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EPISODE 5.22 (The Series Finale) Not Fade Away Written by: Jeffrey Bell and Joss Whedon Directed by: Jeffrey Bell
Enough with the Literary Parallels Already In the course of writing these reviews I have drawn on a wide range of sources outside the Whedonverse to help illustrate the themes of ANGEL episodes. These sources includes movies, plays, novels, ballet and even paintings. But up until now I have only done so in those cases where I have found good textual evidence that the outside material was in the mind of the writer of the ANGEL episode in question. That is a rule I now intend to break, partly because this is, after all, the very last ANGEL episode but also because…well, they are my reviews and I can write them in any way I like. I am therefore going to be a little self-indulgent here and attempt to draw parallels between “Not Fade Away” and a classic of English literature that the ANGEL writers certainly did not have in mind when they wrote this episode. So, let me begin with an entirely spurious autobiographical note. I saw my first Shakespeare play when I was seven. It was “Julius Caesar”. The choice was fortunate (or perhaps just a clever one on my father’s part) because of the entire Shakespeare canon, the text of that play is the most accessible to a modern audience. But, whether it was for this reason or because it was my very first experience of Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar” has remained my favorite of his plays. I almost immediately fell in love with the way in which the expressiveness of the language was able to capture not only images but also ideas. Of course at the time I was only dimly aware of the way in which “Julius Caesar” like all Shakespeare plays had important themes woven into the fabric of the story. But now, after watching “Not Fade Away”, I am struck by the parallels between the way that both Shakespeare in “Julius Caesar” and the writers of this episode explore the conflict between the desire of people to exercise free will on the one hand and the force of fate the other, a fate which seemingly snatches that control away from them. At the beginning of “Julius Caesar” Cassius refuses to accept Caesar’s rising power and deems an acceptance that this is fated as at best passivity and at worst cowardice:
And indeed he is prepared to go to any lengths either to prevent Caesar from taking over the Republic or to free himself from his power if he succeeds in doing so, saying:
But there is a tension between Cassius’ embrace of the concept of free will on the one hand and on the other the way in which his victim seems inexorably drawn to his fate, as foretold by strange portents and even stranger dreams. After a restless sleep we see a disturbed Caesar pondering the night’s events:
Yet when his wife tries to convince him of the danger he is in, Caesar seems philosophical:
So, was his death destined by forces outside his control? Well, Caesar certainly had warning aplenty and every opportunity to save himself. His wife indeed almost succeeded in convincing him to stay home rather than attend the fateful Senate meeting at which he met his death. And Artimidorus, who had word of the plot against Caesar, was almost able to warn him. But at the last minute both failed. The interesting thing though is why they failed. And it had nothing to do with fate. It was Caesar’s self-image as the foremost man of the State that doomed their efforts. Decius, one of the other conspirators, plays on this to convince him to disregard his wife’s warning:
Then Caesar himself ignores Artimidorus’s attempts to warn him saying: What touches us ourself shall be last served. Atrimidorus himself put his own failure down to destiny:
But the truth is that Caesar had a choice. If he had exercised that power of choice differently, he would have lived. He didn’t, not because of fate but because of the sort of man he was. And the nature of that man was revealed when Brutus and the other conspirators tried unsuccessfully to get Caesar to change his mind about a banishment:
Now, this self-praise is patently not true. We have after all just seen Caesar change his mind not once but twice in the space of a few minutes. But this speech reflects the way that he thinks of himself and it is ultimately because of this self-image or sense of identity that he is doomed. Again and again events in this play have two different meanings and characters interpret them in the manner that suits themselves. As Cicero observes:
It is this highly subjective interpretation of events and circumstances and not the will of the gods that drives the action of the play and the lives of those involved. And for Caesar what finally influences him to disregard all warnings is the idea that he might finally be recognized by the Senate as ruler of Rome - the very thing that will literally crown his life's work. And as it is with Caesar, so too it is with Brutus. At the end of the play Anthony says: This was the noblest Roman of them all. Thus he implies that it is only Brutus who really believed that he was killing Caesar to uphold the Roman Republic. And indeed Brutus alone maintains his honor and dignity throughout, not only among the conspirators but among all of the principal characters. He rejects the idea of killing anyone other than Caesar; he is willing to see the dictator given proper respect and he refuses to take bribes. Anthony concludes his eulogy by saying
But these very qualities help precipitate his downfall for they result in decisions that allow Anthony the opportunity to win the mob over to his side. And in truth the very forces that propelled these decisions also make him vulnerable to the persuasions of Cassius. He is conscious of his family honor and of the fact that he, no less than Caesar, is entitled to an important place within the State because of it. That is why Cassius can so easily persuade him that all of Rome looks to him to deliver the city from tyranny. And it is this in turn that leads him to believe his public duty is to kill Caesar and convinces him that this public duty must prevail over his private feelings of friendship. The tragedy of “Julius Caesar” is therefore driven not by some exterior supernatural force that controls the characters’ actions. Rather it is conditioned by the nature and sense of identity of the individuals themselves. They make their own choices. But in doing so they are driven by their own sense of what gives meaning to their lives.
The Meaning of Life And identity and the way in which it drives people’s actions and gives a meaning to those actions also feature very heavily in “Not Fade Away”. We must naturally start here with Angel. In the middle of his climactic confrontation with Hamilton, he is reminded of his own personal history: “You're gutter trash, and that's where you should have stayed, drinking and whoring your way through an unremarkable life. But the fates stepped in and made you a vampire, with a soul, no less: a champion, a hero of the people. And yet, you still managed to fail everyone around you: Doyle, Cordelia, Fred. They're all gone. Now it's time you followed.” Here we see in a nutshell the issues that Angel has been dealing with during the season. He felt that he was personally worth nothing. He might from time to time serve the agenda of others. He was turned because it pleased Darla to do so. He got a soul because the Gypsies wanted it. He became involved in the fight against evil because of Buffy's influence and because it suited TPTB. And Wolfram and Hart continually tried to win him over to their side. He was in this sense a pawn in someone else’s game. But when it came down to achieving things that were important to him, then he was a failure. Hence he was unable to save Doyle, Cordelia or Fred. His whole life, he felt, therefore, lacked any meaning. But in “Powerplay” and “Not Fade Away” we saw Angel trying to give meaning to his life. He was rejecting the idea that external influences – any external influences – could control him. As we have already seen he was thinking particularly of the Senior Partners and their malign attempts to use him to further their own agenda. But the same principle applies to all the outside influences in his life, even TPTB who no less than the Senior Partners were using him. Their agenda was different of course. But his sense of being an ant trapped in a great machine was not. But what does give Angel’s life meaning? It certainly wasn’t the prospect of becoming a human being again physically. He gave that up when he signed away (however implausibly) the Shanshu prophecy: Angel: “This is the Shanshu Prophecy.” Sebassis: “The original.” Senator: “The vampire with a soul will play a pivotal role in the apocalypse.” Vail: “And as a reward, will become human.” Sebassis: “A paranoid person might think you're trying to manipulate us in an attempt to fulfill this prophecy.” Angel: “I have no desire to become human.” Sebassis: “Oh, good. Then you won't mind signing that pesky future away. Through that document, the prophecy can be undone. Your signature there will remove any opportunity that you will ever earn your once-precious humanity. Will you sign it?” Angel: “Of course.” It’s not that becoming a human again didn’t mean anything at all Angel. It was after all the Shanshu prophecy on which he fixated when he was worrying about his destiny in the first half of the season. And we saw pretty clearly that being a human being did mean a lot to him in that poignant little scene between him and Harmony in his office after he signed that possibility away. His confession that: “I don't remember what it was like... being human. It was too long ago.” showed pretty clearly how much he was thinking about the lost opportunity. But where both the Black Thorn and Hamilton were wrong was in thinking that this was what motivated Angel in his fight against evil. Sebassis talked about the choice between the Circle and the prophecy as a choice between loyalty and hope. He thought that once Angel’s selfish hope for a future as a human was gone, there would be no reason for him to betray the Circle. And Hamilton, in the middle of his climactic battle with Angel asks him uncomprehendingly: "Why do you keep fighting? You signed away your Shanshu. There's nothing in it for you anymore." And this is, for me, the key question in this episode. As we have already seen from “Powerplay”, Angel intends to take back control over his own destiny and he proposes to do so by destroying the Black Thorn. But control over your own life is really only worth how you use it. Free will can be wasted, expended pointlessly on something that doesn’t in the end really matter. And it can be used destructively as well as constructively. What marked Angel’s season 2 vigilantism as being wrong was that it was a single minded determination to destroy, completely cut off from human feeling. So if Angel’s only agenda here were to destroy some demons – no matter how evil and no matter how powerful – just because he was angry at the way he had been manipulated I would be hard put to distinguish the two situations. And if in the end the destruction of those demons had in any event little or no practical effect, then how could Angel justify the potential loss of his life and those of his friends? In such a case, Hamilton’s charge against him would indeed be well founded. He would have failed everyone. His existence would ultimately have been without meaning. That was because his choices would be driven not by what was really important and meaningful for him but by what was destructive, perhaps even self-destructive. And it is in this context that we have to remind ourselves of his "mission" (or whatever we call it). This is twofold. First it is indeed to help others. But that is not all. Remember helping to save others' souls was the way in which Angel was to be put back in touch with his own humanity. That was to be his salvation. The overarching theme of ANGEL is that obsession with self ultimately leads to evil and that for all of us the only way forward is by connecting ourselves with others. Angel was not just fighting against evil from without. More importantly from his own point of view he was fighting the evil within him. The Shanshu prophecy was nothing more than a useful symbol for the resolution of that struggle. Being a human externally had no significance for the person Angel wanted to be. Redemption for him was no longer about accumulating enough credits to repay the evil that he had done and to tip the balance in his favor. It was to be through making the human connection. Because by doing so and only by doing so could he overcome the evil within himself. Ultimately therefore it is only by addressing in some manner this issue of his own redemption can Angel’s life and any choice he makes with it have meaning. In “Time Bomb” I thought that the writers might go for a very dark approach to this issue, by letting us see that Angel was indeed willing to sacrifice others to meet his own need to seize control of his destiny. This would have been a reversion to his “beige period” in season 2 and would essentially have negated any hope of redemption. And, as I have already said in my review of that episode, “Powerplay” (and indeed his murder of Lindsay in this episode) came uncomfortably close to this. In the former episode we did see Angel behave as if the ends did justify the means. It was a weakness in "Powerplay" that the moral implications of Drogyn’s murder were completely overlooked. But this fact did pretty much conclusively demonstrate that the troubling implications of his choices were not on the writers agenda. And even more striking evidence of this was the way in which Angel’s announcement of Drogyn’s death at the start of “Not Fade Away” was immediately followed by Hamilton’s interruption and then essentially glossed over. Nor were the implications of Lindsay's death here explored in any depth at all. I must admit that I don't like this but it was probably thematically necessary now because the writers have a different point to make. And that point is, I think, revealed by Angel’s suggestion to his team: “I want you guys to go out. Live. Do whatever you want.” Each of them, including Angel himself, had a completely free choice as to how they spend their last day. They could follow Wesley’s (umm….somewhat interesting) suggestion: “Don't I go off and have one last perfect day? Smell the flowers, or sky-dive, or have a go with Mistress Spanks-A-Lot... or whatever the hell one is supposed to do in this situation.” But the choices they actually make say something about the person each of them really is. And for Angel that person is a father. The scene with Connor is both commonplace and unique, familiar and surprising. He is doing what parents all over the country routinely do for their children, helping to write a resume for an internship. But this is a symbol of a normalcy, of a hope for a career and a settled family life for his son. These are obviously important to Connor and not something that Angel can now hope for himself. But here he is sharing in his son’s future. And in doing so he is confirming the existence of a powerful bond between the two of them, a bond that is further reinforced when Connor comes to the Wolfram and Hart Offices and the two of them fight side by side (as Angel once had hoped they would) against Hamilton. And when they part it is with these words: Connor: “What do we do?” Angel: “You go home.” Connor: “Huh?” Angel: “This is my fight.” Connor: “That's some serious macho…” Angel: “Go home...now.” Connor: “They'll destroy you.” Angel: “As long as you're OK, they can't.” It is to help ensure that Connor continues to have a future that Angel is fighting. It is not for pride, not out of revenge but because he cared about his son and had therefore his own connection with humanity. And because of this he cared about more than just his son. In fighting for Connor’s future he was fighting for the future of everyone. As we have seen, Hamilton could not understand what Angel had left to fight for once he had given up his Shanshu. Angel’s response was telling: “People who don't care about anything will never understand the people who do.” In striking at the Black Thorn, Angel knows that he is not going to strike a mortal blow at the Senior Partners. He knows that they are going to continue to try to destroy humanity both from without and from within. He knows that the silent thousand year apocalypse will continue. But he also knows that it must be fought. And he is willing to fight it because he cares about the future for Connor and for everyone else. And we find this reflected in another scene. Gunn’s last day was spent in the company of Anne, the girl whom Buffy first rescued so many years ago and who Angel (during his “beige period”) had used to hurt Lindsay and Lilah. She was persevering with her work among the helpless: “Crack runaways, abuse victims, psychotics. The old gang.” It was while discussing her efforts to help these victims that there was a very telling exchange between her and Gunn: Gunn: “What if I told you it doesn't help? What would you do if you found out that none of it matters? That it's all controlled by forces more powerful and uncaring than we can conceive, and they will never let it get better down here. What would you do?” Anne: “I'd get this truck packed before the new stuff gets here. Wanna give me a hand?” Anne doesn’t fool herself that she can solve the problems of the world. She knows that she is probably fighting a losing battle. But she knows that it is a battle that has to be fought. She is willing to do so because it is important to her. Or rather the victims on the streets, those who suffer from the evil in the world, are important to her. Our actions can be driven either by principle or by practical considerations. The latter result in compromise with evil and with an acceptance of it. From this evil only gets stronger. But Angel quoted Lindsey in approving terms: “Heroes don't accept the way the world is.” It is all a matter of conviction, of what someone believes in. And here we see the definitive statement of what Angel believes in.
The Fight Goes On As I have already said, in the play “Julius Caesar”, we see not only what what drives the actions of the title character, but also the way in which those actions confer meaning on his life. Caesar himself features in just two important scenes and dies at the beginning of the Third Act. Why then was the play called “Julius Caesar”? The answer to that question is: because he dominates it from beginning to end. The conspirators are motivated by their reactions to Caesar. With Cassius the principal feeling seems to be one of jealousy. For Brutus, the first two Acts of the play see him consumed by an internal struggle over whether to support Caesar as a friend or kill him as a dictator. And even after his death Caesar’s spirit is the decisive factor. It motivates Mark Anthony to mobilize the mob by reminding them so vividly that “Here was a Caesar”, thus driving the conspirators out of Rome and precipitating a Civil War. And this war is itself described by Anthony in terms that conjure up Caesar’s pivotal role:
Before the final battle at Philippi, Brutus meets the ghost of Caesar come to his tent to challenge him: To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. And finally the deaths of Cassius and Brutus both make the point that Caesar is as strong as ever. Cassius' last words are,
Brutus also invokes the image of Caesar, not once but twice. When he sees Cassius lying dead on the ground he says: Oh Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet. And as he himself commits suicide he again mentions Caesar, saying,
Caesar as a man is by no means the colossus he thinks he is. In the play we see many human frailties: he is impotent, deaf in one ear, suffers from epilepsy, can be subject to illness and can’t swim as well as Cassius. He is also a vain man, easily susceptible to flattery. But before his death, Caesar declares:
In these words Caesar recognizes that certain things lie beyond human control. To crouch in fear of them is to enter a paralysis equal to, if not worse than, death. It is to surrender any capacity for independence and free will that one might actually possess. Caesar does not intend to die. But by leaving the safety of his home in the face of his wife's entreaties, he is signalling that there are things more important to him than the risk of death. So, he refuses to compromise on that which gives his life meaning and goes to his death because of it. And ultimately Brutus interprets his and Cassius’s defeat as the work of Caesar’s ghost — not just his apparition, but also the force of the people’s devotion to him, the strong legacy of a man who refused any fear of fate and, in his disregard of fate, seems to have transcended it. While Caesar as a man had all too human weaknesses, he knew what gave meaning to his life and at all times he tried to act in a manner that reflected this. It was doing so that ultimately led to his own death but it was also doing so that created his imperishable legacy. This was a legacy reflected in real life by the fact that Roman emperors are known to history as “Caesars” and that even in modern times the rulers of great Empires like Germany and Russia were known as Kaiser and Tsar respectively, both being corruptions of his name. And of course to all of this there is a counterpoint. We find this, in part, in the mob. This mass of humanity who first comes out onto the streets in celebration of Caesar’s achievements but quickly align themselves with the conspirators under the influence of Brutus’ oratory, name and reputation. But then, just as quickly, Mark Anthony through a combination of shame and bribery wins them back. But we find the true counterpoint in Brutus' case. As we have seen Brutus killed Caesar because of his concept of public duty. And because of the way that he conceived such a duty he not only destroyed a great (if flawed) man, struck at the Government of the State and provoked a civil war. He hardened and dehumanized his own heart. He turned against someone who had only done him kindnesses, thus putting aside personal loyalties. And in making this decision he rebuffs and eventually abandons his own wife, the more human side of him. And it is I think symbolically significant that she dies as a result of his decisions. But above all he committed cold blooded murder:
As we have seen Brutus was moved to kill Caesar by his sense of family honor and of his own respected place within the State. But in the end this sense of honor turned out to be illusory. The reality was that, unlike Caesar, he allowed himself to be persuaded to act in a way that was incompatible with honor. In committing the murder Brutus betrayed his duty to friend and State and betrayed own principles. What meaning then did his honor have? What meaning did his life have? Ultimately both Caesar and Brutus joined each other in death. But it was the manner in which they made the choices leading up to that death which gave meaning to the life of one and denied it to the other. In “Not Fade Away” Angel too recognizes that certain things lie beyond his control. He cannot bring down the Senior Partners. He cannot stop the apocalypse. But he is not going to crouch in paralysis before it or its authors. Nor like the mob in "Julius Caesar" is he going to give up his capacity to choose the direction of his life to others. The title of this episode is “Not Fade Away”. It reminds me irresistibly of the line quoted to Congress by General McArthur when he contemplated his retirement: “Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.” The title here may be taken to be a statement that indeed Angel and the others will just die rather than fade away. But I don’t think that was the intention. Whether a soldier dies or just fades away that is the end of the struggle for him. But the fight against evil will never be over. Hamilton challenges Angel on behalf of the Senior Partners: “You don't really think you're gonna win this, do you? You don't stand a chance. We are legion. We are forever.” And that is right. Angel himself admits: “There's always going to be power, and there's always going to be corruption." Indeed symbolically by the end of this episode all of the mortals are either dead or dying and only the immortals – Angel, Spike and Illyria - remain, symbolizing the fact that the fight between good and evil is not bounded by time. In this vein, Vail taunts Illyria after Wesley dies in her arms: “How very touching his meaningless death was, but this fight was never for mortals.” The fight will go on – forever. But even immortals like Angel are not the whole fight. They are simply a part of it. So it doesn’t really matter what happens to them. Like Caesar, Angel cannot control whether he lives or dies but he can decide whether his life means something. As he said himself of the Senior Partners: “Maybe they're not there to be beat. Maybe they're there to be fought. Maybe fighting them is what makes human beings so remarkably strong.” It is by showing this that Angel is giving his life meaning. At the start of this season Angel was caught in an illusion about his purpose and fate, one created by Wolfram and Hart and neatly symbolized by the parasite demon from “Soul Purpose”. Ever since “You’re Welcome” he has tried to break out of this illusion and find the reality of his life – what is really important to him. And here we see it. Just like Caesar, in his resistance to the Senior Partners he can give an example to others, the strong legacy of someone who refused any fear of fate and, in his disregard of fate, seems to have transcended it. In the end, in the Shakespeare play that legacy was stronger than Caesar’s death. So too is it here. Does it, therefore, really matter what the outcome of the fight is? Whoever survives, it will simply be a prologue to the next battle and the next one and the next one. The important thing is the message that evil must be fought. Those who are soldiers in this particular fight and who give that message cannot indeed simply fade away. Yes Angel and the others could simply have walked away and fought a guerrilla action against the Black Thorn. And perhaps the only truly satisfactory answer as to why they did not do so was because it lacked the drama necessary for the final confrontation between good and evil in the series. From a purely rational viewpoint such a choice may even have been the more practical. But from a psychological point of view, it is readily understandable why Angel would be unwilling to make it. Having learned what he now knew about the apocalypse, could he leave Wolfram and Hart without trying to do as much damage as he could to the Senior Partners? Just like Caesar, and indeed Brutus, he will construe his situation and weigh the options open to him, not on the basis of cold logic and reason but rather on the basis of a highly subjective set of values: his independence, his connection with his son and his belief in the eternal struggle against evil. What choice would signal most clearly that he was no-one's puppet, what choice would show the extent of his commitment to his son's future and what choice would demonstrate most forcefully his belief in doing the right thing no matter what the cost? His attack on the Black Thorn may not be wise. But it is a more believable response from someone seeking expression for these core values than ducking a confrontation with the Black Thorn just because of the reaction of the Senior Partners. And the expression of those values, for the reasons I have already given, does indeed seem to me to confer on Angel's struggle the meaning that he so craved.
Angel Investigations I have to this point very much concentrated on Angel because his story is the fulcrum, both thematically and in terms of plot, for not only this episode but the entire series. But it would be remiss of me indeed not to discuss the part that each of the others played in the final battle. In this respect Gunn is the one who is closest to Angel. Gunn was perhaps the one who embraced most fully the Babylonian exile that was Wolfram and Hart. He did so because it seemed to give him something that he lacked and something that he craved above all else – a meaning in his life. He had been the “muscle”, the demon hunter with street smarts. But in this role he always felt second best to Wesley, to Fred and above all to Angel. Now thanks to the brain boost he became a high powered lawyer with all of the answers at his fingertips – the legal knowledge, the demon mythology and languages. You name the problem and Gunn could provide the answer. But the sense of purpose that this gave him was an illusion. Every bit as much as Angel he also came to learn the cost of his Faustian pact. Like Angel he was being used for the ends of others. And he learned the costs of that too. So, just like Angel he too embraced the idea of reasserting control over his own life and finding once again the real meaning in his life. And once Angel showed him the way to do it, he was on board. He had already resolved the internal struggle of what gave his life meaning. And that meaning didn't lie in showing to others how much he knew. It lay in helping people like the woman whose child the Fell demon wanted to steal in “Time Bomb”. So, when he was asked to choose his perfect day he went back to the beginning – to the street. He went to see someone who was trying to help the very people he had come from and on whom he had once turned his back. For Gunn, no less than for Angel, the attack on the Black Thorn was his way of ensuring as best he could that these people too had a future. And for Gunn, just as for Angel, there was meaning in his life to be found in this, a meaning that he never found as a Wolfram and Hart lawyer. As for Spike, the choice of his last day is very interesting. In the Poetry Slam we see the contradiction within himself. He has always sought to portray himself as the hard man. When, in "Shells", he anticipated the final struggle between Angel and the Senior Partners, Spike expressed his commitment in terms of a willingness to fight: "The fight's comin', Angel. We both feel it... and it's gonna be a hell of a lot bigger than Illyria. Things are gonna get ugly. That's where I live.” And even when he was on the point of going out and laying his life on the line in Angel’s plan, he couldn’t help showing his complete lack of respect for him when he offered to deny him three times and expressing the hope that Angel wouldn't benefit from the Shanshu prophecy. So it comes as no surprise to see him in some type of biker bar, seemingly preparing for a fight: Bartender: "It can get pretty ugly in here, I gotta warn you." Spike: "What I'm after. Couple more shots of courage, and I may make my presence felt." Now, I have talked a good deal in this review about illusion and reality and the way in which individuals confuse what they want to be the truth about themselves with what actually is that truth. We have seen the way that both Angel and Gunn lost themselves because they allowed Wolfram and Hart to dictate the agenda for them, while all the while believing they were doing the right thing. Both only found themselves again when they understood what really gave their life meaning. So too with Spike. For all the outward macho posturing, what Spike really wanted to express in the bar was the poetic side of his nature (hilariously bad poetry it must be admitted but poetry nonetheless). How this romantic side of his nature influenced his decision to fall in with Angel's plan is not especially well drawn out. This is disappointing but hardly surprising. Spike came into his own in the first half of the season when he was a very useful comparator for Angel. But since “You’re Welcome” he has been pretty much an afterthought. And while there was a real attempt on the part of the writers to make the series finale a genuine ensemble effort, the very size of the regular cast defeated their efforts to develop the feelings of each character equally. But it’s hard not to see in Spike’s willingness to join in a doomed effort against overwhelming odds as a reflection of the romanticism of the age into which he was born, with its elevation of emotion over reason, its emphasis on individualism and spontaneity and its devotion to a past heroic age. Indeed when I contemplate Spike’s part in the final battle I am irresistibly reminded of some lines from one of the Victorian eras best known romantics, namely Thomas Babbington Macaulay. In “Horatius at the Bridge” Macaulay depicted the Roman hero going forth to face 30,000 Etruscans with these words:
In many ways Spike's decision to join a battle against similar odds may itself be seen as a romantic gesture that was very much in character for him. Next let us turn to Wesley and Illyria. And again the dominant theme is the difference between illusion and reality. Both Wesley and Illyria try to maintain their own self-image. For Wesley it is as the Watcher who seeks out the truth: "The first lesson a watcher learns is to separate truth from illusion. Because in the world of magics, it's the hardest thing to do. The truth is that Fred is gone. To pretend anything else would be a lie. And since I don't actually intend to die tonight, I won't accept a lie. " But the truth in this case is that he cannot separate illusion from reality. That is why, when he must decide how to spend his last day on earth, he does so with the creature who looks like Fred. Nothing else means anything to him and it is a lie. And this is perhaps why Wesley had to fail in his mission and die before the final confrontation. For him personally the attack on the Black Thorn meant nothing. Perhaps he went through with it out of a sense of duty. Perhaps he felt in his heart that it was a suicide mission and that this was, for him, the best way out. Regardless, like Angel and Gunn Wesley’s time at Wolfram and Hart had resulted in him losing himself, in his case because of what had happened to Fred. But unlike Angel and Gunn he had not, indeed he could not, find his sense of self again. Nothing in his life had any real meaning. All that was left was the lie. That lie was what he finally allowed Illyria to comfort him with as he lay dying. But that lie, as he himself understood only too well, could not give a meaning to his life. He had already faded away. Wesley’s greatest tragedy therefore was that he had no part to play in the final battle. And in this he was also different from Illyria. She too had a very powerful motive for fighting the Black Thorn. “I will fight. I've been broken and humiliated. I will return in kind every blow, every sting. I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces.” Here we see her own self-image as the god-like destroyer and terror of worlds. This was what had given her life meaning – to rule and to command and if needs be to destroy all those who would not bend to her will. But like Wesley, this is now more illusion than reality. Powerful she may be but we have seen the limit to that power now. And she has already confessed that being deprived of her full powers and having been forced to walk among humans has resulted in her becoming more like them. So, when she beholds Wesley dying she feels grief for him and she seeks to comfort him. Is this love? Is this perhaps something of Fred? We cannot know. We can only speculate. But what we can say is that her attack on Vail and her decision to join Angel and the others in the final battle was an act of revenge, a very human act of revenge. And in this human feeling we find the reality for Illyria now - as well perhaps as some meaning. So, Gunn, Spike and even Illyria no less than Angel all found meaning in the climactic confrontation with the Senior Partners' hordes. There is, however, one other character missing, a character who in his own way was as much a tragic figure in “Not Fade Away” as Wesley. I am of course referring to Lorne. When Angel asked for volunteers, Lorne is significantly the last to raise his hand. And afterwards he is the first, indeed the only one, to raise his voice in objection: "I'm telling you, our fearless leader has fearlessly lost it. There's no part of this that makes any sense. We could be next." Here we see the voice of fear and confusion. Lorne was never the fighter. He was the Host, the MC of Caritas where everyone could feel safe because violence was not allowed. He was the demon who fled from Pylea because its endemic violence and black and white way of thinking was not for him. He could always see the other guy’s point of view. When he was given the opportunity to choose his perfect last day, it was singing to an audience and his choice of song was significant:
This says it all. For Lorne happiness and harmony are the ruling considerations. He had no heart for mass violence. No wonder he says to Angel: "I'm not a fighter, Angelwings. I never had the stomach for it. Looks like I'm your weak link." But tragically it falls to Lorne to be the one to commit murder. He kills a human, not in self-defense or defense of another and not even as a punishment for what he has already done. He kills Lindsey because of what he might do in the future. Whether Lindsey could change or not is debatable. He even admits to Eve that if he survived the events of the night all bets would be off: “As long as I'm fighting on his side, he'll play me fair. When the smoke clears, then we'll see where we stand.” But no-one’s future is set in stone. That is after all part of the whole ethos of this series. How could it be otherwise with Angel as the central character. That is why we can say unequivocally that when Angel locked Holland Manners and the others in the wine cellar with Darla and Drusilla he was wrong to do so. There is no argument consistent with this principle that can be used to justify killing Lindsey in this way. And while it was Lorne’s doing, it wasn’t of his planning: “It's not about what I think. This was Angel's plan.” It was Lorne’s tragedy that he, who tried so hard to prevent Angel from becoming the dark avenger in season 2, now felt compelled to carry out Angel’s plan. And that was why he contemplated his actions with such a heavy heart: “It isn't my kind of work anymore. It's unsavory.” Alone of the former members of Angel Investigations, he actually betrayed his own beliefs and principles. He rendered for himself his part in that nights actions meaningless. And in committing murder he defeated himself. If anyone reminds me of Brutus in this episode, it is Lorne. And while his killing of Lindsey was, from the point of view of the plot, an inspired moment, thematically it was very problematic. As we have seen Angel’s actions here were based on the need to do the right thing. And that was to fight those who threatened mankind now and to show by his example that they could be fought. But deciding unilaterally that some people could not be saved and had therefore to be killed, taking away from them their own power of choice for their future, this is itself a betrayal of this idea. Because of this it is somewhat difficult to take Angel’s profession about caring about humanity at face value. It is easy to care about those whom we love. It isn’t very hard to care about the poor and the abused. But the real test comes when we are asked to care about the selfish and the ruthless. And by that test Angel fails. But even more glaring than all that, by what standard of logic, common sense or morality is it right to kill Lindsay but send Harmony away with a letter of recommendation with which to worm her way into a position where she can start killing again?
All Good Things.... But this one (admittedly major) problem aside, I thought that “Not Fade Away” was pretty much the ideal way to end the series. There is some sense of satisfaction in that we have been brought to a defining moment. It looks as though Angel’s search for meaning and redemption has come to an end. He has the answers that he has been looking for. And whether he and the others survive this moment physically can be regarded as a secondary question. After all it is that for the characters themselves. But we also feel that there may be other stories to tell so the open ending is in fact an embodiment of the principle so clearly set out on this episode – keep on fighting. But there was more to the episode than this. What I like most about it was that in this single episode the writers represented everything the series stood for. From the very beginning we saw the emphasis on redemption for Angel. But we have also throughout Angel’s story had the sense that he was not in control of his own destiny and at the start of my review of “Powerplay” I gave a brief overview of all the ways in which he had been driven by the agenda of others. This posed the question: how could redemption be possible unless he regained that control? "Not Fade Away" saw him finally reclaim this sense of being in charge of his destiny. It was in this context that he could again embrace the idea of his own redemption, something he had been very doubtful of at the start of season 5. And this redemption lay not in becoming human physically. Rather in this episode we were brought back to the bedrock principle upon which the series was built - his need to connect to other human beings as a means of effecting this redemption. And as we saw, through his son Connor, this is now something that he has achieved. And indeed the ending of this episode fitted very nicely with the nature of this redemption. The Shanshu prophecy suggested that there might be a fixed point in time when redemption would occur. From season 2 the series has approached the question in a very different way. For Angel redemption was the constant battle between his ability to connect with others and the evil within. And that battle, which was “the good fight”, just like the fight against the Senior Partners would never end. ANGEL at its best was about the parallel battles. There were always external foes to be fought. But these were merely a reflection on the more insidious and therefore more dangerous battles against the forces of darkness within. It suggested that, in order to successfully fight the external enemies, we must fist overcome the internal ones. And this was true not just of Angel but of all of most interesting of our main characters. Indeed that was what made them interesting – Wesley most of all. It was why Cordelia was, for me, such a disappointment from the start of season 3 until "Tomorrow". But while ANGEL has never been a series full of happy, shiny people and events, its strength was that it brought a sense of hope to a dark landscape. Equally, it always tempered that hope by reminding us that no triumph is ever complete. And just as Angel’s ultimate triumph in defeating his own demons brings this sense of hope to the season finale, so too does Wesley’s ultimate tragedy adds the necessary shadow. But then it is only through contrast with the shadow that we can best appreciate the light. And in the end the light was not only in the way that so many of our intrepid little band did indeed fight and win their own personal “good fight”, it was the way in which all of them (even Wesley) came together to execute a common plan, flawlessly and successfully. As I have already noted one of the issues raised by season 5 was the way in which Angel in particular became disconnected from the other members of the team. And as even Lindsey noted here, the emphasis of this final episode was on teamwork. For such a disparate group that had so often split apart under the strain of their individual and collective demons, this was an appropriate and important note on which to end the series.
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