Angel S05 E02 – You’ve got mail.

Previously: The Gang took over Wolfram & Hart and Spike appeared from within a sparkly tornado.
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Just Rewards

Lorraine: A title card tells us we’re going back to Sunnydale California, nineteen days earlier, and I already know it’s going to be a sick joke in which we travel back solely to see how Spike got trapped in a glitter tornado. Sure enough, we find ourselves back in the Hellmouth, Spike all aglow in his magical, world saving, orange light.

Kirsti: Out of context, that scene just looks insane.

Sweeney: I didn’t think about that, but you’re right. I know we have a few Angel-before-Buffy watchers and I am deeply curious to hear how this came across to you without watching Buffy.

Lor: We revisit Spike’s last moment with Buffy, though for whatever hilarious reasons, we do not relive the hands bursting into flame. A+ choice, show. We cut suddenly away from the Hellmouth back to Angel’s office. Spike is trying to gain his bearings, quickly accessing his surroundings. Harmony asks Spike what he’s doing there, allowing the slower members of the Fang Gang to be all, “OOOH. THIS IS SPIKE.” Wesley gives the official exposition dialogue, reminding us that William the Bloody is the worst known/recorded vampire after Angel(us) himself.

Spike spots Angel, puts on his vamp grill and charges. He, however, goes straight through Angel. In normal face, Spike curses his luck.

Sweeney: My feelings for Ramen Noodle Head be damned, I chuckled. Maybe it’s because nothing we just saw made sense or because I’ve resigned myself to the train wreck that is this show, but I was all, “Oh, so this is what we’re doing?“

Lor: Electric Cellos.

Spike asks what happened to him and Harmony says that her unprofessional opinion is that he’s a ghost. Spike denies this, but he’s standing in the middle of Angel’s desk, decidedly incorporeal. Wesley notices the Tacky Necklace. Angel explains that he gave that very necklace to Buffy. Spike asks about Buffy and Angel says she’s fine. She was in Europe, last he heard.

K: “Last I heard?” DUDE. It’s been NINETEEN DAYS. That is most definitely not “last I heard” territory. “Last I heard” is, like, I-haven’t-spoken-to-her-in-3-to-6-months territory. Also, given that she would have a grand total of no documentation and no fixed address, homegirl is probably still hanging out somewhere in the continental US, trying to get a passport. Or, you know, the money to PAY for a passport. But okay, show. Whatever.

Lor: Spike starts getting panicky, saying he has to find her and speak to her, but Angel says that will be hard. They start circling each other, arguing about who had who when and I take a moment to pray to the TV gods that this won’t actually be what their relationship is like for the season.

Amen.

K: Yeah, you should probably pray harder. Or stock up on booze…

Sweeney: You are a destroyer of prayers and dreams.

Lor: Harmony is the one who stops this, grossed out that he actually had something with Buffy. Spike thinks he’s in hell. Nope. LA.  (S: MY FAVORITE JOKES.) Gunn asks if Spike is a good guy vampire, like Angel, and he and his Leaning Tower of Hair respond that Spike is nothing like him. Spike says that’s right and also demands to know what they’ve done to him.

We cut to Fred’s lab. She examining Spike while Wesley is looking at something under a microscope. Lorne is rambling about the marketability of a story about two vampires and the Slayer they love and lose. (Ahem.) Fred shares that her findings are weird; Spike isn’t a ghost because they can see him, he’s radiating heat and he has brainwave activity. Angel neener, neeners that the last point is strange indeed.

K: If you were to photoshop his head onto Regina George’s body, you wouldn’t be far off the mark.

Lor: Wesley says that Spike’s definitely tied to the amulet. He asks Spike if he remembers feeling anything when he was wearing it and Spike brats about his painful death. Fred guesses that Spike was mailed their way for some higher purpose and Spike asks a very important question: what gives them the right? He keeps up his rant about how saving the world should’ve been enough but then starts to disappear. Fred calls attention to his mostly transparent state and Spike gives a, “balls,” before disappearing completely.

Sweeney: I liked that little rant because it was a good segue from BtVS to AtS. Being played like pawns by The Powers That Be Contriving and other grand puppet masters is a critical recurring element of this show but not BtVS so it was fun that they had this crossover character begin by acknowledging that outright. “I’m not used to being manipulated like this and it’s way not fucking fun.”

Lor: Nicely said.

Fred asks what that, “saving the world,” bit was about but Angel is reluctant to give Spike anything he’s due. Maybe he kept watching the show after season 5 too. You never know. Spike reappears across the room. They ask him where he went and he first seems confused and then perhaps a bit reluctant as well. Instead, he starts blaming all of this on Angel, calling him too chicken to wear the amulet and once again bringing Buffy into their stupid, stupid arguing. What do you mean we’re only 9 minutes into the episode?

K: I’m going one step further than headdesking, Lor:

Sweeney:

Lor: Angel says Buffy made the call to send him away. It wasn’t his choice. Spike says that “this” wasn’t his choice either, which I guess he’s referring to being shipped in the mail via amulet. Spikes says he doesn’t “give a piss about atonement or destiny,” because when he said he got a soul for Buffy, he really, really meant he got a soul for Buffy.

Fred and Wesley are shocked to hear that Spike has a soul. Angel says it didn’t seem worth mentioning, in that way that Angel never thinks using his words is worth it. Spike says, “Captain Forehead,” felt less special when there was suddenly another vampire with a soul around.

Angel leaves the lab and Spike follows after him. Think they’ll bicker some more? LET’S WATCH. Spike walks through a wall to catch up to Angel and picks on him for running away again. Angel passes Harmony’s desk and she starts to remind him about a meeting, but he cuts her off. Spike says that Angel’s even got his ex-girlfriend fetching him coffee, which is a nice perk for a sellout.

Spike has been around for approximately 10 minutes, so he’s about to lay down some knowledge on Angel about his set-up at Wolfram & Hart and how blind Angel is about it all. In walks some kind of beastie and Angel inexplicably starts beating up on it, even though he works for a fucking firm that represents demons and such.

K: Seriously, it made literally no sense. I mean, does he beat Lorne up every time he walks into a room? W&H must have other demons on staff. It’s not exactly an uncommon sight.

Lor: Naturally, after he takes out the damn thing, Harmony appears to inform him that that was his 3 o’clock. Angel wants to know why he’s meeting with something that eats babies and apparently it was to negotiate the end of baby eating. Luckily, Gunn shows up to inform us that this particular kind of beastie, a Grox’lar, likes to get beat up before meetings and negotiations! PHEW.

Sweeney: I hate everything about this scene from inexplicable-all-knowing-newbie-wisdom, to contrived killing of their client, to more-contrived-jokes-kill-was-a-good-thing. Bad. All of it.

Lor: Gunn says he should’ve briefed Angel on the Baby Eater, but Spike showed up and side-tracked things. Plus, he’s been real busy firing people at Wolfram & Hart. They walk off, leaving Harmony to chat with Spike. She apologizes for being awkward, but loses him when she suggests they talk about “them.” He walks away from her without a word.

K: I kind of have Harmony feels.

Lor: Legitimate feels.

Spike heads to Angel’s office, not caring that Angel is in a meeting.

He stands at the doorway and listens as some lawyer dude comes in to ask why they’ve shut down the grave-robbing division. In the past, W&H rob said graves to provide the bodies to a big time client named Hainsley, who will be less than thrilled if they stop providing them. Angel sternly tells Lawyer Dude to convey the message to Hainsley that they are no longer providing dead bodies and he is no longer their client. Lawyer Dude is scared silly.

As Lawyer Dude is walking out, Spike, leaning against a door frame even though he is incorporeal, tells him that that he doesn’t have to take this. I bet this leads to more bickering between Angel and Spike! I bet Spike even brings up Buffy!

(Yes. And yes.)

Angel tells Spike to get lost and he’s all, “LIKE I WANNA BE HERE ANYWAYS.” Dude, you could’ve left ages ago. Or like, 15 minutes of episode. It feels a little like ages.

Zoomy shots of LA brings us right back to Angel’s office, but at night. Angel is brood-thinking. I think he’s thinking and his hair is brooding. Man, that hair is tall. (K: SO TALL, OMG.) (S: I like your theory that all the brooding is why his hair is so big, though! IT’S FULL OF BROODY FEELINGS.) Wesley walks in and Angel either smells or hears him there. He asks Wes if he really thinks Spike is ghosting, because that could’ve been him. It should’ve been. Wes tells him not to feel guilty, but Angel unconvincingly says he doesn’t. He’s just thinking that Wolfram & Hart gave him the Tacky Necklace in the first place. They must’ve know what it would’ve done to him. So why give him Wolfram & Hart and then make him ghost-like? Wesley suggests a few reasons why, finally thinking that maybe, The Powers That Be Contriving were after Spike all along. For ratings.

Sweeney: The Powers That Be Contriving were super nervous about cancellation.

Lor: SPEAK OF SPIKE! I was just thinking, “man, it’s been like 30 seconds with no Spike.” (No I wasn’t.) He tried to leave town, but every time he hit the city limits, he popped back at Wolfram & Hart.

K: Uh, so maybe DON’T LEAVE THE CITY??? There’s plenty of Los Angeles to be in that’s not Angel-adjacent…

L: Wesley once again points out that Spike is tied to the amulet and the amulet is tied to W&H. Spike once again says he belongs to no one. Harmony once again enters with some news, and this time, it’s that Lawyer Dude is back from dumping their client. Angel says to bring him in, and two other dudes do. What’s left of Lawyer Dude is in buckets.

After a Not Break, Angel asks Harmony for Laywer Dude’s contact list. Gunn brings Angel information on Hainsley, who turns out to be a well connected necromancer. Hence, the dead bodies. Back in his office, Spike is sitting in Angel’s chair (K: While being incorporeal. Okay, show. Whatever.). He tells him to get up and he says, “make me.”

Angel says he’s going after Hainsley and even after four seasons and two episodes, Angel’s all, “I CAN DO THIS BY MYSELF.” Wesley argues with him until Gunn pipes in that he knows how to hurt Hainsley.

We cut to Angel picking out a car of his many. GUESS WHO’S ALREADY IN THE CAR? I was seriously just thinking, “but if Angel is leaving, what will Spike be doing?” (No, I wasn’t.)

Angel and Spike go to Hainsley’s house. His butler warns them against interrupting him, but they insist. In one of Hainsley’s rooms, they find an arrangement of dead people Angel guesses is a showroom.

K: Ew. 

Lor: Hainsley is preforming some sort of ritual on a dead body, drawing energy from a chatty demon who is also in the room. His butler interrupts to say more men from Wolfram & Hart have arrived. Hainsley says to kill them. The Butler goes off to do just that, equipped with big butcher knives. Angel calmly picks up a spoon and throws it at the butler. “A spoon?” Spike asks, incredulous. It was the first time all episode I laughed. Twenty three minutes in, ladies and gents!

The Butler goes down and Angel tells Spike to stop rooting for the other team. Spike says he’ll root for anyone who takes him down a notch.

K: I laugh until there are tears streaming down my face because in Australia, “rooting” = “fucking.” So basically, Angel just told Spike to stop being gay, and Spike replied that he’ll fuck anyone who takes Angel down a peg or two. This is precisely why my notes say “This entire episode has homoerotic tones to it.” And then Tumblr gifted me this. 

Because of COURSE it would. 

Lor: Well then.

All of Spike’s issues come tumbling out as he says that Angel has it way too good. Meanwhile he saved the world for “all the right reasons,” and all he got was “toasted and ghosted.” He whines that it’s not fair. Angel bites back that while Spike asked for a soul, he didn’t and it almost killed him. He spent a hundred years trying to deal with infinite remorse and Spike only spent three weeks moaning in a basement. It was a rough three weeks though, Angel. And I mean for me. (S: Word.)

Spike fades out of the argument.

Angel goes and finds Hainsley, dramatically kicking down his door. Hainsley said he wasn’t expecting the big man himself. The lady who was dead a second ago hops off the table and tries to excuse herself out of the room. Angel grabs her arm, and her eyes glow red. It’s the chatty demon. Hainsley is putting demons in human bodies. Angel tells him his supply is cut off and with a flick of his hand, Hainsley starts to control Angel, because he’s dead, see? Spike fades back in and tells the wizard to keep doing his killing thing. Hainsley says he could dust Angel, but he won’t, because it would be too big an insult to the senior partners. He releases Angel.

Angel takes out his cell phone and makes a quick call into Gunn. Hainsley jokingly asks if he just called in an airstrike. No, but they are going to call the IRS and get all of Hainsley’s assets frozen. Angel pimp walks out of there as Hainsley calls that he’s going to sue him to hell. Angel, “Good luck with that. We’re your lawyers.” Spike follows after Angel asking if he really just called the IRS on a necromancer. Yes, Spike. That just happened. He mocks Angel until he fades out again.

This time, Spike reappears in front of Hainsley. He offers to give Spike back his corporeal body, in exchange for something. Spike eagerly asks if this means he has to hurt Angel.

K: Because OF COURSE. You can’t have all this homoerotic tension and not have them land a few blows (nudge nudge wink wink).

Lor: Back at Wolfram & Hart, Wesley, Fred and Gunn gather in Angel’s office. Hainsley is down for now. News on Spike is less good. They can’t get rid of him, though Wesley says they may be able to give him something he asked for: eternal rest.

Spike gets back to W&H now too. Harmony snits at him some more seeing as how he’s ignoring her and not very much better at opening up now that he’s ensouled. She stomps off and Spike keeps on to Angel’s office. He overhears the Fang Gang discussing him. Fred doesn’t think this is right, but Wesley thinks getting him dead dead would be merciful. Angel is just on board with getting rid of him. They would have to take the Tacky Necklace to hallowed ground and destroy it. Gunn asks what Angel thinks they should do, and he wants to sleep on it.

Later that night, Angel climbs into bed, only to find that Spike is there to say more stuff about how awesome Angel’s life is.

K: To clarify – Spike is in Angel’s bedroom, not in Angel’s bed. The latter would be trolling the fanfic writers a little too much. 

Sweeney: But they only stopped just shy, what with the moonlight through the windows and everything.

Lor: Spike claims he isn’t there for a fight– not that he could if he wanted to. He tells Angel about the necromancer’s deal. Angel asks what he’s going to do and Spike thinks that’s Angel’s problem, his having to ask that. He doesn’t play for the evil side anymore. I’m not sure what in the last half hour of television was supposed to convince Angel that Spike isn’t evil, but okay. Angel asks what Spike wants and he says he can’t live being useless. He wants it to end.

Cemetery. #Buffynostalgia. Angel asks if Spike’s sure about this and he says it’s for the best. Angel picks up an urn and moves to destroy the Tacky Necklace, but instead smacks himself IN THE FACE. It happens again and then Angel is lifted off the ground. Hainsley is there. He throws Angel into a mausoleum as Spike complains that it took Hainsley long enough to step it. Spike says Hainsley better keep up his end of the deal. He says he will, after he’s done using Spike in his evil schemes. The reason this is dumb is because I believe exactly 0% of it. As if this show would ever have Spike do something so bad.

Sweeney: Right? Given the absurd maneuvers to get him here in the first place and the heavy-handed, “SEE HOW INSTA-WISE HE IS!” business, this was painfully transparent misdirection.

Lor: Angel comes to and he’s in Hainsley’s place, laid out on that stone slab-like table. Hainsley has cut his shirt open at the navel, and it makes me laugh because it just looks like a 90’s type belly shirt. Ha ha.

K: It took me a weirdly long time to work out that his shirt wasn’t intentionally like that.

Lor: Anyways, Angel says Hainsley won’t get away with killing him, but that isn’t the plan. Hainsley is going to put Spike in Angel’s body, so Spike can set Hainsley’s life and business back right. Spike says more faux-evil things I still don’t believe, and then Hainsley starts the procedure. Hainsley grabs essence o’ Spike and starts to transfer it into Angel, but Spike stops himself in Hainsley’s body. Angel is able to get up and fight Hainsley, who hits his own stone slab and falls to the floor.

Hainsley gets up and starts fighting back again. Angel grabs a silver platter and hurls it so that it chops Hainsley’s head off. Spike is left standing as Hainsley’s body falls away from him. Spike says he was the one fighting Angel there at the end, just because he wanted to get some licks in. He smiles. Glad one of us is happy.

The next morning, Angel fills Wesley in on what happened. Wesley says they should probably share those kinds of plans in the future. Angel says that Spike isn’t very big on sharing and Harmony is on hand to add a, “preach to the horse’s mouth.” That means absolutely nothing, so I want to now use it all the time.

K: Like “floor the pedal to the metal??”

Sweeney: Lorraine and I will be in the same city in precisely thirty days and I CANNOT WAIT to interject, “You’re preaching to the horse’s mouth!” at random times in the conversation. The more of our Coachella party in the vicinity, the better.

Lor: Challenge accepted.

Fred goes up to her office and finds Spike lurking in a corner. He says he’s slipping. He doesn’t want to go, but he feels like he’s falling into a big chasm, which explains why he keeps vanishing. He knows what’s trying to take him, and it isn’t the place where heroes go. He confesses that he’s terrified and asks Fred to help him.

The end.

Not a big fan of this episode. There are a few of you who asked us to try and give Spike more of a chance in this season, as it seems he’s his most likable here. To those of you who have expressed something like that, you’ll be happy to know that this episode wasn’t dragged down for me because of Spike necessarily. I just think the bickering back and forth is not compelling TV. That whole beginning set-up dragged on for too long and the second half started to pick up, until the Spike-fake-out that was obviously a fake-out.

Sweeney: I don’t have a problem with Spike and Angel bickering, per se, and some of it was fun, but there’s definitely a limit on how much of it I can deal with and if all episodes share this 95%/5% breakdown of bickering/getting-shit-done dynamic, I might lose my mind. Mostly, I just don’t want to watch any more Buffy bickering. It’s like using this spinoff to keep one of the worst elements of the show alive. WHY?

All of that being said, I suspect banter like this (should it persist in this fashion all season) will be most poorly received by the main recapper because truly, none of it is significant. It’s filler that you gloss over and maybe chuckle at, which is way less fun when you’re trying to assess what actually happened in that scene. There were just so many Spike/Angel bits in this episode in which nothing but pointless bickering really happened.

Lor: Yes, exactly! I dislike the amount of bickering and when Buffy is brought into it, it’s even worse. That also a fantastic point about being the main recapper. I really found my patience waning thin when I was trying to write about the back and forth I knew meant nothing.

I think this episode tried to give us a reason that Spike was brought to LA, but I don’t think it tried very hard. It just seemed a bit patched together and sloppy, as if we were all supposed to be just happy Spike was mailed to Angel. If this season wants to win Spike-points from me, it’s going to have to handle his presence more deftly. I won’t accept what’s coming off (with the exception of the last 60 seconds) as pure comic relief. It’s kind of an insult to everything we’ve gone through with this character to bring him onto a show where we’ve been through an equal amount, and add him as a punchline.

K: A punchline with second billing in the credits, nonetheless! 

Lor: I’m speaking too soon, though. So what I should be saying here is that in this episode, Spike felt like an empty punchline, and one to a joke I didn’t particularly find funny.

In the end, it’s interesting to consider what the episode didn’t: if Spike is being pulled towards hell, does this mean he still deserves to die? Does it mean that three weeks in a basement and one saving of the world does not negate all that he’s done, no matter how much, “I have a soul now, duh!” he’s done in the past? Spike was kind of all over the place in this episode, thanks in part to the way the writers seemed to want us to believe that he may still be evil (what are we? new here?) and in the end, it led to an episode I already think will be at the bottom of my rankings list.

That’s actually an optimistic outlook. If it gets worse than this, I don’t want to know.

 

Next time: Angel tries to help a werewolf and who else is remembering how much they miss Oz? Anyway, check out this other werewolf in Angel S05 E03 – Unleashed.