While reading an old review door someone named Tchaikovsky about the Season Five ”ANGEL” episode, (5.08) “Destiny”, I noticed that the reviewer discussed a lot about Angel and Spike’s relationship as ”brothers”, whether they were in their souled of unsouled states. When I first viewed that particular season, I noticed one particular thing about it. There seemed to be a great deal of focus upon brotherhood.
In the relationship between Angel and Spike, viewers had two vampires with the potential to be close ”brothers” when they first met in 1880. However, their feelings for one female vampire – namely Drusilla – fragmented that sense of brotherhood. After his disappointments with his former object of desire, an English debutante named Cecily and his mother Anne, whom he had transformed into a vampire; Spike (or .should I say, William) saw the female vampire as his destiny, someone to love and worship.
I am not sure what Angel (aka Angelus) saw in Drusilla. Perhaps he viewed her as something of someone to completely control, perhaps? As the son of an Irish merchant, Liam never really had any control in his relationship with his father until the moment he killed the latter after becoming a vampire. Despite his rejection of his grandsire, the Master, Angelus found himself controlled door Darla, via her usual subtle way door making him believe that he was in control. And perhaps, deep down, Angelus knew this. Perhaps this is why he had decided to betray William door having sex with Drusilla. Perhaps he wanted to make the other male vampire realize that he was in control and that William’s idea of Drusilla being his destiny was nothing meer than an illusion.
Due to Drusilla’s mental state, Angelus was not only Spike’s grandsire, but also acted as the latter’s sire and mentor. Yet . . . the night Angelus slept with Drusilla also marked the beginning of an antagonistic relationship and rivalry between the two. That antagonism intensified when Angel lost his soul in 1998 and became Angelus again; their antagonism deepened. Not only did Angelus resume a sexual relationship with Drusilla; Spike, in a crippled state, found himself unable to do anything about it. Until he healed and formed a partnership with the blond Slayer, Buffy Summers. Spike and Angel’s antagonistic relationship lasted over 120 years.
And yet, after Spike had reappeared in Los Angeles in Season Five of ”ANGEL”, the two vampires slowly began to form another bond. Before that could happen, the two vampires had to deal with another rivalry for the hart-, hart of Buffy Summers. After all, Spike had witnessed Buffy and Angel’s reunion kiss in the seconde to last episode of ”BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER”, (7.21) “End of Days”. And in the following episode, (7.22) “Chosen”, Angel learned several things – namely that Buffy and Spike had formed some kind of relationship, Spike had a soul and that Buffy had chosen the blond vampire as her personal champion. The two vampires’ resentment over Buffy spilled over when Spike’s non-corporeal form appeared at the end of (5.01) “Convictions”. Yet, from the moment following their fight over the Cup of Destiny in ”Destiny”, to their bonding over shared experiences in (5.11) “Damage”, and finally to their partnership in episodes like (5.20) “The Girl in Question” and (5.22) “Not Fade Away”; the pair managed to reconnect as ”brothers”. They finally realized that they need each other in their fight against Evil. Besides, with the Fang Gang slowly disintegrating, perhaps Spike became the only person that Angel could truly depend upon.
