| One of the Great Debates regarding the second season of 'Angel' is to what extent Angel and the A-team must take responsibility for their split, and which (if either) has the moral high ground. Here I try to address some of the issues in an unbiased, chatty style. For the record, I remain unconvinced that the A-team have anything to apologise for; I think they did all they could reasonably be expected to do. |
| ANGEL |
| What did he do? |
| He locked a group of lawyers from Wolfram and Hart in a room with Darla and Drusilla. |
| Why is it wrong? |
| Dude, he left people to die! |
| But he didn't kill them himself... |
| No, but he made the decision that their souls aren't worth saving, and that decision isn't his to make. |
| Were there any extenuating circumstances? |
| He was the target of a Byzantine Wolfram and Hart plot at the time. The aim was to make him believe that his good fight was hopeless, that there was no point. |
| Sounds like it worked, then. |
| More-or-less, yes, although it's unlikely Wolfram and Hart actually planned to sacrifice their own lawyers as part of the plot. |
| What were the important moments? |
|
HOLLAND: Angel, please - people are going to die. ANGEL: And yet, I just can't seem to care. |
|
WESLEY: Angel - whilst it's certainly true that these lawyers brought this on themselves...what you did is... CORDELIA: Wrong. |
|
NATHAN: The prophecies all agree, when the final battle is waged, he plays a key role. LINDSEY: Good for him. NATHAN: Which side he's on is the gray area. And we're going to continue making it as gray as possible. |
|
ANGEL: I don't know if I can. I've done...things. Questionable things. HOST: Yes - you have. But, you didn't kill those lawyers, Angel. That was slated to happen with or without you. The Powers were just trying to work it so it'd be without you, that's all. You just...well, you weren't much help in that department, were ya, sparky? |
| Hang on, what does the Host mean by that? |
| He means that Angel deliberately turned his back on his mission - he walked away from the visions. |
| In what sense? |
| He fired Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn. |
| That seems harsh. Why did he do it? |
| Opinions vary. Angel himself claimed after the event that he did it to protect that A-team, but those watching at the time felt that his desire to wage war against Wolfram and Hart, and Darla and Drusilla, without distractions was at least as important. |
| He sounds pretty messed up. Why did the A-team let it get that far? |
| It wasn't intentional. They tried several times to help him - taking him to Caritas in 'Guise Will Be Guise', for instance, or trying to get him involved in a normal case in 'The Shroud Of Rahmon'. A combination of bad luck and bad judgement thwarted most of those efforts. |
| Did they understand what they were up against? |
| Well, that's the big question. They knew Wolfram and Hart had brought Darla back to get at Angel somehow, but I don't think they knew what the ultimate aim of the plan was. Wesley certainly seemed to be thinking in the wrong direction in 'Darla': |
|
WESLEY: Angel - I don't suppose it's occured to you that this may be why they've brought her back? You've got all your resources, all your attention focused on finding this one woman - ANGEL: So you think Wolfram and Hart went to all this trouble just to keep me distracted? Take me out of the game? WESLEY: It is a possibility. And, if that is the case - ANGEL: It's working? |
|
WESLEY: Angel - ANGEL: I know, Wesley. I could be walking into a trap. I get that. WESLEY: I'm not convinced you do. |
| So, what the A-team saw is an Angel becoming increasingly withdrawn and obsessed with Darla, and finally losing his marbles? |
| Yes. |
| They didn't ever figure that that might have been the point of the entire plan? |
| Apparently not, although to be fair it was a tough plan to figure out. |
| THE A-TEAM |
| OK, so what about the A-team. What did they do? |
| They abandoned Angel. |
| But he fired them! |
| Yes, but he wasn't in his right mind at the time. The shouldn't have held it against him. |
| But you said they hadn't worked that out... |
| It was obvious that Angel wasn't healthy, even if they didn't give Wolfram and Hart credit for orchestrating his despair. |
| Ah, OK. So they should have hung around trying to argue sense into him? |
| Something like that. Wesley voiced a different opinion, though. |
|
WESLEY: I won't pretend to understand Angel's reasons. But maybe he needs to be alone right now. And the best thing we can do for him is...to let him be. |
| Seems reasonable. |
| Well, it might be if that was all there was to it. But they seem to take greater offence than they should. Cordelia basically tells Angel to get lost in 'The Thin Dead Line'. |
|
CORDELIA: Well, that's great. Too bad it takes a gunshot wound to make you give a crap. [pause]. Wesley doesn't need you now. We don't need you. [beat]. You walked away. Do us a favour, and just...stay away. |
| Ah, so they betrayed their friendship? |
| That's the argument. They abandoned Angel in his time of need. |
| But he fired them! |
| Yes, I know. Have you been paying any attention at all? |
| Weren't they at least worried about the potential for Angelus returning? |
| Cordelia says in 'Disharmony' that she was petrified by the thought. She seems to misunderstand the curse, though; her major source of fear was that Angel would sleep with Darla and revert to Angelus. |
| But we know he wasn't going to experience perfect happiness with Darla - that only happens with his one true love, right? |
| Well, that's what many have been assuming, but Cordelia seems to think that just any old sex will do. And, to be fair to her, I get the impression from 'Guise Will Be Guise' that Angel wasn't entirely certain about it, either. |
| Be that as it may, if she was that scared, why didn't she check up on her boss? |
| Who knows? She must have believed she was going to be in the front rank of targets. Perhaps she didn't want to tempt fate. Perhaps she just didn't think there was anything she could do. |
| Shouldn't they at least have warned their friends in Sunnydale? |
| Yes, they should have done. |
| If Angel was going on his crusade at this point, what were the A-team doing? |
| They were trying to keep Angel Investigations open. |
| Ah. Was it working? |
| No, not really. Although it did give them a much-needed confidence boost, and convince them that they could go it alone, without Angel - hence Cordelia's remarks, above. There was certainly something missing, though. |
| What convinced them to do that, anyway? |
| The PTB, and their own sense of responsibility and duty. They all went to Caritas after they were fired and sang. Then: |
|
CORDELIA: Where do we go from here? What are we supposed to do with our lives? HOST: Oh, sweetie, I'd love to tell you. But when the Big Guys talk, I shut my yap - and they're about to get real chatty... |
| ...and then she had a vision? |
| And then she had a vision, yes. |
| So what? |
| Well, it looks like the Host was letting the vision do the talking for him. |
| In what sense? |
| In the 'I'll let the Big Guys show you your path' sense. |
| So the vision showed them running Angel Investigations alone? |
| Well...not exactly... |
| Well, what did it show? |
| It showed a woman in trouble. |
| What, just like a normal vision? |
| Yes. |
| So why do you think this sets them on their path? |
| I think the timing is crucial. The fact that the vision came just as Cordelia was questioning what they should do next. The fact that it didn't then show Angel as a soul in trouble. |
| So the PTB wanted Angel to go on his crusade? Why would they want that? |
| Maybe after the events of 'Reunion', his beige period was the only way he could have found his way back to the light. Or the quickest way. |
| So anything the A-team could have done would have been doomed to failure? |
| Perhaps. I can't think of anything they could have done, personally. |
| Hang on a minute. What about free will? The A-team don't have to mindlessly follow the PTB's dictates and do nothing the rest of the time. Doesn't 'their sense of responsibility and duty' extend to Angel? |
| Well...that's a fair point. But remember, at this time - rightly or wrongly - they don't consider Angel to be a friend. They think he betrayed their friendship. Without guidance from the PTB, via a vision, or via the Host, they have no reason to go and help him. |
| But he's not in his right mind... |
| Yes. We appear to be going round in circles, don't we? In the end, it seems to come down to how far you hold Angel to be responsible for his actions. |
| SUMMARY |
| Let's see if I have this straight. Angel did some very bad things, but he had been driven to despair when he did them, so that's a mitigating circumstance? |
| Essentially, yes. |
| And the A-team abandoned their friendship, but only after Angel had abandoned his side of the friendship, but he was crazy when he did it, but the PTB told them to go and do something else anyway? |
| You're getting the hang of this, I can tell. |
| So what's the moral of the story? |
| "Things fall apart. Not everything can be put back together." |
| But don't they all get back together in the end? |
| Oh, shut up. |
This page was written by Niall Harrison.