EPISODE 5.06

Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco

Written by:  Jeffrey Bell

Directed by: Jeffrey Bell

Have A Heart

The central symbol of this episode – its heart if you will – is the heart.  At one point Wesley calls the heart a metaphor but I think "symbol" is the more accurate term.  Instead of using the heart to make a comparison between different things the writers allow it to stand for or represent something intangible that words cannot adequately convey.

The episode opens with a security guard being attacked and apparently killed.  It’s only later that we learn what really happened:

Wesley: "Three people found with their hearts cut out in East Los Angeles, all within the last couple of hours.”

Actually three is only the beginning of it.  We soon find out that there has been a fourth murder and on his way to investigate this one, Angel comes across yet another victim, a homeless guy murdered in an alley.  The description of what has happened to this latest victim is,  I think, intended to illustrate the fate of all the dead:

“His heart's missing. Looks like it was cut out with some sort of crude knife. And based on these blood spatters, I'd say it was still beating when it was removed. “

As Gunn and Wesley soon figure out these killings were not random.  All of the victims were singled out.  Then the penny drops:

Gunn: “Didn't you say the homeless guy in the alley was a vet?

Wesley: “Yeah. Gulf War.”

Gunn: ”And something about a Bronze Star. Bronze Star, lady in the church worked with gangs, this dude, a fireman.”

Wesley: “Saved his crew in a fire. That's the thread, that's the M.O.?“

Gunn: “It's taking the hearts of heroes.”

The killer that Gunn is referring to here is Tezcatcatl, a powerful Aztec warrior searching for a mystical talisman with which to become “super-nova powerful”.  But until he finds that talisman he returns to earth every 50 years and when he does so he needs to eat the hearts of heroes for sustenance.  From the identities of the victims we can see that the term “hero” is intended to cover a wide range of virtues – courage, self-sacrifice, compassion, indeed all that is fine and noble in the human character.  Because he is singling out heroes, it is obvious that Tezcatcatl is not only interested in the meat and blood of the organ.  He could get the same thing from any heart.  It must therefore be the virtues of his victims that are important.  Equally, by removing and eating only the heart, he is implying that the heart is uniquely associated with those virtues.  As Spike so astutely observed it’s all a matter of poetry.  And poetically the heart has many meanings:

But perhaps most importantly for our purposes “heart” refers to that which is vital to someone, the center or core of the person.  It is:

“The seat of the affections, desires and appetites; that which influences the will in making moral choices which in turn directs the mind to institute the chosen action; the ability to choose; the ability to know what to choose; the control center of one’s life; the motivating purpose of one’s life.”

And it is as such that the term encompasses all of the other meanings I have referred to.  This was why the heart of heroes was so important to Tezcatcatl.  A hero isn’t just someone who has done something good or great.  It is someone who inspires or leads by personal example because of who he or she is.  Being truly heroic therefore makes a statement about the core and center of a person in this sense; that was why the heart represented their heroism.

That is also why the Aztec’s attack on Angel was potentially so significant.  The demon singled him out like all its other victims.  It pinned him to a car by driving his sword through him. Tezcatcatl then took out a dagger and aimed for Angel's heart but stopped and reconsidered.  It then took back his sword and walked away, leaving Angel wounded on the hood of the car.  This led to the following exchange between Angel and Wesley:

Angel: “So you think this demon is eating the hearts of heroes, huh? Well, it's an interesting theory, and I can see where your research might seem to support that, but...your theory kinda fell apart in the field. “

Wesley: “Angel, I know you've been through a horrible ordeal, and I'm not trying to…”

Angel: “The reason why I know this Aztec demon is not eating the hearts of heroes is... he didn't take mine. Am I honestly supposed to believe that it had no problem sticking a sword in my stomach but then decided, "Oh, wait, his heart's not heroic enough"? Ha! I don't think so.”

But that was precisely the question that Tezcatcatl’s actions raised.  Why did he not take Angel’s heart?  The writers were very careful here to create a good deal of ambiguity over the meaning of the Aztec’s rejection of Angel’s heart.  Wesley points out:

“I understand you're feeling rejected. But this Aztec warrior... it wants the hearts for sustenance. It wants it for the meat, not the metaphor.”

And it is true that Angel’s heart is physically a “dried-up hunk of gnarly-ass beef jerky” as Gunn so beautifully put it.  But then again Angel is right when he says of his own heart:

“Stick a piece of wood in it, and I still die. Must mean something.”

The heart is as much the center of a vampire as it is of any creature.  And as we have seen, it’s not only the meat that Tezcatcatl is seeking.  The metaphor, or as Spike would have it the “poetry”, must therefore be important.  And Wesley himself confirms this in his next conversation with Angel.

Wesley: “Angel, what Gunn said about your heart—the dried-up bit—I don't think that's the problem.”

Angel: “But you do see a problem?”

Wesley: “It's the work.”

Angel: “Oh, yeah. The 18-hour days, the constant slaying of evil, and the being shish-kebabed to a Chevy. “

Wesley: “I didn't say you weren't working. I'm just saying your heart's not in the work.”

Angel: “Well, yeah, you know, I've been feeling a little bit, uh...”

Wesley: “Disconnected. Yes, I've heard. But I think it's more serious than that. You blame your melancholy on your new position, but I don't think it's about the type of work. I think it's because you've lost hope that the work has meaning.”

The same symbol of the heart is used here to describe Angel’s commitment, or lack of it, to his work.  It’s not that he doesn’t help the helpless; it’s that he seems to doubt that it has any real meaning for him. The “desires and appetites; that which influences the will in making moral choices” that is what Angel cannot bring to the fight at the moment.  That is where Angel lacks a heart.  He himself almost confirms this when telling Numero Cinco about how important it is to fight on:

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

Here Angel is implying that this was all that there was for him.  He was fighting because he knew how but there was nothing but the work itself for him in it.

The Shanshu Prophecy

It is in this context that I would like to return briefly to the end of season 1 and the introduction of the “Shanshu” prophecy. “To Shanshu in LA” seemed to point the way to a future in which Angel was part of the world as a reward for playing a pivotal role in a coming Apocalypse.  All he had to do was

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

And if he managed to do that he would attain not only redemption but his humanity.  As he later said himself of this prophecy:

"I…I saw the light at the end of the tunnel that some day I might become human."

By defining Angel’s quest for redemption so clearly in terms of his desire to be human the writers showed us what humanity meant to Angel, a chance to be part of the world.  The season 2 arc would turn this on its head and in doing so gave us an entirely new perspective on the whole issue of redemption.  It becomes not an exercise in building up enough credit to offset what he owes.  Rather it became a struggle to change himself.  He was no longer making up for Angelus and what he did (something that Angel had no real responsibility for).  Rather he was trying to deal with the damage caused to his own soul by the baggage he had accumulated and to avoid becoming a danger to the world himself. Following on from this, Angel’s quest for humanity became not the reward for redemption but the means to achieve it.  In other words Angel could only redeem himself by overcoming the demon instincts within him and he can only do that by connecting with the world.  And that was the story of season 3.  There Angel became a father and began to hope for a relationship with Cordelia.  Indeed in “Waiting in the Wings” he finally seemed to put behind him the fatalistic notion that whatever he did, his vampire nature or fate or whatever you want to call it would catch up with him and he would do something to destroy what he most hoped for.  He was becoming a part of the world even without becoming human.

But it was not to last.  Wesley’s betrayal, Holtz’s kidnapping of Connor and the disappearance of Cordelia were bad enough.  Worst of all though must have been the reappearance of a grown Connor with nothing but hatred for his father in his heart and a self-destructive streak that made Liam’s look positively life-affirming.  The confluence of this teenage “destroyer” and a possessed Cordelia resulted in the former being separated from his father for ever and the latter  being left in a coma.

But Angel not only lost his connection to the world, he lost something else as well: the belief that he was actually achieving something worthwhile.   Wesley betrayed Angel not only because deep down he remembered that Angel, as a vampire, could not be trusted.  He betrayed him because he trusted an ancient prophecy more.  Holtz sought revenge on him and took and moulded his son to hate him because of what Angel had done to Holtz’s family.  But in this Holtz too had been manipulated by Sahjhan for his own ends, ends that had led him to rewrite the prophecies that influenced Wesley so.  But it seems that even Sahjhan was manipulated to play his part in ensuring that Connor would be sent to a Hell Dimension only to return at an opportune moment and in an opportune frame of mind to father Jasmine, the action which left Cordelia in a coma.   Indeed in “Inside Out” when Skip’s talks about the way in which he maneuvered Cordelia into co-operating with Jasmine’s plans, he gave us an idea of the scale of manipulation involved:

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

In season 4 Angel saw taken away from him the very things that offered him  hope of a future as someone connected to the world.  The promise of “Waiting in the Wings” seemed confounded.  As with the fatal mis-step at the end of “Surprise” in season 2 BUFFY, Angel’s past did indeed seem fated to catch up with him whatever he did.  Things were so bad that the one and only way that was left to him to save Connor from the evil influence his own past had on the boy was to kill him so that he might be reborn into a new life that had absolutely nothing to do with Angel, his past or his future.  And that was an advantage bought for his son by entering into a deal with the Devil, or his nearest equivalent on earth – Wolfram and Hart.  So, this too was yet one more example of what for Angel must have seemed a vicious circle in which, whatever he did to make up for his past or just to lead a better life by “helping the helpless”, he seemed only to serve other’s agendas.   That was why in “Hell Bound” he seemed convinced that he was going to Hell.  In conversation with Spike he referred to the things that both of them had done to help people and then added bitterly:

“You think any of it matters? The things we did? The lives we destroyed. That's all that's ever gonna count. So, yeah, surprise. You're going to hell. We both are.”

Indeed, in “Life of the Party” he was full of self-doubt about the effectiveness of what he was doing to help:

“Look, I spent years doing everything I could to bring this company down. Now I'm the CEO, and I have to question every move I make because any one of them could be exactly what the senior partners want.”

Of course, there are individuals out there who need Angel's help.  But, since the loss of Connor and Cordelia, his connection to the world is broken so what does this really mean to him? And while he can help at the individual level, he now seems to lack any confidence that what he is doing is helping in the fight against evil in the broader context.  If he is simply following an agenda set by others what meaning does anything he does have?  Of course,  Gunn gives Angel the PR handout on behalf of Wolfram and Hart:

“As C.E.O. and president of Wolfram & Hart, you just bankrupted a company that dumps raw demon waste into Santa Monica bay, banished a clan of pyro warlocks into a hell dimension, and started a foster care program for kids whose parents have been killed by vampires.”

But Angel's suspicion is that these are just distractions intended to keep them occupied while the real agenda of the Senior Partners is being inexorably advanced and there is nothing he can do about it.  Worse still he may be actually helping them.   In those circumstances is it any wonder that he lack a real heart for the struggle?

And this is where we see the value of the “Shanshu” prophecy.  As I have already indicated, in seasons 2 and 3 we moved away from the idea of Angel physically becoming human and more in the direction of him psychologically and emotionally becoming human.  And certainly the “Shanshu” prophecy very much drops out of the picture in seasons 3 and 4.  It remains nevertheless a very good touchstone of the nature of Angel’s journey.  It sums up the idea that the struggle to be human and the struggle to change himself and the struggle against the evil threatening others are all part of the same thing.  It is if you like the symbol of Angel's connection with the world.  Not only that, but because it is a prophecy about Angel being on the right path, it also encapsulates the idea of him doing something important and worthwhile.  So his rejection of the prophecy gives sharpness and point to Angel’s lack of hope on both counts referred to above.  It symbolizes the extent to which he feels cut off from humanity and the extent to which he feels incapable of achieving any good.  There is a particularly poignant moment when Angel talks to Wesley about the meaninglessness of prophecies and cites the “father will kill the son” prophecy which misled Wesley into kidnapping Connor.  Thus we see brought together Angel’s personal sense of loss on the one hand and his distrust of prophecies which purport to shape his destiny on the other.

And it is in this context that we come to the central question posed by the “Shanshu” prophecy and on which there has been considerable debate. One view has it that Angel becoming human is being held out as a “reward” (for want of a better word) intended to give his struggle meaning.  To this prospect a number of serious objections are raised.  For example it is said that, in episodes like "Sanctuary" and "Somnambulist," ANGEL has made it clear that redemption is a constant struggle. Our titular vampire can never completely atone for what he has done.  The logic of this approach is that he must, therefore, keep fighting his darker urges, keep doing right, for as long as he lives. He must do so simply because he can never forget what he has done and that is the only way he can save his soul.  There is therefore no point at which he can be said to have suffered enough and achieved enough to balance things out and deserve the reward.  On this view, the pivotal role that the "Shanshu" prophecy plays in this episode is a serious flaw in it.  As I have already tried to make clear, though, I think this is to misunderstand the way in which the "Shanshu" prophecy is used in "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco".  I entirely accept that being human, a physical reward, is not enough to give Angel peace of the soul. Angel's primary conflict is internal, with the person whom he was as a human, with the monster he was as a soulless vampire and with the monster still within him as an ensouled one.  It is with what he has done and what he is capable of doing.  And being human again won't do anything to resolve those conflicts. If all Angel needed was an external solution, then the Gem of Amarra would have solved all his problems and he'd never have smashed it in “In the Dark”. External rewards themselves can never solve internal conflicts.  But if you accept that the “Shanshu” prophecy is not about the reward of being human itself, but is rather  about Angel connecting with humanity and reaffirming that he was actually on the right path and that he was making progress, then this problem disappears.  Looked at in those terms the prophecy neatly encapsulates the synergy between physically becoming human, making a connection with the rest of humanity, overcoming the evil within himself and actually doing good. 

Conversely Angel's lack of belief in it sums up his own belief that he is on the wrong course, that he has allowed himself to be manipulated by evil, then he can look forward to an unlife in which there will be no connection with humanity, in which the danger from within him may manifest itself at any time  and which will only end with him going to Hell.  That is why Angel himself characterizes as a feeling of "disconnection" his own lack of enthusiasm for the work he and the former members of Angel Investigations are doing as part of Wolfram and Hart. 

It is not for nothing that, when discussing Angel’s situation with him, Wesley equated his lack of heart to his lack of hope. And here I am reminded of the Greek myth of Pandora’s box.  In its original incarnation the story tells how Pandora's box contained all the evils that could trouble humanity and that, when curiosity got the better of her, Pandora opened it and those evils escaped to plague the human race for all eternity.   Hope, in the end,  was the only thing left in the box.  Hope, therefore, is  the one lasting thing over which we humans have control because it is in us.  It will forever be the one thing that over and again can well up in us and move us forward when all else appears lost, the most reliable source of comfort in misfortune. To be hopeful is to assume that things can change and that we can be agents of change without any expectation of final victories.   Hope, in this sense, is not naive optimism.  But it has to do with reasonable confidence in oneself, a realistic trust that the effort to improve things is worthwhile; that what's desirable can be achieved -- seldom totally, but at least partially.   That is why hope is fundamental to any idea of human progress.  But, as we have seen, Angel has now reached a state of mind in which he does not believe he is making any progress or doing any good at all.  Sure, he may win some tactical victories, but he seems to have concluded that these are leading to strategic defeat.  The fact that he is the CEO of Wolfram and Hart means that he is now a pillar which supports the whole evil edifice and killing the occasional demon or saving the occasional victim doesn’t begin to compensate for that.  That is why he is so sensitive about whether he remains a hero.

And that is also why it seems to me that the conglomeration of Angel’s past disappointments and frustrations dovetails so beautifully with the situation that he now finds himself in, thus creating a powerful and believable sense of psychological oppression and a linked sense of being trapped and unable to see a way out.  Angel retains his belief in doing the right thing but he no longer trusts that he knows what that it.

Come In Number Five

And it is here that we see the purpose of the comparison between his situation and that of Numero Cinco, a comparison that serves as the central focus of the episode.  When we first meet Numero Cinco, he is as far away from any working definition of hero as it is possible to get.  He is a humble mailman working for Wolfram and Hart and that fact alone speaks volumes.  More to the point he has no interest in helping anyone.  Indeed his reaction to the mere prospect of being asked to help find Tezcatcatl is a violent one.  He told Angel he attacked him because:

“You were going to drag me into your quest for the Aztec demon.”

Not only had he retired from life as a champion, he wore the mask for only one reason:

"It reminds me that only a fool would want to be a champion."

With these words Numero Cinco confirmed what he once was or perhaps more accurately and more importantly for present purposes we should say that they confirmed what he was once part of.  For it quickly transpires that at one time Numero Cinco was for from being alone.  He and his brothers were part of a team.  They were luchadores, Mexican wrestlers.  But they were also more:

“No one else cared about Mexicans or Chicanos, so we protected our own. The five of us were always joined, always connected. And when necessary, we came together as a fist. We fought monsters and gangsters. Vampiros. We were heroes. We protected the weak... and we helped the helpless.”

Indeed in the flashback it is noticeable how closely co-ordinated were their movements, both in and out of the ring.  And as if to reinforce just how close they were, Numero Cinco goes on to emphasize that their connection extended beyond the field of combat.  They spent every waking hour together:

"We fought hard. We played hard. Brothers in the truest sense. Never jealous, never bickering. Those were the happiest days of my life. "

Then his brothers were killed by Tezcatcatl and everything changed.

"After my brothers were killed, I tried to carry on...tried to help people. But after a while, the phone stopped ringing. The people went away."

So, from being a part of a team that had always been “connected” to one another and to their Chicano community, Numero Cinco now found himself abandoned – disconnected if you will.  And as if to emphasize the point we later see him with Angel watching a cruel parody of the wrestling match we had previously seen himself and his brothers take part in. Five midgets wearing colorful numbered masks fight in a ring against a full-sized man who chases them around it.  It’s no wonder he comments angrily:

“This is how my brothers are remembered, what their good deeds earned. They sacrificed their lives as heroes, and it is played out as a farce.”

And when Angel says he may be expecting too much from people Numero Cinco replies bitterly:

“Is it too much to expect them to remember their past? To honor those that fought and died? My brothers are dead, and Tezcatcatl is back to kill again. Why did we bother? What difference did we make?”

And indeed what difference did the brothers make?  Numero Cinco later points out to Angel the futility of fighting Tezcatcatl:

“Say you stop it. Then what? In 50 years it's back, and nothing has changed.”

So, here too we see the linked themes of disconnection and a feeling that perhaps all the good work really was for nothing after all.  And it is from this that a feeling of hopelessness emerges, a feeling that it doesn’t really matter.  That is why Numero Cinco doesn’t know or can’t remember how to kill Tezcatcatl.  Even simple revenge is meaningless.  For him nothing matters. 

The similarities between Numero Cinco and Angel are too obvious to need much comment from me.  Indeed when the latter says that he and his brothers “helped the helpless” and Angel chimed in:

“I know a little something about that.”

it counted for me as anvilling.  But the loss of the human connections most close to him and the wider connections to community were also intended to parallel Angel’s experience.  And most telling of all we see how a Numero Cinco conspicuously left alone by a telephone that refused to ring (as it had done with news of the devil's robot)  ended up working for Wolfram and Hart.  Not only that but he ended up as a messenger boy, thus showing who was the real boss.  Angel is not yet there.  He is still at the point where, despite his feeling of disconnection and his lack of confidence in what he was doing, he still thinks it’s worthwhile to keep on fighting.  But the message is clear.  Numero Cinco too was like that.  But now when Angel tries to give him the same message of hope he rejects it.  When Angel says:

“I think some part of you still knows that, still believes in being a hero.”

he suddenly realizes Numero Cico is gone and sheepishly adds:

“Then again, maybe not.”

Without the connection to humanity and without hope that what he is doing really means something over and above the immediate benefits, Angel may become like Numero Cinco.  The way that both ended up working for Wolfram and Hart suggests that perhaps this may be part of the Senior Partners' plan in offering him a job as CEO.  And the question mark over Angel’s heart and whether the Aztec demon wanted it or not simply reinforces these parallels.

We get a pretty clear impression of the desperate state of mind that Numero Cinco is in from his fruitless attempts to reconnect with his brothers.  This episode takes place during the Mexican Day of the Dead when families welcome their dead back into their homes, and visit the graves of their close kin. In homes families create an altar and decorate it with items that they believe are beautiful and attractive to the souls of their departed ones. At the cemetery, family members engage in sprucing up the gravesite, decorating it with flowers, setting out and enjoying a picnic, and interacting socially with other family and community members who gather there. In both cases, celebrants believe that the souls of the dead return and are all around them. And we see Numero Cinco has created just such an altar in his apartment and decorated the grave of his brothers.  But they do not return:

“Every year on El Dia de Los Muertos, I prepare this altar for them. And every year, they never come, never visit. Because I am not worthy.”

Memory is another important theme in this episode.  Several times Numero Cinco complains about people forgetting and cites this as evidence of the lack of a connection to them.  And yet he too has forgotten – forgotten what it means to be a hero.  He says he respects the memory of his brothers but by implication calls them fools for their heroism.  Is he really behaving any differently to the crowds that mock their heroism is the “farce” with the midgets?  And does he not commit the ultimate disrespect by working for the enemy:

            ”I knew that Wolfram & Hart was everything my brothers despised. But what did I care?”

By his life Numero Cinco has shown that he is the one who has forgotten.  He is the one who severed the connection between himself and his brothers.  It was not done for him by fate.  If he had acted differently his brothers would have visited him on the Day of the Dead; the connection would have been maintained.  He showed this conclusively at the cemetery.  He initially went there for one purpose.  As Angel pointed out to him:

“You want the Aztec warrior to come, to kill you so you can be with your brothers, but... he won't.”

But in the end what re-forged the connection was not his death but his actions beforehand.  Whether out of genuine regard for Angel or out of an unwillingness to see another victim fall to Tezcatcatl as his brothers had done before, Numero Cinco gives his own life for Angel.  He rediscovers – remembers if you will – the heroism of the earlier fight with the Aztec demon.  And as soon as he does that the other Hermanos Numeros appear.

And this is where Angel comes in.  As before the brothers act in perfect harmony.  Angel on the other hand is left as a bystander as they rush past him to arm themselves with iron rods.  Then Numero Quattro turns to Angel and says:

“Amigo... andale.”

By calling him friend and shouting to him the same word of encouragement that the brothers used to one another, he is identifying Angel as one of them.  Moreover they are all armed with the same weapon and all take part in the same beautifully choreographed move to kill the demon.  It is inferred that Angel plays the part played by Numero Cinco himself 50 years earlier, thus making even more explicit the connection.

By demonstrating that Angel had the connection with them that Numero Cinco had lost  the writers clearly intend to point up the difference between him and Numero Cinco, a difference they further emphasize by explaining the fact that Tezcatcatl didn’t take Angel’s heart in the following terms:

Numero Cinco: “Mis hermanos, they came back.”

Angel: “Because you're worthy. You proved it.”

Numero Cinco: “Maybe. But still the demon did not want my heart.”

Angel: “He didn't want mine, either.”

Numero Cinco: “Of course not, amigo. Who would want that dried-up walnut of a dead thing?”

But that of course does not mean that all of the problems that Angel was facing mean nothing.  It certainly does not mean that Angel can just go on the way he has been in the employ of Wolfram and Hart or that the connection between him and humanity does not matter.  But Numero Cinco was for a long time himself on the wrong path and had lost his connection to his brothers and to his community.  But he re-found both.  And this is what seems to have given Angel new hope.  Angel is not in a good place.  He has lost Cordelia and his son.  He has been manipulated.  Perhaps he is doing more harm than good.  But there is nothing to say that this situation cannot change.  As Numero Cinco showed there is no situation so desperate that cannot be improved.  It’s all a matter of hope.

Angel dismissed the “Shanshu” prophecy as a “shiny reward”.  But, as I have already tried to argue there is another way of looking at it.   Angel’s lack of hope was linked both to his lack of a connection to humanity and an uncertainty over whether he was doing any good.  In the case of Numero Cinco he saw how doing the right thing led to the reconnection of the brothers.  Perhaps what was wrong with Angel was that he looked at the prophecy in the wrong way and that was why he saw no truth in it.  What he needed to realize was that if like Numero Cinco he did get back on track, if he really was doing good then he too could re-forge a connection with humanity of his own.  It is interesting that he linked the meaninglessness of the “Shanshu” prophecy with that if the “Father will kill the son” prophecy,   But, we now know the latter did indeed mean something.  Why not the former too? At the end Angel goes and reads the “Shanshu” prophecy for himself.  I think we are intended to conclude that he was thinking about what it meant.  As I have already said the central symbol of this episode is the heart.  Perhaps he is experiencing a change of heart in the sense of a reappraisal of his own “desires and appetites; that which influences the will in making moral choices”.  Perhaps he is now beginning to believe that doing the right thing does after all have meaning for himself.