Angel Season 5 - Episode 19 - Time Bomb (part 2 of 2)
Part 2 (of 2)
... Enter a very pregnant young woman. She is there regarding a demon pact, the special project the Senior Partners have sent their way. It seems the baby that the woman is carrying is special, a chosen one named in prophecy and significant to The Fell Brothers, a powerful demon sect. Consequently, the demons are most desirous to arrange to take custody of the child once it is born. Gunn advises that they need to tread carefully; demon law can be tricky and tends to be filled with double talk and obscure clauses. And that’s all well and good except that as representatives of Wolfram and Hart, Angel and Charles are there to represent the interests of the Fell Brethren, not the lady and her unborn child.
Despite their professional obligation, Angel and Gunn take Amanda (the expectant mother) aside to try to talk her out of giving up her child; but, contrary to expectation, she is quite determined to go through with the deal. She can’t afford the baby, she is living off welfare, her husband has been seriously injured at work and the Brethren have promised to make him well again, plus, the Fell seem to dote on the child and it isn’t even born yet. They can give him a life that she never could.
This sacrifice can’t help but resonate for Angel. He understands, he who gave up his only son to normality for very similar reasons; to give his son something he never could and the faint promise of a medical miracle for a person he loved. Angel knows that these things rarely turn out the way we expect, Connor is no longer protected from ugly past memories and is in full possession of the truth and he didn’t get Cordelia back either. But he understands.
Playing both sides of the fence doesn’t sit well with Charles. He leaves the conference unable to willingly assist this woman in giving up her child. He likens the situation to his holding cell. The fake upstairs life with the wife and the kid and all the icing on the family cake and the nagging certainly that it was all lies designed specifically to hide the ugly truth underneath.
Gunn: Is that what we’re doing here - just hiding the horror?
Angel denies that this is the case but Gunn knows better, he’s lost his faith in their work, he can sense the truth. He knows you can’t live on both sides of the fence at the same time. Angel doesn’t want him to give up now. He needs Charles to keep his chin up:
Angel: You have to listen to me Gunn, I need you to get through this, to get through all of it so we can figure out the big picture and plot our next move.
This is revealing. It shows that Angel has been thinking, really thinking about what they are going to do next. Lindsey’s words have been successful, he finally gets it, gets the whole thing - why he was given the job, what the Senior partners wanted to achieve and how he’s played right into their hands. And so he’s been thinking about how to get out with their skins intact and he needs them all to act like everything is business as usual so that he can plan the great escape. He’s big picturing. Gunn isn’t:
Gunn: Angel….she is our next move
Wesley is working in the lab when Hamilton pays him a visit. He’s passing on the concerns the Senior Partners have about Illyria. It seems they are no more keen on her than Angel is. She makes them nervous, she’s unpredictable and dangerous. They want her dealt with and they expect Wesley to be the one to do it. Hamilton leaves Wesley with a tip; check out the low-emission scanner read-outs, might just be important. Wesley does as requested and is surprised to see that a glowing dot is moving through the Wolfram and Hart corridors unchecked. That ‘glowing dot’ is Illyria. This can’t be good.
Angel and Gunn are now in conference with the Fell Brothers and Amanda. And once again we are confronted with a contradiction; the ugly, wizened demons are thoughtful and sweet. They seem to genuinely care for the unborn child. Maybe this is not such a bad thing after all? It’s just like an adoption right? Signatures are about to be exchanged and everything is going along swimmingly until Gunn comes across the term ‘gordabach’. This is his way out of this deal. He tries to explain to Amanda what this means; that on the eve of her child’s thirteenth birthday he will be ritualistically sacrificed in accordance with the demon’s custom, but is prevented from completing the elucidation by their client angrily demanding to know whose lawyer he is anyway! The demons are the icing on the family cake - all sweetness and nice on the surface with their pretty lies about prophecy and healing, but underneath the real story is something completely different, ugly and abhorrent.
Illyria chooses this inopportune moment to interrupt proceedings and demand Angel’s attention. Angel is understandably peeved but concedes to the hell-god’s demand. Illyria insists on knowing what they are doing to her. Is it poison or magic? She admits that she is impressed by the power of it but remains defiant:
Illyria: Whatever you’ve done it can’t save you. To do anything but bow to my will is absurd yet you conspire-
Angel has no idea what she’s talking about and tells her so as a fresh wave of pain ripples through her.
Illyria: Jealous. Plankton envying the ocean that holds them
Gee, overdose on the megalomania pills much? Her ranting fails to enlighten Angel as to what she’s upset about but Illyria calms and comes to a realisation:
Illyria: You do not know yet. It’s too early
Perplexed, he watches Illyria’s sudden departure then makes his way to the lab where he finds the Wesley and Spike in deep collusion. Angel confides that he thinks that Illyria is out of her mind and thinks that he is trying to kill her. ‘Aren’t you’, Wesley challenges then back peddles slightly explaining that Illyria is…unstable.
Wesley: Overloading to be more accurate. The fusion between her demon essence and her host’s body seems to be deteriorating. It’s as if the human part of her can no longer contain the demonic power within.
Illyria is going to self-destruct, violently and at any moment. She is in essence a ticking time bomb.
Angel: And you were going to tell me this when?
Wesley: I wasn’t. Spike and I were dealing with it.
Trust or the lack of it rears its ugly head again. Wesley deliberately side-stepped Angel with this Illyria issue so that he could do it his own way without Angel’s opinions or interference and brings Spike in as the muscle for good measure. Its Angel’s worst nightmare coming true - his team turning to Spike instead of him. Wesley brings out a large gun-like weapon that, in a nutshell, will send her powers into another dimension.
Angel: Will it kill her?
Wesley: Yes. [To Spike] Shall we go?
The three of them head to the training room, Wesley revealing that Illyria’s destruction is likely to cause considerable continental damage. Not good, must be avoided.
Despite the computer indicating with its glowing, um, actually violently radiating dot that Illyria should be in the training room, there is no sign of her. Spike is just in the process of telling them that that’s the problem with Illyria when he suddenly explodes into a cloud of dust. As the debris settles we see Illyria brandishing a stake, though she’s unsettled with pain. Angel cries “Wes, do it now!” exactly as we’ve already seen him do before but it is too late. Illyria is already in action kicking Angel across the room, brutally stabbing Wesley, sending an angry fist clean through Lorne before finally decapitating Angel, turning him to dust too. Illyria stands triumphant victor over the carnage; a god-king in all it’s glory…until she is once again gripped by pain. She clutches her stomach and suddenly finds herself back in the hallway mid confrontation with Angel. They go through the same conversation again, jealous plankton, certain death, yadda yadda yadda. The spasms of pain come more frequently now and each wave sends her on a different tangent of time. To the glass of water that has just been knocked off Wesley’s desk but this time Angel is with them and decidedly freaked by the experience. His presence has an unsettling effect on Illyria too.
Illyria: You weren’t here before. An aberration in the time line, it wasn’t like this-
Agony clenches and suddenly she and Angel are in Gunn’s cellar. Illyria begins to understand that Angel has been swept up in her wake, that she has been ripped out of linear progression and crammed back into a non-sequential pattern. She thinks that Angel and Wolfram and Hart are responsible but he denies having access to that kind of power. Illyria starts speechifying but Angel’s not in the mood to listen to her crap. He tells her to shut up. He tells her what’s what. He tells her that they are looking for a way to control her and he claims this world as his kingdom.
Illyria: Your kingdom! I am Illyria, god-king of the primordium, shaper of things!
Angel: Yeah, well, that was then… this is now.
Before he can finish the sentence they’re back in the training room, the bodies of Wes and Lorne pinpointing their location in the time line precisely. Angel is in horror-struck disbelief; Illyria rubs salt into the wound:
Illyria: These are the fruits of your attempt to murder me. Your kingdom turned to ash and stale wind. I slew the white-haired one first and then Wesley as he raised his weapon and your demon clown as he wilted in terror.
Angel: And I’m next.
Illyria: No vampire, you were last.
And she throws her battle axe onto the pile of dust that once was Angel.
Angel begs to know why and Illyria explains:
Illyria: You learn that when you become a king, you learn to destroy everything that is not utterly yours. All that matters is victory. That’s how your reign persists. You’re a slave to an insane construct. You are moral. A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane, empty but for the force of its gale
But you…trapped in the web of the Wolf, the Ram, the Hart. So much power here and you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your ambition.
As she speaks she realises the truth of her words, there is no way that Angel could be responsible for her predicament - he doesn’t wield the power with enough expertise to achieve such a feat. It’s her, she’s broken. Her power is too great to be contained. The skin on her face fractures and cracks, blue energy emits from within. The fissures spread across the fragile shell until it literally explodes with tremendous force sending Angel flying with the power of the eruption.
He lands back in the hallway, Wesley and Spike are ahead discussing Illyria’s potential for continental destruction should she self-destruct. Angel tries to tell them what’s about to happen as he follows them into the training room. This is not good; everything is just as it was before. Lorne makes the same statement about not seeing Illyria leave, Spike is about to tell them about her tricky time manipulations…Angel knows what is about to happen. He remembers Illyria’s narrative, she slew the white-haired one first…
Angel rushes at Spike, physically pushes him out of the path of Illyria’s unseen stake and puts himself in Spike’s place. The splinter of wood that would have finished Spike pierces Angel’s side instead. Even though he’s in considerable discomfort Angel uses the time and opportunity to try and negotiate with Illyria. He tells her he knows what happens, that they all die, that she explodes, that her domain is gone, swallowed by time. He will kill her before he’ll let her death blow away his ‘kingdom’ and he won’t apologise for trying. But it transpires that Wesley’s weapon will not kill her, just reduce her power. Illyria is not convinced. This is not the first time he’s plotted her demise causing Wesley to concede:
Wesley: That didn’t work. It was a failure. But now I know you’re all that’s left.
Wesley would rather have Illyria around with her Fred-like appearance than have no piece left of Fred at all. Illyria doesn’t want to capitulate; she is her power, without it she would be a vacuum. She fights back, she won’t go down without a fight. Spike lands a couple of hits, she resorts to her time shimmy but pain descends once more and her magic is broken allowing Angel to attempt reason:
Angel: Illyria, the future can change here. You can choose a different path
Illyria: And be nothing
Angel: And be what you are. Fighting to hold onto what you were…. it’s destroying you.
Illyria hears his words, knows there is no alternative end. She gives one last vitriolic speech and blames her demise of the fragility of her human shell. Wesley points the weapon at Illyria discharging a beam of light that draws the glowing blue energy from within her. It’s over in a matter of seconds. She collapses to the floor in defeat. But hey, she might just make the team afterall, if she can learn the rules of the game and adapt to her reduction in status.
Angel heads back to his meeting to find it in chaos. Gunn is arguing with the Fell; he doesn’t want to represent them. Hamilton is also there trying to smooth ruffled feathers. The demons are promising retribution to all who cross them. Angel steps in:
Angel: Gunn. The baby belongs to the Fell
and invites them back to the conference room to formalise the deal. Charles is stunned at this sudden turn of events:
Gunn: Angel, what are you doing?
Angel: What we’re supposed to. Serve our clients.
It’s an uncomfortable end, seeing Angel willing to sacrifice an unborn child. Its here we start to worry if Angel is irretrievably lost because babies have long been symbolically significant in Angel’s redemptive journey. The souled, confused Angelus was spurred into action, finally turning his back on the idea that he could somehow be what he was by rescuing a baby that Darla had challenged him to kill in order to prove himself as a great vampire worthy of being her companion. He couldn’t do it. Instead of feeding he snatched up the child and escaped turning his back once and for all on his sire and all that she stood for [Darla, A2.7]. Then, it is through his assistance of a young woman and her unborn child that Angel develops his affiliation with the term ‘champion’, he ‘champions’ a helpless woman when no one else will stand up for her [Judgement, A2.1]. And yet in this episode, four from the end of the series, we have Angel willing to sacrifice an unborn innocent to a demon cult because this is the will of his over-lords.
This is how it seems…
There is so much more going on here than meets the eye. The viewer realises this after watching the penultimate and final episodes. In hindsight Time Bomb is monumentally important. It is an episode in which a decision is finally made about what to do with this catch22 they’ve got themselves trapped in. Mortality smacks Angel between the eyes - a novel experience for an ageless immortal. The narrow aversion of their deaths at Illyria’s hand and the near miss of the hell-god’s continent-threatening destruction causes Angel to open his eyes, put his thinking cap on. Suddenly he sees that, even for one who never dies, life is short, it holds no guarantees and this, taken into account with Lindsey’s revelations makes Angel question if they can really afford to be marking time, be willingly nullified into irrelevance while their mission goes unfulfilled. Besides which, the reason for them being there at Wolfram and Hart is void; Connor knows the truth now, there is no need for secrets and lies and deals anymore. So Angel realises that the time has come to act but also that his next steps must be executed very carefully if they are ever to escape from the greedy clutches of the Senior Partners. He walks into his office, makes a deal that disgusts him purely to give the impression that he’s playing ball with the big guys. He’s being that ruthless leader that Illyria told him he had to be. He’s serving no master but his ambition; all that matters is victory, he becomes that immoral hurricane.
But more than anything, one passage of words spurs him into action, words he spoke to Illyria but heard for his own account:
Angel: Illyria, the future can change here. You can choose a different path
Illyria: And be nothing
Angel: And be what you are. Fighting to hold onto what you were…. it’s destroying you.
We’ve known since the beginning of the season that Angel has been fighting to hold on to what he was. The first thing we saw in Conviction was Angel working the street, helping the helpless even though he was now also CEO of Wolfram and Hart. He tried to convince himself that they could turn the situation to their advantage, use Wolfram and Hart resources as a weapon against everything it stood for. But in reality it was a constant battle between old and new, what he once was with what he had become. Self-doubt, fears of irrelevance and loss of hope were the outcome. And that prophecy, the one about a vampire with a soul? Angel fought to believe, to prove to himself that he was still ‘the guy’, still the one that it was about but in the end only ended up convincing himself that he wasn’t. Spike came to town and shook up that already fragile self-belief; Spike had saved the world, loved the girl, chose the soul, and spurned the reward. He’d done everything Angel had only somehow . . . better. In the end it was easy to be convinced that Spike was ‘the guy’, the one the Shanshu was heralding and not him. It was painful to admit, it hurt. So there’s a fear at the back of Angel's mind, if he’s not the fabled ‘vampire with a soul’ then what the hell is he? The horrible answer that echoes endlessly is 'nothing'. He would be nothing. This is what he thinks. Until he responds to Illyria’s exact same fear:
And be what you are
He hears the words and realises the truth and comfort in what he’s saying. It’s not so bad afterall; he’s still a champion, a leader. He’s still a good man even without the promise of the prophecy. Fighting to hold onto what he was is destroying him and the time has come to make a different choice. Angel got them into this situation and it’s up to him to get them out.
The future can change; it can if you make it.
... Enter a very pregnant young woman. She is there regarding a demon pact, the special project the Senior Partners have sent their way. It seems the baby that the woman is carrying is special, a chosen one named in prophecy and significant to The Fell Brothers, a powerful demon sect. Consequently, the demons are most desirous to arrange to take custody of the child once it is born. Gunn advises that they need to tread carefully; demon law can be tricky and tends to be filled with double talk and obscure clauses. And that’s all well and good except that as representatives of Wolfram and Hart, Angel and Charles are there to represent the interests of the Fell Brethren, not the lady and her unborn child.
Despite their professional obligation, Angel and Gunn take Amanda (the expectant mother) aside to try to talk her out of giving up her child; but, contrary to expectation, she is quite determined to go through with the deal. She can’t afford the baby, she is living off welfare, her husband has been seriously injured at work and the Brethren have promised to make him well again, plus, the Fell seem to dote on the child and it isn’t even born yet. They can give him a life that she never could.
This sacrifice can’t help but resonate for Angel. He understands, he who gave up his only son to normality for very similar reasons; to give his son something he never could and the faint promise of a medical miracle for a person he loved. Angel knows that these things rarely turn out the way we expect, Connor is no longer protected from ugly past memories and is in full possession of the truth and he didn’t get Cordelia back either. But he understands.
Playing both sides of the fence doesn’t sit well with Charles. He leaves the conference unable to willingly assist this woman in giving up her child. He likens the situation to his holding cell. The fake upstairs life with the wife and the kid and all the icing on the family cake and the nagging certainly that it was all lies designed specifically to hide the ugly truth underneath.
Gunn: Is that what we’re doing here - just hiding the horror?
Angel denies that this is the case but Gunn knows better, he’s lost his faith in their work, he can sense the truth. He knows you can’t live on both sides of the fence at the same time. Angel doesn’t want him to give up now. He needs Charles to keep his chin up:
Angel: You have to listen to me Gunn, I need you to get through this, to get through all of it so we can figure out the big picture and plot our next move.
This is revealing. It shows that Angel has been thinking, really thinking about what they are going to do next. Lindsey’s words have been successful, he finally gets it, gets the whole thing - why he was given the job, what the Senior partners wanted to achieve and how he’s played right into their hands. And so he’s been thinking about how to get out with their skins intact and he needs them all to act like everything is business as usual so that he can plan the great escape. He’s big picturing. Gunn isn’t:
Gunn: Angel….she is our next move
Wesley is working in the lab when Hamilton pays him a visit. He’s passing on the concerns the Senior Partners have about Illyria. It seems they are no more keen on her than Angel is. She makes them nervous, she’s unpredictable and dangerous. They want her dealt with and they expect Wesley to be the one to do it. Hamilton leaves Wesley with a tip; check out the low-emission scanner read-outs, might just be important. Wesley does as requested and is surprised to see that a glowing dot is moving through the Wolfram and Hart corridors unchecked. That ‘glowing dot’ is Illyria. This can’t be good.
Angel and Gunn are now in conference with the Fell Brothers and Amanda. And once again we are confronted with a contradiction; the ugly, wizened demons are thoughtful and sweet. They seem to genuinely care for the unborn child. Maybe this is not such a bad thing after all? It’s just like an adoption right? Signatures are about to be exchanged and everything is going along swimmingly until Gunn comes across the term ‘gordabach’. This is his way out of this deal. He tries to explain to Amanda what this means; that on the eve of her child’s thirteenth birthday he will be ritualistically sacrificed in accordance with the demon’s custom, but is prevented from completing the elucidation by their client angrily demanding to know whose lawyer he is anyway! The demons are the icing on the family cake - all sweetness and nice on the surface with their pretty lies about prophecy and healing, but underneath the real story is something completely different, ugly and abhorrent.
Illyria chooses this inopportune moment to interrupt proceedings and demand Angel’s attention. Angel is understandably peeved but concedes to the hell-god’s demand. Illyria insists on knowing what they are doing to her. Is it poison or magic? She admits that she is impressed by the power of it but remains defiant:
Illyria: Whatever you’ve done it can’t save you. To do anything but bow to my will is absurd yet you conspire-
Angel has no idea what she’s talking about and tells her so as a fresh wave of pain ripples through her.
Illyria: Jealous. Plankton envying the ocean that holds them
Gee, overdose on the megalomania pills much? Her ranting fails to enlighten Angel as to what she’s upset about but Illyria calms and comes to a realisation:
Illyria: You do not know yet. It’s too early
Perplexed, he watches Illyria’s sudden departure then makes his way to the lab where he finds the Wesley and Spike in deep collusion. Angel confides that he thinks that Illyria is out of her mind and thinks that he is trying to kill her. ‘Aren’t you’, Wesley challenges then back peddles slightly explaining that Illyria is…unstable.
Wesley: Overloading to be more accurate. The fusion between her demon essence and her host’s body seems to be deteriorating. It’s as if the human part of her can no longer contain the demonic power within.
Illyria is going to self-destruct, violently and at any moment. She is in essence a ticking time bomb.
Angel: And you were going to tell me this when?
Wesley: I wasn’t. Spike and I were dealing with it.
Trust or the lack of it rears its ugly head again. Wesley deliberately side-stepped Angel with this Illyria issue so that he could do it his own way without Angel’s opinions or interference and brings Spike in as the muscle for good measure. Its Angel’s worst nightmare coming true - his team turning to Spike instead of him. Wesley brings out a large gun-like weapon that, in a nutshell, will send her powers into another dimension.
Angel: Will it kill her?
Wesley: Yes. [To Spike] Shall we go?
The three of them head to the training room, Wesley revealing that Illyria’s destruction is likely to cause considerable continental damage. Not good, must be avoided.
Despite the computer indicating with its glowing, um, actually violently radiating dot that Illyria should be in the training room, there is no sign of her. Spike is just in the process of telling them that that’s the problem with Illyria when he suddenly explodes into a cloud of dust. As the debris settles we see Illyria brandishing a stake, though she’s unsettled with pain. Angel cries “Wes, do it now!” exactly as we’ve already seen him do before but it is too late. Illyria is already in action kicking Angel across the room, brutally stabbing Wesley, sending an angry fist clean through Lorne before finally decapitating Angel, turning him to dust too. Illyria stands triumphant victor over the carnage; a god-king in all it’s glory…until she is once again gripped by pain. She clutches her stomach and suddenly finds herself back in the hallway mid confrontation with Angel. They go through the same conversation again, jealous plankton, certain death, yadda yadda yadda. The spasms of pain come more frequently now and each wave sends her on a different tangent of time. To the glass of water that has just been knocked off Wesley’s desk but this time Angel is with them and decidedly freaked by the experience. His presence has an unsettling effect on Illyria too.
Illyria: You weren’t here before. An aberration in the time line, it wasn’t like this-
Agony clenches and suddenly she and Angel are in Gunn’s cellar. Illyria begins to understand that Angel has been swept up in her wake, that she has been ripped out of linear progression and crammed back into a non-sequential pattern. She thinks that Angel and Wolfram and Hart are responsible but he denies having access to that kind of power. Illyria starts speechifying but Angel’s not in the mood to listen to her crap. He tells her to shut up. He tells her what’s what. He tells her that they are looking for a way to control her and he claims this world as his kingdom.
Illyria: Your kingdom! I am Illyria, god-king of the primordium, shaper of things!
Angel: Yeah, well, that was then… this is now.
Before he can finish the sentence they’re back in the training room, the bodies of Wes and Lorne pinpointing their location in the time line precisely. Angel is in horror-struck disbelief; Illyria rubs salt into the wound:
Illyria: These are the fruits of your attempt to murder me. Your kingdom turned to ash and stale wind. I slew the white-haired one first and then Wesley as he raised his weapon and your demon clown as he wilted in terror.
Angel: And I’m next.
Illyria: No vampire, you were last.
And she throws her battle axe onto the pile of dust that once was Angel.
Angel begs to know why and Illyria explains:
Illyria: You learn that when you become a king, you learn to destroy everything that is not utterly yours. All that matters is victory. That’s how your reign persists. You’re a slave to an insane construct. You are moral. A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane, empty but for the force of its gale
But you…trapped in the web of the Wolf, the Ram, the Hart. So much power here and you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your ambition.
As she speaks she realises the truth of her words, there is no way that Angel could be responsible for her predicament - he doesn’t wield the power with enough expertise to achieve such a feat. It’s her, she’s broken. Her power is too great to be contained. The skin on her face fractures and cracks, blue energy emits from within. The fissures spread across the fragile shell until it literally explodes with tremendous force sending Angel flying with the power of the eruption.
He lands back in the hallway, Wesley and Spike are ahead discussing Illyria’s potential for continental destruction should she self-destruct. Angel tries to tell them what’s about to happen as he follows them into the training room. This is not good; everything is just as it was before. Lorne makes the same statement about not seeing Illyria leave, Spike is about to tell them about her tricky time manipulations…Angel knows what is about to happen. He remembers Illyria’s narrative, she slew the white-haired one first…
Angel rushes at Spike, physically pushes him out of the path of Illyria’s unseen stake and puts himself in Spike’s place. The splinter of wood that would have finished Spike pierces Angel’s side instead. Even though he’s in considerable discomfort Angel uses the time and opportunity to try and negotiate with Illyria. He tells her he knows what happens, that they all die, that she explodes, that her domain is gone, swallowed by time. He will kill her before he’ll let her death blow away his ‘kingdom’ and he won’t apologise for trying. But it transpires that Wesley’s weapon will not kill her, just reduce her power. Illyria is not convinced. This is not the first time he’s plotted her demise causing Wesley to concede:
Wesley: That didn’t work. It was a failure. But now I know you’re all that’s left.
Wesley would rather have Illyria around with her Fred-like appearance than have no piece left of Fred at all. Illyria doesn’t want to capitulate; she is her power, without it she would be a vacuum. She fights back, she won’t go down without a fight. Spike lands a couple of hits, she resorts to her time shimmy but pain descends once more and her magic is broken allowing Angel to attempt reason:
Angel: Illyria, the future can change here. You can choose a different path
Illyria: And be nothing
Angel: And be what you are. Fighting to hold onto what you were…. it’s destroying you.
Illyria hears his words, knows there is no alternative end. She gives one last vitriolic speech and blames her demise of the fragility of her human shell. Wesley points the weapon at Illyria discharging a beam of light that draws the glowing blue energy from within her. It’s over in a matter of seconds. She collapses to the floor in defeat. But hey, she might just make the team afterall, if she can learn the rules of the game and adapt to her reduction in status.
Angel heads back to his meeting to find it in chaos. Gunn is arguing with the Fell; he doesn’t want to represent them. Hamilton is also there trying to smooth ruffled feathers. The demons are promising retribution to all who cross them. Angel steps in:
Angel: Gunn. The baby belongs to the Fell
and invites them back to the conference room to formalise the deal. Charles is stunned at this sudden turn of events:
Gunn: Angel, what are you doing?
Angel: What we’re supposed to. Serve our clients.
It’s an uncomfortable end, seeing Angel willing to sacrifice an unborn child. Its here we start to worry if Angel is irretrievably lost because babies have long been symbolically significant in Angel’s redemptive journey. The souled, confused Angelus was spurred into action, finally turning his back on the idea that he could somehow be what he was by rescuing a baby that Darla had challenged him to kill in order to prove himself as a great vampire worthy of being her companion. He couldn’t do it. Instead of feeding he snatched up the child and escaped turning his back once and for all on his sire and all that she stood for [Darla, A2.7]. Then, it is through his assistance of a young woman and her unborn child that Angel develops his affiliation with the term ‘champion’, he ‘champions’ a helpless woman when no one else will stand up for her [Judgement, A2.1]. And yet in this episode, four from the end of the series, we have Angel willing to sacrifice an unborn innocent to a demon cult because this is the will of his over-lords.
This is how it seems…
There is so much more going on here than meets the eye. The viewer realises this after watching the penultimate and final episodes. In hindsight Time Bomb is monumentally important. It is an episode in which a decision is finally made about what to do with this catch22 they’ve got themselves trapped in. Mortality smacks Angel between the eyes - a novel experience for an ageless immortal. The narrow aversion of their deaths at Illyria’s hand and the near miss of the hell-god’s continent-threatening destruction causes Angel to open his eyes, put his thinking cap on. Suddenly he sees that, even for one who never dies, life is short, it holds no guarantees and this, taken into account with Lindsey’s revelations makes Angel question if they can really afford to be marking time, be willingly nullified into irrelevance while their mission goes unfulfilled. Besides which, the reason for them being there at Wolfram and Hart is void; Connor knows the truth now, there is no need for secrets and lies and deals anymore. So Angel realises that the time has come to act but also that his next steps must be executed very carefully if they are ever to escape from the greedy clutches of the Senior Partners. He walks into his office, makes a deal that disgusts him purely to give the impression that he’s playing ball with the big guys. He’s being that ruthless leader that Illyria told him he had to be. He’s serving no master but his ambition; all that matters is victory, he becomes that immoral hurricane.
But more than anything, one passage of words spurs him into action, words he spoke to Illyria but heard for his own account:
Angel: Illyria, the future can change here. You can choose a different path
Illyria: And be nothing
Angel: And be what you are. Fighting to hold onto what you were…. it’s destroying you.
We’ve known since the beginning of the season that Angel has been fighting to hold on to what he was. The first thing we saw in Conviction was Angel working the street, helping the helpless even though he was now also CEO of Wolfram and Hart. He tried to convince himself that they could turn the situation to their advantage, use Wolfram and Hart resources as a weapon against everything it stood for. But in reality it was a constant battle between old and new, what he once was with what he had become. Self-doubt, fears of irrelevance and loss of hope were the outcome. And that prophecy, the one about a vampire with a soul? Angel fought to believe, to prove to himself that he was still ‘the guy’, still the one that it was about but in the end only ended up convincing himself that he wasn’t. Spike came to town and shook up that already fragile self-belief; Spike had saved the world, loved the girl, chose the soul, and spurned the reward. He’d done everything Angel had only somehow . . . better. In the end it was easy to be convinced that Spike was ‘the guy’, the one the Shanshu was heralding and not him. It was painful to admit, it hurt. So there’s a fear at the back of Angel's mind, if he’s not the fabled ‘vampire with a soul’ then what the hell is he? The horrible answer that echoes endlessly is 'nothing'. He would be nothing. This is what he thinks. Until he responds to Illyria’s exact same fear:
And be what you are
He hears the words and realises the truth and comfort in what he’s saying. It’s not so bad afterall; he’s still a champion, a leader. He’s still a good man even without the promise of the prophecy. Fighting to hold onto what he was is destroying him and the time has come to make a different choice. Angel got them into this situation and it’s up to him to get them out.
The future can change; it can if you make it.