Angel

5.7 Lineage: Ultimate Drew vs. the Cybermen Written by Drew Goddard Directed by Jefferson Kibbee

Once and for a very long, long time, there was a British TV series called Dr. Who. One of the recurring villains of this once and maybe future low-budget, marvelous series was a race of human-based cyborgs called Cybermen. They had featureless faces and armor-covered bodies with a disc at stomach level that, when damaged, caused them to explode. Head sparking and fall-downage, not city blocks being taken out, but still. They had echoey, reverberant voices. As last week’s episode was in part a homage to the tradition of B-movie luchador evil-fighters, this week’s sublime episode seems to me a pretty blatant tip of writer and Series Story Supervisor Drew Goddard’s hat to the earlier series and the dreaded Cybermen, here turned into agents of apparent Good…and seeking to turn Angel likewise into a will-less automaton under their control through what their creators believe to be its weakest link—Wesley.

The first words of the episode, from arms dealer Emil, are “It all comes down to trust. Ours is a dangerous business. Friends…enemies…these lines do not exist for men like us.” This episode is about trust, and lines. Trusting both associates and antagonists to behave predictably and to be swayed by force; trusting people to be what they seem; trusting that orders will be obeyed. And lines: drawing lines one will not cross and crossing lines despite prohibitions, restrictions, and the deep commandments of the blood to get the necessary job done, regardless of the cost.

In taking Fred along to demonstrate a prototype weapon to an arms dealer, as “his muscle,” Wesley Windham Price made a judgment call—one that Angel doesn’t like after the meeting is invaded by “cybermen” and unarmed Fred (Wesley keeps both guns, doing a Matrixy diving/shooting maneuver with them) is wounded. Angel declares the decision reckless and demands that any future such decisions involving any of “his people” be cleared with him beforehand. It’s less that Angel doesn’t trust Wesley’s judgment—it’s that he doesn’t trust Wesley, period. Watchful Eve conjectures it’s residual fallout from Wesley’s role in abducting Connor (which Wes has forgotten but Angel hasn’t), but Angel protests that he’s come to terms with all of that: he accepts that the result wasn’t what Wesley meant to happen; that Wesley “thought he was doing the right thing.” Eve goads, “Are you worried about the next time Wesley betrays you—trying to do the right thing?”

Self-contained Wesley swallows his feelings about this reprimand, but he makes clear to Fred that he blames himself for her injury: “I should have done a better job of protecting you,” in spite of having chosen her because she’d proven herself in the field and seemed to him the appropriate person for the job…and was a person he trusted. Fred reacts with indignation to what she perceives as his patronizing attitude. In her view, she was the one that fouled up: all she needed to do was hide and couldn’t even do that successfully (although she’d prefer to have had a gun to defend herself and not depend on him to do it for her). She draws a line concerning what’s permissible in protecting her and lets Wes know he’s crossed that line.

Enter endlessly fault-finding Roger Windham Price: Wesley’s retired Watcher father (played, in a wonder of felicitous casting, by guest star Roy Dotrice, once Father to Ron Perlman’s Vincent on TV’s Beauty and the Beast, called back into service following the destruction of Council headquarters. He claims to have been sent to evaluate unsatisfactory, disappointing son Wesley—who’s never come up to (the line of) his father’s demanding expectations—for possible reinstatement as a Watcher, which would wipe out the public familiar shame of his having been fired. Trying to maintain civility, Wesley expresses no interest in such reinstatement, stating that he’s quite content where he is. But his job satisfaction must be nearly zero since one thing after another comes unglued. Not only has his mission to infiltrate the arms dealing ring failed, he accidentally sets off the cyborg’s self-destruct mechanism that may take out the whole building…a crisis Roger handily solves by deactivating the mechanism, having read the instructions for doing so on the cyborg’s belly plate, an inscription he claims that Wesley mistranslated. And the proof is before them: the cyborg’s no longer ticking, is it? Not only is Wesley guilty of clumsiness and ignorance, he again tries to force Fred to seek safety while he remains behind—taking risks himself that he will not permit her to confront on an equal footing.

Even more thoroughly demoralized after another embarrassing event post-mortem in Angel’s office, Wesley finds himself accused by Roger of taking insufficient care for the security of the rare and dangerous books in his library, and invasion by six cyborgs, one of which makes a bee-line to Wesley’s office, seems to prove that point too. The books of dangerous knowledge must be safeguarded at all costs. Wesley and Roger grab the books and Wesley opens the handprint locked, voice-coded vault that protects books and various other powerful and sorcerous objects. Roger gives Wesley a rare word of praise for his dispatch in stopping the cyborg and rescuing the books. Just enough to put him off his guard so Roger can clock him from behind with a pistol he’s somehow smuggled in despite W & H’s high level of security. Roger then takes what looks like a twisty flute or a wizard’s short staff, topped with a crystal, from a drawer and reports ominously, through a hidden com, that Phase One is complete and Phase Two should be launched.

Wesley trusted his father. Clearly he was unwise to do so.

Meanwhile, W&H’s power and security system have been disabled by the cyborg commandos. Angel and Gunn are battling in the central atrium, pinned down by this diversion. One might expect Spike to be looking on in frustration, as usual. But he’s been practicing his will-driven power to affect material reality and by concentrating very hard, he manages to belt a cyborg, freeing Gunn from strangulation. He engages in emotional breathing, appropriately gleeful at the achievement. Spike has crossed a line.

As ruthless as in the Season 3 or 4, Wes tortures the wounded cyborg in his office to find out his father’s intentions and what he stole from the vault. He states that he’s willing to blow up the whole building and everybody in it to stop his father if he must—and though the cyborg challenges that he’s bluffing, a long look at Wesley’s grim face convinces him otherwise. He believes Wesley would cross that line.

It comes down to a confrontation on the roof, where Roger has used the magical implement to extract Angel’s free will and thereby enslave him. As Roger waits for helicopter “extraction” for himself and his helpless captive, Wes grabs the magical do-hickey (“the Staff of Devo-Sin,” phonetically); Roger demands it back and threatens to kill him; Wes moves into a position where the do-hickey will fall and be destroyed if he’s shot. It’s a standoff until Fred bursts into the confrontation and Roger threatens to her. At once, like a reflex, Wesley pumps nine bullets into his father’s chest. He stares at the corpse a moment, then drops the gun, turns away, and vomits. The ultimate line has been crossed: he’s killed his own father.

Angel’s creepily similar account of murdering own disapproving, demanding father, and Spike’s revelation about turning, then staking, his mother (something very emotional and private to him, so it’s really surprising he’d offer this flip, condensed version to Wes, a comparative stranger) do nothing to reconcile Wesley to what he’s done. Interestingly, this visit to Angel’s office is in solicitude for Angel: Wesley giving concern rather than receiving either concern or Angel’s view of events and his behavior. It’s the occasion for Angel to implicitly declare he’s set aside any reservations he had about Wesley’s loyalty. Wesley’s loyalty and belief in Angel’s mission and Angel himself, overheard by Angel on the roof, has reestablished the trust between them.

But the immediate cause, the trigger for the killing, was the threat to Fred; and it’s clear that a line has been crossed for her, too. It will be hard for her to remain blithely unaware that Wesley has feelings for her, feelings strong enough for her peril to fire off such a reaction. As Wes encourages her to leave with the solicitous Knox, who’s cracking jokes about going bionic in response to her injuries, Fred clearly has been left with food for thought. Like Gunn, last season, Wesley has now killed for her, though all three of them appear to have forgotten the earlier incident. Will the fact that Wesley killed to protect her from another whereas Gunn became a murderer in her stead, protecting her from herself, make a difference to a woman so resolved on protecting herself? Only time, and further episodes, will tell how this maybe-romance, so far one-sided, will develop.

It doesn’t really matter that Roger is revealed as another cyborg, disguised within a magical glamour. Fred’s attempts to turn the killing into something less primal, more acceptable, are in vain: in his own mind, Wesley deliberately and knowingly killed his own father, and there’s no going back from that, even though his father still lives—as censorious and sarcastic as ever, as demonstrated by a final phone call in which Wesley is barely able to complete a single sentence for his father’s caustic interruptions. Nothing has changed. Except everything.

Nan Dibble 11/13/03 Acknowledgement: As always, I am indebted for the gladly shared insights, wit, and general snarkiness of my fellow S’cubies: the members of the Soulful Spike Society.

MISCELLANEOUS

Keeping in mind the network’s requirement for stand-alone “monster of the week” episodes, “Lineage” is rife with back-looking references to Jossverse events drawn from both Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Leaving aside Wesley’s heretofore unseen father, there’s Wesley’s abduction of Connor; Wesley’s dismissal from the Council of Watchers; Spike’s fling with robot sex, with the Buffybot; Spike’s closing the Hellmouth; Angel’s murder of his father; Spike’s turning and then staking his mother. Quite a lot of backstory, yeah? for a stand-alone episode. But nearly all of it is perfectly clear in context. These references don’t bog the story down in exposition. But Yay, continuity! Spike’s tense little interview with Eve, in the elevator, establishes that (1) he suspects the amulet, and subsequent ghosthood, were intended by W&H for Angel (2) he’s noticed Eve watching him and suspects she’s concerned he may be “busting loose of her shackles” of immateriality (3) he doesn’t believe for a second in her “helpful cheerleader” routine and thinks there’s more to her than she’s letting on (4) he’s trapped at W&H for a reason…and Eve is part of that reason. Eve is an adversary, and Spike knows it. The cyborgs appear to be associated with the Council of Watchers (at least their creators had access to Council personnel files), and have apparently been taking out baddies worldwide. It’s not clear how much of the Council may have escaped destruction, but certainly some has. And it’s troublesome to find that apparent forces for good have now evidently assigned Wolfram & Hart in general, and Angel in particular, to enemy status. We may hear more of this. Then again, we may not. Spike broke a beaker! Spike belted a cyborg! Spike can look a Watcher in the face, listen poker-faced to an account of his murdering children and Watchers in an orphanage, hear the disgust and contempt in the speaker’s voice, raise his eyebrows and say cheekily, “Oh. How’ve you been?” Spike’s presence in this episode is limited, the better to spotlight the heretofore neglected Wesley; but there’s still great Spikeage here!

Memorable lines:

Wesley to arms dealer: Right now, you’re standing on the brink of my patience.

Fred: This thing really blurs the line between human and robot. Spike: Ahuh! So you’re not ruling out that a human being could have boffed a robot. Sex with robots is more common than most people think.

Eve (to Fred): Let us know if you need more resources. (What happened to Eve’s objections to Fred’s huge cost overrun? Were the objections only to spending money on researching how to make Spike corporeal?)

Spike: Daddy, eh? Always thought Wesley was grown in some sort of greenhouse for dandies. Roger: Spike! Spike: You’ve heard of me! Roger: No: we’ve met. 1963, my colleagues and I fell upon you slaughtering an orphanage in Vienna. Killed two of my men before you escaped. Spike: Oh. How’ve you been?

Angel (to Roger): I’m Angel. A pleasure to meet you. Roger (looking at Angel’s extended hand): Do you really expect me to shake that? Angel: Well, I’m not real comfortable with hugging.

Angel (of the cyborgs): If these guys are on our side, somebody should tell them before they start trying to kill us again.

Spike (as power cuts off in the elevator): You’ll never take me to hell, Pavayne! (to Eve) Oh. Well, that’s just something I say, uh…when it gets dark.

Spike (pointing): Eve’s stuck in the elevator. Gunn (leaving): So tell maintenance. Spike: Right! So where the bloody hell is maint—? Oh, to be honest, I don’t even care. (walks off)

Roger (of Angel): That creature is more dangerous to mankind than you realize. Wesley: You’re wrong about him. He’s not what you think. Roger: He’s a puppet. He always has been. To the Powers That Be—to of Wolfram & Hart. Now, he’s ours!

Roger (to Wesley): You’ve failed me enough for one lifetime.

Roger (to Wesley): You know what that vampire is, and what he’s done, and you follow him anyway? Wesley: Maybe I know what I’m doing. Why can’t you trust that? Roger: You’ve disgraced yourself with the Council, you’ve joined forces with him, and you have the nerve to ask me why I can’t trust you? Wesley: I’ve done everything you ever asked. And I’ve done it well.

Wesley: No, I suppose I don’t know what you really wanted. You never had any use for me as a child and you can’t bear me as an adult. Tell me, Father, what is it that galls you so: that I was never as good at the job as you? Or that I just might be better?

Roger (pointing gun at Wesley): Oh, yes, this is Los Angeles: we have to talk about our feelings. Then maybe we’ll hug.

Angel: Great, like we didn’t have enough to worry about, now the good guys may be after us, too. Wesley: We have to assume we crossed some powerful forces when we took over this company. Angel: They’re all trying to bring us down. The perception is that we’re weak. Wesley: No, the perception is I’m weak. That’s why they went for me. Angel: They’re wrong. You do what you have to do to protect the people around you. You do what you know is right, regardless of the cost. You know, I never really understood that. You’re the guy that makes all the hard decisions even if you have to make them alone. Wesley: Right now, I feel like the guy who shot his own father.