Below are just a few, largely unconnected thoughts. I suspect many of them are very old news to most Angel watchers, and apologise in advance for this. My only real claim is coming at the series with fresh eyes.

A section from the first paragraph of the Odyssey. Still an surprisingly valid disclaimer- except for the 'a few' bit!

Home is the place where, when you haveto go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

Home is a sadness, not a place

Jason Webley

Yes, this is a super-indulgent build-up, but I'm feeling sad about the end of an era. Here comes 'Dreams of Home', a poem I wrote last year, about thoughts of family and belonging.

Not often- awkward and accusatory
But it happens.
Momentarily- a homily homeily.
A tedious, edifying spectacle?

Family, tedious, with unedifying spectacles?
Perhaps- careful.
This isn't the whole truth
Neither nothing but the truth.

It may not be full of hedonism
Or wholesomeness.
Somewhere between white and black
Lies the gold of non-visual sparkle.

Not always- half-hearted and sheathed in dull.
Yet nacreous.
The repeated, the grey and grey and grey
Still contains that which shines in sunlight.

It may only be consolation
For loss, love, life.
L for leather- comic platitudes' levity
Levity, the word itself.

But sometimes. Somehow. Somewhere.
How does that end?
Over the rainbow- in a mythical world
Or there's a place for us.

What exactly did that mean?
A mental place
Or a barrier under which the grass is greener
Escape to utopia? Note Atlantis drowned.

So for the final time in a while, a title:

4.22- 'Home'

There are as many different meanings of 'Home' as there are people, I would imagine. Without going for the obvious, 'Home is where the heart is', (although I suppose 'Home is where the Hart is', would have done as a title), I found a couple of ideas of home above, without reverting to phrase encyclopediae and so forth. I think I agree with Webley. Home is a sadness. That place that is secure, but also denies potential to grow, that always imagines itself to be enlivening the present, when it is in fact safeguarding an often outdated past. Yet home is a happiness too. And it's a place, or a person, or a family, or an experience, and it's ever-shifting. I often tell people I'm going home, but do I mean my University Home in Leamington Spa, my family Home in Bradford-on-Avon, or my father's Home down the road? All of them, at one point or other. It's when I'm asked where my Home is that I have to think for a minute or two- and usually answer depending on how much time I have, how well I know the person and whether they're asking interestedly or with an angry scowl. In other words, instead of giving the most honest answer I can, I pander a great deal to expectation. Because Home is an un-pin-downable place. It seems we know most where home is when we don't have it- it's the place Spike isn't in 'Pangs'. And the very final, heart-breaking scene of 'Home' joins in with this. Several moons ago, alcibades mentioned the framing metaphor for Family in Season Four of Angel. In the poster's continued absence, it's left to me to point out how beautifully it's used in the final scene- with Connor's family framed in the window, and Angel resolutely outside, at that distance that he himself has chosen for Connor. And, for the first time ever, we see Connor make a joke. That homely, that re-assuring thing. Sunk in the bosom of the family, complete with sweet little sister, gruff-ish father and doting Mother, Connor has found something that isn't a lie- and can toast 'To Family' without a hint of irony. Of course, the irony is all too clear to the viewer.

Another beautiful point about this wonderfully directed, nicely acted scene is the way it so consciously echoes 'Deep Down'. At the beginning of the Season, and as a lovely trick so carefully portrayed that it works straight, we see Angel's view of perfection. A meal, with all the members of Angel Investigations re-united. Lorne back from Las Vegas, Connor and Wesley reconciled and everyone sharing the best of times. Yet Angel is the centre-piece of this- sitting at the head of the table, ladelling out nourishment much as in 'Parting Gifts'. This abundance, and the dark, rich colour scheme used, is repeated at the end. Now, again, and so painfully, Angel is the Outsider, the Avenger who enables society, who enables family but is forced to stay outside in the cold himself- in fact, in the wilds of the forest in which Connor lives. There is a family happiness, and it does involve Connor. And while Angel is at the head of the table in 'Deep Down', Connor takes the lead role in the family here- the high-achieving student, the loved Big Brother, the gently cynical but happy child. It would be perfect, but for Angel's decision, one which, only an episode after he inflicted free will on the world, tore it away from the one person he cares about more than anyone else.

So that's the last scene. But actually I was put in a happy, Minear-y mood right from the beginning here. All sorts of interesting little lines, and playful direction. There was a bit of one-eyebrow-raised amusement playing through those first few scenes that worked excellently. Lilah, inexplicably back from the dead, makes the rules, and Minear makes his cast play along with him just as they must play along with Lilah. She sizzles, and every actor is just that little bit more in character than usual- rather like when Whedon directs. And so we get the nosensical, pointless, 'what's going on?' of the fake teaser ending. What we thought was finished, wasn't. Lilah defies expectation and goes on. Li-la-li, li-la-li-la-lie-lali.

And then we return to the shocked disbelief. Whedon goes to great lengths to get rid of the credits in his special episodes by devising extra scenes or fiddling with the order of things at the beginning. Here, Minear uses them to stress the length of the character's silence. It's almost certainly the longest silence in 'Angel', and possibly the longest period of complete soundtrack silence, (ie, no Chirs Beck music), on either show, although I'm more than willing to be put right. And it's funny, and nicely done. We see a lot about the character's indecisions and personalities just in each one's decision not to speak. And so we get the first act, where Lilah, (or Minear?) tells us what's going on. We are told the limo will be waiting. And we, like Fred the every(wo)man, can't quite resist what's lurking inside. It's almost certainly nefarious and evil and beautifully planned, but that's the allure of it. Fred gives into the intrigue as we do. And so, once we've taken that leap of faith, it seems so much more likely that Angel, he of 'Reunion', Wesley, him of 'Deep Down', Gunn, who has already half-accepted it in his mind, and Lorne, who despite his glorious singing voice has never let morals get in the way of a chance at fame, will follow. It's very important that each comes to his or her own decision. It's not unilateral- it's the free will of the whole Family. Each could have said no, but none did. They used what Angel won back from them to compromise with their definition of evil. How's that for murky waters, eh?

And as a throwaway line, we get "What's the odds the humans are the most corruptible?". Well, considering where they're going, Wolfram and Hart, the Home of millions of evil, ever so human lawyers, the odds seem to be shortening all the time.

And just as AI come to their personal decisions to go, they are greeted by an almost tailor-made, perfect guide. Or at least so it might seem. We might at first criticise Minear for the simplicity of Fred with the scientist, Wesley with the Watcher, Lorne with the singers of his dreams, Gunn with the attractive woman, and Angel with his nemesis. But the plans are somewhat more nuanced and revealing.

-Well, almost all of them are. Lorne's great joke about them having 'everyone I've ever wanted to meet' more or less seals his section.

-I'm worried about Gunn. I'm less than qualified to go into the details of the imagery of the Black Panther, but suffice it to say that the never concluded line 'The answer is among you' [any takers anyone? It wasn't Cordelia, as she wasn't in the White Room], came back to haunt me. Unlike the only half concluded visitation of Joyce slash the First to Dawn in 'Conversations with Dead People', Angel's season has seemed too immaculately plotted to be let go to waste. Maybe someone plot-minded can explain. Anyway, back to the worry. That big cat seems a version of Buffy's in 'Intervention'- but on a rather grander scale. I was definitely waiting for Gunn to say 'Hello Kitty'. But the cat led Buffy to two things. One, it led her to consider herself- what it means to be a Slayer. Perhaps Gunn was made to consider what it is to be a Warrior. But more baldly, Buffy was told 'Death is your Gift'. I sincerely hope this isn't some nasty foreshadowing for Season Five. We need Gunn to live.

-For Wesley, it is about getting beyond the visage. At first I was dissatisified that after we see Gunn's insecurity and Fred's lack of self-confidence being handled, we se the section with Wesley doing supposedly the exact opposite. But actually, that's the whole point. I should have trusted Minear. For distrust, and complete certainty, and the real books with the real knowledge, not just some fancy English bookshelf, is what Wesley was given. He was given a physical and intellectual challenge, which eventually led him to something he could really admire. Genuine books and files stretching as far as the eye could see.

I've been wondering about unresolved feelings that Wesley had for Lilah for a while. The scene where he vuts her head of is wonderfully portrayed, but since Lilah appears to have been buried away, repressed like so much of Wesley's past. Here he attempts to free her- to give her the will to do what personally she'd like to do. But in a small inversion of what is later to be the crux of the free will exploration, we see that what Wesley wants for Lilah cannot be inflicted upon her without her will. She's signed up for life and death, in perpetuity. It's her choice, just as Wesley and Lilah have always had an equal, if never healthy, relationship.

-Finally, we have Angel, who is given that thing that he's been lusting after for ages. Which could be sunlight. And could be Buffy. But he managed to reject those years ago- in 'In the Dark' and 'I Will Remember You' respectively. Cordelia is more pressing, but Connor finally makes him snap. He is the one incredible worthwhile thing that Angel has made, and he safeguards it. He goes to see Connor,and in so doing is made to split the two things he has been fighting for throughout the Jasmine arc. There was Connor, and there was the ability of others to have free will. After Angel inflicted free will on the world, like it or not, (an extreme irony, as valheru pointed out), he thought he might be able to get Connor, the other thing he was fighting for back, but instead he is given an ultimatum to choose. And straight away, Angel abandons the quest for free will, in two regards. First, he tells the Gang that he has made an executive decision to except Wolfram and Hart's offer for all of them. This goes against the earlier, carefully crafted scenes where they all decide to get into the limo separately. If we were to believe it was a s simple as free will= liberty, we are quickly confused by it. And of course, secondly, Angel forgets Connor's free will in order that he can lead a happy life. A dreadful decision to have to make, and a wrong one. But just perhaps the least worst. This Minear episode crackles along with plenty of his trademark, almost poetic and entrancing dialogue. Here's a few more highlights to cover some straggling points.

-'And 30% more energy efficient'. This line made me giggle. Wolfram and Hart have the diabolical intent of luring Angel with sunlight, although they already suspect something more dear to his heart will be necessary. But they are endlessly efficient and thorough, like that Kafkaesque research woman from Season Three. That 30% sums up all we may have come to hate about evil lawyers.

-'Come on Charlie, let me show you around the chocolate factory'. Of course, Lilah is working on behalf of Wolfram and Hart, and Mr Wonka was going to give the Chocolate Factory to Charlie, as the tribestial company plan to do to Angel, so the metaphor is apt. Furthermore, the very trait that Wonka requires in Charlie, the sheer childish wonder and love for the factory, devoid of selifishness, gluttony, money and pride, is the one that Wolfram and Hart appear to use for each person. It runs deeper, but the snazzy machinery is the surface layer that means the gang don't immediately ignore the offer. That joy about the things they like, but with the ominous feeling it will soon be corrupted.

-'You live as the world is as it should be'. Another tidy tie in from 'Deep Down', from Angel's glorious speech to Connor. Here, though, we see the compromise. In Lilah's chocolate factory, Angel has the tools to act on what he believes, but will h be interfered with. That line, 'the value of compromise' comes back to haunt Angel as he makes himself compromise both his crusade for free will and his distrust of Wolfram and Hart in order to give Connor the life he feels he deserves.

-Perhaps the most beautiful line of all- so sparse and poetic in a way perhaps only Minear and Whedon can do on the series: 'Flames wouldn't be eternal if they actually consumed anything'. So much duality. The flame suggests old flame, the flame of the burning perpetuity, but mostly Lilah's loyalty to the company, running beyond her life and into her death. Arguably the living flame, the one that in Christian theology burns away self and leaves one through with holy charity as outward vesture, may just have been the Wesley/Lilah relationship. Lilah was starting to be burnt away, confused about her alliances. In death, there is the certainty of the eternal flame, but also the knowledge that there is no such thing as a flame that consumes nothing. It's false even though constant.

Leaving just the scene that made me tearful. It's instructive, more so than perhaps any other individual, to consider David Boreanaz' acting for proof that practice and diligence can lead to strides forward. The power of emotion, the extraordinary desperation and understanding and hurt in his final scene talking to Connor was startling, mostly given just by his facial expression, a crumbling old castle, once again losing its reason for being fortified, even without Tim Minear's writing on top. When you see his glib, detached, wooden performance in 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' and set it aside this, it really gives you hope that you can improve in whatever you do. Here he is stellar, the situation is incredible poignant, and the conclusion is absolutely mind-blowing.

Connor, while claiming 'You can't be saved by a lie', just might be, given the opportunity to start again. All the lies and pain have left in life in ruins, and yet it is not reset by simple kindness, consideration and generosity, but by putting the world to 'reset'. The smiling happy Connor that the shell of Angel sees is a lie. We have been taught 'the value of compromise'.

Of course, we see Connor's complete breakdown, and that it is, as Angel fears, all about him. There are the two fatherhood scenes- that with the man away from his family early on, and later berating another Father for not keeping his daughter comforted. This act as nifty prefigurements of the final meteoric offering in the mall.

And so the Season ends as it began, with me spouting superlatives about how the truth is in there, but hidden so deep that Angel mirrors real life. There's a thematic unity in Minear episodes which however never leads to a glib moral or an easy answer, and I will really miss his writing, as I have done for much of this Season. But with Edlund, Whedon, Craft and Fain and Goddard, (and of course Bell and Fury, who I admire less but do have good moments), Season Five of 'Angel' has the ability to match all the previous three in being brilliant. Season Four contained an odd makeweight, but with the Angelus arc, the Jasmine arc, the first and final episodes, it presents itself as a classic in the Angel mould of confusion.

There's a shortish post to be written tomorrow that will contain the following things:

1)Poetry (prepare for Tennyson, guesses welcome)
2) The season ratings
3) Some thank yous at an ending (if not the ending) of the Odyssey
4) A plea for some technical advice that could keep the Odyssey going.

But that's to come. For now, I leave you with a toast:

Connor: (toasting)
To family.

TCH