Angel

rewind in time, in light abiding: broken symmetry and always/not always pattern in Shells

[Formal exegesis for A5.16 Shells, written and directed by Steven DeKnight, except for the parts Joss Whedon did (1. both wr & dir: the opening scenes with Illyria and Wes in Fred’s apartment, and the coda scene in Texas when Fred leaves home. 2. wr with SDK and dir JW: the scene on the plane, including the perspective line 3. wr with SDK but dir SDK: the final scene with Illyria and Wes in Fred’s office over the lab). This episode is a continuation, or more accurately the backwards twin, of A5.15 A Hole in the World, written and directed by Joss Whedon, for which my exegesis is here. And this one ends at the other’s beginning. A closed fractal loop. Symmetry with implications. Unspoiled. Both episodes are quoted from my own transcription (i think it’s clear which quotes are from which, so i didn’t notate that). For a short rundown on broken symmetry, see here and the discussion that follows.

Disclaimer: the two hymns are not intended as overtly religious commentary in any way, because i have no religion, but are included because they are about transformation in darkness, what really matters, and what we can and cannot keep.]

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
— Every nighte and alle, Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
— And Christe receive thy saule.

When thou from hence away art past,
— Every nighte and alle, To Whinny-Muir thou com’st at last;
— And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
— Every nighte and alle, Sit thee down and put them on;
— And Christe receive thy saule.

If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane
— Every nighte and alle, The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
— And Christe receive thy saule.

From Whinny-muir when thou mayst pass,
— Every nighte and alle, To Brig o’ Dread thou com’st at last;
— And Christe receive thy saule.

From Brig o’ Dread when thou mayst pass,
— Every nighte and alle, To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last;
— And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest meat or drink,
— Every nighte and alle, The fire sall never make thee shrink;
— And Christe receive thy saule.

If meat or drink thou ne’er gav’st nane,
— Every nighte and alle, The fire will burn thee to the bare bane;
— And Christe receive thy saule.

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
— Every nighte and alle, Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
— And Christe receive thy saule.

(Lyke Wake Dirge) "Why can’t I stay?" Fred says to Wesley and then she dies: red, rust, gold where she is, around them darkness closing in. And the Other rises, blue, in power, surrounded by darkness, looking at her skin, and says "This will do." Framed still, in the colors of Fred’s bedroom. Blue shift: the universe is contracting.

Red Shift: The lengthening (or "stretching") of light waves coming from a source moving away from us. If a source of light is moving toward us, the opposite effect - called a "Blue Shift’’ - takes place. Light from all galaxies outside the Local Group is "red-shifted,’’ indicating that they are moving away from us (and from each other). This phenomenon is called the "expansion of the universe.’’ (Introductory Astronomy Glossary)

Viola: What country, friends, is this? Captain: This is Illyria, lady. Viola: And what should I do in Illyria?

(William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)

Note that in Shakespeare’s version the twin (who is Angel here) is presumed drowned. Fear death by water.

He’s hopeful for a moment, naming "Fred?" That painful, pitiful thing we do that makes us human. She ignores him totally. Instead she goes towards the mirror, extending her arm, and checks herself out. The very first thing she does, then, is to check out her identity in the mirror. Just as identity was the thing Fred fought so hard not to lose. All those pictures and mementoes around that mirror describe the emotional content of Fred’s life. She knew herself by looking in. "I had a name".

And for Illyria, millions of (light?)-years gone and never human, it is much the same. "Illyria was feared, and beloved, as few are", Drogan tells Angel and Spike. She is more than the Shell that is unfamiliar, but will do. And she has a kingdom to reclaim, a purpose in the world. In a world of magic and the mystical, names have power. And claiming power, that’s something the Old Ones would understand.

But when Illyria looks, she sees herself a demon, grimacing, in Fred’s red dress, beside Wesley’s reflection, with Fred’s presence all around her in the mirror, and Illyria in the darkness and Wesley in the light.

And it’s then Wesley knows her, and names her. But she has already changed, by the act of looking in the mirror. By returning inside the body of a human. She has become vulnerable, unexpectedly altered from her image of herself. She is no longer whatever she used to be.

W: Illyria? I: My name. (now she turns, and acknowledges Wesley for the first name.) You would presume to speak my name. Because I am returned in the body of a human, you think you can speak to me. It’s disgusting. W: Who is Winifred Burkle?

Bold move. He is playing boardgames with her already, asserting Fred’s identity, in the shell, on her behalf. And the question already is: why doesn’t she just kill him? But in fact, she never does try. Which is interesting.

I: I thought the humans would have long died out by now. Instead you have grown bold. This is the territory we’re in, that big question that is the central issue of all speculative fiction: what does it mean to be human? The Old Ones were "demons pure". The Judge was built to burn those who lived in the world clean, humans and vampires both, restored to shells, the telltale heart gone. The fire will burn thee to the bare bane; — And Christe receive thy saule. And Spike stank of humanity and love, but Angelus had no humanity in him. Who made the Judge, i’m wondering now? She looks at her arm again, extends it palm out towards him. In a human it might express supplication or kinship. She is mostly interested in how the mechanism works. But that’s interesting too. The first movement that she practices is the act of reaching out, to make connection. And that’s not a product of anything we know of her history. Except, perhaps, that curious "beloved". And she is... curious. We think of that as a property of being human, too.

W: So you don’t know who Fred is? I: Nor care. Bleat at me no longer. We’re done. (She walks away.) W: Yes. We are. (He grabs an axe and tries to decapitate her.) (Cut to credits and commercial.) That Wesley. Always serially engaged in decapitating dead girlfriends.g The axe shatters instead. The shell has been hardened. She still has her back turned to him.

I: Oh. Now I remember. Winifred Burkle is the shell I’m in. W: She’s the woman you killed. Incongruously, he sits down. In some odd way, they are already sharing something: memories of Fred. This time, it’s her who made the connection.

I: This is grief. (She turns and starts toward him, disgusted.) It’s like offal in my mouth.

She is blue, shot against the warm reds of Fred’s bedroom. Both are present in the shot. Red shift/blue shift. Fred is moving away into space and time, a source of light, her universe eternally expanding. Illyria is moving in, blue in the darkness, her universe, Wesley’s universe, the universe we see contracting in pain outside visible light.

F: That light. Hurts my eyes. But I don’t want you to turn it off. But it hurts my eyes. Everything’s so bright and hollow. Cavemen win. Of course the cavemen win. Except, already, who is winning? Ninety seconds into her acquaintance with this world, and Illyria already knows the taste of grief, and the Other has a name she remembers.

W (tears running down his face:) If you stay here, you’ll taste it every day. Every second. (He gets up and goes to the window.) Look. (The world outside is dark, except for the light of buildings.) Humans rule the earth. (She looks, astonished.) [They will last] for millenia. Like roaches crawling everywhere. (He comes up to her.) Crying and sweating and puking their feelings all over you. Go back. Sleep until the humans are gone. They are stupid and weak. They will kill each other off. Then you can return to the world you deserve. Leave this shell. (He reaches out behind her with open palm to touch her.) I: You seek to save what’s rotted through. This carcass is bound to me. I could not change that if I cared to. But you have opened my eyes to truth. If the world is truly overrun by humans (she reaches out, stiffarming him across the room), then I have work to do.

red shift rules with the universe expanding light moves away into space and time back into darkness back to the beginning bleeding out of a universe of lies Cut (there are no interstitials, all the cuts are scene rolling over into scene in this episode) to the jet, once more in the sky. Eternity, empty. This is a journey in a circle, these two paired episodes. Fred journeys out, Illyria journeys in. Angel and Spike went to the Deeper Well and now return. From one end of space and time, back millions of years, when the Old Ones lived, to the presentday. There’s a hole in the world, and it goes right through.

Spike is facing a window, with all the little bottles of liquor lined up on the table. Angel has his back turned; he is staring at nothing. There is an eternity of pain and loss on his face. Whatever he may say, he knows he’s going to lose. He always loses. They are mortal, and they die. But he isn’t alone this time. He is not disconnected. That part’s new.

S: Can’t even get drunk. (He bottoms-up a miniature bottle of Jack Daniels.) Why would anyone ever make a bottle this small? It’s inhuman. (He stares at Angel’s back, what he can see of him on an angle.) Thousands would have died if we’d saved her. A (whispers, staring straight ahead:) Yeah. S: She wouldn’t have wanted that. A (sighs, leans back into his seat:) Yeah. (Pause.) Tried calling Wes. There’s no answer. S: Guess she’s gone then.(Frowns.) It’s like a bloody tease. It’s like here’s what a bottle of Jack would look like, if you actually had one, oh here’s a drink (holds small bottle away from his body into the light, looking through his hand as spyglass to the bottle extended) that is very far away. A (who can see nothing of this demonstration:) What does that mean? Really. S: It’s a play on perspective (brandishing the small bottle for the benefit of his invisible audience). Yes, it is (thanks, Joss, for the visual g).

A: Gone. What does it mean that she’s gone? (He’s still got his back to Spike, but he leans slightly in his direction. He really wants to know.) S: Well, in the world of men, a person dies, they stay that way. A: Unless you’re a vampire. S: Or the ghost of one that saved the world. A: Or Buffy. Human, we are ephemeral in a larger world that is eternal. To be immortal, and to care, is to live with endless loss. Death is a permanent condition. Unless you’re unique. Both vampires are unique in this world. Is Spike still a ghost, then, in his own mind? Sent to help Angel on his journey? Buffy is also unique: can’t seem to die and stay dead. Not expendable?

There is a hole in the universe. It is not like a hole in a wall where a mouse slips through, solid and crisp and leading from somewhere to someplace. It is rather like a hole in the heart, an amorphous and edgeless void. It is a heartfelt absence, a blank space where something is missing, a large and obvious blind spot in our understanding of the universe.

That missing something, strange to say, is a grasp of nothing itself. Understanding nothing matters, because nothing is the all-important background upon which everything else happens. Without it, the universe is theater without a stage. Without getting to know it, we can’t understand the blank page on which the story of everything is written. We can’t trust our own perceptions because everything we see passes through it like a clear but distorting lens, like light from the sky skidding over hot pavement to create a shimmering mirage.

(K.C. Cole, The House in the Universe)

Why are we here? That’s usually considered a human question. And vampires, given their immortal nature, tend to take the long view. But every death we care about leaves a hole in the world. Something unique goes out of it. Where does it go? Is there a Deeper Well for galaxies, like grains of sand? Time. So little and so much of it. Is anything really gone while we remember it?

Perspective, in the short and the long, does not change the nature of the world. Unique properties, of course, do.

as the source of light as the source of life as the source of love moves away in time red shift comes down (the universe expanding)

A: Death doesn’t have to be the end. Not in our world. Rules can be broken. All we have to do is push hard enough. In the Einsteinian, "matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move."

Other ether ember spark

It’s not what we give up, or give away, that defines us. It’s what we gather in, what we hold on to. Neither space nor time are fixed: only the speed of light is constant. What we know is a matter of perspective. We are our own Makers. It is connection that makes a world in which we can live. We are Small. But we live in the reflected light of stars.

as the source of light as the source of life as the source of love pulled by gravitas blue shift comes down (the universe contracting)

Cut to Knox, out cold in a chair, his face all bloody, his hands duct-taped. He looks broken. Still alive then. So far. Out the windows the buildings are red in a black world. Harmony’s looking forward to the torture part. Gunn says it’s "kinda personal". Harmony admits that for her there’s a bloodlust factor, but beyond that it’s personal for her too. Her and Fred had made a connection. Harmony, unsouled, is changing in the background. Could Lawson eventually have changed in the same way?

All the humans and demons make their alignment choices in this episode. Justice and vengeance are not just words, but beyond that they are tackling questions of moral sense and lies. It’s a tribute to Fred, who made strong connections, and had strong values she did not abandon. She has been their ethical center since they came to W&H. She’s the one who didn’t want to come. She came for them. And most of the white missions this year have been set by her. Most of the ethical questions are those she raised, like that day in Angel’s office when he questioned her priorities in trying to save Spike.

Wesley comes in, looking for Angel. He doesn’t answer Gunn’s question about Fred. He’s dispassionately pleased that Knox is gonna get tortured, before he learns why, and that chilling indifference is a bad sign for him. Wesley has almost disconnected; only desire for payback is keeping him here. Gunn doesn’t want Knox to spill his involvement. Finally Wesley says wearily "It doesn’t matter any more. Fred’s gone." Gunn and Harmony are silenced. Knox begins to laugh. "Beautiful", he calls it, that agonizing death. "She had a warmth that took you in and held you, until everything cold and distant melted away." And knowing that, he chose to destroy her. For that, he destroyed her. He still looks and sounds innocent, in spite of his bloody face. Wesley draws his gun to kill him. Gunn remonstrates. Wesley describes her death and breaks down. "She’s gone", he says. Angel is in the doorway, Spike just behind him in the frame. "I know", Angel says. "Now let’s get her back."

They meet in the penthouse. Angel briefs them on the Deeper Well. Lorne is shaken: he sits on the couch with a drink, wearing a blue jacket, and talks about his own guilt, that he misread Knox and if he hadn’t maybe Fred would not have died. I confess I just can’t read that character. Looking at the evidence, I have always thought he was misreading/misleading Angel right back at least as far as the fake-swami thing in A2.06 Guise Will Be Guise, every damn time, and that’s a very long way, so I just don’t trust him at all, though I like him well enough. But apart from the evidence of his like actual track record, I see no sign at all in the story that I’m supposed to read him as suspect that way. So I can’t say what it means exactly that he gets up and leaves that meeting; I’m inclined to think it’s a big hairy signpost. But if I take him at face value, an empath demon with real feelings for Fred, it’s gotta hurt. And in that case, Spike’s logically correct to tell Angel to let him go on the grounds that "if he’s doubting himself he won’t be any good to us." Note the ’us’: Spike is now not just metaphorically solid.

G: Lorne is right. We should’ve seen this coming. A (sigh:) It wouldn’t have made a difference. Drogan said the sarcophagus was preordained to be released. Nothing could have stopped it from arriving. G: That’s not completely true. I played a round of pinata with Lab Boy while you were gone. The sarcophagus was stuck in customs, and it should have stayed there, but someone got it out. W: Who? G (long pause:) I’m working on it. Gunn is the one who frames the issue of how they failed Fred. Does he start out meaning to confess here? If so, he loses his nerve. But Knox is still alive. And the Doctor knows. And Wes is on the warpath. So in order to best cover his ass, for starters, Gunn should not have stopped Wes from killing Knox. He’s still trying to do the right thing, but morally he’s so compromised at this point that there’s no right thing to do:

W: Oh. You’re working on it. Good for you, Charles. (sarcastically:) Not a moment to lose. A: Wes. I know you’re hurting. Keep your footing. I need you sharp. All of you. For Fred’s sake. W (low, scathing:) There is no Fred any more. G: You don’t know that. W: I watched it gut her from the inside out. Everything she was is gone. Despair is speaking. One of the Endless, the brother of Desire. Why is there something rather than nothing? There’s a hole in the universe. And yet we are made not of symmetry but rather of broken symmetry. Fred’s specialty, that string. The stuff of galaxies like grains of sand. And when we go, what do we leave behind? Recombinant. To make its own connections.

Other ether ember spark

W: There is nothing left but a shell. A: Then we’ll figure out a way to fill it back up. Whose shell has hardened in this piece? Knox. Gunn. Wesley. All human, all hollow men, in some sense authors of their own damage. Knox is completely lost, entirely because of the choices he made himself, that made of him a monster. Gunn crossed that line, several exits back, and now he can’t unmake his deal. Wesley is very dark, since A5.07 Lineage at least, ruthless and unmoored with grief besides. What did he get out of his deal with W&H, besides the pen? But Wesley is Angel’s mirror: here he is in danger of cutting all his connections, and he has also seen the last of mercy. But he is not quite empty, because he still feels, and this time at least he is not alone.

But all the vampires fell to the dark once long ago, and chose to become the monster. In theory they were hollowed out, lost to the allure of unlimited power and hunger. Damned.

A vampire isn’t a person at all. It may have the movements, the, the, memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but it’s still a demon at the core, there is no halfway. (Giles to Buffy, B1.07 Angel, written by David Greenwalt)

Except then they chose to undo it, Angel reluctantly after a hundred years of carrrying the soul as a curse, Spike deliberately in the space of a heartbeat. And when they chose again, they were no longer empty.

I know you. We know you. We know you’re a man with a demon inside - not the other way around. (Wesley to Demoned Angel in A2.22 There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb, written by Tim Minear)

So Angel understands Wesley. He has been there too, and recently. He also knows Despair, and has lost caritas. But now Spike’s sitting at Angel’s right hand. That diagrammatic painting is behind them. Bifurcation points. Alignments. Angles in the visual field. This is the territory Angel and Spike both know.

S: The thing only took over her body. That’s the tip of the theological - A: It’s the soul that matters. S (nods:) Trust us. We’re kind of experts.

Is it, though? The soul that really matters? Even Knox had one. How far did Spike (and now Harmony in the background) come without one? What exactly does the soul restore, besides conscience? Feeling to accompany desire? Empathy? Moral sense? That need for connection? Maybe. Maybe not.

Viola: Know’st thou this country? Captain: Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born Not three hours travel from this very place. Viola: Who governs here?

(William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)

So, do we know this country? Who governs here? Reason governed Wesley, till it failed him. Impulse and feeling once governed Spike. Is Angel then Angelus’ governor? Is curiosity what governed Fred? And how do all these governance systems relate to the soul? Is it a check on appetite? What does it mean to be Knox, and name it love he feels for Fred, and still to call it beautiful, that agony of Fred’s ending into dark? What does it mean to be human?

G: What about her - if her organs have been liquified? S (raises hand:) Flash fried in a pillar of fire saving the world. I got better. W: You really believe there’s a chance of bringing her back? A: Fred’s soul is out there somewhere. We’ll find it, then we’ll put it back where it belongs. (Gets to his feet.) Then we’ll make every son of a bitch who had a hand in this pay. We all on the same page? Prioritizing, like a good general. He looks over to Spike on his right. Spike rises to his feet, grim, the picture behind him, and says nothing. Yeah, that’s the way Angel always likes to share his feelings. And that’s a bifurcation point we see, whether or not it’s a gameplan for the whole season. Spike has Chosen his path.

"We need the big guns", Angel says, and Wesley answers " Willow". In the world(s), Wolfram & Hart is extremely powerful: unlimited resources, secular control, wealthy, politic. The best reason for entering the belly of the beast has always been that they need all those resources in order to do some good. In contrast Buffy’s operation is plainly penny ante: no seat of power at all, no structure, no worldly influence. No, you know, stuff. Rank amateurs, in both knowledge and skills, arrayed against Angel’s Team of consummate professionals. Nobodys, Buffy’s set of ragtag heroes. Except for the power they personally, invisibly, own. Which organization is stronger? Which one is unequivocally a force for good?

Which one is more vulnerable to attack? First Evil had no difficulty at all taking out the Council of Watchers, when the time came. But now Buffy’s seat of power is scattered. They have no presence. They display nothing at all. Even the flow chart’s murky. Still, they had no difficulty retrieving Dana, when it was time: and they sent Andrew into Wolfram & Hart for her, that’s the joke. Do they have resources? They carry them inside themselves. So when Angel says "the big guns", he doesn’t mean his own considerable resources, or his connections. He means Willow. What is power about? Buffy had so much strength, she gave it all away. "Choices, little girl, the ones you make with your heart of hearts", as Angelus said to Faith. These are all governance questions. Macro.

I don’t believe in science. All those bits and molecules no one’s ever seen. I trust eyes and heart alone. (Drusilla to Spike, about the chip, B5.14 Crush, written by David Fury)

Micro. They all know, really, those who fell from heaven. Including that small blonde girl. The seer is always mad, and always (uniquely) right. Eyes and heart alone, that’s the seat of power. It’s the first of Spike’s lessons, in Fool for Love. You think it isn’t? He doesn’t have to reach for his weapons. And neither does the Slayer, who has now given hers away. But Angel does not trust himself; he has his reasons. So too with Wesley, who thinks he kills whatever he cares for. Now Spike is standing on Angel’s right, Wesley on the left. Time to look inside, in that Deeper Well. Is it really empty? What’s inside that shell? Who’s on first? What really matters? The universe, blue, contracting. What do we ever get to keep, to hold? What are we made of? What makes us, keeps us, human in the dark?

Drogan: It’s been freed, the demon’s essence. S: Yeah, it’s been freed. Why do you think we’re here? (off Drogan’s menacing gesture, because of the question:) What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite song? Who’s the goalkeeper for Manchester United?And how many fingers am I holding up? You want to kill me. Try. I don’t have time for your quirks. Drogan (answers the question:) My power to draw back Illyria lies in there (he gestures behind him). It requires a Champion who has travelled from where it lies to where it belongs. A: You’ve got two of those right here. The demon’s essence. Illyria is "pure demon". All of Spike’s questions are trivial. Aren’t they? Long view (the universe expanding), they don’t mean a hill of beans. Now change perspective; the universe is contracting. All of his questions are about the ephemeral things that are part of the living world. On the long-ago night that Buffy asked him why he chose to change his alignment rather than to destroy the world, he answered her, evil, unsouled, with Manchester United. Spike’s questions are about identity and connection. What makes us who we are, what ties us to this world that is so full of grief. What is the demon’s essence? Inside the shell that is Fred, what now remains? Where does Illyria belong?

F (crying:) You won’t leave me? W: I won’t. K: My boys. I walk with heroes. Think about that. W: You are one. F: Superhero. And this is my power. To not let them take me. Not me. W: That’s right. F: That’s right. (She takes his hand in hers, and places it on her heart. She whispers:) He’s with me. (Cut to bridge at the Deeper Well.) A (whispers:) Spike. S: This goes all the way through, to the other side. Could it possibly be clearer? As Spike is to Angel, so Wesley is to Fred. The one who will never let go, and the one who has the power not to be taken. The heart as unbreakable connection, that goes all the way through, to the other side. Know’st thou this country?

Illyria punches unseen through the glass wall and grabs out Knox, still in his chair. Harmony was standing guard. She meets Illyria in the doorway. When she says "Omigod. Fred?" Illyria cocks her head, then backhands Harmony across the room. Knox giggles.

K: My life is yours. I worship you. I: Yes, I know. Worship. Her tone suggests that worship is not of interest. The lobby, however, is. How did she get herself from Fred’s apartment to Wolfram & Hart? On the strength of memories? Cut to commercial break.

In the lab, the camera pans in from the Nautilus shell opening on the sarcophagus. Illyria is looking at the casket intently. Curious. Knox at the other end is giving his origin story. Illyria doesn’t listen. She looks at her hand and the coffin beyond it, stretches it out towards the sarcophagus at different angles. Her point of origin. Her views on perspective. Her prelude to connection. It’s only when he mentions the Forbidden Texts that he attracts her interest. He still looks guileness, innocent. Looks aren’t everything. She places him at last.

I: You are the Qa-Hasaan. K (unbuttoning his shirt:) I am your priest. I am your servant. I am your guide in this world. (He lifts up his T-shirt beneath to reveal a massive scar near his heart. It looks like something’s been sewn inside.) I have taken your sacraments and placed them close to my heart (she traces the scar tissue) according to the ancient ways. That’s why you were called to me. (She is listening intently.) We are bound together. I: My last Qa-Hasaan was taller. She turns away from him to explore the room. Knox is nonplussed. He is the offering, but she is indifferent. He believes she will share her power with him, but she does not seem to view them as bound. She admits no connection. Has he misunderstood the ritual, or the function of the priest? Is this Other in ways he could not imagine? Or is she already looking for meaning somewhere else?

I: This world. It’s not how I left it. K: I’m sorry. There’s nothing (grin, self-deprecating) I can do about that. I: But I can. She turns around to face him, beside the sarcophagus, ripping Fred’s red dress off.

In the penthouse, Angel’s on the cell phone. Spike is watching.

A: Himalayas? I thought she was in South America. S: They’ve got a branch in Tibet? How about a couple of Sherpas? A: Already? Look - whaddeya mean she’s not on this plane? You just said - astral projection. Well, is there any way to get her astral over to L.A.? Giles, this is an emergency. No, no, I am not going - don’t put me on hold. W: Never a witch around when you need one. G: It’ll work out. It has to. W: I’ve been unreasonable, because I’ve lost all reason. But I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I know you’ve done everything you can. I’m sorry. In fact, Wesley’s reasoning powers are fully intact. The calculated risks he takes with Illyria in Fred’s bedroom are finely judged, though executed under horrendous circumstances. Like Angel, it’s caritas rather than reason that’s all used up. And he’s already suspicious of Gunn. He’s not apologizing, he’s setting his traps. He’s not prioritizing Fred over vengeance, because he believes Illyria when she says Fred is gone. What’s not clear is whether he’s shared with them that conversation. Team Angel is still floating on a Sargasso Sea of lies. But this is the beginning of that day of reckoning. The unravelling now begins.

Angel loses his battle with Giles, who no longer trusts him, because of the Wolfram & Hart connection. (At least he hasn’t sent assassins.g) Angel doesn’t try to play the Buffy card, so he did understand Andrew. He throws the cellphone at the wall. "We’re on our own." "Nothing’s changed", Spike points out. Harmony gets off the elevator (crossing in front of the diagrammatic painting), to report that Illyria’s In the House.

In the lab Illyria is poised naked, her arm over the sarcophagus. A weird noise starts up, then stops. Knox has no idea what she’s up to. She hits the side of the sarcophagus and (clothing and/or armor) flows onto her body along that arm. Identity. "I’m ready to begin", she says.

A (with Spike and Wesley behind him:) Or we could just hang out. I: A warrior. I was beginning to wonder if this world was devoid of your kind. S: Plenty of us to go around, luv. (Gunn and others are visible behind him.) I: Two halfbreeds and a band of primitives. Is this all that challenges me now? Illyria is getting her bearings. And this involves the naming of things. Names have power. "You would presume to speak my name?" There is the Qa-Hasaan, here are the warriors. She knows herself; now she begins to take their measure. Illyria has a mission, to take back her world. If she is "pure demon", what exactly were the Turok-Han? Halfbreeds, she names the vampires. Half-demon, half-human. Born though, or bred?: that’s the interesting part. She feels no kinship with them. Primitives, those are the humans. No humanity in her; the Judge would be well pleased.

A: We know what you are, Illyria. We’ve seen the rest of your kind, all the Old Ones, sealed away forever. Like you were. Where you should have stayed. You’ve taken something of ours. Something very precious. Stand down and I promise, we won’t destroy you taking it back. I (staring at him a moment:) I decline. Yep, that would be a ’no’. She sends him flying through both the inner and the outer set of windows in the lab, into the night, and he falls. Then she stops time with a wave of her arm.

Beakers break on the floor of the lab. Remember Fred making her dying passage through the lab, leaning on counters, and the glass breaking: another bifurcation point, that shattering, both now and later, also in the lab, when Harmony does it. Is it an end, or a beginning, a mnemonic or a change in pathway? A sign of cataclysmic change, at any rate. Loss of self, maybe?

And Illyria and Knox walk through them all unnoticed, pass out of the building, and under Angel still suspended in the fall. When time’s rebuilt, all the shards of glass beneath him seem to reconstitute. Then Angel lands, blood from his mouth in a thick stream. He gets up and staggers away. The elevator opens onto the lobby on Angel and Harmony.

H: Sorry, Boss. Maybe if I’d stopped her back in Gunn’s office - A: Did she toss you out a window? H: No. A: Then you’re one up on me. Mr Grumpy. Underneath, though, it’s kind. Reassuring, even at his expense. It’s the first time he’s ever treated Harmony as though she’s really there, with fears and feelings of her own. Soulless, but trusted with guard duty. Minor, maybe, but part of the Team.

In the lobby they meet Spike and Wesley and Gunn coming down the stairs. They do the troubleshooting and tasking right there, the way they did before Fred died. Harmony now takes Lorne’s place. Illyria can alter time. And time is moving backwards in the structure of this episode, which is twinned to A Hole in the World just as the characters are twinned: Fred to Illyria. Angel to Fred. Wesley to Fred (and Illyria) as Spike to Angel. Wolfram and Hart, perhaps, to the Deeper Well?

Passages. Wesley and Harmony branch off to the lab, Gunn falls away to look up "contacts". Angel and Spike are the only ones who can now negotiate the whole labyrinth, apparently. Two dead men, walking. They keep walking till they enter Angel’s office. Angel has a task for them both: "see if we can track her down, or figure out where she’s headed now."

S: Any thoughts on how we’re supposed to track Fred, or Illyria, or whatever the hell that thing was. A: We just do it, that’s all. (He goes to the wall behind his desk and takes down a weapon.) Caveman.

S: Back in the lab, she was standing right there in front of me, but there was no scent. Nothing. It’s like she wasn’t even there. Spaceman.

A (bleak:) I know. S: Look, I want Fred back as much as any of us, but seeing her there, like that, maybe she really is - A: No. I lost Cordelia because something violated her, used her up. (Draws knife from sheath.) No way in hell (gesturing) am I letting that happen again. What does it mean? Angel and Spike are both predators: it is scent that lets them decide who to protect and who to kill. There is family, and there is prey. And now, there is Illyria. Who looks like Fred (family), and acts to destroy (prey). And they can’t read her connections. Is she really there? Fred really is gone, Spike is so delicately saying. Nothing remains of her except the shell. But what is Illyria, who cannot be read at all? Does she really exist, a kind of god outside of time who roams the corridors of Wolfram & Hart at will and makes her judgment on the nature of them all? Ghost in the Shell. And Joss will know that reference.

Cut to the lab. Harmony begins by sweeping the beakers on top of the files onto the floor where they break. Lots of that going around. No wonder the lab was always exceeding its budget. Let’s look at Harmony, here, in all these broken mirrors. Why is she breaking here?

Harmony is angry at herself for not being able to spot someone who is evil. Think about that. She was fooled. He was a Deceiver.

H: I should never have trusted that little nerd, the rumpled hair, socks that didn’t match, the cute lopsided grin, so totally playing it up. (She takes a crowbar to the filing cabinet. Harmony the subtle.) I mean, who did he think he was fooling, besides all of us. (She looks at Wesley with his hand on the sarcophagus.) Um, shouldn’t you be wearing one of those moonsuits? W: I think this has done all the damage it’s going to. He runs his hand down the length of it. Why does he do that? He wasn’t there. All the same, can he feel Fred doing the same thing? Illyria did it too. She keeps returning to it, as to Home. Clothing, protection. Peace. What did she feel? What does she remember? Wes is using instinct and feeling to keep himself in a world where reason has failed him utterly.

Drogan: The Greater Ones were interred, for death was not always their end. Illyria was feared, and beloved, as few are. It was laid to rest in the very depths of the Well. Beloved, imagine. Millions of years. "Death was not always their end." Well, not for Harmony either. But Illyria has even outlasted time.

H: Right. Mind if I put one on? W (still running his hand across the top:) She was curious. That’s why Fred didn’t put it into containment immediately. How things work. What makes them special. She was always searching for what other people couldn’t see. She was just curious. I think I hate her a little for that. H (feeling, remarkably, sad for him:) Wes. W (harshly:) Hand me the prybar. (He’s still looking at the sarcophagus.) H (gently:) The girl of your dreams loved you. That’s more than most people ever get. (She hands it to him.) W: I know. But it isn’t enough. (He attacks the sarcophagus with the crowbar.) H: Wes. Stop it. Wes. Appreciate the urge to smash, but that’s not helping. W: No. But this might. (He harvests the jewel embedded in the top.) H: I thought that was supposed to be unbreakable, or something. W: Time. The markings refer to a series of concussively timed intervals. This gem is the focal point of the sarcophagus. It might be useful, if it isn’t already drained. Time. Is it breakable? How do we take its measure? It’s a job for Feigenbaum. But what do we choose to keep, and what to smash, and what to give away? Fred breaks the glass in the lab, and Wesley takes her home, where soon time stops for her. Illyria breaks the glass in the lab, and steps through time into somewhen else. Harmony breaks the glass in the lab, and becomes... human? Connected. Wes treats her as human, she exhibits empathy, she tries to help. Are we measuring intervals? Constants? There’s a hole in the world.

Harmony figures out the evidence of the missed calls on Knox’s cellphone, and Wesley goes to the doctor’s surgery and overhears the conversation between Gunn and the doctor.

G: Then take it back. Everything you put in my head, the law, all the knowledge, take it back, everything. Take more, leave me a vegetable, I don’t care. Just bring her back. Please. Bring her back. Doctor: There’s nothing left to bring back. Miss Burkle’s soul was consumed by the fires of resurrection. Everything she was is gone forever. For better or worse, you made a deal, Mr Gunn. I suggest you learn to live with it. Gunn is having some trouble with time: he’s still trying to give it back to save Fred. Consumed by the fires of resurrection, that’s harsh. The fire will burn thee to the bare bane. This is Fred’s Lyke Wake. In Lyke Wake Dirge, though, it matters very much who you are. We’re still in darkness yet. Illyria has not acted, and so Wesley acts alone.

Faith: There’s some things you can’t just take back, no matter how sorry you *are*, right? Angel: Yeah, there are. I’ve got some experience in that area. (A1.19 Sanctuary, written by Tim Minear and Joss Whedon)

But Gunn can’t give back time in order to save Fred. That time has passed. "Consumed by the fires of resurrection" is awfully similar to Spike’s condition, though. And look what came of that. And he called himself a Ghost. But Wesley now crosses the soul off the list of dwindling possibilities, hits the Doctor with the shotgun barrel, and points the thing at Gunn. "Is there something you’d like to tell me, Charles?" is the break sentence.

W: What did you do, Charles? G: It was just a piece of paper. I was losing it, everything they put in my head, everything that made me different. Special. And he could fix it, make it permanent. So I signed a piece of paer. It was a customs release form. I didn’t think anyone would get hurt. W (still training the shotgun on him, very low:) Nothing from Wolfram and Hart is ever free. You knew that. What did Wesley have left to give up, for his pen? What did he owe to Lilah? What conscious bargains did they make themselves, sidedeals to Angel’s still unacknowledged deal that took them all into Wolfram & Hart in exchange for Connor’s promised new life? Nothing from Wolfram & Hart is ever free. It’s Fred who made no deal at all, who was against the move. And it’s Fred who’s gone.

G: I couldn’t go back. To being just the muscle. I didn’t think it would be one of us. I didn’t think it would be Fred. He’s trying for honesty. It’s the progression that’s damning. From ’anyone’ to ’one of us’ to ’Fred’. That’s how it goes, those tiny steps, right into the abyss. Perhaps he never realized, till just this moment, that he understood that whole progression when he did it. Is there any coming back from there? Though Angel did. Didn’t he? What does it mean to be damned forever, in a Jossian world? Yet Gunn’s intentions were never evil. And he was always intent on using that power for good. Wesley never labored under those illusions. Wesley, though, is now The Judge. And his is a bleak assessment.

W: I understand not wanting to go back. Not wanting to be who we were. I understand it. And I can forgive it. (The window behind them shows daylight, blue water: a customs house? He puts down the rifle.) But you knew what was happening to her. You knew you were responsible, and you didn’t say anything. You let her die. (He stabs Gunn with a knife from the doctor’s implements.) I’m less forgiving about that. (They stare at each other.) Cut to Wesley hitting the wall:

A: What the hell did you do? W: What I had to. A: I don’t remember seeing ’stab Gunn’ on the agenda this morning. W: I avoided the major organs. He’ll probably live. (He hits the wall again.) A¨Is that supposed to make it all right? Is that Angel or Angelus we’re looking at? It’s definitely the CEO of Wolfram & Hart, to make that agenda crack. Or has the distinction become moot? Because it looks so very much like the Yorkshire 1880 scene, only this time it’s Wesley who is the erring fledgling instead of Spike.

W: Nothing is all right. Nothing will ever be all right. A: We’ll get her back, Wes. W: No. We won’t. Fred’s soul was (he hyperventilates a little) — her soul was destroyed resurrecting Illyria. A: Are you sure? (Backs off.) What about Gunn? W: He let the sarcophagus into Wolfram&Hart. What he knew, when he knew it, it didn’t change what happened. He let her die. A: So did I. At the Well in England, there was a way to save Fred, but only if thousands of others died in her place. As much as I love Fred, I couldn’t let that happen. We’re looking finally at an end to lies. Cordy has walked veve for them all, and Wesley did that spell of Unconceal. The heart in the machine, in the pail, has been restored. And there’s that diagrammatic on the penthouse wall, near the elevator, and the convergence lines, and Feigenbaum’s proofs. And now at last they speak to one another about how they feel, and what they have and have not done, and why. You took my son. How long has it been since these things were ever spoken of, since Angel used the word love in any sentence (A4.22 Home, to Connor), since Wesley spoke to anyone of his own pain. At the end of this conversation, at least, nobody dies. They are damaged, but they do not abandon one another. Now forgiveness is on the table, and caritas. And even Harmony is hoping for belonging, and showing empathy for someone else’s pain. They are all monsters in the night, every one now that Fred is gone, but they can still choose not to be one today. Spike’s set of lessons: the heart is a weapon, ask the right questions, and only what we choose to give will ever make us free.

A: Look, I need you to bury it, Wes, everything you’re feeling, everyone you want to hurt. I need you to put it aside and focus on what needs to be done. W: Illyria. A: We need to stop her before she - S (wiping blood off his hands with a handkerchief:) - she unleashes hell on earth? A: What’d you get out of the doctor? S: Screams, various fluids, and a name. Va’halanesh. Probably the best man for that job, Spike: he’s the only one who won’t enjoy it. At her temple Illyria can raise an Army of Doom, interred with her for the purpose. "It’s out of phase with our timestream. Only Illyria can open the gateway." Already on her way, Illyria’s coming down a corridor with Knox behind her. She steps over a body.

I: Your breed is fragile. How is it they came to control this world? K: Opposable thumbs, fire, television. What they lack in strength, they make up for in extraordinary sneakiness. I: You are Deceivers. Another name for her collection of archetypes. Connor, The Destroyer, also made his own collection, when he came from the Qor’toth to exact his father’s vengeance. The television bit is pure Joss. And Deceivers is nicely ironic, given that the end to lies is here. Illyria can certainly see that Knox is a Deceiver, but it is not clear yet what she makes of Wesley in that light. He tried to kill her, he tried to trick her, but she was most taken by the transparent honesty of his pain.

K: Yes. All of them. They deserve to be punished. I: They. You don’t consider yourself part of your race? K: Not any more. I’m with the King. Open the gateway. They walk onto a central room tiled in complex triangular pattern made of rotated squares, with a doubled four-point star in the center. This very old symbol from the Tigris-Euphrates region is, ahem, the symbol of Inanna. And combines the Morning and the Evening Star.

K: Raise your army. Wash humanity from the face of the earth and reclaim what was lost to you so many millennia ago, when the earth was ruled by — I: Be silent. K: Right. Sorry. My bad. She reaches out with her hand. Wind blows. Then nothing.

I: The Gateway is blocked. K: I was afraid of that. Wolfram & Hart threw a lock on it. They’re big on things happening on their timetables. But Illyria, time is her province. And I think she’d make short work of Sahjhan. Hmm. Could Illyria unmake that Deal that brought them here?

I: The Wolf, Ram and Hart. In my time they were weak. Barely above the vampire. K: Huh. I guess they beefed up. But not to worry. I brought my skeleton key, just in case. Who can bring down Wolfram & Hart? Angel tried for years. But how would they fare against Illyria? Skeleton keys, usually meant to open more than one door. "When is a door not a door?", that’s another of Spike’s questions.

Cut to a hospital bed. Angel has sent Harmony with papers to sign off on Gunn’s signing powers; wow, isn’t he the born CEO. Harmony has taken to asking inconvenient questions, a very good sign, and she’s a lot better at it than she used to be in her breadbox days. And this lesson is tailor-made for Harmony:

H: How could you do that, to your friends? To Fred? G: Because I was weak. Because I wanted to be somebody that I wasn’t. Because I don’t know where I fit. Because I never did. Because of a thousand other reasons that don’t mean a damn because she’s gone. She’s gone. She’s not coming back. Because of me. I did this. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Shot from the door, like the shot from the door with Fred in the hospital bed, the last time Gunn ever saw her. Perspective, yeah. This is the point we’ve come to. And Harmony hesitates, then puts her hand awkwardly on his shoulder while he cries. Very similar to the backdoor passage scene in Fool for Love. Is Harmony at about the same stage in her journey as Spike was then?: bit further along, maybe. Empathy for Wesley, and for Gunn too. And a lesson about what happens when you want to be Somebody so bad you destroy everything that matters. Harmony unsouled is learning how, and why, not to be a monster.

Illyria is learning too. She’s standing at the center point on the map. There’s a sound like thunder. The stuff Knox brought in his bag appears and disappears in a corner. Everything’s a go.

K: Showtime. S: Any seats left? (He’s at Angel’s right hand again.) A: If not, we can just stand at the back. Even Angel’s a smartass; that Spike’s a bad influence.

K: Guys, you should scan the headlines here. You can’t win this. W: Then we all die trying. I: Why? She’s as curious as Fred. If they are all Deceivers (like Knox), why are they standing here with all the odds against them?

A: You want the short version. Let’s start with you walking around looking like the woman you murdered. First thing Xander ever learned about vampires, and unfortunately never forgot:

You’re not looking at your friend. You’re looking at the thing that killed him. (Giles to Xander B1.02 The Harvest, wr JW)

But what are we looking at these days, in both Angel and Spike, and Harmony too? A different model. What kind of model is Illyria, set against them?

You die, and a demon sets up shop in your own house. And it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it’s not you. (Buffy to Ford, B2.07 Lie to Me, written JW)

So in this episode, we come to the heart of that matter. And Illyria is pure demon, not halfbreed. Inside her shell there is not a trace of human, and never was. And she has all that power, out of which monsters are always made. Yet she is curious, like Fred. She values knowledge. She learns, and changes. She cares nothing for worship. She is not empty. And she remembers.

I: You think your actions will restore her. A: No. I: Yet you seek a confrontation you cannot win. A: What you’re trying to do: raise your army, reclaim your world? Innocent people would die. Like Fred. I can’t let that happen. I: You are the Protector of these creatures? A: Yes. These are not the goals of a Deceiver. This model is more complex than Knox.

I: You’d fight for their lives. A: Yes. I: Even this one? (She indicates Knox.) K: Is that an issue? Is my life in peril, boss? King? Knox comes rather suddenly to the revelation that he has become an example, and is therefore in peril. This is very much the stage Harmony had to negotiate in A5.09 Harm’s Way. Knox is willing to give up everyone else on the planet, so long as he remains untouched. It’s an illustration of the difference in moral views between Gunn and Knox. And between Angel and Wesley, for that matter.

A: You’re about as low as it gets, Knox. But you’re a part of humanity. That isn’t always pretty. But it’s a helluva lot better than what came before. And if it comes down to a choice between you and him, then yes I would fight for his life, just like any other human’s, because that’s what people do. That’s what makes us - What was he gonna say, human? In fact Illyria finds that an interesting question. Wesley, however, picks this moment to shoot Knox. Wes is an excellent shot, and for Knox that’s it, that’s all. Now Angel’s really pissed. He turns to Wesley: "were you even listening?" It’s the other side to Wesley’s plaintive "didn’t we learn anything from the tea?" question to Angel’s retreating back so long ago. Cut to commercial.

I (looking at the body:) You’ve destroyed my Qa-Hasaan. S: Yeah, okay. But you gotta admit, he had it coming. I: It offends me, that you would think he matters. A: You’re right. He’s not the problem. You are. Poor Knox. What an epitaph he gets from his object of worship. Angel comes in with the sword and she tosses him aside. Spike comes in with another sword and she tosses him in the other direction. Wesley shoots at her, and she kicks Knox’s body into him. She fights Angel and Spike again, and ends up blocking both their swords, swinging them around at the end of them and tossing them, throwing their swords in another half-turn.) Looks really good in the setting of that patterned floor. Angles. Illyria plays the intervals when she dances. Amy Acker had all that combat training she hardly got to utilize until now, so she must have been pleased.

"Unimpressive", Illyria sums up their fighting skills. She does another time dilation, but Angel’s got the timer and appears in front of her. This time he tosses her.

I: How? A (showing the gem Wesley harvested:) From your sarcophagus. It’s connected to you. I’m connected to it. I: Sneaky. She’s even got a sense of humor. But notice that Angel is playing the power of connection. Don’t think Illyria hasn’t noticed that too. She tosses them off, opens a portal, and goes through it. Wesley dives in after her. On the other side she tells him "You’re too late. My army will rise." Too late in several senses.

She climbs the stairs. A passage. "This world will be mine once again." Then, at the top, "no". It’s in ruins. Millions of years have passed. For the monuments. For the Army of Doom. Time has defeated even her. "It can’t be. It’s gone." She falls to her knees. Stone turns to dust in her fingers. From dust we came, to dust we shall return. Time has run out.

I: My world is gone. W: Now you know how I feel. He cocks his weapon. But he lets her go through another portal. She has suffered a loss, perhaps as great as his. Now they understand one another, from the heart that may not be part of her. Wesley goes through much of this episode alone, and people die in his wake, but this time Angel does not give him up. Reason gives him up, and he begins to operate on a level of pure feeling. A dangerous way to deal, but he never refuses to feel, and so he survives his journey. He is not a shell.

Cut to the Wolfram & Hart sign. Angel’s office. Angel and Spike and Wesley discuss Illyria, and closing the gateway. There’s a Feigenbaum tree growing in the window beside Angel, and something is in flower. For the first time we see something living in any of the spaces that are his. In the whole episode, Angel is never alone until the last shot. He’s not sitting behind his desk either: the three of them are side by side. And Angel’s not wearing his suitcoat either: an end to costume. The conversation is somber, but collegial. The room is full of light. Wesley goes to pack Fred’s things in her office above the lab.

S: That offer still good, send me abroad, roving agent and all? A: Yeah, it’s still good. (He doesn’t look at Spike.) S (raises his head:) Great. Maybe we should send Gunn, before Wes has another poke. We.

A (straightens, tree in shot:) You’re not leaving? S: It’s what she would have wanted. (Pause, considers, looks at Angel, decisive.) It’s what I want. (Stands up, still looking straight at Angel.) I don’t really like you. Suppose I never will. But this is important. What’s happening here. Fred gave her life for it. Least I can do is give what’s left of mine. The fight’s coming, Angel. We both feel it. And it’s gonna be a helluva lot bigger than Illyria. Thing’re gonna get ugly. And that’s where I live. Notice all those disparate angles of light. Patterning a sea of possibilities.

It’s the inside out of that other scene, a world ago in A Hole in the World (now we’re back that far): Spike climbing over the chair to confront Angel in a straight line: Angel trying to sell his getaway offer from behind his big desk while Spike plays the brat. Now they sit side by side, and Spike refuses the offer, and chooses for the first time in a very long time to do what he wants to do, to fight beside his grandsire because the cause is just. And this time Angel wants him to stay. They’ve been a very long time coming to this moment together.

Cut to Wesley packing up Fred’s things in her office. Her mug, the commemorative plate. This one’s the other end of that scene in Texas when Fred promises her mother she’ll be careful. But Fred is not gone.

Illyria appears, leaning into the doorframe. When is a door not a door? When it’s a tree. Sure enough, there’s a tree depicted next to her. The shelves beside hold specimens from the natural world. Fred retrieving that squid thing pinned to Angel’s back. Curious. Unsentimental. Passages.

I (in the doorframe:) You grieve still. For a single life? W: Why are you here? I: I - I’m uncertain. This place was part of the shell. But why should that matter? Who is the ghost in this machine: Fred or Illyria? Illyria returns to a fragment of memory, and cannot say why. She acknowledges a connection that isn’t even hers. She has already felt things she wasn’t built to feel. She assigns value to a concept she doesn’t even understand. Who is the victor here, where there seems to be only loss?

W: Don’t call her - the woman you killed had a name. I: This is important to you. Things have names. The shell - Winifred Burkle. She can’t return to you. W: I know. I: But there are fragments. When her brain collapsed, electrical spasms channeled into my function system. Memories. (She triggers the electrical current.) "Please, Wesley, why can’t I stay? W: No. (Very upset.) Leave. She is trying to give him something. Comfort, perhaps. It’s not comforting, of course, it’s rather horrible. But there is compassion in her gesture. She is reaching out for him. She is learning the nature of loss. Connected to the shell. To the man. To the place. Unfamiliar. Unwanted. What she has displaced is also displacing her. There are so many questions, and all of them seem to generate such pain. But she is curious. She comprehends feeling. She has no ill intentions. She is learning. Reaching. She is not-Fred but she is clearly Other to that self she once was. She is not averse to change. If Fred could not stay, still she cannot seem to leave. And everything is inside out to how it was before.

I: I’ve nowhere to go. My kingdom is long dead. Long dead. There’s so much I don’t understand. I become overwhelmed. I’m unsure of my place. W: Your place is with the rest of your people. Dead and turned to ash. I: Perhaps. But I exist here. I must learn to walk in this world. I’ll need your help, Wesley. Harmony wants a place in the world. Gunn has lost his. Angel and Spike have no place in the world, by definition, but make one for themselves by daring to feel, to reach, and to protect. And time confounds them all, both mortal and immortal, by turning dream to dust, by taking away their hope of joy or light. Still they continue.

Illyria has chosen her guide to this world, her Qa-Hasaan. He will be neither priest nor servant; he will not worship her, but she does not value worship. What he will give her is truth, and not comfort, for he is not Deceiver. She can offer him feeling, which he will help her understand. He will answer her questions, because she is curious about this world she cannot own.

W: If I were to help you find your way, you have to learn to change. You mustn’t kill. I: You killed the Qa-Hasaan. In defiance of your leader. W: He murdered the woman I love. I: And that made it just. W: No. It wasn’t just. I’m probably the last man in the world to teach you what’s right. I: But you will. If I abide, you will help me. W (whispers:) Yes. If I abide, she says, and makes the agreement. What interests her are the ethical boundaries of the human world, and the purpose of its emotional content. She sees some value in them. She is asking what it means to be human, why we continue. He accepts her bargain, exquisitely painful as it must be at every moment to see her walking in this world as a reminder of all he has lost. And, so remarkably, he means to try to show her what is right, Wesley who kills Knox and almost Gunn in this episode, Wesley who has no hope, who knows the difference between justice and vengeance and chose the last one anyway. Still standing with Angel and Spike, still fighting for that bit of Fred. In seeking connection at the end of everything, however damaged, he chooses life. To save and protect. To teach that desperate language of longing and loss to an alien being inside the shell of what he loved and lost, and thereby not to drown.

I (looking down into the lab where the sarcophagus still rests:) We cling to what is gone. Is there anything in this life but grief? We, she says. We. So soon. Illyria, becoming. Who values the Protector model over the Deceiver. Who has power over time. Who is more interested in feeling than in power. What is she made of? Curious. Drawn to the girl she never was: her places, her people, her values, her pain. Learning. And by this she will offer reparation for his loss; because this is something she owes. A reciprocity. Respect.

W: There is love. There is hope, for some. There is hope that you’ll find something worthy, that your life will lead you to some joy. And after everything, you can still be surprised. I: Is that enough? (She looks at him.) Is that enough to live on? He looks at her and does not answer.

Viola: My brother he is in Elysium. Perchance he is not drown’d: what think you, sailors? (William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)

Not drowned, but changing.

In the montage that follows, Gunn is alone with the choices he has made. Harmony sits at her desk, alone with her glass unicorn and a sense of profound disquiet: she has shared their pain, and they have acknowledged her as real, and it feels so strange. Lorne sits with yet another drink, alone, an empath demon cut off from feeling. Spike sits on the stairs to the lobby, alone in the midst of many, and contemplates eternity in the midst of everyday. He is so seldom still: it is odd to see. And Angel sits at his big desk, alone in the room, in pain for yet another girl he took under his protection but could not save. While Wesley sorts Fred’s things in her office (up the stairs). And adds Feigenbaum to the pile.

And Illyria beneath him in the lab (down the stairs) (connected) with her sarcophagus recognizes home, and begins to dream.

W: "She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sarah Crewe was only seven. The fact was that she was always dreaming and thinking of odd things and could not..." The camera pans back and back, showing the whole room, warm tones, sunlight streaming in through the window, an ordinary green and living world that sheds natural light in its frame, and on Wesley and Fred still in the angle of its path, but around that perimeter in the quiet darkness is closing in. Like a Van Eyck painting. A lyrical, perfect shot of memory, peace and light, in a natural world. A memory of safety. Outside the house of death.

And it’s memory that’s in the book, for Fred who can’t remember and wanted to go home: "... could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grownup people, and the world they belonged to." Reds and golds, red shift in the natural world, the universe expanding as light recedes in time.

Cut to another shot, in mist, blues and blacks. Blue shift. The universe receding. The inversion of Joss’s endless field of vision. Otherworldly, unnatural. A vision of eternity as the house of death. Two figures enter the frame in silhouette at the back of the shot. Wesley is still doing the narration on top of this landscape. "She felt she had lived a long, long time." Immortal.

 macha (Mon 2004.03.01 at 02:20 pm EST)

And in the coda scene, her father stands on the porch, Fred hugs her mother one last time, gets in the Chevy, alone, and drives away. Leaving home and protection for the infinite possibility of life and learning. This ending is beginning.

a break in symmetry produces patterns we can live inside. biological. cosmological. snowflakes and thought and galaxies.

 macha (Mon 2003.10.27 at 07:16 pm EST) Why is there something rather than nothing in the world? Because we choose to be, and see, and make. And when we do, we are not empty.

F: Handsome man saved me from the monsters. Bye. (She runs off.) A: Hey. Wait a minute. (Fred ends up in a hidden cave. Here, when Angel finds her, she is wearing glasses and writing on the walls.) A: Hello? Hey, great place. You don’t have to be afraid of me. Really. I-I’d never... (He’s distracted by his reflection in a pool of water.) ...hurt you? (Fred glances back at him, then quickly turns back to her carving.) A: So, ah... So, you don’t wanna talk to me? F: I can’t, huh? A: Why won’t you? F: Because - you’re not real. Or I’m not real. *Somebody* here isn’t real and I suspect it’s you. So if you’re not real, that means that my head came off back there and that I’m dead now. Dead. And with me being dead and you being not real I can hardly be expected to have some big conversation with you at the moment, because it’s just a little too much pressure, alright?! A: Okay. Okay. (She nods and turns back to her writing.) A: What’s that you’re doing? (Fred looks up at the stuff covering the walls. Some of it looks like the words form the book that opened the portal, other stuff resembles mathematical formulas.) F: Um, I think I saw it in a dream. A: You’ve been here a long time. F: Always. Not always. (Angel spots something. Picks it up. It’s a California drivers license for one Winifred Burke, living in Los Angeles, brown hair, 5’6, 114 pounds, expiration date 03-01-98.) F: I had a dream. I had a name. (A2.21 Through the Looking Glass, written by Tim Minear)

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away; change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need thy presence every passing hour. What but thy grace can foil the tempter’s power? Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless; ills have no weight, and tears not bitterness. Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes; shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

(19th Century Hymn written by Henry F. Lyte, music by W.H. Monk)

 macha (Mon 2004.03.08 at 05:05 pm EST)