random re: angel.

[pop_tarts]

it's essay season again. watch Lise do anything but essays. in fact, on the topic of the Angel season one DVDs? (and obviously, there be spoilers within.) here's my problem with


see, until tonight I'd never seen the episode of Angel where Doyle dies. I'd missed on television, maybe someone taped it for me but I never saw it because, frankly, Doyle was the best part of angel. He was the Anya in my life, when I first started watching, and he was always so in pain, despite how he said he wasn't.

and okay, blah blah, we all knew this back three years ago, what's new? see, watching tonight? as he died? after I stopped crying I started thinking. and the last scene of that episode, where Doyle's on camera and cordelia and angel are watching the tape of him?

I really, okay. my favorite character on Buffy was, and to some extents still is, Jenny Calendar. and doyle is so much like her in so many ways. she had these things, that she had to deal with, and she did it by laughing. and he was so unhappy, and he never got closure, really, except in his death. and Jenny, she died before anything was really, resolved. like, buffy's death, both times, from a storytelling point of view? they were full of closure. Jenny was just, she was alive and then she wasn't.

And Doyle felt the same way. he was alive, and then he wasn't. and you see Cordelia and Angel being so, hurt, by his passing. and Jenny's passing, it really made ripples in the season two cast, in a lot of ways. I mean, buffy didn't feel it maybe? But it left a big gaping hole in Giles, and in Willow almost, as well.

and doyle's passing left an even bigger hole, because he was there, in the very beginning and he was their friend. and maybe I cried over that, I'm not ashamed to admit. Because them watching that video tape of him, you really saw that they loved him. it would be, like. I don't know. but it was sad. it's sadder than the thought that Angel could die, because Doyle was *normal*.

I think his death was the reason I stopped watching this show to begin with. I mean, seriously, I loved him. and I also don't understand why he was killed off to bring in a character quite like him (at least in the beginning) but that's a different story. Mostly, I just miss him.

and what I really want to read? is like, some fic. from say, this season. last season. Whenever. But like, Cordelia and Angel in some time of trouble and yet family, looking at Gunn and Fred and Lorne and Wesley and whoever, and just both of them saying "it's thursday. let's celebrate with a drink down the pub." because they *remember* him.

of course, then I'd probably cry again. but you know. it just feels like, there should be more shown of how people are close by remembering their friends who've died. and like, angel and cordelia will always have that link to the past, to the very beginning of the agency, when there was a cocky half-demon who drank too much hanging around and cheering everyone up. Fred, Gunn, Wes, whoever, no matter what, won't ever be able to say that they met Doyle. and what a shame.

a question: does Cordelia or Angel ever talk about Doyle to the others? because I also maybe want to see a fic where Fred, maybe, points to that drawing of a grey blobby thing that Cordy framed "so we'll always have something of Doyle in the office", and says,

"What's that thing?"

"Oh," Cordelia says, "nothing. Just, it's a long story."

"Is it," and Fred squints, tilts her head a bit. "is it modern art?"

"well, it kind of was," Cordelia says, carrying over a couple of mugs. "It was a vision of this, statue thing? of rock. Anyway, it was the first vision I had, so you know. Angel says draw it and I try, only, it's some stupid modern art statue, so there you go."

Fred sips her tea daintily. "Your first vision?" and she's not sure whether this question is too rude or not.

Cordelia's hands grip the mug a little tighter, Fred notices, and her smile fades just a little bit. Fred's been studying everyone since she first got to the hotel, though, or otherwise it probably wouldn't have been noticeable. "Yeah," Cordelia replies.

When Fred realizes she's not going to elaborate more, she asks a little timidly, "and you framed it and hung it up?"

Cordelia wanders over to the framed piece of legal pad and straightens the frame. Her fingers don't really linger, not unless Fred's counting in microseconds but if then, they do, they really do. Cordelia gazes at it. "Well, you know," she said. "Sometimes it helps to have a reminder around."

"A reminder?"

Cordelia turns to her. "of, you know. how things begin, I guess."

Fred shrinks back, because even though Cordelia's obviously not angry or making fun of her, there's more warning in her tone of voice than she's ever heard before. "Okay, yeah," and Fred sets her cup of tea down silently. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry." She backs up a little. "maybe I shouldn't have asked, maybe I should ask Wes, or."

She was about to say 'or Angel', but Cordelia holds a hand up. "Don't ask him, okay? Angel won't wanna talk about it."

Fred nods, unsure. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I didn't know."

"It's okay. I know you didn't know," Cordelia says. Fred watches her fingertips on the handle of the cup. There's grief in the way that she clutches onto it, grief that seems at odds with the protectiveness in her voice. Perhaps, Fred thinks, it's a protectiveness, a closeness, that stemmed from grief, a grief for both her and Angel and that they never shared or even explained to everyone else. to anyone else.

"I'm sorry," Fred says again, even quieter, and she doesn't mean for asking. Cordelia nods again. Fred's new at the hotel, and some things, like this thing, this piece of paper in a frame, are old, and private, and painful. She doesn't say anything else.

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[pop-tarts.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after I posted this, I went looking for information -- because that's what you do when you're procrastinating -- and found the possible drug overdose story from a few months ago. Which, almost makes it sadder. I don't know. the whole thing is just very sad.