EPISODE 5.18

Origin

Written by: Drew Goddard

Directed by: Terrence O'Hara

The Sword of Damocles

We have already seen the crucial role that Angel’s desire to save Connor played in his decision to accept Wolfram and Hart’s offer at the end of season 4.  In “You’re Welcome” Angel admits as much:

“The senior partners altered reality. They gave Connor a life, a real family, and a childhood. Something I could never give him. He's got no memories of us. And no-one remembers him.”

We saw at the start of that episode how, even before Cordelia’s intervention, Angel had come to despise the agreement he had made with the Senior Partners.  He had made a deal with a client of Wolfram and Hart but that client had flouted the bargain and killed five nuns.  As Angel pointed out such bad faith was something that was only to be expected:

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

But he had always known that and he had gone ahead and entered into the contract with the Senior Partners anyway.  And now, even after having been directly confronted with the evidence of just how unequal his agreement with Wolfram and Hart was,  Angel could not bring himself to leave the law firm.  He even tries to defend this stance to Cordelia:

“Cordy, I know there's a lot to take in, a lot of changes, but I promise you... things here are working out.”

And when she challenges him on this his answer is:

“Well, yeah. With these resources, there's nothing we can't do, no one we can't save.”

Why the reluctance to abandon a deal that had so obviously been a mistake?  The answer is fear of what the Senior Partners would do in retaliation.  This is demonstrated quite conclusively by Angel’s reaction when Connor turned up at Wolfram and Hart’s Offices.  He suspects that the Senior Partners are trying to use Connor against him in some way and his reaction to this says a lot:

Angel: “The senior partners and I had a deal.”

Hamilton: “Yes, you did. They took your son—your raging psychopathic son—gave him a new family,   changed his memories, changed everyone's memories, actually, in order to give him a new life, a normal life."

Angel: “And I came to work here!"

Hamilton: “And we couldn't be happier. The senior partners honor their deals. And believe me, they have no desire to upset such a...profitable partnership.”

He isn’t threatening to walk away from the deal.  Far from it, he is emphasizing his own adherence to it and using that as a lever to ensure that the Senior Partners don’t take away the second chance that Connor has been given.  In other words he is confirming what a hold the Senior Partners have over him.  And this remember is after the whole series of episodes from “You’re Welcome” to “Underneath” which collectively were intended to highlight the change that had occurred in his whole outlook.  In these episodes we were supposed to see the transformation from the Angel in “Soul Purpose” who questioned what his purpose really was to the Angel of “Shells”, someone who had recovered both his self-belief and his sense of mission. 

And it is this that puts me on my guard.  This recovery of a sense of mission is intended to be reflected, for example, when Angel faces up to Illyria in “Shells”.   He knows the odds against him are very long.  But it is something he feels he must do, regardless of the cost to himself.  As I said in my review of that episode, it represents the final resolution of the earlier debate he found himself caught in.  Instead of agonizing over the moral ambiguities of his situation with its careful weighting of one interest against another, Angel now brings to bear a moral clarity about “the good fight”, an absolute right that must be pursued at whatever cost.  In “You’re Welcome” in particular Cordelia had her own comment on Angel’s decision to change Connor’s memory:

“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?”

What she was saying was that there was a dishonesty about the bargain that rendered it wrong in absolute terms and that the practical benefits flowing from the bargain didn’t justify it.  But Angel at the beginning of "Origin" was perfectly willing, indeed anxious, to continue to keep to his side of the bargain precisely because of those benefits.  He was still willing to give up his son, deceive his friends and make deals with his enemies.   So where is the moral clarity that he had been intended to recover?

At one level this emphasizes the need for Connor’s situation to be resolved before Angel can really challenge the Senior Partners.  But at a deeper level it points up a really troubling and jarring inconsistency in the thematic and character development of the second half of the season.   But having said that, “Origin” does face head on the major issue posed by this aspect of Angel’s decision at the end of “Home” – to what extent can we and should we take responsibility for another’s life out of their hands.

Their Lives in his Hands

"Origin" begins with Angel and Wesley contemplating Illyria.  And we immediately sense Wesley’s determination that he and he alone will be in charge of her fate.  He is clearly exhausted but even so refuses to allow anyone else to take the responsibility from him.  Spike can work with Illyria (as her punchbag) but there is only one person who can give her what she really needs.  When Wesley says:

“She doesn't understand our world. She needs someone to guide her. She needs…”

the unsaid but understood final word was “me”.  As Angel himself countered:

“When was the last time you slept? You're not her savior. I need you here, working, not off drinking yourself into a coma, chasing ghosts. Fred's dead, Wes. You're still alive. Start acting like it.”

But Wesley isn’t the only person who seeks to take responsibility for another’s life.  When Lawrence and Colleen Reilly seek Wolfram and Hart’s help over a threat to their son, Connor, they too seek to exert control over another.  He is the one who is at risk yet they lie to him about the purpose of their visit:

Colleen: “Our son's downstairs. He thinks that we're here to set up a trust.”

Lawrence: “We didn't know what else to tell him.”

As it turns out, Connor saw through the deception.  And his parents worst fears were not realized.  They obviously believed that he could not handle the situation if he had known about their suspicions.  But they were wrong.  Indeed 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.”

The truth was that both Wesley and the Reilly’s sought to take responsibility for others because they lacked faith that the others would be able to take responsibility for themselves.  But in doing so they actually stood in the way of Illyria and Connor taking responsibility for themselves.  And the evil inherent in such an approach is shown by Gunn.  As we have seen, he made a great sacrifice in “Underneath”.  By that sacrifice Angel gained valuable information into the Senior Partners’ plans.  But it cost Gunn – a lot.  We get a hint of how much by Hamilton’s little tour of the torture dungeon in which Gunn is trapped:

“Do you know what this thing is?  It's a gibbet. Has he put you in it yet? Well, he'll get around to it. Eventually, he gets around to everything down here.”

But Hamilton isn’t just there to gloat.  He has an offer. So, he removes the necklace that deprived Gunn of his memories, introduced himself and said:

“Yes. It occurs to us that you might want to get out of here. We can help with that. You know, I've been by your offices, seen your friends. Strange, there's not much activity on the... "rescue Gunn" front. We're not asking you for much. All we need you to do…”

But Gunn is having none of it:

“Can I have my necklace back? Come on, sparky. Let's go. This heart ain't gonna cut itself out.”

In “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco” Angel reminds Wesley of the “father will kill the son” prophecy only to be met with incomprehension.  The latter 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.   But when Hamilton removes the necklace from Gunn he restores his memory, including his memory of another bargain - the one that Gunn reached and that cost Fred’s life.  And because of this memory Gunn resolves that the advantage to him of release is not worth the price that the Senior Partners would ask.  It is, I think, no exaggeration to say that Gunn’s whole way of looking at the world has changed, that he is much more sensitive to the consequences of his actions and much less willing to adopt a utilitarian approach by arguing that the good of the few can be sacrificed to achieve grander end.  He is indeed a sadder but a wiser man.  But he was only able to change and grow because of his memories.    And it is the part that memory plays in defining who we are that serves as the focus for the rest of the episode.  When Angel agrees to Wolfram and Hart changing the memories of Wesley, Fred and Connor (to name but three) he was doing more than blocking past events from their knowledge.  He was changing them, making them different to the people they would have been if he had not done so.  He was, in effect, taking responsibility for their lives into his hands.

Memories Are Made of This

And it is in this context that I would like to look at the mini debate between Wesley and Illyria about the importance of memory:

Illyria: “You are a summation of recollections. Each change is simply a point of experience.”

Wesley: “We are more than just memories.”

Illyria: “And yet Fred changed the moment her memory did.”

Wesley: “Fred's memories were changed?”

Illyria: “In places.”

Wesley: “Can you see what they were before?”

Illyria: “No. They're gone. Does this change your view of Fred? Is she still the person you thought she was?”

Wesley: “No. None of us are.”

Wesley doesn’t deny the importance of memory.  Indeed, in his last comment, he implicitly accepts that our memories condition us in a fundamental way.  He has just seen the contract in which Angel agreed to become CEO of Wolfram and Hart.  He has also just realized that, in consideration for that agreement, the Senior Partners arranged for his memory, as well as that of Gunn, Fred and Lorne, to be altered.  That is why none of them are the persons they thought they were.  Here “Origin” is picking up a theme that we have seen throughout this season.  We have seen the way in which Angel’s choices have been influenced by his past experiences, in particular the way in which his hopes for a human connection were dashed in season 4 and his discovery that he was simply a pawn in another’s game.  This was why he made the contract with the Senior Partners and this was why, in playing the role they had designed for him, he suffered the crises of confidence and commitment that featured so heavily in the first half of the season.  And this theme was perhaps best exemplified by “Damage”, where we saw how the legacy of a person’s past can damage them to such an extent that it influences the choices that they make.  But, “Damage” also emphasized the difference between the psychotic slayer, Dana, on the one hand and Angel, Spike, Buffy, Gunn and Andrew on the other.  For the latter, unlike the former, there was understanding and there was choice.  And this is where Illyria is wrong and Wesley is right.  We are not what we remember, we are what we do.  Otherwise there can be no free will and no choice.  Otherwise we are incapable of learning from our mistakes.  Gunn remembered and because he did not like what he remembered he chose to be different.  And in doing so he fully repaid the trust that Angel had placed in him in "Underneath".

The contrast with Wesley is important.  Early on in this episode he and Illyria discuss his relationship with Angel:

Wesley: “It's just, uh... I don't always understand Angel.”

Illyria: “Yet you follow him willingly. You're loyal to him.”

Wesley: “He's earned it. I...trust he knows what he's doing.”

The problem with this is that it isn’t true.  Wesley cannot trust Angel.  Indeed his behavior here is eerily reminiscent of his behavior in “Loyalty” and “Sleep Tight”.  He has some information but it is far from complete and may be misleading.  He knows that Angel made an agreement with the Senior Partners.  He suspects that Cyrus Vail was involved and he knows what that means in the context of a Wolfram and Hart operation:

“Yeah. Looks like he was one of their go-to warlocks when it came to the magical mojo. Specialized in memory restructuring, mind control, temporal shifts.”

He infers that memories were altered at the instigation of the evil law firm.  But on the basis of that he jumped to baseless conclusions:

Angel: “He's my son, Wesley. Connor's my son.”

Wesley: “Did you trade her? Did you trade Fred for your son?”

Angel: “What?”

Wesley: “Everything that's happened since we took over Wolfram & Hart, everything that's happened to…her. Did you know? Was Fred the price?”

At that point, unlike Gunn, Wesley was unaware of the terrible consequences of his earlier suspicions.  So, he repeats his own mistakes in ignorance of them.  When the truth emerges, Wesley is devastated:

lllyria: “You betrayed Angel. You stole his son. He tried to kill you.

Wesley: “Yes....”

Illyria: “Are these the memories you needed back? Does this now make you Wesley?”

Wesley: “At least I know what happened.”

Illyria: “Do you? There are two sets of memories. Those that happened and those that are fabricated. It’s hard to tell which is which.”

Wesley: “Try to push reality out of your mind. Focus on the other memories. They were created for a reason.”

Illyria: “To hide from the truth?”

Wesley: “To endure it.”

The interesting point here is that he accepts that he did betray Angel by kidnapping Connor.  As we all remember, even after his plans went horribly wrong in “Sleep Tight” Wesley still regarded his actions as justified and the reactions of everyone else as themselves a form of betrayal.  Not here.  Here he seems to have concluded from his willingness to make the same mistake twice that the fault really did lie in the darkness within him.  Indeed, it is very noticeable that such was his remorse that he appears to have dropped a perfectly well-founded allegation against Angel.  It was certainly false that Angel made a deliberate trade-off in which Fred was sacrificed for Connor’s sake.  But the bargain that he struck with the Senior Partners did indeed lead to her death and so, albeit indirectly, he did bear a degree of responsibility for it.  The fact that Wesley didn’t seize upon this to justify himself shows a degree of self-understanding that was previously absent.  But his reaction gives no hope that he has fundamentally changed.  He had before him two sets of memories – the fantasy one and the real one.  He knew the difference between them but he chose to dwell on the fantasy ones because he could not cope with the reality about himself otherwise.  Gunn’s choice showed that he had changed, that he was a different person.  Wesley’s choice showed that he could not change.  But that is his choice to make.  It is his life and his decision to hide from reality is an exercise of the sovereign prerogative that each of us are entitled to.  He must now take that responsibility.  But before he recovered his memory he was denied the chance to change.  In effect, therefore, Angel as author of that denial was himself responsible for Wesley's potentially catastrophic intervention in the fight between Sahjhan and Connor, so further driving home the point about just how wrong his treatment of his friends was.

Making A Choice

But Gunn is not the only or indeed the principal counterpoint to Wesley in "Origin" - Connor is.  Of course in many ways Connor here is the same person that we had seen in season four.  He had the same strength and speed.  And the fact that he was willing to fight Sahjhan, despite being woefully ill-prepared for it, says a lot about his courage.  Indeed his comment to Angel:

“You almost broke that guy in half! That was awesome!”

shows that there are a fighter’s instincts somewhere within him. He also had retained many of his old “interests” as was very humorously displayed when he saw Illyria

Illyria: “Your body warms. This one is lusting after me.”

Connor: “Oh... no, I—I— It's just that—it's the outfit. I guess I've always had a thing for older women.”

Angel: “They were supposed to fix that.”

But the real difference is highlighted earlier on when he reveals his knowledge of the deception that his parents had perpetrated upon him:

“It's cool. I mean, my parents are liars and I can never trust them again, but it's cool.”

This is all said humorously, indicating that Connor really does understand and forgive.  Connor Mark 1 had major trust issues and it is very difficult to believe that he would have been as understanding as Connor Mark 2.  But that is hardly surprising given the memories that Connor Mark 2 has of a loving and caring family life:

“When Connor was 5, he got lost in a department store. He wandered off while his family was shopping. It scared the poor child nearly half to death…. He remembers screaming in the middle of the store. He remembers his mother rushing towards him. And he remembers his father sweeping him up into his arms.”

It was indeed loyalty to his family that led Connor to fight Sahjhan in the first place.  But even so, he shows that he now has ethical standards that he lacked before:

Angel: “You're not alone in this. I'll be right there with you.”

Connor: “You gonna hold Sahjahn down while I stab him?”

Angel: “Prophecy doesn't say you can't have a little help.”

Connor: “Hardly seems fair.”

Angel: “Fair's not something we worry about.”

Connor: “Maybe you should. I'm not a bully. If I'm gonna do this, you gotta let me do it my way.

This is hardly the same teenager who attacked his father, locked him in a chest, sank it at the bottom of the ocean and lied to everyone about it.  Indeed instead of doing the sensible thing and making a sneak attack on an unprepared Sahjhan, he gives him the chance for a fair fight by openly telling him that they are going to fight.  Again this has a lot to do with the fact that he has no memory of being in a serious fight before coming to Wolfram and Hart, unlike Connor Mark 1 who grew up having literally to fight for his life every day of it.

It was, of course, only when Connor Mark 1’s memories came flooding back – the Connor who was permanently “cranky” – that Connor Mark 2 was able to defeat the demon.  But that is not the important point.  The important point is the way in which Connor Mark 2 reacted to learning the truth about his past.  He, no less than Wesley, was presented with two different sets of memories – a fantasy one and a real one.  The real memories told the truth about him and a less than flattering truth it was, especially to the sort of ethical teenager that Connor had become.  But unlike Wesley, Connor was able to cope.  Indeed he initially maintained the pretence that nothing had really changed at all. 

“This whole fighting thing, I'm not... I'm not really sure it's for me.”

But his parting shot to Angel at the end of the episode shows differently:

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

While on the surface this statement is ambiguous – he doesn’t say who his father is – in the context it can only have one meaning.  The father who sacrificed so much for his son was Angel.  And in these words Connor is telling him that he knows, understands and appreciates the fact. He can overlook the fact that he was lied to.  And he can live with the memories of his former sociopath self.  He is now going back to his faux family and resuming his normal, non-violent life.  But before, it was a choice that Angel had made for him and so anxious was he to keep Connor locked within this new and happier life that he even allowed himself to be intimidated by Cyrus Vail’s threat to restore Connor’s memory using the Orlon Windows:

“It's a fascinating little spell. It allows warlocks such as myself to see the past as it once was. You have to be careful with it, though. If it were to break around someone whose mind had been altered, then all his old memories would come rushing back. Careful, Angel! I gave Connor his happy life. Are you certain you can kill me... before I can take it away from him? I... built your son.”

But in the end Connor remained Connor Mark 2 in spite of the fact that he found out the truth.  His salvation from that point onwards was not a gift of others but his own choice.  Yes, giving him a happy set of memories with a loving family helped him make the right choice but ultimately it was Connor himself who did so.  When confronted by a similar choice, Wesley made the wrong one.  He could not save himself from the darkness within.  The contrast to Connor is clear.   He could have easily taken offence at the dishonesty involved as well as the implicit unwillingness to trust him.  Again a major issue for Connor Mark 1 was the way that he was always being treated a “just a kid” who couldn’t really be expected to handle responsibility for himself.  Well, here he showed differently. 

The comparison between the deceit attempted by the Reillys at the start of the episode and Angel's attitude to his son are too perfect to need much comment from me.  Both acted in the best interests of the child but they were motivated fundamentally by an inability to trust Connor.  That is why in both cases they attempted to take control of his destiny from him.  But in both cases that attempt was doomed and in both cases the teenager showed that their lack of trust was misplaced.  In particular Angel, like Illyria, seems to have feared that Connor would be no more than the sum of his memories.  And the falsity of that proposition was (albeit unknowingly) best summed up by Sahjhan:

“I gotta tell you, kid, you're making a good case for the whole concept of free will.”

He meant of course that Connor was making a lousy job of fulfilling the part that prophecy ordained for him.  But it does catch very nicely the success with which he took responsibility for his own life.  And that success is its own rebuke to any attempt to take responsibility for his own life away from him.

So here too we see the continuation of the writers exploration of one of the major themes of the Angelverse – the tension between free will and the idea that things beyond our control drive our destiny.  This is a theme that is summed up by the outcome of the fight between Sahjhan and Connor.  Did the latter kill the former because it was pre-ordained?  Or was it just the outcome of a combination of planning (on the part of Cyrus Vail) and random accident (the intervention of Wesley)?  The writers never give the answer.  But there is no doubt that they argue philosophically that being able to exercise free will is the only truly satisfactory state for humans.  This appeals to me for a number of reasons.  First of all, as I have already said, it was important to deal with the hold that Wolfram and Hart had over Connor’s  future.   Well now his future is in his own hands and Wolfram and Hart has no control over it.  And the way in which Connor exercised his free will to keep his hopes of happiness alive was unambiguously a rebuke to the way that Angel sought to control his future by depriving others of their right to a free choice.   I am only sorry that the consequences for Fred  of the way in which he changed her life was not more fully and explicitly dealt with.  But that is a comparatively minor complaint.  Secondly, notwithstanding the reservations that I have already entered on this point, Connor's repossession of control over his life mirrors Angel’s own state of mind as he, no doubt, moves towards the final confrontation with the Senior Partners.  He is on longer going to let them call the shots but is going to try to take control of his own life. And thirdly this is yet another example of the way in which Angel’s entire life may be seen as a product of the contest between free will on the one hand and determinism on the other.  Some may see the constant return to this idea as repetitious. I don’t.  It is ultimately after all an irresolvable debate.  That is why arguments over it have been conducted in almost all societies for as long as philosophical discussion has existed.  This alone means that it will never lose its interest.  But more important even than that, if you are going to set this up as the major theme for a life then you have to be consistent with it – you have to keep returning to it at different stages of the individual’s development and in different contexts.  Doing so lends a unity and consistency to a series that was always at heart a single story rather than a series of different episodes loosely knitted together.  And ultimately it is this that gives the series its weight and depth.

Sadly though I must close with my familiar complaint.  This would have made an absolutely wonderful companion piece to "Damage".  Indeed it would have fitted in very nicely just before "You're Welcome".  But there are now only four episodes left until the end of the season - indeed the end of the series.  And I have no sense as yet of how Angel is going to free himself from the Senior Partners thrall.  It is all very well exploring his developing state of mind.  But that will only mean something when the thematic and character development is reflected in the plot.  And when this whole season has been set up as a battle of conviction between Angel on the one hand and the Senior Partners on the other, the only plot development that will mean something in this context is that battle.  And to date we have seen very little of it.