Goodbye, yellow
brick road.
Consider the purpose of a series finale.
For a show like "Angel," where so very much has happened, a lesser writer
might look at the 42 minutes he has and use it to try to wrap up absolutely
everything that's ever happened in the series.
Cram in guest appearances, visit the lab where the ninja cyborgs are made,
reference every battle ever fought, show what the ultimate purpose of the
Shanshu prophecy entails, try to squish an epic battle between the Powers That
Be and the Senior Partners in, turn all the vampires human or ensoul the lot of
them, closing with Angel, now human, standing astride the apocalyptic wreckage,
bathed in sunlight and kissing a now somehow infatuated Buffy.
A lesser writer would have no sense of scope.
Joss, however, somehow knew exactly what he needed to do.
He needed to say goodbye.
In the spring of 2004, it's entirely possible that there was all kinds of
excitement among cast and crew and maybe a few executives here and there for
additional projects. At that time, maybe it felt like there were going to be
all kinds of television movies and even big screen wrapups.
And it's very true -- Joss cleverly sowed sufficient seed over the course of S5
to take the project Somewhere.
But the realist in him suspected that would probably not come to fruition.
Already, the WB had indicated in practical and implicit ways that they honestly
didn't get it any more -- if indeed they ever had -- and that Joss Whedon and
Mutant Enemy were coming off their collective speed dial.
So he basically needed to say goodbye.
Consider all the ways he'd been saying goodbye up until that point.
In "Conviction," Team Angel said goodbye to the hotel. It was a big
move, and commented on briefly in "Underneath" where Fred could see
it from Angel's suite (its having been purchased by Scientologists was somewhat
intriguing) and "The Girl in Question," where the Burkles commented
that the law firm was "a couple of steps" up from the Hyperion.
In "You're Welcome," he said goodbye not only to Cordelia, who got
the sweetest possible sendoff -- she was the undisputed star of that episode,
and the key to the season finale. If her demon infusion protected her brain
from the Visions, and also gave rise to Jasmine, then when Jasmine left her a
comatose shell of her former self, one more Vision -- the one that pointed
Angel in the direction he needed to go -- probably blew the back of her head
out, if the sequence in "Birthday" can be believed, and I personally
believe it.
"You're Welcome" was much nicer as goodbyes go than our having to
witness the back of Cordy's head exploding.
It was also a farewell to Doyle. The tape he made in "Hero" was the
only thing left to bring back, the only way they could legitimately feature his
goodbye without a cheesy clip or a vulgar recasting. Lindsey's reintroduction
as Doyle in "Soul Purpose" with the ice cream headache visions
would've been crass if they hadn't been planning to air "That's it? Am I
done?" one last time.
So by "You're Welcome," we had full circle on the visions,
undisputable and relevant ties to the first season, strong themes on where
we've been and where we're going -- Lindsey's line at the end of "City
Of" suggests that W&H and the Senior Partners are a series arc Big Bad
and certainly Angel has tussled with them in the past.
We had a lovely farewell to Fred at the end of "Shells," with her
little smile as she headed off toward Los Angeles. And we had a lovely farewell
to Darla in "Why We Fight" ...
* needle scratch *
Whaaaaa ... ?
It just occured to me this a.m., watching "Darla" on TNT, that Angel can't
have sired Darla in S2.
Lawson's appearance in "Why We Fight," his very ambiguity, made it
necessary for someone who wasn't Angel to sire Darla. The fact that they ran
Drusilla to earth and brought her in to do it was just icing. But if Angel had
sired her, there'd be this question as to what effect his ensouled status might
have had on her. If there was that question running behind the lifeforce he
earned in "The Trial," Connor might have seemed to project entirely
from his doing -- parthenogenically -- and Darla's appearance in "Inside
Out" might have been less interesting somehow. The fact that she and Angel
were their own entities when Connor was conceived makes it a little cooler for
me -- that Darla had all the more to do
with it than merely the oven for his bun.
Darla and Dru's flashback appearance in "The Girl in Question" was
very cool as well, but this view seemed to give all the more importance to
"Why We Fight" than it had had before, so ... maybe it's just me, but
I enjoyed that.
The fact that W&H brought her back specifically to corrupt Angel and Angel
did everything in his power to redeem her may have been behind her willingness
to sacrifice herself for Connor's birth in the first place.
Angel and Darla's destinies were absolutely intertwined through all of that.
Connor's conversation with Angel in "Not Fade Away" -- oh yes, I'm
still discussing this episode -- was an excellent goodbye to his character. He
was complete. He had the terrible childhood, he had the instant therapy of
Vail's fake memories, and he had the direction he was going in -- college student,
Stanford. And willing to pitch in on the whole Apocalypse thing.
Whereas before, he was the Destroyer. He was willing to take a whole lot of
lives with him to end his pain in "Home," now he was willing to throw
in with the whole "saving the world" biz.
Angel's conversation with Harmony after renouncing his dream of recapturing his
humanity was interesting, because it was a nice goodbye for her. Harmony packed
into a couple of sentences who she'd ever been and who she had become. Her
character arc from "Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest" to that
conversation in Angel's office was a nice little farewell to the 'Verse as
well. The two people left who'd been there all along.
Gunn ... Spike ... Gunn ... Spike ...
Both could legitimately come next. Read them in whichever order you'd like.
Gunn's farewell was a series arc farewell. He was the only human left at the
end and he was fading fast. His appearance in the alley was where Joss was in
his battle with the WB. He'd been a part of Angel's life since S1 and he went
out slaying vampires, with a note of railing against the injustice of the
world, articulated by Anne, who also represented a maturity and a wisdom born
of eleven seasons in the 'Verse.
Keep fighting the darkness. Don't let it win.
And Spike's farewell seemed to be a farewell to Buffy as well. His final day
was spend reciting his poetry, a celebration of the creative and the person
he'd been. And his final fight referenced his contribution to the events of
"Chosen" -- no amulets. It put a nice little bookend on his
appearance in S5 and tipped a hat to
the series finale of Buffy.
There are significant farewells in Wesley, who had been mourning Fred since her
death, whose life had in many real ways ended in "A Hole in the
World." Wes spent his final day tending to Fred's grave, in the person of
Illyria, and discussed the person he'd been through the entire series. Sending
Wes to meet with Vail was like Wesley meeting with Holtz. Only this time Angel
was in on the "betrayal." It was a great farewell and his final
moments let us mourn Fred one last time as well.
Lorne's farewell got crowded out a little, but his regrets were like those of
people whose dreams had died a little, whose lives were not going the way they
wanted them to, who had to pull the trigger on something significant.
I think Joss spent as little time with Lorne in "Not Fade Away" as he
did because he was the one who had to write the gunshot to the heart. And it
was no less painful and distasteful to him than it was for Lorne.
And Angel.
Angel's battle with Hamilton, assisted by Connor, put a tangible face on the
Senior Partners -- a way that they could be respresented. Hamilton came right
out and said he was their representative, and how was he brought down?
Angel ate him.
It was the coolest way for us to end his storyline. Would he be human? Would he
win? Would he bring down W&H once and for all?
Probably they could rebuild in the blink of an eye. Evil is always there to
fight. But what he could do, as a vampire with a soul, was live on through his
son and fight the darkness where he found it.
And in "Not Fade Away," he was able to take a big cracking swing at
it.
Hell ...
I wanna slay the dragon, too.
Nicely done, people.
Nicely, nicely done.