Are Angel and Spike friends?

[Robb Stark]

I think by "Not Fade Away", they are. There's always going to be that underlying tension between them. There's too much history and too much Buffy for there not to be, but I think they're friends by the end, including "After the Fall". They seem to at the very least have a strong respect for one another.

In AtS S5 I kind of think of them as quarrelsome brothers, to a certain extent. That's helped by the obvious chemistry David Boreanaz and James Marsters have together as actors (come to think of it, who DOESN'T James Marsters have awesome chemistry with?). They just play off one another so well, and Spike's presence brings some really cool and interesting new dimensions to Angel's character. I thought having Spike there made Angel a better leading character from a narrative perspective (and he was already my favorite before that).

 

[brinkster130]

I don't think they would acknowledge one another as friends, but I do agree with you that they do share a bond that connects them as more than acquaintances.

 

[Black Eye Guy]

Yeah I think they are friends, or frenemies anyway, I think if they weren't Angel would have killed him like he did Lindsey.

Spike was much much better on Angel, he actually got to grow as a character and be a character with some dimension compared to on BtVS, he still in someone else's shadow but he has to be for his character to work as well as he does.

Plus he's always looked up to Angel. Angelus was his mentor as a demon, and it's funny that Spike works for good, without selfish reasons, under Angel.

 

[white avenger]

No, and I seriously doubt that they ever could be. The closest that I could ever see them being is comrades in arms. I do believe that Season 5 of "Angel" developed a certain mutual grudging respect between the two, but there is too much pain and anger in their mutual history for them to ever become real friends.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Well it had been noted that James Marsters and Julie Benz brought the best in opposing actors, so that made those characters a lot easier to write for.

However, do I think that Spike and Angel were friends?
Of course they were, as long as no one mentions about the occasional knife in the back, be that a theoretical knife or just wishful thinking by Spike.

 

[Kean]

I think they're family. They may not like each other but there is a bond there that nothing seems to break, even when they hate each other's guts.

 

[fredthe3rd]

They'll still be bickering a hundred years from now.

 

[Blaze]

They're more like brothers. I don't think you could live 150yrs with someone without becoming family lol, I love Spike and Angel's bromance!

 

[iShower4free]

I think when Spike is first turned Angelus tolerated him like an annoying younger brother. Obviously they didnt like each other while one had a soul and the other didnt. By Angel s05 I think most of their tension was because of Buffy, and Spike competing for the Shanshu didnt help. By the end of the season though I think their dynamic changed more to reluctant friends, although neither of them would actually admit it.

Man I wish that the Spike and Buffy story line would have ended with him getting a soul pre season 7 and sent him straight to AtS. His character, at least in my opinion, was so much better on that show.

 

[white avenger]

Man I wish that the Spike and Buffy story line would have ended with him getting a soul pre season 7 and sent him straight to AtS. His character, at least in my opinion, was so much better on that show.

I don't think that that would have worked out well. The main thing that gave Spike his "in" in Season 5 was the fact that he was incorporeal, making any fighting between the two vampires impossible, and that he was bound to the Wolfram & Hart Building, which made it difficult, if not impossible for them not to interact. By the time that Spike was solid again, Angel had pretty much come to accept his presence there.

If Spike had gone to "Angel" at the beginning of Season 4, I seriously doubt that he would have gotten the kind of help and support from Angel that he did from Buffy, and without that, I seriously doubt that he would have survived.

Of course, now that I think about it, having Spike there until Faith came, then having them both return to Sunnydale with Willow to help out could have been interesting.