beeeeep!End Of AngelI have finally seen the last of Angel.
I'll warn you now - if you've not seen these episodes of season 5, beware small spoilers.
Had to watch
You're Welcome again, because it's very good. And sad, as Cordy finally departs.
The strange WW2 episode was followed by the episode everyone's been talking about:
Smile Time! Yep, Angel as a 'wee puppet man' as Spike put it. Just excellent! And funny! It's amazing how well that puppet can brood, I tell ya. And when the puppet Angel put on his vampire game face - it made me laugh out loud! Classic.
Of course, then they follow that with the heartbreaking double tale of
A Hole In The World and
Shells. Top work from Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof here; they play the pain and agony of it to the hilt perfectly. Knox gets his, which is only fitting. Wesley is suitably broken up and quietly crazed. Love the whole Deeper Well thing, very cool. And, now that I finally know who and what Illyria is, I have to agree that she is a fantastic character with a serious attitude.
And I just have to add here: Spike turned out much better than I expected. Love his attitude and take on being stuck around Angel, how they just don't really get on, how he enjoys sparring with Illyria, and, most of all, the surprising depth, likeability and compassion he displays. A big change from his old "I'm a bad guy" days. Obviously that soul thing really can make all the difference.
Following that is the weirdness of
Underneath, with it's freaky suburbia + torture hell, and the first appearance of Adam Baldwin as Hamilton. He's cool, calm and confidently invulnerable. Funny when compared to Jayne Cobb in Firefly, too. Then there's Gunn's sacrifice. A surprise, but one that makes sense. Then
Origin, with the return of Connor. Wesley's reaction to the discovery of the Big Change at the end of season 4 makes sense, but he got more than he expected, that's for sure.
Time makes a fractured appearance in
Time Bomb as Illyria's powers get unstable and the attempt to fix that problem causes even more problems. The suprising death of some major characters was unexpected, but that the matter would be resolved was not, of course. Cool ep though.
The Girl In Question - what can I say? An Angel and Spike farce? Who'd have guessed it? And splendid guest appearances by Julie Benz and Juilet Landau as Darla and Drusilla, who are always great fun to watch. Did the episode suffer because of the lack of SMG as Buffy? I don't think so; Angel and Spike are more amusingly pathetic because they don't get to see her!
And the end. Angel appearing to be uncaring and turning to evil so that he can join the dark side, the architects of THE Apocalypse themselves, in order to bring them down... The final decision to take the fight to the Circle, regardless of the cost... That final day of life for tomorrow they (might) die... Fantastic. We see a few old faces again, Spike gets poetical, Wesley mourns.
And then the bad guys get it bad. In the neck, in the face, and rendered into parts. Everyone in the team does their part, but not everyone makes it back. Lorne completes his mission and takes his leave, sick of it at last. Wesley... well, Cyvus Vail deserves everything he gets from Illyria, which isn't much but packs a hell of a punch. Sad to see Wesley leave us forever; his character grew and changed more than pretty much any other character I can think of in this show or any other. Connor shows up in the nick of time, Hamilton makes a slightly injudicious comment, and the hordes of hell (or their cousins, not really sure) arrive to exact a price from our heroes.
We don't see what happens to them. But we know. Anything else, any sort of survival or rescue, would invalidate the sacrfice that was the price of saving the world from that particularly major Apocalyse. Perhaps I should say it as APOCALYPSE instead, as this really would have been the properly Big Final One, rather than all the small-scale ends-of-the-world that have been foiled so far.
I feel strangely sad to know that they are gone. GONE gone. They may be back in comics and stuff, but surely only as flashbacks, "Previously on..." type things. Their story has ended.
Hasn't it?
Spike: In terms of a plan?
Angel: We fight.
Spike: Bit more specific.
Angel: Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon. Let's get to work.
FADE TO BLACK
click
