When The Apocalypse Comes, Beep Me
When the final credits popped up after the series finale of Angel last week, I felt a little gypped. "Is that it?!" I yelled at my TV. I couldn't believe that was how it was all ending. After watching it a second time though, and thinking it over for a few days (because I had some free time seeing as how Harry Potter isn't coming out for another two weeks and I don't watch American Idol), I realize that Joss ended things as best he could with the time he was given. To begin with...

Here's What They Got Right
- They kept the funny. Being able to find comedy in moments of hopelessness and despair, and pointing out the ridiculousness of the Buffyverse as a whole is what's taken Joss Whedon and crew above and beyond the average drama. It's also what Dawson's Creek had that One Tree Hill is completely lacking, and why I still miss Joey and Pacey and wish that Chad Michael Murray would quit basketball and show up at Yale to be Rory's new love interest.

Right. Anyway. There shouldn't be anything funny about an apocalypse, and yet, I was laughing.

Angel: "I want you Lindsay." Pause. "I'm thinking about rephrasing that."
Lindsay: "I think I'd be more comfortable if you did."

Spike: "First off, I’m not wearing any amulets. No bracelets, broaches, beads, pendants, pins, or rings."

After all, what's the point of saving a world without laughter, right? Awesome.

- The writers took a look back, sometimes hundreds of years, without being nostalgic about it. Is that a sign that Joss learned a thing or two from the disaster that was the Buffy finale? Absolutely. The final Buffy could have almost been a stand-alone episode. There was no mention of Oz or Joyce or all of the people who supported and fought alongside Buffy to get to that moment in time. Anya's death felt hollow, their plan hastily put together and full of holes, and the magic amulet pure luck that saved everyone's ass... and which was later credited to Lindsay.

In contrast, Angel's final hour beautifully wove in the history of each character, bringing them all full circle. Spike returns to his first love, poetry, revisiting his years as William the Bloody. Instead of the Big Bad, he's just a guy looking to get something right and earn the approval of others.

Lorne returns to karaoke, because he isn't an action hero. He's just a guy who likes to sing. Wesley chooses duty over pleasure, something that he would have done as a young watcher, but for very different reasons. And when Gunn returns to his old neighborhood he's reminded that sometimes it's the little things, and the little people, that make a difference in the world.

Angel, thankfully, remembers he's a father and visits his son. That's one plot line that a lesser show would have certainly skipped altogether. (Um, Ross? Rachel? In two weeks of discussing whether or not you should be together and whether or not Rachel should leave the country, would it have killed you to mention that YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER TOGETHER?)

Bringing Connor back was one of the best twists of the season, and here it worked brilliantly. The whole Connor/Cordelia/Jasmine season left a bad taste in my mouth, especially since it ended with Angel effectively erasing it from everyone's minds, making viewers wonder if it was the writers' way of apologizing for how off track they had gotten. Having Connor back in the mix as a healthy, happy, well-adjusted young man showed us that giving him up was the only way for Angel to get him back, and it also gave us a small hope that there will be a new generation in fighting evil to take Angel's place. But hey, didn't he have a prophecy of his own?

- To work in even more of the past, Hamilton reminded Angel, and us, that Doyle, Cordelia and Fred had already died for the cause. Although we'd said goodbye to these characters long ago, it was a nice touch of continuity to just mention their names. It also reinforced Lindsay's claim that although this night is the big final battle for Angel, the war has been going on for years, and some of the best soldiers have already been lost.

- The scene between Lindsay and Lorne was one of the best written, most eloquent and complicated scenes in Angel history, and the only scene that caught me really off guard. At this point I really believed that Angel was taking Lindsay on his side, in hopes that he would prove to be an ally, or at least less of an enemy and I believed that Lindsay really did have good intentions about helping Angel.

Lorne didn't though, and agreed to pull the trigger, although you could feel how disgusted he was by it. In some ways he was given the dirtiest task of them all. At its most basic, in a world where humans hunt demons, here was a demon murdering a human in cold blood, not in a grand battle, but with a little gun as the man stood defenseless, posing no threat to anyone, and having just completed a very dangerous and difficult mission for the good guys. It was a shocking death, blurring the lines between the good guys and bad guys, without honor or even a sense of poetic justice. It just had to be done.

Lindsay wasn't even bothered by dying though, so much as he was indignant that Angel wouldn't even bother to do it himself. You have to pity him for having come so far, only to be taken down in what he must have seen as the most degrading death possible. Lorne says a simple goodnight and walks off, choosing not to be a part of the final battle, or any battle, ever again.

- Lorne's disillusionment reflected my own at this point, and I think this is why I was initially disappointed with the episode. The last time we see the entire group alive together, Angel hands out assignments and they disperse. There's no speech from him about what an honor it's been to have them all by his side. There are no hugs or tearful farewells. The only person to show emotion at all is Illyria, when she asks Gunn to try not to die. These are not your Friends who walk off, arm in arm, just like family, to face the future together. And in this scene we are shown that, sadly, these people are no longer friends at all.

Cordelia and Fred were the heart and emotion of team Angel, and with their deaths the men lost any common bonds they had. Spike and Angel may tolerate each other, but even when they were both evil they were always in competition. Wesley has badly betrayed Angel, twice, and his memories of that betrayal have been returned to him. Gunn and Wesley were in conflict over Fred for years, and when Wesley learned of Gunn's role in her death he stabbed him for it.

Gunn made it clear from the beginning that while he could respect Angel as a leader, he would never be buddies with a vampire. Lorne begins to doubt Angel's intentions at the end, and even Harmony turns out to be working against them. These are not comrades. They are just soldiers, agreeing to fight for the same cause. Perhaps that's one of the biggest signs that the apocalypse has been going on for years already, slowly tearing them all apart.

So while I would have liked something more moving and heartfelt, I suppose Joss knew that any love among characters was long gone, except for love that couldn't be returned. So we had our Fred and Wesley moment, and I appreciated Amy Acker more than ever, and then the sentimentality was over.

_ Bravo to the WB for their post-episode thank you note. They did the same for Dawson and I just felt that it was a polite and appropriate way to end a show that may not have had huge ratings, but was very dear to its fans. When UPN aired the last Buffy I felt more like we were all being kicked to the curb after last call. Damn you UPN!

Here's What I Didn't Like
Notice I didn't say "What They Got Wrong." I think Joss made good decisions throughout the episode, choosing to make us uncomfortable because it was more truthful than to candy coat things that weren't meant to be pretty. Still, I feel within my rights to nitpick at least a little.

- I still don't really get what the Black Thorny Circle was all about. I know it was something invented at the last minute to help tie up loose ends, and I don't know exactly how much notice Joss had that Angel was being cancelled in order to make it all work, but I still would have liked to have known more about exactly why they were so powerful and how taking them out would affect things.

Do they control all demons an LA? In the world? Would leaving demons leaderless mean that there would be chaos in the demon world and they would start killing each other? Or is it more likely that in a power vacuum everything evil will rise to the surface and lead to death and mayhem across the city, leading to the deaths of thousands of innocents?

- Which also makes me wonder, what next? We knew that Buffy had foiled the First (foiled I say!) and had also unleashed thousands of new slayers to protect the world. All in all it was a positive result that gave us hope for the future. But with Angel and crew dead, who will be left to help the helpless?

I know that becoming involved in a show centering on a vampire without a soul and his demon/human crew means abandoning some disbelief, but it just seems like a plan that leaves all of our heroes dead isn't going to be very good for the world.

- I know that the Buffy issue was dealt with two episodes earlier, and that we were all told it was over. Buffy has moved on and Angel should too. I didn't buy it though. No Immortal or werewolf chick could ever compare to what those two had. But even if they didn't want to bring Buffy back as a love interest, she was still Angel's most powerful ally. When he turned up in Sunnydale, aside from talking about their future, Buffy made sure he knew that he was phase two of her plan. If anything went wrong, he would lead the second wave of resistance. It was a comforting thought to know someone else had her back.

Here though, Angel has no one. I would have at the very least liked to see him sending a message to Buffy, or even Giles for that matter, to let someone with power know what was going on at Wolfram & Hart, and to clear his name after Andrew had told him that he was no longer trusted among slayers and watchers.

With Angel taking such a huge bite out of the evil corporate ladder, wouldn't it have been good to know that there was a battalion of slayers ready to sweep into the city to do some clean up? Without someone picking up the torch and running with it, their deaths could all be pointless. That's what struck me as most tragic about the end. The feeling that they would all be killed while hundreds or thousands of big bad things would still roam the streets, unchecked and without fear.

This is where I think Connor could have played a larger part as well. Sure, he's just a regular college boy now, with superpowers, but I would have liked some assurance from him that he wouldn't give up the fight, just as Angel never gave up on him.

- Ok, what was up with the Shanshu Prophecy? For years we've been led to believe that if Angel fought the good fight he would be rewarded for it. Then this season there was a whole to do about Spike's roll, and how the prophecy could perhaps be about him. But we all knew the name of the show wasn't 'Spike' so that didn't last long.

So Angel signs his rights to humanity away. It's a bold move, one befitting a true champion, putting the interests of the entire world before his own desires. But then, shouldn't that be the true test? Shouldn't the fact that he forfeited his claim without hesitation be the thing that triggers the Powers That Be into action to help him? And where have the PTB been all season anyway? They've been very quiet ever since sucking Cordelia up into their higher being hangout.

I suppose up until the final credits I was waiting for some kind of help from above to save the day, or to reward Angel for everything he's sacrificed. I kind of wanted him to suddenly wake up in a bed, blonde hair thrown over his chest, a warm plate of cookies on the nightstand and a heart beating in his chest. Angel deserved more than a painful death in a dark, wet alleyway, and so did we. But there's Joss and his cold truthfulness again.

Not Good or Bad, But Interesting
- The humans die first. When Sunnydale was swallowed whole it was the humans who were left standing. Anya and Spike were the two who gave their lives to protect the humanity that they didn't fully understand or fit into. Here it's Wesley and Gunn who are mortally wounded, at least on camera. We are left to assume that the others will die as well, but they are at least left to fight until the end.

Hamilton was sort of explained. I suppose it would have been nearly impossible to create the actual senior partners in any way that would have made us feel as in awe of them as we should, so he was their flesh and blood representative. It was Angel's only chance to beat them down, and he did it well.

What Really Sucks
Another quality hour of television has bitten the dust, but 7th Heaven lives on. The apocalypse is upon us indeed.