Hmmm. The human body count didn’t disturb me… but it is starting to. I suppose the argument is that all of these people were trying to kill Angel first; though it does make his “mercy speech” in the previous episode seem more ominous.
So would working for Wolfram and Hart yet Angel always spared their lives. (Aside from that whole decent into darkness / killing spree thing in season two…)
Getting away from that topic, I enjoyed this episode but for the most part it was not particularly memorable. I was willing to believe that Spike might be able to convince himself that he deserved to be in Angel’s body for a little while at least. After all (Spike might think), Angel was supposed to have been the one to get the amulet in the first place, every thing is always so easy for Angel, and he could fight evil in Angel’s body… and be with Buffy, etc. However, the way that they set up the surprise twist at the end felt like a cheat. (They did plan it together right? But when exactly did they discus this plan? And how did they know if Spike could stop himself from being pulled into Angel’s body?)
I think it did a nice job of reintroducing the plot for the new viewers. Last weeks episode really drove home to me just how complicated Angel is… I bet a lot of new viewers were lost. From that standpoint I think it makes sense for the writer to focus on Angel (the lead) and Spike (the new attraction) until the new converts get adjusted. I think that as the season progresses the other characters will eventually be brought back into the fold. I am, however, worried that the writers might toss aside Angel’s resident English bad boy for their newer, blonder English bad boy, which would be a shame.
Also, I liked the necromancer. It would be cool if he would come back to life at some point, I think he could evolve into a great villain if given time.
Perhaps not. I missed a few minutes of it, (the buckets part. huh?)and haven’t rewatched the tape yet, so I couldn’t say for sure. I meant more in general, though, not more in this particular episode alone.
They planned it together between the penthouse and the cemetery. Spike said he couldn’t “live” like that, he couldn’t be “worthless”. Which makes sense. That’s one of the reasons he hated the chip so much–not that he couldn’t feed, but that he couldn’t do anything. Fade out: the audience thinks he’s being sent “away” in reality Spike is telling Angel he wants to help him, and in fact, he’d rather help him then kill him.
Yeah, but who in the Gang is in a position to be morally superior to Angel? Cordelia’s gone. Fred and Gunn both have blood on their hands from when they murdered Fred’s ex-professor. Wesley’s been working with Wolfram and Hart longer than any of them, and kept a girl chained up in his closet for one summer (although I wonder how much of that he even remembers, what with Connor being wiped from everyone’s memories.) Lorne, in so far as he’s a demon, probably wouldn’t be on board with any sort of a “we only kill demons” policy in the first place.
In fact, the addition of Lorne to the cast might be exactly what’s prompted this change. If demons have the same shot at redemption that humans have, then it’s hypocritical to refuse to kill humans while still merrily slaughtering “monsters.” To resolve this dichotomy, Angel would either have to stop killing things altogether (putting a major crimp in his evil-fighting) or recognize that humans can be just as dangerous and evil as anything that’s crawled through an inter-dimensional portal.
Lastly, as far as we know, none of the MoG know about Angel killing people. And as this episode showed, he’s clearly been keeping things back from the rest of the gang.
Yes they are. A vampire is incorrigibly compelled to do evil, by his very nature, and is unredeemable except in the almost-unique case of having their soul restored. This point has been made over and over again in the Buffyverse.
Two examples that come to me offhand are the first Harmony episode in Angel’s second season, and the psychology-major vampire Webs in Buffy’s seventh-season episode, “Conversations With Dead People.”
Webs talked about how since awakening as a vampire he felt basically the same as when he was alive, except that he was compelled to “defy [God] and all his works.”
I’m not sure this is much of a ethical conundrum; after all, for many seasonal moons now it’s been established that not all demons are inherently evil, and that the killing of the bad ones doesn’t even deserve a blink of an (Or a wink if you’re turned on by it all…)
The difference, I suppose, that one can drum up between humans and demons is that not all demons are members of the same species. Take Spike and Angel, for example; they’re both demons (albeit half or watered down), as is Lorne, but Lorne isn’t inherently evil (nor, as we learned in Season 2, are his people) like vampires are. Plus, the family resemblance ain’t there.
In addition, isn’t the big sin not just killing innocents, but innocents with souls? (Although, now that I think on it, Angel did feel the guilt over killing the innocent demon in “Judgement”.) Has it ever been mentioned that any demon (sans vamipres with returned souls) has a soul?
One might argue (and I do), that the Vampire essence is the soul. Not a soul of the type humans have, but still. I would therefore venture that all demons have souls, especially since they stopped being BEMs and started to run karaoke bars.
And didn’t Angel kill a human when he threw that W&H exec out of the window in some early episode? My memory fails me and I don’t have the energy to dig out the dvds.
Gaspode: I think you’re thinking of the series premiere, when Angel stormed into a meeting between a welathy vampire and a contingent of W&H lawyers led by Lindsey. He throws the vampire through a window, but he burns up before he hits the ground, it being day time outside.
And I agree with you about vampires having a sort of “demon spirit” inhabiting their bodies. There was that episode from season two, when that demon Giles raised back in his Ripper days possesed Jenny Calender, and they killed it by forcing it into Angel, where it was “eaten” by Angel’s inner demon.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all demons have souls. Rather, it might mean that some demons are simply immaterial. Perhaps what makes humans special is that they have both a material and an immaterial form, whereas demons are either solid beings or spirits, but never both.
If you’re speaking of season 1, episode 1, that guy was a W&H client, not a part of W&H itself, and he was a vampire. Remember him bursting into flames on the way down, and how his chair hit the plaza unaccompanied?
I remember that well, because the scuzzball gave Angel the speech about how as long as he had lots of money and good lawyers, he could do anything he wanted. Angel just said, “Is that so? Can you fly?” and kicked him through the window.
Now that brings up an additional question: do vengeance demons have souls, though, because they were once human? Are they special cases, as opposed to those demons who are born of two demonic parents?
I ask all of this, of course, knowing that the writers tend to change their minds, anyhow. After all, in The Harvest, the Master originally said he had a soul (when he was initiating Luke for the ceremony). I suppose it’s whatever works at the time.
I though that, at the very least, Angelus had snacked on some innocents while he was out of the box. Didn’t he? He seriously had a 0 bodycount? Didn’t he kill some guy to get some amulet or something?
(Or a wink if you’re turned on by it all…)