butterfly | Angel 5x22 -- Not Fade Away

There are so many things that I want to say. I have worlds tumbling through my head, asking for clarification. Asking for words.

I love them all. All my fictions, all my brilliant, wonderful lies that help me to endure the truth of this world and illuminate its beauty. We are all searching for something worthy, for hope, for surprise.

In Angel the Series, Joss' atheism shines, bitter and dark and wanting so hard to believe.

"You couldn't even tell a scared little girl a beautiful lie." (Sense and Sensitivity)

The truth as we were told in the series was that Fred's soul was destroyed, that Illyria was all that was left. It's certainly what Wesley believed.

"Would you like me to lie to you now?"

Each main character had their own personal journey. Each of the ones still living got the chance to find their core. Angel had his son, Spike had... himself in all his glory. Lindsey had his fairy tale girl who gave up everything for him. Gunn went to see his people, the people he'd started the fight for, but what he found was the echo of what Buffy had left in LA. Lorne had a song and a stage -- what he left Pylea to find. Wesley and Illyria, though, only had each other.

One last day. Then, some things are lies and some are real, and people die and people leave and this is the way the world lives and breathes and continues.

The title of the episode is a promise -- if we have only this short time left, let us make it something to remember. Even the people who hate the ending will remember it.

So many words in the episode did feel like they were being written for the fans, from the fans, because Joss and his writers love these characters, too. They are fans, just ones that got to play with the show more directly. "People who don't care will never understand people who do."

To fall back onto metaphor -- Angel ends up in an alley again, with his grieving emotions (Illyria) and his soul (Spike) and with his wounded mission (Gunn). These are the only people who stand with him because these are the things he takes with him as he charges forward. Hope (Connor) is safely away, alive and aware. Humanity (Wesley) dies by choice -- Angel signs it away and Wesley goes to his fight with only a really short knife and a spell that only works after he gets a mortal wound. The soulless aspect (Harmony) has been sent away, for it has no place in the fight and yet there are bigger battles to fight. Destiny (Lindsey) is killed by knowledge (Lorne), and romance (Eve) has nowhere to go after that, and dies in the ruins of Angel's victory.

But each of them is, of course, much bigger than one word.

I ache so for poor, broken Wesley. And yes, I do believe that he chose the manner of his own death -- he would surely count it better than the last time he almost died, his throat slit as he made a mistake. His love for the people he believes in, needs to believe in, glimmers so darkly and wet, like blood on glass, clarity stained by his heart. For all that, Wesley chooses well when he loves -- both Angel and Fred were worth believing in. Here, he dies for one, while he allows himself to die in the arms of the other. Wesley was a tragic and romantic figure. For he loved both unwisely and far too well. Wesley goes past the limit for the people he loves -- for Lilah, for Fred, and above all else, for Angel.

I ache, too, for Lindsey, who centered his world around Angel. Who thought, hoped, dreamed that he mattered as much to Angel as Angel did to him. But Angel has never trusted Lindsey, never respected him. Lindsey's story, too, was a tragic romance.

There are three people who walk away from the fight -- Lorne, Harmony, and Connor. Lorne, because the price became too high, because the line that Angel asked him to cross was too far. He crossed it anyway, for the sake of Angel, and then left. Harmony was never part of the fight -- she couldn't ever truly be. She claims that if they'd trusted her, she wouldn't have turned on them, and I would point at Disharmony. Connor, though, was sent away. Sent to live as a beacon of hope and life and as Angel's human immortality. They are the three paths of survival -- despair, betrayal, and hope.

I love my dead, gay show.