Angel

I haven’t been spoiling too much this season, but I’m sure there’ve been sides and such out for this ep for ages. The one scene that may be a new spoiler (it’s not on Spoiler Slayer at all, at least) is the last one, which I have on good authority was written by Joss.

Also, fair warning, after I watched Destiny, I watched the next 2 eps of the O.C., so I’m not remembering Angel as clearly as I might be. If there’s something not in this summary that you’ve been previously spoiled for, it’s more likely that I forgot to mention it than that it’s been cut. So just ask.

We open with a flashback. Dru is showing Spike the house she’s just emptied, and he’s in full William-in-awe mode until she casually drops Angelus into the conversation. "Angelus?" asks William, "Who’s that?" True to form, Angelus steps forth from the shadows so that Dru can introduce him. Dru is a bit worried that Daddy might be angry with her, but no, he’s looking forward to...hunting...with a man. (It is at this point that sub tells text, "it’s not you, it’s me," and gracefully exits stage left.) (It is also at this point that I completely forget how the flashbacks are intercut with the present day for the rest of the episode, since the parallels between Dru and goblet really don’t make much sense beyond "look! We found a way to bring back Dru!")

Cut to the present, when Spike is being told by Angel that he can’t have an office (no, not even Wesley’s, since Wes is on sabbatical, not permanently gone) Spike recieves a heavy package. Harmony opens it for him, and it turns out to be an empty box. It is quickly revealed, however, that it was a box of corporeality, since Spike’s next move is to slam into Angel’s closed office door. He gives Angel and Gunn big bear hugs before getting a better idea when he remembers Harmony’s right there. Harm initially launches into a "I’m not yours anymore" speech, but he convinces her with a head-tilted "That’s a very pretty skirt you’re wearing." They go off to find somewhere to have sex with each other.

Meanwhile, all the office phones, faxes and computers are going nuts, and nobody can figure out why. Some machine thingy in Fred’s office is reading electrical disturbances with no easily identifiable cause, and she’s confused. Eve shows up, out of nowhere, as usual, and points out the obvious — that all of these things are harbingers of "something big." Thank you, Captain Helpful.

There’s a great creepy scene where a guy by the copy machine starts screaming "TONER! TONER! NOBODY! EVER! REPLACES! THE! TONER!" and when he turns around, there’s blood dripping from his eyes, and he attacks the other guy in the copy room with an Office Space-like fury. But I can’t remember exactly where it fits in. It’s somewhere in the first half, so I figure now’s as good a time as any to mention it. Around this scene are other reports of employees going berserk.

Spike and Harmony are in the middle of what seems to be perfectly normal back-from-the-dead vampire sex, when suddenly, her eyes turn bloody, and she starts to attack Spike. She bites him (not in a kinky way), and throws him off of her, screaming that he can’t treat her like that, she doesn’t belong to him, and why doesn’t he just go back to his Slayer whore??? Spike does the only thing he can do, and knocks her out cold.

Eve is eventually persuaded to mention that the fabric of reality is being torn apart because the Shanshu prophecy has gotten confused. See, originally, there was only one vampire champion with a soul (the word champion’s in the prophecy? really?), and then, even after Spike died to save the world, the fact that he was a ghost meant that Angel was the only candidate. Now that Spike’s corporeal again...the world is falling to pieces. "This town may not be big enough for the both of you," Eve says, tweely.

Spike’s suggested solution is to leave LA and return to Europe, but when Eve points out that by "this town" she meant "this plane of existance," he...still doesn’t care. Angel asks him to stay. The O.C. must have wiped the specifics of this conversation from my mind, but the result is that they all go get Sirk to read the Shanshu prophecy to them again, since Wes is out of town.

Sirk sneers at Angel’s suggestion that he "read the prophecy" and knows what it’s about, saying that Angel read a translation, which he compares to reading the King James Bible and claiming to know what it says in the original Aramaic or Hebrew. The fact that Sirk must translate it into English in order to discuss it with them is not mentioned, so we’ll just pretend it’s not an issue. Easily handwaved. Sirk reads the familiar part, about a vampire hero with a soul who plays a critical role in the apocalypse, on either one side or the other. Then he reads a bit about a tree having two roots, which Spike says sounds like a gardening tip, causing Sirk to say dryly, "It’s a metaphor. Oh, please don’t tell me I have to explain metaphor to you people?" Then, he reads another passage, about the vampire with a soul drinking from "the cup of eternal torment." "Another metaphor?" Spike asks. No, this one’s real. Angel asks if the prophecy says where the cup is, and hey, what do you know? It’s in Nevada, in an abandoned opera house, just a few hours from LA. Nobody saw that coming.

By the time Angel has decided he’s going after the cup to drink from it, Spike is already halfway there in Angel’s red Viper. (Editorial aside: Wouldn’t this have been a great time to bring back that helicopter? But no. Sigh!) The rest of the ep is a fistfight of epic proportions intercut with the remainder of the flashbacks. In the flaskbacks, Spike walks in on Angelus ######ing Dru, and is confused, disgusted, and offended. He protests that Dru is "his destiny," which charms Dru and makes Angelus laugh. The obligatory moment of retcon comes when Angelus repeatedly calls Spike "Willy," is corrected "William," and says "You know, you really ought to get yourself a new name. Something that inspires more terror."

In the present day fight scene, they are once again fighting over destiny. (Which is a parallel I just thought of, and actually works rather well. Dru = a destiny they cannot share = cup of eternal torment. Heh.) I can’t do the scene justice in a summary — it’s extremely well written. But all the old issues come out, and they both get in some good digs, and the both have some very good moments. (The fact that the Spike&Angel show is drawing me in, IMO, says a helluva lot about the quality of this scene. It’s damn good.)

Back in the lab, Fred is working to find out what’s what, and Eve and Gunn are with her. (This scene is actually intercut in the middle of the Spike/Angel fighting/flaskbacky stuff, but in prose, it works better here.) Anyway, Fred can’t make heads or tails of it, Sirk’s taken off. Not only that, but when Gunn tried to consult the Conduit, not only had the big cat gone, the entire White Room had gone. Nothing there but a howling void. Moments later, Gunn becomes the first MoG to go all bloody-eyed, and he starts accusing Eve of causing all of this, and pins her to the wall with his hand on her throat. "So, you need to breathe? Good to know." Mmmmm, chills. Sadly, as he’s berating and strangling her, Fred loads up a tranq gun and shoots him with it, depriving us all of the pleasure of watching Eve die. I love the Twig, but damnit, sometimes she makes wrong decisions.

In the end, Spike wins. He just wanted it more. Unfortunately, when he drinks from the goblet, it turns out to be Mountain Dew. D’oh! They’ve been had! Back to the Batcave, stat!

When they get back, within seconds, everything goes back to normal. (Fred asks Angel what happened to him, since the fight has left him rather beaten and bloody. Angel says he fell down some stairs. Big stairs. Hee.) Eve’s explanation is simple — the Senior Partners stepped in. They were aware of the problem, and had in fact been working on it all along. They have now managed to stablize a small portion of reality, to buy some time. How much, nobody knows. Everyone is still a bit baffled, but accept her explanation, at least tentatively.

THE LAST SCENE, OH MY GOD.

It’s shot in such a way as to let you know that there’s a big reveal at the end. All one take, very careful framing. Eve arrives at her apartment, the interior of which is covered in mystical runes. She’s speaking to someone we don’t see, saying that everything went according to plan. They bought her "Senior Partners" explanation, Sirk disappeared right on cue, etc etc. At one point, the sound on the tape cut off (whether by accident or design, I don’t know), so she says "You’ll be happy to know [looooooooooong silence] didn’t kill each other after all." As she’s talking, she’s undressing. As the scene ends, she crawls into bed, completely naked, next to an also naked, rune-tattooed LINDSAY MAC-FREAKING-DONALD.

From Slayerverse.de :

The episode begins in a hotel in London 1880, and Drusilla and a newly sired William enter. There are dead bodies all over on the couch and Dru explains that Angelus was very hungry. When Angelus enters, scratches are all over his face. He tells them he had a fight with Darla and that she was called by her old master. It is the first time Angelus and William have met and they are studying one another with curiousity, and not without some violence.

Back at the present, Angel and Spike arguing about an office for Spike. Angel ends the conversation and leaves Spike alone, standing near Harmonys desk. She has an envelope for him, but since Spike isn’t able to touch anything, she has to open it for him. There is a bright flash and every telephone is going crazy. Spike discovers he is corporal when he hits the closed door to Angels office. Instead of going through it, he gets a bloody nose. This isn’t something Angel likes very much, and then Spike disappears with Harmony down the hall for "some fun". Angel is pissed when Gunn emerges, as he witnessed Spikes new situation including a hug from him.

Flashback: London 1880, William and Angelus in a carriage, they just slaughtered a wohle wedding. William tells Angelus about his deep feelings for Drusila and that he is going to find her. Angelus reminds him to be back before sunrise.

Nowadays at W&H, Spike manhandles an employee, Reese, out of his office and starts to have funny sex with Harmony. A few moments later Reese is killed by an other insane employee with red eyes for no apparent reason. Harmony gets red eyes as well and atacks Spike, who knocks her out.

All over the building the phones are ringing, people eyes have all turned red, and their sanity is fading. Gunn discovers that the White Room is devastated, and Eve tells them that the balance of creation is going to be destroyed. Two vampires with souls were never meant to exist, and these are the consequences.

Since Wesley is not available, an expert named Sirk is consulted about the Shanshu prophecy. He informs them that whomever will fulfill the prophecy has to drink from the Cup of Perpetual Torment, and it’s the sole way to discover which vampire is meant to be. The cup is Nevada - Death Valley - in a place called The Columns, which seems to be an old opera house. A race between the two vampires begins.

Meanwhile at W&H, things are getting out of control. Gunn is infected too and knocked out by Fred when he attacks Eve. She is irritated by the gangs reluctance to trust her, and later on she tells Fred that, even if they don’t believe her, she’s not one of the bad guys.

Now we’re in Nevada, and Angel and Spike are fighting for the cup. While they are fighting they are also talking. There’s another flashback and we can see Angelus having sex with Dru. He is only doing this to torture William.Spike tells Angel he knows why he never got warm with him since he got his soul: It’s because Angelus always wanted Spike to be a mirror of his own cruel nature.

The fight between Angel and Spike is only getting more difficult, and with pieces of a wooden crate, they’re trying to dust one another. Spike is clearly the better fighter and he’s getting the best of Angel, finally able to reach the coveted Cup of Perpetual Torment. As Spike is about to drink the contents, Angel warns him that this isn’t a reward, it’s a great mantle to take, and a huge burden. He asks if Spike only wants to take something away from him, or if he’s willing to take this challenge mentioned in the prophecy. Spike responds saying that it’s a bit of both.

Spike drinks from the cup, but nothing happens. They have both been duped.

When they get back at W&H searching for Sirk, he is nowhere to be found. Fred asks Angel about his bloody face and he lies and says he fell down some stairs.

The machines in the building have stopped to go crazy. The Senior Partners were able to seal the tear in reality, Eve informs them, but this is only temporary. The shanshu quandary has to be solved. Spike wants to go out and celebrate his new body, but Gunn refuses his invitation because he already has enough of a headache.

Later Gunn asks Angel why he’s so upset, and Angel admits that Spike bested him in the fight. The younger vampire was faster and stronger than he was, but Gunn insists it doesn’t mean anything. Angel is still unsure, leading him to wonder: “What if it does? Does it mean I am not the one?"

And now for the big ending: We see Eve entering a rune-filled room which seems to be her home. Se beings undressing and is bousting to someone offscreen about how they bought her explanation about the Senior Partners, and she’s glad they haven’t killed one another yet. Naked, she climbs into bed. The camera angle turned and we see LINDSAY MCDONALD beside her, his body also covered with runes.