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Just Rewards Review by Nemo

Big Summary | Quoteable | 3 W's | Ficcable? | Rating

Big Summary (for anyone who wants to fic, but missed the episode):
Let’s start this episode off with a little bit of Spuffy recapping. Basically, Buffy realized that Spike is a hero about the time he takes out the Sunnydale Hellmouth and gets himself incinerated.

Flash forward to a thoroughly confused Spike and Fang Gang. Harmony’s more than a little irritated that her ex-flame has popped by via that pretty little amulet. Wesley’s both fascinated and worried. Gunn’s ready to stake first and ask questions later. Angel’s getting bristly, and Fred . . . is very confused by everything that’s happening.

Spike decides that the best way to approach this situation is directly, and vamps out, lunging for Angel . . . and through Angel . . . and finds himself standing smack dab in the middle of the desk.

He looks down at his now apparently truncated body and concludes, “Bugger.”

Cut to credits.

When we get back, Spike is thoroughly confused about his apparent lack of solidity (as are discerning viewers, who always ask why ghosts don’t sink through the floor, but oh well, have to allow room for some conventions . . .), but Harmony clears that up by concluding that he’s a ghost. Spike is in denial about that point, but there is definitely some good supporting evidence. Gunn, meanwhile, is more concerned with where Spike came from, and Wesley realizes that Spike must have emerged from the amulet that was sent to them (no return address, of course).

As Angel mentions that it was the amulet he gave Buffy, Spike is hit by the love-bug once more and asks about her rather frantically. Angel says that she’s all right, and in Europe, the last he heard from her. The boys begin to puff up their feathers at one another over the little blonde Slayer, and Harmony is shocked and disgusted as she realizes that Spike and Buffy have, indeed, slept together.

The rest of the Gang is equally shocked, and apparently Angel has left out some crucial details about Spike’s role in his ex’s life. Spike, meanwhile, has gone from confused to irate and demands to know what Angel’s done to him, where he is, who the Gang is, and what the hell is happening?!

Cut to the lab, as Fred waves what looks like a sawed-off gun from the original series of “Star Trek” over Spike, who looks defensive to the extreme. He wonders what she is, and she concludes that she’s Fred, who runs the Wolfram and Hart Science Department. Spike then learns that the Gang owns the evil law firm.

Fred concludes that, although Spike is very similar to a ghost, he’s lacking an ectoplasmic matrix, which would make him able to be seen by the human eye. No explanation as to who he’s so very visible. He does have brain activity, though, as well as a slight radiation of heat. Spike asks Fred if she thinks he’s hot, and she concludes that he’s lukewarm. Ah, Spike, nineteen days away from your eternal lust Buffy and already chasing the first girl you lay your exceptionally undead eyes on? Bad Spike.

Wesley realizes that Spike must be connected to the amulet in some way. He asks Spike if he felt anything when the amulet released its energy. Spike concludes that, aside from his graphically described destruction, no. He didn’t feel a thing.

Angel, rather than worrying about Spike’s welfare, is concerned with how the amulet got to them. After all, last we checked, it was buried in the crater formerly known as Sunnydale. Not much could find it there, or would want to try.

Fred wonders if it might have been sent to them by the Powers, and if Spike has some sort of higher purpose. Spike indignantly demands to know what gave them the right to do that. As he rants that saving the world should have been enough to give him a rest, Spike begins to become more and more transparent. Realizing what’s happening, Spike manages a “Balls” before winking out of existence.

The gang is puzzled, and on more than one account. While Spike’s disappearance is surprising, so is the news that he saved the world. A guilty looking Angel admits that he helped a little, but tells them that Buffy did most of the work.

Spike reappears, with no idea where he went, and concludes that it’s Angel’s fault. It should have been Angel wearing the amulet, and Angel turning into a ghosty thingamabob. He’s furious that this has happened to him. He doesn’t care about atonement. He’s not Angel, just because he has a soul—

And the surprises keep on coming! The gang stares in incredulity at Angel, who tells them that it didn’t seem worth mentioning. Spike is tickled, and decides that “Captain Forehead” is feeling a little less special.

Angel angrily storms out, passing the mail man, who sports a Mexican Wrestling mask. As this hombre passes, Spike emerges from the wall in hot pursuit of the Dark Revenger. Spike starts in on Angel’s new job, stating that while Angel’s trying to fight the evil of the world from inside the bell of the beast, he and his friends are getting digested.

At about that time, a demon, called a Grokslar Beast, exits the elevator, which Angel feels obliged to battle, and ultimately kill. He berates Spike and tells him that he’s now running a company, which means responsibility, and appointments, but, apparently, he just slaughtered his three o’clock. Gunn explains that they were in negotiations with the Grokslar demons to get them to stop eating babies’ heads. Angel realizes what he’s done, but Gunn assures him that Grokslars like someone who takes a strong opening position.

Gunn’s been making personnel cuts, and, apparently, not everyone’s taking the being fired as well as could be expected. Venomous death threats and Gunn-shaped voodoo dolls are suddenly very popular.

Even as they discuss it, in walks yet another unsatisfied customer. The man represents the Internment Acquisitions Department (grave robbing) and protests at the division’s closure, telling Angel and Gunn that they supply bodies for a very powerful client, Magnus Hainsley, who will not be pleased at all.

And he’s a man you don’t want to displease.

Angel decides to send the whining lawyer to go tell Mr. Hainsley that he’ll no longer be getting his shipments through them. After a slight show of The Angry Voice, the terrified man agrees and scurries off. Spike mocks Angel about his delegation, a hint of jealousy creeping in as he decides to leave L. A., most likely to find Buffy.

Cut to a new scene. Angel sits, brooding, as Wes peeks in, seemingly deciding to leave before Angel reveals that he already knows Wesley’s there. Angel is upset because it was supposed to have been him in that amulet, and why would Wolfram and Hart give him the company if they thought it would do that to him. Wesley runs through a few theories, but also wonders if that might just be the point. The Senior Partners might have wanted Spike.

Who appears as they speak. The irate ghost lets both men know that he can’t go past city limits without reappearing in Wolfram and Hart. Wesley realizes that, since the amulet belongs to the firm, Spike is bound to the firm, as well. This doesn’t exactly meet with Spike’s approval, but he’s cut off mid-rant by Harmony, who says that the lawyer they sent to Mr. Hainsley is back. Angel tells her to send him in.

She does. In three buckets.

Angel concludes that it’s a message, and one he’ll respond to personally, even when it’s revealed that Hainsley is a Necromancer. Wesley protests his lack of plan, but Angel blows him off. Gun, on the other hand, Angel listens to as he says that he knows a way to hurt Hainsley.

Angel heads for his motor pool, but finds Spike waiting in the car for him. Angel gives up shaking his own personal ghost, and tells Spike they’re going to see the wizard.

When they reach Hainsley’s mansion, they are led to a show room of bodies, all eerily set up as if at a party. Meanwhile, Hainsley, who is just finishing up installing an ugly black demon into the body of a young woman, tells his butler to kill them, which Jeeves seems more than willing to do.

It’s quickly revealed how their former employee ended up in buckets as the butler makes an impressive display with a butcher’s knife. However, Angel, in an Indiana Jones moment, grabs a tiny spoon from a nearby corpse’s teacup and hurls it through the air and into the butler’s head. The man keels over, apparently dead, and the laconic duo move on.

Spike finally reveals that he thinks it’s completely unfair that Angel gets a firm while he gets “toasted and ghosted”. Angel furiously comes back with the fact that Spike asked for the soul, and it only took him fifteen days of moaning in a basement to get back to normal, while it took Angel a century.

Just as the argument heats up, however, Spike vanishes again.

Angel moves on, knocking out the newly demonified corpse before talking to Hainsley, a small, rotund man, with slightly Vincent Price speech patterns. Angel threatens, but Hainsley, who has power over the dead, hauls him across the floor psychically, telling Angel that he could dust him without a stake. Spike reappears, but really could care less about Angel’s predicament. However, Hainsley concludes that he won’t kill Angel because the Senior Partners would be less than pleased, they have plans for him.

Turns out, Angel has a plan of his own. He calls Gunn, who proceeds to freeze Hainsley’s assets and bank accounts. Five minutes from then, Hainsley’ll have nothing but his house. Ten minutes from then, that’ll go into foreclosure. Hainsley protests, saying that he’ll sue. Angel wishes him luck, considering that they’re his lawyers.

As he saunters out, Hainsley shouts that it isn’t over between them.

Spike begins to mock again, but is promptly winked away, much t Angel’s pleasure. As soon as he leaves, the house, though, Spike reappears. It appears that Hainsley was the one who had made him pull his vanishing act, because the wizard wants Spike to help him hurt Angel in return for a body. Spike concludes that Hainsley’s come to the right ghost.

When Angel gets back, he’s less concerned with Hainsley, however, and more concerned with getting rid of Casper the Annoying Ghost. Wesley explains that his entire department has been researching the amulet, and there’s not much. They can’t get rid of Spike in the conventional sense, but they can give him what he asked for: rest. They can smash the amulet on hallowed ground to release Spike from it and send him off to wherever he’s supposed to go.

Angel, suddenly understanding the enormity of this decision, decides to sleep on it.

However, he doesn’t get to sleep much, because Spike appears in his bedroom, having listened in on the meeting. After some feeble mocking, and the revelation that Hainsley tried to make a deal with Spike, he tells Angel that he can’t live like he is: unable to affect anything. If smashing the amulet is the only way to free him, then he’s up for it.

So, they go to a graveyard, where Angel prepares to send Spike to the great beyond. He picks up an urn to do the deed . . . but hits himself instead. Then, he rises into the air and Hainsley hurls him into a mausoleum. Spike demands that the necromancer remember to give him what he asked for, and Hainsley promises him his reward, since Spike is the lynch-pin of his plan.

Angel awakens on Hainsley’s table, and it’s revealed that Hainsley will install Spike in Angel’s body, sending our hero’s soul to the great beyond. Spike mwahahahas some before getting down to business. Hainsley starts the process and Spike dissolves into the necromancer . . . but doesn’t emerge on the other side. Hainsley staggers and Angel is on his feet. There is a progressively physical battle, and Angel finally beheads Hainsley’ revealing Spike’s head and body as the corpse collapses. Spike and Angel’s plan worked perfectly.

Back at Wolfram and Hart, Wesley is put out that he wasn’t included in the plan, and Angel explains that Spike isn’t exactly a sharer. As this goes on, Fred walks into her office to find Spike, who reveals that he’s slipping. He’s being pulled into hell, and he needs her help.

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Quotable Wes (and a few others):
(Re: the amulet)
Wesley: Do you have any memory of a strange sensation when it released its energy?
Spike: What? You mean my skin and muscle burning from the bone? Organs exploding in my chest? Eyeballs melting in their sockets? No. No memory at all. Thanks for asking.

Angel: I’m in a meeting, Spike.
Spike: Oh, I’m sorry . . . I didn’t care.

Angel: What are the Senior Partners playing at?
Wesley: Maybe there’s dissent in their ranks. Or, maybe there’s another player in the game that they and we don’t know anything about. . . . Then again maybe they got exactly what they were after.

Angel: I’m from Wolfram and Hart.
Spike: I’m his date.

(Re: Angel’s defeat of the butler)
Spike: A spoon?! That’s just— (the butler jerks the spoon from his head) Well, okay, that’s more— (The butler keels over) Disappointing, really.

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The 3 W’s:
Weapons:
Not much to say here. We’ve really got only two:

The spoon: Yep, that is a weapon, now, though not much of one (honestly, you’re telling me that a sugar spoon can kill a man? If it buried farther, I’d believe it, but this was disappointing. I mean, it would have barely breached his skull at the depth it hit. Some brain damage, sure, but death that fast? Not so much, I’m thinking. . ,)

Necromancy: Definitely some badass mojo being worked there, and I’m almost sad I didn’t see more. I mean, honestly, the episode that introduces necromancy has *no* flesh-eating zombies? Sigh. Wear:
Fred: Fred is in full-out stereotypical geek apparel, plus some nice ankle boots, though I would get a longer skirt next time, because, ladies and gents, our girl looked a bit like a flasher with just that lab coat visible.

Gunn: Gunn still looks great, however! Definitely an improvement. Those suits make me want to go out and buy one, but my budget doesn’t allow for Armani. More’s the pity.

Wesley: well, he seems to have overhauled his wardrobe and labeled it “drab”. I find myself longing for season two, when Wesley could be seen at times without a hint of brown and colors that didn’t look like they needed to be washed. Come on, now! The man has great eyes, but nothing’s helping that color in his wardrobe!

Wesley:
Once again, little to say. Wes was pretty much exposition guy throughout most of this episode. That, and guy who gets shut down by Angel. Damn, but that vamp is falling back on old habits! You have friends, champ, but you’ve got to trust them!

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So, is the episode ficcable?:
High on the Angst vibe, kiddies! Wes is ignored and not informed about anything throughout the entirety of this episode. Maybe an isolation fic, and stand-alones would work well, but if you want to throw anyone else in the mix, there will be anger and pain.

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Episode rating:
(“That’s an Angel? It looks like a lobster with some sort of . . . growth.)
2 lobsters out of 5

A *severe* lack of Wesley knocks this one down, as well as some cut corners I didn’t like. High on the concept, but a little lacking in execution. Also, I’m not liking the vibe I’m getting about the return of Town-Bicycle Fred. Why is everyone trying to get in that girl’s ass-tight pants?! I mean, she’s cut enough, but Plot-Bunny Fred grates on me. Still, I do give the episode two points because, despite its failings, it made me laugh.

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