It was slightly funnier than Beer Bad, but a lot worse because it’s the third-to-last episode. Very disappointing.
On the other hand, my girlfriend, the werewolf, will be seen next week.
Her mom ran over the bug demon! Her parents knew that she was off fighting evil and they were proud and supportive. Weird though her death may have been, they would have understood “death by demon possession” well enough.
There’s no good excuse. They’re her parents! It was an unbelievable oversight.
Sweet zombie Jesus, that sucked.
Contrived situations leading to lame jokes, the Buffy-chase with no payoff and a complete lack of arc development with ONLY TWO EPISODES LEFT!! What a waste!
It’s as if the gang at Mutant Enemy thought “To hell with it. We’re all out of a job soon, why bother with any effort?”
thwartme
5 out of 10. 2 points just for a Dru appearance, 6 points for Acker’s work, and -3 for the main plot line.
However, it was the only way around a Buffy resolution. And it still leaves me satisfied in my world where she and Angel finally hook up again.
Also, I want to be in an Acker/Landau sandwich. Or really a Fred/Illyria sandwhich on the even days, and a Drusilla/Faith sandwich on the odd days.
I think the episode was perfect. They needed to wrap up the Love Triangle. If they had made it all serious and angsty I would have been pretty angry. They afforded it all the dignity it was worth, AFAIC, and also showed that Buffy is a vapid, shallow bitch.
ANdrew: She changed.
Me: Um, hi? She’s shagging an immortal demon with a shady past who may or may not be evil and is affliated with W&H. She hasn’t changed at all. In fact, that’s the opposite of change.
I personally think that Joss has grown to hate Buffy, and this was a final snub of the nose to the character. Which is amusing to me, cuz I hate her too.
I loved all the interaction between Angel and Spike. Fury said the main 'ship this season would be between Angel/Spike in a brotherly sort of way, and I think that has unfolded beautifully. I loved their bickering–contrast it now to Just Rewards–the bitter edge is gone. They’ve finally been reconciled. …er… conciled I guess?
Wes’s angry face was great. Poor Wes 
Amy Acker blew me away with her acting tonight.
And finally, I am absolutely amazed at how much people who are unspoiled know about the final two episodes. This week and last week both. That’s something I don’t understand from people who insist on being unspoiled—how can you make any declarations about how eps 19 and 20 fit into the final arc? You haven’t seen the final arc.
Dude, she’s been “free” for a year to return to Angel. If she was going to go running back to his arms, she would have done it by now. She wouldn’t have stayed out of contact, set Andrew because she doesn’t trust him, and move on The Immortal. And if Angel really thought they’d get together again, or want to, he wouldn’t have fallen in love with Cordelia, or hooked up with Nina (his girlfriend now).
B/A is dead. It really couldn’t be more dead. And since she never bothered to contact Spike after finding out that he was alive–not even a “hey, thanks for saving the world and my skinny ass in the process. That was nice of you. Dawn says hi.” then I’m pretty sure the Spuffy ship is dead too.
The triangle is resolved. She doesn’t want to be with either of them. If she did, Joss would have made it more open ended–she really would have been under a spell or she wouldn’t have been seeing anybody to begin with. Besides that, SMG offered to be in the final ep, and both Joss and Jeff Bell said “Um, thanks but no thanks”. If they wanted either ship to survive the series finale, we would have seen the Return of Buffy and watch her ride off into the sunset with one of them.
Well Joss has two more episodes; Buffy and Angel have their whole lives. 
I can’t believe I’m the first person to mention “Ciao…ciao…ciao…ciao…” That by itself was almost enough to redeem the Italy portion of the story for me. Almost.
Damn, I wish there was going to be another season to explore Weslyria. I would love for everyone who would be rooting for Wes and Ilyria-in-Fred-form to have their hearts completely shredded.
I really liked the Fred/Illyria bits and I was mildly amused a few times by the Italy scenes.
I guess I really didn’t like the flashback scenes of Angelus and William the Bloody. It’s such a…disservice to the completely wonderful Buffy Season 2 post-Innocence and the smoldering, wicked sexiness of Angelus, he of the leather pants and wanting to torture people with chain saws.
I don’t appreciate them turning Angelus into an impotent buffoon with REALLY REALLY bad hair when I loved him so much in Buffy Season 2.
I did like seeing Darla and Druscilla, they are always GREAT! I wish we had another season to explore Illyra and Wesley, love their interaction!!
Oh yeah, and one of my favorite lines “and he’s eating cookie dough!” Such a nice Buffy shoutout and tribute!
If my TiVo-equipped lady friend and I hadn’t happened to watch the “Buffy” series finale right before watching “Angel” tonight, I probably would have missed that reference entirely.
Mrs. JohnT nailed it perfectly – it’s just like that throwaway “Brady Bunch”-inspired episode of “X-Files.” But it does serve to cleanse the palate for a bang-zoom-pow two-part finale, doesn’t it?
Well hell, even mass-murdering evil fiends can have an off day every once in a while.
The episode was funny and entertaining. I watched it with someone who has passing familiarity with the show and they were laughing their ass off. I’ve noticed that a lot of Angel episodes are both funny and touching to people who have no clue about what is happening. That is what makes it quality TV. Not only can it entertain but fans are not the only people who enjoy it.
I think the flash backs accomplished what they were supposed to without undermining the characters too much. They were captured at the start but handled the situation. It was when they were cuckold that things went to hell. Honestly though even bad ass vamps have bad days, we just never saw one until now.
Fred/Illyria was just torture. I honestly thought Wes was going to snap and beat the Fred face off of Illyria. I am royally pissed that Illyria is not going to get a full plot arc. Including Fred’s parents finding out. I can understand why Wes didn’t tell them. Before Illyria came in I could see the difficulty. After all this is far worse than Fred being dead. Something is walking around wearing her body. Now her parents have seen that thing - and worse it is pretending to be her. What do you say?
“Sorry that isn’t Fred. It is a demon-god that hollowed her out and destroyed her soul.”
My beef isn’t that he didn’t tell them in this episode. I’m shocked that no one informed Fred’s parets of her death back when it happened. If someone told me my mother had died two weeks after the fact I’d be livid. A simple “Fred was killed by a demon” is all anyone ever had to say. Now it’s far worse and more awkward. Now trying to explain will be a real bitch.
Overall, I was disappointed by this episode. I didn’t particularly feel the “love triangle” needed wrapping up. Angel had already wrapped it up way back when he became human and then chose to turn back time. Spike’s needed wrapping up a bit, but I thought that had been done back in the finale of Buffy with her last words to him.
This episode did a huge disservice to the character of Angelus. Wasted Andrew. And teased us with Illyria - showing us they had such a great story arc there that we’ll never get to see.
I actually doubt I’ll be watching the series finale now. This one really made me lose interest in it. I no longer care for the characters aside from the Illyria arc we won’t see.
I was pretty unhappy with the episode. Buffy’s off the air–why the hell should I care about what she’s up to?
The humor fell flat, the twists were predictable, the jacket replacement was cheating in a Snowball II kind of way, and it was ridiculous fluff to have in the third-to-last episode.
But Oh My Fuckin God, Amy Acker is good. They coulda sent Angel and Spike offscreen for the whole episode and focused on Fred/Illyria’s ubercreep, and I would’ve been happy.
Daniel
My favorite bit was the 50’s Flashback. Classic.
I liked it. I must be easy to please.
I’ll admit it, I laughed, and I even liked it. But why, oh why do this episode now? Every commercial break, I turned to my friend and said “And how is this getting us closer to the apocalypse?”
This would have been an enjoyable episode if I didn’t know that there were only two episodes left to end the whole damned thing.
But I agree with Gamera, the 50’s flashback was my absolute favorite part. 
I really didn’t think this episode was very good. They didn’t resolve the Buffy/Angel/Spike relationship thing, just more teen angst and hand waving. Buffy is still doing her thing, Spike and Angel are still brooding. No closure, no change in the status quo, no nothing. Bleh.
Wes/Illyria was certainly the best part of the show. Just seeing Amy Acker shift gears like that, subtle but direct. Very good acting, I’d forgotten how differently Fred moved her body.
The Immortal sounded like a B-movie character. It’s probably best they never showed him or Buffy, it would have made bad scenes even worse. It’s sad that the best character in the episode was Andrew, he’s the only one who’s shown any growth.
Still expecting a good final two episodes. Although I wasn’t blown away by the ending of BtVS, it was a solid conclusion. Angel should deliver as much.
I really enjoyed the episode and, other than concern that the final two episodes will seem rushed to conclusion, I don’t see why so many people disliked it. It was second only to muppet Angel episode for humor and it actually made a good amount of sense. It added another level of depth to Angel/Angelus and Spike/William the Bloody. I love the idea that there is one guy out there who has bested them both, and their reactions to him (“But I’m a hero!”) was outstanding. While I heartily disagree with pepperlandgirls assessment of Buffy or Joss’ motive behind having Buffy with the Immortal, I thought they did a good job of tying up that loose end. Of course, they had to leave some wiggle room, but I liked the resolution. And they also came to a resolution between Angel and Spike and their relationship. Now, bring on the apocalypse.
Plus, the episode was damned funny. “Gypies! Pah!”, “Americans! Always resorting to violence.”, and the uber-trendy 50’s flashback all had me laughing out loud.
I honestly can’t understand why someone would not want to watch the final two episodes because of this one. Different strokes I guess.