On season 4 of Buffy...should I be watching Angel?

[JirinPanthosa]

That's true, it was basically established in the exorcism episode that humans can lack souls. The Buffyverse explanation for sociopaths.

Also a good point that all the emotional vampires sired each other. Even Willowvamp may have been related to the Darla of that timeline.

Is it ever clear whether Angel's soul is his original one?

Even neutral demons don't seem to take issue with murder. Like that one who wanted to eat Doyle's brain and when his fiancé got mad he felt culturally persecuted.

There's also that one vamp who was said to possess a taint of humanity because he liked books.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

That's true, it was basically established in the exorcism episode that humans can lack souls. The Buffyverse explanation for sociopaths.

Also a good point that all the emotional vampires sired each other. Even Willowvamp may have been related to the Darla of that timeline.

Is it ever clear whether Angel's soul is his original one?

I think so. it is unclear where the soul goes after the vamp takes over, but my impression was that it was kind of scattered everywhere into some kind of soul ether, not going to heaven, though. Willow's spell reassembled it and channeled it back into it's original body.

Spoiler: Willow's spell

twice

 

[JirinPanthosa]

When Wesley says 'Angel drank blood from a living human, something he hasn't done for a very long time'. Shouldn't either he or Cordelia know he drank from Buffy?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

When Wesley says 'Angel drank blood from a living human, something he hasn't done for a very long time'. Shouldn't either he or Cordelia know he drank from Buffy?

Wasn't that like 3 years ago? You could call that a long time.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

1 and a half and from context of the conversation Wesley clearly meant it was the first time since he went good.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think the individual stories so far in Angel season 2 have been amazing, but I'm having trouble getting into Bernard as the big bad. His plan seems to be:

1. Psychologically torture Angel
2. ?
3. Profit

The whole Darla thing seems like an overly complex approach to their apparent goal to recruit Angelis. An overly complex strategy to do something where the risk doesn't seem to justify the rewards. As a Wolfram & Hart shareholder I'd be a little concerned over their leadership.

It's cool to see Drusilla again. After she vanished after Buffy season 2 I wondered if there were contract issues with the actress, but since she's been appearing in a lot of flashbacks I'd been expecting her to eventually appear in person. Though I don't get why a vampire like her would agree to work for Wolfram & Hart, she seemed just as unwilling to accept anyone else's agenda as Angelis and Spike. I suppose from her point of view, taking away Darla's chance to be human is poetic revenge.

I'm finding myself hating Lindsay more than any of the other villains. Out of all the characters, he's the only one who can tell the difference between good and evil and still chooses evil. Other characters have no conscience, he has one and willfully ignores it. I know Buffy/Angel have a lot of redemption stories but I'm kinda hoping he ends up tossed in a hell dimension or something. Though it seems like part of Bernard's endgame might be for Angel to kill Lindsay.

For Buffy season 5 I feel just the opposite. The overall arc has been awesome but the individual stories have been underwhelming. And Buffy's tolerance of Spike's creepy stalker behavior is stretching believability thin.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

One episode later, Wolfram & Hart gets cleaned out. I like it.

 

[Ethros]

Who the frak is Bernard? Do you mean Holland Manners?

If you've just watched Reunion (I guess) then an explanation for why Wolfram & Hart are screwing with Angel is coming quite soon

 

[Christopher]

Who the frak is Bernard? Do you mean Holland Manners?

Bernard was the character that Sam Anderson (Manners) played on Lost.

 

[JD]

I think the individual stories so far in Angel season 2 have been amazing, but I'm having trouble getting into Bernard as the big bad. His plan seems to be:

1. Psychologically torture Angel
2. ?
3. Profit

The whole Darla thing seems like an overly complex approach to their apparent goal to recruit Angelis. An overly complex strategy to do something where the risk doesn't seem to justify the rewards. As a Wolfram & Hart shareholder I'd be a little concerned over their leadership.

Does Wolfram & Hart have shareholders? I thought everything was pretty much controlled by The Wolf, The Ram, and The Hart.

 

[Ethros]

Who the frak is Bernard? Do you mean Holland Manners?

Bernard was the character that Sam Anderson (Manners) played on Lost.

Ah ok, not seen it.



Just on a random topic, was it nothing but a random coincidence that a lot of Wolfram & Hart employees had the initials LM?

Lindsey McDonald
Lilah Morgan
Lee Mercer (season 1)
Linwood Murrow (seasons 3-4)

Just seemed strange. But then there's people like Holland Manners and Gavin Park, so maybe not.

 

[Thestral]

Pretty sure that was intentional.

LM - Lucifer Morningstar.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I couldn't remember Holland's name so I called him Bernard.

Whoever owns Wolfram & Hart whether it's publicly or privately held, they seem to not be profiting much over their plots regarding Angel. You'd think if they made a big corporation a villain, they would be 'Evil in pursuit of the bottom line', not just 'Randomly dickish for no particular reason'.

 

[Christopher]

Whoever owns Wolfram & Hart whether it's publicly or privately held, they seem to not be profiting much over their plots regarding Angel. You'd think if they made a big corporation a villain, they would be 'Evil in pursuit of the bottom line', not just 'Randomly dickish for no particular reason'.

Except that evil is their bottom line. They're not just doing evil as a means to the end of making money, but vice-versa. Their ultimate goal is to bring on the Apocalypse, to ensure the ultimate triumph of evil and chaos. The forces of the Wolf, Ram, and Hart have just organized themselves as a profitable corporation because, in the context of modern civilization, money is the leading means of accruing and wielding power. So being a corporation with a lot of money gives them the power and influence they need to undermine good and promote chaos and corruption.

 

[JD]

I couldn't remember Holland's name so I called him Bernard.

Whoever owns Wolfram & Hart whether it's publicly or privately held, they seem to not be profiting much over their plots regarding Angel. You'd think if they made a big corporation a villain, they would be 'Evil in pursuit of the bottom line', not just 'Randomly dickish for no particular reason'.

I don't know how much of this has been revealed yet, but W&H is controlled by a trio (I think they're a trio, but I'm not sure) of demons called The Wolf, The Ram, and The Hart, so you need to approach it that way, not as something controlled by regular greedy humans.

 

[theenglish]

I couldn't remember Holland's name so I called him Bernard.

Whoever owns Wolfram & Hart whether it's publicly or privately held, they seem to not be profiting much over their plots regarding Angel. You'd think if they made a big corporation a villain, they would be 'Evil in pursuit of the bottom line', not just 'Randomly dickish for no particular reason'.

I don't know how much of this has been revealed yet, but W&H is controlled by a trio (I think they're a trio, but I'm not sure) of demons called The Wolf, The Ram, and The Hart, so you need to approach it that way, not as something controlled by regular greedy humans.

I think that's revealed at the end of Season 2.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I love the way in L.A., both everybody knows about demons and nobody knows about demons.

The apocalypse being their end goal is a little less interesting than being self interested evil. Makes them into just another world destroying big bad, only better connected. But it makes their actions make more sense.

 

[Christopher]

The apocalypse being their end goal is a little less interesting than being self interested evil. Makes them into just another world destroying big bad, only better connected. But it makes their actions make more sense.

But I really love the way the show subverted the idea of what the Apocalypse is. I don't know if you've gotten to that scene yet, but it was really inspired.

 

[RoJoHen]

I don't think he's quite that far.

Let's just say that this isn't your run-of-the-mill Apocalypse.

 

[Christopher]

Let's just say that this isn't your run-of-the-mill Apocalypse.

Although in a sense, that's exactly what it is.