Angel/Hell Bound

Hell Bound
Season 5, Episode 4
Airdate	October 22, 2003
Production Number	5ADH04
Written by	Steven S. DeKnight
Directed by	Steven S. DeKnight
← 5x03 Unleashed	5x05 → Life of the Party
Angel — Season Five

Hell Bound is the fourth episode of the fifth season of Angel, and the ninety-second episode overall. Fred is losing sleep because she is working all hours trying to find a way to bring Spike back into this dimension. Spike, on the other hand, finds himself increasingly on the other side; slipping into the hell dimension.

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: Sarah Thompson (Eve), Simon Templeman (Pavayne), Dorie Barton (Psychic)

Co-Starring: Willow Geer (Glass Woman), Peter Kanetis (Lawyer #1), Judson Pearce Morgan (Bloody Lawyer), Elliott Grey (Hanging Man), Allison Barcott (Armless Woman)

Plot Overview

Spike continues to spend more time in the disappeared state and Fred is working overtime trying to figure out what is going on. Spike soon finds that while he is drifting closer towards hell, it is a former serial killer who is pushing him there at this rate. This serial killer, known as the reaper, has been cheating hell by throwing spirits into hell in his place for centuries.

Meanwhile Fred thinks she has figured out a way to make Spike corporeal. Angel and Gunn have to visit the white room and speak with the "big cat" in order to extract some dark matter for the device. When the reaper grabs Fred, Spike must make a choice and chooses to push the reaper into the device. The machine is destroyed and it looks like Spike is stuck in between dimensions for the time being. Angel gives the reaper a just punishment; eternity spent in the Wolfram & Hart basement restrained from movement.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• The Reaper: Matthias Pavayne was a serial killer in 18th century. Although he was an aristocrat in England, he often used his power to perform unnecessary surgery on unwilling people until word spread and he was forced to flee to California. There, he continued his practices until he was killed by Wolfram & Hart to deconsecrate the land to build their branch of the firm in what would become Los Angeles. He managed to escape travel to hell by feeding other souls to the abyss, but is eventually given a physical body again. Angel has him locked in the basement of the firm, never to be seen again.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Mystic	Reaper	Aneurysm	Board Room

Music

There is no licensed music in this episode.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Wolfram & Hart: The Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart was built on the deconsecrated grounds of a Spanish mission. When they were first setting up shop, they used the blood of a mass murderer to remove the godliness that formerly inhabited the area.

Characters

• Spike: His constantly fading in and out was due to Pavayne trying to takes his place in Hell. With Pavayne corporeal and out of commission, Spike will now longer be slipping away. He also learned how to touch and affect objects as long as he wants it enough.

Referbacks

• 3x01 - Heartthrob: After she was rescued from Pylea by Angel, Fred didn't regain her sanity and ability to live a normal life until several months after returning. One hallmark of her craziness was that she scrawled all over the walls to make everything "click" again.

Fred: I just ran out of white board. I'm not crazy. Again.

Trivia

The Show

• Disclaimer: The advertisements for this episode had a warning about "graphic and disturbing violent images and partial nudity."

Allusions and References

• Crosby, Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills and Nash is a folk/rock supergroup featuring David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. The band was deeply entrenched in 1960s counterculture and were one of the few American bands to rival the popularity of the Beatles during the 1960s and 1970s.

Spike: You and me, together again. Hope and Crosby. Stills and Nash.

• Scanners: Scanners is a science-fiction horror film directed by David Cronenberg in 1981. In the movie, the Scanners are a group of people with telepathic and telekinetic abilities. In one scene of the film, a renegade scanner causes another's head to explode in graphic detail.

Gunn: I know they used to call Spike "William the Bloody," but why would he go all Scanners on her?

Quotes

• Fred: You're more than a common spectral disturbance. I've never seen anything like you.

Spike: I bet you say that to all the spirits.

• Fred: He just saved the world, vampire with a soul, fighting for the good of humanity. Ring anything? He's just like you, a champion.

Angel: God, I really hate that word.

• Spike: Never a fetching mad scientist about when you need one.

• Spike: Vampire ghost here, you sod. I bloody well invented "afraid of the dark."

• Spike: You and me, together again. Hope and Crosby. Stills and Nash. Chico and the-–

Angel: Yeah, are we done?

Spike: Never much for small talk, were you? Always too busy trying to perfect that brooding block-of-wood mystique. God, I love that.

Angel: Not as much as I loved your non-stop yammering.

Spike: The way you always had to be the big swingy, swaggerin' around, barkin' orders.

Angel: Never listening.

Spike: Always interrupting.

Angel: And your hair, what colour do they call that? Radioactive?

Spike: Never much cared for you, Liam, even when we were evil.

Angel: Cared for you less.

Spike: Fine.

Angel: Good.

(long pause)

Angel: There was one thing about you.

Spike: Really?

Angel: Yeah, I never told anybody about this, but I – I liked your poems.

Spike: You like Barry Manilow.

• Spike: Is this the part where I say, "Who's there?" and something creepy happens?

• Wesley: Angel does have a point. Spike has been unintentionally disapparating more and more frequently.

Gunn: Give him 20 minutes. He'll be popping up next to you in the bathroom, making cracks about your... Am I the only one he does that to?

• Fred:: You don't know what Spike's dealing with, where he goes when he disappears. He told me. It's Hell. (dramatic close-up) He's slipping into hell.

Gunn: Kinda figured.

Wesley: Of course.

Gunn: Where else would he be headed?

• Psychic: Okay, clear your minds, which, judging by the looks of you, won't be that hard.

• Fred: Should we hold hands?

Psychic: Only if you're lonely.

• Gunn: Got it. The Dark Soul.

Angel: What's it say?

Gunn: A lot. There are over thirty-two hundred different references. Four of them are about you.

• Spike: You're right. I do deserve to go to Hell. But not today.

Pavayne: You dare!

Spike: Quite a bit, mate. Reality bends to desire. That was it, right? That's why I could touch Fred, write your name in the glass. All I had to do was want it bad enough. And guess what I want to do now, you prissy son of a bitch!

• Pavayne: Defilers! I'll cut you into nothing! I'll feast on your brains! I'll swim in lakes of your own blood!

(Angel punches Pavayne)

Angel: You'll shut the hell up.

• Spike: I'm not gonna end up like Pavayne, cheating Hell any way he could, no matter who it hurt.

Fred: Just proves what I've been telling everybody.

Spike: That I'm a handsome devil who brightens the place up?

Fred: That you're worth saving.

• Eve: If there's anything Wolfram & Hart excels at, it's keeping their unmentionables unmentioned.