Angel Season Five - Episode Thirteen - Why We Fight (part 2 of 2)
Part 2
There is a commotion in the neighbouring compartment. The Prince of Lies is having a crack at the Nazi officer. He has a sheaf of papers that have upset him enough to attack. Angel tries to pull him off the German and Lawson takes the opportunity to shoot him, with no effect. Finally Angel is forced to stake the ancient vampire causing him to explode into a cloud of dust before the very eyes of the startled crew. Lawson sends his men back to work despite their questions leaving Angel, Lawson and Spike to wonder what upset the prince in the first place. Spike guesses that it was the papers but they are written in German. He tries to ‘charm’ the Nazi soldier into talking. Angel says they don’t have time for this (but, hey, what else is there to do, really). Spike won’t be distracted. He slips into ‘game-face’ to hurry things along a bit. The German talks, in German, and it turns out that Lawson knows enough of the language to make rough translations. So with Spike menacing and Lawson interrogating they are able to discover that the papers concern experiments to do with stimulation and control of neurological impulses that the Nazis have been carrying out on vampires with the aim of creating a super army. Lawson is sickened. It’s one more monstrous plot that unequivocally proves the inhumanity of Nazi ideals; confirms the superiority of morally upright America. The German laughs at the young sailor’s naivety. They’re not the only ones interested in such knowledge he suggests as he looks pointedly at Angel for confirmation.
Lawson: You knew about this?
Spike: He did?
Angel: It was part of the mission
The information, not the sub is the main objective of the entire assignment. The newly created Demon Research Initiative is, presumably, a little behind the eight-ball in that department, particularly in comparison to the Nazis. What better way to catch up than to steal the research? After all, one of the main objectives of war is to know what the enemy is up to and then try and do it better.
The Penny finally drops for Spike; Angel is playing both sides and while the younger vampire respects the tactic, Lawson is less understanding. He refuses to believe that his country would stoop to such levels, would resort to ruthlessness and evil in order to win. Not his government, not his country. The vampires marvel at his idealism.
Spike: Yeah? Let me know how that works out for you, Popeye.
Angel: None of this matters. Your people are getting this ship and their men onboard that are still alive. That's all! Spike . . . torch it
So the papers are set alight but an explosion elsewhere on the ship distracts him momentarily. Inadvertently his coat catches fire. While trying to stop himself from burning Spike drops the flaming documents before they are completely destroyed.
Hmmm…
Are we sure that ‘Destiny’ is not interested in the white haired one? Providence perhaps or is it just irony? I mean come on - Angel is sent to a submarine to retrieve sensitive documents about Nazi advances in demon control but also on the sub is Spike, his rebellious grandchild. They think they have destroyed all evidence of the findings but unfortunately its not and the information eventually falls into U.S. hands along with the sub and so, nearly sixty years later Spike is captured by the Initiative, is the beneficiary of said research courtesy of the neurological chip that regulates improper impulses and inadvertently opens the door to his redemption and then eventually, his relocation back into Angel’s world. The symmetry is lovely.
The Germans are not happy to have the sub and their precious research slip through their fingers. They would rather see it destroyed than let the Americans have it. Pursuing forces attack, causing the sub to have to take the evasive action of diving deeper into the oceans depths. While in retreat they are hit. The propulsion motor is incapacitated. They are dead in the water. Lawson is the only one on board with the know-how to get the engines going again. He goes to try and fix them - lives and the success of the mission depend on him. While he’s thus engaged the German officer is able to stealthily sneak up on him and stab him in the gut with a long screwdriver, twisting it brutally to cause maximum damage. Lawson is done for and he knows it and it sucks. But he tries to get it done all the same. Angel arrives, sees the situation and knows what he has to do. It’s the only way. He brings out his vampire fangs and bites deeply into Lawson’s neck. Then he cuts his own wrist on a jagged pipe and forces the bleeding wound against Lawson’s mouth. Initial reluctance to drink soon turns to enthusiasm as the transformation from man to monster begins.
Back in the control room Angel and Spike wait while the remaining sailors languish on the floor in obvious distress.
Spike: Air's about gone. Your new boy better get the engines running before the fish start flopping.
Angel: He'll get it done.
Spike: Hope it's in time.
Spike knows what’s been done to save the sub, knows it hinges on the actions of his new ‘brother’. Still, he’s hungry and it would be something of a blessing to put a few of the dying sailors out of their misery. The engines start up. Lawson has successfully got them moving again. Angel tells Spike to help get the men up so they can get the boat surfaced. It’s their lucky day. Spike once again shows that even when he was the embodiment of evil he was capable of self-restraint. While yes, he views the humans primarily as food, he is still able to interact with them beyond his epicurean desires because a) Angel bids him to, b) his sense of self-preservation is quite acute and c) that lingering taint of humanity (the same one that makes him sing God Save the King and offer ‘mercy’ as a valid reason for eating the slowly dying sailors) gives him that freedom.
Angel goes to Lawson to congratulate him on a job well done. Sam wonders why they are surfacing with the Germans hot on their heels but Angel explains that it is to save the men’s lives. They need air.
Lawson: They swore to give their lives for their country... just like me. Besides, I'm hungry.
Angel: They're still your men.
Lawson: But they're not the mission... are they?
Gone is the admirable, home-town hero. In his place is the vampire version, contaminated by sarcasm and nastiness, who mocks his former self. His mission has evaporated. Now there is no cause, no great fight, and no belief in right. Now he’s hungry and his mission is dinner and his men are looking mighty tasty right about now. They look smaller, insignificant.
The submarine surfaces and one of the men opens the hatch to the outside world. It’s eight hours till sunrise and they are twenty miles from the coast. Lawson understands - he has to make a swim for it. Angel says he’s sorry for what had to happen and promises to kill him if they should ever meet again.
Spike: Bloody brilliant. Turn the poor sod to save the ship. Then make him dash for dry land before Mr. Sunshine scorches him a new one. You're still a dick.
Angel: Yeah. I am.
Yup, Angel’s thinking he’s a dick because he went through all this, killed a fine young man, all to save Spike from probes and experimentation, and the ungrateful young pup doesn’t even realise it. So he makes Spike take the swim too. The obvious question here is why Angel would do that? Why would he allow two bloodthirsty vampires loose on the world when, surely the right thing to do would have been to stake them both? Well, it is his apathetic phase after all. At this point in time Angel simply doesn’t care much about anything, let alone the nameless would-be victims of his ‘sons’. He can’t bring himself to kill Lawson again. He did that once already and his way of showing contrition is to let him go though he does promise to re-evaluate that decision if they ever meet again. Maybe he thinks a new, inexperienced vampire with no tutelage is hardly likely to survive too long anyway? But then there is Spike. He knows what Spike can do, what he’s capable of, yet he lets him go too with no similar pledge of retribution should they ever cross paths again. He lets Spike go for the same reason he went to all the trouble to rescue him, he lets him go because he is Angelus’ boy. Angel, in 1943 is a long way from mastering any control over Angelus. That’s why he sits in his room alone, separate from the world. Because he is afraid of his Angelus impulses, that they will exert their authority over Angel and the soul will prove pointless after all. He makes no sudden movements. He sits quietly and fights remorse and regret and urges and resentment that this conscience was forced upon him, that now all he can do is think and lament…
But to Spike he shows some kind of skewed loyalty, the same that he showed Drusilla in Sunnydale when he was very firmly on the side of good and using the soul as his guiding light:
Angel: Drusilla, leave here. I'm offering you that chance. Take Spike
and get out.
Drusilla: Or you'll hurt me?...No. No, you can't. Not anymore.
Angel: If you don't leave it'll go badly. For all of us.
Spike is his boy. Spike is his investment. Spike is his legacy; and so, he gets to live.
Back in the present day Lawson wants to hear that his old crew at least tortured Angel, once they knew the truth. But Angel never gave them the chance. He jumped ship at the first opportunity and went underground for the duration of the war. He got his job done, achieved all objectives then made damn sure he wouldn’t be put to ‘work’ again by intrusive government interests.
Angel: I never wanted to do this to you.
Lawson: Oh, put your hanky away. I know how important the technology they pulled from the sub was to helping us stop the Germans. Sounded like a fair shake. One person damned to make the world safe for future generations.
So even as a vampire Lawson verges on the idealistic. He still needs to believe that he died for a cause, that saving the sub was integral to Allied victory, that there was some higher purpose to his actions. But that, sadly, is not really the case. He’s deluding himself. He died so that the US government could get their hands on some rather futile research into demonology so that his government, his country could do experiments too, have the same advantages as the enemy. He died for something that was fundamentally abhorrent to the human Lawson’s sense of right and justice.
And now we see that Lawson is not just some random reminder of the past. He is, in fact a reflection of Angel - just a soulless one; it's all there - the lack of purpose, the naivety... And it's not Angelus mind, no, Lawson is Angel’s reflection where Spike was Angelus’. And he turns up at Wolfram and Hart not because the time is suddenly right for revenge but because he’s angry that Angel is once again playing both sides of the line, just as he was in the sub. Though now it is not vampire and man, now he’s a crusader for good running a branch of Wolfram and Hart. It reminds Lawson of his ‘mission’
Lawson: We all need a reason to live, even if we're already dead. Mom, apple pie, the stars and stripes-that was good enough for me till I met you. Then I had this whole creature-of-the-night thing going for me-the joy of destruction and death-and I embraced it. I did all the terrible things a monster does-murdered women and children, tortured fathers and husbands just to hear 'em scream-and through it all... I felt nothing. 60 years of blood drying in my throat like ashes. So what do you think? Is it me, chief? Or does everyone you sired feel this way?
Death and mayhem and buckets of ruby red are not enough for this vampire. He’s discontent with his lot. He resents his death, he begrudges the loss of who he was. And well he might for Sam Lawson was never shown what it meant to be a vampire. He never had someone show him what to do or congratulate him on a kill or to share the slaughter of innocents with. He was released on the world with no tuition and, just like a human child who has insufficient guidance; he grew up ‘wrong’, never quite getting what he was supposed to be. We’ve seen evidence of this before in Harmony (also see the excellent graphic novel “Tales of the Vampire”, published by Dark Horse for further exploration of vampiric emotions and capabilities). Spike and Angelus are our examples of how successful vampires can be when properly schooled. Harmony and Lawson show us what happens when they are not.
Angel admits that Lawson is the only person he ever sired after he got his soul. Lawson is hopeful that it might mean he has one too:
Angel: I don't think it works that way, son.
Angel is understanding, almost kind, because he can identify with Lawson’s plight, from his own first hand experience of being directionless, lacking a purpose but also because it’s eerily similar to when his son, his human son, asked him for answers, told him he couldn’t feel (A4.22- Home) and it will end the same, only ensign Lawson doesn’t get a second chance or a new beginning. Now at this point Angel could have made a different choice, he could have told Lawson about Spike and the chip and the soul and the saving the world and showed him that his death wasn’t entirely pointless, that there were actually choices available if you were prepared to make them but he doesn’t say anything. Instead Angel and Lawson get into a scuffle. It’s a non-event. It’s too unequal.
Lawson: You gave me just enough, didn't you? Enough of your soul to keep me trapped between who I was and who I should be. I'm nothin'... because of you.
He’s a man forced into being a monster, living off instinct and urges he can’t control. He feels like nothing. We’ve heard those words before. We know another vampire who felt like nothing, neither man nor monster. We know what the other vampire did with these feelings and it wasn’t track down the ‘ol sire to try and extract revenge. No, he made a much bigger decision and made a real change. But Lawson is in no such position. He lacks any essence of moral clarity to change his behaviour. He is a slave to his demonic impulses whether he likes it or not. Spike was lucky really, being the beneficiary of experimentation that grew out of that formative research found in the submarine, that allowed him to navigate a route between human and demon existence, that enabled him to make a choice. Lawson has no such luxury.
The fight continues. Windows are shattered (again). Lawson grabs a splinter of timber and makes to stab but Angel catches his wrist and turns the makeshift stake onto Lawson’s non-beating heart.
Lawson: Come on, chief. Give me a mission.
With that, Angel pounds the wood into his chest turning him into nothing but dust, one more nasty reminder of the past dealt with but also helping Lawson finally fulfil the ultimate demand of his human ‘mission’; to truly die in the line of duty.
Later, the morning sun is streaming through the necro-tempered glass in Angel’s office. Angel is looking at the outside world from within his silk-lined prison. Spike arrives. He’s been visiting Fred and she gave him the Cliff Notes on the night’s events. Spike assumes that revenge was the main order of the day but Angel doesn’t think so.
Spike: No? Then what was he looking for?
Angel: A reason.
And isn’t that the same thing Angel is looking for?
The episode closes with the two vampires, side by side. Angel sitting slumped, downcast while Spike stands tall, confident and assured. Spike is over his little glitch, that whole pretend ‘destiny’ thing. Now his post-Sunnydale life begins in earnest. Got body and no ties, will do whatever he bloody well likes, including keeping an eye on the old bastard! And how could Angel not be struck by a new respect for Spike? Suddenly, he must seem beyond Angel’s comprehension. Like Lawson he suffered dissatisfaction with his vampire’s lot but in response he sought out a soul and won. And he’s not divided or conflicted. He’s Spike, with a soul, now very firmly on the opposite side of the line than he was before. He’s a hero, he’s a champion. He saved the world. No wonder Angel can’t embrace him, can’t call him ‘son’ cajolingly, like he could Lawson - he can’t understand this creature who has faced the monster inside and won, who doesn’t need a purpose or a ‘destiny’, who’s mission is simply not to be what he was before.
Suddenly, that withered little shoot has a tremor of growth. It decides to fight for survival. It’s found an unexpected source of nutrition. Hope really does spring from the most unlikely of sources.
End
There is a commotion in the neighbouring compartment. The Prince of Lies is having a crack at the Nazi officer. He has a sheaf of papers that have upset him enough to attack. Angel tries to pull him off the German and Lawson takes the opportunity to shoot him, with no effect. Finally Angel is forced to stake the ancient vampire causing him to explode into a cloud of dust before the very eyes of the startled crew. Lawson sends his men back to work despite their questions leaving Angel, Lawson and Spike to wonder what upset the prince in the first place. Spike guesses that it was the papers but they are written in German. He tries to ‘charm’ the Nazi soldier into talking. Angel says they don’t have time for this (but, hey, what else is there to do, really). Spike won’t be distracted. He slips into ‘game-face’ to hurry things along a bit. The German talks, in German, and it turns out that Lawson knows enough of the language to make rough translations. So with Spike menacing and Lawson interrogating they are able to discover that the papers concern experiments to do with stimulation and control of neurological impulses that the Nazis have been carrying out on vampires with the aim of creating a super army. Lawson is sickened. It’s one more monstrous plot that unequivocally proves the inhumanity of Nazi ideals; confirms the superiority of morally upright America. The German laughs at the young sailor’s naivety. They’re not the only ones interested in such knowledge he suggests as he looks pointedly at Angel for confirmation.
Lawson: You knew about this?
Spike: He did?
Angel: It was part of the mission
The information, not the sub is the main objective of the entire assignment. The newly created Demon Research Initiative is, presumably, a little behind the eight-ball in that department, particularly in comparison to the Nazis. What better way to catch up than to steal the research? After all, one of the main objectives of war is to know what the enemy is up to and then try and do it better.
The Penny finally drops for Spike; Angel is playing both sides and while the younger vampire respects the tactic, Lawson is less understanding. He refuses to believe that his country would stoop to such levels, would resort to ruthlessness and evil in order to win. Not his government, not his country. The vampires marvel at his idealism.
Spike: Yeah? Let me know how that works out for you, Popeye.
Angel: None of this matters. Your people are getting this ship and their men onboard that are still alive. That's all! Spike . . . torch it
So the papers are set alight but an explosion elsewhere on the ship distracts him momentarily. Inadvertently his coat catches fire. While trying to stop himself from burning Spike drops the flaming documents before they are completely destroyed.
Hmmm…
Are we sure that ‘Destiny’ is not interested in the white haired one? Providence perhaps or is it just irony? I mean come on - Angel is sent to a submarine to retrieve sensitive documents about Nazi advances in demon control but also on the sub is Spike, his rebellious grandchild. They think they have destroyed all evidence of the findings but unfortunately its not and the information eventually falls into U.S. hands along with the sub and so, nearly sixty years later Spike is captured by the Initiative, is the beneficiary of said research courtesy of the neurological chip that regulates improper impulses and inadvertently opens the door to his redemption and then eventually, his relocation back into Angel’s world. The symmetry is lovely.
The Germans are not happy to have the sub and their precious research slip through their fingers. They would rather see it destroyed than let the Americans have it. Pursuing forces attack, causing the sub to have to take the evasive action of diving deeper into the oceans depths. While in retreat they are hit. The propulsion motor is incapacitated. They are dead in the water. Lawson is the only one on board with the know-how to get the engines going again. He goes to try and fix them - lives and the success of the mission depend on him. While he’s thus engaged the German officer is able to stealthily sneak up on him and stab him in the gut with a long screwdriver, twisting it brutally to cause maximum damage. Lawson is done for and he knows it and it sucks. But he tries to get it done all the same. Angel arrives, sees the situation and knows what he has to do. It’s the only way. He brings out his vampire fangs and bites deeply into Lawson’s neck. Then he cuts his own wrist on a jagged pipe and forces the bleeding wound against Lawson’s mouth. Initial reluctance to drink soon turns to enthusiasm as the transformation from man to monster begins.
Back in the control room Angel and Spike wait while the remaining sailors languish on the floor in obvious distress.
Spike: Air's about gone. Your new boy better get the engines running before the fish start flopping.
Angel: He'll get it done.
Spike: Hope it's in time.
Spike knows what’s been done to save the sub, knows it hinges on the actions of his new ‘brother’. Still, he’s hungry and it would be something of a blessing to put a few of the dying sailors out of their misery. The engines start up. Lawson has successfully got them moving again. Angel tells Spike to help get the men up so they can get the boat surfaced. It’s their lucky day. Spike once again shows that even when he was the embodiment of evil he was capable of self-restraint. While yes, he views the humans primarily as food, he is still able to interact with them beyond his epicurean desires because a) Angel bids him to, b) his sense of self-preservation is quite acute and c) that lingering taint of humanity (the same one that makes him sing God Save the King and offer ‘mercy’ as a valid reason for eating the slowly dying sailors) gives him that freedom.
Angel goes to Lawson to congratulate him on a job well done. Sam wonders why they are surfacing with the Germans hot on their heels but Angel explains that it is to save the men’s lives. They need air.
Lawson: They swore to give their lives for their country... just like me. Besides, I'm hungry.
Angel: They're still your men.
Lawson: But they're not the mission... are they?
Gone is the admirable, home-town hero. In his place is the vampire version, contaminated by sarcasm and nastiness, who mocks his former self. His mission has evaporated. Now there is no cause, no great fight, and no belief in right. Now he’s hungry and his mission is dinner and his men are looking mighty tasty right about now. They look smaller, insignificant.
The submarine surfaces and one of the men opens the hatch to the outside world. It’s eight hours till sunrise and they are twenty miles from the coast. Lawson understands - he has to make a swim for it. Angel says he’s sorry for what had to happen and promises to kill him if they should ever meet again.
Spike: Bloody brilliant. Turn the poor sod to save the ship. Then make him dash for dry land before Mr. Sunshine scorches him a new one. You're still a dick.
Angel: Yeah. I am.
Yup, Angel’s thinking he’s a dick because he went through all this, killed a fine young man, all to save Spike from probes and experimentation, and the ungrateful young pup doesn’t even realise it. So he makes Spike take the swim too. The obvious question here is why Angel would do that? Why would he allow two bloodthirsty vampires loose on the world when, surely the right thing to do would have been to stake them both? Well, it is his apathetic phase after all. At this point in time Angel simply doesn’t care much about anything, let alone the nameless would-be victims of his ‘sons’. He can’t bring himself to kill Lawson again. He did that once already and his way of showing contrition is to let him go though he does promise to re-evaluate that decision if they ever meet again. Maybe he thinks a new, inexperienced vampire with no tutelage is hardly likely to survive too long anyway? But then there is Spike. He knows what Spike can do, what he’s capable of, yet he lets him go too with no similar pledge of retribution should they ever cross paths again. He lets Spike go for the same reason he went to all the trouble to rescue him, he lets him go because he is Angelus’ boy. Angel, in 1943 is a long way from mastering any control over Angelus. That’s why he sits in his room alone, separate from the world. Because he is afraid of his Angelus impulses, that they will exert their authority over Angel and the soul will prove pointless after all. He makes no sudden movements. He sits quietly and fights remorse and regret and urges and resentment that this conscience was forced upon him, that now all he can do is think and lament…
But to Spike he shows some kind of skewed loyalty, the same that he showed Drusilla in Sunnydale when he was very firmly on the side of good and using the soul as his guiding light:
Angel: Drusilla, leave here. I'm offering you that chance. Take Spike
and get out.
Drusilla: Or you'll hurt me?...No. No, you can't. Not anymore.
Angel: If you don't leave it'll go badly. For all of us.
Spike is his boy. Spike is his investment. Spike is his legacy; and so, he gets to live.
Back in the present day Lawson wants to hear that his old crew at least tortured Angel, once they knew the truth. But Angel never gave them the chance. He jumped ship at the first opportunity and went underground for the duration of the war. He got his job done, achieved all objectives then made damn sure he wouldn’t be put to ‘work’ again by intrusive government interests.
Angel: I never wanted to do this to you.
Lawson: Oh, put your hanky away. I know how important the technology they pulled from the sub was to helping us stop the Germans. Sounded like a fair shake. One person damned to make the world safe for future generations.
So even as a vampire Lawson verges on the idealistic. He still needs to believe that he died for a cause, that saving the sub was integral to Allied victory, that there was some higher purpose to his actions. But that, sadly, is not really the case. He’s deluding himself. He died so that the US government could get their hands on some rather futile research into demonology so that his government, his country could do experiments too, have the same advantages as the enemy. He died for something that was fundamentally abhorrent to the human Lawson’s sense of right and justice.
And now we see that Lawson is not just some random reminder of the past. He is, in fact a reflection of Angel - just a soulless one; it's all there - the lack of purpose, the naivety... And it's not Angelus mind, no, Lawson is Angel’s reflection where Spike was Angelus’. And he turns up at Wolfram and Hart not because the time is suddenly right for revenge but because he’s angry that Angel is once again playing both sides of the line, just as he was in the sub. Though now it is not vampire and man, now he’s a crusader for good running a branch of Wolfram and Hart. It reminds Lawson of his ‘mission’
Lawson: We all need a reason to live, even if we're already dead. Mom, apple pie, the stars and stripes-that was good enough for me till I met you. Then I had this whole creature-of-the-night thing going for me-the joy of destruction and death-and I embraced it. I did all the terrible things a monster does-murdered women and children, tortured fathers and husbands just to hear 'em scream-and through it all... I felt nothing. 60 years of blood drying in my throat like ashes. So what do you think? Is it me, chief? Or does everyone you sired feel this way?
Death and mayhem and buckets of ruby red are not enough for this vampire. He’s discontent with his lot. He resents his death, he begrudges the loss of who he was. And well he might for Sam Lawson was never shown what it meant to be a vampire. He never had someone show him what to do or congratulate him on a kill or to share the slaughter of innocents with. He was released on the world with no tuition and, just like a human child who has insufficient guidance; he grew up ‘wrong’, never quite getting what he was supposed to be. We’ve seen evidence of this before in Harmony (also see the excellent graphic novel “Tales of the Vampire”, published by Dark Horse for further exploration of vampiric emotions and capabilities). Spike and Angelus are our examples of how successful vampires can be when properly schooled. Harmony and Lawson show us what happens when they are not.
Angel admits that Lawson is the only person he ever sired after he got his soul. Lawson is hopeful that it might mean he has one too:
Angel: I don't think it works that way, son.
Angel is understanding, almost kind, because he can identify with Lawson’s plight, from his own first hand experience of being directionless, lacking a purpose but also because it’s eerily similar to when his son, his human son, asked him for answers, told him he couldn’t feel (A4.22- Home) and it will end the same, only ensign Lawson doesn’t get a second chance or a new beginning. Now at this point Angel could have made a different choice, he could have told Lawson about Spike and the chip and the soul and the saving the world and showed him that his death wasn’t entirely pointless, that there were actually choices available if you were prepared to make them but he doesn’t say anything. Instead Angel and Lawson get into a scuffle. It’s a non-event. It’s too unequal.
Lawson: You gave me just enough, didn't you? Enough of your soul to keep me trapped between who I was and who I should be. I'm nothin'... because of you.
He’s a man forced into being a monster, living off instinct and urges he can’t control. He feels like nothing. We’ve heard those words before. We know another vampire who felt like nothing, neither man nor monster. We know what the other vampire did with these feelings and it wasn’t track down the ‘ol sire to try and extract revenge. No, he made a much bigger decision and made a real change. But Lawson is in no such position. He lacks any essence of moral clarity to change his behaviour. He is a slave to his demonic impulses whether he likes it or not. Spike was lucky really, being the beneficiary of experimentation that grew out of that formative research found in the submarine, that allowed him to navigate a route between human and demon existence, that enabled him to make a choice. Lawson has no such luxury.
The fight continues. Windows are shattered (again). Lawson grabs a splinter of timber and makes to stab but Angel catches his wrist and turns the makeshift stake onto Lawson’s non-beating heart.
Lawson: Come on, chief. Give me a mission.
With that, Angel pounds the wood into his chest turning him into nothing but dust, one more nasty reminder of the past dealt with but also helping Lawson finally fulfil the ultimate demand of his human ‘mission’; to truly die in the line of duty.
Later, the morning sun is streaming through the necro-tempered glass in Angel’s office. Angel is looking at the outside world from within his silk-lined prison. Spike arrives. He’s been visiting Fred and she gave him the Cliff Notes on the night’s events. Spike assumes that revenge was the main order of the day but Angel doesn’t think so.
Spike: No? Then what was he looking for?
Angel: A reason.
And isn’t that the same thing Angel is looking for?
The episode closes with the two vampires, side by side. Angel sitting slumped, downcast while Spike stands tall, confident and assured. Spike is over his little glitch, that whole pretend ‘destiny’ thing. Now his post-Sunnydale life begins in earnest. Got body and no ties, will do whatever he bloody well likes, including keeping an eye on the old bastard! And how could Angel not be struck by a new respect for Spike? Suddenly, he must seem beyond Angel’s comprehension. Like Lawson he suffered dissatisfaction with his vampire’s lot but in response he sought out a soul and won. And he’s not divided or conflicted. He’s Spike, with a soul, now very firmly on the opposite side of the line than he was before. He’s a hero, he’s a champion. He saved the world. No wonder Angel can’t embrace him, can’t call him ‘son’ cajolingly, like he could Lawson - he can’t understand this creature who has faced the monster inside and won, who doesn’t need a purpose or a ‘destiny’, who’s mission is simply not to be what he was before.
Suddenly, that withered little shoot has a tremor of growth. It decides to fight for survival. It’s found an unexpected source of nutrition. Hope really does spring from the most unlikely of sources.
End