the Wessay, part 3
Here endeth the fruits of the Great Plague Re-Watch of 2011, and I’m probably about to be back on my regular schedule of “maybe thinking about updating two months from now IF EVER” because this has already strained my attention span well past its breaking point. Unless there is another snowstorm/plague this winter, in which case, SEE YOU REAL SOON.
Part I
Part II
Perhaps because he’s so woefully out of sync with the world, the dark, dramatic days of season 2 are among Wesley’s finest, and certainly his happiest. Not insignificantly, Wesley’s self-confidence and comfort with his role in the team peak here, when Faith is off doing her self-imposed stint in murder rehab. If anything, the Faith-Angel mirroring swings back around: Angel’s soul is the one in desperate need of saving, and this is Wesley’s chance to start to make it right even with Faith herself out of view. [If you are as sorry about the lack of direct Wes/Faith in this part as I am, or even if you are just a supporter of things that are awesome (which obviously you are, because here you are reading about Wesley, WELL DONE YOU) you must treat yourself to A Witness to See the Mess I’ve Made by my indisputably superior Wesley brain-twin ohwaluvusbab .]
I promised to protect you: Wes should be Wes
I try to control the flail over any individual episode solely on the grounds that it gives good Wesley, but GWBG is so important for him (and so endlessly entertaining! NOT THE SUN! FOR I AM A VAMPIRE! ALEXIS DENISOF YOU ARE SUNSHINE ON A CLOUDY DAY, JSYK) that I feel justified in my indulgence. As Darla and W&H manipulate Angel away from his mission in the early part of S2, Cordelia, Wes, and Gunn unconsciously pick up the slack. When Bryce’s (the antagonist’s very name reminds us of what Wesley could have been and never considers becoming) goons show up and threaten Cordelia, though, Wes steps in and steps up.
Wes, here, shifts in his relationship to the mission. It used to be that Angel, having been chosen about external events (by Darla, by the Romani, by the Nyazian scrolls, by Jasmine and maybe the other PTBs or whatever else might want him running whatever apocalypse) is therefore assigned the decision-making role by default. This persona can be separated out from Angel’s traditional protagonist status, however, and fits as naturally on Wesley if not more so. Wes gets the chance to try on Angel’s guise, to actually be Angel in a way. And on some level, he’s always wanted that, to be chosen and therefore be sure in his place of and duty towards the mission. Angel, at this point, wants humanity as both symbol and reward of forgiveness; Wesley wants something more as both symbol and reward of worthiness. (Wesley’s Angel-play is heavily comedic, but it’s worth pointing out that as a mortal, useful human who strives to do the right thing, Wesley is likewise what Angel wishes to be.) But being chosen isn’t something you can earn. To be Chosen is inherently passive. It’s something that happens at gunpoint, the only tolerable option in a desperate moment, something that you never quite feel you deserve and maybe aren’t right for, something that can end up destroying everyone around you.
Wes has to do triple-time in GWBG. He has to do the protection job Angel would have been paid for initially, he has to do his usual data-gathering and analysis, and he has to maintain the charade. And he does all these things brilliantly, until Veneer blows his cover. The problem doesn’t occur because Wesley was there instead of Angel, but because Wesley couldn’t be sufficiently Wesley. With Wesley on triple-duty, there was nobody around to look up Yeska; they only solved the case because Angel had met her. That’s the lesson of GWBG: it’s what’s inside you, your whole self, that will save you. Neither Angel’s soul nor his demon are an “it” separate from him, and ignoring one or the other will always result in catastrophe. Virginia’s sexuality, her fierce seizure of control and joy in a relentlessly-policed patriarchal family, would have saved her from Yeska whether AI showed up or not. (LET US ALL TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE VIRGINIA. LOVE.) And Wesley doesn’t need to be Angel to keep his promise to protect her.
I’m going to send up a flag for one of my many Unpopular Fandom Opinions. Wes/Virginia is MY FAVORITE WESLEY RELATIONSHIP. LOOK AT WESLEY. HE SMILES. The angst ho in me - hello, Wes essay - does love Lilah/Wes in isolation. But to add romantic angst on top of the turmoil I already see just turns into Cause Pain romance for me. I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO BE HAPPY AFTER ALL THE ANGST, OKAY? Virginia is especially important in the middle of that season as well - as the three musketeers pull closer together, dependent on and at the endless beck and call of the visions sent to Cordelia, Virginia serves as the tether between the world and the mission that Wesley and AI need, not quite as much as Angel did, but still. It’s a relationship balancing traditional and non-traditional in a slightly peculiar way - Wes is the worker but most certainly not the breadwinner; Virginia far and away the more whole and stable despite her huge recent trauma -one that’s a paradigm of more-than-acceptable happiness.
Wesley needs to prove to himself that he can truly stand on his own, and GWBG is the time he gets to actually prove it. And put in his own realm, of humans with magic, Wesley actually does quite well. In our AI point of view, Wes is the non-fighter, the researcher, the bumbling assistant. But he is a fighter of vampires and demons. He easily intimidates Veneer’s goons, and then easily wins a two-on-one fight. Wes has never lived in the world above, so he’s never had the chance to know that he is kind of a badass.
Angel’s walked away from his duty. We’re not going to: Wesley, Redefined
In the absence of Angel, Cordelia, Gunn, and Wes are lost. Though they all step up to fight the good fight, it’s Wesley who snaps them out of missing Angel and into rescuing the girl in Cordelia’s first post-Angel vision. There’s no glory in what they do anymore - they’re three mortals against all the demons in Los Angeles; no fated future, no Powers nudging them ever further. Wesley with his wide vision is the one most likely to know all that, to know that their chances of dying have increased even more with Angel gone, but he still pulls the group together. He also gives Angel one last chance to come back into the fold, going back to the Hyperion one more time to inform Angel that they’ll continue to fight. Certainly, Wesley has already learned the hard way that you can’t actually be fired from a mission; he has practice in getting back on his feet despite failure, betrayal and pain. He has a safety net this time around, one including friends, a relationship, a home, and a purpose, and he does just fine.
Without Angel as a center of gravity for them all to rotate, Wesley, Gunn, and Cordelia don’t so much choose a new leader as they do draw closer together and form their own familial knot. Probably fittingly, it’s this that allows Wesley to develop executive decision-making (ie leadership) skills - Wesley has the intellectual space to be the first to accept that Angel has actually ditched them, and snap to the realization that they can fight on without him. They all contribute necessary things, initiative, and support, and they all accept clients together. The running gag of which one of them to name the agency for is cute, and reminds us that Angel will always come back to AI, but it also emphasizes the sudden egalitarian dynamics of the team. It’s not Angel’s mission any more, it’s theirs. Precisely because it can’t be about status he should seek and could lose in their tiny family, Wes can make the decisions which need to be made to keep them on their mission.
The interaction between Wesley and Gunn, though it started only very shortly before the destruction of the team, turns into a close, unlikely friendship even before Wesley is shot. Both men are skilled leaders, aged far before their time by their wildly different circumstances of birth that pushed them into the nightly war against the dark. They have such wildly different experiences and such different personalities which make their odd couple friendship a joy to watch. They’re dedicated to AI and their work and the team, but for wildly different reasons. Gunn’s motivations tip toward loyalty to people, whereas Wesley’s motivations tip toward focus on the goal. Gunn finds a little relief in being able to help clean up the streets while not having the crushing burden of leadership, while Wesley keenly desires control but lacks the confidence to seize it. It might be the best friendship the series ever puts forth. OF COURSE IT WILL ALL END IN TEARS, but for this season, it’s a joy.
Wesley and Cordelia, despite their laughably sexless flirtation at the end of BtVS s3, have a charming, near-filial relationship. Before the split, particularly in S1, they squabbled mercilessly. In early S2, they’re close-knit co-conspirators to try to keep Angel from sliding into the darkness, though they still bitch and snipe, each leaning on the ability to bicker to prove that it’s a dependable comradarie. Once Angel goes beige, though they’ll continue to tease, it’s gentler and outweighed by their openly sweet moments.
AI is no longer just about fighting. Most of the cases the team handled while Angel was missing were brawls which brought the team to desperately-needed fights. But because the mission doesn’t send a paycheck, and they have startup costs and no backers or financial planners. They basically have their last checks from Angel, and whatever Wes has been winning showing off in bars. Many if not most of the cases we see them take aren’t related to visions, but come from word-of-mouth recommendations from Virginia. (It’s now Cordelia tied only to the mission and Wesley having some pull back in the outside world.) They, particularly Wesley, do wonderfully on these types of cases, particularly in Happy Anniversary where he sinks his teeth into an opportunity to play Sherlock Holmes.
The characters often refer to their mission, or to the good fight, and Wes certainly does as well. However, he’s the only character I can think of who refers to their work as a duty, as he does in the quote above. I think that’s telling. Missions and fights are something a person chooses to take on, from a default of not doing so, whereas the default of “duty” is expectation, and this more than anything is what spurs Wesley to begin the process of moving on without Angel, because the duty exists with or without Angel’s mission. But because one is expected to live up to a duty, one cannot hope for commendation or apotheosis or even positive moral rectitude from fulfilling a duty. If Wesley doesn’t fulfill his duty, he fails, and oh, is failure a crushing blow for our boy. If he does fulfill his duty…he just is. He may dream of more, but I don’t believe he expects or even really hopes for it. Everything Wesley does in service of the mission - that is to say, pretty much everything we ever see Wesley do - is just to get up to a baseline of expectations met. It’s always avoiding disappointment, not achieving satisfaction. Wesley’s desperate drive to even do enough, be enough, to make whatever is insufficient about him right, to find a way to live with himself will change him and save him and make him and break him, and eventually, it will kill him.
What are you doing here? Wes, Angel, and Reintegration
Angel comes back to them in Epiphany. Or rather, starts to catch up with them. Angel’s epiphany, that helping people matters for its own sake, not for glory or reward, isn’t wrong and I’m not arguing that it is. But Wesley, Cordelia, and Gunn picked up the fight and chose it. They don’t need to atone for anything, they’ve never had some prophecy promise them a big cosmic cookie if they learn to play nicely, they’ve never had even the illusion of a horizon in sight, and they signed on anyway. They all had life experiences which nudged them toward this particular expression of altruism, to be sure, and Angel’s chosenness drew each of them to him and gave them confidence to figure out their own best fit into the good fight. But, because none of them have ever questioned that the fight itself is worthwhile on its own, they were adrift for what, a few hours? before bolting down an alley without weapons or second thoughts to save some cosmically insignificant stranger. They don’t question whether helping people matters; they’ve always known it does. Of course they can’t work for Angel any more.
This is the episode that really illustrates and cranks up the sexual tension ( YEAH OKAY BOYS IF YOU SAY SO) complexity of the Wes/Angel interaction. Leaving aside my Issues with Epiphany for the moment, look at Wesley’s face after the Skilosh fight in his apartment. LOOK AT IT. That delighted, open, utterly surprised smile; has anyone ever come back to Wesley before? Just for a moment, for the moment that tells you it’s all going to be okay in the end, and then the hurt and anger and pride rush back. Wesley can hide his thoughts better than any of them. His feelings, though, those are writ bold across his face.
When Angel comes back, Wesley is able to turn his need for Angel - not, this time, a need to get into the mission, but because he’s been rendered vulnerable (alone, in pain and temporarily unable to walk, and targeted by Skilosh demons) by his involvement in the mission - into a cool, dignified show of the power he has that Angel doesn’t. Wes and Gunn’s gratuitous display of broship is part throwing their friendship in Angel’s face, and it’s a little petty but given the circumstances they have every right to do it. But the relaxed, chipper joke about fighting hip-to-shoulder is also Wesley overtly rejecting the old dynamic between himself and Angel. What made Angel powerful between them before was their tacit agreement that Angel had the mission and Angel’s brute physical strength, and Wesley’s contempt for his own lack of mission and strength. But Wes, like Cordelia and Gunn, has made the mission his own. Moreover, making a show of his temporarily diminished ability to fight in the way they’re accustomed to, and laughing about it, shows a newfound sense of self-worth coming from his friendships and recognition of his other strengths, and simultaneous devaluation of Angel’s biggest assets. Wesley, however many times he’s kicked down, comes back stronger every time; he’s sitting, not bowing.
Replaying Wesley’s S1 alignment with Angel despite knowing the ravages of Angelus, it seems to me that Wes catches Angel’s aside about having woken up after a bang and puts it together with Angel’s mention of having seen Darla. For the rest of the episode, he’s more than happy to let Gunn rip into Angel, only once trying to calm Gunn down just after this revelation (in the exact same tone of voice as Willow’s shut up, Giles back in Innocence), and when Darla shows up in Lullaby, Wesley expresses shock at the impossible pregnancy, but pointedly not at Darla and Angel having had sex. He covers for Angel with Cordelia, because the events of the episode convince him that they do need Angel’s muscle and intermediate-level coffee-fetching skills, and because he’s probably realized that the curse wasn’t about sex qua sex, so he figures no harm no foul, but he knows. Wesley’s evaluation of Angel is trust in his own understanding of Angel and his objectives, not about some emotional concept of trust or loyalty, and though that’ll come between them in a huge way later on, it’s also what brings them back together here.
That’s not all sunshine and roses, though. Wesley’s observational and intellectual acuity put him here in the unenviable position where he has to make decisions for others - telling Cordelia and Gunn his suspicions about Darla (and thus about Angel’s willingness to risk or even, as was the case, try to shed his soul) means violating Angel’s privacy; not telling them means they agree to take him back with incomplete information. It’s the two sides of the responsibility/control coin that Wes can’t stop flipping. Wesley always acknowledges the power he has to help, and considers it his responsibility to do so. It means he can step into a vacuum and do some good - or, actually, given the way Wes works, do some damage control - but he overestimates his distance from the group, and therefore rarely has as broad a view as he assumes he does.
When they do reunite with Angel and move back into the Hyperion, Wesley takes to his new non-exploitative Watcheresque job like a bespectacled duck to water. In fact, if anything, he over-polices himself in his power over the team, to the extent of only outwardly indulging his own anger at Angel’s abandonment for as long as Cordelia and Gunn do. Wes smarts over, but just as clearly expects and accepts, Angel’s overt prioritization of his reconciliation with Cordelia over himself and Gunn. Wesley’s picture of Angel has always been the most complete, making his acceptance of Angel’s change of heart simultaneously the most profound and the most tenuous. He indulges in more than a few opportunities to make Angel squirm, and it’s part show of dominance and laser-guided revenge, but also a way to check Angel’s emotional state and dedication to his new position. Despite - or, more likely, because of - Wesley’s clinical distance from others, he has an easier time than Angel, Cordelia, or Gunn with understanding others’ perspectives, both overtly and tacitly asking Angel if he’s still on board with his atonement; sensitive to but not overly obsequious toward Gunn’s conflicted obligations. For all Gunn, Cordelia, and Angel mean to Wesley, he pulls back from them a little when helming the organization, giving him the distance he needs to make decisions, but also leaving space for all kinds of unpleasantness to seep between them.
Why do people keep putting me in charge of things?: Pylea
When the portal in Caritas swallows Cordelia, Angel and Wesley splinter into emotion and intellect even before they jump in after her. Angel’s panic is clearly understandable - he’s just gained his friends back, and Cordelia is particularly important (whether as BFF, Powers-connection, love interest, or Oh Shit We Need A Lady). Wesley’s reminder that they don’t know how to get out sounds self-interested, but of course they can’t save Cordelia if they can’t come back, either. And ultimately Wesley’s ability to buckle down and rationally assess the situation is what gets them to Pylea. It’s what we expect of him by this point, but it’s worth remembering that what Wes does here - opens a portal to Pylea on purpose, and safely gets the four of them through it together - is something that nobody has ever done before. We see him nervous about it - “it’s not like I’ve ever done this before!” - but in a low-key, mundane way which understates the importance of his work. (Also, QUESTION FOR THE AUDIENCE: HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE A DUDE WHO REALLY SAYS EUREKA. NO, REALLY, I DON’T GET IT.)
Wesley’s friendship with Gunn reaches its peak in Pylea, and though it won’t fall apart for some time, the seeds of the eventual collapse show up here. Loyalty to the team and loyalty to the mission have so far dovetailed in the time they’ve known each other. Wesley offers an off-the-cuff strategic plan against the priest’s forces, and the rebels accept him as their general based on this one instance (as Cordelia is a princess based on one vision and Angel is a warrior-hero based on one drakken - you don’t have to go about proving things in Pylea, the real you springs forward right away). Wes is at first reluctant, wondering if this will be a distraction from getting the team back to LA, but Gunn convinces him that the rebels have “something worth fighting for” and Wesley incorporates their goal into his own.
Gunn accepts the rebels as the team he’s on, creating the camaraderie-in-arms that’s so important to him, while Wes considers them to be his forces toward their shared objective of storming the castle. Gunn is wary of Wesley’s plan - having accepted the rebels as his own men, he can’t imagine doing other than protecting them at all costs - but Wes cautiously, sadly, makes the ethical case for conscious sacrifice. “You try not to get anybody killed, you end up getting everybody killed.” This is almost a direct callback - perhaps even a conscious one - to Wesley’s argument back in Choices that destroying the Mayor’s supplies for the Ascension took priority over rescuing Willow. He appreciates the gravity of the situation, but as the sun sets he sits alone with his resolve.
Gunn can accept the tactical loss of some of the men they don’t know, but Wesley’s perfectly poker-faced manipulation of Angel into unleashing his amped-up inner demon jolts Gunn, and perhaps the audience, into the recognition that nothing, and no one, is off-limits if it stands between Wesley and his objective. What’s most bracing about this is not that the Pylea experience changes Wesley, but that it does not. He does nothing he wouldn’t, or won’t, do in Los Angeles.
Part I
Part II
Perhaps because he’s so woefully out of sync with the world, the dark, dramatic days of season 2 are among Wesley’s finest, and certainly his happiest. Not insignificantly, Wesley’s self-confidence and comfort with his role in the team peak here, when Faith is off doing her self-imposed stint in murder rehab. If anything, the Faith-Angel mirroring swings back around: Angel’s soul is the one in desperate need of saving, and this is Wesley’s chance to start to make it right even with Faith herself out of view. [If you are as sorry about the lack of direct Wes/Faith in this part as I am, or even if you are just a supporter of things that are awesome (which obviously you are, because here you are reading about Wesley, WELL DONE YOU) you must treat yourself to A Witness to See the Mess I’ve Made by my indisputably superior Wesley brain-twin ohwaluvusbab .]
I promised to protect you: Wes should be Wes
I try to control the flail over any individual episode solely on the grounds that it gives good Wesley, but GWBG is so important for him (and so endlessly entertaining! NOT THE SUN! FOR I AM A VAMPIRE! ALEXIS DENISOF YOU ARE SUNSHINE ON A CLOUDY DAY, JSYK) that I feel justified in my indulgence. As Darla and W&H manipulate Angel away from his mission in the early part of S2, Cordelia, Wes, and Gunn unconsciously pick up the slack. When Bryce’s (the antagonist’s very name reminds us of what Wesley could have been and never considers becoming) goons show up and threaten Cordelia, though, Wes steps in and steps up.
Wes, here, shifts in his relationship to the mission. It used to be that Angel, having been chosen about external events (by Darla, by the Romani, by the Nyazian scrolls, by Jasmine and maybe the other PTBs or whatever else might want him running whatever apocalypse) is therefore assigned the decision-making role by default. This persona can be separated out from Angel’s traditional protagonist status, however, and fits as naturally on Wesley if not more so. Wes gets the chance to try on Angel’s guise, to actually be Angel in a way. And on some level, he’s always wanted that, to be chosen and therefore be sure in his place of and duty towards the mission. Angel, at this point, wants humanity as both symbol and reward of forgiveness; Wesley wants something more as both symbol and reward of worthiness. (Wesley’s Angel-play is heavily comedic, but it’s worth pointing out that as a mortal, useful human who strives to do the right thing, Wesley is likewise what Angel wishes to be.) But being chosen isn’t something you can earn. To be Chosen is inherently passive. It’s something that happens at gunpoint, the only tolerable option in a desperate moment, something that you never quite feel you deserve and maybe aren’t right for, something that can end up destroying everyone around you.
Wes has to do triple-time in GWBG. He has to do the protection job Angel would have been paid for initially, he has to do his usual data-gathering and analysis, and he has to maintain the charade. And he does all these things brilliantly, until Veneer blows his cover. The problem doesn’t occur because Wesley was there instead of Angel, but because Wesley couldn’t be sufficiently Wesley. With Wesley on triple-duty, there was nobody around to look up Yeska; they only solved the case because Angel had met her. That’s the lesson of GWBG: it’s what’s inside you, your whole self, that will save you. Neither Angel’s soul nor his demon are an “it” separate from him, and ignoring one or the other will always result in catastrophe. Virginia’s sexuality, her fierce seizure of control and joy in a relentlessly-policed patriarchal family, would have saved her from Yeska whether AI showed up or not. (LET US ALL TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE VIRGINIA. LOVE.) And Wesley doesn’t need to be Angel to keep his promise to protect her.
I’m going to send up a flag for one of my many Unpopular Fandom Opinions. Wes/Virginia is MY FAVORITE WESLEY RELATIONSHIP. LOOK AT WESLEY. HE SMILES. The angst ho in me - hello, Wes essay - does love Lilah/Wes in isolation. But to add romantic angst on top of the turmoil I already see just turns into Cause Pain romance for me. I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO BE HAPPY AFTER ALL THE ANGST, OKAY? Virginia is especially important in the middle of that season as well - as the three musketeers pull closer together, dependent on and at the endless beck and call of the visions sent to Cordelia, Virginia serves as the tether between the world and the mission that Wesley and AI need, not quite as much as Angel did, but still. It’s a relationship balancing traditional and non-traditional in a slightly peculiar way - Wes is the worker but most certainly not the breadwinner; Virginia far and away the more whole and stable despite her huge recent trauma -one that’s a paradigm of more-than-acceptable happiness.
Wesley needs to prove to himself that he can truly stand on his own, and GWBG is the time he gets to actually prove it. And put in his own realm, of humans with magic, Wesley actually does quite well. In our AI point of view, Wes is the non-fighter, the researcher, the bumbling assistant. But he is a fighter of vampires and demons. He easily intimidates Veneer’s goons, and then easily wins a two-on-one fight. Wes has never lived in the world above, so he’s never had the chance to know that he is kind of a badass.
Angel’s walked away from his duty. We’re not going to: Wesley, Redefined
In the absence of Angel, Cordelia, Gunn, and Wes are lost. Though they all step up to fight the good fight, it’s Wesley who snaps them out of missing Angel and into rescuing the girl in Cordelia’s first post-Angel vision. There’s no glory in what they do anymore - they’re three mortals against all the demons in Los Angeles; no fated future, no Powers nudging them ever further. Wesley with his wide vision is the one most likely to know all that, to know that their chances of dying have increased even more with Angel gone, but he still pulls the group together. He also gives Angel one last chance to come back into the fold, going back to the Hyperion one more time to inform Angel that they’ll continue to fight. Certainly, Wesley has already learned the hard way that you can’t actually be fired from a mission; he has practice in getting back on his feet despite failure, betrayal and pain. He has a safety net this time around, one including friends, a relationship, a home, and a purpose, and he does just fine.
Without Angel as a center of gravity for them all to rotate, Wesley, Gunn, and Cordelia don’t so much choose a new leader as they do draw closer together and form their own familial knot. Probably fittingly, it’s this that allows Wesley to develop executive decision-making (ie leadership) skills - Wesley has the intellectual space to be the first to accept that Angel has actually ditched them, and snap to the realization that they can fight on without him. They all contribute necessary things, initiative, and support, and they all accept clients together. The running gag of which one of them to name the agency for is cute, and reminds us that Angel will always come back to AI, but it also emphasizes the sudden egalitarian dynamics of the team. It’s not Angel’s mission any more, it’s theirs. Precisely because it can’t be about status he should seek and could lose in their tiny family, Wes can make the decisions which need to be made to keep them on their mission.
The interaction between Wesley and Gunn, though it started only very shortly before the destruction of the team, turns into a close, unlikely friendship even before Wesley is shot. Both men are skilled leaders, aged far before their time by their wildly different circumstances of birth that pushed them into the nightly war against the dark. They have such wildly different experiences and such different personalities which make their odd couple friendship a joy to watch. They’re dedicated to AI and their work and the team, but for wildly different reasons. Gunn’s motivations tip toward loyalty to people, whereas Wesley’s motivations tip toward focus on the goal. Gunn finds a little relief in being able to help clean up the streets while not having the crushing burden of leadership, while Wesley keenly desires control but lacks the confidence to seize it. It might be the best friendship the series ever puts forth. OF COURSE IT WILL ALL END IN TEARS, but for this season, it’s a joy.
Wesley and Cordelia, despite their laughably sexless flirtation at the end of BtVS s3, have a charming, near-filial relationship. Before the split, particularly in S1, they squabbled mercilessly. In early S2, they’re close-knit co-conspirators to try to keep Angel from sliding into the darkness, though they still bitch and snipe, each leaning on the ability to bicker to prove that it’s a dependable comradarie. Once Angel goes beige, though they’ll continue to tease, it’s gentler and outweighed by their openly sweet moments.
AI is no longer just about fighting. Most of the cases the team handled while Angel was missing were brawls which brought the team to desperately-needed fights. But because the mission doesn’t send a paycheck, and they have startup costs and no backers or financial planners. They basically have their last checks from Angel, and whatever Wes has been winning showing off in bars. Many if not most of the cases we see them take aren’t related to visions, but come from word-of-mouth recommendations from Virginia. (It’s now Cordelia tied only to the mission and Wesley having some pull back in the outside world.) They, particularly Wesley, do wonderfully on these types of cases, particularly in Happy Anniversary where he sinks his teeth into an opportunity to play Sherlock Holmes.
The characters often refer to their mission, or to the good fight, and Wes certainly does as well. However, he’s the only character I can think of who refers to their work as a duty, as he does in the quote above. I think that’s telling. Missions and fights are something a person chooses to take on, from a default of not doing so, whereas the default of “duty” is expectation, and this more than anything is what spurs Wesley to begin the process of moving on without Angel, because the duty exists with or without Angel’s mission. But because one is expected to live up to a duty, one cannot hope for commendation or apotheosis or even positive moral rectitude from fulfilling a duty. If Wesley doesn’t fulfill his duty, he fails, and oh, is failure a crushing blow for our boy. If he does fulfill his duty…he just is. He may dream of more, but I don’t believe he expects or even really hopes for it. Everything Wesley does in service of the mission - that is to say, pretty much everything we ever see Wesley do - is just to get up to a baseline of expectations met. It’s always avoiding disappointment, not achieving satisfaction. Wesley’s desperate drive to even do enough, be enough, to make whatever is insufficient about him right, to find a way to live with himself will change him and save him and make him and break him, and eventually, it will kill him.
What are you doing here? Wes, Angel, and Reintegration
Angel comes back to them in Epiphany. Or rather, starts to catch up with them. Angel’s epiphany, that helping people matters for its own sake, not for glory or reward, isn’t wrong and I’m not arguing that it is. But Wesley, Cordelia, and Gunn picked up the fight and chose it. They don’t need to atone for anything, they’ve never had some prophecy promise them a big cosmic cookie if they learn to play nicely, they’ve never had even the illusion of a horizon in sight, and they signed on anyway. They all had life experiences which nudged them toward this particular expression of altruism, to be sure, and Angel’s chosenness drew each of them to him and gave them confidence to figure out their own best fit into the good fight. But, because none of them have ever questioned that the fight itself is worthwhile on its own, they were adrift for what, a few hours? before bolting down an alley without weapons or second thoughts to save some cosmically insignificant stranger. They don’t question whether helping people matters; they’ve always known it does. Of course they can’t work for Angel any more.
This is the episode that really illustrates and cranks up the sexual tension ( YEAH OKAY BOYS IF YOU SAY SO) complexity of the Wes/Angel interaction. Leaving aside my Issues with Epiphany for the moment, look at Wesley’s face after the Skilosh fight in his apartment. LOOK AT IT. That delighted, open, utterly surprised smile; has anyone ever come back to Wesley before? Just for a moment, for the moment that tells you it’s all going to be okay in the end, and then the hurt and anger and pride rush back. Wesley can hide his thoughts better than any of them. His feelings, though, those are writ bold across his face.
When Angel comes back, Wesley is able to turn his need for Angel - not, this time, a need to get into the mission, but because he’s been rendered vulnerable (alone, in pain and temporarily unable to walk, and targeted by Skilosh demons) by his involvement in the mission - into a cool, dignified show of the power he has that Angel doesn’t. Wes and Gunn’s gratuitous display of broship is part throwing their friendship in Angel’s face, and it’s a little petty but given the circumstances they have every right to do it. But the relaxed, chipper joke about fighting hip-to-shoulder is also Wesley overtly rejecting the old dynamic between himself and Angel. What made Angel powerful between them before was their tacit agreement that Angel had the mission and Angel’s brute physical strength, and Wesley’s contempt for his own lack of mission and strength. But Wes, like Cordelia and Gunn, has made the mission his own. Moreover, making a show of his temporarily diminished ability to fight in the way they’re accustomed to, and laughing about it, shows a newfound sense of self-worth coming from his friendships and recognition of his other strengths, and simultaneous devaluation of Angel’s biggest assets. Wesley, however many times he’s kicked down, comes back stronger every time; he’s sitting, not bowing.
Replaying Wesley’s S1 alignment with Angel despite knowing the ravages of Angelus, it seems to me that Wes catches Angel’s aside about having woken up after a bang and puts it together with Angel’s mention of having seen Darla. For the rest of the episode, he’s more than happy to let Gunn rip into Angel, only once trying to calm Gunn down just after this revelation (in the exact same tone of voice as Willow’s shut up, Giles back in Innocence), and when Darla shows up in Lullaby, Wesley expresses shock at the impossible pregnancy, but pointedly not at Darla and Angel having had sex. He covers for Angel with Cordelia, because the events of the episode convince him that they do need Angel’s muscle and intermediate-level coffee-fetching skills, and because he’s probably realized that the curse wasn’t about sex qua sex, so he figures no harm no foul, but he knows. Wesley’s evaluation of Angel is trust in his own understanding of Angel and his objectives, not about some emotional concept of trust or loyalty, and though that’ll come between them in a huge way later on, it’s also what brings them back together here.
That’s not all sunshine and roses, though. Wesley’s observational and intellectual acuity put him here in the unenviable position where he has to make decisions for others - telling Cordelia and Gunn his suspicions about Darla (and thus about Angel’s willingness to risk or even, as was the case, try to shed his soul) means violating Angel’s privacy; not telling them means they agree to take him back with incomplete information. It’s the two sides of the responsibility/control coin that Wes can’t stop flipping. Wesley always acknowledges the power he has to help, and considers it his responsibility to do so. It means he can step into a vacuum and do some good - or, actually, given the way Wes works, do some damage control - but he overestimates his distance from the group, and therefore rarely has as broad a view as he assumes he does.
When they do reunite with Angel and move back into the Hyperion, Wesley takes to his new non-exploitative Watcheresque job like a bespectacled duck to water. In fact, if anything, he over-polices himself in his power over the team, to the extent of only outwardly indulging his own anger at Angel’s abandonment for as long as Cordelia and Gunn do. Wes smarts over, but just as clearly expects and accepts, Angel’s overt prioritization of his reconciliation with Cordelia over himself and Gunn. Wesley’s picture of Angel has always been the most complete, making his acceptance of Angel’s change of heart simultaneously the most profound and the most tenuous. He indulges in more than a few opportunities to make Angel squirm, and it’s part show of dominance and laser-guided revenge, but also a way to check Angel’s emotional state and dedication to his new position. Despite - or, more likely, because of - Wesley’s clinical distance from others, he has an easier time than Angel, Cordelia, or Gunn with understanding others’ perspectives, both overtly and tacitly asking Angel if he’s still on board with his atonement; sensitive to but not overly obsequious toward Gunn’s conflicted obligations. For all Gunn, Cordelia, and Angel mean to Wesley, he pulls back from them a little when helming the organization, giving him the distance he needs to make decisions, but also leaving space for all kinds of unpleasantness to seep between them.
Why do people keep putting me in charge of things?: Pylea
When the portal in Caritas swallows Cordelia, Angel and Wesley splinter into emotion and intellect even before they jump in after her. Angel’s panic is clearly understandable - he’s just gained his friends back, and Cordelia is particularly important (whether as BFF, Powers-connection, love interest, or Oh Shit We Need A Lady). Wesley’s reminder that they don’t know how to get out sounds self-interested, but of course they can’t save Cordelia if they can’t come back, either. And ultimately Wesley’s ability to buckle down and rationally assess the situation is what gets them to Pylea. It’s what we expect of him by this point, but it’s worth remembering that what Wes does here - opens a portal to Pylea on purpose, and safely gets the four of them through it together - is something that nobody has ever done before. We see him nervous about it - “it’s not like I’ve ever done this before!” - but in a low-key, mundane way which understates the importance of his work. (Also, QUESTION FOR THE AUDIENCE: HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE A DUDE WHO REALLY SAYS EUREKA. NO, REALLY, I DON’T GET IT.)
Wesley’s friendship with Gunn reaches its peak in Pylea, and though it won’t fall apart for some time, the seeds of the eventual collapse show up here. Loyalty to the team and loyalty to the mission have so far dovetailed in the time they’ve known each other. Wesley offers an off-the-cuff strategic plan against the priest’s forces, and the rebels accept him as their general based on this one instance (as Cordelia is a princess based on one vision and Angel is a warrior-hero based on one drakken - you don’t have to go about proving things in Pylea, the real you springs forward right away). Wes is at first reluctant, wondering if this will be a distraction from getting the team back to LA, but Gunn convinces him that the rebels have “something worth fighting for” and Wesley incorporates their goal into his own.
Gunn accepts the rebels as the team he’s on, creating the camaraderie-in-arms that’s so important to him, while Wes considers them to be his forces toward their shared objective of storming the castle. Gunn is wary of Wesley’s plan - having accepted the rebels as his own men, he can’t imagine doing other than protecting them at all costs - but Wes cautiously, sadly, makes the ethical case for conscious sacrifice. “You try not to get anybody killed, you end up getting everybody killed.” This is almost a direct callback - perhaps even a conscious one - to Wesley’s argument back in Choices that destroying the Mayor’s supplies for the Ascension took priority over rescuing Willow. He appreciates the gravity of the situation, but as the sun sets he sits alone with his resolve.
Gunn can accept the tactical loss of some of the men they don’t know, but Wesley’s perfectly poker-faced manipulation of Angel into unleashing his amped-up inner demon jolts Gunn, and perhaps the audience, into the recognition that nothing, and no one, is off-limits if it stands between Wesley and his objective. What’s most bracing about this is not that the Pylea experience changes Wesley, but that it does not. He does nothing he wouldn’t, or won’t, do in Los Angeles.