Angel/Just Rewards (2)

Just Rewards
Season 5, Episode 2
Airdate	October 8, 2003
Production Number	5ADH02
Teleplay by	David Fury & Ben Edlund
Story by	David Fury
Directed by	James A. Contner
← 5x01 Conviction (1)	5x03 → Unleashed
Angel — Season Five

Just Rewards is the second episode of the fifth season of Angel, and the ninetieth episode overall. Spike returns to the mortal plane in order to antagonize Angel until the end of time. Can Angel find a way to return Spike's corporeal body, or is he cursed to be stuck with him forever?

David Boreanaz (Angel), James Marsters (Spike), J. August Richards (Charles Gunn), Amy Acker (Winifred "Fred" Burkle), Andy Hallett (Lorne)

and Alexis Denisof (Wesley Wyndam-Pryce)

Guest Starring: Mercedes McNab (Harmony Kendall), Victor Raider-Wexler (Magnus Hainsley)

Co-Starring: William Utay (Manservant), Bill Escudier (Hainsley Demon), Joshua Hutchinson (Novac)

Plot Overview

Everyone is thrown off by the sudden appearance of Spike. Incorporeal, Spike is tethered to Wolfram & Hart and annoys Angel, as he tries to cut off the supply of bodies to a necromancer.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Magnus Hainsley: Hainsley is an immensely powerful necromancer whose main practice involves putting the essence of a demon inside a dead body. He has complete and total control over the dead, including corpses and vampires. After Angel froze his assets, he attempted to install Spike into Angel's body. However, this was just a ruse so that Spike could take control of his body, allowing Angel to kill him.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Demon	Angel	Snapped Neck	Wolfram & Hart
2	Butler	Angel	Spoon Lodged in Face	Hainsley's Home
3	Hainsley	Angel	Broken Neck & Decapitated	Hainsley's Home

Music

There is no licensed music in this episode.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Angel's been in contact with Buffy since the collapse of Sunnydale and knows she's in Europe.

Characters

• Spike: Spike may be back in this plane of reality, but he's non-corporeal. He isn't exactly a ghost, but does have most of the common physical properties of a ghost. Spike is also bound to Los Angeles due to the amulet being under the control of Wolfram & Hart. He also occasionally fades away and later confesses to Fred that he's being pulled into Hell and asks for her help.

Referbacks

• BtVS - 7x22 - Chosen: The clip in the teaser of this episode in which Spike is killing vampires using an amulet is directly from the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's also, incidentally, the last time Buffy will be seen in the series.

Trivia

The Show

• Meta-Reference: Angel killing Hainsley's butler with a spoon is likely a reference to The Tick, a comic book character created by episode writer Ben Edlund. The Tick's battle cry is "Spoon!"

Behind the Scenes

• Ratings: On its first airing, this episode scored a 4.7/7 in the overnight Nielsen ratings. The episode was watched by an average of 5.2 million viewers.

Allusions and References

• Casper: Casper the Friendly Ghost is a cartoon ghost created for Paramount Pictures in the 1940s. He enjoyed relative success in short animated films until the studio sold the rights to the character were sold in the 1950s. The old cartoons were later syndicated on television under the name of The New Casper Cartoon Show.

Angel: You're not in the world... Casper.

• Patrick Swayze: Patrick Swayze played Sam Wheat in the movie Ghost. In the movie, Wheat was murdered in an alley but is trapped between dimensions as a ghost. He must find a way to warn his widowed wife of the danger she faces before he can ascend to heaven.

Harmony: Why should now be any diff, just 'cause you've gone all Patrick Swayze?

Quotes

• Spike: What's happened to me?

Harmony: Well, I'm no doctor, but I think you're a ghost.

Spike: I'm no - I'm no bloody ghost.

Harmony: Hey, you're the one sticking out of a desk, pal.

• Spike: I must be in Hell.

Lorne: Uh, no. L.A., but a lot of people make that mistake.

• Lorne: Honey of a story.

Wesley: Story?

Lorne: Yeah, the vampire slayer both men loved, both men lost. Oh, I could sell that to any studio in a heartbeat. I see Depp and Bloom. But then I see them a lot. Sorry. Hazard of running the entertainment division. Gotta get out more.

• Fred: Ectoplasm's what makes ghosts visible to the human eye. If he's a ghost, technically, we shouldn't be able to see him. And I'm detecting brainwave activity.

Angel: On Spike? That is weird.

• Fred: Spike's radiating heat.

Spike: Think I'm hot, do you?

Fred: Hmm. Lukewarm. Just above room temperature.

• Wesley: Do you have any memory of a strange sensation when it released it's energy?

Spike: What, you mean my skin and muscle burning away from the bone? Organs exploding in my chest? Eyeballs melting in their sockets? No. No memory at all. Thanks for asking.

• Spike: Just because I got me a soul doesn't mean I'm gonna let myself be led around by--

Fred: Excuse me?

Wesley: Did - Did you just say... Spike has a soul? You never said.

Angel: Didn't seem worth mentioning.

Gunn: Seems to be a lot of that.

Spike: Or maybe Captain Forehead was feeling a little less special. Didn't like me crashing his exclusive club — another vampire with a soul in the world.

Angel: You're not in the world... Casper.

• Angel: I'm in a meeting, Spike.

Spike: Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't care.

• Angel: Out of my chair!

Spike: Make me.

• Spike: I bet you're loving this, aren't you?

Angel: Knowing you'll be haunting me 'til the end of time. Hmm. It's a dream come true.

• Angel: I'm from Wolfram & Hart.

Spike: I'm his date.

• Spike: You're king of a 30-floor castle, with all the cars, comfort, power, and glory you could ever want, and here I save the world, throw myself onto the proverbial hand grenade for love, honour, and all the right reasons, and what do I get? Bloody well toasted and ghosted is what I get, isn't it? It's not fair.

Angel: Fair? You asked for a soul; I didn't! It almost killed me. I spent a hundred years trying to come to terms with infinite remorse. You spent 3 weeks moaning in a basement, and then you were fine. What's fair about that?!

• Hainsley: You think you can get away with that? I'll sue you to Hell!

Angel: Good luck. We're your lawyers.

• Spike: I'm slipping.

Fred: What?

Spike: I don't want to go. But it's like... it's like the ground underneath me is splitting open and my legs are straddling both sides of this bloody big chasm. It's getting wider. Pulling me in.

Fred: Is that... is that what's happening when you keep vanishing?

Spike: I know what's down there, where it's trying to take me. And it's not the place heroes go. Not by a bloody long shot. It's the other one. Full of fire and torment. And it's happening. And I'm terrified. Help me?