Angel: Time Bomb

Rather appropriate title for this episode as Illyria was going to go BOOM! A tad transitional, but it picked up some interesting plot threads for the remainder of the season. Good to have Gunn back with the Fang Gang. Rather ironic that what was Fred, who he helped accidentally kill, is now Illyria who whips Gunn out of the suburban hell dimension. The exchange between Wes and Gunn was priceless:

Wes: I stabbed you. I think I should apologize for that, but I’m honest not sure how. I think it’ll just be awkward.
Gunn: Good call.
Wes: Ok.

It’s amazing how good an actor Alexis Denisov is. He portrays a grieving, rational, dark and insane Wesley so very well. A shame his work will never be recognized by the all the award shows. These fantastic-unreality shows are the bastard stepchildren of the media.

Oh god don’t go in there! That’s where he keeps his full strength crazy.

Yep, Wesley has gone off the deep end. Does anyone else figure he’ll do a dramatic self-sacrifice/death in the series finale? Joss Wheedon does like to kill off some people and this entire Wesley/Illyria arc just reeks of him dying in a final attempt to bring back Fred. JW can never allow a completely happy ending.

It was amazing to see Illyria kill everyone. With something so old that the concepts of good and evil are simply unknown to them, it is amazing to see them simply act out what they feel needs to be done. Rather scary thought if you think about it. Luckily with a time-shifting greater god you can bring in such dramatic moments of her explaining to Past-Angel that he was the final one killed as she threw an axe onto his dustpile. Besides, with 20 minutes left in the episode and 3 more for the entire series you knew they couldn’t stay dead.

If you want to win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

This begs the question: to win the ultimate goal of good, does it matter what methods you use? Does it ever matter that the sacrifices required to win may be more costly than the win itself? Or is it all a matter of doing what needs to be done, not what you wish you could do? Do the ends justify the means?
For Angel we shall find out over the next three weeks.
For ourselves, perhaps we should ponder that a bit. Let me know what you think.