That’s the Buffyverse version of “der…okay whatever” So now there’s a demon in Africa that just hands out souls to anyone that beat up some other demons, even though Lurky very obviously HATES and DESPISES Spike for what he is and wants?
To put it another way, why would the PtB or WR&H allow another vampire with a soul to be created, given how important they apparently are?
Season 4 brings together a lot of cliches and makes them watchable, hell it makes them entertaining. It features an amazingly messed up relationship for TV land and effortless moves through different conflict types. The season finale is one of the best episodes of the show. All in all I think Season 4 is mostly about ME seeing what they can do with the show.
Now for speculative fan wanking:
The PTB guide Angel towards saving those in trouble. Rarely are there big plots involved in the individual’s trouble, it is merely an instance of normal suffering. Why? Because it shows Angel that the fight isn’t about the endless threats to the world, those are scripted affairs that will play out how they play out once they start, but dragging up those who have fallen below the radar. It is about saving individuals and trying to remake the world by living like the world is right. It is about making the world good. Jasmine was not content with the slow way of doing things. She may have lost her faith in the normal methods. So she became incarnated and tried to force good on the world. I believe the corruption of her form was derived from the fact that Powers were not meant to be in the world anymore. She was a dead terrible thing because that is the way the earth represents unnatural evil.
Obviously Jasmine has been doing the forced salvation of worlds for sometime. I suspect that proper Powers interested in humanity considered her useful to the extent that she would help their plans in the setting up of her own. They do not stop her because that would defeat the point, it would make them like her.
Season 4 has a great deal of this sort of attitude. The world may be terrible but you cannot live like the world is terrible. You cannot expect everything to become perfect and shiny because there is no such real state. You can only work to make the world a bit better and to beat back the inherent wickedness of things. Victory isn’t a final state but an ongoing process of fighting. In this sense I think the season finale was very powerful because Angel and company lost right then and there, because the senior partners understood the mission and the message more than they did.
We don’t that Lurky works for PtB or the Senior Partners. He could be a free agent who knows some powerful mojo. If Willow can learn the spell and Gypsies have a curse, why can’t a powerful demon in Africa also know the magic? (Fun point of continuity: Lurkey is from the same place the First Slayer was created. He’s also in the same area where the Shanshu Prophecy was created.)
And why should the PtB or Senior Partners even think to pay attention to Spike. As the Wildcard, he sort of flies in under the radar. Nobody had any reason to believe that, even if it was possible, Spike would seek a soul. It was totally unheard of and unexpected. So perhaps it wasn’t a matter of allowing another vampire to be souled, it was simply a matter of it never occuring to them that they’d have to worry about the possibility.
I always interpreted that storyline as a sort of twisted verson of the Gift of the Magi. Lurky the demon gives Spike what he asked for (“make me what I was”), not what he thought he wanted. It helps my interpretation that Marsters has said in interviews he was playing Spike as though he was going to Africa to get the chip deactivated in some way, rather than to get his soul restored.
But Joss, Fury, Jane Espenson, and Marti all have said repeatedly that Spike went to Africa to get a soul. Period. And in case we only want to deal with canon, Spike makes that clear in Beneath You, Sleeper, Never Leave Me, and Lies My Parents Told Me. There’s no two ways about it. It is canon that Spike went to Africa to get a soul because he crossed the line with Buffy.
As to why Marsters was directed to behave as though he was getting his chip deactivated, I think it’s because the director was an idiot. Also, they wanted to do a “gotcha”, unfortunately, they apparently didn’t take into account that James knows how to act, and would do a convincing “I’m gonna kill the bitch.”
As an aside, the reason Lurky lived in Africa was because James was up for the role of Picard’s clone in Nemesis, and he asked for those weeks off and Whedon worked the final episodes around that. Of course, that fell through.
I know, but I’m a rebel. 
Fair enough.
I watched Soulless on TNT the other night. i don’t really have anything to say about that except Angelus is fucking hot.
Acting-wise, isn’t it interesting that Boreanaz shows much better as Angelus? At least, I think so. I think he’s a good actor–great for this role as the brooding type, but he’s just so much better as Angelus. Especially the second time around in Season 4.
I’ll second that. 
I’m wondering if the directors felt like they had any choice but to say that Spike was going to Africa to get a soul - it made his later relationship with Buffy somewhat more politically correct and easier to stomach. I hated that attempted rape episode and I remember saying, "She can never have anything to do with him again now. It just sends too bad a message to young women - “Hey, girls, the guy who tries to rape you might not be all that bad after all!! Party on!” And I feel like, given the last episode when the slayer empowers *all * girls, these guys definitely had the message they were sending to young women in mind.
BTW, Hi, everybody!
Another vote for that opinion. In fact, I like Angelus as a character better than Angel. I also like Buffy Season 2 Spike (and lovesick Spike from Season 3) better than current Spike.
In the ep where The Beast massacres Wolfram & Hart and Angel and Co. go to the White Room, what elevator buttons does Angel press to get the Big Magic Button?
It’s like Luke and Laura … with fangs and wooden crosses!
And a much better-looking cast