Hoo boy, don't get me started about Xander. At one point, I had him pegged as the ultimate villain of the series. I'm not sure if that judgment will stick as we work through this.

Meanwhile, the cynical read I gave of Angel(us) was extreme by design. I tried pulling every Angelus item together and presenting it as an unambiguous whole. As Maggie and Vamps rightly chide me, there is more to Angel than that. While my initial impulse was to puncture any idyllic, romantic notions of Angel the Hero, I came to realize through the exercise that what may be happening is that Angel simply doesn't know how to be Angel yet. The only instruction manual he has for interacting with the world was written by Angelus. So, I am perfectly willing to look underneath the Angelusic facade for a sincere, earnest Angel trying to find the means to express himself and to begin at last a journey towards a true redemption. That is the Angel you point out, the one who impotently whispers good luck to her as she goes towards the Harvest. He is surely in there somewhere, but he doesn't know what to do about it yet, and I think the tragedy for all of them is that it takes him too long to figure it out.