Eh.

Illyria is okay. It ended where I wanted her to be. Just a little more human but with super strength and an inability to adjust to her humanity. But I wish she was there three episodes ago because that was a whole lot of wasted time.

I really just wish there was more Fred in her. I know they really, really had to emphasize “her soul burned away” so that we could trust she’d never come back from the dead but by just killing Fred, the character didn’t get much of a goodbye. Amy Acker is getting a great farewell from the series because she’s killing it. But unlike Gunn and Wesley and Angel - and possibly even Lorne - Fred never really got to grow this season or go anywhere new beyond seeming more confident as a boss. Shame.

The B-plot with the baby and the Fell was actually way more important this episode, in terms of gearing up for the end of the show. I had trouble with it at first, but I do love the goofy tone the show takes on sometimes. They just really committed to it. And unlike on Buffy, demons being silly never feels like a cop out for episodes. (See:

I love crazy Wesley. I also love that they called out - sometime the show can be too subtle - that he’s alternating between crazy and shutdown. It’s one of those things where if you look at it in real life, of course someone would alternate between rambling hysteria and comatose. But in TV world, shifts like that can feel inconsistent and jarring or like unsatisfactory charectar pacing UNLESS it’s made explicitly intentional. By having Lorne call it out, it’s a way of saying “We get what we’re doing. It’s on purpose.” Does that make sense?

So I still don’t love Wesley’s attachment to Illyria - which again, they’ve done the cool thing of calling out the weirdness of (self-awareness is almost always what sets Joss Whedon shows apart) but I like where it has him as the series ends. I really, really wanted him to be lying to Illyria about not killing her at the end. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I would love Wesley’s arc to end with somehow declaring loyalty to Angel. But Wesley’s whole thing is how he struggles with being loyal to anything but his own internal logic.

Oh. I guess that’s probably why he needs Illyria. It’s easier to be loyal to something irrationally - something you know will disappoint you - than the try to commit to rational loyalty.