Angel 5.22 Not Fade Away

[thebratqueen]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Started crying like a little bitch when David said "Previously" and pretty much did not stop.

Okay, okay - gotta be my usual self. I haven't let a single ep of this show go by without an eye for the good and the bad and damn it I'm not going to dishonor the finale by breaking that tradition. On the other hand I can't promise the kind of coherence I usually have in my comments. Tears and people constantly PMing me in IRC as I try to write this would be the reason why ;)

Anyway...

When the spoilers for this finale came down there were people who hated it. Hated Wes dying, hated Gunn getting mortal wounds, hated Illyria surviving until the end when the boys did not, hated Lorne killing Lindsey, and hated that the show ended in the middle of the battle.

I say unto you: that's the way the show should have ended.

The finale we got was the one we were meant to have for the characters. It was the final note that we were supposed to have for all of them. Would I have liked for Wes to live and Illyria not to get so much screentime? Sure. But as a good story that's not the way it goes. Illyria is stronger than Wesley, and Wes since the very beginning has been the human side of Angel's pain. Wes takes the damage, and he was never ever going to survive the ultimate battle.

(Obligatory nitpick: Wes's death scene should have ideally been about Wes, not Illyria-as-fake-Fred. If this was a season finale I could forgive the camera being on her the whole time if this moment is meant to be a defining one for Illyria's character, but for a series finale the defining moment was Wes, and I would've rather seen his emotions than her pretend ones. Yes, I get that Illyria felt grief, but we were still looking at fake!Fred. From an emotional standpoint I couldn't help but feel we were seeing Joss's bias for Amy Acker and not actually the most important aspect of the scene.)

People in spoilerwhoredom who didn't like the last moment and felt that it was - and let me assure you this phrase is banned from my LJ, because I'm so sick of seeing it - "A giant FUCK YOU to all the fans" I have to say that really no, no it wasn't. It's not an insult because it's not an ending. We don't stop at the end, we stop in the middle. Joss et al. is encouraging us to keep thinking about the characters and to wonder what happens next. This is basically a blank check from ME for us to imagine the ending that we want. And for anybody who's about to bitch that you didn't want the ending where Wes or Lindsey were really dead I have three words for you: Buffy and Spike. Thanks, and please drive through.

I talked last week about how we moved past "s5 Wesley" to "finale Wesley", where we side-step the comparatively minor plot points of the season to focus on the final story of the character's life. Tonight we had, I think, "finale Angel". Here is the emotional core of this character, and anybody who thought it'd be in a reunion with Buffy was seriously not paying attention to the past three years. Angel is a father. His core is with his child. Like any true parent, his world is good if his child is safe.

And the sad thing is that even though I was spoiled to Hell and back for this ep, I still screamed and clapped my hands off when Connor came in to help save his daddy. Ahhh... that's the stuff.

The entire ep (and watch my brain go 'round in circles) really was about solidly anchoring itself in the heart of the series. Everything was about that - why do we fight the good fight, what spurs us on, how do we deal with the harshness of our reality. And I liked that there were all sorts of snapshots of that, from Anne showing up again to present a very basic view of how we live in the mundane day to day, to Wes who kept fighting even when he couldn't lay claim to anything that would inspire him (though of course arguably his last lingering look at the guy the show is named after would suggest that if nothing else Wes never lost his thesis that he was doing all right as long as he was making sure Angel got through).

Man - my brain is numb. I can't even remember half the stuff I wanted to say. I should've followed through with my first instinct to write up a rough draft of this just based on the spoilers ;)

Okay, random comments:

The final stunts. [sniffle] Like a geek I was counting off some of Mike's best moves. Sadly we got no straight drop from a height, which means now I'm curious as to which ep got the final one, but still we got the flips, and roundhouse kicks, and - wah!

Editing. Oh my god editing. The way the separate battles were stitched together in terms of movement and emotion and tone - guh. Amazing.

Slash shout-outs, right up until the very end. Angel/Linds were the loudest, sure, but my boys got one final long, lingering look. I'm happy.

Speaking of my boys, there's a shout-out to me in this ep that won't get revealed until I start posting my methadone. But I feel the need to state that for the record anyway ;)

The ep was rushed but I forgive that utterly considering that there was so much goodness to pack in. Hell even as it was some great lines got cut. Though? Gotta say? Nobody needed Eve closure. Cut her and give Angel and Connor back the lines they lost.

Wes mentions being spanked as part of a perfect day, Angel has no problem spanking men. You do the math.

Loved the easy camraderie with Spike and Gunn in the final moments.

Spike reading his poetry read funny (as it was meant to) in the spoilers but oh I was cringing for it being hot ass in execution. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't. Way to go JM with pulling that off.

Sigh. It's all too much. My brain is back on being melted. But it was a perfect story. It was the best story for this show to end on, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Won't be the first to say this tonight and I'm sure I won't be the last: I love my dead gay show.

And now I cry like Butters.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!