EPISODE 5.16

Shells

Written by:  Steven S. DeKnight

Directed by: Steven S. DeKnight

The Shell Left Behind

A shell is the outer cover or housing for something.  There are many types of shell: the carapace of a turtle, the hard outer layer of nuts or eggs or the bony covering of a mollusc.  But in all of these cases the shell is regarded as something different to and separate from the thing that it houses.  It is a container or protector and not the thing itself.

 The most obvious shell in this episode is, of course, Fred – or rather what was left of her.  In the “Previously on Angel” montage we hear Wesley say:

“She's being hollowed out so this thing can claw its way back into the world.”

When Illyria first emerges he is momentarily confused by the resemblance and calls her “Fred”.  But Illyria herself says:

“Winifred Burkle is the shell I'm in.”

Indeed,  Illyria is about as far from Fred as it is possible to be.  Even Knox describes the latter in the following terms:

“She had a warmth that took you in and held you until everything cold and distant melted away.”

Contrast this to Illyria whose attitude to humanity is summed up in the following terms:

“Because I have returned in the body of the human, you think you can speak to me. It's disgusting.”

The physical form that was Fred is still there.  But everything that made Fred the person she was is gone.  All that remains is, therefore, a shell. And this is emphasized by two things.  First of all we see Illyria return to the sarcophagus and place her hand on one of the crystals on it. A thick, rubbery covering forms around her body, like a full body-suit.  This draws our attention to the fact that the body is, in fact, an outer covering.  Then the Doctor tells Gunn:

“There's nothing left to bring back. Miss Burkle's soul was consumed by the fires of resurrection. Everything she was is gone.”

Again here we see emphasized the difference between the physical form of something – the shell if you will - on the one hand and its substance on the other. 

And it is this difference that forms the central theme of this episode.  A shell which no longer contains what it was meant to house or protect is without purpose.  That is why we refer to “an empty shell” or “a mere shell”.  And this is where Fred’s death is intelligently used.  It isn’t there simply for the pathos, a cheap grab at emotional impact as the deaths of all too many television characters are these days.  Instead it is used to bring all of the remaining characters face to face with a crisis about who they are what they want and what their purpose is.  They too are asked whether the substance of what they were remains or whether all that is left of them are shells - hollow and empty of purpose.

Lorne

There are two obvious examples.  Let us begin with Lorne.  It was his job to read all of the employees of Wolfram and Hart psychically.  As the events of “Destiny” established, he hadn’t made as thorough and successful a job of this as he should have.  But failing to detect Sirk’s involvement with Lindsey and Eve didn’t have anything like the same consequences as mis-reading Knox did.  So, it’s hardly surprising that Lorne should have taken his failure here especially badly:

Lorne: “I should've seen it. Knox. He sang for me and I should've seen this.”

Gunn: "It's not your fault."

Lorne: “If I had concentrated harder, read him better, maybe Fred…”

Angel: “Look, there's a lot we might have done, all right? Starting with never coming to Wolfram & Hart in the first place. We can beat ourselves up over it later, but right now…”

Lorne: “I'm sorry, Angelcakes. I, um... I got nothing.”

And with that he walks out on everyone, a clearly broken creature.  The only other time in the episode we see him is at the end – alone in his office drinking.  Lorne’s psychic abilities were, in many ways, what defined his purpose.  As a part of Angel Investigations there was really nothing else that he could do to help the others that they could not do better for themselves.  But, effectively used, the ability to read others psychically was a very useful tool indeed, as he himself demonstrated in “A Hole in the World”.  But it is only useful when you have confidence in the results.  When he heard Eve sing he read her as having no involvement in Fred’s danger.  But without confidence in that reading, he was in no better position to make that assessment than Angel or Spike.  That was why Spike said, as Lorne departed:

“No, let him go. If he's doubting himself, he won't be any good to us.”

The ability remained but in its present state it was a shell without the substance and so too was its owner, a creature without purpose.

Gunn

The same thing can be said for Gunn.  Throughout this season the writers have been emphasizing just how much the brain upgrade meant to him.  Here too, by way of self-justification Gunn tells Wesley:

“I was losing it. Everything they put in my head, everything that made me different. Special.”

That was why he had to do something to stop the downward spiral:

“I couldn't go back... to being just the muscle.”

His was the classic Faustian pact.  He emphasized again and again that all he did was sign a piece of paper.  But Wesley sees through the deception:

“Nothing from Wolfram & Hart is ever free. You knew that.”

And Gunn indeed did.  He even tacitly admits as much:

“I…I didn't think it would be one of us. I didn't think it would be Fred.”

By these words he implies that he realized that someone would pay a price for what he got, just not someone he knew.  But worse than that, he tried to maintain the deception to protect himself, even when he knew that Fred was involved:

“But you knew what was happening to her. You knew who was responsible and you didn't say anything.”

Here we see exposed the lie upon which Gunn’s conduct was based.  He fooled himself into believing that he was making his pact to help the Team and through them, help others.  But in Wesley’s challenge we see that where there was a direct and clear conflict between Gunn’s own interests on the one hand and those of Fred on the other, he chose the former.  When Knox threatened to tell Wesley of his own part in the delivery of the Sarcophagus, he tries to shut him up.  He reveals the fact that the sarcophagus was released from customs but when asked directly who was responsible he denies any knowledge.  Not even when an obviously hurting Wesley apologizes for what was – unknown to him at the time – a well deserved rebuke,  does Gunn admit the truth.  And even when Wesley walks in on him and the Doctor, Gunn’s first instinct is to lie.  We can only conclude, therefore that it was indeed for entirely selfish reasons that Gunn acted.

But Charles Gunn is basically too decent a man to be able to live with that.  That is why he tells to Doctor:

“Then take it back. Everything you put in my head, the law, all the knowledge, take it back. Everything. Take more, leave me a vegetable. I don't care. Just bring her back.”

He realizes now that an ability like the one he was given, matched to purely selfish ends is purposeless, at least in terms of any sense of purpose that he understands.  His whole existence with the brain upgrade is therefore hollow.  Even as simple muscle – and we all know he was more than just that – had a meaning and purpose while he was helping others.

“Because I was weak. Because I wanted to be somebody that I wasn't. Because I don't know where I fit. Because I never did. Because a thousand other reasons that don't mean a damn 'cause she's gone. She's gone... and she's not coming back because of me. I did this, and I'm sorry.”

Here we see Gunn taking an important step.  He now knows that what he did was wrong and has faced up to it and taken responsibility for it.  He isn’t just sorry because Fred died.  He is sorry because he was, in part at least, the cause of it.  This is the first stage.  Making amends comes next.  And the way for Gunn to make amends lies in understanding his own purpose.  To follow through with the metaphor, the Gunn we see at the end staring up at the ceiling of the hospital is an empty shell.   But if his words to Harmony were sincere he will look within him for something of more substance.

Illyria and Wesley

But perhaps the best examples of characters being “hollowed out” are to be found in Illyria and Wesley.  Illyria returned to the earth with a simple purpose in mind:

“My army will rise. This world will be mine once again.”

This is not only what she wants to do – it is who she is: a warrior and a monarch.  She exists both to fight and to rule and for no other purpose.  And when she saw her temple destroyed and her army turned to dust something within her died:

“It can't be. It's gone. My world is gone.”

That is why Wesley says:

        “Now you know how I feel.”

And indeed for Wesley nothing has meaning anymore.  In “A Hole in the World” we saw the way in which the caveman’s savage and brutal animal instinct within us can resurface and drown the astronaut.  Here Wesley admits his state of mind to Gunn:

“I've been unreasonable... because I've lost all reason. But I shouldn't be taking it out on you. “

Of course we didn’t need to hear him say that.  We saw him demonstrate it.  In “A Hole in the World” he irrationally shot someone in the leg.  Here he begins by equally irrationally attacking Illyria.  She may very well be dangerous but it was by no means clear to what extent Fred’s death was by her choice – as opposed to Knox’s.  More importantly, however, a rational Wesley could not have believed that swinging an axe at her was going to do any good at all.  This was blind, purposeless hate.    Indeed the same forces were at work here as were at work when Wesley stabbed Gunn and shot Knox.  There are some who would argue that Knox especially got what he deserved.  But that is where the comparison between Wesley and Angel is especially important.  When he learned of the stabbing Angel asked Wesley:

            “Is that supposed to make it all right?”

And when Wesley shot Knox Angel had just finished telling Illyria how important each human life was – even Knox’s.  As with the attack on Illyria, revenge serves no purpose and revenge on a human is directly contrary to everything that Angel Investigations were meant to stand for.  Even Wesley admits as much to Illyria:

Illyria: “You killed the Qwa'ha Xahn in defiance of your leader.”

Wesley: “He murdered the woman I love.”

Illyria: “And that made it just.”

Wesley: “No. It wasn't just.”

There is therefore something within Wesley that still understands right and wrong.  Perhaps it was this that stopped him actually killing Gunn.  But for Wesley such rational considerations now have no meaning.  Intellectually Wesley knows Fred is gone.  But he cannot make himself accept it.  We get the best idea of his state of mind in the last scene between himself and Illyria.  She starts by confessing her own state of emptiness:

“There's so much I don't understand. I've become overwhelmed. I'm unsure of my place.”

Then she asks for his help in finding a way to walk in this world.  What follows is important, though, because of Wesley’s reaction:

Illyria: “If I abide, you will help me.”

Wesley: “Yes.”

Illyria: “Because I look like her?”

Weslay: “Yes.”

“Illyria” We cling to what is gone. Is there anything in this life but grief?

Wesley: “There's love. There's hope...for some. There's hope that you'll find something worthy... that your life will lead you to some joy... that after everything... you can still be surprised.”

At one level Wesley was describing his own mental state before Fred’s death.  Then he did have love and hope.  Now when he says that these things exist for some he implies for someone else.  But why then agree to help Illyria.  Why, in particular, do so because she looks like Fred?  The only explanation is that he is clinging on to an irrational hope that somehow Illyria can still be Fred, just because of the physical resemblance.  And it is in this that he seeks his sole remaining purpose in an otherwise endless sea of grief.  But the point is that this is not a purpose at all.  It is an illusion.  If Wesley had decided that the best thing he could do for the world was to teach Illyria how to co-exist with humans, that would have been an important purpose.  Instead he was just trying to be with her so that he could maintain an illusory hope – a hope without any real substance.  And in clinging on to this he shows his own hollowness.

Angel and Spike

And that is where the example of Angel and Spike comes in.  I often play with point and counterpoint in these reviews and in “Shells” we see the ensouled vampires and their sense of purpose being contrasted to everyone else.  Of course that’s not the way that it starts out.  When we first encounter Angel and Spike in “Shells” they are as hollow inside as anyone else.  Spike is trying to get drunk on miniature bottles of Jack Daniels and really has little attention to spare for anyone else.  After holding one of the miniatures at arms length he says:

“ ‘Here's what a bottle of Jack would look like if you actually had one,’ or, ‘here's a drink, but it's very far away.’ ”

And when Angel asks him:

“What does that mean? Really?”

he replies:

        “It's a play on perspective.”

He is obviously concentrating on his own problems with the alcohol and hasn’t the inclination to worry about anyone else’s thoughts.  What Angel was really asking him however was:

        “What does it mean that she's gone?”

Angel, as it turns out isn’t ready to accept Fred is gone for good:

“Death doesn't have to be the end, not in our world. Rules can be broken. All you have to do... is push hard     enough.”

As we have seen, though, Fred really is gone.  And if we cannot take the Doctor’s word for it we also have Wesley’s:

Wesley: “There is no Fred anymore."

Gunn: “You don't know that.”

Wesley: “I watched it gut her from the inside out. Everything she was is gone. There is nothing left but a shell.”

But even in the face of this certainty, Angel (and indeed Spike) maintain a naïve optimism.  Spike tries to compare his situation to that of Fred:

“Flash fried in a pillar of fire saving the world. I got better.”

But of course there is no point of comparison between the two.  Angel is even less rational.  He simply says:

“Fred's soul is out there somewhere. We'll find it, and we'll put it back where it belongs.”

He doesn’t say why he believe this.  Rather he believes it simply because it hurts too much not to believe it.  This is the very definition of purposelessness: a refusal to face reality and a blind faith that something will turn up simply because it has to.

But even in that frame of mind, something within Angel continues to ground him to the realities of the present situation.  Thus, along with the attempt to get Fred’s soul back, he insists that it is important to contain Illyria.  And his first encounter with her seems to represent a turning point.  Face to face with the creature that took over Fred’s body neither he nor Spike can hide away from what their own senses, as opposed to their blind optimism, tell them.  As Spike says

“Back in the lab, she was standing right there in front of me, but there was no scent. Nothing. It's like she wasn't even there.”

Angel first of all signals his agreement but even now shies away from the implications refusing to give up the dream so easily.  But more important than that, he now recognizes just what a menace Illyria presents:

“Great. She's super strong and she can alter time.”

And later he learns about the “Army of doom” entombed awaiting her return when they would be unleashed on the World.  So, it seems that it is this realization that eventually determines Angel’s course of action.  Later he tries to impress on Wesley the need to let go of his anger towards Gunn:

“At the well in England, there was a way to save Fred, but only if thousands of others died in her place. As much as I love Fred, I couldn't let that happen. Look, I need you to bury it, Wes. Everything you're feeling, everyone you wanna hurt. I need you to put it aside and focus on what has to be done.”

But here he was really talking to himself.  When Angel first confronted Illyria his approach to her reflected his priorities:

“We know what you are, Illyria. We've seen the rest of your kind. All the old ones, sealed away forever, like you were. Where you should've stayed. You've taken something of ours, something very precious. Stand down and I promise we won't destroy you taking it back. Your choice.”

At this point he had every intention of trying to get Fred back.  But when he next confronted Illyria there was no talk of doing so.  Indeed he referred to Fred as:

“the woman you murdered.”

It is at this point that he admits that he has no longer any hope of bringing her back.  Instead he now reveals his new agenda:

Angel: “What you're trying to do, raise your army, reclaim your world, innocent people would die. Like Fred. I can't let that happen.”

Illyria: “You are the protector of these creatures?”

Angel: “Yes.”

Illyria: “You'd fight for their lives?”

Angel: “Yes.”

Illyria: “Even this one?” (pointing to Knox)

Knox: “Is that an issue? Is my life in peril, boss? King?”

Angel: “You're about as low as it gets, Knox, but you're a part of humanity. That isn't always pretty, but it's a hell of a lot better than what came before. And if it comes down to a choice between you and him, then yes, I would fight for his life, just like any other human's. Because that's what people do.”

As Angel implicitly recognizes, the odds against him being able to defeat Illyria are very long.  But this is what he feels he now must do.  And this is the real difference between him and Wesley in particular.  Wesley acts on the basis of an illusion.  Angel takes a stand on principle and with full understanding of what he is trying to achieve.   There is, therefore, genuine substance and purpose left.

The Direction of the Arc

Thematically, “Shells”  does seem to reinforce the direction in which the season is going and – in the case of Angel – finally represents some real progress.  And the real strength of this is that it represents the final repudiation of the principle of rational calculation upon which his association with Wolfram and Hart has been based.  He joined the Law firm partly to buy his son’s peace of mind but also on the basis that he could use Wolfram and Hart’s resources to do good and his inside position with them to minimize harm.  This was something that involved the careful weighing of competing interests   As we saw so many times, deals had to be struck with evil as a part of just such a process.  Here, however, there is a very simple moral clarity to Angel’s stance.  Not only that.  He could have tried to strike a deal with the Senior Partners for help in dealing with Illyria.  He didn’t.  He accepted the responsibility for protecting others himself.  In short, therefore, we see the recovery of Angels’ self-belief and the recovery of his sense of mission, thus picking up the themes of episodes such as “you’re Welcome” and “Why We Fight”.  But whereas those episodes pointed in this direction thematically, there was nothing in them that translated the idea into a concrete form.  That is what we do see here and the episode is all the better for it.  Angel willingly accepts battle against the odds because it is the right thing to do.

But here too we see the great problem with this episode.  As I have said, this idea was introduced in “You’re Welcome” but in the succeeding four episodes we have seen very little development of it. If “Hole in the World” and this episode had occurred immediately after “You’re Welcome” the developing arc would have been so much tighter, more coherent and therefore much more powerful.  Now any effect in terms of the development of Angel’s sense of purpose is inevitably diluted and accompanied by a sense of drift.

Secondly, if Angel’s newly found sense of mission seems to have finally been satisfactorily developed the same cannot be said of Spike.  The Spike we saw in early season 5 was essentially self-obsessed.  He worried only about himself and his future.  A central feature of this self-obsession was his long standing sense of grievance with Angel.  And this clearly played a key role in the success of Lindsey’s efforts to persuade him to supplant his grandsire as a hero, helping the helpless.  But as was made clear in “Soul Purpose” this was something that Spike simply could not do because he wasn’t really interested in other people.  And after “Soul Purpose”, the only episode in which Spike played a significant part was “A Hole in the World”.  Here his motivation was as personal as it was clear.  He wanted to help the only person who had been motivated to help him when he most needed it.  When Spike was first introduced to ANGEL, there was some concern that he would take screen time away from others, including perhaps our eponymous hero.  These concerns have been somewhat misplaced.  If anything his characterization has been left badly under-developed.  At the end of this episode Spike turns down Angel’s earlier offer to fund world travel for him.  He explains his decision in these terms:

“It's what I want. I don't really like you. Suppose I never will. But this is important, what's happening here. Fred gave her life for it. The least I can do is give what's left of mine. The fight's comin', Angel. We both feel it... and it's gonna be a hell of a lot bigger than Illyria. Things are gonna get ugly. That's where I live.”

The genuine altruism of this speech, its posthumous tribute to someone he cared for and the old “I love a fight” Spike is such a weak and contradictory mixture as to be completely unconvincing.  It also begs the question – where did he get the sense of a coming fight?  Certainly the Senior Partners have shown no sign that they are going to break their part of the bargain with Angel.  The writers have tried to condense what should have been weeks of careful and consistent character development into a few meaningless clichés.   And it left me with absolutely no coherent sense of where Spike, as a character, now is.

Moreover, the introduction of Illyria seems to me to unnecessarily complicate matters.  The story of this season has been the battle between the Senior Partners on the one hand and Angel on the other for the latter’s soul.  We have already had one intrusion in the form of Lindsey and Eve.  On balance this seemed to me to work.  In one sense it was a distraction from the central conflict.  But on the other, the interference by outside forces, unplanned by Angel and unpredicted by the Senior Partners, can often provide a useful turning point leading indirectly but inevitably to the unraveling of the latter’s plan without too much of a strain on credibility or co-incidence.  Only time will tell how the Illyria arc will develop.  She is both a warrior and a monarch.  She has no interest in ruling or exploiting humans.  Mostly she thinks they are beneath her notice.  When Wesley kills Knox she is offended that anyone thought she might have cared for him.  She is not therefore evil in the Wolfram and Hart sense.  On the other hand she is clearly a most formidable opponent.  She therefore seems to be something of a wild card and it is far from obvious at this stage how she will fit into the established conflict between Angel and Wolfram and Hart.    But given the way that the development of the season seems to have stalled and given the importance of a coherent and satisfactory resolution of the season long arc, her introduction at this late stage does not fill me with confidence.  And I must admit that my reservations on this point are strengthened by the way in which this episode subordinates Angel’s developing sense of purpose to what promises to be a central feature of the Illyria arc – the loss by both Wesley and Illyria of theirs. When writers rely on counterpoint, it is sometimes difficult to tell where the real thematic focus in an episode lies.  There is in “Shells” a real contrast between Angel’s own belief in himself and his mission on the one hand and Wesley’s hollowness on the other.  But two things stand out here.  First there is the way in which Wesley here is, unusually afforded more screen time (not to mention the fact that the last scene with dialogue is between him and Illyria).  Secondly there is the fact that the emotional impact of Fred’s death weighs on him in a way that is unique.   Both of these factors suggest to me that Angel’s sense of purpose is important simply as a means of highlighting Wesley’s lack of it and that it is therefore with Wesley that the real thematic focus lies.  There is, of course, nothing wrong with that as such.  But I was hoping that the writers would now start to concentrate on the resolution of the arc.  The fact that they are introducing other issues leads me to worry that this resolution is going to lack something in substance and depth.