^ Ugh to the Indiana Jones style of Angel's timely (and oh-so-unnecessary) rescue.
Sorry. I'm just gonna rant for a minute about how much I hate Angel's last-minute cameo in the final episode of Buffy. My big problem with it has to do with Angel. The woman he claims to love is in a coma. He's just given up his wack job son and, to keep that son safe, he has wiped his friends' memories and become CEO of Hell, Inc. Also somewhere in there, his deranged Power-that-Was granddaughter has just wreaked havoc and been killed by the aforementioned mentally unstable son. The very shady folks who made this dirty deal sent Angel a trinket... so he leaves all of this pretty intense family/business drama behind for a quick trip to play hero to his super hero ex? I really had a hard time believing that Angel would just up and leave Cordy and all of that craziness in order to play a round of tonsil hokey with Buffy who, by the way, should not need a sweeping, adventure-style, rescue-the-girl type sequence in her last, uber-woman-powered episode! As a fan of AtS, I was rather miffed that he just took off from all of that stuff and acted like he didn't even care -- because don't I know that the world must stop and all other plots and relationships must be put on hold for Bangel? Grr.
As if the rescue-Buffy-from-one-annoying-villain scene isn't coming from far enough out in left field, the characters then proceed to lean back and waste time talking about cookies... when, hello! There's an army of uber vamps right under their feet and a First Evil lurking about. General Buffy's cooling her heels after killing Caleb and meeting a Guardian? Broody Angel is swooping in to save the day and smiling when there is so much good brooding material back home (in the forms of a comatose would-be lover and a really troubled kid, not to mention an evil law firm to run)? I just did not understand why either of these two characters were shirking their duties at a time like this. If it hadn't been the last episode, that scene wouldn't have happened. It was just put in to appease Bangel fans. Pure and simple. No one even made any effort to make the scene blend in very well with what was actually happening on either show. The entire Bangel segment stuck out like a sore thumb. It didn't fit the plot or the characters at all -- and no one even comshucked! The least they could have done with Angel in the last episode was to break the darn Buffy curse that has plagued these folks for so long.
End rant.
Okay... so in my opinion, the kiss was not just a "Hello." It was a nostalgic homage to the relationship-that-was and an insult to the intelligence of those of us who were invested in... well, pretty much anything that was going on in the lives of the two characters involved at the point in time into which this scene was just shoved all willy nilly.
Sorry. I just really hate this scene. I understand bringing Angel back for the finale. But really! Couldn't he have done something more useful... like contribute to the final fight? No? You want traditional Angel, instead? That's fine. Maybe he could lurk about and make with the cryptic messages as only Brood Boy can? Snark at Spike? Make an irritating decision for the so-called good of someone else? Go all Angelus on the First and take his revenge against the force that almost drove him to suicide in Amends? Break the freakin' curse? Do something -- anything -- with any sort of forward-moving momentum? No. He just shows up for a stupid session of metaphorical Home Ec class and a not-very-feminist bit of rescue-the-girl-who-shouldn't-need-rescuing. If they had to bring him back, did it have to be like this? There was just too little substance to it. The entire point of the scene was to appease Bangel shippers with a little kissy kissy face. That's it. How freakin' annoying is that?!
So, no. Buffy wasn't using Angel or Spike. Joss was using Buffy to appease Bangel (and, to a lesser extent, Spuffy) shippers instead of writing the characters in a way that made sense given the events that occurred in the episode and in recent prior episodes. Ick. I hate this scene. Ask me why. lol.
