EPISODE 5.07

Lineage

Written by: Drew Goddard

Directed by: Jefferson Kibbee

Trust and Crossing Lines

“Lineage” begins with the camera slowly tracking through a dark abandoned warehouse.  We hear, as a voiceover at first, someone in a French accent talking about trust:

“It comes down to trust. Ours is a dangerous business – friends, enemies.  These lines do not exist for men like us.  There's no Better Business Bureau for what we do. Customer complaints are dealt with through... killing, torture, beating... sometimes...fire. We call it "word of mouth advertising.”

We do not know what is happening or who is speaking.  We then see a stranger talking to Wesley.  But this if anything simply adds to the sense of doubt and confusion.  Why would Wesley be engaged in business with someone who talks of killing in this way?  This was, I think, a very neat way of introducing us to the central theme of this episode.  There is meant to be a clear dividing line between friend and enemy.  We are expected to know the difference between them and to adjust our actions accordingly.  We are supposed to trust a friend but not an enemy. And there are lines which friends are not meant to cross, lines which do not exist for enemies.

We had groped our way through a dark warehouse, trying to understand strange words spoken in a strange accent only to be confronted by a sight that did not, on the face of it, make sense.  Was Wesley making a deal to supply deadly weapons to criminals?  It seemed so:

Emil: “And your boss doesn't mind selling this exciting weaponry to someone like me?” 

Wesley: “As long as it doesn't show up in L.A. We choose our battles, Emil, and you sidestepped the issue of payment.”

But we know Wesley.  We know him enough to trust that he is not interested in making money and that he is simply setting Emil up, even if he had to risk a great deal to do so – indeed even if he had to risk Fred  So we ignore the uncertainties and doubts in favor of the trust we have in the character.  And as it turns out we were right. 

Emil on the other hand relied on threats and intimidation.  He was clearly telling Wesley at the start that if he double-crossed him there would be consequences.  And conversely he was dissuaded from making life difficult for Wesley because of Wolfram and Hart’s own “word of mouth advertising.”  The problem with Emil's friendless and trustless world is that violence is the only thing you have.  If you are willing to cross lines with those whose help you want then you cannot expect them to act differently with you.   Those who live by the sword  die by the sword.  That was Emile's fate, just as later it seemed to be the fate of another who lived in an equally friendless and trustless world.  This episode is not, however, concerned with either of these.  It is more concerned with Emil's interlocutor and in asking to what extent he too lives in a trustless and friendless world and whether he too is, as a result, willing to cross lines that should be respected.  That person is Wesley and in this episode we see him through the eyes of those who know him and have reason to distrust him: his father, Roger Wyndham-Price and Angel.

Fathers....Again!

Let us start with Roger.  Let me immediately say that I recognize that this was not really Roger.  But it was such an accurate facsimile that even Wesley was fooled:

Fred: “Part of you knew. Even if you can't admit it to yourself, part of you knew it wasn't him.”

Wesley: “No. I was sure it was him. You were there. I killed my father." 

So, I’m pretty sure that his father’s attitude to Wesley was indeed a faithful reflection of the way that the real  Roger saw and treated his son and I will therefore take the behavior of the cyborg at face value.   It is clear from the beginning what Roger thinks of Wesley.  When he walks in on an argument between Wesley and Fred the conversation between them tells all:

Fred: “Listen to you. You're blaming yourself because poor Fred got hurt. Stop trying to be all valiant.   You're   coming off like a self-pitying child."

Wesley (staring past Fred): “Hello, father.”

Fred: “Oh, yeah, that's mature. Well, I wish I was your father. I'd tell you to grow up.”

Wesley: “It doesn't work. I've tried.”

And from that point, Roger does nothing but criticize his son.  The trauma that Wesley suffered at his father’s hands is, of course, a long established part of the Whedonverse.  In this respect we need only look at the scene in “Dead Zone” which Wesley telephoned his father to wish him a happy birthday:

“Hello father: Happy Birthday.  How are you?  Good.  No!  It's going quite well actually.  Yes.  I have news.  I've been put in charge of our group. Yes, as their leader.  No, it's a permanent position.  Well as permanent as these things... No, I certainly won't be fired.  Ah. Well, yes, I was that one time, yes.   Again... No, you're right.  I see how...  Yes, I'd forgotten, thank you.   Yes.  Ah, just recently. Uhm, it's going quite well so far.  No, I think this time...  I hope it will be different.  No.  No, you're right.  I see how...  I just thought you'd be... I thought you'd want to know, that's all.  Right;  well  again, happy birthday.  Okay."

You can see Wesley slowly deflating throughout this conversation as the confidence is knocked out of him.  You can see all too clearly what his father thinks.  He’s useless and it’s only a matter of time before he messes things up and gets fired again.  And Wesley again cannot or will not stand up for himself.  Wesley’s problem is that he has always wanted to make a contribution; to feel as though he was able to do something important in the good fight.  But he was never able quite to trust himself.  Without going back to the debacle that was his stint in Sunnydale, in the season 2  episodes of ANGEL  like “Shroud of Rahmon” or “the Trial” we see time and time again that he avoided a confrontation with Angel seemingly  for fear that he would simply be revealing how ineffectual he was.  Given the memories he must carry about being humiliated by a powerful and overbearing personality in  the form of his father  it’s perhaps no wonder he was never able to bring himself to stand up to Angel. But when Angel was separated from the rest of the group after “Reunion” he becomes the centerpiece of the new Agency, as shown by the way in which he takes the lead in solving the Agatha Christie style mystery in “Happy Anniversary”.  And when Angel does get back into the fold the relationship between them is unrecognizable.  In “Epiphany” he scolds him for not paying attention to Cordelia.   At the beginning of “Disharmony” we see Wesley in mid-lecture like a teacher and errant pupil who needs correcting for his own sake.  But the two best examples that come to mind are in “No Place Like Plrtz Glrb” and “Deep Down”.  In the former episode he was able to develop a plan to attack the Covenant.  He put all his study (which naturally would have included a lot of military history) to useful effect.  And then he was able to put that plan into action because it was the right thing to do and he would not deviate from that no matter what the cost.  It was this that very naturally and very simply made him a leader.  In “Deep Down” while operating on his own he tracked down Justine, made her talk and rescued Angel when Fred and Gunn were, in this respect at least, completely ineffectual. And it is here that we see the seeds of Wesley’s real competence.  He has always been an expert with books.  And from quite early on we were shown that he had some familiarity with weapons (something the teaser reminded us about very effectively) when he didn’t let himself get flustered.  It is the confidence which he derived from finding out that he didn’t need Angel or anyone else  to “fight the good fight” that was the father – so to speak – of his competence. 

But, just as in the birthday conversation mentioned above, that confidence is very vulnerable.  As soon as his father appears in “Lineage” we see a reversion to his clumsiness and after the first cyborg’s self-destruct mechanism was tripped he blamed himself:

Wesley: “I accidentally tripped the cyborg's self-destruct mechanism.”

Fred: “Anyone could have made the mistake. Wesley was just trying to interpret some symbols for us.”

Wesley: “Luckily, my father was there to correct my error.”

He then admitted not only that the error had been a bad one but hinted at why he had made it:

Wesley: “It was a stupid mistake.”

Angel: “Yeah, well, your father's visit just rattled you.”

Wesley: “I find it hard to think straight when he's around.”

Here we see at least in part the significance of the title of this episode.  One definition of "Lineage" refers to the line of descent from an individual, for example of son from the father.  But it can also refer to the sequence of steps leading to the creation of some end result.  In this sense Wesley’s state of mind is just as much a matter of his lineage as his life.

But it’s not as simple as saying that Wesley lets himself down in front of his father.  As the episode goes on it becomes clearer and clearer that Roger isn’t interpreting Wesley’s actions fairly or accurately.  For example, when canvassing the possibility of Wesley’s return to the Watcher’s Council Roger says:

“Your name's proven to be a point of contention. There is some who believe that your tenure as watcher ranks as our most embarrassing failure.”

Wesley’s rather dry response show how over the top this comment was:

“Really? I beat out everybody dying in an explosion as most embarrassing failure.”

This shows the absurdity of Roger’s comment and that very absurdity in turn suggests that the person making the claim he reports was none other than Roger himself.  Then there was the fact that Wesley was head boy.  Roger accepts that this represents and honor but then goes on to say:

            “Mind you, as I recall, the pickings were a bit slim that year.”

Finally there was the argument about the source books:

Roger: “Do you realize how dangerous these books are?”

Wesley: “Well, in the wrong hands, of course.”

Roger: “Yes. Yes, of course. So, you have them displayed... open on a table.”

Wesley: “The most powerful items in my department I keep secure in a vault.”

Roger: “Well, I hope your vault is a little safer than this room. Do you even have a lock on that door over there?”

Wesley: “Gaining access to this building isn't easy. Believe me, the books are safe where they are.”

Wesley’s precautions seem reasonable but once again Roger seems determined to find fault regardless of objective evidence to the contrary.  Yet he is supposed to be Wesley’s father.  To go back to the theme of trust and the dividing line between friends and enemies, there should be a bond between Roger and Wesley that means the former should be willing to extend to Wesley a trust he would not extend to others, lines that he should refuse to cross with Wesley that he would not necessarily respect with others.  That is clearly not the case.  And the scant regard with which Roger seems to hold Wesley’s competence is only the half of it.  As the two confront each other over Angel the truth comes out:

Roger: “You know what that vampire is and what he's done, and you follow him anyway?”

Wesley: “Maybe I know what I'm doing. Why can't you trust that?”

Roger: “You disgrace yourself with the council, you join forces with him, and you have the nerve to ask me why I can't trust you?”

Wesley: “I've done everything you ever asked, and I've done it well.”

Roger: “I asked for this, hmm? I wanted to be humiliated?”

Clearly Roger had problems with Wesley (or should that be the other way around) long before the latter joined up with Angel.  But the fact that he brings up this issue now and links it with his own humiliation tells us all we need to know about Roger.  As far as he was concerned this was all about him.  When Wesley seems reluctant to rejoin the Council, Roger tells him:

“The council are giving you a chance to clear your name... our name."

I think Roger meant his name.  Or again when Wesley kills one of the Ninja cyborgs all Roger can do is complain that he had attack prority.  And when Roger makes an attempt to talk about Wesley’s private life it is clear that he has no real interest in it at all:

Roger “You want to talk about me. All right. The last girl I was with I had to chop into little tiny pieces because a higher power saw fit to stab her in the neck.”

Wesley: “You don't want to discuss it. Fine. But spare me the sarcasm. It's too embarrassing.”

Wesley was telling the plain unvarnished truth but again Roger simply assumed he was being sarcastic with him.  And most telling of all we have Wesley’s insight into the root of Roger’s problems with him:

“You never had any use for me as a child, and you can't bear the thought of me as an adult. Tell me, father, what is it that galls you so, that I was never as good at the job as you... or that I just might be better?”

We know that Wesley’s mother considered him a prodigy.  Fred was surprised at him being able to read a resurrection spell at age 8.  And as we have already seen he was head boy at the Watcher’s Academy. We have already seen that Roger’s criticisms of Wesley were less than well founded.  And Wesley more than amply demonstrated his competence in the aftermath of Roger’s betrayal. There he ruthlessly exploited the pain and fears of the injured cyborg, discovered where his father had taken Angel and expertly relieved him of the Staff of Devosynn before engaging Roger in a Mexican standoff where he seemed to have achieved the upper hand.  So it is not at all stretching credulity to think that Roger deliberately undermined Wesley’s confidence because of his own insecurities and jealousy. And it was this same attitude that meant that Roger couldn’t trust Wesley’s judgment over his own.  After all, to do so would be to concede that Wesley just might know better.  So, it’s no wonder that Roger does not recognize a clear dividing line between Wesley, his son, and those he conceives of as the enemy and that because of this he crosses lines with his son that he shouldn’t.

Wesley's History

But, of course, Roger’s motives and attitudes aren’t of themselves all that significant for us.  He is after all only a minor character and while it is interesting to learn a little more about the reasons for his treatment of Wesley, the effects of that treatment are much more important.  And those effects have already been well established.  No, the significance of Roger and his presence in this episode lies in another definition of “lineage”, namely inherited characteristics that we share with our forebears.  And it is this that brings us to Angel’s viewpoint of Wesley.

To help with his undercover mission at the start of the episode Wesley enlists Fred.  As a result of the intervention of the cyborgs she is shot.  The injury, as it turns out, is not too serious but Angel’s reaction is very interesting:

Angel: “She shouldn't have been there. It was a reckless decision.”

Wesley: “Fred has more than proven herself in the field. There was no reason to think…”

Angel: “We found her bleeding to death on the ground. From now on, you clear it with me before using any of my people.”

In involving Fred, Wesley had made a judgment call.  And it was on the face of things an entirely reasonable one.  As he pointed out he needed someone who could demonstrate the weapon, someone who wouldn’t arouse Emil’s suspicions yet someone whom he could trust.  Fred fitted the bill.  In response Angel articulates no coherent objection.  Indeed his only line of attack was that Fred got injured and Fred herself (albeit when taking aim at the wrong target) decisively deals with that objection when she asks:

“Do you realize how patronizing that sounds?”

Angel’s attack is so charged and yet so poorly articulated that we are forced to the conclusion that it is not Wesley’s judgment call in this particular case that he has issues with.  It’s Wesley himself.  And the further clue here is when he refers to “my people”, something Wesley immediately calls him on.  Angel is asserting a responsibility for Fred (and by extension Gunn and Lorne) from which he is excluding Wesley.  And the reason why he does this is also pretty clear, even without Eve’s anvilling of it when she and Angel discuss Wesley:

Angel: “He can be careless.”

Eve: “Focuses too much on the big picture? Overlooks the people involved?”

Angel: “Something like that.”

Eve: “Willing to risk anything... or anyone... for the greater good. Look, hey... I'm just asking. Could it be there's another reason you're getting so mad at him about this? Mmm... stealing your son, for instance?”

When Wesley kidnapped Connor in “Sleep Tight” he was certainly not motivated by overt considerations of self-interest.  In fact he was taking a big personal risk for Connor’s safety.  But his motivation for doing so was not quite as straightforward as that would lead us to think.   Wesley took Connor because of the existence of a prophecy that “the father will kill the son” and the confluence of certain signs which he read as meaning that danger to the child was imminent.  But this was pretty vague and uncertain stuff.  Wesley could not be certain of the nature of any danger yet he acted without taking the more obvious steps to avoid it – like discussing the matter with the others, especially Angel himself.  That he did not do so was a product of his own suspicions and lack of trust not only in Angel but in Fred and Gunn as well.  And in the latter case it was his own feeling of being betrayed by them that was a vital consideration.  It was this lack of trust in others that caused  Wesley to read far more into the portents that he thought he saw than was justified.  I find a striking parallel between Wesley's misinterpretation of events in "Sleep Tight" and his father's misinterpretation of Wesley's own action in this episode, especially since both seem caused by the same inability to trust others.

Wesley's Lineage

In Roger we see the ego that had to be fed, even if that meant sacrificing his own son to do so.  And his own lack of trust in Wesley was the result of his own insecurities, the need to prove that he was right and that Wesley was wrong.  In “Loyalty” and Sleep Tight” Wesley demonstrated a corresponding distrust of Gunn and Fred because of his own disappointed feelings for the latter. They had awoken all his old insecurities and it was almost as if he was driven to prove that he knew best that he acted as he did – alone and trusting no-one.  And here too perhaps we see the inheritance from Roger that was Wesley’s lineage.

And just as Wesley’s distrust over Fred had led him to cross a line in season 3, so too can we see it having the same effect here.  In “Loyalty” we saw the way he resented Gunn and Fred working together.  In episodes like “Life of the Party” we also saw the way that he resented Fred and Knox working together.  Just how close they had become is shown by the fact that Knox is the one who turns up to escort Fred home at the end of the episode.  I suspect very strongly that despite his protestations of having a good reason for doing so, it was a more personal motive that led Wesley to involve Fred in the undercover operation.  He just wanted to work with her because of his feelings for her.  And this is what led him to beat himself up when things went wrong.

At the start of this episode we groped through a dark abandoned warehouse and saw Wesley in unfamiliar territory.  We trusted Wesley and interpreted his words and actions accordingly.  But if we were ourselves plagued by doubts and distrust for the character what would our reaction have been?  Wesley wants to do the right thing.  But in making difficult judgment calls in darkened times all too often he seems to be unable to extend the same sort of trust.  But that's not all.  The combination of his insecurities and the lack of trust that goes with them (the need to prove he was right and that others were wrong) is bad enough.  But when allied to a cold-blooded ruthlessness it's no wonder Eve says to Angel:

“Are you worried about the next time Wesley betrays you trying to do the right thing"?

As I have already acknowledged, in "Sleep Tight" Wesley clearly believes he is serving a higher purpose.  And this is also his attitude in "Lineage".  Despite the fact that Angel just chewed him out he remains very loyal to him and is quite willing to sacrifice his own life for him.  He may have been bluffing the cyborg when he threatened to blow up the building but it is clear he was in deadly earnest when confronting Roger over the Staff of Devosynn:

Roger: “I will kill you for it. Please believe me.”

Wesley: “Oh, I believe you. I was raised by you, after all. But I drop this, the crystal shatters, and Angel is restored. So I reckon whether I live or die, your plan has failed.”

But just as his willingness to sacrifice himself for the higher cause in “Sleep Tight” has echoes here, so too does his ruthlessness in the service of that cause.  In order to escape with the child Wesley hit Lorne as hard as he could with the heaviest object that came to hand.  He may not have had the specific intent to kill, but at the very least he was reckless about whether he did or not. In the cold blooded ruthlessness of his torture of the cyborg (the calmness with which he exploited that already tortured creature was just chilling) we see a reflection of his attack on Lorne.  And the latter is in turn also a reflection of Roger's own attack on his son.  And let us not forget that while that attack wasn't especially deadly, killing Wesley was, as Roger later admitted, a  line he too was prepared to cross.

And this thought brings us to the climax of the episode – Wesley’s own cold blooded execution of Roger.  There had been a stand-off between the two of them over Angel.  Wesley had gained the upper hand but the final result was still in the balance.  At that point Wesley was prepared to die for his Angel but he was not prepared to kill his father for him.  He had in fact so arranged things that he did not need to do so.  Then Roger threatened Fred.  His purpose in doing so was to put pressure on Wesley.  That would have complicated matters but did not of itself so upset the equilibrium that it needed immediate action.  But that’s what it prompted.  Almost as a reflex Wesley shot his father nine times, not to wound, not to prevent his escape but quite deliberately to kill.  Nor was this I think an expression of anger or hatred for past hurt.  Wesley was as cool and calm as ever.  In threatening Fred, Roger had crossed a line.  And for Wesley the line that he had respected to date, the line that had marked Roger out as his father and therefore someone to be treated differently to a cyborg, that line too disappeared.  He shot him as he would have shot a cyborg.  And symbolically that is, of course, what Roger turned out to be.  But this was not to help Angel and not to foil the cyborg plan.  This was the result of Wesley’s own passions and desires.  And it bears repeating here but this was Wesley’s reaction to Roger for just threatening.  He didn’t know how serious the threat was, whether Fred may have been able to save herself (as she insisted once already that she could do) or how he could have responded without killing his father.  He couldn’t even say he was protecting Fred because killing Roger may not have been necessary.  That is what is chilling about Wesley’s actions here.

And this is the great strength of this episode.  We get a glimpse into Wesley’s early life and the struggle he had with his father.  We see more clearly the sort of person that he father was and this lends Wesley’s character a tremendous sympathy.  But at the same time we see echoes of Roger in Wesley, in particular the way in which public duty become bound up with private passions to such an extent that they cannot be separated, the distrust that this leads to, the conviction that ultimately both will willingly sacrifice friends and even relatives on the altar of their sometimes warped sense of right and wrong.  And this is, of course, a reminder of the betrayal that Wesley has already been guilty of.  And remember that the hallmark of that betrayal was that Wesley never acknowledged that it was any such thing.  He believed that he had acted rightly, even though things did not go according to his plans and that Angel, Gunn and the others had been in the wrong for holding his actions against him.  So, at the same time as feeling this sympathy for Wesley we are reminded of just how dangerous a character he can be.  This is a very dark and powerful message itself.  In this sense there is tremendous continuity between “Lineage” and the late season 3 arc where Wesley kidnapped Connor.  More than that, however, has all the hallmarks of foreshadowing about it.  It’s almost as if we are being told in advance that Wesley will move against Angel for reasons he will deem both good and necessary.  And that lends a certain and much needed sense of tension to the season.

Moreover there is a sense in which in this episode continuity is joined with foreshadowing.  In “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco” Angel reminds Wesley of the “father will kill the son” prophecy only to be met with incomprehension.  He asks:

“What are you talking about?”

Here we see one of the consequences of Angel’s decision to agree to the mind-wipe without consulting his friends on it.  Because Wesley is denied knowledge of his past actions and their consequences he is denied even the opportunity of learning from past mistakes.  The fact that he hadn’t done so before is his responsibility.  But if he is now confronted with a similar choice to that which he faced in “Sleep Tight”, he cannot be blamed for ignoring the lessons of history.  Responsibility for that now  lies with Angel.  It is a decision that may yet come back to haunt him and that will be all to the good.