finished Angel

[rm]

Thoughts and a lot of spoilers:

http://lettersfromtitan.com/2011/01/05/buffy-angel-and-a-whole-bucketload-of-spoilers/

Comments

[elisi]

Love your post. Have no time to comment properly, so instead I shall quote an old interview with David Fury:

FURY: ...the last beat of the episode would be Angel and whoever was left of his crew about to launch into the apocalypse. My thought on that is, that's the perfect way to end the show. The point of Buffy was always girl power and showing that power. The point of Angel was always that the fight never ends. He'll always fight. It's an eternity of fighting. You can't ever win but the fight is worth fighting. That was a perfect 'going out' scene - you know, the Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid sort of we're going up against impossible odds and probably die? That's the perfect way to end the series, and anybody who says otherwise is dumb.
[...]
Unlike Buffy who ended up with her three friends and were able to end in that way, in Angel's case, everybody that he's ever been close to dies, which is really Angel's story - that he will always outlive the people he cares about. He has gone on and on, he has seen people he loves die, which is another reason that he and Buffy realized they couldn't be together. [...] But the fact that he was side-by-side with Spike was kind of a wonderful turnaround in the mythology of the series.
Interviewer: There's Butch and Sundance right there.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

I really might have to rewatch Angel one of these days, because as far as I remember it, I found the end so utterly bleak that even the end of CoE is easier to deal with for me...

[elisi]

Huh. How curious. I shall point you towards two posts by the_royal_anna: Power Play and Not Fade Away, and pull out a few quotes:

And what I always loved best about the Buffyverse was that it wasn’t always about getting out of the hole. Sometimes you can't get out of the hole, and you can’t sit around waiting until you do. You have to make a difference where you are, as you are. That's the point.
~
I've always loved Angel differently to the way I loved Buffy. Once upon a time I said that Buffy was character-driven where Angel is theme-driven, that sometimes in Angel it felt like the characters were subservient to the story. And now I start to see that that was the point of Angel; that it was about characters trying to be bigger than the story they were in. It was a battle, character versus story, and the answer was always that you could only fight your story so far. That in the end you'd have to seize your story, whichever point of that story you'd find yourself at, and make it yours. I think that's what Angel leaves with me. It's your story. Tell it.
~
I have seen so many incredible stories about great, epic battles between good and evil. I've seen that dark army advance so many times, and it’s always been about the battle, the cost, the outcome. It's always been about who won, about how they won.

Last night, I saw that turned on its head. I sat there and saw the show that told me you don't have to be good enough to beat them to be good enough. I saw the show that told me a handful of fighters standing up in the face of evil is threat enough to burst the gates of hell. I saw the show that told me that what matters is not what you achieve, but what you do.

I saw a show that dared to stand there and tell me you are enough.


Most of all though, for me, it comes down to this:

ANGEL: Go home...now.
CONNOR: They'll destroy you.
ANGEL: As long as you're OK, they can't.

Angel and Jack are incredibly similar, and yet there is this one, huge difference. Angel saves the boy (at the cost of the world? Certainly at the cost of his mission and his friends). Jack sacrifices the boy (but saves the world).

Angel, in NFA, is - despite everything - at peace with his choices.

Jack, in CoE, has to literally leave the world because he can't live with the choice he made.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Not to completely hijack rm's journal, but mostly because unlike her I absolutely do believe Wesley when he says that there is nothing he wants from life any longer. He's too conscientious to outright commit suicide, but he doesn't really care any longer, and he'll take the chance if it presents itself. To be finally able to permit himself to give up and let Illyria lie to him. And it's not just Wesley, at this point all of them are harbouring something of a death wish—except of course Lindsey, who is the only one who still has expectations and passion, and Angel makes Lorne shoot him. Never mind Wesley, for me that is the most depressing scene of the finale.

I'd argue that Angel was more or less at peace with his choices in the end because he expected he wouldn't have to live with them for much longer.

Angel saves the boy (at the cost of the world? Certainly at the cost of his mission and his friends). Jack sacrifices the boy (but saves the world).

I did notice that, and this is one of the choices I really respect RTD for. A lot. Everyone understands why Angel did what he did, regardless of what the results turned out to be. Whereas Jack's choice in CoE... I still don't have the right words. Maybe there are none.

[elisi]

I think Anna says it best:

It's a bleak and joyless world where heroes do not fight because they have hope, but fight because fighting is their only manifestation of hope.

Hmmm. Although really, the finale is 'If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do' taken to its furthest extreme.

I did notice that, and this is one of the choices I really respect RTD for. A lot.
Oh me too. Despite Rusty's writing being more uneven, he has the balls to go where Joss fears to tread, and I respect the hell out of that.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Like I said above, I'd probably have to rewatch Angel. It's been years since the last time, and I'd probably change my opinion about a lot of things...

[firebirdgrrl.livejournal.com]

That ending episode is one of the best things shown on TV.

Myself, I've always been a Buffy girl-or more accurately a Willow girl.While she was a computer person(which I wasn't but was interested in)I understood her shyness and frustration and trying to get to know herself--as well as the notes of anger and powerhungriness at her core. She's flawed and wonderful and I love her.

(Also identified with Tara as well, so it got complex and interesting for a while even though the narrative went goofy and upsetting, but damn I still love her and will never stop.) It may be silly but I still look to her for inspiration and how to deal with things.

Actually, this really has nothing to do with what you are talking about but I hope it's interesting anyway. You make me want to write more about it.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

(even if I really hate the season of demon pregnancy incest whining)

you are so not the only one there! and i love love love the angel series finale - it's one of my fave finales ever

everything you said about wesley - yes yes

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on the whole Cordy/Conner squickfest. The moment in which she justified to herself popping Conner's cherry was the moment I lost all interest in her. Not even Buffy-era Cordy could be that...calculating.

That being said, Oh Wesley. Always supressing your individual wants and desires for the good of the group. To the bitter bitter end, when even Illyria knows all that she can do for you is put on the Fred suit.