EPISODE 5.15

A Hole In The World

Written by: Joss Whedon

Directed by: Joss Whedon

A Hole in the World

Near the end of this episode we see Spike standing on a bridge, looking down at the abyss that it spans.  While staring into that endless pit he beholds literally uncounted sarcophagi stretching down as far as the eye can see and beyond.  And as he does so, so he muses:

“This goes all the way through to the other side. So, I figure, there's a bloke somewhere around New Zealand standing on a bridge like this one, looking back down at us. All the way down. There's a hole in the world. Feels like we ought to have known.”

It is from this description of the abyss that the title to this episode is taken.  The interesting question is why?    The central event of the episode is Fred’s death.  It’s driving force is the regard that each member of the former Angel Investigations team has for her and the lengths to which they are willing to go in order to save her.  The pit is the origin of her peril and, at one point anyway, a possible means to save her.  But on the face of things, it seems odd to have the episode named after  it rather than the other strands of the episode. 

But if you think about it, this pit is the central metaphor of the episode.  It is easy to see what everyone does in “A Hole in the World”.  But we can only understand the meaning and significance of what they do if we understand what this pit symbolizes.  A hole is not just a depression.  It is an imperfection.  And if a hole goes right through something, then it is a fault.  And when Spike was referring to a hole in the world he was not referring only or even primarily to a fault in the planet earth.  He meant a fault in the world in its universal sense of everything we as human beings know, experience and believe.  So the fault he was really referring to was not a physical one but almost a moral one.  He meant an imperfection in our moral sense, our belief in right and wrong.

And this is where we come to the debate between Angel and Spike over who would win in a battle between cavemen and astronauts.

Spike:  “I am talking about something primal. Right? Savagery. Brutal animal instinct.”

Angel: “And that wins out every time with you. You know, the human race has evolved, Spike!

Spike: “Oh, into a bunch of namby-pamby, self-analyzing wankers who could never hope to…“

Angel: “We're bigger. We're smarter. Plus, there's a thing called teamwork, not to mention the superstitious terror of your pure aggressors!”

The interesting thing here is that both Angel and Spike share a common frame of reference.  They conceive of the cavemen and the astronauts in exactly the same way.  They see astronauts as representing the higher virtues of our civilization – reason and social cohesion.  Equally they see cavemen not simply as a more primitive people but rather as the antithesis of the astronauts with animal instincts and savage aggression.  Of course this is a battle that could never take place in the physical world because, as so conceived, cavemen and astronauts are on different ends of the evolutionary process.  But this is a battle that doesn’t take place in the physical world.  It takes place in us all.  We all have the instinctual, savage and aggressive cavemen within us fighting to overcome the reasonable and social astronaut and our behavior to our fellow human beings depends on who wins this battle.

Fred, the Astronaut

In “A Hole in the World” Fred is the archetypal astronaut.  She is, of course, both intelligent and logical, as she showed by her comments on the cavemen vs. astronauts battle and the potential disparity between the two sides:

Fred: “But that doesn't make any sense.”

Lorne: “I just call it like I see it.”

Fred: “But the cavemen have fire. That's what they live with in their caves. The astronauts should at least have some sort of weapon.”

But much more important from this point of view is her kindness, her concern for others - the teamwork in the equation, if you like.   Take the way she was so anxious not to hurt Knox’s feelings or better still the way she boosted Lorne’s self-esteem:

“Winifred Burkle once told me after a sinful amount of Chinese food, and in lieu of absolutely nothing, "I think a lot of people would choose to be green. Your shade, if they had the choice."

Here we see the driving force behind the anxiety of all of the others to help her.  Indeed, it is even the driving force behind Knox’s whole plan to allow Illyria to take over her body:

Gunn: “You couldn't stand the thought of Wes winning her, so you kill her?”

Knox: “No, I meant everything I said about her. I chose Fred because I love her, because she's worthy. You think I'd have my god hatched out of some schmuck?”

And the Cavemen

And it is here we see evidence of the “hole in the world”, the fault line in humanity through which evil wells up, even when we think we are doing good.  Knox doesn’t think he is being evil.  He is performing a religious act, perhaps a duty.  The fact that he is bringing excruciating pain and death to someone he professed to care for – and suffering to all who knew her – is something he must have known about.  But, if we are to go by the cynical act he put on in pretending to look for a cure he knew did not exist, it is certainly something he didn’t care about. All that mattered to him was a re-birth for Illyria.  He was prepared to make any sacrifice to bring that about.

We are, I think, intended to condemn him for this.  But the interesting thing is that he is far from alone in the way he thinks here.  We need only look at Wesley.  The recent kindling of his romance with Fred did strike me as somewhat rushed.  But now in retrospect we can, I think, see why.  It was a deliberate effort on the part of the writers to heighten our sense of his suffering at the threat to Fred’s life.  I am bound to say that this effort was somewhat misplaced.  It has been obvious for two years that Wesley was carrying a torch for Fred and the mere fact that he was unable to articulate it didn’t disguise the fact.  Equally, if Fred had died without Wesley being able to declare himself openly to her then, far from diminishing the sense of pathos, it would in fact have increased it.  Even so, we can readily accept that it is Wesley who feels the greatest fear and anguish over Fred’s fate and accordingly his reaction is important as a bellwether in this episode. 

First of all we realize that this is a different Wesley to the one we saw between “Waiting in the Wings” and “Sleep Tight”.  It is perhaps a criticism of the writers that this transformation has not been followed more closely or developed more fully.  But that is a topic for another occasion.  For the present Gunn says it all.  Not only does he feel able to joke with Wesley about Fred having feelings for Gunn, but he can actually implicitly criticize Wesley’s reaction to his original romance with her.  When Wesley asks if he is alright with the situation he responds:

“Last year, you wouldn't ask me that question. The man becomes civilized. It's cool. Our thing's long done, and I know how you feel about her.”

And indeed, during the remaining course of the episode we mainly see the “civilized” or astronaut  Wesley, the researcher, the font of information about all things occult.  Most of all we see the man who loves Fred and who stays with her to the bitter end, an action which took as much courage and determination as anything Angel or Spike showed in this episode.  But even Wesley sometimes acts irrationally over Fred; even Wesley acts with an instinctual and essentially purposeless savagery, as when an unfortunate Wolfram and Hart employee tries to interrupt him:

Attorney:  “I'm sorry to interrupt. I just need to know if the Holbine Clan history was here. It was supposed to be faxed to my office.

Wesley: “It can wait.”

Attorney:  “These guys are really important. I just need— I mean, the whole company can't be working Miss Burkle's case.

Wesley: “Of course.”

Wesley at once pulls a gun out of his desk and shoots the man in the knee. He falls to the floor screaming in agony. Wesley then tells his secretary:

“Jennifer, please send anyone else who isn't working Miss Burkle's case to me.”

The idea that the shot attorney or indeed the great majority of people in Wolfram and Hart could make any difference to Fred’s case is, of course, absurd.  The violence offered to the offending employee was therefore purposeless and irrational.  Wesley – if he were rational – would have known that.  But at that point it was all he could do to hold  back blind panic and still do his job.  So, the caveman inside him surfaced.

And he is not alone.  Take Lorne as another example.  This was the demon who escaped Pylea because of his hatred for the violence he left behind there.  This was the demon whose ambition was simply to set up a Nightclub from which violence would be banished.  And yet, with Eve, he not only threatened violence to obtain information – a reasonable enough tactic given the circumstances – he did so with a relish and a venom that spoke of far deeper feelings.  He first of all punches her simply because of her back-talk.  Then, with Angel and Spike standing close by, he invites Eve to sing so that he can read her and tells her:

“If I hear one note—one quarter-note—that tells me you had any involvement, these two won't even have time to kill you.”

Again, this is not logic or reason speaking.  If it had been it would be telling Lorne that, if Eve was involved in creating Fred’s predicament they needed her alive.  No, this was the instinctual, violent caveman speaking.

Et Tu Brute

But even more interesting is Gunn.  And in a very nice touch we first see him in this episode happily singing “Three Little Maids From School” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado”.

“Three little maids who, all unwary,
Come from a ladies' seminary,
Freed from its genius tutelary"

The genius tutelary of a place, like the girls' school, is its guardian or controlling spirit. In "Three Little Maids from School" Yum-Yum, Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo sing because they are away from their old-fashioned school and because  they are therefore freed from its "genius tutelary" with its presumably conservative and highly proper outlook.  Indeed they now look forward to the possibilities of their freedom from its moral constraints:

“Everything is a source of fun.
Nobody's safe, for we care for none.
Life is a joke that's just begun.”

It’s not that the three girls set out to harm anyone; but if you are simply looking to pursue your ends and are not very particular about how you do it, then that is what is going to happen.  This was the lesson Charles Gunn was about to learn.  But at this stage he had a song in his heart and tone of the song is light and the tune catchy, nothing too serious.  But then that is very apt because at this stage Gunn doesn’t know of the consequence of his pursuit of his own ends. 

The first sign that something was wrong came in his meeting with the Conduit.  Until now it had always appeared to Gunn as a big black cat and from this vision Gunn recognized what he wanted for himself – someone who was cool, powerful and controlled; above all someone to be respected. But now he saw not a metaphor for himself but his own mirror image.  And in case we missed the point, the Conduit explained:

“The physical form of the conduit is determined by the viewer.”

Throughout, their conversation is punctuated by violence with the Conduit introducing himself to Gunn by hitting him and ending the interview by punching him in the face repeatedly.  In between they have the following exchange:

Conduit: “This is the part where I need to be clear. I am not your friend. I am not your flunky. I am your conduit to the senior partners, and they are tired of your insolence. Oh, yeah. They are not here for your convenience.”

Gunn: “I didn't come for a favor. We can make a deal.”

Conduit: “Deals are for the devil.”

Gunn: “You want someone else—a life for hers—you'll get it. You can have mine.”

Conduit: “I already do.”

Gunn had seen in the Conduit what the connection with the senior partners could mean for him, what it could turn him into: someone to be respected, someone they would have to listen to  With the brain upgrade restored he assumed that he had become that person again.  Now when he sees himself he must realize his mistake.  To the Senior Partners he is not some big black cat at the top of the jungle food chain.  He is after all just Charles Gunn; not someone they have to bargain with or even respect but rather their creature to use and discard as they wish.  In fact as Gunn himself must have realized, through the Conduit the Senior Partners were actually mocking him and his pretensions.  And in the senseless, pointless violence that Gunn deals out to himself here we also see the anger that he must have felt at this realization.

The counterpart of this scene is, of course, the one in which Knox gives himself away to Gunn.  And the latter’s reaction to Knox’s treachery must be understood in the light of his interview with the Conduit.  The shock for Gunn about the latter scene is not the discovery of Knox’s own part in Fred’s peril; rather it was  the realization of the key role he himself played.  He did not know the specific harm he was doing.  But he had acted for entirely selfish motives and without regard to the consequences for others, just as the three little maids had threatened to.

But even that isn’t the real point.  The real point was that Knox’s revelation more or less reinforced the picture that the Conduit had painted.  Knox referred to himself as being a small part of a machine in bringing Illyria’s return about.  So too was Gunn.  His whole brain upgrade was bait dangled in front of him to encourage him add his little bit to the great plan and doom Fred.  Far from being the major player he always thought, he really was no more than a small cog in a great machine.  So the caveman surfaced in Gunn too – in an outburst of yet more pointless violence that echoed the way he had beaten up himself.

Destiny

Lorne. Wesley and Gunn had all quite separately succumbed to their inner feelings of rage and anger.  And it is in this way that Fred’s own fate is a metaphor for them.  Illyria and the others were the original cavemen.

Angel: “The original demons. Before human kind. They were all driven out of this dimension.”

Eve: “The ones that were still alive. But long before that, they were killing each other all the time, and they don't die the way we do.”

And this view is confirmed by Drogyn who says of them:

“The old ones were demons pure. They warred as we would breathe —endlessly.”

Indeed Illyria herself we learn was murdered by her rivals and left adrift in the deeper well.  There, like the caveman instinct within the astronaut, she slept deep within.  But then she travelled from this hole in the world and found herself within Fred who, as we have seen, was the classic astronaut.  And Wesley description of what it did there is also instructive:

“I don't think this is merely an infection. Fred's skin is...hardening like a shell. I think she's being hollowed out so this thing can use her to gestate, to claw its way back into the world. That's speculation. Either way, she dies.”

Illyria is taking her over just like the pent up anger and aggression within the others took them over.  Fred tries to fight this through her intelligence and reason.  She goes to the Lab where she tries to find the answer:

Wesley: “Fred, you can't be doing this.”

Fred:  “Please, Wesley, I am exactly the person to be doing this. Something could've been missed.”

Wesley: “Whatever it is that's happening, we will stop it, I swear to you.”

Fred: “I have to work.”

Wesley: “You have to lie down.”

Fred: “I am not—I am not the damsel in distress. I am not some case. I have to work this. I lived in a cave for 5 years in a world where they killed my kind like cattle. I am not going to be cut down by some monster flu. I am better than that!”

But in spite of it all she cannot win this battle through intelligence and reason, no matter how determined she is.  That is why near the end she mutters:

“Cavemen win. Of course the cavemen win.”

And this statement about the inevitability of the victory of the cavemen is reinforced by the very strong suggestion that what happened was destined.  First we had the scene in the Teaser between Fred and her parents.  They were warning her of the dangers of going to Los Angeles and we suddenly realized that this was long before the events of the present episode.  And when Fred said:

“I'm gonna study, mom. I'm gonna learn every damn thing they know up there, and then figure out some stuff they don't. And I'll be careful. I'll even be dull, boring. Cross my heart.”

we suddenly realized how things turned out for her in spite of her intentions to the contrary.  She never intended to be transported to Pylea, enslaved and driven half-mad, then released only to become a member of Angel Investigations, fall in love with Gunn, helping to provoke Wesley’s descent into darkness or any of the rest of it.  These things happened nonetheless.

Drogyn says of the disappearance of the sarcophagus:

“I believe it was pre-destined to as part of Illyria's escape plan.”

And Knox confirms this:

“This was all set in motion millions of years ago, Charles, and there's just no way to stop it.”

It would appear from this that Fred’s destiny was outside her control.  She was simply doomed from long before she was born.  Which of course leads on to another proposition. If Illyria’s overwhelming of Fred was a metaphor for the way in which the caveman inside us all can take control of our actions, then it would seem that yes indeed we are all simply at the mercy of our baser instincts.  But there is another side to this argument. 

Astronauts to the Rescue

In one sense of course, the cavemen did win.  The evil from the Deeper Well hollowed out and replaced Fred just as the aggressive instincts of the caveman took over Wesley, Lorne and Gunn.  But the victory was not complete.  And in the end the astronauts did limit the harm by being astronauts.

It is no accident that, in the original dispute, Spike took the part of the cavemen and Angel the part of the astronauts.  Spike is the one with the predilection for violence just for the hell of it.  Angel, on the other hand, though he does lose his temper, has always been more thoughtful.  This held true of them both as soulless and ensouled creatures.  Witness the contrast between than at the end of “Damage”:

Spike: “I never did think that much about the nature of evil. No. Just threw myself in. Thought it was a party. I liked the rush. I liked the crunch. Never did look back at the victims.”

Angel: “I couldn't take my eyes off them. I was only in it for the evil. It was everything to me. It was art. The destruction of a human being.”

Nor indeed is that the only thing separating them.  The personality difference is to an extent simply the catalyst for the fact that they do not like each other at all.  And indeed at the start of the episode we are reminded of this fact as we see that Spike had stabbed Angel in the back:

Spike: “Heat of battle. There wasn't time.”

Angel: “You just like stabbing me.”

Spike: “I...I'm shocked...shocked that you'd say that. I much prefer hitting you with blunt instruments.”

Intriguingly, blunt instruments are the weapon of choice for cavemen.  And it is noticeable that when Angel refers to the astronauts, he uses the word “we”, thus identifying himself with them.  But when Fred is in danger all that is forgotten.  Both are equally committed to saving her and the rivalry and bickering are buried.  They both go with Lorne after Eve.  When Wesley discovers the secrets of the Deeper Well, they both seem of one mind about what needs to be done.  Angel says:

“Lorne, tell Harmony to prep the jet. We can be there in 10 hours.”

The “we” is significant.  And when he walks out Spike follows him, without discussion and without argument.  In the jet they comfort one another and when attacked they react with the same teamwork they one displayed.  The relationship of mutual trust and respect that they forge here is best illustrated when Drogyn explains what they have to do now:

Drogyn: “The power to draw back Illyria lies in there. It requires a champion who has travelled from where it lies to where it belongs.”

Angel: “You got two of those right here.”

Here we see the teamwork that Angel defined as one of the characteristic of the astronaut, a teamwork that Wesley, Lorne and Gunn in their lonely anguish could not show.  Of course there is still a battle to be fought within each of them.  For Spike, his brittle temper is sorely tested when told that he cannot ask questions.  He curbs his tongue at first but, even in view of what is at stake, this cannot last and he turns asking questions into a violent challenge that could have ended in disaster:

“Yeah, it's been freed. Why do you think we're here? And what's your favorite color? What's your favorite song? Who's the goalkeeper for Manchester United? And (making a rude gesture)  how many fingers am I holdin' up? You wanna kill me? Try. But I don't have time for your quirks.”

For Angel is was the realization of the true cost of returning Illyria. 

“If we bring the sarcophagus back to the well, it will draw Illyria out of your friend...and into every single person between here and there. It will become the mystical equivalent of airborne. It will claw into every soul in its path to keep from being trapped. Entire cities—tens maybe hundreds of thousands will die in agony if you save her.”

His first reaction was

            “To Hell with the World”

He, just like Spike, was showing the caveman inside him – the instinct to grasp what he wanted no matter what the cost and  to lash out in anger at anything that got in his way.  But it is at this point that the astronaut in Spike shone through and reminded them both of the rational course of action – to let Fred die.  And it was a true astronaut moment because in the speech I quoted at the start of this episode Spike shown an understanding of the position that they find themselves in, which I guess makes him a “namby pamby self-analyzing wanker" too.  But it is the one thing that limited the harm done.  It was therefore the triumph of the astronaut over the caveman.

A Matter of Choice and Responsibility

The thing that really bothers me about this episode is the thing that has bothered me for some time now.  I thought at the end of “You’re Welcome” that I had a sense of where the season was going.  Since then it has seemed to lose momentum.  Now we find what looks like a new mini-arc introduced, a mini arc moreover that seems to have nothing to do with the central conflict of the season – that between Angel and the Senior Partners.  It would appear that Wolfram and Hart have nothing to do with the resurrection of Illyria.  Yet this has all the making of a major event on the Angelverse.  Not only does she appear to be an extremely powerful and dangerous creature but she had come into the world by engineering the death of an important and well-loved member of Angel Investigations.  From both points of view this seems something too important to be disposed of quickly or easily.  And the question must be asked, if Wolfram and Hart are by-standers in the developing conflict then where is the season’s major arc going?

On the other hand the twin themes of the episode themselves give us some very interesting food for thought. .  First we have the capacity for good people to do evil thing because of the imperfect nature of human beings.  Then there is the question of how much control we have over ourselves, our actions and our fate.  The first issue – though I will admit entertainingly explored – seems somewhat commonplace for the Angelverse.  The fact that there are flaws within all of us that allow us to do evil while we convince ourselves that we are actually doing good is something that ANGEL has explored many times.  And there is really little enough here which  gives the theme a new and interesting twist.  That there are instincts within us all that can lead us to seize what we want and strike out at those who get in our way without regard to the consequences is hardly an issue worth exploring in detail. 

It’s chief interest lies in its relevance to Gunn.  It may well be that the theme of the episode was designed to allow us to judge the deal he made with Dr Sparrow.   And certainly the scenario created for him is quite poignant.  It always seemed likely that his brain upgrade was going to come with a price and that the price would put him in conflict with the other members of Angel Investigations.  But the fact that his actions so directly hurt Fred was undoubtedly a powerful message.  Moreover, the central focus of the debate here must to what extent is he responsible what happened to Fred.  It would have been both implausible and needlessly black and white for him to have made a fully informed decision.  It is both more realistic and interesting to see that he made a decision without knowing the full facts, but perhaps without really looking too hard for them either.  And in this context reminding us that there is something lurking behind rational thought that can affect our judgment and motivation is useful, without in any way diminishing Gunn’s own responsibilities.  So, as a lens through which we can look at Gunn's actions rather than as a way of offering insight into human nature generally I think this works reasonably well.

But important too is the way that the issue of destiny vs. choice is introduced.  The central tension here is between on the one hand the inevitability of the hand of destiny in bringing about Fred’s end and the fact that Angel and Spike had a choice about whether to allow that or not and chose to do so.  In parallel there was a tension between the idea that, given human nature, the caveman instinct would prevail and the idea that the astronaut in us could still  triumph in the fact of even the most powerful temptation.  I think that the episode while recognizing the power of the animal instinct does nevertheless come down on the side of the proposition that reason and the importance of social cohesion not only should but will in the end prevail.  That is why control of Fred’s fate is shown ultimately to be a matter of choice and that the choice was made on the basis of  astronaut values.   This is an idea that I instinctively prefer.  And if we apply this argument to Gunn then I think we can see that the episode does suggest that ultimately he must bear responsibility for the choice that he made.