Considerably Shorter Post About How I Loved Angel Too
So in the weeks since I finished watching Buffy, I decided to move on and give Angel a shot too. I finished the series a couple days ago, and while it took me a while to warm up to it, turns out I absolutely loved this one too. I'm going to keep this post much more concise than my Buffy appreciation post and just address one thing:
Wesley & Fred!
I was honestly beginning to think that Angel wasn't going to have a moment that made me cry a river of tears, but then season five had to come along and give me two. Why did you have to break my heart like that (again) Joss? Killing Fred right after she finally realized she loved Wesley? Killing isn't even the right word for it. It was worse than killing; it was having her soul destroyed "in the fires of resurrection." In a universe where the existence of souls and the ability to occasionally cheat death were both firmly established this was beyond heartbreaking. Then on top of that you have Illyria walking around in her "shell" mimicking Fred for her parents and reminding Wesley every moment of what he had lost. That was harsh.
As for Wesley, I don't even know where I would begin with him. His journey from "that dweeb who was even more of a dweeb than Giles" to the much darker and complex figure he became put him near the top of my list of favourite Buffyverse characters. Seeing him die in the arms of Illyria, pretending to be Fred, was devastating.
Happy endings are overrated anyway, right?