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EPISODE 5.19 Timebomb Written by: Ben Edlund Directed by: Vern Gillum
The Power of the Big Blue In previous reviews I have complained about the introduction of Illyria as a new character, largely on the ground that she constituted a distraction at a point when the writers should be concentrating on resolving the outstanding issue between Angel and the Senior Partners. Well, in “Timebomb” they actually succeeded in making Illyria directly relevant to the resolution of those issues, both thematically and in terms of plot. So, I think I have to acknowledge that this is a very welcome development. They also do so in an interesting and unexpected way - by exploring Illyria’s power and her attitude towards it. They examine the way in which she relates to Wolfram and Hart. Then they allow us to compare this with the way that Angel does so. This comparison seems to show the true weakness of Angel's position with regard to the Senior Partners. And it is on the basis of this revelation that Angel makes a decision. The exact nature of that decision is as yet unknown. But is does bear all the hallmarks of the pivotal moment for this season, indeed perhaps for the series as a whole. From the very start of the episode we are made conscious of the extent of Illyria's physical power. The late great Sam Goldwyn once said: 'What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.' Well, that’s pretty much what we got here. In the teaser, the torture demon is about to cut Gunn’s heart out yet again when the house starts to rumble and shake around them, as if there were an earthquake. Then the basement doors are blown off their hinges and Illyria strides down the stairs. The demon attacks only to be easily thrown back across the room. And when Illyria finds out that Gunn can only leave the Wolfram and Hart holding dimension if someone takes his place and wears the necklace, she has little difficulty overpowering the demon and forcing him into the unwelcome role of victim. That all of this was completely beyond the power of Angel and his friends was emphasized by the fact that we next cut to Wesley and Angel discussing where she was going and why: “I didn't send her. We were discussing Gunn. I explained his situation, our inability to get him out. She nodded, created a portal, and disappeared.” As Wesley later says: “I doubt this poses a risk to her. She has the power of a god.” And as if we needed further convincing of this we hear from Hamilton about the damage that Illyria caused when she freed Gunn: “Illyria destroyed 11 torture units before she found your man. 2 troop carriers, an ice cream truck, and 8 beautifully maintained lawns. Not to mention dozens of employees rendered useless to the company.” This was, of course, in addition to the torture demon itself. It’s no wonder that, behind Hamilton’s urbane façade, we can detect the fear that she generated even in the Senior Partners Hamilton: “I'm just wondering if anything turned up on Illyria. We have our concerns about her, too, you know.” Wesley: “Common ground. Mystifying.” Hamilton: “She's a walking nightmare, isn't she?” Wesley: “Well put.” Hamilton: “And yet you seem to be the closest thing she has to a friend.” Wesley: “If you knew her, you'd realize the absurdity of that statement.” Hamilton: “Well, the partners know her, Wesley. Yes. They go way back. Heh. They don't want her here. They don't want her anywhere...at all. But they consider this to be your problem, so... have a nice fight. Oh, you might wanna try taking a look at the low-emanation scanner readouts. Just a thought.” By trying to prompt Wesley into doing something effective against Illyria while at the same time attempting to downplay the Senior Partners' own desire to see her brought down, Hamilton demonstrates just how much they do fear her. They cannot move against her on their own and they are trying to disguise their own weakness under a mask of unconcern. They must be aware that Wesley isn’t stupid and that Hamilton’s visit would show him their weakness against Illyria. But staying quiescent on the subject is clearly also not an option and this suggests their level of desperation. But perhaps the clearest demonstration of Illyria's power lies in the fact that her shell could not contain it. Wesley describes the process: “She is unstable. Overloading, to be more accurate. The fusion between her demon essence and her host's body seems to be deteriorating. It's as if the human part of her can no longer contain the demonic power within.” The elaboration is even less comforting: Spike: “So what sort of damage are we lookin' at if Illyria Chernobyls on us?” Wesley: “Conservative guess, several city blocks.” Angel: “And what about unconservative?” Wesley: “Rand and McNally will have to redraw their maps.” Indeed as things turned out the explosion was at the “unconservative” (I think Angel actually meant “immoderate”) end of the scale: Angel: “You explode. I was there. It was powerful enough to blow me back through time. I have no idea what it does to the building.” Wesley: “More like the continental shelf, actually.” So, at one level at least we can be hardly surprised at the comparative ease with which she destroyed Angel, Spike, Wesley and Lorne. However, in spite of all of this power Illyria isn’t invincible. Notwithstanding their initial setback (if death can indeed be considered a setback) Angel and the others were eventually able to defeat her and take much of her power away. So, what proved to be the difference between the two occasions? Why was failure followed by success? The first clue comes in the following exchange: Angel: “We attacked you. “ Illyria: “I didn't give you the chance. That you learn when you become a king. You learn to destroy everything that's not utterly yours. All that matters is victory. That's how your reign persists. You're a slave to an insane construct. You are moral. A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane, empty but for the force of his gale. But you... trapped in the web of the Wolf, the Ram, the Hart. So much power here, and you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your ambition.” Wesley may afford her some amusement. Lorne may be no threat to her. She wants to understand the way human and vampires think. She seems especially fascinated by the difference between Spike’s attitude to her and Wesley’s. But none of that matters. As Wesley says: “what comes out of her mouth, pure unadulterated vertigo. We look so tiny to her.” So, she kills them all without passion, but without remorse or hesitation. She kills not out of anger at being betrayed or out of hatred. She kills because for her it is all about power. Nothing else matters, not even her own existence:
No Compromise Serving one’s ambition. Doing what it takes to keep power. That is the only guarantee of maintaining control over your own destiny. That was why Illyria refused to accept a reduction of her power even at the cost of her own life and that was why she was so dismissive of Spike’s adaptability: Illyria: “You're adapting.” Spike: “We do that.” Illyria: “Adaptation is compromise. “ Spike: “It's called learning. But then I guess you know everything there is to know. “ Illyria: “When the world met me, it shuddered, groaned. It knelt at my feet.“ That is why she is a threat to Wolfram and Hart. It is not just her power. It’s that she cannot be controlled. The Senior Partners have, after all, given Angel great power. Angel explains Illyria’s continued presence at the Wolfram and Hart Offices in the following terms: “She's still here because this place reeks of influence.” Evidently the Senior Partners were not concerned that Angel would use that power in a way that was really damaging to them because he himself would place limits on the way he did so. He would “quibble at the price”. He was unable to discard his own moral values. He would try to do what good he could but he would always keep within what he understood as the rules. This “insane construct” more or less dictated making compromises with Wolfram and Hart and it was his willingness to compromise that ultimately made Angel controllable. As Angel ruefully points out: “All the evil we've stopped so far, and we're still the partners' number-one earner.” Even in the present episode when Wesley and Gunn talk of Illyria there is no sense of certainty – only compromise: Wesley: “So, what are you looking for?” Gunn: “I don't know. A compass, maybe. The thing that killed my friend just saved my life. No one knows why. This place just went Poseidon on my ass. I don't know which way is up.” Wesley: “Everything is... a bit odd. I suppose... we have to adjust. I imagine that's what all this is—adjustment.” And as Illyria says, adjustment is compromise. So, Wesley agrees with Angel about the threat that Illyria poses: “But she's unpredictable, dangerous, too powerful a being, too close to being an enemy. Yes, Angel. It's self-evident.” when, even in this, he cannot avoid a desire to compromise between his rational judgment that Ilyria is dangerous and his irrational desire to see the image of Fred preserved. So, without telling Angel, instead of coming up with something that will kill Ilyria, Wesley decides to use something that will simply drain her power. And Gunn too, even while proclaiming his unwillingness to enter into any more deals with evil things is still caught in the Wolfram and Hart web:
And of course that is what he must now do. In the negotiations over the sale of the baby, he is faced with a case in which there can be no good outcome. Amanda explains her situation: “Mr. Gunn, we can't afford this baby. My husband, he was hurt at work. Brain-damaged, doctors say. Incurable. We're scraping by on food stamps and disability. But the Brethren... they say they can make him whole again. Make him... remember who I am. I mean, how does a person turn all that down?” So, she helps her husband and loses her child or she saves the child and condemns her husband to a living death. What is there to do in this situation but to compromise, to try to bargain one’s way to the result that each side can live with most easily. But then isn’t this what they have been trying to do all along. And isn’t the result of this process that they find themselves in the situation that Gunn describes so eloquently:
But in reply to this question all Angel can say is: “Listen to me, Gunn. I need you to get through this, to get through all of it so we can figure out the big picture and plot our next move.” He doesn’t know how to sabotage the Senior Partners' plans. All he can do is go along with them as he has been doing up until now in the hope that something will turn up. And of course while he does so, he is playing the Senior Partners' game. Gunn, of course, is unhappy with this. He has very personal reasons to be suspicious of anything that helps Wolfram and Hart and their clients. He wants to help Amanda. But, in spite of his professed unwillingness to do deals, he is negotiating with Wolfram and Hart’s evil clients. No-one is killing them just because they are evil and should be killed. So they are still trying to find an agreement. It’s just a matter of where the balance of advantage will lie between Amanda and the Fell Demons. So Angel and his associates are all still trapped in the Wolfram and Hart way of doing business. It’s no wonder Gunn, in commenting upon the thousand year Armageddon they are supposed to be fighting in says: “Tell us how we fight an invisible war. I don't even know who we're fighting.”
The Power of the Unpredictable When two or more people inter-react, neither does so completely of their own free will. What one person does depends upon the actions of the other. In the modern jargon they form a system. But if you see in the other person certain entrenched behaviours, reflecting elements of their personality or, in Angel’s case, their own moral constraints you can recognize patterns of behaviour and so predict how the other person will react in a given situation. In particular you will learn to understand the other person’s dependence upon your pattern of behavior. This will enable you to consciously plan and change your own behavior, thereby influencing the other person. And if your own behavior is itself free from such constraints, if you serve only your own ambition, this is what gives you great power. This is the power that Wolfram and Hart have over Angel. It is his predictability. But in the final confrontation with Illyria he was unpredictable. At the end of one of the time shifts, Angel and Illyria found themselves in the training room with the bodies of Wesley and Lorne as well as two piles of dust. It should have been her moment of triumph: Illyria: “These are the fruits of your attempt to murder me. Your kingdom turned to ash and stale wind. I slew the white-haired one first.” Angel: “This can't be.” Illyria: “And then Wesley, as he raised his weapon... and your demon clown as he wilted in terror.” Angel: “And I'm next.” Illyria: “No, vampire. You were last.” But the fact that Angel is taken by surprise by these revelations disconcerts Illyria: “You know nothing of this. You're from an earlier point in the time line. You are a paradox. You're impossible.” And because he was able to do what Illyria thought was impossible – intervene in the final battle in the training room – Angel was the catalyst for her defeat. Rather than a very quick and easy victory against her opponents, Illyria got caught up in a messy debate about what should happen. She therefore forgot her own dictum – “I kill you. That's how this ends.” She debates the importance of her power with Angel rather than asserting it and she expresses a degree of “bother” at Wesley’s attempt to betray her. This buys her opponents the time needed to take advantage of her weakness. This was the power of the unpredictable. And this is the power that Angel now clearly intends to harness against Wolfram and Hart. There is nothing as unexpected as the decision Angel takes at the end of the episode. He quotes the words that Illyria had used to him: "Serve no master but your ambition." Then he interrupts what has now become a very heated debate between Gunn on the one hand and the Fell brethren on the other: Angel: “Gunn. The baby belongs to the Fell.” Gunn: “What? She hasn't signed anything. There's nothing on paper.” Angel: “Gentlemen.” Gunn: “Angel. What are you doing?” Angel: “What we're supposed to. Serve our clients.” At one level Angel’s decision may be seen as his throwing his hand in with Wolfram and Hart. On this interpretation he has cynically decided to abandon all moral constraints and serve his own personal interests. But that I think is a misreading of the significance of the words of Illyria that he quoted just before announcing that he child belonged to the Fell. As we have seen Illyria simply meant that, in his fight against Wolfram and Hart, Angel is constrained by his own moral principles and that makes him predictable and controllable. That is why the Senior Partners can safely leave him in charge of the law firm. But, as I have pointed out, Wolfram and Hart represents enormous power. There are the resources to detect Illyria’s weaknesses and provide the device needed to take advantage of those weaknesses. It has substantial financial and physical resources to call upon. They represent the Fell brethren who appear themselves to be quite a force. Above all it has access to knowledge and contacts. How effective a weapon could it be if it were used against the Senior Partners? If Angel has decided that he is finished with being constrained by moral considerations then he may well pose the same problem for the Senior Partners as he did for Illyria. With her he was clearly overmatched. Yet, as we have seen, he used the advantage of unpredictability to defeat her. In facing the Senior Partners he is also overmatched. But it seems to me that he has decided that he will at one and the same time lose the predictability that enabled them to control him and be able to make effective use of the resources of the LA Office of Wolfram and Hart against them. And in this context there seems to me to be a parallel between Angel’s evolving attitude towards both Wolfram and Hart and Illyria. At the start of the episode he is incredulous that Wesley might think Illyria a suitable candidate for their team, principally because of her utter distain for Gunn or anyone else. How could such a person make a team player. Hence his rather mocking “Go team” remark. But at the end he says: “I think you may have been right before... about Illyria being a resource. She just might make the team yet.” Illyria is powerful and that is all that matters. She could never be described even now as a team player. You could not trust her with anyone’s life. But she can be useful, just as the power of Wolfram and Hart can be useful and that is ultimately what seems to matter now – using any and all means to strike back at the Senior Partners.
Where to Next? Ultimately perhaps this is the real “Timebomb”. Many of the best titles for ANGEL episodes have two or more meanings, the more important one being hidden by the more superficial. Illyria was, of course, in this episode a time bomb – an explosion waiting to happen. And the name was particularly appropriate given the key part that shifts in time played. But perhaps Angel himself is the real time bomb just waiting to go off deep within the bosom of Wolfram and Hart. This is, of course, speculation on my part at this stage. And there is a good deal of ambiguity in the situation that we face. Angel’s motives and plans are still fairly obscure. And that itself adds to the interest. My fear all along was that the final few episodes of the series would be rushed and predictable. There seemed no way of ending the season other than with Angel deciding that he wasn’t going to play the Senior Partners game anymore and walking away from his position as CEO of Wolfram and Hart after having presumably done some damage to their nascent apocalypse. And because the return of Connor’s memory deprived the Senior Partners of their most effective weapon to prevent this, this was a fear that “Origin” only served to increase. But "Timebomb" has allayed these fears - at least to an extent. First and most important of all this means that at last we are now about to see the long-anticipated but much delayed showdown between Angel and the Senior Partners. If I were being ungenerous I would say “and not before time too”. But there is no point in continuing to flog that particular deceased equine animal. Structurally too I thought that the episode worked very well. The parallels between the Senior Partners and Illyria and the way that Angel reacted to each of them were both cleverly conceived and well developed and set up what promises to be a very interesting twist to the struggle between Angel and the Senior Partners. First of all the writers have suggested that it is not as simple or as straightforward as Angel just walking away from Wolfram and Hart. As an outsider he would lose an opportunity to derail the Apocalypse. Being inside Wolfram and Hart gives him both means and opportunity to do so. And I do find this broadly convincing. I also like the way that the writers have framed the nature of the struggle from now on as a battle of wills. This is consistent with the idea that the whole season was about "conviction" and who really had it. It also addresses directly one of the long running issues for Angel, namely the extent to which he has been a puppet used for others' purposes. And not least tinteresting aspect in this episode was the way in which Angel's own moral sensibilities were portrayed as a weakness. The time shifting isn't the only paradox here. And it is this development that opens up perhaps the most intriguing possibility of all - if it is properly handled. In ANGEL, the way in which evil is fought has always been as important as the need to fight it. This was classically demonstrated in the whole season 2 arc. The basis of that storyline was that “the good fight” was something distinct and different from the desire to inflict as much pain as possible on those whom you hate. And it was from this idea that the show developed its thesis about the importance of a person’s humanity as his or her ultimate guide. What influences us is how we relate – or not – to others. And it is in this context that our actions can be judged. If my interpretation of this episode is correct the determination of Angel to do something about the Senior Partners has just found a way of expressing itself in a willingness to do whatever it takes to surprise and disconcert the Senior Partners – whether that be serving the interests of the Fell brethren or his willingness to accept Illyria into the team. So, even belatedly the writers seem to have set up a tension between the practical necessities for defeating the Senior Partners’ plans for Angel and perhaps even their “silent apocalypse” and Angel’s own moral code of conduct. And as it is this upon this code that Angel’s hopes of his own humanity and his own hopes of personal salvation ultimately depend, the way this conflict plays out will be both interesting and important. But I will be very unhappy if the approach the writers now take is simply to say: yes, the ends do justify the means. That would be a betrayal of the series' core values. But it is seeing whether the writers can resolve this tension in a way that is consistent with these values that, for the first time in a while, has really caught my attention.
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