5.21 Power Play--Inside, Outside
Writer: David Fury Director: James A. Contner

This is a story that begins in the middle: Angel leaping through the fire to…rescue Drogyn. Who unaccountably is nearly bald and being beaten with staves by robed thugs wearing grotesque metal masks. Drogyn himself has a sack over his head, so all we see are brutal attackers and a helpless victim, all faceless and anonymous. Almost a paradigmatic scene of Good being overcome by powerful Evil, in need of a Hero, a Champion. Enter Angel…who vamps out, bites Drogyn Battlebrand, and snaps his neck--as the initiation rite to be accepted into the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners’ chief agents on earth.

This is the divide, the deed that cannot be undone. It is the watershed between Angel frustrated but essentially innocent, and Angel (NOT Angelus) with innocent blood on his hands. We get the fuller version of this scene in the later replay, when events have again reached that point, but in the scene as first shown, we learn all the essentials. Except the one essential of why Angel has chosen to do this.


Appearance and reality

If previous episodes dealt with surfaces and what underlies them, hollow people, shells, puppet effigies, this episode deals with deliberate lies of appearance. Times when you cannot trust your eyes but must listen to your conviction and either believe what you see, or what you know, when the two can’t be reconciled.

The first instance is dawn breaking over Wolfram & Hart. In Angel’s penthouse, Angel and Nina are amorously awake after what’s apparently their first night spent together. Far from finding perfect happiness, Angel seems content to have had a time “without a coherent thought,” but Nina jokes about having brought a stake with her, just in case, pretending to search for it in the drawer of the beside cabinet. Their conversation makes clear that Angel has told her about his “curse” and they’ve managed to avoid setting it off. A moderate love, then: nothing wild or out of control, it seems. Nina believes gloomy Angel (“the brow is back”) needs a vacation, a time away from the fray, whereas Angel declares that now near a goal he’s fought toward for so long, he doesn’t like what he sees. So the outward scene of love and pleasure is less real than the underlying discontent Angel expresses.

The next instance of a mismatch between inner and outer is Illyria’s bewilderment at Wesley’s rejection following her manifesting Fred’s appearance in “Time Bomb,” the previous episode. She doesn’t understand why she and Wesley no longer are having “intercourse”: communication. Wesley is ignoring her and although she professes to need no creature’s attention, Wesley’s desertion has clearly left her feeling lonely as well as confused and cut off from the power she’s accustomed to. But what she takes for a loss, Spike declares a gain: looking like Fred, in this company, gives her a power with them and over them beyond her reckoning. She doesn’t see it. She doesn’t believe it. But it’s true. Spike is right. What they see--all that’s left of Fred--can overwhelm their knowledge that Illyria is the true resident of that body now. It’s not the kind of power that Illyria is accustomed to or would willingly have chosen--power by proxy, through others--but she stays with Spike, accompanies him on his investigation of decrepit Funville, which Spike jokingly calls a date. With Wesley withdrawn from her, it seems Illyria hungers for the company of someone who notices her, even though she continues to speak to Spike with her customary disdain. She craves meaning, and Spike’s regard provides her with that. She takes purpose from him.

Angel meanwhile is cozying up to Senator Helen Bruckner and her unsavory but well-tailored vampire aide, Ernesto, whose drink of choice is virgin blood, room temperature acceptable. There’s a mismatch between the senator’s exterior and her true aims and nature: she’s a demon installed in a human body and her intentions are wholly demonic: she wants W&H’s assistance not merely smearing a political rival as a pedophile but brainwashing him into believing himself to be one. Gunn, protesting, is appalled at Angel’s promise to accomplish the Senator’s aims and storms out. Wesley, bringing to Angel’s attention a new death at Funville--the work of a stinky Boretz demon--finds his concerns likewise brushed indifferently aside. People die, and Angel’s not interested in “the small stuff.” As Gunn, Wesley (in his socks again), and Lorne compare dismayed notes, Spike volunteers to see to the Boretz situation--in effect, taking over Angel’s old role of helping the helpless/hopeless on the street and enacting what Wesley expected Angel himself to do.

In the decidedly unamusing wreck of an amusement park, Illyria expresses not merely doubts but conviction that Angel has been corrupted, seeing in Angel a pattern she’s seen many times before. Spike doesn’t argue the appearances--he merely doesn’t accept Illyria’s interpretation of them. Although Angel has the potential of turning into a “megalomaniacal bastard,” Spike denies that’s happened. He’d know, he claims. He’d sense it. And he doesn’t. So Spike’s prepared to trust his own conviction against the appearances being presented to him.

It would seem Drogyn isn’t given that option. Attacked, in England, by a demon assassin, Drogyn has wrested from his attacker the information that not only did Angel send the assassin, Angel is implicated in Illyria’s escape from the Deeper Well and her infection of Fred: the killing of a trusted (and trusting) subordinate that Illyria predicted and that also correlates with the initiation ordeal required by the Circle of the Black Thorn, a super-secret organization that Wesley has been getting inexplicable hints about and investigating. Lindsey is brought in and divulges that this Circle of the Black Thorn, whose symbol is a ring with sharp, curved, toothlike rays, constitutes the ultimate Evil resident on Earth. The Senior Partners are on a different plane, unreachable; the members of the Circle of the Black Thorn are their agents here.

Once they figure that out, Wesley is perplexed: Angel’s whole life has been bent to a purpose diametrically opposed to what the Circle represents. He concludes that the only way to determine the truth of this apparent contradiction is…to ask Angel.

How long has it been in any Jossverse series since a person, faced with evidence that another has turned evil, decides to simply ask that person about it? It seems Wesley’s faith, despite the intense provocation of Angel’s apparent complicity in Fred’s death, is unshaken. Like Spike, asking Angel casually, “You coming, then?” Wesley isn’t inclined to jump to the prepared conclusion.


The puzzling call to arms

Going to ask Angel produces the puzzling confrontation in Angel’s office in which Angel makes a calculated speech about power, seeming to admit their accusations, and provokes an attack by his four closest friends--Wesley, Spike, Gunn, and Lorne. Angel then sets off a glamor that gives them six minutes of immunity from observation and uses it to state his actual aims: to kill every single member of the Circle of the Black Thorn and enlist aid in doing so.

There are several reasons why this scene is puzzling. If, as Angel says, he can’t carry out his plan without their support, why does he wait until now--until he’s killed Drogyn (whom Hamilton has collected from the supposed safety of Spike’s basement apartment, and Illyria’s protection) and the members of the Black Thorn have accepted him and revealed themselves to him? At this point, Angel is committed. He has no choice except to continue. So if he needs the involvement and support of Wes, Spike, Gunn, and Lorne, why not secure it earlier? The argument that the forces of Evil would detect any imposture on their part is just as true after the protected six minutes are up as it was before that point. Why not give them a choice when there still was a choice if, as Angel contends, the only thing the Senior Partners do not control is their individual capacity to choose? Because there really is no choice left. All are heroes. The option to back away, be safe, choose a different path, is one Angel has denied them. They can only accept his ultimatum or reject it…and him. That’s not much of a choice.

Further, Angel makes clear that the damage they can actually do is minimal. They can’t hurt the Senior Partners directly--the most they can do is deprive them, for a brief time, of their chief ministers on Earth. This will no doubt infuriate them and produce ferocious pursuit and probably death for all the surviving members of the Fang Gang (now including Spike)…for a minimal achievement. Is Angel committing them to spend their lives on a gesture that will finally do small and temporary damage to the forces of Evil--eliminating only middle-men? Is this really only a suicide mission arising from Angel’s frustration at how powerless he is in his present circumstances?

This is no Agincourt speech, no rousing a “band of brothers” to battle. The raising of the hands to indicate that each is “in” feels like a decision to support Angel…but at what price? Is this the right battle to be provoking, much less fighting? It’s evidently the outcome of Cordelia passing one final vision on to Angel with a kiss, as she initially had received the visions from Doyle. That vision has set Angel on what he believes to be the true path--the only effective path available to him. But has he interpreted the vision correctly? Has he acted to thwart the evil he saw or to bring it about?

It seems clear the Drogyn is really dead. He was gifted with “eternal youth,” not with immortality. Having his throat bitten out and his neck snapped should leave him really, most sincerely dead. The members of the Circle of the Black Thorn, not unfamiliar with death, judge him to be defunct, in satisfaction of the requirements of the initiation rite. Suspecting Angel as he does, why does Drogyn greet Angel’s appearance through the flames, as Drogyn is being belabored with cudgels, with repeated thanks, as though believing Angel is there to rescue him? Why would he think that? And if he doesn’t think that, why the thanks? What’s happened to Drogyn’s thick and abundant hair since his abduction from Spike’s apartment?

Angel has manipulated truth-telling Drogyn’s belief to convince the Circle of the Black Thorn. Drogyn’s compulsive sincerity is crucial to his being believed about Angel’s turning to the Dark Side. It’s made plain that Drogyn is innocent here--honest in his beliefs and his expressions of them. Then how is his murder by Angel to be justified? That it’s effective as further persuasion to the Circle of the Black Thorn isn’t reason enough, not for deliberate premeditated murder of a bound, helpless, innocent and good man. How would viewers judge Angel if it had been Wesley Angel misled and then killed? Or Lorne? Or Gunn? Or Spike? How are we to judge Angel’s killing Drogyn, then?


Overview

This episode brings together many themes present throughout this season and the whole of the series--principally the paramount importance of free will and choice. The toothed ring of the Circle of the Black Thorn has appeared covertly in previous episodes as have the members themselves: Izzy, the racquet-ball playing demon; Archduke Sebassis; frail Cyvus Vail (the creator of Connor’s past, here revealed to be the head of the Fell Brethren). Senator Bruckner is a member. Likely Magnus Hainsley, the Necromancer, was of their company, as well. It brings the Fang Gang, scattered into their separate isolations and concerns, back together to a single purpose. Since it’s the first of a two-parter, it settles some questions but raises others.

Like Wesley and the rest, we are presented with a superficially rousing but unpalatable and morally dubious vision of Angel and his purposes. Like them as well, we can only rely less on what we see and more on what we know to believe that it will all, or mostly, come out all right in the end.

Because it is the end. Only one more episode remains to tie up what will be tied and loose what will be loosed. Like Angel, we’ve come down to the end of things and none but sad and final choices left.

Nan Dibble
5/14/04
Acknowledgement: As always, I am indebted for the gladly shared insights, wit, and general snarkiness of my fellow S’cubies: the members of the Soulful Spike Society.


MISCELLANEOUS

• In the opening sequence, though it’s not made completely clear, Nina and Angel are apparently in Angel’s penthouse. The initial view, that sets the scene, is of the Wolfram & Hart building at dawn--at ground level, then looking to the top: the penthouse. Nina lives with her sister and niece--not a great place for a sex tryst, one would imagine. And daylight is shining through the blinds, but Angel’s doesn’t appear at all concerned about it. So we have to conclude that they’re in Angel’s penthouse. That means that after their (apparently) first night together, Nina can joke about bringing a stake and putting it in the drawer of the bedside cabinet. She fumbles around in the drawer but (no surprise) doesn’t find any stake. It’s interesting that (1) Angel has plainly told her about his “curse,” (2) they’ve avoided setting it off and (3) Nina is comfortable enough to make jokes about it. There is no stake.

• Notice when Wesley is citing the lore of Drogyn, he says that Drogyn was given “eternal youth,” NOT immortality. From that can be inferred that Drogyn continues as he was when the gift was initially conferred. No immunity from death, only from aging. Except for his warrior skills, Drogyn is as undefended against injury and attack as any other mortal. However, in the Deeper Well, few attacks came his way and were met by other defenders. Therefore when Angel bites him and breaks his neck, he’ll stay dead.

• In the past, Angel has been notable for making unilateral decisions that affect others profoundly (e.g. leaving Buffy, the “un-Dawning” of Connor, joining Wolfram & Hart). The instance at the end of this episode is distinctive in his explaining the situation he alone has brought into being, then asking for a vote of confidence and his comrades’ commitment to actively support him in this course of action, risking themselves on the same terms as he is. Although this appears more democratic, it isn’t, much. Angel has manufactured the confrontation with the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners’ agents on earth. He leaves the Fang Gang (plus Spike) only two alternatives--to support the already-unfolding confrontation, and probably die, or to refuse their support. Angel says he can’t do it without them, yet he’s made no prior attempt to assure himself of their loyalty and every attempt to make them distrust him. And it’s clear he’s going ahead, regardless of what they decide. He hasn’t consulted them before embarking on his present course. He’s only left them the option of bailing, deserting him (as he insisted that Nina and her family do, for their protection). So with what choice does he in fact leave them, except the one they all make? (Oh, and he doesn’t even offer Nina an explanation of sending her away: “I’m not asking.”) Not a paragon of inclusiveness, informed consent, and free will yet, Angel.

• Surprisingly, Drogyn and Marcus Hamilton are acquainted…seemingly for a long, long time. Hamilton serves the Senior Partners and has such physical power that I can’t help but blink and reconsider Eve, wondering if she possessed like power and never used it. Hamilton’s physical strength is such that he easily overcomes both Drogyn and Illyria, much of whose power is now unavailable to her. (Illyria is not gonna accept such a brutal defeat philosophically!) Drogyn became the custodian of the Deeper Well, a position of trust and responsibility--one assumes, for the Powers That Be, though that isn’t made explicit.

• In the back and forth of suspicion, accusation, and uncertainty, only Spike keeps his cool (thought Wes is a close second). True, he strikes at the ranting Angel when that seems needed. But he doesn’t jump to conclusions and is steadfast, waiting for evidence from Angel himself, refusing to accept that Illyria’s generalizations about leaders corrupted by the exercise of power apply to Angel. Unlike Nina, he doesn’t respond to personal rejection by Angel with rejecting Angel (Nina says, “I’ll go. Why would I stay?”) Spike stands his ground, knows his side--that stays the same regardless of what Angel says or does. He’s the first to volunteer to “burn the house down while we’re still in it.” Remarkable steadiness from volatile Spike, in this episode.

Memorable lines:

Nina (to Angel): You’re not perfectly happy, are you? ‘Cause I’ve got my wooden stake right here….
……….
Nina: But now the brow is back.

Angel: There…there are things…that I have to do. Things that I’ve already set in motion. I know I've spent years fighting to get somewhere, to accomplish…something…and now that I'm close to it...I don't like what I see, what I am.
Nina: You’re a hero!
Angel: Oh, that word.
Nina: Well, you're my hero.
Angel: I may not always be."

Illyria: I've grown wary of this world since my powers were depleted. Strange, though I've been made more human, this place remains disconcerting.
Spike: Yeah, well I'm afraid that never goes away. Anyhow, I thought Wesley was giving you a primer on all things human.
Illyria: He and I are no longer having intercourse.
Spike: Y-- Ah-- You wh-- What?
Illyria: He has ceased communication with me.
Spike: Oh! Oh. Communi --
Illyria: My recent reversion to the Burkle persona disturbed him. And he will not tell me why.
Spike: You don't know? You may not think you're as powerful as you were, Highness, but looking like Fred, for some of us, it's the most devastating power you have.

Senator Helen Bruckner (having declined an offer of coffee): But if it isn't any trouble, I think Ernesto (her personal aide, a vampire) might like some blood.
Ernesto: Virgin, if you have it. Room temperature's fine.

Wesley: Angel, there’s been another fatality in Funville.
…..
Angel: Well, you know we can’t save everybody and we can’t sweat the small stuff.

Illyria (as Wes walks away): He showed no regard for my presence.
Spike (quoting Illyria’s earlier comment): Not that you require any creature’s attention. (Illyria doesn’t respond) Hey! Want to go find something to hit?

Senator Manners: I didn't claw my way up from hell and get installed in a human body just to have some pedophile steal my senate seat. (It appears the Senator was a client of Magnus Hainsley, the Necromancer [5.2, “Just Rewards”] and is, in fact, a demon.)

Illyria: I've seen this before with many rulers. Your leader has been corrupted.
Spike: Hey, hang on. In the first place, Angel's not my leader. In the second, what the bloody hell do you mean, “corrupted?”
Illyria: It always begins the same. A ruler turns a blind eye to the dealings of battles from which he cannot gain and a deaf ear to the counsel of those closest to him. As his strength increases, so does the separation between him and his follow--
…..
Spike: You're wrong about Angel. Not that I don't think the sod could end up being a megalomaniacal bastard. It's just that if he did, I'd know it. I'd feel it.
Illyria: You’ll have proof soon enough. A corrupted ruler on such a path sees treachery and betrayal all around him. He cannot suffer intimates and will eventually turn against them.
Spike: I guess I’ll never have to worry about that, 'cause Angel and me have never been intimate. Except that one-- (The line certain to launch a thousand fanfics. However, in context, it seems like Illyria’s previous use of “intercourse” to mean conversation, contact. Here, “intimacy” means simply being close. Spike understands Illyria’s meaning and is using the word as she does--to refer to those close to the hypothetical ruler they’ve been discussing. Not slashy at all. Not a bit. Yeah, suuuuure.)
Illyria: Mark me. He will murder one of you. (“Mark” in this sense means “Pay attention to what I say”--the same as “Mark my words” would be.)

Spike: Drogyn-- What the hell are you doing here?
Drogyn : I came to find you.
Spike: Oh, so you tacked up a sign on your tree, waved ‘bye to the Keeblers, hopped the puddle and somehow managed to sniff me out in a city of ten million? (The Keeblers here referred to are the namesake elves of the Keebler baking company, fictional commercial spokes-elves that live and produce their cookies and other baked goods in a hollow tree.)

Wesley: Gunn, this is Drogyn, the Battlebrand. Given eternal youth a thousand years ago. Demon bane, truth sayer…. (Used in this sense, a “brand” is a torch--specifically, a figurative torch carried into battle. “The Flame of Battle,” more or less.)

Angel: We’re in the business…of business. Oil, software, Worldwide Wickets. The product doesn't matter. It's the game that matters. Get to the top, be the best, have the most, win. (Worldwide Wickets was the titular business in the 1961 Broadway musical, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.)
…..
Lorne (when Angel says Lorne alone “got it”): Whoa. Hey, hey, hey, can I not be the poster child for your nervous breakdown?
Angel: You didn't judge. You didn't spend your life obsessed with good and evil. You do that, you get swallowed, lost in the minutia. Good, bad, Angel, Angelus, none of it makes a difference. I wish it did, but, you know, an ant with the best intentions or the most diabolical schemes is just exactly…an ant. There is one thing in this business, in this apocalypse that we call a world, that matters. Power. Power tips the scale. Power sets the course. And until I have real power, global power, I have nothing. I accomplish nothing.

Nina: That’s typical: you sleep with a guy and he sends your entire family out of the country. No, wait. That's actually not that typical at all. You couldn't just, not call?
…..
Nina: You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met…but you’re a crappy liar.
Angel: Go. I’m not asking.
Nina: I’ll go. Why on earth would I stay?

Drogyn (playing Crash Bandicoot, a computer game): It’s a test. A task of some sort. You must collect those crystals…and fruit.
…..
Illyria: I play this game. It's pointless and annoys me and yet I'm compelled to play on. (It’s not just Crash Bandicoot she’s talking about.)

Angel: The powerful control everything…except our will to choose.
…..
Angel: This isn't a “keep fighting the good fight” kind of deal. Let's be clear. I'm talking about killing every...single...member of the Black Thorn. We don't walk away from that.
…..
Angel: Ten to one we're gone when the smoke clears. They will do everything in their power to destroy us. So...I need you to be sure. Power endures. We can't bring down the Senior Partners; but for one, bright, shining moment, we can show them that they don't own us. You need to decide for yourselves if that's worth dying for. I can't order you to do this. I can't do it without you. So, we'll vote. As a team. Think about what I'm asking you to do. Think about what I'm asking you to give. (The “one bright, shining moment” phrase recollects “Camelot” and the knights of the Round Table.)
Spike: Kill 'em all. Burn the house down while we're still in it.
Angel: Something like that.
Spike (raising his arm): I’m in.
Wesley: I’m in.
(Wesley, Gunn, and Lorne raise their arms.)

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