Angel"Just Rewards"
DVD Season 5, Episode 2
Tara I. – TwoCents Staff Reviewer
tara@thetwocentscorp.com
Angel Pettinessmeter: 10
This week, the ghost of Sunnydale past joins the cast as we continue where Conviction left off as a very confused and, non-corporeal, Spike pops into the Wolfram & Hart offices. Spike is a bit confused since the last thing he remembers is sacrificing his life in Sunnydale to save Buffy and destroy the Hellmouth.
Keep on Reading...
Posts
Angel
ReplyDelete"Just Rewards"
DVD Season 5, Episode 2
Tara I. – TwoCents Staff Reviewer
tara@thetwocentscorp.com
Angel Pettinessmeter: 10
This week, the ghost of Sunnydale past joins the cast as we continue where Conviction left off as a very confused and, non-corporeal, Spike pops into the Wolfram & Hart offices. Spike is a bit confused since the last thing he remembers is sacrificing his life in Sunnydale to save Buffy and destroy the Hellmouth.
Imagine Spike's surprise when one moment, he's being incinerated, and the next moment, he's faced with Team Angel. It's only when he turns around and sees Angel that he decides he must be in hell. Actually, he's not in hell (yet), but when he tries to attack Angel, he quickly realizes that he's more Caspar now than Dracula.
And then, my favorite part of this episode starts: the Angel and Spike bickering. Like the old, undead couple that they are, they immediately start picking on each other (you suffered for 2 weeks--I suffered for 100 years!) and, our stalwart hero, goes from brooding to petty in a non-heartbeat.
Wesley provides some much needed Spike background to Team Angel: Buffy ally (and kind of boyfriend), saved the world, second only to Angelus in terms of evil. Wesley doesn't mention Spike's soul though, because he doesn't know. Angel didn't bother to tell anyone in L.A. that Spike was now fully souled. Ha! The pettiness abounds.
Fred examines Spike and quickly realizes that his readings are anomalous, even for a ghost. This doesn't sit well with Spike, especially when he fades out of existence for a moment, popping back up in another part of the lab.
Meanwhile, Team Angel is still responsible for the boring day-to-day running of Wolfram & Hart, which involves laying off some of the staff in an effort to de-evil the firm. (I have to wonder if they get their souls back as part of the severance package). It turns out that evil people are not happy about being laid off either, and like to express their unhappiness with voodoo dolls and death threats. However, when Angel closes down the Internment Acquisitions (grave robbing) division, he meets with some resistance. It seems that one, Magnus Hainsley (Victor Raider-Wexler), one of Wolfram & Hart's oldest clients, is miffed that he hasn't received his quota of freshly dead bodies.
Angel isn't impressed by Magnus' plight, but when Magnus sends a Wolfram & Hart lawyer back to Angel in buckets (ew), Angel decides that it's time to check things out for himself. Spike decides to go with him, mostly because Spike cannot actually leave. When Spike tries to leave town, he just ends up back at Wolfram & Hart. Always one to take lemons and make lemonade, Spike decides to make the best of it by haunting Angel until the end of time. Angel = thrilled.
At Magnus' place, Angel and Spike are greeted by a creepy butler who shows them into the showroom full of dead bodies—window shopping for Magnus’ clients. Again with the ew.
Magnus orders his butler to kill Angel, which prompts Angel to pull the plug on Magnus' practice of putting demons into dead human bodies. He does this by first killing the butler (he throws a spoon into the guy's head!), and then by calling the IRS. Spike is unimpressed by the IRS ploy. I don't know why, it seems very efficient to me.
Unfortunately, Magnus is a necromancer, so he easily takes control of Angel's dead body. Fortunately for Angel, the Senior Partners are still protecting him, so Magnus lets him go, but calls back Spike. Magnus offers Spike a deal: betray Angel and Magnus will put Spike into Angel's body. Will our ghost boy betray Angel? Of course not--it's Spike! The more he bitches, the less likely he is to betray anyone. Besides, Spike loves Angel only a little less than he loves Buffy.
After a fake fake-out, Spike and Angel decide to team up and take down Magnus using ever more silverware. This time, Angel chops Magnus' head off with a silver platter. What is with the cutlery induced death in this episode? Did one of the writers attend a particularly bad dinner party before writing this?
Team Angel triumphs, but that's the only good news. It turns out that Spike is still fading away, and because it's difficult to free Spike from the amulet without killing him...permanently this time...he's in trouble. Spike corners Fred and emotionally asks her to help him, because he wants to live. Aw.
I loved every Spike/Angel moment in this episode and every Spike/Harmony moment. When I first watched this episode, I knew I was going to watch the whole season as long as Spike was on the show. He provides such a different perspective on Angel's character. No one gets under Angel's skin like Spike and David Boreanaz always plays petty Angel to perfection.
I think for this week, we're going to have to temporarily replace the Broodometer with the Pettinessmeter, which was at a whopping 10 out of 10.
It's your turn. What did you think? Were you happy to see Spike? What are some of your favorite Spike moments? Write your Two Cents below.
I was so happy to see Spike pop up in LA. I think that the couple of Spike and Angel was almost as much fun as Buffy with either of them. They are hillarious together!
ReplyDelete