Exactly—the logic is cold and brutal. It's clear to Angel and Lorne that this is going to be the end of their friendship and they still don't let it stop them from working for the bigger cause.

Counterpoint: Xander is the kind of guy who does the right thing, even if it's painful, and wants the people he loves to be happy. They'd shown him struggling with some mixed feelings already in the leadup to the weddin and it was believable that his doubts would be fairly serious. So it would be in character for him…

The role of the hero is not to get a reward, it is to make the world a better place, even if that means sacrifice.

Interesting. I always thought they finished making the whole season before finding out it wasn't going to be renewed. I didn't think the last two episodes felt any different from what came before—it seemed like such a natural culmination of the whole year that I figured they'd planned the whole thing that way from the…

Agreed. When she first showed up with Marcus, I thought they'd jump back post-commercial and show that she was misdirecting him with wrong information or something. That would have at least reinforced her as a genuine part of the team (or at least being helpful the way she wanted). But no, she was just reverting to…

Yeah, Kartheiser was finally given a shading on the character that fit him as an actor. With those cute handsome-schoolboy looks I never truly bought into him as the badass hunter even demons were afraid of. As a normal college kid, even one with unexpected powers, it became believable.

Well, Buffy did it to save the whole world, not just Dawn. But you're absolutely right about Joel Gray.

It's not just unsexy, it's anti-sexy—the video, the song, the whole deal. Which is probably sort of the point.

That's brilliant. Well done, sir.

A lot of it is down to the performance, but I'd also say Ace Rimmer was given a little shading. Consider his speech to Lister explaining how he got to be the way he is for instance. Flashheart is just a one-note character, and it's an obnoxious note even when it's funny.

Counterpoint: I'm in the lukewarm crowd on the ending of Bells, but always thought Forth was where they actually got the joke right.

What Persia said. I get why they did it, I get how the ludicrous over-the-top-ness is part of the joke and all, but that doesn't make the whole thing fall any less flat for me. Just one of those things.

Don't know if it means anything, but the scripts (as printed in the Whole Damn Dynasty book) always refer to her as Queenie in the directions as well.

I always thought Bells made a better opener, possibly because I've always considered it a stronger episode. It always felt like the right order to me.

Agreed (that could be why his other appearance worked better - it was more of a plot driver than last-minute gimmick). Maybe if they'd had a more absurdist tone throughout the episode, or at least had Kate/Bob give a line or two earlier on saying how much she liked a man willing to wear a dress or some such thing, it…

the episodes are disappearing in the next few weeks.

Yeah, I've always found Flashheart… tolerable at best (despite a couple good laugh lines). The show as a whole is a kind of cartoon, but he's a whole different kind of cartoon that doesn't coexist well with the first. It seems like he was a result of the writers simply having no idea how to end the episode, settling…

That's how it should be in real life, at any rate.

Thankfully this Richard IV is also a role where grinning-batshit-lunacy-with-a-straight-face is the first building block to start from, so his exact degree of cartoony OTT-ness is exactly what's called for. No defense necessary in this case.

Richard's shoulder-hands deserve a mention of some kind before this series is out.