Angel 5.6 The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco

[thebratqueen]

I have to admit when I first heard about this episode I was very dubious. But that was because all that was known was Mexican wrestlers. I'm sure you can see how as a sweeps episode that was leaving me scratching my head. But I decided to trust in Jeff and I have to say that I'm pleased.

Jeff had a hard task here. He had to write an episode which would kick off sweeps, would provide a touchstone for where (presumably) the season is going, would work in Alexis being t-minus two weeks until a honeymoon and do it all while flying under the radar of the WB's stupid rules. Gotta say he succeeded.

CTNC ranks right up there with Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been and, as time goes on, I can't help but feel that, Like AYN, it's going to be an ep that only improves as the series goes on. It stands alone as its own story but at the same time adds subtle shades and highlights to Angel's tale. Funnily enough I can't help but compare it to Restless, another ep which was brilliant in and of itself but sadly, as time went on, fell down on its implied promise of character insight. Spike wearing a Watcheresque outfit in a dream gets a bit disappointing when you realize that was only a foreshadowing of a bad poker bet and not much else.

I find myself happily stuck in all the symbolism and how once you touch on one it cracks open and becomes multifaceted. Which may be me projecting as much as I'm abusing a metaphor but even still that's how the ep struck me. Sure on the surface we have the anvils, and the skirting close to a Martiphoresque plotline of Angel's dilemna about whether or not he's actually a hero in his fight against demons being symbolized by a guy who has a dilemna about whether or not he's actually a hero in his fight against demons but, unlike, well, anything that happened to Willow symbolically in seasons 6-7 I can't help but feel that this was the right mirror to use. Magic addictions that lead to car crashes don't make us ponder the deeper meaning of what's going on with the character. An older, mentally battle-scarred former hero does provide Angel with insightful contrast.

Take even the type of character they picked. A Mexican wrestler who never takes his mask off. How silly is that?

But at the same time for the time that the brothers were fighting, those were Angel type heros. And I'm not just talking about within Angel the show. I'm talking about during the 50s. Consider Batman, Superman, the Lone Ranger and the like. Back then the strange outfits weren't irony. Compared to comic book and pulp fiction superheros of the time, are the brothers that much different? No. And in part it's because back then, superhero-wise, things were very simple, and bold. The good guys are completely good (even down to the fact that the brothers, unlike any family I know of, never even fought amongst each other) and the bad guys are totally bad (not just a robot but one made by the Devil himself).

So it seems silly, but it makes sense for what it is. And it also makes sense when you make the direct comparision. No. 5's tale mirrors Angel. His start in the simple cut and dry world of the 1950s mirrors Angel's start in season 1. Things are simple. There's good (Angel and his gang) and bad (Wolfram & Hart). They help the helpless and that's all there is to it.

But time goes on. Things aren't as cut and dry. The four brothers die, and No. 5, without this base, loses sight of his mission. He's suffered through an event that shows him that the world is not black and white - good guys can die and for no good reason (since Tezcatcatl will come back to life in 50 years anyway). He doesn't see why he should bother going on, and he joins Wolfram & Hart as the easy option.

Again we have Angel, who's gone through the same struggle, also lost family for, to him, no good reason, and now works for Wolfram & Hart.

But the two men aren't totally alike, and that's where some of the key differences lie.

Case in point, Wesley's argument. But before I get into that let me take a second here to say thank you to Jeff Bell for remembering that Wes, the only character still on the show who's been with Angel since the beginning, was the correct character to vector Angel's struggle through. My shippiness aside, Wes is the only one who has watched Angel's struggle to define himself from, arguably, the start (or a few months close to). He is also the one who is the most invested in Angel's survival, something we've seen from season 1 all the way through season 4 until tonight. (Note Wes's speech and how - kudos to Alexis - he stresses the "you". You need hope in order to survive. Wes isn't giving a life lesson for the masses, he's struggling with the only tool he has, words, to try to prolong Angel's life.) Plus Wes this season has been the only one whom Angel has trusted with any hint of vulnerability or a need for a confidant, as shown again tonight by his stupid and/or ironic hope that Wesley would remember the fake prophecy - an action, btw, which either shows that Angel needed Wes to remember more than he needed the reality of what he did, or possibly which shows that Angel wasn't fully aware of all the implications of his actions regarding Connor.

Wes's argument gives us the key to Angel's difference: Angel survives by hope. He survives because he strives toward something, not because he has a single definition of himself that allows him to get up everyday. And all sides of this argument, by the way, give me a happy glow of continuity, because since season 1 Wesley has always said it's Angel's struggle to better himself that he admires and, on the flip side, Angel has stayed true to his development over the seasons. He starts out in the black and white "Good guys, like me, get rewards", he had his epiphany that he needs to focus more on the day to day, he had the rug ripped out from under him not once but twice (or arguably three times) and he's now left in a murky world where even the day to day stuff that he focuses on doesn't seem that important, or pure. His disbelief in the Shanshu and all his comments therein has been the work of years and you can feel it in the character.

Hauling this back to the point, it's because of that that Angel is not like No 5. And you can tell that right away by the name: No 5. This is a man who is, by definition, defining himself by what was and what is not. I mean not to beat a point to death or anything but you can't have the number five without one through four. Had there been six brothers the name wouldn't have been as meaningful.

The title of this ep, then, is one that like the entire ep itself works on many layers. Angel needs to heed the story of this man's life, but he also needs to heed the very basic fact that he, and in fact nobody, can live their life being "number five". He can't define himself by the past, or his relationship to other people (as his Sunnydale self only defined his goodness by the fact that he helped Buffy). He has to be Angel, whoever that may be, striving forward and with hope.

Of course the question is does Angel have hope? Is the scene at the end a sign that he's going to regain what he wants or that he's going to look upon this old aspiration and find that it doesn't fit him anymore? Which, since I'm having orgasms about symbols and metaphors, would also tie in with the much bigger metaphor of Wolfram & Hart to begin with. The old "What if you worked for Greenpeace and now you work for Shell Oil?" Angel sold his soul, so to speak, to corporate life for the sake of his child, as many parents do. If he gives up on the loftier goal of a Shanshu in favor of dealing with the basics, he would again be like many parents who had to give up goals of saving the world in favor of the more mundane need to take care of their child.

Childless, spouseless Spike, then, steps forward as the logical choice of - Star Wars pun not intended - the new hope. And in a way that actually works for the character, and not a forced upon us "God damn it you WILL like him and value him more than Angel!" kind of way. Spike's not trying to be a hero, he's not claiming to be (he even lacks false modesty in his conversation with Fred, which I liked) but he's noticing the concept of this Shanshu thing and he's dancing around it, wondering if it's something he might fancy. Angel might still be academically interested in it, but it's Spike who actually has his heart into it - as seen when he can rest his hand (or tries to - hard to say how successful he was) on the book.

No 5 has been in damn near every ep this season (if not all, I can't remember off of the top of my head). That's a lot of effort to put into a character who could easily have been a one-off. We're meant to notice him, we're meant to realize he's got something important to say. (We should also notice - hi jennyo - that he's also the guy who delivers the mail, and gee whiz isn't that where Spike came from?) This ep gave us all the tools we need to understand the immediate arc coming up but, much as AYN gave us advance warning about Let them eat lawyer, I look forward to how this is going to unfold for the second half of the season as well.

Random comments:

Great cameo by Holland Manners. And watch those wheels within wheels turn as we remember the key role that Holland played in the whole s2 epiphany/Hell is right here on earth arcs.

Hi Lorne. Bye Lorne.

Speaking of AYN, it's interesting to look at No 5's flashbacks and think that at the exact same time Angel was right there in the city trapped inside his own inability to care or even see why he should.

Beautiful job by Jeff in getting the Spike and Wesley Shanshu conversation out of the way before Alexis goes on his honeymoon. And I loved Wes's general tone around Spike. There's echoes of the patience he's learned in dealing with Angel, yet at the same time you can tell which vamp Wes favors. I thought the "who's not a ghost" bit was a nice, understated reminder that Wes may like Spike fine enough, but as always his loyalty points to Angel.

Nice blocking on Angel hovering in Wes's doorway, wanting to talk but not being able to make himself do it.

Kudos to Jeff Bell for a good job of giving Wes a purpose without sacrificing anybody. Unlike previous eps where Wes had an Eve-like fuck all to do because Fred and Gunn were lapping him in the insight and research department, this ep had everybody contributing their part fairly and not at the expense of someone else. Gunn coming up with contracts, for instance, did not necessitate him cock-blocking Wesley when he had his team pouring over books and computers.

And, Wes whore that I am, I have to applaud the continuity of Wes being able to analyze the blood spatters because he has been adept at that sort of thing before. I also liked the way he addressed the puzzle of Angel's problem - keying in to Gunn's offhand comment and knowing enough about Angel to be able to approach him and talk about the real issues.

My two moments of huh? 1) Sharpshooter Wes didn't aim for the demon's legs? Esp after he saw that the shotgun shells weren't going through the armor? 2) Angel didn't know All Souls' Mass? I know it's my own personal fanon that the boy is Catholic but come on, he's got a nun fetish!

Spike called shotgun - hee hee hee.

Kudos to the props/set design for adding the Day of the Dead decorations to the other gravestones.

On the flip side of the Angel not knowing All Souls' Mass, I did like how they didn't bog down the script with exposition about the Day of the Dead. Not everyone in the audience is going to know what that is, or how it is celebrated, but they just put the details out there and talked about them naturally and let the audience figure it out for itself. Nicely done.

Five called Angel stupid - hee hee hee.

Call me an old sap, but Five's fate of "dying a hero" makes me a bit squirmy about how the show might end. In my heart of hearts I can't believe that they would want AtS to end on a sappy note of Angel and Buffy walking off into the sunset. AtS has been the kind of show where if they did their own version of The Gift, Angel's ass wouldn't be coming back afterwards.

Finally - what the HELL is up with the promo for next week's ep? I'm not even talking about totally avoiding any mention of Wesley at all since I've resigned myself to this odd reality where Wes is a non-identity in the world of PR for this show, but by avoiding mention of Wes's plotline didn't they pretty much give away a plot twist for said plotline? How on earth did that seem smart? I give up, I tell ya.