Were we meant to hate the Scoobies in Angel season 5?

[Joshua]

I mean every thing that was mentioned about the Scoobies or whatever came out of Andrew's mouth towards Angel & Co. working for Wolfram & Hart, I gotta ask; were we meant to hate the Scoobies?

I mean Giles rejecting Angel's favor to help Fred in "Shells", Angel being forced to give Dana the Vampire Slayer over to the Scoobies and Andrew giving the orders Buffy given him, in Damage. Idk but I just didn't like the Scooby Gang whenever they were mentioned in the 5th season of Angel.

Also half of everything said or mentioned about them sounded way out of character. Sorry if this doesn't make sense but I've noticed this while rewatching Angel season 5.

 

[Robb Stark]

Yeah, that whole thing was just...dumb, and way out of character.

"Chosen" pretty much establishes that Buffy really and truly trusts Angel and Spike. She charges both of them with saving the world, and they both come through. Then when Angel is practically begging for help in "Shells", Giles just turns him down and won't even listen? Crap.

There was a similar thread to this a little while ago where someone mentioned that Giles not telling Buffy about Angel needing help and blocking his way to her is the reason why he's been pretty much kicked out and exiled from Buffy's side in S8, and I think that makes a lot of sense. Obviously, we don't really know, but it meshes. I don't think there's any way though that when Angel and Spike need her Buffy doesn't help.

As for "Damage", everything Andrew said was crap, and I go with the theory that it was either Giles or Xander sending him, not Buffy. It just makes zero sense otherwise. It was Buffy and Willow who enacted the spell that turned all the Potentials into Slayers, with virtually no debate or research done to see if this was, you know, actually a good idea. Without that spell, Dana never kills anyone. Every death Dana caused lies with Buffy, Willow, Giles, Kennedy and whoever else worked that spell. So for Andrew to just march in and take over was crap. Plus, aside from the real-life issues of not being able to get SMG to take part in it, if a rogue Slayer was trying to kill Angel and Spike, it would be Buffy who came to clean it up, not Andrew. Hell, Angel was the one mopping up their mess.

The whole thing was written that way to show Angel's growing discontent with his place at Wolfram&Hart, but it was poorly done. I've heard arguments that Giles didn't trust Angel, but if that's true, it's ridiculous. Without Angel, and Spike, they all die in "Chosen". End of story. Giles, Buffy, Willow, every one of them. So when one of Angel's team is dying horribly and Giles won't even pick up a phone to look for Willow, it makes him look like a monster. Willow by that point is capable of moving people across the planet. She could have easily taken Fred to the Well of Deeper Souls. I'm not saying Giles would have been able to find her, but not even trying? Wow, that's borderline evil.

 

[white avenger]

This is strictly me, but from the moment that Andrew discovered that Spike was still alive in "Damaged," I blamed totally on Giles, his distrust of both Spike and Angel, and his desire to keep Buffy from knowing anything about what was going on in LA. That's just me, but, looking back on it, that just makes everything work, from the "Buffy doesn't trust you anymore," speech to Angel (Buffy trusts the people she loves, and she sees the best in them, whether it be Angel or Spike. If she were to ever stop trusting them, she would tell them herself, not send the word through Giles' flunkie, Andrew) to Giles' refusal to even tell Willow about Fred, and even on into Season 8, when Buffy mentions that, for some unknown reason, Giles has a Buffy look alike cavorting around Rome with the Immortal (obviously mostly to convince two ensouled vampires that Buffy had moved on, when, in reality, she was living a celibate life in the Scottish Highlands, playing Mama Slayer to a bunch of new Slayerettes) to later that season when Giles tells faith that he and Buffy aren't on the friendliest of terms anymore (possibly because she found out that Spike was back, Giles had known it, and he had kept the fact from her)

Granted, that is all just my own personal conspiracy theory, but that's why I never bought in to the Scooby hate element that was being put into the Season 5 story line. I saw it all as the machinations of one man who was determined to keep Buffy from ever seeing either Angel or Spike again, and ironically, the way that Season 8 ended only succeeded in strengthening my belief in the theory.

 

[tec]

Everyone has an agenda Giles and Andrew included

But I thought Willow was not even on the plant anymore to help Fred anyway?
She was on her first mystacal walkabout

 

[white avenger]

Everyone has an agenda Giles and Andrew included

But I thought Willow was not even on the plant anymore to help Fred anyway?
She was on her first mystacal walkabout

Wherever Willow might have been, there would most likely have been some way of contacting her astral self.

 

[Robb Stark]

Wherever Willow might have been, there would most likely have been some way of contacting her astral self.

Agreed. And it was more that Giles wouldn't even try. He made zero effort to help Angel save a life (would have repped you but it seems I've done that too much lately 🙂).