Angel Finale

Jamdin said:
My favorite character on Angel died so I am not happy at the way that part of the show ended. The rest of the show was great.

That's my only problem with the episode. Wes, along with Fred/Illyria, is one of my favorite characters on Angel and I got misty eyed when he died with Fred at his side
 

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Mouseferatu said:
You know, there was a time when them woulda been fightin' wurds. I'm a little calmer now. ;)
That's good because honestly, I'm a little uninformed. Let me explain...

Mouseferatu said:
I'll agree, that Joss has got it all over JMS when it comes to dialogue. They're roughly on par when it comes to long-term character development. (I'll put the G'kar character development arc up against Wesley's, and then stand back as the universe explodes, unable to declare which is better.) But I don't think anyone has managed to duplicate the sheer scope of what Babylon 5 was. Even the arc-heavy seasons of Buffy or Angel were not a single epic story like B5 was.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way putting down Joss. Honestly, he probably is a better writer overall than JMS. But I don't think the call is that easy to make, and there are still things JMS has done that Joss has yet to equal.

Though I'd love to see him try. That'd be some quality television. :D
I'll start off by saying I have seen every Joss-produced second of TV and read a fair amount of his comics. As for JMS, I have seen a handful of B5 and read a whole lot of his comics. However, I do know a good deal about B5 even though I never really got into in (I do own the first season on DVD that is sitting around waiting to be given a fair shot). It sounds to me like apples and oranges for what they have both done concerning TV to this point. Joss has put together 12 full seasons of TV shows vs. JMS 5 (let's leave Crusade, Firefly, etc out of this for now). B5 was a complete story, written from the start to have a beginning, middle and end. That is pretty unique. I don't think anyone, including Joss has been able to pull anything like that off in the history of TV. We'll call that a success.

Now Joss has helmed 2 shows that have gotten huge followings that have been set in the same universe but have very different feels and fan bases. We'll call that 2 successes. Now by the numbers, the edge for now goes to Joss. But we all know that isn't the whole story. And I don't know the whole story as I haven't seen nearly enough B5 to form a solid opinion of it. Many folks swear by it. The parts I have seen have either entertained me or left me really flat. But I never watched it from the start so I hold a wait and see attitude towards it.

So, in closing, I am a huge Joss Whedon fanboy. Buffy is one of my favorite TV shows of all time and Angel is not far behind. So just chalk it up to my uniformed opinion at this point. It boils down to this: Buffy caught my attention near the end of Season 1 and held it and the half-dozen early episodes of B5 did not. I keep an open mind but have to show my bias.

Fair enough? :)
 

John Crichton said:
So, in closing, I am a huge Joss Whedon fanboy. Buffy is one of my favorite TV shows of all time and Angel is not far behind. So just chalk it up to my uniformed opinion at this point. It boils down to this: Buffy caught my attention near the end of Season 1 and held it and the half-dozen early episodes of B5 did not. I keep an open mind but have to show my bias.

Fair enough? :)

Oh, sure. No real venom here. :)

And I can certainly understand you not getting through the first few eps of B5. The first season was rocky; had some really good stuff, but a lot of--well, not so good. If you can manage, however, it really starts picking up about halfway through--and seasons 2 through 4 are absolutely phenomenal. Some of the best genre TV ever produced. Season 5 goes back to being a bit rocky, but it's still worth watching--especially for the end.
 


Meh! Apparently, I'm the only one non-plussed...

I didn't expect much, expected no resolution, and maybe a cliff-hanger of an ending... I didn't get much, didn't get much in the way of resolution, and not even much of a cliff-hanger...

All pretty anti-climactic, to me. Not bad, as an episode, but not an ending, at all...

So, what for Angel(os), now? If they all die, well, so be it. He expected that. If he "lives", he can go see Connor, again... but then what? His whole purpose has been signed away...

Buffy, of course, is all set up to become a vampire. She shared bkood with Dracula, so when she gets killed, or dies, she'll be back three nights later... And Dawn? Always bothered me that the Scoobies had The Key to The Universe, and never did diddly-squat with it... (and I can't help but wonder where Xander went).

Whedon has already said that this isn't the end of the Buffyverse, so we'll probably see something, sometime, but no telling what or when.

The promos for this episode made a big deal about Angel finding "his purpose", but I really didn't see it. Just to resist Wolf, Ram, and Hart? To wipe out the Senior Partners, their representatives on Earth?

If so, then he's served his purpose, and he can pass from the scene. Meanwhile, "Miss Cookie Dough" can eventually pop up as the new Vamp with a soul, and the remainders of both teams can join together and use Dawn to take the fight to whatever reality the bigger baddies occupy...

All just supposition, of course. All we know is that Whedon has said that the Buffyverse isn't done, yet.

Connor? Spike? Illyria? Gunn (if he survives)? Who knows.
 


A little speculation - Angel gives up becoming human but does he? He signs the document in blood and uses the name Angel but that is only his nick name, his real name is (insert name here), so does that make the contract void. :D
 

Synopsis:

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
So... Might anyone want to give me a plot synopsis - I might have to wait a few years till the end of Angel shows on German TV... :-)

Not a whole lot happens, really... Angel tells them to live the day like their last, because it might be. He has something to do, so he sends them off, saying that they'll meet up in an alley, at evening. Harmony comes running in, wanting to be part of his plan, so he sets her to distract the liason with the senior partners, which she does by sleeping with the enemy... It appears that she's betraying Angel...

Gunn goes to see some girl who helps people, as asks her about "old old crew", and what she'd do if she knew that it all was controlled by big bads, who would never let it get any better down here... and she replies that she would finish loading this truck.

William the Bloody goes off to drink, fight, and spout (not-so-) bad poetry. If they showed Lorne, I missed it.

Wes goes off to bandage Illyria, who was hurt by... Dyle, was it? She asks about his choice, and he espouses that there's nowhere he wants to be... She empaths that he wants to be with Fred, and he confesses, yes.

Meanwhile, Angel goes to convince Lindsey to join the fight, talks a lot, succeeds, and gets into a fight with the liason, which goes badly (for Angel). He's getting beat, until Connor arrives. Connor says something akin to "What? You drop by for coffee without the world ending?", and gets beaten by the liason, ontil Angel recovers. The the liason brags about how he has the blood of Wolf, Ram, and Hart flowing through his veins, to which Angel replies "Can you guess which word you shouldn't have used?", and bites his neck. After that, the fight goes better (for him), and he slays the liason.

A big earthquake hits, Connor goes "Uh-oh, that's not good, is it?", and Angel tells him to go home, a couple of times... Wolfram & Hart starts falling apart (Yeah! At last)!

Angel has assigned everyone someone to take ou, before they meet up in the alley (if they can). Spike takes out the brotherhood, before rescuing the baby, returning it to it's mother.

Wes and Smurf-Fred-Illyria take on the sorceror who restored Connor's memories... Wes gets stabbed, mortally wounded, before Illyria finishes with her victims and swoops in to play Fred for him, as he dies.

Gunn takes on the senator from a previous episode, and her vamp bodyguards. They give him some trouble, before he finally finishes her off.

Angel arrives in the alley, and sees no one, then Spike shows. Illyria announces that Wes is dead, and she is grieving for him. Gunn shows up, bloody, stating that he is back in the groove. That a dragon flies past, as a bunch of bad guys start making noise.

Spike asks what do they do now, as the horde closes in. Angel says that fight, and he wants to slay the dragon. Spike helps Gunn up, and the series ends with an anti-climactic cliff-hanger of a non-ending that should have led to next season...

Oh yeah, and before Angel arrives, Lorne shoots Linseys with a gun, then drops it, and walks away...
 

I was pleased. I think the first 1/2 hour was very disjointed feeling (like most of this season) and while certain moments shone, I felt like Joss had a lot of threads he was struggling with. Once he had the reins in his hands again, though, the thing was beautiful. For me the turn around was the sending the teams off to their fights, and the results. And Lorne's shooting Lindsay was the moment I knew Joss was back.

Really a lot like the last episode of Buffy. A little wobbly at the start, but it picked up momentum, and really flew at the end.
 
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Good finale, but they really should have upped the budget for the last scene with the horde o' monsters closing in on the gang. Something akin to the horde of orcs closing in on the Fellowship in Moria in FOTR (now THAT was a powerful scene). Of course I don't expect a TV show to actually match the level of special effects found in a movie like FOTR, but the onrushing Wolfram and Hart horde last night really looked like something out of a B-movie (or C or D movie, even). Spend a few more bucks and really go out with a bang. The dragon nonwithstanding, the bad guys just didn't look bad enough.
 

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