Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I've only seen the Angel series finale about one and a half times (last night, while I was taping it and editing out commercials, and then re-watching the first half this morning before I had to go to another doctor's appointment), and I've taken no actual notes on dialog or anything else, as yet, but here are my unscientific musings on this episode, so far:

Over-all Personal Satisfaction rating (on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 = 'orgasmic ecstasy that goes on for at least twenty minutes afterwards' and 0 = 'something akin to anaphylactic shock after eating a food that you've never liked anyway'): about 7.5 (compared to an 8.7 for "Chosen").

I loved vast stretches of this episode (especially the chances to 'tie up' a few loose ends, like Gunn's conversation with Chanterelle/Lily/"Anne Steele", whom we hadn't seen since "Blood Money" and "Thin Dead Line" in AtS season 2, and the unambiguously good father-son rapport between Connor and Angel). There were MANY scenes and exchanges between characters that went down like fine champagne and perfectly aged Omaha filet mignon (or exquisite pieces of vegetarian sushi and tempura, if you prefer a less carnivorous metaphor).

But there were also major -- probably intentional -- bits of gristle and bone that were extremely hard for me to swallow (the apparent soul-killing disillusionment of Lorne, for one thing, or the shocking execution of Lindsey in his moment of greatest "team-spirit," for another). Maybe "gristle and bone" is the wrong metaphor for those hard-to-digest bits -- maybe they were intended to be more like VERY hot peppers, to make us gasp and sweat and remember all over again that we're alive, or else we wouldn't be able to feel such pain. After all, Joss Whedon is the "don't-give-them-what-they-want-but-rather-what-they-NEED" guy, and with at least the vague possibility of continuing the story of Angel and co. at some later date (no matter how unlikely that now seems, with no Angel TV movies on the WB schedule for the foreseeable future and Whedon's attention firmly focused on his Firefly film), he might well have decided to leave us with something to keep chewing over, something that we feel still needs to be resolved in future episodes or countless fanfics.


I. The Delicious . . . (in no particular order)

--Gunn's "If-I-knew-I-was-going-to-die-tomorrow-I-would-plant-a-tree-today" spiritual refresher from Anne Steele, as he helped her keep on keeping on with her ministry to street kids.

--Spike "making his presence felt" by reciting the poem he'd written for Cecily all those years ago ("bulge in't . . . effulgent") to enthusiastic and positive reception from the crowd in what must be the toughest biker/poetry bar in L.A..

--Angel's "At the risk of sounding pretentious, one of you will betray me" speech, immediately followed by Spike raising his hand, and then asking if he could at least deny Angel three times.

--Wesley being cast as the pseudo-Judas-Iscariot, in order to take out the sorceror (when in reality, you could argue that he was playing a sort of Peter-in-search-of-redemption role: having 'denied' Angel on at least two previous occasions, when he stole Connor in season 3 and when he broke the window-cube-thingy this season, he PRETENDED to deny Angel a third time, but only in order to demonstrate that ultimately he was now ready to follow his 'Master' even unto a sort of death on a cross).

--Spike taking on a whole passle of the Fell Brethren while holding the baby boy in one arm (shades of classic Xena fight scenes). Too adorable for words.

--Gunn recovering his "Joy of Staking" (apologies to the JOY OF COOKING copyright holders) and whole-hearted glee in taking out the demon Senator and her army of vampire minions.

--Connor telling his dad Angel, "You're such a girl", with so much easy affection that I had to laugh.

--Connor showing up to help Dad out in the crucial fight scene, thus drawing it out enough for Marcus to make the mistake of using the "b-word" and giving Angel the clue he needed to defeat him.

--Angel telling Connor that as long as Connor was safe, the Senior Partners couldn't destroy Angel.

--the delightful slashiness of the Angel/Lindsey conversation, with the references to Lindsey tuning out Angel's preachiness but admiring Angel's record as the biggest mass-murderer he'd ever met AND admiring the fact that Angel was a vampire with "big brass testes" who was about to pick the nastiest fight since humankind drop-kicked the last pure demon out of this dimension. Angel: "I want you, Lindsey. ...I'm thinking about re-phrasing that." Lindsey: "I'd be more comfortable if you did."

--Illyria's lines, especially to Wesley, and especially the one that prompted him to tell her what an inspiring person she is (about pulling her enemies' eyes out of their sockets just far enough to turn them around and let them see the mewling remains of their mutilated faces -- sheer poetry!).

--Illyria and Gunn telling each other, "try not to die". Awww.

--the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" parallels at the very end, as Illyria, the gravely wounded Gunn, Spike, and Angel prepare to face the armies of hell, and Angel says he's always wanted to kill the dragon.


II. The Difficult . . .

--the fact that Wesley died, even if he DID get to go out nobly and inspire Illyria to even greater heights of kick-ass rage and grief out of affection for him.

--the possibility that Wesley didn't really want to win or survive that final battle, considering how poorly armed he turned out to be (unless Illyria's affection for him is classified as a concealed weapon) -- the guy who, in his 'dark Wesley' phase, used to have big honking bladed weapons up both sleeves, and the guy who unhesitatingly filled his own 'dad' full of bullet holes earlier this season.

(Wesley being the one among them who had no desire to do anything or be anywhere in particular during their 'day off' could have been a clue, of course. But I simply wasn't prepared for that possibility -- enjoying too much the hotness of him and his apparently restored relationship with Angel, I guess, as well as his exchanges with Illyria.)

--Harmony being cast as the REAL Judas (I was so hoping her liaison with Hamilton was just a particularly clever way of keeping him occupied while enjoying his undeniable hunkiness, and then send him off on a wild goose chase of some sort) -- implying that she hasn't changed at all, really, since her season AtS season 2 betrayal in "Disharmony", and that having no soul still equates to no ability to feel love or to change.

(I could comment on all the ways that Spike's actions in BtVS seasons 5 and 6 challenged that assumption, and I could point out that Angel seems to be generalizing an awful lot based on his OWN experience of being incapable of love or loyalty of any kind until he was forcibly re-united with his human soul -- but I won't. Not right now, anyway.)

--the possibility that Gunn might be on the verge of expiring himself, at the very end of the episode.

--the idea that Angel might be able to sign away his 'rights' to the Shanshu.

(I'm still chewing over the idea that 'hope' is stronger than 'loyalty' -- that may be a very good thing, but should those two qualities really be separate or competing?. More importantly, what good is an ancient prophecy that can simply be signed away? And I'm not sure how I feel about Spike telling Angel that as long as Angel wasn't winning the prize, getting to be a real live boy, he didn't mind not winning it himself. Is that perhaps taking the "If you say 'Kill Spike' we might have to kiss" and "Well, then, can I deny you three times?" raillery a bit too far?)


III. The Downright Distasteful . . .

--Lorne apparently having his last ounce of faith in Angel and the rightness of their cause shattered by Angel asking him to execute Lindsey, as soon as Lindsey did his part to help them in the war effort.

Now I understand why Lorne looked so sick and on the verge of throwing up while he was singing "If I Ruled the World" during what was supposed to be his free do-whatever-makes-you-happy day. Shades of that scene from season 4, where Lorne has been forcibly awakened from the "love-Jasmine" illusion and is sent to get Wes and Gunn so that they, too, can be stripped of that happy illusion! What was it Lorne said to himself before he put on his phony happy face and went out to get his friends? "Tonight, the role of Judas Iscariot will be played by Krevlorne Swath of the Deathwok Clan."

Maybe Fred was the one who got physically hollowed out and devoured in the process of Illyria coming into this world, but Lorne seems to have been spiritually eaten alive from the inside and left sick and hollow and in constant pain by the events of this season -- from having his sleep removed and proving that his unconscious mind really could NOT maintain a "judge-not-and-take-no-offense-at-anyone" attitude when confronted by the real evils represented by some of the W&H clientele, to faking it through his days with a phony court-jester exterior and nothing but copious amounts of alcohol to dull his grief and pain, to finally confronting Angel's expedient killing of Drogan and willingness to use up the last ounce of Lorne's loyalty and hope by asking him to kill Lindsey in cold blood.

--Lindsey's murder, even though you could probably make a strong argument that he had it coming, after all those many chances for redemption that he had turned down and all those dirty deals he must have done while working for W&H and ever since then in order to wind up with that enhanced strength and mystical knowledge, and after whatever hideous evils Lorne may have been able to see in Lindsey's future the last time he had occasion to read him. You could even argue that Lindsey should have been listening more closely, rather than counting on getting the Cliff's Notes version later, when Angel was telling him that this was a "destroy-all-evil-minions" mission and that Lindsey figured in Angel's mind as "the devil you know" and therefore, implicitly, someone on the hit list.

The issue isn't whether or not Lindsey deserved what he got. The issue is whether or not KILLING Lindsey in that particular way and at that particular time was a betrayal of Angel's self and mission. When Lindsey told Eve that, as long as he was fighting on Angel's team, Angel would play fair with him, I found that a fairly convincing argument. After all, Buffy didn't kill Spike and Dru (even if that might have been the 'smart' or 'practical' thing to do) when Spike was temporarily her ally in "Becoming" (though, arguably, Buffy didn't have the chance, since SHE had nobody else on her side in that battle and was herself fully occupied with fighting Angelus when Spike took Dru and left), so I had some reason to assume that Angel (who once said in "Gingerbread" that he'd learned what he knew about heroism from Buffy) would play his cards the same way.

Like Lorne, I would have liked to believe that killing an ally while he's still on your side and trusting you not to, falls under the heading of "We don't do that." But, like Lorne's discovery about leaving our people behind in hell dimensions, now I'm forced to accept that "I guess we do do that, now." And I don't particularly like the taste of that in my mouth.


Still, that's what fanfics and sequels are for, isn't it? To scratch those itches and mellow out some of those indigestible bits?

As I recall, it took about 6 years for Fox to get around to resolving the Alien Nation season-ending cliff-hanger by airing the first of those made-for-TV movies ("Alien Nation: Dark Horizon") -- hopefully, it won't take QUITE so long for the WB or whoever to get around to giving us a chance to revisit the Buffyverse and answer a few of the questions raised in this finale.