Discussion of 1.18 "Five By Five" - Aired 4/25/2000 (WB-US)

[Flannen]

Faith, the rogue Slayer, arrives in L.A., and Wolfram and Hart make plans to use her in their fight against Angel.

Source: TV.com

Discuss this episode here!

 

[Hale Caesar]

Great episode. Eliza Dusku was amazing in this episode, that last scene where she's asking Angel to kill her is easily one of my favorite Buffyverse moments

 

[wickedtiger86]

Absolutely love this episode. Eliza is stunning in it and I love how Faith's development goes through this episode and the next.

I remember being surprised on my first watch that she had really just been trying to get Angel to kill her. But it's so heartbreaking and raw and the way she keeps weakly fighting him at the end of the episode . . . even Wesley is moved.

 

[Jules]

I love this episode for a number of reasons. The first is because of Faith. She's such a great character. I love the fight scene between her and Angel. It was amazing (although I wonder how Angel could get into the house sinse the guy who owned it was still alive at the hospital). The way Faith opens up to Angel at the end is great. These two really do have a connection, which we saw in season 3 of Buffy.

I also like how Wesley and Angel's view point changes. Angel at the start of the episode wants nothing but to take Faith out, yet by the end of the episode he's the one that sees through her act. Wesley starts out thinking he could help Faith and after she tortures him he then decides to kill her (until he sees her break down in the alley).

I also loved the flash back scenes to Darla and Angel's past. The fact that it was Darla that brought Angel the gypsy girl is ironic. She made Angelus and she destroyed him.

 

[PassionBecoming]

I also love the Angel/Faith connection in this episode. I would never like them as a romantic pairing, but I think they could have an awesome kinship. They are very alike and I could see them fighting well together.

 

[sylvanscribe]

This was one of the highlights of the Angel series for me. The shot where Wesley stand sin the rain, watching Angel comfort a sobbing faith, and drops the knife he had been prepared to use, was just brilliant.

 

[Amethyst]

My first thought was 'ewww porr Wesley, demon blood everywhere, gross' lol
I'd actually forgotten how Faith could kick ass! Don't know how that's possible but omg! lol
I love seeing into Angel's past!
I want to know how the Wolfram and Hart woman got Faith out of the club? What exactly did she say to her??
When we look at Angel's past again, I don't get why Darla would want to kill Angel just because he has a soul, I mean ok, she's evil and now he's not and she sees that as pathetic but I would have just left him, not gone on a pyscho rampage lol
Why did Faith jump through the window? Why couldn't she have just gone through the door??
Since when is Lyndsey a guys name????? lol I thought he was sneeking into the woman's office!! lol
Wesley hitting Faith!! Woohoo!! You go Wesley!! lol
Awesome fight!!

 

[The Thirst Evil]

I'm on Buffy/Angel watch through at the minute (I watch both Series simultaneously in chronological order so that all the crossovers and references make sense), I'm currently on Seasons 4/1 respectively. Last night, I watched This Year's Girl, Who are You and Five by Five, and this raised a big question in my mind. I thought I would bring it here to see if anyone else has wondered the same thing.

Faith seems to have a sixth sense for knowing where people live.

Firstly, in This Year's Girl the first place she goes after awaking from her coma is Giles', even though she had not been shown previously to go there or know where Giles is. In fact Giles' wasn't even a scoobie hang-out prior to Season 4 so what was her motivation for going there in the first place?

In Who Are You, Willow asks her (in Buffy's body) if she's going to spend the night at Riley's, and in the next scene she appears in the doorway of Riley's dorm room. There could, of course, be off-screen contextual factors, but we assume that Faith would be smart enough to not ask where Riley lives, as that would completely give the game away.

And lastly, in this episode she beats and mugs the man at the beginning of the episode and steals his keys, but LA is a big city, how could she possibly know where the guy lives? She still manages to find it though. Intriguing.

 

[Riley's Way]

And lastly, in this episode she beats and mugs the man at the beginning of the episode and steals his keys, but LA is a big city, how could she possibly know where the guy lives? She still manages to find it though. Intriguing.

She also takes his wallet, his address must be on his ID ..

& this is such a great episode, the first one I really liked since I Will Remember You, probably because the Buffy characters brought some depth to this show lol (it's not Angel dissing, just an observation), & the last scene is just amazing, Eliza was breathtaking, I rewatched that last scene several times ..

 

[Wild At Heart]

One of my favorite episodes of this season. Eliza is at her best as Faith here. She's so wicked & cold but you just can't turn away. Love the scenes with Faith at the club dancing & kicking everyone's ass & I loved all of her interactions with the different characters. I love love love this ep.

 

[tbessie]

Watching this just now, I didn't get the feeling that she wanted Angel to kill her when she took the job, but as things progressed, perhaps she did, or perhaps she realized even in their last fight that that is what she wanted.

Does everyone think she wanted him to kill her the whole time?

- Tim

 

[Faith717132]

Five By Five!

Tortured soul Faith which she was in this episode. Great episode! Great fight scene!

 

[Robb Stark]

Yes, it's a great episode. One of my favorites from S1. I thought it was a great episode not only for Faith, but for Angel as well. If he hadn't been already, it did an excellent job of establishing him as an amazing lead hero I thought.

 

[Robb Stark]

Watching this just now, I didn't get the feeling that she wanted Angel to kill her when she took the job, but as things progressed, perhaps she did, or perhaps she realized even in their last fight that that is what she wanted.

Does everyone think she wanted him to kill her the whole time?

- Tim

I think by this point was just totally and completely spent emotionally. There was just nothing left in the tank. She had her head messed with so many times, seen way too much, made some truly evil choices that there's no real coming back from (not for some time at least) that she was just done. I believe that she wanted to die.

Faith and Angel always seemed to have a connection, which I thought they did a fantastic job building on in the Angel series. Him rejecting her in S3 of Buffy, and then everything she did to Buffy, had just done a number on her emotionally. By "Five by Five" I think she knew full well everything she had done was evil, and now the remorse and guilt was catching up to her, and she just couldn't deal with it.

 

[Evil Angelus 95]

To me, this really was the episode where Faith's cries for help reached their peak. She tortures Wesley and later breaks down fighting Angel, crying that she's evil. To me, It's really a heartbreaking scene.

 

[Mischlings]

To me, It's really a heartbreaking scene.

I agree completely -- I think this episode is even more of a tearjerker than The Body, which is a very tall order. Sure, some of it is that I'm so invested in Faith, but when you watch the character arc she has in S4 Buffy/S1 Angel, this point here is where you realize what's really happened to her and that she really does regret everything she's done. The fact that she's begging to die just hits me really hard every time.

 

[Mischlings]

Watching this just now, I didn't get the feeling that she wanted Angel to kill her when she took the job, but as things progressed, perhaps she did, or perhaps she realized even in their last fight that that is what she wanted.

Does everyone think she wanted him to kill her the whole time?

- Tim

I think it makes the most sense for her to have wanted to die from the beginning.

At the end of Who Are You, she'd made a huge decision: instead of running off with Buffy's body (which she could've definitely done -- no one stopped her but herself), she decided to help the people who were being held hostage in the church. She had definitely made a major decision to change. And watch her in the train car as she's leaving Sunnydale -- she's doing some heavy thinking about everything that happens.

Then she gets to LA, and immediately goes back to her old ways. This is incredibly jarring, but notice what she's doing: stealing someone's keys to have a place to stay, starting fights in clubs and other things that are very public and noticeable. Everyone realizes that she's there -- well, Wolfram and Hart do, and when she takes the job to kill Angel, she's only doing so half-heartedly, trying to get him to fight back. If Faith wanted him dead, I don't think she'd insist on making sure it happens in a fair fight, she'd just have shot him in the back.

I like the interpretation that she's actively choosing to do evil here -- she's not just doing what she's told like when she was with the Mayor or accidentally doing so like when she killed Finch -- she's choosing this to get attention from Angel so he'll kill her. To me, her doing all of these things in the episode doesn't make sense, in the context of the end of Who Are You, unless you're thinking that she's trying to get Angel to kill her from the beginning.

 

[Charmander]

As much as I hate to see poor Wes get tortured there was some awesome acting in that scene!

 

[white avenger]

The scene where Faith first confronts Angel and shoots him with a wooden bullet always bothered me, because I had always been told that the rifling on the inside of the barrel would shred the wood into splinters by the time that it left the barrel. I always chalked it up to writers having no knowledge of the subject (guns) of which they were writing. I still believe this, and can point to far more examples that prove me right than that prove me wrong. HOWEVER.... Sometimes, those ignorant writers get it right, even if quite obviously only by accident.

 

[thetopher]

The scene where Faith first confronts Angel and shoots him with a wooden bullet always bothered me

Faith never uses wooden bullets in the episode- that's just a wry comment that Angel throws out there when she produces a gun. Faith throws Angel the gun, which has one blank in the chamber and (presumably) the rest are just plain normal rounds. (I doubt the writers even knew that wooden bullets could even be possible)
Vampires getting shot with a real bullet still seems to hurt like a mother, especially since Faith is a good enough marksman to make sure she shoots somewhere really painful, even if it isn't able to be fatal.
I do like her reaction: 'Gosh, I guess that wasn't a blank.'

Not sure why she jumps straight through the window right after though, not when there's a door right behind her. Crazy chick.