Maybe he just got tired of being an ordinary guy and doing his own laundery and so forth, and couldn't remember why he ever wanted to leave. I don't know. But the Lindsey that got all tatooed and came back to LA isn't the same LIndsey that drove off in Season 2 (I think it was Season 2, it was "Evil hand - I'm outta here", wasn't it? Just before Pylea? Still haven't had coffee...)

His stated reasons (to W&H during the evil-hand scene of Dead End) for leaving were that he had evil hand issues, and was bored. It's not much to go on. My memory of the episode itself is that it indicated he'd been a bit sickened by W&H, once their evil really involved his own life. And of course, what happened between him and Darla did a number on him, too.

My current Lindsey fanwank is that he came back this season, to do what he saw as (or was able to rationalize as) "good." It involves a whole lot of fanwanking or at least filling in the blanks, regarding W&H--particularly the senior partners. My fanwank-version-Lindsey (back in season two), Lilah, Holland, et al thought the members of the Circle of the Black Thorn were the senior partners*.

After my fanwank-Lindsey left town in season 2's Dead End, he set to doing a lot of research, recognizing that although he was intimidating enough to escape the humans at W&H that day, the senior partners weren't going to fear him, his evil hand, or any information he had for very long.

In doing so, he discovered the truth about the Circle of the Black Thorn (CotBT), and that they were just the emissaries for the S.P. Perhaps he'd even kept tabs on Angel and crew, and somehow found out about their Pylean expedition, and that was his key.

When he heard Angel was suddenly working for W&H, he was filled with what felt like righteous indignation, and intended to do what Angel & Co eventually did—infiltrate the CotBT, and somehow wipe them out, and best Angel in the process.

Seeing as Lindsey had never really cut the ties he needed to cut, in order to live clean though, we get an indication that had he managed to get that far on his mission, he would have ended up just taking over W&H's power—somehow replacing the CotBT, whether or not this was his intention. His greed, and lust for power would have overcome him. He'd never beaten back his demons; he just felt like he had, because when he'd run from them, he did so in his old bomb of a truck.

Basically, the kid didn't even know how to live clean, and was not motivated to do so. His primary motivation seems to have been to best those who had bested and/or humiliated him. I don't think Lindsey was necessarily written as being aware of this, but I still think it's likely true. Our primary indication of this is his continued involvement with Eve. Had he dumped her once she was no longer of use as a source of W&H information, I wouldn't include this statement in my fanwank. But I'm weak on the earlier episodes of this season, so I can't even buy into my own fanwank as much as I should.

* This fanwank sort of involves some handwaving on some of the statements Lindsey made about the senior partners in Dead End. He said in Dead End that he would have chosen Lilah, not himself, because Lilah had logged all sorts of hours gathering files on their (human W&H management) personal misdeeds: stock manipulations; off-shore accounts, and the like, and that if that information got back to the SP, they would devour the lot of them. So it really is a vigorous wank.

The videotape I've been putting the last 6 Angel episodes on seems not to be 6 hours long. Grr.

I'm gonna have to go back and watch Dead End again, I think. I definitely got the vibe that Lindsey was gonna go off and be not part of the problem, if not part of the solution, if that makes sense. Maybe he came back thinking he could be above this petty good/evil thing? Hmmm. Your wank definitely gives me food for thought, Cindy, though I'm not ready to wholeheartedly endorse it yet :-)

(edited because even with coffee I apparently can't type)

Your wank definitely gives me food for thought, Cindy, though I'm not ready to wholeheartedly endorse it yet

Neither am I. I know it has a dozen holes and half of those are due to my own problems with seeing all of this season. This is really a tide-me-over fanwank. I'll either use it 'til I don't care any longer, or until I figure out something better, or become convinced it's unwankable.

Upstream, someone (probably Micole) compared him to Rick Blaine in Casablanca. Lorne is Rick, but I would say he is now at the place Rick was when he first arrived in Casablanca. Whether he'll ever be able to bring himself to jump into the fray again, and with real, personal purpose, is still up in the air for me.

I'm loving this analogy (which I missed from upthread) and on the Lindsey front, Cindy remains the best fanwanker I've ever known.

I'm of the mind at this point, that Lindsey's motives were deliberately left ineffable. HE may not even have known what he wanted, except either to hurt (or perhaps join) the senior partners, and to seriously fuck up Angel's cabbage patch.

Writer movements, from Ain't It Cool News:

Former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" scribe Steve DeKnight (he co-scripted the hilarious Italy-set "Angel" that aired two weeks ago) is headed to "Smallville," according to kryptosite.com. He follows in the footsteps of fellow ex-"Buffy" scripter Drew Z. Greenberg, who migrated to "Smallville" one year ago.
For those keeping track, here"s where this season"s "Angel" writers have landed so far:
* Drew Goddard (DeKnight"s co-writer on "The Girl in Question") is headed to "Alias."
* Jeff Bell (Joss Whedon"s co-writer on the spectacular just-aired "Angel" series finale) is also headed to "Alias."
* Liz Craft & Sarah Fain (they scripted Hamilton"s introduction in the five-star "Underneath") have been asked to join "The Shield" (created by fellow "Angel" vet Shawn Ryan).
* Buffiverse mastermind Joss Whedon, who wrote more "Angel" teleplays this season than ever before, will nex season for the first time in eight years have nothing to do with televised entertainment. He is days away from make his feature directorial debut with Universal"s big-screen "Firefly" movie.
* No definitive word yet on David Fury ("You"re Welcome," "Power Play") or "Tick" mastermind Ben Edlund ("Life of the Party," "Smile Time," "Time Bomb"), but one hears Edlund is being hotly pursued by one of the most promising new series of the coming season.And I also heard that DB will be doing an independent film next.

No definitive word yet on David Fury

Isn't Fury doing Transylvania?

* Drew Goddard (DeKnight?s co-writer on "The Girl in Question") is headed to "Alias."

* Jeff Bell (Joss Whedon?s co-writer on the spectacular just-aired "Angel" series finale) is also headed to "Alias."

Damn. I guess I'll have to start watching again. (I watched up until about the 5th or 6th episode of this season and just lost interest.)

Did Transylvania make it on the schedule? Last I heard, it hadn't even made it to pilot.

Sigh. I guess I'll have to start watching Alias again too, at least as a stopgap until whatever Joss and Tim do next is ready to debut.

I'd rather more Angel, but it's nice to think that Alias may recover from the mis-steps of this year. Bell & Goddard could do lovely things with Spydaddy and Evil Uncle Arvin, and it's not like the gender politics on Alias have much lower to go. (Maybe in the penultimate Alias ep, Spydaddy will tell Sydney's half-sister, "Arvin and I have ever been intimate. Except for that one time in Istanbul, when he tried to drug me and I pretended to fall for it in a complex quadruple-cross that resulted in apparent SD-6 victory with the long-term strategic gain going to the CIA. And I only did it for my country, in any event."

Still thinking about the finale, and feeling more and more confirmed in reading it as a ambiguous last stand by unambiguously corrupted heroes--really, the corruption theme was right there in front of us the entire time. Also the tragic ending, because let's look at Angel season-enders past:

S1: Angel gains a family and a hope of shanshu; everyone ends well, except for Lindsey, now handless -- except that it's revealed to the audience, but not Angel, that W&H's ceremony succeeded after all, and Angel's nemesis is coming for him in S2.

S2: After seeing souled Angel go darker than unsouled Angelus, Angel reconciles with his friends, comes home victorious--and finds that while he's had a personal victory, Buffy saved the world and died.

S3: Angel's family is thoroughly destroyed, Wesley betrayed him and was cast out, Lorne gives up on the mission and goes to Vegas, Cordelia ascends to a higher plane, and Angel is drowned by his own son in revenge for sins committed by Angelus.

S4: Angel kills his son in order to save him and betrays his friends' trust to do it; the entire Angel gang, tentatively reunited, take a deal with the devil -- except for Cordelia, who's in a coma.

The most unambiguously happy ending Angel ever got was S1, and even there it's happiness born of ignorance. And we see Angel's own peculiar combination of self-righteousness/moral blindness enacted in violence on Lindsey, which I'm happy to claim as foreshadowing.

Does the Lindsey S5 arc recapitulate the S1-S2 arc in miniature, only with muddier characterization? And Eve hopelessly in love with Lindsey instead of Lindsey hopelessly in love with Darla?