AtS Season 5 Question

[shipperx]

It's a question that came up for me when working on my WIP. I even went back and re-watched "You're Welcome" to see whether I had forgotten something, but the answer isn't in "You're Welcome."

Exactly why was Lindsey doing what he was doing in Season 5 AtS? In "You're Welcome"s big Angel/Lindsey fight scene he says he was pissed that Angel was handed everything that Lindsey had worked for... except... huh?

In the evil hand episode, Lindsey was given the job of head of the L.A. Branch. He turned it down and said to give it to Lilah instead.

So he's back in AtS 5 pissed because... Angel got the job? Huh?

I know that Lindsey long had a chip on his shoulder regarding Angel. And I know that there was also the issue of Darla (not that it was mentioned in AtS 5). But it just feels to me that Lindsey's motives and goal weren't well developed or identified in AtS 5.

This isn't really an issue in my WIP, other than it might be nice to know. Angel doesn't even appear in this story, and I know what Lindsey's motivation is within the context of my own story. But it does have me pondering Lindsey's Season 5 purpose. He went to a lot of trouble (including resurrecting Spike). But why and what he hoped to gain wasn't particularly well defined... at least from what I remember... and other than 'to piss off Angel.'

Am I forgetting something?

Comments

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

As far as I was ever able to tell, that was the only reason we were given for what he was doing... and it has never, ever made any sense to me.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

I really shouldn't be surprised that Joss and co. thought of what would be 'cool' to them as opposed to how to make sense of it within the story or bother to explain why this character would do this...

[elsaf]

I never saw any good reason for what Lindsey was doing. I figure the real motivation was an actor's availability at a time when they were struggling for ratings.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

You're probably right, but Hrphf! I'm displeased.

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

No, it never made any sense to me, either. I hated what they did to Lindsey's character in AtS S5. He had a nicely resolved character arc when he left the show originally, and despite how happy I was to see him again (and how hot he looked in those tattoos), I hated that he apparently just came back for some stupid, petty jealousy/revenge thing.

[usedtobeljs]

cindergal speaks for me here on every point. :-)

(Also, Joss has Angel say Lindsey's a "tiny Texan." He's from Oklahoma, damnit!)

(Edited for appropriate icon.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I admit to a love of filling in blanks. It's rather tempting to flesh out that part of the story.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Seriously, would a little thought given to Lindsey's motivation have been too much to ask?

[killerweasel.livejournal.com]

I don't think they ever bothered explaining why he was there. You could make up whatever you want. :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, I was intending to anyway, but it irks me that the show never bothered to.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

That never made sense to me either, he parted with Angel on fairly good terms. Angel even played a prank on him with the "Cops suck" sign

I really didn't care for his characterisation in season 5, it didn't make any sense with him leaving L.A to get back to his roots. If anything it would have been more interesting if he had come back more or less reformed, and was interested in helping Angel get out of working for W&H, as Lindsey knew all about how that firm can screw up your morality and Angel once tried to do the same for him. That would have been a decent way of bringing everything full circle

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

You know, since Joss didn't bother to give Lilndsey a motivation, I may actually use a variation of this one. That, plus pissing Angel off. :)

[kittyb90.livejournal.com]

Well, he tells Eve that Angel has everything he worked for, but when he is actually fighting Angel he talks about how Angel sold his soul by taking over Wolfram and Hart. My take is that, he left W&H to become one of the good guys, and now Angel, his big enemy, but also one of the good guys, is doing the job Lindsey gave up. He comes back to kill Angel which is good in his mind for two reasons: 1)He always hated him and 2)Angel has "sold his soul" and gone over to the dark side.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I could live with a bit of this fanwank.

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

They never really explained Lindsey's motivations in season 5; I think in one of the commentaries David Greenwalt said that Lindsey left to go find himself and what he found was that he really hated Angel. CK himself said on one of the commentaries that he didn't know what his character was doing most of the time. So I think the writers concieved an idea and went with it; writing as they went along. Which pretty much leaves us to fanwank Lindsey's motivations for his actions ourselves.

My take on it is that Lindsey was mightily pissed off when he found out that Angel had accepted the position of CEO of Wolfram & Hart, given that Angel had mocked him because (and I quote from the episode 'Blind Date') "you sold your soul for a fifth-floor office and a company car." So, yeah, that would piss Lindsey off. Mightily. Do I think it was enough for Lindsey to concieve the plan to bring Spike back to undermine Angel? Possibly.

Here's where I have the problem: Lindsey didn't give a fuck about the Senior Partner's plans for Angel when he *worked there*. He'd have happily seen Angel dead and danced on his pile of dust without a care in the world. So do I think he came back to try to get into the Circle of the Black Thorn? Hell no. That contradicts every bit of Lindsey's journey in season 2.

And don't even get me started on the massively huge error in continuity concerning magic that occured in the episode "You're Welcome".

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

mightily pissed off when he found out that Angel had accepted the position of CEO of Wolfram & Hart, given that Angel had mocked him because (and I quote from the episode 'Blind Date') "you sold your soul for a fifth-floor office and a company car." So, yeah, that would piss Lindsey off. Mightily

Don't know that this would cover everything, but I could definitely see Lindsey feeling that way.

*edited because apparently I had a bout with posting dyslexia.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

I agree with the observations of contradictory and missing motives noted by everyone here.

It was never really clear how much Lindsey had to do with Spike's reappearance beyond setting him up with a mission and an apartment, either. Various theories were advanced and stories told but none of them were entirely consistent.

In NFA I remember that Lindsey seemed to be mostly interested in being a part of the drama. That's the reason he agrees to work with Angel; something big is happening and he just wants to be part of it. At the end he complains that Krevlorneswath is just "a flunky" and demands that Angel kill him personally. So maybe he is just in it for the drama.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

I just realized that both Spike's and Lindsey's arcs in AtS S5 that keep them in L.A. with Angel are missing motives and unexplained. Beyond that, Gunn, Wesley, and Winifred are there by mystical brainwashing. The only major characters in the whole year who have any kind of real connection to the story justified by their own background and arc are Harmony and Angelus.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Joss was getting into practice for really ignoring character continuity and story sense for 'writing' S8?

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

LOL!

Good one.

[elisi]

I like the_royal_anna take on it (from her review of 'Power Play'):

Lorne says that power corrupts, but it’s more complicated than that. It's certainly a double-edged sword. Lindsey turned down power when he was offered it, and came back seeking more. Under the thumb of Wolfram and Hart, his greatest power was the power to turn down power, but he tried that, and it seems it wasn't enough.

(Might be back with more thoughts later, but must run now...)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I guess I can see how that could be a factor. Doesn't seem quite adequate to cover everything Lindsey did.

[shapinglight]

It never made any sense to me either. I think peasant_ wrote some meta on it once, but that didn't convince me either.

I just get annoyed that Spike's resurrection is nothing to do with him, but all because Lindsey was ticked off with Angel.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yes. The fact that Spike was basically resurrected purely to irritate Angel never sat well with me.

[rahirah]

No, you're right, it made absolutely no sense whatsoever. They wanted Lindsey back and didn't bother to come up with a reason why.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Grr! I want even the bad guys to have actual motivations. And I definitely want someone gray (which is what I considered Lindsey to be) to have motivations. I want to understand at the very least.

At any rate, I think this sort of changes the scene I'm currently writing. I'm developing a fanwank, and it's going to have to be incorporated into the character.

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

You're forgetting the fact that Joss sucks at continuity and especially continuity in conjunction with character development.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, I wouldn't say 'forgot' exactly. But it still dumbfounds me from time to time when I'm confronted with it.

[deborahc.livejournal.com]

As far as I could tell (and I've not read any of the other comments yet), the AtS 5 writers didn't let a little thing like character and story integrity and continuity get in the way of the splash they could make by bringing him back the way they wanted him, that is, in the state of mind that predated his LA departure in S3. He was pretty, charismatic, and popular with the fans, so they spun a story line together for that held together only if you squinted and didn't put any weight on it.

Correction

[deborahc.livejournal.com]

....Lindsey's departure in S2, I meant.

[ladypeyton.livejournal.com]

I always kind of assumed it was an "I didn't want it but I don't want you to have it either because I hate you" situation stemming from jealousy about the Darla thing.

F'rinstance, if WR&H was a lollipop, Lindsay would have licked it all over and put it back.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I definitely think that Lindsey resented the Darla situation.

Actually the reason that Lindsey ever made it into my story when I was searching around for canon characters to pull into it is that I found Lindsey to be a good nemesis (not villain per se, just nemesis) because he and Spike share certain issues. They both have competitive relationships with Angel. They both felt they've lost women to Angel. They both resent Angel's position of TPTB chosen 'specialness,' so I liked playing Lindsey and Spike against and with one another. I've found Lindsey to be a very helpful character because he can point out not-so-nice things to Spike that no one else does. He can express frustrations with Angel that Spike can't really articulate because Spike's feelings are intertwined with a fair bit of 'family' loyalty to Angel (so he's often 'I can insult the poofter, but you're not allowed to!' mode.) He can tell Buffy some of Angel secrets that Spike really isn't allowed to.

Lindsey has proven to be both fun and useful, thus far. He also makes a good source for mystical exposition since I'm not using Wesley and because Giles is only used in Buffy flashbacks.

[mrs-underhill.livejournal.com]

OK, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out Lindsey's motivations when I rewatched Angel-5 2 years ago.

Yes, I know they just threw him in to be there and to dramatically kill him in the end. But I love Lindsey and can't just go with it.

So that's what I came up with.
Lindsey always had 3 defining motives for his actions: 1) not to be stepped upon, matter in the large scheme of things, 2) matter to Angel, in whatever way - partially because of 1) as he sees Angel as the biggest player of them all, someone never stepped upon - see him admiring his "brass balls" in NFA, 3) genuine humanity which never died in him. We can see the mix of all 3 in each major decision he took in his life.

In Blind Date it's all 3 - he does it because he feel for children, to impress Angel and to stick it to W&H - and eventually goes back to W&H because of 1).

In leaving W&H it's again all 3 - he felt for those whose organs were taken, he wanted to matter to Angel again, and also he was offended by W&h "stepping" on him with giving him that junk hand.

But after he left W&H we learned another thing about it in seasons 4 and 5 - you can't actually leave it, even after death. There are binding undestructable contracts for souls of any major W&H player.
I can't believe Lindsey didn't have one, and he probably discovered it after he left. I can see all those runes, hiding in Japan, etc. as an attempt to beat W&H and get around that contract - to be a bigger player then W&H management eventually.
He wanted to challenge W&H like Manners gave him credit for in the end of Blind Date.

And then, while doing that, he discovers that Angel, of all things, is now CEO of W&H! That would increase his motivation to beat W&H hundred fold - because now he is both jealous of Angel and also hurt and betrayed by him - as Angel never let him in, never gave him a quarter - exactly because Lindsey sold himself to W&H. There was always this moral superiority in Angel - but what of it now?
In light of that I can see Lindsey being as conflicted as ever in S5 and in NFA - he wants to both undermine Angel, matter to him, take more power than Angel and W&H both, thwart them both, and be accepted by Angel as an equal player. And humanity is in there too - with Eve, and I believe in his final decision to join Angel in NFA.
There, again, all 3 motives were intertwined - to play the biggest game of all, to be bigger than W&H and maybe than Angel - but also be alongside Angel and matter to him - and also a human desire to belong and to do something right under Angel's lead.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I can't believe Lindsey didn't have one, and he probably discovered it after he left. I can see all those runes, hiding in Japan, etc. as an attempt to beat W&H and get around that contract.

This is also part of my own fanwank/scenario, because I can't see why this wouldn't be the case. If everyone else had contracts, why wouldn't he?

I may even work that fanwank into Eve. As Lindsey had to have met her at some point prior to Season 5.

[powerofthebook.livejournal.com]

I've always held a private theory that W&H gave the sparkly pendant to Angel in the hopes that Buffy or Faith would wear it to destroy the Hellmouth. They already had Angel where they wanted him - they just needed a way to keep him there. Both women exert a sentimental pull on Angel, and W&H could use their captivity to keep Angel in line, if they had to. They ended up with Spike, though, Angel's rival - strategically useless to them.

Spike was not useless to Lindsey, however, who, since we last saw him, has been keeping company with disaffected W&H employees, including that creepy librarian. Eve (brought over to Lindsey's way of thinking) lets him know about Angel and Spike-in-the-pendant. This gives Lindsey the idea of setting up an established rival to supplant Angel, a foil to what Angel was becoming.

Beyond personal revenge, however, was perhaps the thought that Eve would be free of W&H if the LA branch was destroyed? I don't know. For a guy who could come up with such elaborate and nuanced revenge plans, there's not a whole heck of a lot of back story on how he got that way *cough*Twilight*cough*

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Beyond personal revenge, however, was perhaps the thought that Eve would be free of W&H if the LA branch was destroyed?

I actually think I'm going to use this as a partial motive... though I'm not sure that the show intended to be.

[kassto.livejournal.com]

Makes no sense to me either.

But then, I could never figure out why the shanshu was supposed to be such a great motivation for Angel when he turned down being human in season 1 of AtS, and turned down the Ring of Amara, because they would keep him from doing such a good job of connecting with the helpless in the stilly watches of the night.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

That last one makes some sense to me. It sort of goes back to Surprise and Innocence. Angel's 'perfect happiness' was that he thought he'd been absolved/forgiven for his past by the slayer.

The Ring of Amara and the demon blood in IWRY are matters of happenstance. It's really not about being human for him. In IWRY he was human, and he didn't like that situation much at all. He likes his superpowers. The lure of the shanshu is in being absolved/purged/forgiven for his crimes. Buffy can't give him that absolution any more, but he's still hoping some mystical PTB can.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it established that he wanted to become a member of the Black Thorn, and his messing with Angel was all calculated to impress them enough to invite him in?

From 'Power Play':

LINDSEY: The senior partners are on a different plane. Down here...it's the players in the circle that make things happen. Hell, you get tapped by one of them, it's kind of like getting the keys to the chocolate factory.

WESLEY: That's why you came back to L.A., tried to kill Angel. To get into the circle.

LINDSEY: To be a Black Thorn is to be the senior partners' instrument on Earth. Doesn't get bigger than that.

GUNN: Looks like Angel succeeded where you failed.


I'd also suggest that in 'Dead End', his motive wasn't so much "The scales are lifted from my eyes and I now see W&H are evil" as "I'm sick of being lied to, manipulated and kept in line." But if you're the one in charge, the one calling the shots, that wouldn't apply, would it?

(And in that episode, they were deciding who to promote to be Head of Special Projects, Lindsey or Lilah; it was still a middle management position, certainly not anything like branch CEO.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Did it?

I took it primarily as Lindsey trying to talk up the Circle. Isn't this basically where he's trying to talk them into taking the Circle down? It's Wesley and Gunn searching for an explanation more than Lindsey actually making an admission, isn't it? And even if that is an admission, that still leaves out why he did what he did. Hard to impress the Circle when he's hiding from the Partners with mystic spell tattoos making him invisible to them so it's still difficult to see how that's a goal his actions might actually achieve.

(Though I guess for the purpose of this particular fanfic, it doesn't actually matter since Spike is going to see it that way regardless of what Lindsey thought he was doing. And the Circle isn't particularly important to the fanfic. So either could work for me.)