does highlight that Angel has been a hero for a long time and made hard decisions, but also shows that his decision to join Wolfram & Hart has not made the Powers turn their backs. Cordy opens up the possibility that Angel can be a hero, even from here.

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At the end of the episode, Cordy tells Angel that he’s made the list of those to be saved.

Cordy: You’ll win this in the end. I just wish I could be there to see it.

Angel: What do you mean? You’re not?

Cordy: I can’t stay. This isn’t me anymore. […]

Angel: I need you here.

Cordy: Don’t make this hard, Angel. I’m just on a different road and this is my offering. The Power That Be owed me one and I didn’t waste it. I got my guy back on track. […] We take what we can get, champ, and we do our best with it. I’ll be seeing you.

Cordy kisses Angel before she leaves, giving him a final gift, a vision. The phone rings, Cordy tells Angel it’s important and to get it. He does and Cordy disappears. The hospital is on the line. Cordy has died. She died a hero. Like Doyle, she used her final moments to fight the good fight.

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The loss of Cordy is more than the loss of the hero. She was Angel’s grounding in the human world. She and Doyle were Angel’s family in a way that the others aren’t. Wes still retains a vague, deep-seated distrust, even after all they’ve been through. It allowed him to keep the prophecy a secret from Angel in season 3. Gunn has never been truly close, perhaps resenting not being the leader. Wolfram & Hart have made him even more apart. Fred is probably the closest, but I think her original crush, and her love triangle with Gunn and Wesley have keep her a bit distant. And Lorne is a bit apart from the whole group. In the end, Angel has the new challenge of being a hero at Wolfram & Hart, but also navigating heroism without his Cordy.

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Then there’s Cordy herself. In the first three seasons of Angel, she became a hero. She truly embraced fighting the good fight and doing good. The events of season 4 derailed that growth, showing us a Cordy possessed, doing things she would never do. And then, she was gone. In a coma and Team Angel was not madly trying to find a cure for her. They let her go. While this episode does give Cordy a hero’s goodbye, it is not enough. The final two seasons of Angel sadly end up negating all of Cordy’s growth. It is unfortunate that this choice may have been made after Charisma Carpenter became pregnant and it saddens me every time I watch her leave the show. Cordy deserved a full hero’s journey, not just a hero’s goodbye.

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“Why We Fight”

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Episode 13 of Season 5

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“You win by doing what’s right.”

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Original US airdate: February 11th, 2004

Rewatched: September 13th, 2024

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• Writer: Steven S. DeKnight & Drew Goddard

• Director: Terrence O'Hara

• Guests: Eyal Podell, Lindsey Ginter, Scott Klace

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Angel gets a visit from his past and we learn more about what Angel was up to before he arrived in Sunnydale.

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In 1943, Angel was in New York when he recruited by the Initiative, seen during season 4 of Buffy, to help get a submarine the US captured from Germany back to the States. When Angel arrives at the submarine, stuck in the middle of the Atlantic, he realizes that the US wants more than just the submarine, it wants the cargo, too. The Germans were capturing vampires with the aim to turn them into super soldiers. The three vampires onboard include Spike, sporting black hair and a Nazi coat, and the Prince of Lies, another vampire that seems to prove (like the Master and Kakistos) that vampires become more animal-like as they age. The vampires have taken out most of the crew, but Angel is able to make a truce, working with the vampires and Sam Lawson, the highest-ranking sailor remaining. The crew and vampires will work together to get the sub back to land. However, when Lawson is gravely injured by the one German prisoner on board, Angel makes the choice to turn Lawson to save everyone else, as Lawson is the only one who can get the engine working. Once the sub is working and it looks like it will make it to the US, Angel makes Lawson and Spike (the other vampires didn’t make it) swim to shore. Angel also leaves the sub before it makes land.

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In the present, Lawson has returned to LA to get answers from Angel. In their interaction on the sub, Lawson is shown as a good sailor and American, although he’s not about following orders blindly. He wants to know why. As he tells Angel, “There’s a difference between orders and purpose.” But he’s also very optimistic about the US and their aims, skeptical that the US would research on demons in the same way the Nazis have been, claiming “You don’t win a war by doing whatever it takes. You win by doing what’s right.” The optimism of human Lawson is very in line with the philosophies of Angel Investigation before joining Wolfram & Hart. Lawson’s arrival in LA is a way for Angel to confront losing his optimism, just as Lawson has since becoming a vampire. Because that is the reason Lawson has come to LA and finally confronted Angel. He wants to understand “why we do what we do.” It seems that Lawson, while no longer a human, is not quite a vampire. Some little bit of Angel’s soul keeps him from being truly evil, despite not having a soul himself, perhaps an indication that your sire can influence what kind of vampire you become. Either way, Lawson has been living in a purgatory between good & evil, not able to figure out who he is. Again, it’s similar to Angel, who is not quite a demon nor a man, and his time at Wolfram & Hart has put him in limbo between good and evil. Like the title of the episode, it’s time for Angel to reevaluate what he’s fighting for.

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A few final notes on this episode. Team Angel doesn’t know where Lindsey is or what his fate is, and only know that Eve has vanished. There is a moment in this episode when Gunn’s knowledge seems to fail him. While he chalks it up to being tired (and the gang at the beginning of this episode it all work and no play), it later turns out to be a sign of something more. Finally, Angel’s desire not to get stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a submarine and Spike’s desire not to be experimented on by the government are somewhat ironic given later events.

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