5.03: Unleashed

[Highlander II]

{creating episode discussion topic - only discuss the current episode here - no spoilers!}



There's a new girl in town... Angel might be interested.

Fred was gonna help Spike, but she seems to have put him on the back burner in favor of working on the current werewolf situation.

And what is Dr. Phlox doing at Wolfram and Hart?

[Highlander II]

OKay - so, the gang's been at W&H for a month - and they're working on stuff - having a picnic and starting to suspect there may be a spy in the ranks -- might be Gunn? Might be someone else? hmmmm

Then - there's a scream and Angel runs off to help -- with Wesley's pen.

Werewolf. *sigh* (not big on the wolfies)

Spike wants Fred to work on *his* problem, but she's busy with the wolf issues -- hey, wait a minute little Fred-i-kins (Lorne-ism) - you told Spike that you were gonna help him! You almost cried even! What is going on, girl?? Takin' lessons from the Buff-ster? What gives? Everyone deserves your time and help but Spike? Hey, look, it's BtVS all over again.

Okay - a little over-snarky b/c they've only done it once, but come on - it's just kinda wrong - what? b/c Spike's non-coporeal he doesn't have feelings? we've been through this! Let's not have a Buffy-repeat.

The ep was okay, but since I'm not big on the whole werewolf thing - I could live without this one. It wasn't a bad ep - just not my preferred theme, if you will.

[angelle myst]

Mmmm gotta say, good ep, but i was more excited about the 30 second preview for next weeks ep than i was about the entirety of Unleashed.

(Minor spoilers for next weeks ep)
Maybe it was the promise of 45 minutes of angst, Spike and partial nudity. Who knows.

I did like the team integration at the end as a result of Lorne warning Angel. And also Lorne telling Angel that why make Spike the enemy when he's already got so many? Angel has to deal with Spike soon enough, and Spike has to get over his pride, save his ghostly ass and tell Angel how it is (even though we know "Tall, Dark and Forehead" probably wouldn't listen).

I disliked how Spike's on the brink of eternal doom, Fred promises to help him and goes from that scene to happily ordering Chinese. Hmm.

No sign of Eve. Thank God.

I liked the Spike and Fred interaction, she's practically all the hope he's got now. Poor sod. But Fred, honey, please don't say "bloody" again.

[Highlander II]

Actually - I was gonna say the same thing to Spike - don't say 'bloody' again --

Guess we should tell the writers that we already KNOW Spike is British - we don't need happy euphemisms and Britishisms to remind us ---



What I kinda don't get is, why is Angel so extremely anti-Spike? He wasn't this bad about Spike when Spike was "The Big Bad". Is Angel jealous? It's not Spike's fault Angel gets super-happy when he sleeps with Buffy and loses his soul. Spike didn't curse Angel - had nothing to do with it actually. If Angel's gonna be all 'blamey' - he needs to have a chat with his sire - oh, wait, he can't - she's dead. But she's the one who was responisble for that whole soul-having bit. She gave him the gypsy girl. And ya know, in a way, Angelus is responsible for it too - he fed off the girl - so, kinda brought the soul on all on his own.

So, Spike sought out his soul - is Angel upset b/c he thinks everyone else will think Spike is *better* than him? The circumstances are so different, it's hard to try to compare them -

Angelus / Angel:

* about as evil as they come
* killed w/o remorse for hundreds of years
* cursed by gypsies
* had no one to help him through the whole ordeal until Whistler came along ~1990

Spike pre & post soul:

* pretty nasty, but not nearly as evil as Angelus
* cared for Dru - even w/o a soul
* was in a wheelchair for about 6 months - rather dependent on others for survival
* made a deal with the Slayer to stop Angelus (selfish reasons, but he made the deal)
* got a gov't chip shoved in his brain - negative reinforcement - try to hurt ppl, zap in the noggin
* spent 3 years with that thing in his head - he had 2 choices - move somewhere else and con other vamps and demons into helping him and hope they didn't turn on him or stick around in Sunny-D and help the Scoobies - door #2 is the better deal, but he didn't have to help them; he coulda just stayed in SD and been a big loaf
* fell in love with the slayer (canonical ref, not personal opinion) - dunno exactly what this did, but it did change him somewhere along the line
* tried to hurt said slayer - left town to get a soul
* came back and had a whole gang of ppl to ramble to about his issues - Buffy was more supportive than I ever thought she'd be - so, Spike w/ a soul had a support group

That last bit, I think, is the key to the major differences in how long it took the two vamps to 'deal' with stuff -- not that we have any evidence that Spike has dealt with everything, but in S7 of BtVS, he really didn't have time to mope around - there was a big evil lurking about and it had to be destroyed. Spike wanted to prove that he'd changed - he signed up for the big fight.

I think if Angel had had someone to 'lean on' and had had a big nasty fight to face, his situation might have been more like Spike's, or at least different than 'brood boy' for 100+ years.

ok - that was longer than I'd planned it to be ------

[bibliosylph]

meh.

it was just some old show. it sort of reminded me of the one with the kid who's evil only maybe he isn't, and he's possessed, but actually? he's really evil.

and i still wanna know what happens when you get to a main artery, she toasts it and suddenly you're eating human.

but i liked werechick. i'd be fine with seeing her again.

[tokyogirl]

Originally posted by Highlander II

What I kinda don't get is, why is Angel so extremely anti-Spike? He wasn't this bad about Spike when Spike was "The Big Bad". Is Angel jealous? It's not Spike's fault Angel gets super-happy when he sleeps with Buffy and loses his soul. Spike didn't curse Angel - had nothing to do with it actually. If Angel's gonna be all 'blamey' - he needs to have a chat with his sire - oh, wait, he can't - she's dead. But she's the one who was responisble for that whole soul-having bit. She gave him the gypsy girl. And ya know, in a way, Angelus is responsible for it too - he fed off the girl - so, kinda brought the soul on all on his own.

I think it has a lot more to do with him thinking that maybe he's not as special as he once thought he was. plus, it's bad enough that spike and buffy hooked up, but LA's kind of his territory. it's like when your mom shows up at school, you don't exactly want the two worlds mixing. In this world angel's in charge and everyone not only answers to him they look to him to always lead thim in the right direction. No one within the group challenges him, but Spike does. Spike has no need for angel and no respect for him either. i think he's kind of worried also that his friends will get pulled in the same way buffy did.

[little smaug]

This wasn't a bad episode overall, had some funny lines, and Nina was a good character. The whole thing was just a bit blah, if you know what I mean. Plus, the entire way through the episode, I was thinking, why has nobody mentioned Oz? Didn't Angel or Wes think it would help Nina to mention, "Oh, by the way, we used to know a werewolf, and he coped with his condition just fine"?

Plus, Fred was bugging me this week. One minute, she's all sympathetic with Spike, promising to help him. The next minute, Spike gets pushed out of the way because a new situation turns up, even though the rest of W&H are already working on the werewolf thing?

It took me so long to figure out where I knew Royce from! I thought he did a good job. But putting incriminating evidence in the rubbish bin? Wee bit too convenient.

But the episode did have good points. I liked the gang having their little picnic at the beginning. And Wes being all proud about his pen.
The eating of werewolves was icky, yet novel. And the scene at the end was nice, with everyone being all chummy again (even if they did forget about Spike, again!)

[Highlander II]

I think I've figured out why I'm not real keen on the werewolf stories - or at least the Whedonverse ones -

There's not really a 'reason' for the werewolf to be there.
(really really simple version)

In all the Buffy and Angel eps - there's just a werewolf - but the problems being dealt with all revolve around the wolf itself, not around something the wolf has to do or is a specific part of (not to mention the werewolves on Buffy and Angel look really weird). (btw - I've been analyzing Van Helsing a lot, which is why this is a topic)

so - Van Helsing spoilers coming up, so, I'll tag this:



See, in VH - there werewolves have purpose - Velkan is used by Dracula to power his machine and VH!wolf is supposed to be the werewolf with 'the will' to kill Dracula.

The werewolves are part of the story - in VH.

I don't see that as much in BtVS / AtS - Oz - most of that was more about Oz controlling his wolf-side; which, honestly, they didn't deal with very well - hence the Seth Green leaving. And Veruca? She was just wrong - she was a plot device - in a bad way. Nina, from this ep of AtS - she's not a bad character, but the story was just so freakin' boring.

I am right in thinking that Joss didn't write any of the werewolf episodes? I'd have to go back and check, but I think werewolf stuff was more on Marti Noxon's side of the plate - which explains some things.

But, so far, the only werewolves that I've even come close to liking are the VH ones --- gotta be the thing about the plot.

[little smaug]

I think I see what you mean - werewolves in the WhedonVerse don't do a lot except go round killing people, so werewolf episodes just tend to focus on how a person deals with becoming a "creature of the night".

As for the werewolves themselves looking weird - not so much on BTVS, but the ones in this episode were oddly reminiscent of Lupin as a wolf from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Kind of half shaved wolf, half alien.