Four things that always kinda bugged me about Angel: the Series
Hey, so, quite recently, I finished an epic rewatch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series. I use the word "epic" because I was doing this rewatch with a friend, and it took us five years to complete. (It didn't help that during that time, he moved to Seattle for a year and I had a baby and, well, life sure does get in the way of TV-
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HOWEVER, I do think it's strange that, when the possibility of turning human was raised, Angel didn't say, "Hey, uh, actually, there was this one time..." I'm guessing Wesley could pretty easily confirm that wasn't the shanshu, but I'd still expect Angel to wonder, at least a little.
2. I tend to think that Lindsey was full of shit. :) Because other than his comments in AtS season 5, we're given a pretty consistent picture of Wolfram & Hart's goal, and it fits with Holland Manners' message in the elevator. They're not trying to bring about the apocalypse because, as you point out, the status quo is working just fine for them. But they know that an apocalypse is coming - well, probably several, but they're most concerned about the big one involving Angel - and so they're doing everything they can to make sure they end up on the winning side.
Unless, of course, Lindsey's comments are about destiny - i.e. this apocalypse has been building for a long time, because everything that's happening is leading up to it. They may seem like little things, and to the people involved, it feels like their decisions are made by free will, but they're all about moving the pieces into place - and maybe Angel coming to Wolfram & Hart is one of those pieces. So it's not suggesting that normal, everyday life on earth is the apocalypse, but that what seems like everyday life is actually destiny moving pieces into place for the apocalypse. It's hard to say without knowing what the apocalypse actually IS, though. Lindsey could just be full of shit. :)
3. I know that we've been led to believe that it happened at the moment of climax, but that's not really what we're shown. We see Angel and Buffy post-coital - Buffy is already asleep, and Angel (who may or may not have been sleeping) shoots up with a gasp. That's definitely post-climax, possibly quite a bit later. So either the spell takes a while to kick in, or it was in fact the cuddling afterward that did it. :)
But yes, I agree with you that Angel is probably pretty safe having sex, even with Buffy. I think just the fact that he knows he could lose his soul again is enough to keep him from ever being perfectly happy ever again (except in a wish-fulfillment dream), in both sexual and non-sexual situations.
I also think what made him lose his soul wasn't just the sex. It's all that it represented - I think it's important that it was their first time together, Buffy's first time ever and Angel's first time in a very long while. I think it's important that it was Buffy, because she represents goodness and light and all the things Angel aspires to but thinks he'll never achieve. Buffy's love is a profound statement about him, that he IS redeemable, that salvation is possible. But after that first time, I don't think the message has as much impact - it's no longer a revelation, and that's a moment that can never be recreated.
4. I have no idea!
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I'm going to attempt to support my position here! (But I acknowledge that the show's actual writers are probably on your side.)
Okay, first of all, the "coming darkness" could be metaphorical or literal, and while the prophecy's author was writing about the future from his/her/its own perspective, who's to say it's not already in the past when Wesley reads the prophecy? The prophecy doesn't get specific about dates. It doesn't get specific about much. Angel has certainly survived some metaphorical darknesses (how about WWI? WWII? the Cold War? His own century-long depression?), various apocalyptic battles (vs. the Sisterhood of Jhe in "The Zeppo" for instance, which was supposedly a Really Big Deal although it happened in the background and was played for laughs), and surely a fiend or two. Plagues -- again, pretty vague. What about AIDS? What about the 1918 flu epidemic?
HOWEVER, I do think it's strange that, when the possibility of turning human was raised, Angel didn't say, "Hey, uh, actually, there was this one time..." I'm guessing Wesley could pretty easily confirm that wasn't the shanshu, but I'd still expect Angel to wonder, at least a little.
Yeah, actually one line like that would have completely satisfied me. :-)
It just drove me nuts that Angel would violate the entire space-time continuum in order to prevent himself from living as a human, and then a few months later get all excited about a prophecy that says he'll turn human eventually, and never even make a connection between the two things!
2. I tend to think that Lindsey was full of shit.
Hee. Yeah, that works.
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Appropriate icon is appropriate.
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