(no subject)

[helsinkibaby]

As expected, I cried buckets when not all discombobulated by RL events. Not that this stands any chance of being coherent as I type with tears rolling down my cheeks, but here we go.

The notion of giving them a perfect day, to do what they wanted to do, was wonderful. And each of them did just what I expected. Wesley's... well, he really did set himself up as cannon fodder in that speech. The first time I saw it (two weeks ago, at a one-day) I was spoiler free and his fate, for me, was pretty much set in stone then.

That being said, and I suppose I'll get it out of the way first... I hated that they killed him. Hated it. My favourite character! If he had to die, that was pretty much the scene I expected it... Illyria becoming Fred was no big surprise, and it did, in some small way, alleviate my severe annoyance that came from The Girl in Question where I couldn't believe that Wesley hadn't called the Burkles to tell them about Fred. OK, he was upset and angsty and doing the whole breakdown thing, and there was an Apocalypse and I get all that. But the fact of the matter is, that's the last thing that Fred asked him to do before she died. The. Last. Thing. There's no way he wouldn't have carried out that last request. Obviously, he had to do it, because they were setting up the whole death scene, but God, it really annoyed me. As for the lines in it... oh me, oh my... "Would you like me to lie to you now?" "It won't hurt any more, and then you'll be where I am... we'll be together" -- yeah, broke my heart.

Speaking of breaking my heart - Lorne. I adore Lorne, and it's been painful to see what they've put him through this season; between the last scene where he just walked away, and the one a few episodes ago where he was pouring out his soul to a bartender about Fred's death... Andy Hallett did a wonderful job of selling those scenes and for someone who so often get the comedic value, he broke my heart.

Lindsey - not content with killing my favourite regular character, they take my favourite recurring character and kill him too. Unlike Lindsey, I'm not upset that it was Lorne who got the job. I'm angry as hell at the fact that, during the whole episode, all we heard from Lindsey was that he was changing, that he wanted in on the fight, that he was on Angel's side. And you can argue with me that he would have sold them out without a second's hesitation, and I have no recourse to that. Except to say that, during the scene with Eve on their "Perfect Day" when it was just the two of them, where he had no reason to lie, where he was with the one person who he could be honest with, he sang from the exact same hymn sheet. For that moment, for that fight, he was on their side, and for Angel to turn around and kill him, betray him in cold blood like that, left a very very nasty taste in my mouth.

Gunn - kicked ass. The scenes with Connor? I like this new Connor. This Connor did not annoy me completely as he did in season four. Adam Baldwin was wonderful, as always, but the minute he said the word "Blood" I knew what was going to happen - ok, it could have been Joanne beside me going, "Ooops..guess what that did!" Though I gotta say, she was pretty good with the not spoiling me of it all, and she threatened to bitchslap anyone at the one day who did.

Now the ending... ok. My initial thought was that I hated it. I wanted an ending that tied everything up, not the ending that I got. Though I must say, I had an inkling that something like that might be in the offing, because I was talking to Joanne the day before the one day and I said that I was psyching myself up for the worst possible ending (having seen some comments in LJ when the first round of spoilers came about about people not being happy with them. I didn't go near anything for the finale when it aired, as I was seeing it on the Sunday) -- my exact words to Joanne were that the worst case scenario would be a Blake's 7 type thing... of course, Joanne didn't know about Blake's 7. So when I told her about it, there was just this silence for a minute, and then the words, "OK, we're ending this conversation right now!" Which was kind of a give away, a little.

Upon further thought, and deep breathing, I came around to the ending, and the strengths of it... a show that was all about fighting evil, whose theme was basically that the fight goes on, and never ends, despite all the odds... the whole "Let's go to work" and how they were all side by side in that alley, and the swing of the sword... it was all really well done. Illyria's comment about wanting to do more violence I just loved... and they were all perfectly in character, so I did like it from that point of view. I dunno, it's one of those things, I love it and it's wonderful, but the reasons I love it are also the reasons that I hate it. Which makes no sense at all but there you go.

Line of the episode... definitely when Angel goes, "This might sound pretentious, but one of you will betray me." Spike puts up his hand, Angel goes, "Wesley." Spike's response. "Can I deny you three times?" Perfectly, perfectly perfect!