Halting Hex

No, that means that Buffy is fortunate that she has good friends, one of whom knows CPR (and doesn't mind forcing reluctant vampires along at cross-point) and the other of whom will let magic forces use her body as a vessel to summon the "warrior of the people" back from (probably not) heeeeeeeaven. To quote a grammar blog: Anya is claiming that Buffy has been nothing but the beneficiary of pure luck, when in fact random chance has fucked her just as badly as it has every slayer before her. But as some blond guy once said, "A Slayer with family and friends. That sure as hell wasn't in the brochure." Buffy survives everything, even death, not because she was "lucky" but because she didn't pout her way through Welcome to the Hellmouth, no matter how "retired" she claimed to be, she went and rescued two virtual strangers (poor Jesse being less fortunate, I'll allow) and helped Xander grow into truly being someone who "laughs in the face of danger", without so much of the "hide until it goes away" qualifier; who made it possible for Willow to be comfortable in being the group's only hope, no matter how much she reflexively wished they could have another hope. Or, as Buffy herself says in The Wish, when asked about the secret of her (emotional) survival: "I have you guys". Nikki Wood was born a Slayer. The Boxer Rebellion Slayer was born a Slayer. Sid's Korean friend was born a Slayer. Lots of nameless girls who took the easy way out at the Cruiciamentum were born Slayers. None of them are Buffy, her highs (dying to save the world) and her lows (disgusting corpse fetish) and everything in between. And "luck" had very little to do with it. So Anya can suck it. (Pretty much full time, but I digress.).Yes, Buffy should be called out when she's wrong (after all, I'm on W/X's side in virtually every Big Scooby Fight except this one), but this isn't Buffy's friends and colleagues demanding respect and cooperation; bar some OOC lip from Xander and Giles, this is a bunch of tertiary characters acting like assholes. And "you're just lucky, that's all" makes about as much sense as it would have if Buffy had replied, "Oh, yeah? Y'all are just jealous." Seriously, Anya showed good sense in The Yoko Factor by retreating to the bathroom and checking out the tile. Go make sure the toilet isn't backed up or something useful like that, and leave the Scooby Dynamics to people who actually know how to play nice with others. Feh.

Ah, couldn't wait, huh? It's an interesting mix of an episode; some heartbreaking characterization, and some character assassination. Some clever logic, dressed up in bull-headed stupidity. And, at a time when I had decided (post-Lies Joss Whedon Told Me) to boycott any scenes that featured Spike or Anya or anyone but B/W/X/G and Faith (there are vast swathes of these four episodes that I've never seen and never will, including much of the Spuffy), we had Giles sending the two whiny man-bitches off together, making it easy for me to skip their scenes and feel safe about watching the rest of the episode. That said…Clem can suck it. Moving on, Not "suggested". Willow reminded Buffy of the promise she was breaking. "There were going to be card games" is one of the most heartbreaking lines of the series, with Willow visibly on the verge of cracking and Buffy too ashamed of her own failures to be there for her friends. I mean, it's better than the contempt and near-hatred she's seemed to have for them for most of UPHell, but even so. It's wonderful characterization that Xander is nearly in more pain because of Willow's heartbreak than because, you know, he just lost his damn eye. But it's infuriating that Buffy is making him do this, because she can't suck it up and be there the way a real friend would. Well, yes, I'd rather have Willow there than Anya, because I love Willow and I…less-than-love Anya. But it's fucking absurd that she isn't there; it makes the whole thing seem forced. Instead, where is Anya? Doing "comedy" in the basement with Fucking Andrew. I believe I got maybe halfway through this scene before giving it the skip. (The part where Anya actually talks about her and Xander fucking on Spike's cot was the breaking point. Seriously, the man you love is lying maimed in the hospital and you're…telling random strangers about your sex life?? There.Are.No.Words. It would be one thing if Anya was having a breakdown and babbling randomly, but no, this is just Anya being Anya. FFS.) She and Andrew would really be a perfect couple. They're both murderers, they're both elementally vile, and they're both obsessed with cock. Now just turn Andrew into a greedy capitalist, and it's a match! Now, now, let's not retcon things. Xander was perfectly willing to be "steered around the curves". What Faith might have done if he'd resisted, or what she might have done in Consequences, is a different issue. He was "up with people", even without Faith contributing. Not just since, F/X Fanfic goes back to S3. If the authors didn't feel they were getting enough on-screen interaction in S7, that's an argument for fic to "fill the gap". (Not a reference to Xander's eye socket. Goddamn you, Joss.) Yeah, but who cares? Expressing your emotions in private when you couldn't be there for those who needed you is fundamentally selfish. It's like Angel sulking about wiping out Buffy's memory of "the forgotten day" in I Will Remember You; you "nobly" took away Buffy chance to have a say in her life, you don't get to feel bad about it. (Not perhaps the best analogy, but still.) Fireflop, aka More Proof That Joss Had Lost It, for some reason inexplicably has fans, some of whom referred to Fillion's Malcolm Reynolds as "Captain Tightpants". Riffing on that, I've always called Caleb "Father Talkypants". Gods, could that idiot yap! And I know that Fillion can act…you just can't prove it by this. Okay, Buff, I'll bite: how has Spikey been "watching your back", exactly? Yes, he was part of your expeditionary force last episode, but there were over a dozen people there. Before that you had to save him from Robin, and before that all he did was fight random students, and before that he was off fighting a demon that initially kicked his ass while Willow was saving yours…and we haven't even gotten back to the four-part borefest (Sleeper through Show Time) where he was either mind-controlled or bound or a helpless hostage. Really, Spike contributes very little this season. Maybe Buffy means "watching my back" as a euphemism for "checking out my butt". (Ah, Cordy! Ah, Killed by Death!!). Nostalgic for having Bitch Boy bend you over and butt-bang you, are you, Buff? Geez, did you lose that vibrator Willow bought you last year? How about Diane, Faith? Diane died, too! Gee, I guess Buffy wasn't the only one who couldn't remember the cannon fodder's names. (To be fair, Dirty Girls was Diane's first episode, as well as her last. But Rona and Amanda are just fine, so don't waste your tears on them, Faith.) Which, to be fair, is based on excellent and logical deduction…Caleb wouldn't be wasting all this effort trying to decoy Buffy away from the vineyard if he wasn't trying to keep her away from there. (Why he staged the trap in preceding episode there if he didn't want Buffy nosing around is a different question, but perhaps the First was simply sloppy and just got lucky that Buffy was unprepared for Caleb's power.) Of course, this doesn't excuse Buffy's dumbass idea to drag the potentials along. Vineyard 1.0 could be excused as Buffy thinking it was a relatively-safe quasi-training exercise, but now it's clearly life-or-death, just bring your best. You, Faith, Willow, maybe Giles, and maybe Kennedy, since she seems to have her shit together. (And you could wait for Spike, but he's not as strong as you or Faith, so no big loss.) And then we get to the real stupidity, as Buffy tries to argue down the entire room, for no reason. A "general" doesn't debate the troops; that's why you have officers, to delegate. Buffy should be having a war council with her key "aides", not every random Rona. (In Show Time, the Scoobs even used telepathy to keep the situation from degenerating into just such chaos.) I think you're a fucking party crasher, President Palmer, and you shouldn't even be in the room. And this goes on the small pile of "Oh, shut UP, Giles!", that I wrote about before. You're either in or you're out, but you're not supposed to be a "pile on" type of guy. Piss-poor characterization. I could see stony silence, but not this crap. Er, Anya does remember that Buffy has died, twice, doesn't she? I mean, maybe she was too obsessed with thinking about Xander's penis while X was recounting how he saved the world with CPR back in Prophecy Girl, but she was there the second time. She had rubble fall on her head, she probably bitched about the cost of the "She Saved the World a Lot" headstone, and she got to witness Willow puking up the snake. Strange definition of "lucky", that. Nope, still loathsome. The Hellbitch who sold her soul for power, twice, has some balls trying to judge Buffy for being born into a life that will inevitably kill her before her time. I mean, Buffy's death is so fated it's been fucking prophesied. Go count your money, whore. But I say "Fuck you." Biggest piece of shit in the whole pile. What happened to "she's earned your trust", Xan? Was that just a bunch of hot air, and now that you got hurt you'll be just as petty and pissy as your demonic lust-bunny? The whole fucking point of Xander's speech in Dirty Girls, the reason Buffy and Faith were feeling that "down-low tingle" while watching him, was the subtext, the idea that danger is always present and nothing's guaranteed, but that Buffy is a good person and tries her hardest and deserves your (pardon the pun) faith. And if we go down, we go down fighting, knowing that we did our best, for the right reasons. But now…for all of Anya's talk about Buffy acting entitled, it's actually Xander who does it here. Something went wrong? Well, let me blame you for it forever, then. Forget everything I said before, I didn't really mean it. As I said, "fuck you." (Yes, I'm holding Xander to a high standard here. But he's usually worth it. That's why I love him.) You know how people give Xander stick for "I'm sorry your honey was a demon. But most girls don't hop a Greyhound over boy trouble" in Dead Man's Party? I'm with him there; Buffy acted emotionally and irresponsibly and people (like Andy Hoehlich, and anyone Vamp!Andy might have killed) died because of it. How the heck did Buffy screw up here, exactly? Yes, she got beat by somebody she didn't know enough about, but that happens sometimes. It sucks that Molly and Diane died and Xander lost the eye, but again, Xander just got through saying that these are the risks they have to take. Hypocrite. And damn you for making me call him that, Drew Greenberg. (Then again, he is heavily medicated.) Oh, don't be a pussy, Buffy. Your willingness to debate "strategy" is lame after you just demanded obedience. Either you're a dictator or you're not; learn to own it. Er, no, they don't. They have free will. "I'm going, who's coming with me?" is fine. "Fall in line", not so much. And no, you don't. Not a democracy. Buffy's the Slayer and she takes input, that's how it works. You want to convince Faith to start her own "army", feel free. But don't assume that you can make Buffy "turn over the keys" to Faith. Especially as you know absolutely nothing about this chick you just met. Er, which of you just broke prison where you're serving a sentence for multiple murders, again? Just checking. Again, you don't want to work with Buffy, fine. But you don't get to arrogate command for yourself, either. Hey, Dawnie? You're 16, maybe 17. You don't actually legally own shit. Buffy's your legal guardian. She owns your green energy ass. Of course, this is more S7 garbage writing. Buffy pulls that "I can't stay here" out of her ass, just so we can get this absurdity and Buffy can wander the streets sadly (barf!) A fitting end to a wretched ep. Willow/Xander greatness notwithstanding.

"It IS a trap. It just isn't for her." You don't really see the four henchvamps standing together that much in the episode, so I'm surprised to find that Ned (in his suede jacket) is actually taller than Bob, given how big and hulking Bob is, and that he's the last of the four to get slain. (Ned gets killed by Angel, ffs.). Meanwhile, Walt is such a fucking schlub…I'm glad Buffy dusts him in mid-chant. (All names from the shooting script. The girl is "Jane".) Xander's classic "I have a boner, but I also want to throw up" expression. Wonderful work from Nick. Cynthia Bergstrom (new costumer) MAY be overdoing the dichotomy between Willow (who looks like she just got off the swings in third grade) and Buffy (who looks like she's trying to set a new record for showing skin) just a little, I'm just saying. I mean, first day of a new job, I get that you want to make an impression…but even so.

Absolutely true. I once even did a chart to show this. To be fair, Giles also sees his role reduced. I think he gets to be active in like five episodes. (Dead Man's Party, Gingerbread, The Zeppo, Bad Girls, and Döppelgängland.) He also hops around while stoned out of his mind in Band Candy and is useful in the alternate universe of The Wish and takes out a henchvamp in Helpless, but even if you give him those, that's barely a third of the season. The difference being that he usually gets periodic Library scenes with Buffy, where Xander completely vanishes from large chunks of episodes.

So do we think Willow picked up the stuffed animal when she went to the dorm room to get the red flannel pjs, or is that actually Xander's "dog"?

I just realized that because Spike makes that dramatic last-second rescue of Buffy when she's dervishing and about to combust, he didn't actually hear what she was singing about. Granted, he'd already been clued in about the whole "heeeeeeeeeaven" deal (wow, do I hate After Life) but how does he know Buffy was singing about "life" so that he can pop in with "Life's not a song", etc? I mean, unless he was lurking, off-camera, and just stood around and watched her spin, but that would make Darling Spike no better than the rest, and clearly that can't be true, right? And while I'm hating this stinking pile, let's have a round of projectile vomiting at our closing number, "Where Do We Go From Here?" During which, you'll recall, our emotionally-battered heroine (who just nearly died) sulks off, followed closely by a soulless serial killer (restrained only by a soon-to-be-faulty chip) while her sister and friends do a fucking dance routine. And let's not say it was the spell that made them do it; Sweet's gone, and Spike steps out with no more effort than a "bugger this". But, you know, we need the "romantic close" of the Big Spuffy Kiss. We're just lucky that Those Stupid Humans know not to get in the way of our climactic smoochies. "Where Do We Go From Here?" Straight down the shitter, I'd say. (Except that we're already there, technically.)

Really no more than Buffy/Holden was; although we haven't seen Holden "Webs" Webster before, we are told he's a former classmate of Buffy's, and therefore Willow's. His appearing to Willow, now vampirized, would be as surprising as it was to Buffy. And it's not as if Willow didn't need a good psychiatric session just as much as Buffy did. True, you couldn't work the pointless fighting into this one as easily as with Buffy/Holden, but you could have Willow aim a spell at him only for "Holden" to laugh and claim to be immune because Willow's magic is corrupted now, yada-yada, she's going to kill everybody, she should really just do everyone a favor… At which point, Willow, still not that stupid, realizes what's going on, and we get the reveal of the First, topped off by First!Holden saying, "Oh, this is just a mask…Buffy actually slayed me last week. She didn't tell you? I guess she was too embarrassed about that Spike guy being my sire…" Meanwhile, in another corner of the plot, Buffy is confronted by First!Cassie, another one of The Ones She Couldn't Save… (But I actually have a better idea than this, now…) Well, then work around it some more. It's a couple of scenes, with one other actor (Nick) presumably in one location; film it whenever you can get Kali there. It's not as if she has Amber or Robia's emotional ambiguity about doing the episode; it's solely an availability issue. (I'd assume.). And this is the show that shot an entire episode with their lead only available on the weekends because she was flying down to Australia to film Scooby-Doo. Relatively speaking, three Halfrek scenes should have been a snap. Correct. Here's the breakdown: • Joss wrote Buffy/Holden • Marti wrote Willow/Tara (later changed to Willow/Cassie) • Jane wrote Dawn/Joyce • Drew wrote the Trio (Jane was sad she didn't get to write Jonathan again, some more. And I believe I've just made Loandbehold's head explode. Sorry about that.) No, if we're going this route, we might as well use Warren for Willow as well. Willow knew him a lot better than "Strawberry" knew her dealer. Plus he was her "first", her step down into corruption. "Warren" could taunt Willow about the chances she'd missed to save Tara because she was blinded by vengeance: the Time-Reversal spell that she said she could perform in All the Way but didn't even try in Villains, the wish-granting demon she had under her mind-control, etc. "Now you're never going to see her again! And it's all your fault! I mean…unless you want to come join us…it's not like you've got any real reason to stick around here, right?" And we don't see First!Warren hanging around Andrew and Jonathan until Willow has "driven him away". At which point he appears over Jonathan's shoulder during the final montage, just as Andrew drives the knife home. But that's one reason I'm against this sort of "segmented" script-writing; it makes it so much harder to join the parts into a coherent whole. But JMO.

"You're that girl…whom I never actually met." I agree that Willow/Cassie was just silly. They should have worked around Amber's schedule/made her a better offer (because Marti did write some quality Willow-in-pain stuff for her Willow/Tara scene in the script)/found some other way to work Willow into the episode if Amber really was going all Robia LaMorte on them. (Ironically, Jenny would also have been a good choice for Willow, but fat chance of that happening…) Hell, pair Cassie with Buffy and let Willow do the Holden work. Anything but this. Seriously disagree. It's already bad enough that they made the blunder of omitting Xander (they'd gotten Kali Rocha twice already that season, no reason she couldn't have come back so Hallie could tell Xander he'd never make Anya happy, anybody she kills is his fault, etc.), but to make Willow equally dispensable? To have nobody who was with Buffy every step of the way? Oh, hell, no! 144/144, baby. Read it and weep, Xander. (On whose behalf I continue to remain offended, don't get me wrong. Just don't do that to Willow, too.) [OT] As for Once More with Spuffy, actually Willow is vital to that episode, and we need more of her, not less. You really can't do the W/T plot developments without Willow being there, but more importantly, the show had decided to make the resurrection All.Willow's.Fault , so Willow really needs to be in the episode where Buffy does the reveal. I mean, it was nice she had minions, but Will was the one making with the snake-puking and all of that…she was the one who risked her soul to save that ungrateful bitch her best friend, so she gets to be around when Buffy finally decides to stop lying to the gang about heeeeeeeeeeeaven. (And promptly starts up again by lying about fucking Spike. Because what is Buffy going to do with her Lie-fe if she can't deceive and bullshit her "friends", after all?) What the episode needs is a Willow song, to counterbalance the shit-ton of blame that gets dropped on her. Screw "Walk Through the Fire" and explore Willow's pain and guilt, her desperation to bring Buffy back, her hurt at being shut out and excluded. Then nut up, Joss, and make Aly take the same vocal lessons that Sarah did. I realize that Buffy is your "stahhhhhr", but you made the "brilliant" decision to make Willow your "bad guy" for the season, so you have to get inside her head as well. It's the difference between Angelus and Adam, after all. JMO. [/OT]

Watching the "behind the scenes" footage for the musical on YouTube (as part of larger "extras" vid) and they show the rehearsals for "Life's a Show" and then the finished version and there's another Amber Benson screw-up that I hadn't spotted before (because I don't generally rewatch that episode, or anything from this season, bar Normal Again). I remember her blowing the step on the turn and then her being off for at least the next two shots and wondering why Joss just didn't do another take, but here we see Buffy doing a pirouette in the foreground (with Sarah briefly masking Amber) but we can also see Amber fixing her hair in the background, brushing a stray lock out of her face. Jeez, Joss, at some point give it up and just do another take. I'm not trying to beat up on Amber here (for all I know, the reason that Joss was desperate to use this take is because Sarah had been having trouble with the previous ones), but come on, if it's not working, it's not working. Sheesh. ETA: 1.26-Amber blows the step on the turn 1.40-Amber tries to use Sarah's pirouette to mask her brushing off her sweater and then fixing her hair. I mean, if it was Cordelia, I could see her being vain enough to groom herself when she's supposed to be helping Buffy against the bad guy, but Tara is supposedly made of less-shallow stuff. Annoying. Do a re-take, Joss! Jeez!

Continuing my promo fetish:

Hey, is Xander checking out the want ads? Maybe there's a new strip club that needs someone with X-perience. One of a trillion things that gets me pissed at this episode (and Oz in it) is that he doesn't go tell Buffy about Veruca. I mean, Buffy's entire reason for existing is to stop dangerous creatures…how dare Oz put civilians at risk because he wants more wolf-pussy! The first night is forgivable; he didn't know Veruca was a werewolf, okay. (Although where his stupid SuperNose was this time, let's not ask…) But now he knows, and he's lying and hiding her just so he can fuck her in the interest of public safety or whatever. And, had Willow not caught them, he would have done it again on night #3. Wonderful. Plus, how does he not expect Willow to come catch him? I mean, it's Willow, of course she's going to bring him breakfast; he knows that. I grant you, he somehow managed to skip out on an entire semester of summer school without her knowing (and I still call bullshit on that), but even so. Makes me wonder if the whole fandango was some sort of passive-aggressive crap designed so Willow could catch him and he could "pay her back" for the fluke. I mean, I'd like to think not, but this episode shows us an Oz who's so awful that it IMO retroactively damages the character as a whole. So even if I'd argue that the Wolf-Boy we generally see is not an Angelus-esque mastermind trying to give Willow her own "was I not good?" moment, this episode actually makes me wonder about it. After all,

Oh, no! Burt's gone? So long, Boogie Nights… ETA: also checking out today, Dick DeVos, billionaire founder of Amway and Betsy DeVos's father-in-law. So there's that.

So I'm listening to the Unspoiled! podcast, because the idea of people being unspoiled gives me a Xander-sized happy. And they're being harsh on Season 1, but you can tell it's growing on the unspoiled guy (the girl has fandom biases), but it's still funny. And one thing that happens (because our podcasters are both gay and stereotypes do sometimes exist) is that the guy is way more conscious of the clothes than the girl is, and he's been raging about the Season 1 wardrobe, which considering the $19.95 budget that S1 costumer Susanna Puisto had to make do with, is quite understandable. And I completely love that he accurately guessed Ross Dress-for-Less as one of Susanna's "resources". But in this episode, he goes beyond that. He says that Buffy's been getting her clothes from "the dumpster behind Marshall's". Which, harsh, but not entirely unjustified. Even though I somewhat oddly like the outfits on their own: I mean, I like the rose coat (certainly more than the greasy shit they have Xander wearing), but it really doesn't go with what's under it: Green-gold and rose? Oh, no. And then there's this one: I remember Buffy wearing this when she yells at the random kid, "What are you looking at?" (to which I always reply, "Your tits, of course! What do you think I'm looking at??"), but I completely forgot she also wears it in this scene with Giles. Is Buffy asking for Giles to throw her on the long table and teach her some new "combat techniques", or what? Well, yes, but it's so much fun. And that Asian-floral top isn't improving my restraint. And the piece de resistance, the Tiger hoodie. I hope Marshall's tossed this in the dumpster before they ever put it on the floor. I mean, it's no This Year's Girl, but it's definitely the most Season One of the S1 costuming.

Three words: Five.Year.Contract. Xander ain't going nowhere when they've still got 50+ paychecks they owe Nick Brendon, after all. Are you the Treasurer, these days? Because I think Xander got disqualified on that one after Innocence.

With "Six Degrees of Buffy", let's not forget that Keri Russell (and her long curls) got their start on NBC's Malibu Shores the year before, which also starred Charisma Carpenter. (Also in the cast, Tori Spelling's brother, and Mickey Mouse Club veteran Tony Lucca, whom Adam Levine tried to make happen on Season 1 of The Voice.)

I promise I'm not going to post all 144 promos. But, still:

Since I've found the trove of promos on YT: Tuesdays are for Testosterone Poisoning, it seems.

I never really got that reference. As far as I know, The Naked Lunch is about alcoholism, writer's block and gay sex…I don't quite see how military torture figures into it, honestly. More like simultaneously. Definitely Sanctuary takes place between this and The Yoko Factor.

Ask and receive: Weird, I didn't recall that we saw Tara's left-hand profile as she blows out the candle. (I thought the shot was flipped, for some reason…perhaps I'm confusing it with the Thespia spell?). But yeah, they definitely make it look as though she's cursing Oz there, which…not so much. Although Oz may be cursing himself, if he's guessing what's happening while he's getting gone. Enjoy Istanbul, kid.

I can totally see R.J. being the loser his brother describes him as, pre-jacket. Even with the jacket, he's not exactly a compelling personality.

And Alexis Denisof as Thanos's henchman in Avengers.

Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. Now that's passion, baby. But remember, using Wild at Heart to prove that Oz sucks is just plain cheating. I mean, he sucks in about ten different ways in that episode. Not telling Buffy (who has experience fighting werewolves, and access to that handy tranq-gun) about a menace to public safety because you want to fuck Veruca some more being only the most obvious one. And I'd like somebody to consider the possibility that the "clothes fluke" might have happened because Willow might have been emotionally scarred from Oz trying to eat her in Beauty and the Beasts, and so it's natural for her to fall back on Dear Old Xander the next episode. But the show won't undermine the paragon that it Oz, not so much because the staff loved W/O so much, but because with the knowledge that Bangel and Xordelia were doomed to be spun off, Joss wanted one "stable" couple for fans to be invested in. And then of course, Seth got Knockaround Boys and screwed Joss over hard, anyhow. Not that I necessarily wanted to see a whole season Oz/Veruca, mind you. (Poor Paige Moss in that screencap…she looks as though she knows the reviews she's going to get for her performance…) Still, marginalized Xander was probably not a side effect of W/O, per se, but the Bangel fans' desire to string him up because of The Lie. And with Angel's departure already announced at the summer upfronts, the anti-Xander feeling from those who thought B/A was The Love of the Ages was…not inconsiderable, let's say. So giving Non-Threatening Oz a "win" over That Jackass was a way to cater to the more angry section of the fanbase. Some of whom did in fact leave with the B/A split, so it's not as if Joss had no cause for concern. Actually, he isn't "next to" anything in Consequences, as Seth doesn't appear in the ep at all. Can't get any more "minimal" than that, baby,

Cordelia dead; Angel never visited her in the hospital (he and Wesley don't know where her room is when they arrive at the start of You're Welcome). Fred dead, her soul completely destroyed, due to Angel's massive incompetence. How does he bring FUCKING SPIKE to the "hole in the world" rather than say, Fred, who needs the Illyria sucked out of her, or the sarcophagus that's the source of Illyria? I always just imagine the conversation going like this: Wesley dead, essentially a suicide. Angel fomented Wes's fractured mental state (via the mind-wipe) and facilitated his death in battle by sending him alone to face Vail. (He and Illyria could easily have beaten Vail and whomever Illyria was fighting sequentially; there was no reason to split them up.) Gunn dying, so severely wounded that he'll be dead within 10 minutes, per Not Fade Away. Becomes a vampire per the comics, I'm told. Lindsay dead. Angel orders his assassination. Because Angelus and FUCKING SPIKE can be redeemed, but never Lindsay. Oh, fuck me. ------------------- Meanwhile, Lorne gets excused from the final battle after carrying out his hit, Harmony gets a letter of recommendation (despite betraying the gang), and Spike and Illyria get to walk into moonrise with Our Hero, who fights to make sure his little demon-spawn, Conner-Wonner, is safe as houses. Save five demons, kill five humans, that's Angel's impact on the people around him. Yay?

Well, still green-eyed and bookish, it's true. But that's a whole other kettle of fic. You certainly wouldn't be the first to 'ship B/G + W/X, though.

If by "interesting", you mean a total selfish waste who completely gives up on "helping the hopeless" and gets every human who tried to help him killed, well then, okay. (I hate the Angel of the last two seasons of his own show so fucking much. I mean, when you make Spike look good by comparison…) Here's a podcaster ripping Brood Boy a nice new one, in his introduction to Pangs/I Will Remember You: Heh. And well-said.