Welcome to Rewatching Angel, the part of the blog where I rewatch the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off: Angel. Each Tuesday evening, you’re invited to join me as I attempt to rediscover what made me love these shows so many years ago.

Destiny

• We start with a flashback: England, 1880…
• Spike and Drucilla arrive at the Royal London Hotel.
• Spike is newly turned and is introduced to Angelus for the first time.
• At this point, Darla isn’t around as she’s been called back to the Master for some reason.
• Angelus and Spike seem like they’re about to become the best of friends.
• Back in the present, we see what we’re used to… they can’t stand each other.
• Spike wants a place of his own and asks for Wesley’s office since he’s gone.
• Wes is on a leave of absence after last week’s disturbing turn of events.
• Harmony lets Spike know he’s got mail.
• It’s a package that he can’t open… you know, since he can’t touch anything.
• So she opens it for him and a flash of light hits for the briefest of moments.
• Harmony answers the phone and is greeted with an ear-piercing screech.
• Spike decides to go bother Angel some more and when he tries to walk through the office door, he runs right into it.
• Whatever flash was in that box returned Spike to something a little more solid.
• The phones are going crazy and Harmony has no answer for why.
• Spike convinces Harmony to take an early lunch so they can… uh… make time for adult activities.
• Back in the day, Spike and Angelus are bonding over their kills and Spike talks about how he’s pretty sure Drusilla is his destiny.
• Spike and Harmony kick out a no-name lawyer from his office, who then goes to complain to a co-worker about Spike.
• But the guy at the copy machine turns around, his eyes are bleeding and he begins beating no-name in the head with a fire extinguisher.
• Back in Angel’s office, Gunn and Fred try to figure out why the phone glitch is connected to Spike’s recorporealization.
• Eve shows up and announces that the universe is now off kilter… all thanks to the Shanshu prophecy.
• Spike’s existence is throwing things off…
• It was okay that both vampires with souls existed before, but that’s because Spike wasn’t a “champion” prior to the Hellmouth’s destruction.
• Now that there are two vampires with souls who are both champions for good… that might screw up the Shanshu of it all.
• Eve warns that something worse… more dangerous… is on its way.
• While Spike and Harmony are going at it, her eyes suddenly start to bleed… she vamps out and bites Spike.
• Attacks are happening all over the building as others are going crazy.
• Spike says he’ll leave town… but that won’t solve the problem and things will just get worse.
• Gunn steps in and warns them that the panther/conduit to the Senior Partners and he White Room are gone… replaced by a howling abyss.
• Wesley-lite helps them out with the Shanshu prophecy.
• Apparently the vampire with the soul must drink from the Cup of Perpetual Torment.
• Whoever drinks from the cup was meant to drink from the cup… and that’s the vampire who will be the subject of the prophecy.
• The cup is located in a buried opera house in Death Valley.
• Spike’s already on his way, having stolen one of Angel’s cars.
• Angel’s tailing him…
• Gunn confronts Eve about her connection to the Senior Partners, but she pulls the glass house metaphor, what with his connection to the conduit and all.
• Angel and Spike both arrive at the opera house, ready to duke it out to find out who gets to drink from the cup.
• Back in the past, Spike returns home to find Angelus having sex with Dru…
• I’m guessing that’s the beginning of Spike’s hatred for Angel.
• Conveniently, the cup is sitting on a pedestal on stage under a spotlight.
• And the boys begin to fight.
• Spike points out that Angel’s soul was forced onto him as a curse, whereas Spike fought for his soul because he knew it was the right thing to do.
• Angel counters by claiming Spike only did it to get into a girl’s pants…
• In the lab, Fred can’t find something connecting the people who are going crazy.
• And then Gunn is affected, causing him to attack Eve.
• Fred manages to save her by knocking Gunn out.
• Back to the fight…
• What it really comes down to is that Spike blames Angel for all the horrible things that he has done.
• He says that Drusilla may have sired him, but Angel made him a monster.
• This whole back and forth between these two, disguised as a fist fight… it’s actually kind of brilliant.
• Fred tries to comfort Eve, assuring her that the things Gunn said about believing she’s behind everything were just coming from his being influenced by whatever is going on.
• She just tells Fred that she’s not the bad guy.
• Spike gets the upper hand in the fight and stakes Angel… just not in the heart.
• Angel warns Spike that the cup isn’t a prize… it’s a burden that he’ll have to bear until it burns him to ashes.
• Spike drinks, then drops the cup…
• He says it’s Mountain Dew.
• It was all fake… and the guy who translated the prophecy for them and sent them to Death Valley is long gone.
• But suddenly, out of nowhere, all those affected are back to normal.
• Eve explains that the Senior Partners stepped in and temporarily put things back to normal and, apparently, they’re just as angry about the Mountain Dew fiasco as the good guys are.
• Angel’s having a hard time with the fact that Spike beat him to the cup…
• Doesn’t matter that the cup wasn’t real.
• In the end, Spike wanted it more.
• Gunn tries to tell Angel that it doesn’t mean anything.
• Elsewhere, we finally see where Eve disappears to when her day is over…
• She tells someone off screen that Angel and Spike fell for the cup thing and prophecy guy disappeared right out from under the Senior Partners’ noses.
• She finishes her report and climbs into bed with…
• Lindsey McDonald!
• Dun dun dun!
• Refresher: Lindsey is a former Wolfram & Hart attorney who used to feud with Lilah Morgan over who got to toy with Angel from week to week.
• He did this until he fell in love with the resurrected Darla and had some kind of awakening which turned him against his employers, at which point he left the show near the end of Season 2.
• Now he’s back and he’s tatted up with all kinds of crazy symbols, like he’s been hanging out with the Winchesters (even though this was long before Supernatural was ever a show).
• Body count: Humans – 1