Or Part
Eleventeen of Our Continuing Investigation Into What is Lindsey Up To?
In this episode, we learn that Angel is unsure that his role as CEO of
Wolfram&Hart is doing any good at all.
Yawn.
More interesting to me -- besides Harmony mixing up "Machiavelli" and
"Machibelli," Einstein, and immediately saying a truly stupid
thing herself:
Gunn: Is he in?
Harmony: Is who in?
Oy.
Yes, Wes and Gunn are seeking to foment some disorder in an unstable and
far-reaching cult following which is stockpiling dark magicks. Back at the
hotel, they'd rally an army of ... well,
they'd probably get Cordy glowing at her glowiest and storm in from
every direction. Fred could open a
portal to Pylea and they'd all be cultic cows for the rest of their days. Not
pleasant, but probably more contained than they are up here.
Here the goal seems to be instigate violence among rival factions.
That works too. In the end, the leader of the stronger faction will him/herself
be all gouged up and the following would for certainly be weakened.
Angel is torn between these options. The manipulating and scheming vs. the
swooping and killing.
Opposite end of the Crymia River is Spike, taking in a show at The Peppermint
Stick. Ethan Rayne comes in and ...
Oh, sorry. That's Lindsey.
Well, I think the reason I was thinking he was Ethan Rayne was because he seems
to have access to all sorts of dark mojo for no apparent reason -- I'm thinking
that while all W&H operatives have a base-level training in the black arts
as part of their on-the-job training, Lindsey in his work with Special Projects
might have had more and may indeed have socked some away, but come on.
Also, his modus operandi seems to mirror that of Loki, or perhaps Carmen
Miranda: showing up, creating big pointless splashy chaos and then puff of
smoke.
It was reasonably safe to introduce himself as Doyle to Spike. Spike was never
introduced to Doyle by name in
"In The Dark," and he probably wouldn't make a connection here even
if he had been. Lindsey knew about the visions through W&H's obsessive
study of Angel, knew about Doyle, of course, and knew about the girl in the
alley, or the couple in the alley, or the other girl in the alley -- as Spike points out, you can't throw a stick
in L.A. without hitting someone in trouble.
But this touches on resources. Even though Lindsey can be reasonably certain
something is happening somewhere all the time, Spike could brood in any specific
alley all night without encountering anything more mystical than a couple rats
having a shag. If Lindsey is arranging the attacks, well, how is he
arranging them? I mean, I buy his ice cream headaches to the tune of zero. No
Power That Be is talking to Lindsey.
Secondly, let's talk motivation. If Lindsey is orchestrating a bit of chaos to
confooz the Senior Partners, apologies, but they know their Shoop and
they know which Vampire With A Soul has faced the Coming Darkness and the
Portents and the Beast in Reseda and several -- not so many -- fiends. There's
a reason they've expended the resources they have on Angel and there's a reason
why he's the focus of so much of their efforts. No prophecy exists in a vacuum,
and if Angel is fulfilling it, probably there are other harbingers as well.
Lindsey presenting Spike as the Hero of the Shoop -- telling him he sent him
the amulet (iffy -- Lilah [who appeared at the behest of the Senior Partners
themselves] handed it off to Angel to begin with and Buffy's the only thing
that kept him from putting it on himself -- the intention was probably for
Angel to end up spectrally trapped in W&H), pulling him out of the
Hellmouth (probably true), sending him the Box o' Corporeality (certainly true)
and then sending Spike and Angel on that desert run (absolutely true) and then
attributing it all to visions that he doesn't receive, that's really
disappointing.
Later, with Eve, he mu-wha-ha-has about all the instability he's causing with
his Cup of Perpetual Nothing and these ridiculous parasites. And he certainly
seems disruptive. But the only reason we give that any weight is that we're
privy to his dreams. For all Lindsey knows, Angel is deeply confident about his
role in all of this and he's dreaming of winning epic apocalyptic battles.
Instead, he is dreaming, alternatively, about burning up in the presence
of Spike's shooping, Wes staking him in his room, Spike sleeping with a Blonde
Wig on a Broomstick (with some thoroughly appropo and deeply convincing
lines dubbed in from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), Fred ...
This sequence merits discussion: Fred arrives and disembowels him, taking a
pearl necklace for herself, pulling out his heart -- a dried up little walnut
(ref to "Cautionary Tale," I believe) -- and handing his limply dead
tropical fish of a soul off to a scary-ass bear (with the chirpiest possible
"Thank you, Bear!"). And then she mentions him being a hollow shell
-- at least her second use of that
word -- and ends looking down a hole that runs through the center of the world.
Wow. Was that stuffed full of portents.
He also dreams about Spike saving the world and regaining his humanity (in the
cheesiest possible sequence) and then about not being able to sing for Lorne.
Now here's where the storytelling gets really iffy.
As Eve walks in, she has no idea what Angel is dreaming about, but he's
becoming just the tiniest bit lucid -- probably in reaction to someone being in
the room with him. And Angel becomes aware of the parasite. He rips it off and
flings it across the room. He is too weak to fend off the larger parasite which
seems to provide the pleasantest vision of all -- Angel relaxing in the sun,
not doing much of anything, and all of his friends telling him that that's
perfectly OK.
Spike swoops in and saves the day by bringing him back to his chaotic present
where Eve wandering around saying "Hey! Look at this rock!" can
supersede his friends' concern for his well-being (HE'S JUST UPSTAIRS, PEOPLE!)
and sorry, but we don't have a good reason to distrust Doc Sparrow yet --
unless Sparrow's in on the Lindsey thing (which I doubt -- he seems kind of
wrapped up in the Knox thing -- more later) why wouldn't Angel at least get
himself checked out? As Dream Wesley said, vampires don't get sick, so there's
clearly something wrong.
And Lindsey knows what Spike will find when he enters Angel's home. Because he
sent it along with Eve. But the parasites seemed to be ... kind of big deals.
And more than a little clumsy. Eve getting caught on the basis of her earrings
was too Jessica Fletcher for words, and again, if you're only placing Angel in
danger for Spike to save him, that's nothing but ridiculous.
I'm convinced that Lindsey has no plan. No grand scheme. He has no idea what
he's doing and the fact that he's running around with glyph tattoos that make
him invisible to survelliance cameras and the Senior Partners ...
Never mind. We can address that later.
For right now, Lindsey orchestrating Spike's heroism ("From what I
understand, Angel didn't save the girl on his first mission"), Spike being
silly enough to follow his "visions" and buy into it himself without
talking to ... someone (hell, Wesley could've told him what was
what about people named Doyle having visions), and Spike keeping mum even after
the whole saving Angel thing (i.e. "This guy Doyle told me you had
something sucking the life out of you and I dropped everything and ran right
over to save you") -- not that that was an especially solid
motivation for Spike, either.
Again ... so much could be accomplished if people just talked to each other.
I'd love to see someone with all the backstory confront Lindsey Rayne and ask
him what he thinks he's doing. Because he's either completely omniscient
or he doesn't have the slightest clue and I don't like either of those
alternatives.
Team Angel’s role at W&H is examined very briefly -- really, for his
directorial debut, David Boreanaz had a lot of story to tell. They still
think they're fighting the good fight, but they're becoming used to the
mechanisms of the operation, and that's absolutely shifting their focus.
Angel himself seems to be floundering worst of all.
If only someone could get Angel back on his path, a trusted friend from his
past, someone we haven't seen for awhile ...
Meh, just a thought.
I'm sure they'll think of something.
For right now, "Soul Purpose" bothers me, but I can't really put my
finger on why, exactly. It's a nice set of dream sequences -- Gunn with the
feline eyes is a nice image, and Fred pulling that battered license
plate out of Angel's chest was just wacky fun, along with the Blue Fairy and
the fairytale ending as Spike averts the Apocalypse, celebrated by a sheet cake
as Angel sees himself vanish into obscurity.
It's just, I absolutely know that when they finally do interrogate
Lindsey, we don't get any window on why he's been doing what he's doing,
so I was really digging for any elucidation at all in this early portion
of that storyline.
And I'm afraid it remained -- and remains to this day -- simply unavailable.