Here's a couple of articles about today's (11/19/03) episode. It sounds like a real don't-miss! (I haven't concealed the minor spoilers . . . so don't read if you want to know nothing!)
A Matt Roush dispatch from TV Guide Online:
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November 19, 2003
Angel's sweeps month ends tonight on a thrilling note, as the rivalry between those vampires with soul,
Angel (
David Boreanaz) and
Spike (
James Marsters), reaches a new fever pitch in a wildly entertaining episode titled "Destiny."
I've been enjoying the "revamped" (so to speak) Angel this season, but have grown tired of waiting for Spike to get fully back in the spirit of things. Lurking around the premises, taunting Angel and his team as a spectral ghost, only goes so far.
<!--SPOILER BEGIN--><div onClick="openClose('c787f5cc5e3c728e23eb20645a37152d')" style="font-weight: bold">Click For Spoiler</div><div id="c787f5cc5e3c728e23eb20645a37152d" style="display:none"><!--SPOILER END-->So it's not only wonderful for that particular obstacle to be eradicated in the episode's opening scene — "He's a solid citizen again," declares
Gunn — but Spike's transformation sets up<!--SPOILER DIV--></div><!--SPOILER DIV--> . . . a new conflict with Angel that should carry them, and us, through the rest of the season with plenty of merry mayhem.
This episode, written by David Fury and Steven S. DeKnight, is jam-packed with violent clashes, surprising twists and fang-sharp wit. Adding to the fun, we get to revisit, in colorful flashbacks, the early days of the vamps' centuries-long association with each other, when Spike was merely known as William and Angel was the demonic Angelis. As we watch them clash over
Drusilla (the wonderful
Juliet Landau), the eternally dazed vamp who sired Spike, the seeds of their hostility fester into a bloody battle in the present. The victor, legend has it, will get to sip from a mystical chalice known as the Cup of Perpetual Torment and fulfill the prophecy that can only apply to one CVS (Champion Vampire with Soul).
From startling start to shocking finish, this episode ranks with the best of
Buffy. I haven't found myself saying that in a while.
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And, from zap2it, a chat with Juliet Landau:
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LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - In "Destiny," the Wednesday, Nov. 19, episode of The WB's "Angel," the love story of Spike and Drusilla (James Marsters, Juliet Landau) continues ... more or less.
Introduced in season two of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as the "Sid and Nancy" of the vampire set, the British bloodsuckers' saga has been played out in present-day episodes and flashbacks ever since, both on "Buffy" and its spin-off, "Angel," now in its fifth season.
In the current version of the tale, Angelus (David Boreanaz) -- the name the good-guy vampire Angel goes by when he doesn't have a soul, and is therefore very, very bad -- drove innocent Cockney girl Drusilla mad and then turned her into a vampire. She then turned lovelorn Victorian poet William (Marsters) into a vampire just because he caught her eye on a London street.
This twisted lineage is also a romantic triangle, and that angle gets fleshed out, so to speak, in "Destiny." On top of their competition for Dru, Spike and Angel also shared the affections of the slayer Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar). This has not made for a harmonious situation since Spike has been forced to join Angel and his evil-battling team.
"We've had the Spike-Angel-Dru triangle," Landau says, "and we've had the Spike-Angel-Buffy triangle."
"Destiny" heads back in time to show what happened the first time the two vampires (both of whom now have souls) fought over a woman.
"It's always fun to visit London 1880," Landau says. "I have some different wardrobe that's really gorgeous. I'm always excited to go back and work, and this is a particularly fun episode, because I'm back with the boys."
Is Dru being a bad girl again? "Well, you know," Landau says, "you'll have to see. It's not exactly like that. There's the vampire rules and all that, but Spike touches me in a different way, so it's kind of nice ... figuratively," she hastily adds.
"That's the part that's so fun about the role. There are so many different colors and dimensions. Even though we are the villains ad we are evil, there always has been this very sweet love story between us."
Although she's appeared in flashbacks and as one of the guises of the incorporeal First Evil on "Buffy," Drusilla's last appearance in present day was in a February 2001 episode of "Buffy" called "Crush."
After being set on fire and driven out of Los Angeles on "Angel," Dru headed back to Sunnydale in hopes of rekindling old embers with Spike.
"I see he's too far gone on Buffy," Landau says, "and I leave. I haven't reappeared anywhere, so I'm obviously somewhere else at the moment, still undead and kicking."
Which means she could return. "They have actually talked about it," Landau says, "but I don't know of any concrete thing. It is definitely a possibility. It would be fun."
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