Chapter I:
Defining A Mission

LA2000: A New Beginning

As we have seen, “Amends”  suggests that Angel was brought back from Hell by TPTB for a “higher purpose”, a specific mission.   But even by the end of season 3 of BtVS we had no real clue as to the nature of this mission.  Indeed, there was as yet no clearly articulated idea that this mission involved his own redemption, let alone an idea of the nature of that redemption or a sense of how it was to be achieved.  And this is all quite understandable.  After all, as I have already observed, BtVS was Buffy Summers’ show; those questions should indeed have been left to ANGEL.  And if anything the writers made a virtue out of this.  It is very interesting that when we first see Angel in “City of” he seemed to be going through the motions.  So, when Doyle refers to him as doing penance and being cut off from those he is trying to help, his response is brutally dismissive:

"I still save ‘em. Who cares if I don’t stop to chat?"

He was helping people but it was more out of a sense that this was something he felt obliged to do rather than something he had any real interest or belief in.  Nothing here indicated a sense of mission at all.   This in effect gave the writers on ANGEL a chance to set their own direction for the new show, rather than simply following a path sketched out on BtVS.

But importantly they did not begin with a blank canvas.  They started with the characteristics of Angel that we saw in BtVS and began to explore and develop them in logical and interesting ways.  Central features of Angel on BtVS were the darkness within him and the importance to him of his relationship with Buffy.  The darkness was not only a memory of what he had done; it was a threat of what he might do.  These produced in him feelings of insecurity and he could only react to these by separating himself from the world.  His relationship with Buffy was the first way in which he tried to break free from the paralysis that this engendered in him.  But ultimately it proved no answer to his problems.  Rather it almost reinforced the self-destructiveness of his feelings.  His sense of self-worth became entirely bound up in her.  He was simply there to help her.  Her love for him proved that he was worth something.  But that if anything only emphasized his sense of isolation from everything and everyone else.  He never did make a place for himself in Sunnydale, not even with the Scooby gang.  And since they were themselves the quintessential outsiders that is very telling.  So, what we see in “City of” is recognizably the same person we saw in Sunydale; the only difference is that now not even Buffy is there to break the sense of isolation.  As Doyle points out:

“Staying away from the humans so as not to be tempted; doing penance in his little cell.  But he’s cut off, from every thing; from the people he’s trying to help."

This is a very interesting definition of Angel’s problem.  It is not: how does he help people?  He is, after all, doing that already.  The problem as presented here is his isolation and the dangers that isolation posed for him as pointed out to him by Doyle:

Doyle: "When was the last time you drank blood?"

Angel: "Buffy."

Doyle: "Left you with a bit of a craving, didn’t it? Let me tell you something, pal, that craving is going to grow and one day soon one of those helpless victims that you don’t really care about is going to look way too appetizing to turn down. And you’ll figure hey! What’s one against all I’ve saved? Might as well eat them. I’m still ahead by the numbers!"

So dealing with his own isolation was necessary if he were not to be completely destroyed at least from a moral perspective.   From the very beginning therefore ANGEL was not simply about making amends for the past.  It was about changing himself.  And it is in this need to change that we get the first working definition of “redemption” for the series.  And it follows therefore that it is this redemption - the solution to Angel’s internal struggles - which constitutes the real purpose of ANGEL.  Why did the writers set out the challenge for ANGEL in these terms?

Well, in one sense the series had to be about Angel.  He is the central character and the focus of attention.  Others could come in and out of the frame.  But we could never care about them in the same way as we did about our core characters simply because of the transitory nature of their stories.  Equally unsatisfactory was a series in which the only thing that mattered was how the plot would turn out - would our heroes save the victim and if so how?  Such a series would lack any real psychological depth.  But on the other hand making this just about what Angel can get out of helping others would be a very dangerous path indeed.  Someone who acts for this purpose is simply a mercenary.  And showing an individual who fights evil for what he can get out of it would be both off-putting for the viewer and morally problematic. Defining Angel’s mission in the terms described in “City of…” was a very clever response to these problems.  It allowed us to focus attention on Angel and his struggle with his past and the psychological baggage left over from it.   But at the same time it presented saving others not as a mercenary act but rather as an affirmation of common human values which benefited both the helper and the helpee.  And in doing so the writers gave us a definition of redemption that we could support without moral reservation.  They were also making Angel’s state of mind, personality and character major issues for the series.  This was not only giving it potential for considerable depth and complexity.  It also enabled them to preserve consistency with the picture of Angel we had been given on BtVS and this consistency helped greatly in making the character both more believable and sympathetic.  And one final advantage was that it made his past experiences crucial to our understanding of his present actions, thus almost guaranteeing the scope for flashbacks.

Again it is to Doyle in "City of.."  to whom we must turn for enlightenment as to the writers’ intentions:

"It’s not all about fighting and gadgets and stuff. It’s about reaching out to people, showing them that there’s love and hope still left in the world…it’s about letting them into your heart. It’s not about saving lives; it’s about saving souls. Hey, possibly your own in the process."

Here he was not only pointing to a connection between Angel saving others and saving himself.  He was also indicating that he was to do both by making a connection with those for whom he fought.  The first demonstration of this came in the series premier.  He did make a connection with Tina and when she was killed by Russell, he wanted revenge:

Doyle: "You can’t cut yourself off from…"

Angel: "Doyle, I don’t want to share my feelings.  I don’t want to open up.   I want to find Russell and I want to look him in the eye."

Doyle: "Then what?"

Angel: "Then, I’m going to share my feelings."

Then there was Melissa in “I Fall to Pieces” who faced stalker tactics not unlike his own.  Or there was Kate’s father who in “The Prodigal” made a mistake, again not unlike his own two centuries earlier when he fell into Darla’s clutches.  Or there was Faith in “Five by Five” and “Sanctuary” in whom he recognized similar feelings of having been lost and on the wrong path.  In all of these cases he used his own experiences to help others and in doing so he made a connection with them.

A Man with A Mission

And it is in “Sanctuary” that we see the consequences of this.  There he is a man with a mission, one which involves a much more personal commitment on his part to those he is helping.  As he said to Cordelia when trying to help Faith:

Angel:  "You understand why we have to help Faith, don't you?"

Cordelia:    "Totally.”

            Angel:  "We can't just arbitrarily decide whose soul is worth saving and whose isn't."

This has become the most important thing in his life so much so that he unhesitatingly chose it over Buffy.  And with this sense of mission has come the feelings of self-worth and dare I say it of destiny.  When you have a mission that you believe in, almost be definition you have to believe in yourself.  And we see this in both “Sanctuary” and “To Shansu in LA”.  In the former the noteworthy thing is the somewhat high-handed way that he treats everyone who disagrees with him over Faith.  He has such confidence in his own judgment that he ignores everyone else.  In the latter episode it is clear that he is done apologizing for his existence as a vampire or what he is doing in LA, even though it may be outside the law.  As he says to Kate:

"This isn't about the law, this is about a little thing called life.  Now I'm sorry about your father.  But I didn't kill your father.  And I'm sick and tired of you blaming me for everything you can't handle!  You want to be enemies?  Try me."

Once Angel begins to look at things in this way he can actually see that he is on Earth to do something good and important rather than simply being here to suffer.  And this is surely the very definition of a journey towards redemption.  Redemption consists of repentance for the past and then making amends for it.  Without the latter, feeling guilty is pointless, even self-indulgent.  That was his experience before arriving in LA.  But once Angel started to feel that he was doing something real and important to redress the harm he had caused then we have a real journey towards redemption.  And as the second half of season 1 of ANGEL wore on, we see its increasing emphasis on issues such as what is right and what is wrong.  It comes to be about taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions, no matter how hard that is and above all about how it is never too late to change.  This, and the fact that he is in the center of the debate, with Faith, with Lindsey, even with Wesley and Cordelia, all this gives an increasingly powerful sense of Angel himself being on a journey of redemption.

And with Angel’s newly found sense of mission there are other welcome developments as well.   For the first time we have seen the emergence of genuine leadership qualities in him.  When he looks at the grand scheme to things he has a vision about what his mission involves and how it is to be accomplished.  He decides to destroy the ring of Amara and how to respond to Faith in accordance with this concept.   In the day to day running of things he also takes charge: planning how to catch Penn in “Somnambulist”, deciding to try to save Kate’s father in “The Prodigal” or telling Wesley and Cordelia to go into hiding in “Five by Five”.  At times now he is almost over-confident in his own abilities.  This is evident not only from the belief in his physical strength, as evidenced by the scene with the Kaliff demon in “Rm w/a Vu”:

“It’s a good offer.  You should take it.  On the other hand you’re making me want to fight some more.  You get lucky you might last ten minutes.  Really lucky and you’re unconscious for the last five.”

More strikingly still is the way he bulldozes opposition to what he wants, as in “Five by Five” where his response to Wesley’s protest about the “lie low” order is pretty brutal:

"We're not a team.  I'm your boss.  You go where I tell you and I tell you to lay low."

In terms of sheer bossiness this is out-buffying Buffy.

But perhaps the single greatest change for Angel is that he now has friends.  Despite the undoubted progress Angel has made, he is still a misfit.  He is still marked out, in particular, by his sense of social isolation.  As I have already noted, he has nothing that any of us would call a life.  The writers have stressed on a number of different occasions just how remote from the world Angel is.  Perhaps the best example of this is to be found in “Eternity” where his fear of his own vampiric nature as a barrier to contact with ordinary people features heavily.  But in Doyle, Cordelia and later Wesley he had for the first time a group of friends who can offer not only help in time of danger but support, just as Doyle did in the aftermath of IWRY and Cordelia did in “Somnambulist”, IGYUMS and “To Shansu in LA”.  This sense that he is not after all alone; that he doesn’t only have himself to rely on is certainly one of the most important developments of season 1 of ANGEL.  In terms of the character, it means that he has someone to fall back on when things do go wrong.   Angel is still a deeply introverted individual.  His relief in being left alone in the dark at the end of “Lonely Hearts” and his discomfort at Cordelia’s party in “She” is evidence enough of that.  Especially when things go wrong he has a tendency to retreat into himself, to keep things to himself, in short “to brood”.  Whereas this is something Buffy accepted, Cordelia in particular will not.  Not only does she offer friendship, she will not take “no” for an answer.  As a result Angel is now much more open and honest about his feelings than he has ever been before and, I think because of this, is also more successful in dealing with them.  Let us nor forget that season 1 has delivered to him more than his fair share of hard knocks – giving up his humanity in IWRY, Doyle’s death, his encounter with Penn and Kate’s reaction to him, not to mention the (brief) return of Angelus.  The remarkable thing is that after each set back he seems to return stronger and more determined than ever.  And I would suggest that a major element in his ability to cope with these set backs is the support and friendship he gets from Cordelia and Wesley. 

But friendship of this nature is not only a one-way street.  In episodes like “Parting Gifts”, “Expecting” and IGYUMS Angel too has shown a depth of concern for both Cordelia and Wesley that, on BUFFY, would have been surprising.  This is a very important element in another aspect of season 1 ANGEL – the humanization of the lead character.  Someone who, even though he is emotionally vulnerable, buries his feelings and remains cut-off from everyone runs a serious risk of being unsympathetic.  And this was, I think, the reaction of a large number of people to the character in BtVS.  But in gathering his little family about him and sharing their support and friendship Angel now engages our sympathy to a much greater extent than ever before.  And this leads me on to another, very successful, aspect of his humanization.

Throughout series 1 of ANGEL the writers seemed to delight in taking pot shots at our hero.  All these jokes at Angel’s expense seemed to have one purpose.  Part of the character’s problem on BtVS was the writers’ tendency to take the character too seriously.  Of course he had a lot to brood about but that is also true on ANGEL.  The difference was that on BtVS there was little attempt to vary the tone.  He was handsome, dark, powerful vampire who was still something of a mystery, even to Buffy.  This certainly meant he was intriguing; but the same characteristics tended to create a barrier between the character and an audience that felt no connection with him.  On ANGEL, on the other hand, we see the same aspects of his character in a completely different light.  So, the fact that he is good looking is made the subject of gay jokes; his dark mystery the subject of Batman jokes and even a powerful vampire can jump into the wrong car or forget he had a cell phone.  Suddenly Angel becomes more human (for want of a better word).  He isn’t really so different to us after all.  So we are much more inclined to be on his side, wanting him to succeed and sharing the pain of failure.  This sort of audience identification is very important, especially where the hero is a reformed killer vampire.

The Leaden Weights of Being

But at this point I enter a reservation.  While season 1 of Angel worked on the whole rather well, ultimately it failed to make the best use of the rich possibilities that I described above for a character like Angel on the path of redemption.  And I think a large part of the problem lay in the limited, indeed superficial, way that the writers used Angel’s history and psychological baggage.  This is after all what defines Angel.  It is what makes him different from, for example, Buffy.  It is what gives purpose to his fight against evil.  And, as we have seen, the writers built the series on this connection between Angel’s past and his mission by making the series about his redemption.  That redemption was to be gained through change – someone who was cut off from the world was to forge a connection with its inhabitants and, as a result of that connection, become less of a threat to them.

But while season 1 did show us this process of change,  there is disappointingly little exploration of Angel's psychological state or how it affects or is affected by what he is doing.  Certainly from the very beginning of his story, back in season 1 of BtVS, we had a sense of the horror of what he had done in the past.  And it is easy to understand how vivid his memories of this must all be.  We can also understand feelings of guilt.  “Prodigal” was a very interesting episode in this respect because it showed where the fault lay I Liam and how that fault led to his being a vampire.  It also showed the origins of Angelus’ particular ferocity lay in the human resentments and insecurities Liam entertained against his father.  The punishment inflicted upon Angel by first being made a vampire and then having to endure as a human soul trapped in a vampire body with a demon was, as he said himself, disproportionate.  And it was this sense of the injustice of the punishment that Kate’s father faced at the hands of the vampires he had been helping in “Prodigal” that drove Angel on there to help him, notwithstanding Wesley’s reservations on the point.  And episodes like "Lonely Hearts" and "Eternity" give us a sense of his feelings of isolation.  But, before season 2, that is as far as the writers went in exploring the effects of his past.  It established a motivation for his need for redemption and as a basis for establishing a connection between himself and human beings through shared experiences, experiences that allowed him an insight into what they were going through and a sympathy for them.  And it also indicated the difficulty he would have in making the connection. 

One of the problems was that while we saw clear evidence of Angel growing into his mission and putting self-doubt behind him, episodes such as "Eternity" suggested there was no change in his sense of isolation.   Indeed, the central point of “To Shanshu in LA” was that he hadn’t really changed at all:

Wesley: "Angel's cut off.  Death doesn't bother him because there is nothing in life that he wants.  It's our desires that make us human."

Cordelia: "Angel's kinda human.  He's got a soul."

Wesley:  "He's got a soul.  But he's not a part of the world.  He can never be part of the world."  

Cordelia: "Because he doesn't want stuff.  That's ridiculous....."

Wesley: "What connects us to life is the simple truth that we're a   part of it.  We live, we grow, we  change.  But Angel...

Cordelia: "...can't do any of those things.  Well what are you saying, Wesley, that Angel has nothing to look forward to?  That he is going to going to go on forever, the same, in the world but always cut off from it?

Wesley: Yes.”

Well if the writers defined redemption for Angel as getting into other people's lives, these words showed that he was failing.  Yet, everything else pointed to him being very successful in helping others.  That begged the question: why was Doyle so certain that if he failed to make the connection to others that he would end up being a menace to them.

And this leads me on to what I see as the central problem with season 1.   The sort of connection that the writers appeared to have in mind between Angel and those whom he helps necessarily only operates at a superficial level because it stops short of looking at he really interesting questions about Angel.  For example, the Liam we saw in “Prodigal” was a very different personality from the Angel we had become familiar with.  Was here more to these differences than simply the loneliness, isolation and greater sense of responsibility?  What were these other differences?  Were they due simply to the memories Angel now had to endure and the fear of what he still might do?  Or was there something more to it?  What was the real nature of the relationship between demon and human soul.  Were they really completely distinct and separate?  These were some of the most fundamental questions raised by ANGEL and its premise.  And season 1 failed to address any of them.  In truth there could be no comparison between Angel on the one hand and Kate’s father, Tina or Melissa or even Faith on the other because of the fundamental differences between them.  These were differences created both by the reality that Angel inhabited the body of a vampire with all the appetites and instincts it had and by the presence of the demon within him and the effect that it had on him.  This effect could derive from the legacy of its past actions, from sharing its present thoughts or from more subtle influence the vampire had on the human personality.  All of these things had their effect on Angel; all were obstacles to his redemption as defined by the writers because they necessarily stood in the way of the change he was intended to undergo.  So, the mere fact that Angel shared particular experiences or had some common reference points with others could not, of itself, be his redemption.

And I think there is an acknowledgement of this in the central shift in emphasis for ANGEL the series that we now saw.  At the end of season 1 the writers suggested that Angel’s problem was that, as a vampire,  he could not change and he could not grow because he was not part of life. He needed nothing.  He hopes for nothing. But in “To Shanshu in LA” they seemed therefore to point the way to a future in which he was part of the world as a reward for playing a pivotal role in a coming Apocalypse.  All he had to do was:

“to survive the coming darkness, the apocalyptic battles, a few plagues, and some - uh, several, - not that many - fiends that will be unleashed."

Becoming human was his redemption but it was something to be earned by him by saving others, not by himself undergoing internal changes.  But, inherent in what Wesley told Cordelia was that being human is more than taking the physical form; it was all about being part of the world.  There was no reason why being part of the world had to depend upon his being physically human.  Rather that was a function of his personality and outlook on the world.  Conversely changing physically would not make him part of the world if he didn’t change inside.  That was the insight the writers seemed to have gained between season 1 and season 2 and that was why from this point onwards their focus was not on how Angel helped others but on how he sought to change himself.

Chapter II:
A Change of Emphasis

A Dark Legacy

But first of all, of course the writers had to explore what needed to be changed and why.  And it in this context that we get perhaps the best sequence of ANGEL episodes – the first half of season 2.  Here the writers looked at what it meant to be a vampire and asked themselves how this might have affected Angel.  The result was both original and thought provoking.

For most people, guilt, torment and consequences come when you do the wrong thing.  This is something that Angel (for all too obvious reasons) is familiar with to his great cost.  Of course if you do not recognize constraints on your actions, if you truly believe that “anything goes”, then life does indeed become very simple.  But it is for that very reason that this way of thinking is essentially demonic in the proper sense of that word. In season 2 episodes like “Darla” and “the Trial” we saw the Vampire lifestyle as being simple and pure in this sense.  You can do what you want without regard to whether it is right or wrong simply because you do not have to face up to guilt or torment or consequences.  Importantly we saw Angel’s attraction to this lifestyle.  Of course as a vampire with a soul he had a conscience that meant that morally he could not harm innocents without facing guilt, torment or consequences.  But from “the Trial” onwards Angel is able to embrace the purity and simplicity of life without these.  That is because he is quite convinced that his is a righteous anger aimed at destroying evil and protecting the innocent.  He believes in his own mind that he is on the right path.  What Wolfram and Hart did to Darla not only fired him personally but, in his eyes, justified whatever he chose to do to them.  To his way of thinking he was fighting evil, not apparently realizing that he had changed his idea of fighting evil so that it served his need for revenge or that this re-interpretation of reality was the result of his need for a world that is simple and where "anything goes" without guilt or consequence.  He could destroy people hw didn't like, even though they were human.   people he doesn’t like.  He could embrace any method that was useful for the purpose, even one which harmed innocents.  Ironically therefore Angel, while believing he was helping to destroy Wolfram and Hart, was falling into their trap because he had embraced a way of thinking that was demonic.  And throughout the early part of the season we see other ways in which the past and his demonic inheritance affects Angel and leads to his downfall in "Reunion".

“Guise Will be Guise” is an episode about image and the way we perceive reality through it.  When Angel and the Tish Magev are staff fighting on a covered bridge their discussion turns to the question of Angel’s attitude to his own power:

Magev: "You're holding back. What are you afraid off?"

Angel: "Nothing."

Magev: "You're wimping. This isn't Riverdance. Fight!"

Angel: "I am fighting!"

Magev: "Yourself. You're fighting yourself. Fight me! Why are you holding back? Why can't you let go?"

Angel: "Because."

Magev: "Why?"

Angel: "If I let it, it'll kill you."

Magev: "It?"

Angel: "The demon."

Magev: "Ha! But the demon is you!"

Angel: "No."

Magev: "Yes! That's the thing you spend so much energy trying to conceal!"

Angel: "No, I just ...I can't let it control me."

Magev nods: "Ah. I see. You *don't* think it controls you?"

I do not think that the Magev’s statement that the demon is Angel is intended to suggest that Angel and Angelus are one and the same.  Rather the implication is that Angel presents to the world the image of someone using his power as a vampire solely for the good of others.  What the Magev is saying is that the reality is different.  He has an attraction to power (and because of the physical nature of that power he really means violence) and that attraction is part of the inescapable inheritance from the demon within. 

But above all season 2 shows us just how obsessive Angel can be.  In “Dear Boy” his concentration has gone to pot. He dozes off and resumes his dreams in the middle of the day and is disorientated when he wakes up. He shows little or no sense of planning in how to deal with the demon Turfog and its followers and even forgets all about Gunn when he needs help. This is an individual whose higher reasoning functions are seriously impaired. He is tired, making the wrong decisions and what is worse doesn't even care he is doing so. After the fight with the demon Gunn pulled Angel up about his lack of teamwork and all he could say in reply was:

            "Job got done."

It did, but no thanks to Angel. This is someone who has trouble controlling his own desires and wants, someone who is less concerned about helping others or doing the right thing.  Take he way he treats a husband and wife - Harold and Claire - he is supposed to be helping.  To Harold he was blunt to the point of rudeness, simply saying that his wife was probably guilty of adultery in a very dismissive fashion when Harold was clearly looking for reassurance.  When he catches Claire almost in flagrante delicto he is equally offhand:

Angel:  "I've been listening.  I'm over here behind some plant with this machine recording you two, while my associates here been tailing you around all day taking pictures.  I don't like doing this.  It's crass.  Your husband knows.  Go home.  Tell him the truth.  Work it out or leave.  I don't care.  But this..."

Angel doesn’t care that this is a marriage in trouble and that this is a couple who need help.  Would it have hurt him to have tried to talk some sense into Claire instead of dismissing her so contemptuously?  Why this attitude?  The answer lies in the fact that he has been dreaming of Darla and now she is all that he can think or care about.  This is a man for whom she has become an obsession.  And of course obsessiveness is the very characteristic he displayed as Angelus – not least for example in the way that Buffy dominated his thoughts in season 2 of BtVS.

So, here the writers have identified characteristics in Angel’s character – his obsessiveness, his attraction to violence, a hankering after life’s simplicities and a desire to live without guilt and without consequences.  And they traced them back to the demonic influences within him.   The crucial moment here came in the episode "The Trial" was when Darla was vamped in front of Angel's eyes.  Up to that point, as he said himself, he had seen himself as striving for a “big win” – his own redemption.  Helping Darla achieve the same was for him symbolic of his own hopes.  When she was vamped in front of his eyes he lost all hope in his own redemption.  In his lack of perspective, the exaggerated significance of events and the way they were judged by reference to their impact on him Angel is simply displaying the consequences of his obsessiveness.  This in turn led to  his adoption of simple distinctions between good and bad and the need to punish bad.  Hence his embrace of a guilt and conscience free solution to his pain.  Hence his desire for a violent revenge.

And in doing so, he cut himself off from his friends and from any feeling for other human beings.  That is why he fired Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn and stopped worrying about what would happen to them.  That is why he ceased to care about the would be suicide in “Reunion” or Anne in “Blood Money”. 

Chapter III:
Redefining Redemption

This was why, for Angel, redemption had to mean changing who he was.  Unless he did so he would continue to be a danger to the world himself. This was why Angel’s quest for humanity becomes not the reward of redemption but the means to achieve it.  Becoming more connected to the world was the antidote to the influence of the demon within him and those instincts and obsessions that have been warped and twisted by the influence of what the demon did.  It is this conflict within Angel that provides us with the true focus of the rest of the series. Time and time again we see the good within him frustrated and thwarted by his past.

The Struggle Within

In season 3, of course, we see Angel as the loving father. Almost as soon as he discovered in season 3 that he was going to become a father his paternal feelings started to surface.  While the child was still in Darla’s womb these manifested themselves in the simple desire to see the baby delivered safe and well and to ensure that he did not fall into the wrong hands.  But the full range and weight of responsibility of fatherhood could not really be understood while the child was still to be born.  It was only when Angel was confronted with the reality of that tiny human life that the full force of what it meant to be a father hit him.  It would I think be no exaggeration to say that taking care of  Connor was more important to Angel than anything else had ever been.  The importance of getting things right and the uncertainty of doing so make this perhaps the most searching test possible for Angel and how he reacted to it would say a great deal about him.  This is what the episode “Dad” for example is all about.

At the start Angel was fussing over Connor, trying to change him, to get him to feed, distracting him with a teddy bear or funny faces or trying to sooth him with a lullaby  By the end he was just himself with the child – truly himself.  He stopped trying to be the perfect Dad and giving off all those anxious vibes.  Instead he looked at his son with what Darla once called his true face, his vampire face.  And because Connor was so deeply connected to Angel he recognized and felt comfortable with him and stopped crying.  Similarly, it was the anxiety about his son’s safety that drove Angel into the old obsessive and independent ways of thinking and behaving.  He was so afraid of what might happen that he took it upon himself to make sure it did not.  He personally had to be ready to do what was necessary because it was too important to be left to others.  It was only when he recognized that it was the anxiety that was the real enemy because it was getting in the way of what was best for his son that he could let it go and find the real solution  to his problems in help from his friends.

But, even that loving bond could trigger darker emotions.  At then end of season 3, just when it seems that Angel’s connections with his son and with his friends would allow him to leave behind him forever the obsessional, self-indulgent and self-destructive part of his nature that was a legacy of his dark past, that past reaches out and sends the process into reverse.   The shock of Wesley’s betrayal and the loss of his son drove Angel back into his old ways of thinking.  In “Forgiving” he kidnapped and tortured Linwood to persuade Wolfram and Hart to help him get Connor back.  All he succeeded in doing was to hand Wolfram and Hart control of his agenda.  When they offered the spell to make Shajhan material, he used it in spite of dire warnings about the consequences.  In “The Price” these consequences manifested themselves: one man is dead, Fred is infected and the sluks might yet escape to threaten others.   These were not the consequences that Angel intended.  He was genuinely sorry that Phil was killed.  He tried his best to help Fred and he was perfectly prepared to sacrifice himself to prevent the sluks from escaping and killing anyone else.  But he placed the safety of his son above any other consideration.  Ultimately he might accept that carrying out the spell was the wrong choice because it didn’t work.  But he as good as admitted that if something was available to help Connor then he would have taken advantage of it no matter what the consequences.  And perhaps even more tellingly he willfully turned his back on the possibility of enlisting Wesley to help Fred because of his antipathy to the man who stole Connor from him.  It is here that we see the return of Angel, the obsessive, the self-indulgent and the self-destructive.

Then there is Cordelia.  He cared genuinely about her.  We see how important she was to him from “That Vision Thing”.  There, in order to save her from a psychic attach Angel agree to release from a prison someone who may be very dangerous indeed.  He defends his decision to do so in the following terms:

Cordelia: “What if that guy you freed is something or someone truly terrible?  Wolfram and Hart won this time and it’s all my fault.”

Angel: “It’s not about winning Cordelia.  It’s about what’s at stake.  And in this particular scenario you were way more important than winning.  I can’t worry about that guy I set free.  I did what I had to do.  I’ll just deal with the consequences when they happen.”

In “Birthday” we see two more examples of what she meant to him.  First was  Angel’s  impassioned complaints  to a catatonic Cordelia about the way she had hidden her condition:

“I know you can't hear me, but...there's something I have to say.  You really piss me off, you know that? I thought we trusted each other, but you've been lying.  MRI's, CAT scans; it's been going on for over a year. Why couldn't you let me in? I could've helped you. You make me so furious.”

 And later his later admission that:

“I'm more afraid of her dying than she is? What is that?”

Then in “Waiting in the Wings” Angel finally confesses to himself his real feelings for Cordelia.  He realizes that his past hesitancy over a relationship with her lay in his fear pf repeating the same mis-step that he did with Buffy in “Surprise”.  But he decided that that fear can no longer dominate his future with her.  Of course when Groo reappears on the scene and Cordelia appears to choose him over Angel, he spends the episode “Couplet” in something of a sulk.  But such was Angel’s love for her that he was prepared to put his own feelings aside and accept a humiliating assignment to help her fulfill her dream of “cum-shuking” with Groo.  He was even able to come to terms with Cordelia’s choice to the extent of making a generous gesture when she and Groo left to hotel for a vacation.

But again there was a darker side to Angel’s love for Cordelia.  At the start of season 4 when he loses her, he also looses any sense of his mission. When we first see him in “Ground State” he is in Cordelia’s apartment, trying to figure out what to do next and failing miserably.  He doesn’t have the first idea where to go or what to do.  In the end he has to turn to Wesley to guide him.  Given the recent history between them this is a clear measure of his desperation.  And when Wesley sends him to see the Dinza, his feeling of being alone and lost without Cordelia is, if anything, only emphasized.  When the demi-goddess tells him that:

“She is far from you, champion, and needs you no longer.”

He can only reply that he needs her.  And in “The House Always Wins” we see the idea that without Cordelia Angel is purposeless and directionless is hammered home.  Angel lost his sense of identity when he lost Cordelia.  He has his friends, he has his son and he has his mission.  But the mission in particular means nothing to him without Cordelia to provide meaning to it all for him. 

Then, when Cordelia does return Angel sees the two people he loves most in the world betray him.  After both Connor and Cordelia had separately rejected him they then sleep with one another.  And “Long Day’s Journey” opens with him brooding over the fact.  Not only that, but the episode ends with Cordelia identifying Angelus as the one who had the connection with the Beast and seeming to suggest that he was himself a puppet of the creature.  She was the most important person in the world to him.  But she was the one who rejected him because of his past.  She was the one who chose his own son over him.  And now she was demonstrating that she clearly didn’t trust him. In “Awakening” we see his fears about not being able to establish a relationship with a son who loves and respects him; about  Cordelia over her unwillingness to trust and believe in him and her willingness to choose his own son over him; and about his inability to deal with the Beast.  It was these considerations that ultimately led to him agreeing to the return of Angelus and not any sober consideration of the issue on its merits.  As Faith later said:

Faith: “Unleashing Angelus to help you stop this demon who put the lights out. That's just...”

Wesley: “The Beast. The demon who put out the lights—called the Beast.

Faith: “Gas to the flame's all I'm saying.”

But Angel could not see that because once again he got caught up in an obsession with his own agenda and a yearning for the simplicities of a life where no consequences (to the world in general) flowed from his pursuit of that agenda.

Conviction

Of course, it is not only those who are personally close to him that Angel wants to help.  He does care about right and wrong.  And he does want to help others.  In “Sanctuary” he tells Faith:

“Just because you've decided to change doesn't mean that the world is ready for you to.  The truth is, no matter how much you suffer, no matter how many good deeds you do to try to make up for the past, you may never balance out the cosmic scale.  The only thing I can promise you is that you'll probably be haunted - maybe for the rest of your life."

Here he is obviously talking about his own experiences – his memory of the evils done by Angelus and his commitment to helping others as a way of making restitution for those evils.  When in the aftermath of “Eternity” he realizes that he had been too preoccupied with his own redemption he promises a different approach:

Angel: ”Well, I guess I kind of worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy. I never got it. 

Kate: “And now you do?” 

Angel: “Not all of it. But now I just wanna help. I wanna help because people shouldn't suffer as they do. Because, if there isn't any bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.”

Here, Angel is saying that his mission is not about himself; rather it is about others and what he can do for them.  And as an earnest of this we see the way he deals with Lindsay in “Dead End”.  Lindsay was the persons against whom he held a very strong grudge in the aftermath of “The Trial”.  This was after all the focal point of the “Angel Goes Dark” period.  But in that episode he helped Lindsay in spite of this loathing.  And he helped him for one reason only – because he needed it.

Even in season 5 when he was making morally dubious compromises, he never lost the sense that it was his responsibility to help others.  As he says to the Mexican luchador in “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco”:

“You made a difference in the lives you saved. And you did it because... it was the right thing to do. Nobody asks us to go out and fight, put our lives on the line. We do it because we can, because we know how. We do it whether people remember us or not, in spite of the fact that there's no shiny reward at the end of the day... other than the work itself. I think some part of you still knows that, still believes in being a hero.”

Here Angel is implying that this was all that there was for him.  He was fighting because he knew how but there was nothing but the work itself for him in it.  But still he did it.  And the only explanation for that was that at some level he really did care about others.

But even as he says that we see the consequences of his decision to buy Connor normalcy by agreeing to become the CEO of Wolfram and Hart.  In “Convicition”, Angel was faced with the threat a man called Fries poses to his own son as well as LA in general.  Of course, he not only succeeds in protecting the boy and containing the threat from the “bomb” Fries had intended to use; he did so by using the resources of Wolfram and Hart, including Gunn’s “brain boost”.  And in the end he destroys the “true believer” in evil within the firm.  In fact Angel’s own verdict on this struggle is as follows:

Fred: “Is this gonna be our lives now? Fighting our own employees, our own clients? Are we really gonna do any good?

Angel: “Yes, we are. We're gonna change things. We came to Wolfram and Hart because it's a powerful weapon, and we'll figure out how to wield it.”

But this confidence seemed sadly misplaced.  Lorne said it best:

“Of course, saving the day meant getting the scumbag who was ready to sacrifice his own son off on a technicality and then returning said son to said scumbag.”

In fact this outcome was far more in keeping with the Senior Partner’s agenda for Wolfram and Hart than Angel’s.  It is hardly surprising therefore that, time and again throughout the first part of the season, we see how out of his control things were.  In “Soul Purpose” Spike tells Gunn and Wesley:

“I told Angel, and I'll tell you. A place like that doesn't change... not from the inside. Not from the out. You sign on there, it changes you. Puts things in your head. Spins your compass needle around till you can't cross the street without tripping the proverbial old lady and stepping on her glasses. And it's not like I wasn't there, gents, like I wasn't watching you. Had to haunt the damn place. Remember?”

As I pointed out in my review of that episode, we find the truth of this statement  in the indecision that grips Angel, Gunn and Wesley over what to do with Lucien Drake:

Gunn: “Got over a thousand followers. We're pretty sure they sold most of their children down the Hades river in return for some serious demonic mojo." 

Wesley: “One more religious fringe group stockpiling weapons, but in this case, the weapons are black magicks of the most dangerous variety.”

When Wesley talks of being in a gray area here Angel explodes:

            “Can we just get through one damn day without saying that?”

Later, in a moment of clarity he grasps what should be done. 

“Let's kill them all. Warlocks, minions—they're all evil. Sold their kids to the devil. Let's just wipe 'em all out. We got the power to do that, right?”

But while Gunn and Wesley disagree about what should be done about the cult, it turns out that neither wants that.  Instead they see Wolfram and Hart’s role in the following terms: 

Gunn; “Not so much stopping as...”

Wesley: “…as redirecting their energies.”

Gunn: “See, a cult this big has alliances, connections. If we confront them directly, it could be very bad for business.”

A further illustration comes in “You’re Welcome” when in the Teaser we learn about a character Greenaway.  As a client of Wolfram and Hart, Gunn made a deal with him:

“It was just a stupid racketeering charge. I told him we'd get him off with probation, so long as he shut down operations.”

It was not an untypical pact.  Instead of Angel and the others forcibly “shutting down” Greenway's operations for him they bargain with him.  They effectively write off what he has done until now on the basis that he will stop doing it.    But that wasn’t enough for Greenway.  So, he fled jurisdiction and the fact that he needed a ritual slaughter of five nuns to do so obviously wasn’t going to stop him.  After all, as Angel pointed out:

“He's a Wolfram & Hart client. Our client. Oh, and he's evil. What are the odds?”

If anything shows the one sided nature of the bargains that Angel and the others are now making, this is it.  It was bad enough that Greenway got away with a serious crime by simply agreeing in return to abide by the law.   Now he flouts even that part of the deal, five women are dead as a result and there is nothing anyone can do about it.   Whatever minor benefits Angel and the others were getting from their Faustian pact, there is little doubt about who was really in control and who was getting the benefit.  Yet he defends the decision to Cordelia in the following terms:

“He was about to kill you. And himself. He was so torn up. I didn't have any other way to stop him, any way to help him. Connor's happy now.”

But Cordelia’s analysis of what Angel did was more accurate:

“So, not only did you strike a deal with your worst enemy to give up your son, you let them rape the memories of your friends who trust you?”

Again his agenda here was driven an obsession with saving Connor that overrode any other consideration such as the consequences for innocent people of the compromises he is making.  Again he convinced himself that, in doing so, there would be no such adverse consequences.  And again in the way he looked at the situation he was in and the decisions he took we see the same characteristics that were at work in season 2.

Chapter IV:
The Legacy of the Past

The Eternal Victim

But all of this begs the question: why couldn’t Angel see this in the same clear terms that Cordelia did in “You’re Welcome”.  Why, when he wanted to redeem Darla did he allow her death to turn him into someone who ignored the needs of others and live only for vengeance?  Why did he allow Connor’s disappearance to drive him into serving Wolfram and Hart’s agenda?  And why when he loved his son and Cordelia did he react so badly to their affair?  In short why was it that, throughout Angel’s mission all his good qualities and his best intentions were thwarted by these negative influences of his past?

As we have seen, in terms of personality, traits of Angelus have become part of Angel as well.  But ultimately our actions are not dictated by our physical needs or our instincts or our personality traits.  Rather they are governed by our conscious decisions.  These decisions are taken by what I conceive of as the spiritual entity called the soul.  This is distinct from body and personality.  It is the moral force responsible for the choices we make.  It is true that it makes those choices in response not only to its own moral compass but also in response to the needs and demands of body and personality - what Plato called "the leaden weights of being".  So, when Angel chose to sanction the killing in the cellar in “Reunion” or any of the other things I described above it was the result of circumstances weakening Angel's moral objections enough to allow the vampire personality to dictate his actions.  The human soul he possesses ultimately has the power of choice.  Even accepting the presence of evil within him Angel can still choose good.  In “Orpheus” for example in his conversation with Faith, Angelus himself recognizes this, partly in his never ending complaints about the choices Angel actually does make.  But also when he says:

“Choices, little girl. The ones you make with your heart of hearts.”

The fight in the alley between Angel and Angelus at the end of that episode was therefore symbolic of the constant struggle within Angel, the struggle over the choices that Angel must make.  Will that choice be on the basis of the instincts and appetites of the demon or on the basis of the moral convictions of the human soul. 

The answer to the question why the demonic side of his personality sometimes prevails lies, therefore,  in the circumstances in which they do so.  These circumstances all have one thing in common and this is a factor that has been a constant with Angel since he was a human called Liam – his insecurities.  In the season 4 episode “Spin the Bottle” we see Liam as a teenager.  And what comes across very powerfully here is his feeling of being worthless, a victim of people and forces beyond his control and someone who was powerless in the face of those people and forces.  We also get the sense of isolation that such feelings instill in him.  Like everyone else he interprets his new and unfamiliar surroundings on the basis of his own experiences.  So while Fred sees a conspiracy and Wesley a test by the Watcher’s Council Angel jumps to the conclusion that it was all the Devil’s doing:

"My father said that I was a sinner, that I'd come to a bad end. Now I've come to Hell."

He was being punished because he was bad, something he seems to accept.  He admits to a fondness for drink:

"I tell ya, I get through this I'm gonna have me a great cup of ale.  I don't care what my father says is does to you."

And of course his intentions with Cordelia were strictly dishonourable:

"Truth to tell, I'm not much for fighting. I'd rather be satisfying my sinful urges with the Chase girl."

The interesting thing is that, even though he knows what he wants is wrong,  he won’t or can’t change.  And this is indeed a picture which is entirely consistent with the view we have of Liam in “Prodigal”.  When we first see him in that episode his relationship with his father had already degenerated into a vicious cycle of low expectation and low self-esteem.  Each reinforced the other.  We do not see how it reached that level.  But it is easy enough to guess.  Liam (if he was anything like Angel) was an intelligent, sensitive and possibly artistic young man who wanted more out of life than working in the family business in one of the most remote parts of Europe.   He wanted to see the world.  But herein lay the problem with Liam.  He could have left home and made something of himself; but didn’t.  When he did try to leave he got no further than the nearest tavern and spent all his money on drink and women.  In all likelihood if he hadn’t met Darla that fateful night he would have gone back to his father’s house as soon as he had sobered up.  Alternatively Liam could have tried to discipline himself to please his father by working diligently for him.  But he didn’t do that either.  Both of these were the difficult courses to take.  Liam simply didn’t believe he had it in him to succeed at either.  Instead he chose the easy path.  He stayed and enjoyed the material comforts of home.  And there he didn’t even try to live up to his father’s expectations:

Father:  “It’s a son I wished for – a man.  Instead God gave me you!  A terrible disappointment.”

Angel:  “Disappointment?  A more dutiful son you couldn’t have asked for.  My whole life you’ve told me in word, in glance, what it is you required of me, and I’ve lived down to your every expectations, now haven’t I?”

Father:  “That’s madness!”

Angel:  “No.  The madness is that I couldn’t fail enough for you.  But we’ll fix that now, won’t we?”

If you never try to live up to expectations you can never fail.  This is the response not of the cruel or malicious but of the weak.  And it is equally characteristic of the weak that they blame others for what has gone wrong in their lives.  And that is what Liam did.  He refused to take responsibility for his own choices, blaming instead his father.  And it was this breach with his father that led Liam eventually to storm out of the house and into the waiting arms of Darla, with all the terrible consequences that entailed.  Terrible for everyone else, that is.  For Angelus, though, it was a wonderful time.  Angel describes life as a vampire in the BtVS episode “Angel”:

“When you become a vampire the demon takes your body, but it doesn't get your soul. That's gone! No conscience, no remorse.  It's an easy way to live. You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care. I haven't fed on a living human being since that day.”

“The easy way to live”.  Here indeed was the attraction of the no regrets and no-consequences lifestyle that Angel had such difficulty leaving behind, even in modern LA.  Indeed when he first recovered his soul, his instinct was also to take the line of least resistance.  That is why, as we saw in “Darla” he followed his lover to China to beg for one last chance to continue in the old ways.  It was the life he knew; it was the life he had been happy in.  He obviously found the prospect of living any different lifestyle too intimidating.  Ultimately he was so repelled by the moral implications of what this involved that he fled not only her but humanity itself.  But even here we see the extent to which his choices were dominated by his insecurities.  Again in “Orpheus” when we see Faith and Angelus at the exit from Ellis Island in 1902 we are made aware of the physical discomfort inflicted on Angelus by Angel’s exile from human company after the restoration of his soul:

Faith: “I'm guessing it's more like "Angelus, this is your life," because lack-of-hygiene world sure ain't mine. Seriously, man, did you miss the invention of the bath?”

Angelus: “The whole way over here, he crouched in the filth of animals just to avoid human temptation. This isn't my life—it's his!”

Faith: “Angel's?”

Angelus: “It annoyed the crap out of me the first time around. This sucks.”

Next we move forward in time to the 1920’s.  Angelus evidently remembers the scene as he freaks out and tries to leave.  But in the event both he and Faith witness Angel rescue a puppy.  As Faith happily proclaims:

“We're reliving Angel's good deeds—you are in hell! Wicked!”

From this it appears that we are seeing the effects of the drug from Angelus’ point of view and that he is the one suffering the torments of hell.  But Angel’s reaction after saving the puppy puts us on warning that all is not as simple as it seems:

Dog Owner: “Oh, gee, big fella. How can I thank you?”

Angel: “Get lost.”

Dog Owner: “Beg pardon?”

Angel: “Take a hike, Betty. Scram.”

Angel’s reaction here is an echo of his behavior on the ship coming to Ellis Island.  He kept himself away from humans because he was afraid of what he might do to them.  The next scene is a donut shop in the 1970’s.  As Angel enters a young couple leaves and Angel is aware of their heartbeats and clearly tempted by them.  As Angelus tells Faith:

“Every time he gets close, I feel it. Wanting to tear their flesh apart. The hunger. It's like a blade in my gut.”

Here is the reason Angel kept away from humanity; here is the reason he did not try to seek redemption earlier by helping others.  He was afraid he could not control himself.

And it was this same sense of insecurity that again and again led him into doing the wrong thing.  In “Happy Anniversary” he explains his decision to strike back at Wolfram and Hart:

You want to know what my problem is?  I'm screwed.  That's my problem.  I can't win.  I'm trying to atone for a hundred years of unthinkable evil.  News flash!  I never can!  Never going to be enough.  Now I got Wolfram and Hart dogging me, it's too much! Two hundred highly intelligent law-school graduates working fulltime driving me crazy.  Why the hell is everyone so surprised that it's working?  But no, it's 'Angel, why you're so cranky?' 'Angel, you should lighten up.  You should smile.  You should wear a nice plaid.’ ”

This is Angel’s view of himself as the eternal victim in the machinations of others or just of a cruel and unfeeling fate.  The same was true when he lost Connor in season 3.  Connor was, apart from being his son, also his future:

Angel: “You think you know something about living, cause you have this really long past. And that's really all you have, in my case anyway. Then one day you wake up and you have something else...”

Cordelia: “A future.”

Angel: “I had a son...”

And just as happened when he lost Darla, losing his son undermined his faith in his future and reinforce his view of himself as the eternal victim.  Hence his lashing out in anger.

In season 4 as well, Angel’s insecurities drive his actions.  When Cordelia returns she tells him:

“When I was up there, I could look back and see everything you ever did as Angelus—more than see, I felt it. Not just their fear and pain. I felt you and how much you enjoyed making them suffer. I love you, Angel, but I can't be with you. It's just too soon. Maybe if we just give it a little time...”

Here she was both expressing her love for him and at the same time rejecting him because of his past.  Connor too rejects him partly because he is a vampire and, therefore, to Connor, inherently evil.  And then of course Angel sees the two people he loves most in the world betray him.  After each has rejected him they then sleep with one another.  Not only that, but then Cordelia identifies Angelus as the one who had the connection with the Beast and seems to suggest that he was himself a puppet of the creature.  She was the most important person in the world to him.  But she was the one who rejected him because of his past.  She was the one who chose his own son over him.  And now she was demonstrating that she clearly didn’t trust him.  And finally there is the arrival of the Beast.  The team is dealing with a creature who is enormously more powerful than they are.  And Angel and the others can do nothing against it.  When they fight him the Beast wins – easily.  And Angel has no sort of authority at all in trying to rally the troops against it in “Long Day’s Journey.”

Angel: “The Powers are sending us a wake-up call, people. Sure, we've been—I don't want to say demolished—beaten. And sure, it's slightly...demoralizing. But from here on out, we're on the offensive. We're gonna find out this thing's weaknesses, we're gonna go in prepared, and we're gonna fight smart. It's time to take down the Beast.”

Fred: “Uh, we're all behind you, Angel, a hundred percent, but how can we be prepared when there's nothing on this thing.”

Lorne: “And weaknesses? It's not a sure bet El Destructo has any.”

Worse than that they are always at least one step behind the Beast.  This is a creature with an agenda.  Angel and his team are continually scrambling to keep up with that agenda.  Angel Investigations only found out about the Ra-tet when the Beast had killed three of them.   They only discovered what the Beast wanted from the Ra-tet when there was just one left.  They tried to protect Manny but somehow Angel and Cordelia were apparently drugged and someone stole silently in and killed him.  They had no idea where the Beast was going to carry out the ritual to darken the sun.  They only stumbled upon that secret by accident.  And, even though they have a plan to stop him, it fails miserably.  The sun is darkened and “Awakening”  begins with a sense of utter helplessness as people watch the darkness descend.  Nor has the team any idea where to even start to bring the sun back.  It is no wonder Gunn observes:

“Face it man, we're losing ground. Pretty much the only victory we can claim is that we're not dead yet.”

Finally  in “Awakening” we see the accumulation of all of Angel’s insecurities: about not being able to establish a relationship with a son who loves and respects him; about  Cordelia over her unwillingness to trust and believe in him and her willingness to choose his own son over him; and about his inability to deal with the Beast.  These insecurities were what ultimately led him to agree to the return of Angelus.

In spite of defeating Jasmine, season 4 had been a traumatic one for Angel.  He had lost Cordelia.  Connor was now on a path to self-destruction.  Moreover he had discovered that he and his friends had been manipulated by Jasmine towards her own ends:

Angel: “It doesn't make sense. Cordy was made a higher being because she proved herself to the Powers by bearing their visions. This thing couldn't have…” 

Wesley: “Unless it maneuvered her to inherit the visions in the first place.”

Skip: “Uh, oh. Better step on it. The rubes are catching up.”

Angel: ““It wasn't just her ascension. Everything that's happened to Cordy in the past few years—all of it—was planned.”

But then Skip himself interjects to make them look at themselves and their actions as well:

Skip: “You really think it stops with her, amigo? You have any concept of how many lines have to intersect in order for a thing like this to play out? How many events have to be nudged in just the right direction? (looks at Lorne) Leaving Pylea. (looks at Gunn) Your sister. (looks at Fred) Opening the wrong book. (looks at Wesley) Sleeping with the enemy. Gosh, I love a story with scope.”

Again it was the sense of insecurity that all of this engendered that drove Angel's actions in the early part of season 5, in particular his obsession with the idea that he has lost his destiny.  In “Soul Purpose”, in particular, we see this in Angel’s hallucinations. When DreamWesley apparently follows him back to his apartment he refers to Spike's arrival on the scene as being “fortuitous” in the sense of it being a lucky accident because Angel had already become irrelevant.  And it is because of this “new situation” DreamWesley stakes Angel thus emphasizing that without his destiny Angel does feel he is nothing. Later  DreamFred visits.  At first she removes all his internal organs saying:

            “You're a vampire. You don't need this stuff anyway.”

In particular she produces his dried up little walnut of a heart, thus referring back to the debate over Angel’s heart in “Numero Cinco”.  This emphasizes his difference to ordinary humans.  Then she produces a license plate from his chest commenting:

            “Came up the gulf stream, huh?”

This transparent reference to JAWS can have only one meaning.  The license plate in that movie was removed from a soulless killer.  So here too we are reminded of the fact that Angel was himself a soulless killer. 

And finally we have Angel’s encounter with DreamLorne who, in real life,  uses the songs others sing to help them chart their path.  Angel, of course, doesn’t sing so his willingness to do so here is itself a sign of his desperation.   But even so he cannot produce a note and DreamFred chimes in:

            “I told you he was empty.”

And of course it is precisely the same sense of being useless and inadequate that drove him to rely on Wolfram and Hart to save Connor for him.  How else could he do it?  Wasn't it perfectly obvious that he himself couldn't cope with the demands of fatherhood?

Chapter V:
Resolution

No Man is An Island

Why did Angel’s insecurities matter so much?  Why did they drive him to do things that the better angels of his nature (if you forgive the phrase) would have avoided?  The answer to that question lies, I would suggest, in the way that those insecurities separated Angel from others.  Again I refer back to TeenLiam in "Spin the Bottle".  As the other members of Angel Investigations adjust to being teenagers again they naturally start trying to get to know one another.  Angel, however, is different.  He wanders off on his own.  Similarly it was his insecurities that caused the split between himself and his father.  They led him to cut himself off from humanity in the years after he got his soul back.  And again that period of disengagement meant that he lost interest in helping people.  In “Why We Fight” we see him in his hotel room in 1943 entirely disinterested in the great struggle going on all around him.  When the agent from the Demon Research Initiative asks him:

“You ever considered joinin' the war effort?”

He coldly replies “no”. He is, therefore, essentially coerced into agreeing to go on a mission.   When he became obsessed with Darla he stopped listening to his friends and when she was turned into a vampire he turned his back on them altogether.  In the aftermath of Connor’s kidnapping and during much of season 4 he turned in on himself spending long periods in isolation, divided from his friends and distracted by and (in season 4) was distrustful of Cordelia and Connor in particular.  And especially in season 5 we see first of all an Angel that is separated physically from the people he most cares about – Cordelia and Connor – and secondly at odds with his friends.  One of the effects of Angel Investigation’s Babylonian captivity is the dissension and disunion caused among the team.  In an early scene in “Unleashed” they assemble for  picnic.  But almost immediately we learn that this is just a cover for some very serious discussions – discussions which quickly turn into arguments which show just how much this formerly close knit team has drifted apart and is now riven with distrust. 

It is not just that Angel’s insecurities caused or contributed to his isolation.  That isolation in its turn meant he was less able to cope with them. It is in this context that we see the importance of “Unleashed”.  This deals with the effect of a woman called Nina being turned into a werewolf.  The whole theme of the episode is set up by the description of McManus, the man who had turned her into a werewolf and his earlier failed attempts to control the beast inside him:

 “He left his wife and kids a couple years ago, kept moving, staying in the middle of nowhere most of the time. First year or so, a few mangled bodies showed up here and there, but the last 6 months, guy was leaving corpses like bread crumbs.”

It is Angel’s commentary on this that explains the significance of his experience:

“Probably tried to control it for a while and just gave up. Thought he had to fight it alone, ended up with nothing worth fighting for.”

Subsequently the episode follows Nina’s attempts to come to terms with her fate.  She too is tempted to follow McManus and cut herself off from everyone she loves, her sister and her niece Amanda.  But she learns that this isn’t the way to control her life.  In order to do that  she really had to want to keep the monster within safely locked up.  In other words she has to have something in her life that for her is worth fighting for.  And as Angel himself says if she does that:

“At some point you'll be at the grocery store or with Amanda, and the whole werewolf thing, it'll just be a part of who you are.”

And so this is the central theme of “Unleashed” - that you cannot save yourself by simply thinking about yourself but must instead reach out and connect with others to do so. 

Therefore, while in “You’re Welcome” and episode after it we see re-iterated the idea of doing the right thing, of bringing moral clarity to the fight, of recovering a sense of purpose and gaining a new motivation they are not the real turning point for Angel.  It is only with “Origin” that things really do begin to change.  And that is because in that episode Angel found the missing sense of connection that “Unleashed” and “Numero Cinco” among others episodes were really about.

In “Home” Angel took control of Connor’s life away from him because he could not trust Connor to do the right thing or even just to continue living.  And it was this decision which at one and the same time separated him from the boy and handed control over Angel’s own actions to Wolfram and Hart.  But the Connor we saw in “Origin” was not the same Connor we saw in season 4.  When his faux parents tried to hide from Connor the fact that they were seeking Angel’s help for him, he doesn’t resent the deception.  Instead he seeks to reassure them:

“All right. Look, you guys... I'm not saying this isn't weird and all, but we'll get through it. You don't have to be scared.”

And it is the maturity of his reaction that demonstrates to them that they were wrong.  As he says:

“Hey, have some faith in me.”

And in the end Connor’s memories were restored.  He remembers his former sociopathic self, the fact that control of his own life was taken away from him by his father and is now conscious that he was made to live out a lie.  His only reaction to this is:

“You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father.”

In these words Connor is telling Angel that he knows, understands and appreciates what Angel did for him. And it was because of this that Angel was able to re-establish a connection with the boy that he had previously severed. And we can see the importance of that connection from their scenes in “Not Fade Away”.  Here he spends his free time before the final battle sharing in his son’s future by helping him write a resume for an internship.   And after they fight Hamilton together we see this exchange:

Connor: “What do we do?”

Angel: “You go home.”

Connor: “Huh?”

Angel: “This is my fight.”

Connor: “That's some serious macho…”

Angel: “Go home...now.”

Connor: “They'll destroy you.”

Angel: “As long as you're OK, they can't.”

As I said in my review of this episode, it is to help ensure that Connor continues to have a future that Angel is fighting.  It is not for pride, not out of revenge but because he cared about his son and had therefore his own connection with humanity.  And because of this he cared about more than just his son.  In fighting for Connor’s future he was fighting for the future of everyone.  Hamilton could not understand what Angel had left to fight for once he had given up his Shanshu.  Angel’s response was telling:

“People who don't care about anything will never understand the people who do.”

At the very beginning of the series Doyle defined Angel's central problem as his isolation from humanity and the dangers that isolation posed for him.  He told Angel that helping people is his way of connecting with them and that the connection with them is the way to him dealing with the darkness inside him.  Just like McManus and Nina, Angel by trying to do things on his own separated from everyone else was doomed to fail.  The combination of his insecurities and history and the personality traits that it left him with meant that, whatever his good resolutions, he would stumble and fall.  It was finding out that he really cared about not just his son but about humanity in general that enabled him in the end to strike back at the Black Thorn and to achieve some form of redemption.  He did indeed let people into his heart and thereby he did indeed save his own soul.

Chapter VI:
Summing Up Angel

A Tragic Hero

In my overview of season 5 I looked at the story of Angel’s last season as a tragedy in the classical sense.  And indeed I think that his whole life can be seen in those terms.  And that is what gives it its force.  Tragedy asks questions about the nature of human beings, our position in the universe and in particular our relations with the powers that seem to govern our lives.  It does so through the medium of the conflicts our protagonists find themselves involved in.  Angel was in conflict principally with Wolfram and Hart.  But that conflict was fought out within himself as the law firm used his own weaknesses against him – his insecurities, his obsessiveness, his predilection for violence, his self-indulgent yearning for the simplicities of a consequence free life.  In the classical tradition, these weaknesses caused him and others great suffering and threatened him personally with destruction.  But through them eventually he came to understand far better not only himself but more particularly his place in the universe.  John Donne wrote in a famous meditation:

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls

it tolls for thee.

And centuries later Thomas Merton in a book which took its title from the first line of this passage wrote:

Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and “one body,” will we begin to understand the positive importance not only of the successes but of the failures and accidents in our lives. My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from the failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another’s achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time.

This was the wisdom that Angel discovered.   The struggle against evil was not about him or what he could or could not achieve.  It was about the future of humanity.  As he said himself of the Senior Partners:

“Maybe they're not there to be beat. Maybe they're there to be fought. Maybe fighting them is what makes human beings so remarkably strong.”

It is by showing this that Angel makes his contribution to the cause of humanity and gives his life meaning. 

From the tragic perspective, wisdom based on truth is of supreme value, even though it must often be purchased with the hero's death. And for this purpose tragedy pushes the individual to the outer limits of existence where one must live or die by one's convictions. Facing the end of life, a person quickly recognizes life's ultimate values. All the trivial matters which occupy our daily routine suddenly vanish. At this decisive point there is no turning back and no room for compromise.  And that is the point that we reach in “Not Fade Away.” Angel having suffered the torments of self doubt, learns from that suffering the truth about his own purpose.  It is not obtaining a reward for his good deeds.  It is not having a family life with Cordelia and his son.  It isn't even revenge against Wolfram and Hart.  What gives his life meaning is the struggle against evil - not victory but the struggle itself. And having made that discovery he decided to act in an uncompromising fashion.  In doing so he demonstrated the power of free will to stand against fate or the gods or whatever outside powers seek to dominate human beings.  It is this tremendous strength of will to scale the heights and accomplish the impossible that sets the hero apart from ordinary humanity, but at the same time it inspires us with a vision of human potential. Thus, tragedy, far from being a pessimistic view of life, is ultimately optimistic about the value of human achievement and the unconquerable strength of the human spirit.   Confronting insurmountable odds, Angel’s determination to act rather than submit may indeed have led to disastrous results, but at the same time it tests the basic substance of his own humanity, proving its worth. And this is why the final message of ANGEL as a series delivered through its eponymous hero is so appropriate and so powerful. 

 Of course a drama cannot live by theme alone.  It has to attract and keep our attention.  And here we see two of the other great strengths of Angel's characterization.   The different elements that made up his personality  were consistent with one another and with his history.  And in turn his actions were consistent with both.  We started out with a believable character who was weak and insecure without being in any way malicious.  We saw the way that those characteristic inter-related with those of a demon - driving the vampire on to commit ever more horrible deeds to compensate for the feelings of inadequacy inherited from the human.  And then we saw the inheritance of the demon when, as an ensouled individual, Angel still felt the craving for the simplicities of a conscience and consequence free world and the self centered obsessiveness it engendered.  And his attempts to deal with this legacy were always hindered by his old feelings of inadequacy and the constant temptation to take the easy way out.  This made the character both coherent and believable.  And, as we have seen, in turn his actions were for the most part consistent with this characterization.  Not only that; it was a very complex and well-rounded characterization.  It is multi-layered with plenty of detail from his past incorporated in his story.

One legitimate criticism might be the extent to which the characterization remained static.  Essentially the same problems that derailed his redemption in season 2 continued to haunt him until almost the very end.  And I can certainly concede that this does get a little wearing on one's sympathy for him.  But at the same time, this emphasized two things which generated much of the interest of the series and  rendered a debate about whether his character was static or dynamic largely moot.  First of all there was the way Angel's efforts to change - and from time to time their success in doing so - kept on hitting the same problems, thus emphasizing the reality and difficulty of those problems.  And in its turn this ensured a considerable tension between this potential for Angel to achieve his redemption and the equally real potential for his to fail.  At no stage could we ever be assured that Angel would not end up self-destructing. 

It is in many ways the strength of this characterization that the "spice" of a story lies within Angel's internal struggle and not in a conflict between simple heroes and villains.  Angel has some of the qualities of a hero and some of the qualities of a villain.  His basic motivations are those of a conventional hero; but he is always being challenged by his weaknesses, most notably selfishness. To that extent I suppose at time he could even be classed as an anti-hero.  But, however we classify him, there is no doubt but that Angel is indeed a memorable character.