Angel 5.2: Just Rewards

[thebratqueen]

Fair warning - I've got a lot of disjointed thoughts here. This might not be my usual wrap-up.

Here's the thing - overall I'd rate the ep a B/B+. In other words good. But it's not satisfying.

When I watched this - er, let's just say the first time ;) - I found myself feeling like the direction was off. When I watched it again, I found myself shifting that problem to the overall aim of the episode. Or more specifically Spike.

Not to be all Lorne about it but what's Spike's motivation?

Don't get me wrong - I'm down with rewriting Spike. I HATED weiner Spike with a firey passion and if they want to totally rewrite Spike from the reattached balls up I say faster pussycat, kill kill! Engage the s4 Fred retropersonality ray. All systems go. Hell, do it twice.

But by the same token, give me something.

See, having watched the episode twice I knew about the Hell thing. Which at least gave me an explanation for why the entire first scene was done with Spike's volume on 11 but for a "dun dun DUNNN" type ending it still didn't tell me what his motivation was. If fear of Hell was supposed to be guiding all of Spike's decisions - which I think it was considering how he was blocked to be indrawn and frightened earlier in the ep - then what exactly was that making him do? I get that he's just returned from all that and he's out of sorts, I'm not saying he needs a fifty page action plan. I'm just saying show me how he gets from A to B. How's he putting one foot in front of the other? Assuming he's pushed to the limits, what's he doing inside of his head in order to survive? Who is this guy?

Weiner Spike, for all that he was a pain to watch, at least had something guiding him. We knew why he was doing what he was doing. Now I'm not saying brand-new Spike needs to resemble this guy. Again - totally rewrite him all you like, I don't care and in fact encourage it. But know what you're writing. I don't get the sense that Spike's got a core of any kind to center him.

Which, granted, may be Ben's fault. The guy writes some good dialogue but I noticed last year he didn't seem to get the characters on a deep level and since I'm noticing the same problem now this is probably not a coincidence. Plus throw in David Fury, who hates Spike and all he stands for and then what acknowledgements we are getting to Old!Spike are only being done on a meta-level to thumb their nose. You gonna tell me it was Ben who wrote the "Moaning in a basement" line? Not that I don't agree with the sentiment but I'm not Angel. The knowledge Angel expressed there was Colin Sense. I don't dispute that Angel could have found out about Spike's basement time thanks to Buffy or the W&H ex plot device machine, but explain to me how either one of those methods of communication would have given Angel the knowledge to form the exact same opinion that the audience did. It's not going to happen.

Which isn't to say I didn't like Angel and Spike bitching at each other. I did, and it was the closest thing to a consistent personality trait that Spike had. But at that point decide for us why Spike is bitching. We know why Angel is bitching - Spike schtupped Buffy and did so without a soul. No surprise there. But Spike? Going into it it seemed like it was a general dislike of Angel, jealousy that Buffy loved Angel and plus it's fun. But then in the bedroom we get this lament that Angel doesn't appreciate that Spike's one of the good guys now. Huh? Since when does Spike give two shits about Angel's approval? Since when did Spike care about anyone's approval of his "good" side who wasn't Buffy?

That brings me back to the ending. The ending lacked punch for me. Why are we supposed to care that Spike's going to Hell? And before you get on my case - I think Angel deserved to go to Hell too. Which he has. He's now spent more centuries there than he has on earth so I'm willing to let him call it even. But even still if he died today and the Powers said "Guess what, you don't need that UP button on your elevator" I wouldn't dispute it. So this isn't a Spike vs Angel thing. It's, again, a motivation thing. Spike's done horrible things and doesn't particularly seem to care about them. He doesn't want to stay out of Hell because he feels bad that he deserves to go there, he wants to stay out because he doesn't want to go. Not that I blame him, but that's why he cares. Why do I care? Moreover, why should Fred?

The thing with Fred is bugging me too, and is I think more examples of how we had disjointedness with the characters. Why is Spike going to Fred? I know the stated reason but it makes no sense - and also makes me wonder why they're pumping up Fred and Gunn at the expense of Wesley since if Gunn knows demon culture and Fred knows occult practicality what exactly is it that Wes does again?

I have to admit it - I need to fanwank this scene. Normally I don't like to because I feel I shouldn't have to write the episode if I'm not getting paid for it, but it's the only way I can cope. I can only cope with Spike going to Fred instead of Wesley if this is being done on purpose. Spike needs somebody who he can play on the pity of. Wes is a former Watcher, who made it clear early on that he knew how evil Spike was. In my world, Spike must have guessed that Wes wouldnt be sympathetic to his plight so instead Spike chats up Fred in the hopes that she'll have the technical knowledge and the soft heart to work it on him. This also explains for me why Spike, former chip in the head lad, would happily submit himself to scientific mercies without so much as a second glance. Otherwise the scene makes no sense.

Speaking of things that make no sense and involve Fred, let's also take a second to "Huh?" over Spike's leering comments to Angel about her. Again with the Colin Sense, since absolutely nothing about Spike's interactions with Fred indicated her being a goer or her having a particular admiration for Angel. And it esp makes no sense considering that nothing about Fred's behavior for over a year now has indicated those things either, so it's not as though we'd assume something happened offscreen.

Not to paint everything with slash colored glasses but if you wanted to put a name there that made sense you'd either need Wesley, who didn't act like that in today's ep either but at least acts like that as a concept to thus fill in the blanks for us, or you'd need Gunn, who Spike observed being Angel's lacky that day. Otherwise - well otherwise you're getting meta, and I'll shut up now because meta can sometimes mean spoilers.

Finally, in terms of disjointed motivation, what the Hell was the plan? Even knowing the double crosses going into it the second time around I'm still at a loss. It's the "Spike went to Africa for his soul the whole time, no REALLY" problem again. You can trick your audience, but you have to do it with the characters still doing things that make sense because they know what they're doing. That didn't happen here. Which possibly wouldn't have bugged me in any other ep, but in an ep where motivation was dropped all over the place with Spike it just bugged as one more example of the whole.

Oh - and I like Harmony, really I do, but whoever thought that we needed to touchstone Spike's return through her feelings about it needs their head examined. Save that for a later ep, when we need the comedy. Right now we don't care.

Random thoughts:

Since when does Angel sleep with clothes on? ;)

For all that they're cock-blocking Wes's usefulness, I like that it's made very clear that he and Angel are still friends - which is possibly Wes's usefulness. Light, little touches to show that Angel considers Wes a confidant and not the others were nicely done. I also liked how Wes felt more than ready to give Angel scolding looks when he thought Angel had misbehaved. Gunn went for a combo of distrust/disbelief, Wes looked ready to whap Angel on the nose with a newspaper.

And, once again, please do not bitch at me about Wesley! Is being! Written! Off! The SHOW! I don't wanna hear it.

Did James have a cold or something? All the overdubbed lines in pretty much all of his scenes were distracting as all heck. Especially when you could tell they had to speed the recording up slightly to make it match the movements.

I'm fascinated by Spike's coat. Beyond the obvious use of it as a sheild, the thing looks so utterly out of place. Possibly it's the coloring of Angel which is so different from Buffy, but for the first time that looks like a dead animal that's been draped over Spike's shoulders. It's not a thing anybody would take pride in. I like to think this is a deliberate choice, which was done to show how out of place Spike feels. Perhaps at some point this season he'll get rid of it.

Speaking of out of place, loved how Angel still doesn't know how to work his elevator on the first try.

Props to the Foley artists for putting in the quiet sound of office phones ringing in the background just as Spike was going into his first rant about "what is this place?"

As always I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but on a last note:

Angel's silver car? Small shout-out to me.

Spike calling Wes 'Percy'? HUGE shout-out to me, thankyouverymuch.

ETA: Oh yeah, watch how quickly they fuzzy tigered the timeline. Conviction indicated that it had been about a week since Home. Now we're told it's 19 days from Chosen in an ep that picks up at the exact same time as last week's ep left off. Gotta love the new math ;)