Triangle

[Drew]

Angel - Grace - Spike

The triangle this season.

Grace has a mission - a purpose. But she needs help with this mission.

The question is - who is the chosen one? Angel or Spike? Or both?

In ep. 5, we will meet Grace. She will think Spike is the vampire with a soul that she is looking for. Then...

OPTION 1:

At the end of the ep, she meets Angel, and realizes, "oh, this is the guy, not Spike." And Spike will feel like he is living in Angel's shadow. After this, Angel will become somewhat close to Grace - as close as anyone could come to a shell-shocked (correction - there's the title for ep. 9!) goddess. It will essentially be a love-story between them, in a strange way. She'll essentially be the stand-in for Cordy. She's seen Angel through Cordy's eyes. She's kissed Angel through Cordy (the W&H vision).
And Spike will either be driven away from Angel or he'll just accept it (possibly in ep. 6). Or more accurately, he won't care for a while because Grace kinda just comes off as a nut in ep. 5.
And Angel will help Grace on her mission. He'll still have time to go into his funk because he won't know what Grace's deal is for a long time - he won't know that he's saving the world.

OPTION 2:

At the end of the ep, Grace still has chosen Spike, and this sends Angel into his funk. Then eventually, she chooses Angel or both.

Alright, I'm gonna stop with the options method and just say that I think Option 1 is better. Option 2 just sorta says, "Oh, we only delayed Grace choosing Angel so he could go through a funk and Spike could end up doing something bad as a result of being rejected - Plot purposes mainly."

But wouldn't it be interesting if Spike was the one finally chosen for Grace's mission and Angel was not. Sure, the show's called Angel. But what if Angel's time for being the champion is over. In the end, Spike would bring about the Good Apocalypse, and Angel would play an integral part in another part of the story. We would still put the highlight on Angel, but Spike would do the big, big stuff. Angel's part would be subtler, but hopefully more powerful for the reader.

I don't know if we should do that or even if we could do that in this season. It definitely would be interesting though and surprising. Might be along the lines of "giving the audience what they need and now what they want."

[Joss]

I would also go with option one. I think the other one might be drawing out something that the audience might see coming from miles away.

I think that maybe during his rut Grace and her mission might be the only thing that Angel cares pasionatley about. She's kind of like a release from an ever non-chaning life that is driving him out of his mind. Grace could be one thing that he really gives a crap about anymore.

Or not-- maybe that won't work in the long run.

As for Spike being the real hero in the end, that is tricky. It could be cool, but we need to maintain our focus on Angel. It would work out good, but Angel needs to still have something big to do, even if the key is Spike.

[Drew]

Joss said:

I think that maybe during his rut Grace and her mission might be the only thing that Angel cares pasionatley about. She's kind of like a release from an ever non-chaning life that is driving him out of his mind. Grace could be one thing that he really gives a crap about anymore.

Yeah, this is the trickiest part of Option 1 - weighing Angel's rut against the fact that Grace needs him for a mission.

I'm not sure Angel should care too passionately about Grace's mission. That might make it too easy. It's like he's already all gung ho for the good side and doing a half-assed job for the wrong side (Tobit). If anything, he should be passionate about doing Tobit's work and not give a crap about Grace.

But I don't think he should do that either.

I think he should just be in a bad mood all around. Grace will, after all, be really scatterbrained. The end of ep. 5 is in no way going to convince Angel to hop aboard and help this old woman. He'll definitely feel something's wrong with her and she may be "important" or whatever, but he'll be really skeptical about her. She'll have to convince him somehow. And she'll have to keep popping up. She'll come to him at first.

But Angel's rut should be all about going through the motions of atonement. Fighting the good fight - no questions asked. That'll play into Tobit's hand very nicely. So no passion at the Shelter.

Question is, what will Grace do to convince Angel she's the real deal. Maybe that's a question for Grace's Plan/Good Apocalypse. Man, that thread's getting long.

[Inyan]

Does she have to choose either of them so soon?

[Drew]

No, she doesn't have to choose so soon. i think by the end of ep. 5, she will probably know she wants Angel, but won't exactly say it in any way that will make Angel trust her. Both he and Spike will just kind of think she's a nut.

And I vote that you get rid of that purple dancing thing. Honestly, I'm gonna have nightmares.

[angelicslayer]

the dancing hippo is a little creepy,but funny at the same time. i like option 1 a lot better than option 2 because it sounds a lot better and i mean the show is called angel and it should mainly about angel, so it wouldn't sound right if grace chose espike instead of angel.

[LizaP]

My two cents ...

Spike has always been a more moral, less evil vampire than Angel and therefore has less to atone for. Spike earned his soul, Angel was cursed. It stands to reason that Grace would originally think Spike is the champion, but after she realizes that Angel has done more good with his soul than Spike has, and that Angel's struggle for redemption has been much harder than Spike's (if indeed Spike is struggling at all), Grace goes with Angel, but still need Spike. There is something about Spike, who is after all brutally honest and still more self-accepting than Angel, that makes him absolutely necessary to Grace. The three of them need each other, but only Grace knows why.

I haven't figured out why Grace needs them both; maybe because they are both sides of the coin that buys Grace's victory, but she doesn't need one more than the other, she just needs them in order - first Spike, then Angel.