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Angel 5x11 - Damage (Spike and Angel)
Anyone else think of Hellbound when they saw Spike sans hands? Cutting off his feelers in the basement.
Spike has always been in basements, since he began the slow climb to... redemption? Hope? Goodness? A set of moral guidelines of his own?
Humanity?
He's always been in other people's basements - Xander's, Sunnydale High's, Buffy's, Wolfram and Hart's, Lindsey's. Dana's.
Spike is the dirty little secret that keeps trying to get itself told. And when it is told, then the light can pour in to change things.
Spike wasn't capable of creating a Dana - he didn't have the patience or the inclination. No, once again (as it was in Hellbound), the true monster is a mimic of Angelus' style. Spike is the red herring, the shadow, the one who is not.
Because in Angel's dream, Angel was sans shoes, while in Spike's dream, Spike was drowning in footwear. Spike has shoes. Angel is shanshu.
Again and again, my thoughts are drawn to the final scene, that says so much about both of them and what they think of themselves.
Spike, again, affirms that he was an innocent when alive. Spike believes in the goodness of his human self, while Angel... ah, but Spike was sired by Dru while Angel was sired by Darla.
"What we once were informs all that we have become."
"That kind of darkness is innate - it was in you before we ever met!"
"God doesn't want you, but I still do."
When Angel tells Spike the same sort of thing (I just opened the door.), Spike can dismiss it, because he believes that he was a good man. Angel never had that belief.
Angel killed his family out of revenge and for the taste of sweeter blood. Spike killed his mother to try to keep her. But thinking of it less doesn't make the damage that he caused less.
I remembered, watching this episode, Spike saying, "...what I did to girls Dawn's age." I remembered, "I'll tie her up and torture her until she likes me again." I heard, "I'll make you feel it." Just because Spike's evil was impulsive doesn't make it less. Just as the fact that Angelus' was artistic doesn't make it any less ugly.
Both killed with songs in their hearts - they were just listening to different melodies.
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He wouldn't have created - rather, Dana is emblematic of what he would have left behind as a side effect. Spike had no intention of creating a "Robin Wood" and yet, there he was.
Both killed with songs in their hearts - they were just listening to different melodies.
Which, IMHO, is something Angel has known and that Spike is still learning to understand. And it's awesome that Dana, as emblematic of the slayers he's wronged and victims he's hurt would rip away the coat and cut of his hands. "You'll never touch me again" is quite the sequel to Seeing Red. For Spike's journey, it's the perfect follow-up to LMPTM.
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Pure poetry, your review is. You do a good job of underlining the emotional differences in Angel and Spike's approaches.
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You are Awesome.
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