Five by Five (Angel episode)
Encyclopedia
"Five by Five" is episode 18 of season 1 in the television show Angel
. Written by Jim Kouf
and directed by James A. Contner
, it was originally broadcast on April 25, 2000 on the WB network
. In "Five by Five", guest star Eliza Dushku
makes her first appearance on Angel as rogue Slayer Faith, hired by Wolfram & Hart
to assassinate Angel in exchange for getting all criminal charges against her back in Sunnydale
dropped. Though Faith agrees, it eventually becomes clear to Angel that she has plans of her own.
after fleeing Sunnydale
following the events of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Who Are You". She goes to a nightclub, where she wildly dances to the pounding music until a girl objects to Faith dancing with her boyfriend; Faith nonchalantly elbows her in the face. The boyfriend flips instantly from lust to fury and takes a swing at Faith, who slams him into a group of people across the room, sparking an instant melee. Faith continues to dance while chaos rages around her, choreographing kicks and punches without missing a beat. Meanwhile, Angel rescues a gangbanger from the demons who have killed the other members of his gang. He attempts to persuade the obstinate gangbanger, a key witness whom Angel has tracked down to testify in court against a shady Wolfram & Hart
client, to do his civic duty.
In a flashback
to Romania
in 1898, Darla leads a blindfolded Angelus to his birthday present: a young Gypsy woman lying bound and gagged on the parlor floor. As Darla watches, Angelus vamps and bites the terrified girl high on the inner thigh. The next night, Darla returns to find that her darling boy, Angelus, is no longer the demon she created. Cursed with a soul by the Gypsy girl's people, he is nearly mad with the grief and horror of 140 years of rampant vampirism, every detail of which he remembers with excruciating clarity. Darla, disgusted, furious, and a little afraid, drives Angel out into the night.
In court the next day, Wolfram & Hart moves for dismissal, but Angel shows up in the nick of time with a now-docile gangbanger, the prosecution's key witness. As Lindsey McDonald
takes heat for Angel's interference, lawyers Lilah Morgan
and Lee Mercer contact Faith about a contract on Angel's life, which she accepts. Cordelia
, Wesley
and Angel are on their way to a lunchtime meeting, when a stealthy Faith attempts to shoot Angel in the back with a crossbow. Angel, as stunned as Wesley and Cordelia to see Faith up and about, catches the bolt in mid-air from point-blank range. Faith issues her challenge and disappears back onto the streets. After phoning Giles
in Sunnydale
to learn that Faith has been out of her coma for a week, Angel instructs Wesley and Cordelia to help him track the rogue Slayer down and then make themselves scarce. Discerning that anger and fear for Buffy
might incline his friend to kill Faith for revenge, Wesley shouts, "She's not a demon, Angel. She's a sick, sick girl." During this, Wesley attempts to convince Angel that there may still be a chance that Faith could be helped, and Angel interrupts by reminding Wesley that he had ruined Angel's one chance at rehabilitating Faith the year before, something that Wesley is obviously not proud of. Later, Angel finds Faith in his outer office, where she stands protected from immediate attack by sunlight streaming through the raised blinds. She tosses Angel a gun, should he choose to shoot her, and he hesitates not a microsecond, aiming for her leg. The bullet is a blank, however, and he tosses the gun back. After mocking him for only trying to wound her, Faith explains her plan to destroy him, shoots him in the shoulder with a real bullet, then escapes by crashing through the sunny window.
Angel, wearing a suit and spouting convincing corporate-speak, poses as a lawyer to sneak into Lindsey's plush Wolfram & Hart office to try to discover Faith's whereabouts. Seeming completely unsurprised, Lindsey interrupts Angel in mid-snoop. The young lawyer refuses to acknowledge ever hearing about Faith and informs Angel that the firm employs both mystical and high-tech security systems—Angel's every move has been documented in digital hi-def since he crossed the building's threshold. After disabling the first security guard on scene, and with a parting promise to Lindsey, Angel chooses discretion and leaves. In the meantime, Cordelia tries to get into her apartment, but her ghost Phantom Dennis makes it difficult. Cordelia thinks Dennis is jealous of Wesley until they discover that Faith has broken in. Faith knocks Cordelia and Wesley out, and takes Wesley back to her apartment, where she ties him to a chair and tortures him. Faith has correctly calculated that Angel, indifferent to being targeted himself, will be unable to ignore threats to his friends. Finding Wesley still defiant, Faith recites the list of the "five basic torture groups," blunt, sharp, hot, cold and loud, and decides to move from blunt to sharp. She breaks the glass in a picture frame and picks up a large shard. Meanwhile, Angel and Cordelia feverishly work to locate Faith before she kills her bait. Faith sits disconsolately in an open window, waiting for Angel. Sighing, she drops the now-bloody glass shard on the pavement below. Turning back into the room, she continues to torment her former Watcher. Apparently ready to switch to "hot," she goes to the kitchen for a flame wand and a can of non-stick spray. Before she does more than demonstrate a few scary bursts of flame, Angel smashes down the door and charges into the apartment. Faith drops her impromptu torch and swiftly moves to hold a knife at Wesley's throat, stopping Angel in his tracks.
In 1898, a newly-ensouled and distressed Angel begs for help on the streets of Borşa
. He encounters a group of well-dressed people but rejects the coin they toss into the mud, telling the men that he wants the one woman in their company. Outraged, the men rush Angel and force him into a dark alley as he shouts, "I'm a monster!" Soon the men come sailing back out to the street, followed by Angel, staggering but still upright. He grabs the shrieking, struggling young woman, drags her deeper into the alley, backs her up against the wall and bites her, then mutters, "I can't, oh God, I can't." As he stumbles away down the muddy street, the girl he wanted to eat staggers out after him, disheveled and bitten, but alive.
In a brief exchange of verbal attacks, one of Angel's barbs makes Faith drop her guard for a split second, and Wesley flings himself out of Faith's grasp. Angel swiftly attacks. As the battle rages, Faith seems to have the upper hand and she shouts, "Come on, Angel. I thought you were bad!" Angel doesn't reply. They continue to batter the furnishings and each other, then crash out a window together, only to resume combat in the alley three stories below. Rain begins to pour down and it becomes increasingly clear that Angel no longer intends to kill Faith, if he ever did. As Faith wearies, her fury fades, and Angel's own moves slow to become purely defensive. Meanwhile, Wesley cuts himself loose and staggers downstairs, armed with a kitchen carving knife. Faith, more and more distraught, tries wildly to force Angel to continue the offensive, to finish this fight. As a wrathful Wesley watches, Faith breaks down completely, confessing her self-loathing and begging Angel to punish her. Faith sobs, "I'm bad, I'm bad. Please Angel, do it. Just kill me." Angel finally takes Faith in his arms and goes to his knees with her, holding her close as she collapses in the dark downpour. Behind them, Wesley drops his knife.
returns as Lindsey in his first appearance since the pilot episode. "There's a lot of sexual tension
between Lindsey and Lilah, and Stephanie being one of my really good friends in life, it really did kind of feel like it was us against the world," Kane says. "Everyone else was a series regular and we were fighting for a pole position and although we were against each other we were on the same team... I think that came off on screen."
says because writer Jim Kouf
was used to writing scripts for "big feature films", he occasionally "writes scenes that are not producible for a TV show because he is used to working with much more money." Kouf indicated that it should be raining during the final fight scene between Angel and Faith, but Minear decided the rain was too expensive, the "one extra technical complication that’s going to make shooting impossible." However, the night filming began for that scene was "the first night of a big torrential rain storm that we had for several days," Minear says.
Mike Massa, David Boreanaz's stunt double, explains that ratchets
- wires that retract at high speeds - were used during Angel and Faith's fight scene to hurl the characters across the room.
Angel (TV series)
Angel is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999...
. Written by Jim Kouf
Jim Kouf
Jim Kouf is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. He received the 1988 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay for his work on Stakeout .-Filmography :...
and directed by James A. Contner
James A. Contner
James Atwater Contner is an American television and film director and cinematographer. His work includes episodes of such television series as Miami Vice, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Star Trek: Enterprise...
, it was originally broadcast on April 25, 2000 on the WB network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
. In "Five by Five", guest star Eliza Dushku
Eliza Dushku
Eliza Patricia Dushku is an American actress known for her television roles, including recurring appearances as Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series Angel. She starred in two Fox series, Tru Calling and Dollhouse...
makes her first appearance on Angel as rogue Slayer Faith, hired by Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart − Attorneys at Law is a fictional international, and interdimensional law firm featured in the television series Angel, as well as other extended materials in Joss Whedon's Buffyverse.-Fictional history:...
to assassinate Angel in exchange for getting all criminal charges against her back in Sunnydale
Sunnydale
Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...
dropped. Though Faith agrees, it eventually becomes clear to Angel that she has plans of her own.
Plot
Faith arrives in Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
after fleeing Sunnydale
Sunnydale
Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...
following the events of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Who Are You". She goes to a nightclub, where she wildly dances to the pounding music until a girl objects to Faith dancing with her boyfriend; Faith nonchalantly elbows her in the face. The boyfriend flips instantly from lust to fury and takes a swing at Faith, who slams him into a group of people across the room, sparking an instant melee. Faith continues to dance while chaos rages around her, choreographing kicks and punches without missing a beat. Meanwhile, Angel rescues a gangbanger from the demons who have killed the other members of his gang. He attempts to persuade the obstinate gangbanger, a key witness whom Angel has tracked down to testify in court against a shady Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart − Attorneys at Law is a fictional international, and interdimensional law firm featured in the television series Angel, as well as other extended materials in Joss Whedon's Buffyverse.-Fictional history:...
client, to do his civic duty.
In a flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
to Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
in 1898, Darla leads a blindfolded Angelus to his birthday present: a young Gypsy woman lying bound and gagged on the parlor floor. As Darla watches, Angelus vamps and bites the terrified girl high on the inner thigh. The next night, Darla returns to find that her darling boy, Angelus, is no longer the demon she created. Cursed with a soul by the Gypsy girl's people, he is nearly mad with the grief and horror of 140 years of rampant vampirism, every detail of which he remembers with excruciating clarity. Darla, disgusted, furious, and a little afraid, drives Angel out into the night.
In court the next day, Wolfram & Hart moves for dismissal, but Angel shows up in the nick of time with a now-docile gangbanger, the prosecution's key witness. As Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald is a fictional character from the television series Angel. He first appeared in the series' first episode, "City of," and featured prominently in the story arcs of seasons one, two, and five. Lindsey is the only character besides Angel himself to appear in both the first and last...
takes heat for Angel's interference, lawyers Lilah Morgan
Lilah Morgan
Lilah Morgan is a fictional character from the television series Angel, played by Stephanie Romanov. She is first introduced in the episode "The Ring," and appears in the show's first and second seasons. After Lindsey McDonald leaves Los Angeles, Lilah becomes the primary face of Wolfram & Hart,...
and Lee Mercer contact Faith about a contract on Angel's life, which she accepts. Cordelia
Cordelia Chase
Cordelia Chase is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer; she also appeared on Buffy's spin-off series Angel...
, Wesley
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel...
and Angel are on their way to a lunchtime meeting, when a stealthy Faith attempts to shoot Angel in the back with a crossbow. Angel, as stunned as Wesley and Cordelia to see Faith up and about, catches the bolt in mid-air from point-blank range. Faith issues her challenge and disappears back onto the streets. After phoning Giles
Rupert Giles
Rupert Giles is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Anthony Stewart Head. He serves as Buffy Summers' mentor and surrogate father figure...
in Sunnydale
Sunnydale
Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...
to learn that Faith has been out of her coma for a week, Angel instructs Wesley and Cordelia to help him track the rogue Slayer down and then make themselves scarce. Discerning that anger and fear for Buffy
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers is a fictional character from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to appear in the television series and subsequent comic book of the same name...
might incline his friend to kill Faith for revenge, Wesley shouts, "She's not a demon, Angel. She's a sick, sick girl." During this, Wesley attempts to convince Angel that there may still be a chance that Faith could be helped, and Angel interrupts by reminding Wesley that he had ruined Angel's one chance at rehabilitating Faith the year before, something that Wesley is obviously not proud of. Later, Angel finds Faith in his outer office, where she stands protected from immediate attack by sunlight streaming through the raised blinds. She tosses Angel a gun, should he choose to shoot her, and he hesitates not a microsecond, aiming for her leg. The bullet is a blank, however, and he tosses the gun back. After mocking him for only trying to wound her, Faith explains her plan to destroy him, shoots him in the shoulder with a real bullet, then escapes by crashing through the sunny window.
Angel, wearing a suit and spouting convincing corporate-speak, poses as a lawyer to sneak into Lindsey's plush Wolfram & Hart office to try to discover Faith's whereabouts. Seeming completely unsurprised, Lindsey interrupts Angel in mid-snoop. The young lawyer refuses to acknowledge ever hearing about Faith and informs Angel that the firm employs both mystical and high-tech security systems—Angel's every move has been documented in digital hi-def since he crossed the building's threshold. After disabling the first security guard on scene, and with a parting promise to Lindsey, Angel chooses discretion and leaves. In the meantime, Cordelia tries to get into her apartment, but her ghost Phantom Dennis makes it difficult. Cordelia thinks Dennis is jealous of Wesley until they discover that Faith has broken in. Faith knocks Cordelia and Wesley out, and takes Wesley back to her apartment, where she ties him to a chair and tortures him. Faith has correctly calculated that Angel, indifferent to being targeted himself, will be unable to ignore threats to his friends. Finding Wesley still defiant, Faith recites the list of the "five basic torture groups," blunt, sharp, hot, cold and loud, and decides to move from blunt to sharp. She breaks the glass in a picture frame and picks up a large shard. Meanwhile, Angel and Cordelia feverishly work to locate Faith before she kills her bait. Faith sits disconsolately in an open window, waiting for Angel. Sighing, she drops the now-bloody glass shard on the pavement below. Turning back into the room, she continues to torment her former Watcher. Apparently ready to switch to "hot," she goes to the kitchen for a flame wand and a can of non-stick spray. Before she does more than demonstrate a few scary bursts of flame, Angel smashes down the door and charges into the apartment. Faith drops her impromptu torch and swiftly moves to hold a knife at Wesley's throat, stopping Angel in his tracks.
In 1898, a newly-ensouled and distressed Angel begs for help on the streets of Borşa
Borsa
Borșa is a town in eastern Maramureş County, northern Romania, in the valley of the Vişeu River and near the Prislop Pass. Linking Transylvania to Bukovina, Prislop Pass is surrounded by the Rodna and Maramureş Mountains, both ranges of the Carpathians...
. He encounters a group of well-dressed people but rejects the coin they toss into the mud, telling the men that he wants the one woman in their company. Outraged, the men rush Angel and force him into a dark alley as he shouts, "I'm a monster!" Soon the men come sailing back out to the street, followed by Angel, staggering but still upright. He grabs the shrieking, struggling young woman, drags her deeper into the alley, backs her up against the wall and bites her, then mutters, "I can't, oh God, I can't." As he stumbles away down the muddy street, the girl he wanted to eat staggers out after him, disheveled and bitten, but alive.
In a brief exchange of verbal attacks, one of Angel's barbs makes Faith drop her guard for a split second, and Wesley flings himself out of Faith's grasp. Angel swiftly attacks. As the battle rages, Faith seems to have the upper hand and she shouts, "Come on, Angel. I thought you were bad!" Angel doesn't reply. They continue to batter the furnishings and each other, then crash out a window together, only to resume combat in the alley three stories below. Rain begins to pour down and it becomes increasingly clear that Angel no longer intends to kill Faith, if he ever did. As Faith wearies, her fury fades, and Angel's own moves slow to become purely defensive. Meanwhile, Wesley cuts himself loose and staggers downstairs, armed with a kitchen carving knife. Faith, more and more distraught, tries wildly to force Angel to continue the offensive, to finish this fight. As a wrathful Wesley watches, Faith breaks down completely, confessing her self-loathing and begging Angel to punish her. Faith sobs, "I'm bad, I'm bad. Please Angel, do it. Just kill me." Angel finally takes Faith in his arms and goes to his knees with her, holding her close as she collapses in the dark downpour. Behind them, Wesley drops his knife.
Acting
Christian KaneChristian Kane
Christian Kane is an American actor and singer/songwriter of Native American descent. He currently stars as Eliot Spencer on the TNT series Leverage. He is best known for his roles in the television shows Angel and Into the West, and the movies Just Married and Secondhand Lions.He is the lead...
returns as Lindsey in his first appearance since the pilot episode. "There's a lot of sexual tension
Sexual tension
Sexual tension is a social phenomenon that occurs when two people interact and one or both feel sexual desire, but the consummation is postponed or never happens....
between Lindsey and Lilah, and Stephanie being one of my really good friends in life, it really did kind of feel like it was us against the world," Kane says. "Everyone else was a series regular and we were fighting for a pole position and although we were against each other we were on the same team... I think that came off on screen."
Production
Producer Tim MinearTim Minear
Tim Minear is an American screenwriter and director. He was born in New York, grew up in Whittier, California, and studied film at California State University, Long Beach....
says because writer Jim Kouf
Jim Kouf
Jim Kouf is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. He received the 1988 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay for his work on Stakeout .-Filmography :...
was used to writing scripts for "big feature films", he occasionally "writes scenes that are not producible for a TV show because he is used to working with much more money." Kouf indicated that it should be raining during the final fight scene between Angel and Faith, but Minear decided the rain was too expensive, the "one extra technical complication that’s going to make shooting impossible." However, the night filming began for that scene was "the first night of a big torrential rain storm that we had for several days," Minear says.
Mike Massa, David Boreanaz's stunt double, explains that ratchets
Ratchet (device)
A ratchet is a device that allows continuous linear or rotary motion in only one direction while preventing motion in the opposite direction. Because most socket wrenches today use ratcheting handles, the term "ratchet" alone is often used to refer to a ratcheting wrench, and the terms "ratchet"...
- wires that retract at high speeds - were used during Angel and Faith's fight scene to hurl the characters across the room.
Arc significance
- This episode marks the true beginning in Angel's fight against Wolfram and Hart during his courtroom intervention. Up until now, Wolfram and Hart have not posed a significant threat towards Angel and his friends. He will continue to fight them through the end of the season and pose a threat to them during Season 2.
Continuity
- Crossover with Buffy: Faith was last seen fleeing Sunnydale in "Who Are You". This episode will begin her rehabilitation in preparation for her return to Buffy in its final season.
Cultural references
- Five by fiveFive by fiveFive by five is the best of 25 possible subjective responses used to describe the quality of communications, specifically the signal-to-noise ratio. As receiving stations move away from an analog radio transmitting site, the signal strength decreases gradually while noise levels increase...
: The title of this episode refers to the radio operation phrase frequently used by Faith.
Music
- In the club dance/fight scene: Living Dead Girl, a Subliminal Seduction Mix of Rob ZombieRob ZombieRob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the...
's original.