Angel: 5x13 Full Reaction
Added 2025-11-10 16:00:13 +0000 UTC
Comments
Really? I thought it landed well, and it's a subtle enough nod to those events that most reactors don't even pick up on it.
Maia Brodsky
2025-12-01 20:44:07 +0000 UTCYour mission, should you choose to accept it, is to review the actual WWII film of the same title "Why We Fight: (prelude to war)" which was one of six WWII propaganda films put out and delivered to every moviehouse, high school, and community meeting center in the USA, trying to explain why we were going to war in Europe against the Axis powers. We were already at war with Japan, after Pearl Harbor, and the Nazi U-boat submarines and destroyers were sinking our supply ships to England by the hundreds. This movie, while being Gung-Ho USA ALL THE WAY stuff, was important enough to the history of the world to be something every US Citizen should see, and of course for Joss to name his episode for. A lot of episodes of shows have this title, because it is so important to remember this film in particular, and the ones that came after it in the series. There was no TV, nothing national, just Radio, and the movie houses and such. Most copies online are bad quality, I found a good one on YT: Why We Fight: Prelude to War from US National Archives. 52 minutes/. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAsIWfk_z4 If you want to understand what is happening to our country now, this old film hits hard, real hard.
spikeysnack
2025-11-12 23:37:52 +0000 UTCWell, he never said he'd never turned anyone while ensouled before, he said that he didn't know what it would do to Darla, biting her while having a soul. Which to be fair, he probably didn't really know because it seems pretty clear that he never really kept tabs about Lawson and bothered to check in on how he was doing being a vampire for the last 60 years. So Angel was genuinely pretty ignorant regarding the consequences of that siring.
Ariel17
2025-11-11 05:48:28 +0000 UTCYes, they've shown the process of siring vampires before. On Buffy S2, they showed Darla siring Angel (Liam). And in S2 of Angel they showed Drusilla siring human Darla, in front of Angel.
Ariel17
2025-11-11 05:31:06 +0000 UTCI've seen a theory that this episode is a re-purposed story for a planned "Firefly" episode before the show was cancelled. There's absolutely official zero confirmation, but it points out that there's never been any prior references to Angel being involved in WWII at all, and the whole stucture is different than the usual "Angel" (Or even "Buffy") episode. The theory goes that it was supposed to be Mal dealing with an old compatriot from the Unification War coming back for revenge, perhaps having been driven crazy by the Reavers in the meantime (instead of being turned into a vampire). Like I said, NO confirmation, but it's definitely an interesting little theory. There is a minor continuity contradiction introduced in this episode: Back in season two, when Darla was a human dying of a disease and Angel was considering turning her into a vampire again, he said that he'd never turned anyone since gaining his soul. This is easy to ignore since it wasn't really dwelt on back then, but nonetheless it is a contradiction.
JBK405
2025-11-11 05:00:37 +0000 UTCAnd although it's not a one-to-one, Somnambulist was a much better version of the "a young man Angel sired comes back to haunt him" throughline.
Test User
2025-11-11 03:30:35 +0000 UTCinteresting seeing an early version of the Initiative. Fun callback.
Test User
2025-11-11 03:20:28 +0000 UTCI wonder if Lawson's story is supposed to be about people that go to war with good intentions but end up becoming a monster during the war and then suffer from what they did and what happened to them after the war is over.
Captain Hammer
2025-11-11 00:39:55 +0000 UTCThe title Why We Fight is taken from a series of propaganda films made by the U.S, government during World War 2. Shown first to the troops and later to the general public, directed by Frank Capra, they were intended as a response to the notorious Nazi propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl, to show Americans the reasons we were at war. The souled yet missionless Angel of 1943 is a man who believes in nothing, waiting out his unlife until ... what? That, I think, makes Lawson his reflection. Lawson was a man who did believe in something. When he discovered it was all a lie, that the government he was fighting for would send a vampire to do the job, the job finally amounting to turning him into a monster for their purposes, that idealism was destroyed. Why We Fight became a meaningless phrase. He became the Angel we saw at the beginning of the episode, a monster alone without purpose. That's why he can take no pleasure in killing, another interesting manifestation of how, as we have been told before, vampires retain certain aspects of their human personalities. "Give me a mission, chief" he implores Angel, and Angel knows that all that he can give him is death.
DanielOrme
2025-11-11 00:25:42 +0000 UTCThe boxer rebellion was 1899-1901 and he already had a soul when spike killed the slayer so id assume it was exactly 1900
SuccessionLover
2025-11-10 20:56:42 +0000 UTCMy interpretation of this episode is that human Lawson is like Angel in S1-4, a soldier who receives orders from a leader who has the bigger picture. Lawson had Angel (and Angel S1-4 had the visions through Doyle and Cordy from the PTB). But vampire Lawson (and Angel earlier in S5) has felt like he did not have a purpose. So Vampire Lawson showing up to meet CEO Angel, shows how Lawson never found a purpose and maybe allows Angel to reflect on how he felt like he was getting back on track after seeing Cordy last episode. I like this episode, but there is one moment that I don’t think works. Its when Angel says he doesn’t want to be stuck at the bottom of the ocean (happened to him at the end of AngelS3) and Spike says he doesn’t want his [the U.S.] government to experiment on his brain (happened to him in Buffy S4). Those are way too specific and feels too self referential for the tone of the rest of this episode.
James Smith
2025-11-10 20:13:02 +0000 UTCThe Nautilus is the submarine that Captain Nemo captained in the Jules Verne classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas. I love the Prince of Lies; another Buffyverse monster played by Camden Toy, also known as the Gnarl and one of the Gentlemen. Fun to see the start of the Initiative; they name it when they meet Angel, then steal the research from the Nazis much like how America employed Nazi scientists after the war. My interpretation is that Lawson was pretty spot-on: he had enough of a soul to put him in a sort of purgatory, unable to be a man or monster, unable to find satisfaction or purpose in anything. He spends sixty years, checking in on Angel every decade, and maybe the news that Angel was now running Wolfram & Hart pushed him over the edge.
Jorgalorg
2025-11-10 18:08:50 +0000 UTCI think the lore is Angel was turned around 1750, and was cursed with a soul right before 1900
Jason Harrelson
2025-11-10 17:09:12 +0000 UTC
