One thing that is bothering me thus far about s. 5 …
Angel keeps killing humans. During all of the old battles with Wolfram & Hart, it was very clear that Angel couldn’t resolve the issue by simply slaughtering all the lawyers.
And when he merely allowed such a slaughter (by Drusilla & Darla), it was considered an extremely dark moment, with the potential that it would lead Angel towards true evil.
In fact, I can only recall one time Angel killed a human, and that was the blind assassin chick, who was about to kill innocents. It was necessity.
But in this season already, Angel has: (1) killed a mess of the Special Operations unit, after he had removed the children from danger, and (2) set up Hainsley to be killed.
This is a huge departure from the mythos of the show.
That’s very true, and it makes me wonder what the dynamic they’re setting up will turn out to be.
It could be that Angel will turn bad. Spike can then be the good souled vampire and Angel the one who’s constantly tempted by the dark side, or maybe not tempted but simply corrupted by slow degrees due to his association with W&H. He is a guy that has lost everything that he’s loved - Buffy, Cordelia, Connor (and in some sense, Darla, though she was always Angelus’s amore), his own business, his unique status as the only vampire with a soul – and by extension, he may also have lost his status as a figure of prophecy. Both Connor and Spike fulfilled prophecies that seemed to be calling for Angel. So what does he really have left, at this point? Some friends who are getting caught up in their new roles at W&H, and the precarious position of ostensibly leading an evil law firm. Hmm. Seems ripe to me for some bad decisions on Angel’s part.
Or we may find out that the two killed weren’t humans, or some other sleight-of-hand (doesn’t excuse Angle, though, given that he believed them to be human as far as I know).
Here’s an interesting question: is Hainsley really dead? If he can animate the dead,and he IS dead, can’t he animate himself? Is the power innate?If it’s conscious then obviously he’s gone, but if not…
I agree. The darkness and intimacy contrasted nicely to Sunnydale. Now Angel has run into an interesting problem: Too many talented, interesting characters and too little time. Too many talented writers with no vehicle to explore other than Angel. It’s a good problem to have in the grand scheme of things, but a problem nonetheless. Charisma Carpenter is the only one who’s bailed so far. While I like the rest of the characters, SOMEONE needs to get into a salary snit and leave the show, for the sake of the show.
About Angel killing humans: I think power is going to be a big theme this year. Power corrupts. And Angel is no exception. He’s got a big office, a great penthouse apartment, a slew of classic cars at his disposal…throw in a few groupies and gratuitous sex and he’ll be a “Behind the Music” episode in the making. One day he’s going to look in the mirror (okay, bad analogy) and not like who he’s become.
Not so much a bad analogy if the mirror is Spike. Talk about a kick in the groin when you look at the other souled vampire and realize hey, he’s not all corrupted and evil and if anybody should be all corrupted and evil it’s William the Bloody…
Did anyone else feel that Hainsley’s powers seemed like Magneto from Marvel Comics? “Power over the Dead” vs “Power of Magnetism” Even the way Angel was pushed around in the graveyard made me think they took a laughably easy route with his powers. Still the actor made the character seem like he was a bad ass. Much more gravitas than Eve.
He also killed the butler, with the spoon, in the conservatory. Course, he could have beena deamon in human skin like the other one…
I like Spike. What I don’t like is Harmony. Every time she’s on screen, it’s dullsville: she’s neither as goofy and ditzy and full of energy as she used to be, nor is she acting like canon vamps are supposed to act. That is, normal, souless vamps can’t just “reform” and stick to pig’s blood only. They have no patience to play such an act very long even as a trick. Or at least that’s what we’ve been led to believe about them. Of course, Harmony is a very very ditzy and petty vampire, but at least before she’s always quickly turned to evil, unable to help herself for long. And her dialog is sort of… blodgy. Guh.
I thought the first half of the episode really dragged. And Spike’s accent seemed off, too. Once they started tangling with Hainsley, though, it really picked up. I hope they bring that character back. Hey, he’s a super-powerful necromancer. That’s not the sort of person who lets a little decapitation keep him down.
I was also a little disappointed that Spike wasn’t really betraying Angel. Would’ve been awful cool if it wasn’t Spike in the amulet, but Spike’s vampire-demon. Sure, it would’ve pissed off the Spike-o-philes, but that’s exactly the sort of bold, risk-taking storytelling that Joss has built his career on.
Also noticed the human bodycount in the last two episodes. I hope they actually address this at some point. I think it’s Angel’s reaction to last season, when he found out that the Powers that Be weren’t much better than the opposition, at least from humanity’s POV. If he was living up to an ideal in the hopes of proving himself to the Powers, and is now disillusioned with said Powers, maybe he’s abandoned the ideal, as well. Also, he might just have finally wised up to all the grief he could’ve saved himself if he’d just killed Lilah, Holtz, and a whole buncha other mortals right off the bat, instead of giving them opportunity after opportunity to fuck over him and his friends.
Lastly, anyone who takes Harmony’s word that she’s “on the wagon” should keep in mind that they’re taking the word of a soulless, blood-sucking demon. Just sayin’.
With Hainsley(*), the kill was for self preservation. The same could be said for the butler (actually it was for the humor-- Spoon!).
And, only one black ops guys was killed- the leader who was going to machine gun a group of school kids, and just told Angel he was going to kill him no matter what. Again self-presevation could be agrued there.
Still is does show a pattern of “darker” behavior tied to control of W&H (even with Fred). Which is probably where Spike comes in.
(*) Remember in The Gift, Buffy probably killed Mr Wizard by knocking him off the platform, so it seems killing the powerful evil humans using black magics is acceptable if need be in the Buffy-verse.
I think it was made somewhat clear that he was no longer fully human- but I don’t think he was a true demon (although he did get the tail and eye thing for “hey he’s evil!” subtle plot point). When he was fighting he did not morph into demon form like the other demons posing as humans (even Doyle did it).
And Buffy had no way of knowing he wasn’t fully human. He was evil, he was in the way, then he was a pancake.
But again these points do not detract from the valid points raised regarding increased willingness by Angel to kill. But Angel has had a rough year, I can see him being a little less forgiving at this point.
So what if he’s human? Sending a messanger back in buckets more or less disqualifies one from the “innocent in a world of darkness” shield.
Also, vampires aren’t necessarily evil. They just lose whatever moral compass they had during life. If you have deep dark urges in life, and lose whatever’s stopping you from doing them, you make a Spike or an Angel. If you have no real moral compass keeping you in check in life, you don’t miss anything when vamped other than an inability to tan and a proclivity for liquid dieting; i.e., you get a Harmony.
I think the black-ops guy was justified in an ironic kind of way. He was going on and on about how he was pure evil and Angel et al were weak because they weren’t pure evil. So Angel commits an evil act out of what he calls mercy.
Innocence was never the criterion. If Angel killed evil humans, Lilah and Lindsey would’ve been dead halfway through Season 1. It’s been part of the ethos that Angel doesn’t kill humans. The reason wasn’t that the PTB’s frowned on it, Miller, he had sworn off killing humans long before he met Doyle and was connected to the PTB’s.
Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case. None of the other Fang Gang are saying “gee, Angel, you’re killing humans. That way leads to the Dark Side,” like they did in Season 2 with the Lawyer Slaughter. Angel’s human-killing spree isn’t even worthy of comment.
I think, instead, that the writers have just abruptly changed the rules of the Buffyverse without reason or explanation. And that kinda annoys me - continuity has been one of the shows strengths (putting aside gaffes over things like whether vampires breathe, etc.)
I wonder if maybe Angel has just come to terms with killing humans, at long last. He gives Mr. Pure Evil a speech about mercy, then kills him. “What happened to mercy?” asks one of his terrified ex-employees.
“You’ve just seen the last of it,” says Angel. Maybe he’s decided that if he’s going to be working in the bowels of the beast, he doesn’t have the luxury any more of being merciful to humans: whereas before, he only dealt with a couple of W&H humans face-to-face and could pretend that their ninja-operatives were just paid employees, he’s now having to deal with just how MANY W&H employees enjoy their jobs of murder and torture.
Maybe he’s decided that W&H gets no more mercy: their employees know what they signed on for, and he can’t risk letting them continue committing mayhem.
