Angel

Angel 5.02 - "Just Rewards"

Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Spike in the hellmouth, the amulet begins to fry him ... How dramatic. Back to where we left our freinds at the end of the last episode. Spike has no idea where he is, everyone else asks why he’s there. Fred is the only one asking who he is. She gets a short history of William the bloody. Then Wes informs them that Spike died saving the world. Lorne says that Spike seems pretty alive now... only until Spike tries to tackle Angel but goes right through him. He ends up standing inthe desk. Seems like he’s a ghost. It’s obvious that Spike saved the world, so he has to be a good vamp. As Angel is ? Angel answers that that there’s nothing he an Spike habe in common. When Buffy is mentiont, Spike wants to see her, but they tell him she’s in Europe. Harmony, is still thinking she and Spike are a couple and gets shocked when she hears he was with Buffy. Spike thinks he ended in Hell. Lorne : No. L.A. But alotta people make that mistake. Wes studies the amulet while Lorne studies the story behind it."The vampire slayer both men loved. Both men lost."

But what about Spike being a ghost. Fred comments he has the electromagnetic readings, but not the ectoplasmic matrix that normaly makes ghosts visible. However, she is also picking up a brain signal. Angel : On Spike. That is weird. Therefore, whatever he is is tied to the amulet. Part of his essence got trapped inside when it released it’s energy... They ask him if he is able to remember anything weird. Besides the burning to the bone and exploding organs ? Not really. How did the amulet get to Angel ? Maybe a present from the powers that be ? Spike starts to disappear but reappears on the other side of the room. Spike says all this has to be Angel’s fault because he brought the amulet to Sunnydale but wasn’t man enough to use it himself . Spike : "I don’t give a piss about atonement or destiny. Just cause I got me a soul, doesn’t mean I’m gonnalet myself be led around by-" Spike has a soul ? That’s something Angel didn’t tell his friends. Spike explains Angel he took a devil’s bargain to take over W&H, to use it to fight evil from the belly of the beast, all the while he isn’t able to see he and those he loves are being digested. So it seems Spike isn’t the only one being jerked around by higher beings.

A Grox’lar beast enters the office from the elevator. This kind of beast likes to eat heads off babies... After a short fight Angel is able to snap his neck, only to get the info that the beast was there to talk to him as a client. It wanted Angels help to negotiate his clan to stop eating baby’s heads. But they like strong first impressions, so maybe Angel is ok afterall. Spike takes off. Gunn catches an employee who uses a voo doo doll that looks alot like him. The same time another associate, Novac, appears in the office asking Angel what happened to the grave robbing division. One of W&Hs oldest and most powerful clients Magnus Hainsley needs fresh bodies. Angel tells Novac to tell Hainsley, this service isn’t on hand anymore. Angel and Wes discuss the amulet some more, maybe W&H planned all the things happened to Spike for Angel by giving the amulet to him . What is it the senior partners are up to ?

Spike is back. Every time he goes as far as the city limits he gets yanked back to W&H. The amulet is W&H’s property, and so seems Spike. Novac is back from his meeting with Hainsley. He isn’t back in one piece, he’s put in three buckets. The fanggang starts doing research on Hainsley, he’s a sorcerer who owns a lot of W&H. He’s a necromancer, he has power over the dead. Angel decides to do this alone. Spike comes along, jumping into the driver’s seat of all the cars Angel chooses. Spike : „I could drive you completely starkers. Right outta your gourd. Yeah. And you wouldn’t be able to do a sodden thing about"

They go to Hainsley’s house where a manservant welcomes them. When he goes away to ask his master what to do with the vamps (Ok, one vamp and one ghost) they have a look around, seeing the place is adorned with posed corpses. In Hainsley’s inner sanctum there is a large iron pentagram as a table. A blonde woman lies there, obviously dead. Hainsley is explaining what kind of woman he was looking for, but then he just decided to take a pretty one. He slams his hands into her body and into her chest. Meanwhile his servant appears and asks what he should do with Angel an Spike, Hainsley tells him to kill them.

The servent returns to the room with Spike and Angel and tells them that they should return to W&H, suddenly the servant has meat cleavers behind his back. A fight starts, the servant quickly realizes that he isn’t able to harm Spike. Spike cheers the servant on. Angel kills the servant. Spike tells Angel he has it too good. Spike : „And here I save the world, throw myself onto the proverbial hand grenade for love, honor and all the bloody right reasons- and what do I get ? Ghosted !" After some more dicussions Spike disappears. Angel goes to face Hainsley. The woman from before is up and moving, when Angel tries to stop her, her eyes are glowing orange and she hisses at him. He asks Hainsley how much he get paid for installing a demon in a human body, he replies to ask why Angel would wanna mess up such a good business deal. When Angel tries solidify cutting off his business, Hainsley gets him in his telekinetic grasp, pulling Angel towards him (much like Balthasar on Buffy did). He starts to crush Angel when he’s forced to let him go by the senior partners.

Back in the office Angel tells his friends what he’s suppossed to do about Hainsley - first he wants to frezze all his accounts and then getting the IRS on him, Hainsley will have no defense cuz Angel and co are his lawyers. Spike makes jokes about Angels plan and eventually again disappears. Only to reappear again in Hainsleys room, who makes Spike a suggestion. He’ll give Spike his freedom and power of choice and he will be flesh and bone again, he only wants his help bringing down Angel.

Meanwhile at the office, Angel is concerned of how to get rid of Spike, Wes says everyone at W&H is analyzing the amulet and theres no way of releasing Spike, in one of the traditionall ways. Which means, giving him something he asked for- eternal rest. Spike enters, but nobody sees him, he overhears them talking, but he mostly hears the part about exorcism, and when Fred says : „We’re talking about killing him." Wes says letting him pass over would be the most humane thing they can do for him. But how should this gonna happen ? The Amulet seems to be protected but the magic wont hold up on hallowed ground, like a church or a cemetary. It needs to be taken there and destroyed. Angel says it would be better to sleep on it, before they make an decisions. Fred leaves the amulet on Angel’s desk, Spike disappears with a woosh.

In Angel’s bedroom that nite (wow, is that room huge), Spike appears again. Spike tells him he overheard thwm earlier, he also tells him that the necromancer tried to make a deal that’d get him back a body. Angel has the amulet and tries to convince him that staying with the fanggang wouldn’t be that bad, but Spike says no and that Angel should be happy he’s doing him in, Circle of Death and such things. Angel takes a rock and tries to destroy the amilet, but suddenly he hits himself in the head with the rock. Then again. Suddenly he’s lifted off his feet and turns to see Hainsley playing with him like a puppet master. Hainsley says a clever vampire would think about it before messing with a man who wields power over all things lifeless. Angel gets slammed into the wall, Spike glares at Hainsley saying he took long enough, but Hainsley reassures him nothing would happen. It’s clear Spike is only the linchpin of the plan. Spike says he better not get used to that, but Hainsley only smirks.

Angel awakens, but Hainsley is awaiting this and slams him into the wall, saying Angel can’t touch him cuz he’s a necromancer and Angel is dead. Angel comments how the Senior Partners will wonder where he is, but Hainsley has a plan for them. Angel will show up the next day once all of his accounts are reopened. Angel can’t think o reason why he’d do that, Spike appears saying he’d be the one doing these things, in Angel’s body. He’d get in and Angel would disappear to Never Come Back Land. Spike also says he might even have a go at Fred.. seems to him like she’s lonely.

Hainsley begins with the procedure, he says it has to be painful for Angel, cuz he’s always doing this to dead persons, but usually they are’nt able to fell a thing. Angel indeed groans in agony. Hainsley pulls Spike’s form to him still his hand in Angel’s chest. As Spike spins towards him, suddenly Hainsley’s eyes open, he’s no longer in control of his arm and begins to struggle. Angel gets up. Hainsley says Spike won’t be able to control him for long. A fight rises, Angel throws a table, decapitating Hainsley, but then there’s Spike head sticking out of the body. Hainsley’s body disappeares, revealing Spike. The two vamps share a grin.

Later in Angels office Wesley and Angel talk about the fact that it was all Spike’s idea when he found out Hainsley is only gonna use him. Fred comes to her lab and to find Spike there, he starts asking her about science and magic, then his comments become a little bit more sexual. He says his slipping, he feels like the ground under him is splitting open. And his legs are straddling both sides of and getting wider and wider, pulling him down. Fred wonders if this is the reason why he’s disappearing. He says yes and he knows he will not go to the place heroes go, he will go to hell, and he’s scared. „ Help me."