I’ll be honest, I’m pissed at everyone who has watched Angel before with the exception of Chris.

So many people spoiled that this was an important episode and a moving episode. That meant that as soon I saw the flashback with Fred at the beginning, I knew this was the episode where Fred dies. That meant that rather than watching the episode with any sense of the stakes, I was just watching to see how she dies which is a much less meaningful, much less moving experience. (In spite of Chris’ charming but ineffective attempt to reassure me that it’s just an important episode for “character arcs”. He’s cute.)

I’ve said this a hundred times and I’ve gotten laughed at, just for the record, a spoiler isn’t just telling me what happens. When it happens, how I should react to it - those are spoilers too.

Anyway. On to the episode.

I tried but I never really developed any deep, deep attachment to Fred. I liked her, but I always got the sense that I liked her less than the people on the show liked her. To me, Fred always felt like a Mary Jane character from an Angel fan fiction story wandered onto the show and was played well by Acker. Too many attributes, too many crushes, too few charectar flaws. She never felt like a person. And I kind of hated that and hated myself for not just getting over it. I really, really wanted to like Fred. I liked the concept of her so much, and I find Acker so charming, that it was always a point of contention in my brain. And probably as a result of really wanting to like her so much, I was never going to like her enough. That makes sense in my head.

I definitely recognized her as a bright, sunshiny thing so I can feel some of the light go out of the show now. And more than that, I did buy that the characters on the show loved her and that’s where the heartbreak in the episode happened.

For me, the most moving moment in the episode was Lorne’s treatment of Eve. I think Lorne can be such a heartbreaking character and it’s been so long since we’ve seen that.

Gunn. Man, poor Gunn. I really feel like he gets thrown around a lot by the shows writers. For the last few seasons he’s just felt like a screw up. But I love that his deal with the doctor has such huge consequences.

And I love that Knox played into it. I was starting to kind of roll my eyes - in spite of loving the actor - at how ineffective he was. And I was astonished that a main character would die in such a random way. Having it all be predetermined - awesome.

Spike and Angel - it really, really works for me. I’m not sure how or exactly what moments I can point to but they’re finally at the place where I love their dynamic and I’m excited about it and I think it works. And it provides emotional weight to the show, rather than just feeling like it added complicated character interplay.

I will say that these shows straight up overuse elder Gods. (Three times, but still.) It was weird to employ it again but C. Scott pointed out that it was mostly about Whedon wanting to write something that would show Acker’s chops. More on that later.

Wesley and Fred. Okay.

Wesley…I think it was a mistake to not have there be more repercussions for that time he thought he murdered his Dad. For the last few episodes he’s been back in the office almost acting like business as usual and I don’t buy it. I think that was a major turning point and it hasn’t been played that way and it’s frustrating. I imagine that has to do with planning out the season but I think it took some of the bite out of this arc. In fact, I will say that letting Wesley back into the Angel, Inc circle neutered him in some ways. He and Angel finally dealt with their baggage, but we never really saw Wesley deal with his anger at abandonment by Gunn and Fred. It just kind of got dropped in the sudden rush of Season Four episodes.

And Wesley’s feelings for Fred. Maybe I’m overly sensitive but the very first time that Wesley’s interest in Fred was introduced was in the Billy episode - when he was a lunatic, sex predator who was raving and condescending and trying to kill her. That’s the VERY first time. A few episodes later he starts talking vocally about having a crush on her and that never sat well with me. His crush always maintained an air of the creepy after that. I never bought it as real love. It was deep infatuation with a tenderness fetish. And that was reaffirmed by Lilah calling out his objectifying of her. (Speaking of - I bought Lilah and Wesley far, far more.)

So. All of this I could have forgiven if we’d actually had time with Fred and Wesley as a couple. If you’d been able to build that reality and shown a genuinely tender, loving Wesley for Fred when she was NOT an incapacitated victim, I would be far more moved by what happened and what’s to come. But for whatever reason they didn’t think it could be fit in. (Think of the Tara/Willow reunion right before Tara’s death on Buffy. We had a whole episode of the two of them lounging around in mutual bliss. In this case, we get all of two minutes post-fight.) Wesley has always been possessive of Fred, so I buy that her death will send him into a frenzy. But I’d be more touched if it wasn’t a frenzy that felt of vague sexist condescension slash lust.

Ugh. He’s so Zooey Deschanel-ing her.

Okay. So that’s off my chest.

Oh wait - I’m not done. There were a bunch of times during this episode where I was like “Wesley’s going to shoot him. Wesley’s going to shoot that guy.” And I was right - or at least Wesley would pull out a gun. Which kind of starts to feel like a caricature of dark anything-goes Wesley.

So. Illyria.

Weirdly, I had been spoiled that the word Illyria floated around Season Five but I never knew exactly the context. I just figured they went to another world again. I definitely had NO idea it was a person. Again, having just dealt with an Elder God as the end of Season Four, I’m not in love with the idea of it coming back again.

Acker looks awesome. And the stuff she’s doing with her voice is incredible. (When she called back Fred’s voice to recite a memory to Wesley, I was surprised by how much she had changed herself.) Illyria kills it in a way that Jasmine didn’t. Still, I don’t want to see Wesley and Illyria got on an adventure to learn about the world.

When Lindsay came back I was excited for what that might mean for the Season arc. Illyria still being around doesn’t interest me a fraction of as much.

What I want to see/what it might destroy me to see:

Gunn, Lorne and Wesley have to die now. Or be lost to Angel.

The only one that will really move me deeply will be Lorne’s death.

I love the idea of dark Wesley, but I don’t know how hard I can jones for it now. It lacks the surprise that it had when we were first discovering it during Season Three/beginning of Four. There’s been a darkness lurking in Wesley since then that they haven’t totally shook but they also haven’t used. If he and Fred had been around longer, I would have really loved to have seen Wesley re-capacitated to be the believing, trusting person he had wanted to be pre-Faith and to then lose Fred and go nutso. Or, I would have loved for Wesley to reach that confident point on his own. I would have liked to see Wesley end up where Giles did after he left the Watcher’s Council (before they made him an out of touch old man in Season Seven) - his only moral code is his own but he believes in it deeply. Right now, he’s still driven by anger and revenge and a constant sense that he’s been wronged - which isn’t totally inaccurate. He’s got a dark streak AND he’s been bruised by the world. Basically, I do love Dark Wesley but I want better things for him. I want him to have cynical but secure happiness. Can I get that.

Anyway. Everyone has to die now and Angel needs to go into whatever the final battle is alone.

Or with Spike.