- Fredless
by Aeryn -5.03.04
[ aaeryn@blkswan.com ]

  There was the episode and now we are living it. We are officially Fredless.  Unless you live in a hole, you know how much I adore Winifred Burkle and the actress Amy Acker. Though I am really loving Amy’s chance to play another character and rip our hearts out each week, I still find myself missing Fred. The Fang Gang no longer has its innocence. One of the important parts is now gone. She was the damsel, girl, sister, and soul mate to the group. Without her, you notice, not only, how big of a hole she left in “her boys” lives, but our lives as well.


I have heard comments about how everyone is grieving so much over Fred and it isn’t fair to those that had gone before her. This is not true in so many ways. This type of death has never been shown in the JossVerse. Illyria strides around wearing Fred’s body, a constant reminder of all that they lost. This happens in cases of the vampires, but hey, you can always shove that soul back in. However, Joss quickly points out that her soul was destroyed. (Thank you Mister Whedon for giving us on more kick in the gut.) That in itself is more than enough, but then you reflect on how each individual character was tied to the demise of Fred and see them dealing with those decisions each day after her death. The grief is not abnormal, but more than normal and not overdone in the slightest.


To me, Fred is someone, as quoted by Wesley in Smile Time, “Who represents even part of what makes you think makes the world worth fighting for.”  Some have even ventured to call this sudden boost in Fred’s popularity since her death as Dead Fred Love. As a fan of Fred since day one, I find that term to be sickening. I see it more of as you don’t know what you got until it is gone. People genuinely miss what she brought to the show as Winifred Burkle. They just didn’t know how much she brought to the show, until she was gone. Fred was bubbly, crazy, zany, smart, beautiful and at times, the one with the most clarity on the situations going on around them. Everyone felt the need to protect her, even though she has proven on more than one occasion that she didn’t need looking out for. In fact, she found it as an insult to even think that she needed a bodyguard or that she couldn’t handle something.


People underestimated the strength and courage that she had inside of her. She was beautiful and goofy, but at the same time, brave and courageous. Fred faced so many evils and like us all, she got scared… but she kept fighting. In some ways, she felt like Charles. She had no powers. She was nothing special, when in fact; she was powerful and truly special. In the end, she said that her power was not to let that thing take her. That was one of the beautiful things that I admired most in Fred’s character, her ability to keep going, even after all the shit that life threw at her, she would still fight to survive.


When thinking about the hole she left in her boy’s lives, I automatically see the biggest visible one in Wesley. I won’t go into events in the show, trying to keep this non-spoiler.   Wesley reminds me of Atlas. He has the world on his shoulders and you are left wondering ‘How much more can he stand?’  What more will it take to lose him? Alexis Denisof is a truly amazing actor. He has made Wesley’s complexities come to life over the course of the show. His character is truly 3-D. Every week, I look forward to watching this man act and become spellbound by the stories that he tales through not only words, but his facial expressions, body movements, silence and of course, his laughter.  Through Alexis, we truly are able to see and share Wesley’s grief and the hole that is now in his life after Fred’s death.


Another hole, that isn’t as visible as Wesley’s, is that in Angel. It is the more hidden hole. Angel, as we know, likes to play hero. He saw himself as being the one that would save Fred, because in the past, he has done it… why should this time be any different? This time, he had to decide not to save her and that makes all the difference. Angel cannot save Fred in any way. My impression is that it is eating him alive, though he isn’t saying a word. Angel doesn’t take things well, we all know that. I assume the loss of Fred isn’t going well either. He likes being the hero and doing whatever it takes for someone, turning back time to erasing all memories of Connor… but this time, there wasn’t an oracle to beg or a spell to bring her back. He could not do anything, but make the choice not to save her. I can see this causing two different reactions in him. One, he will go darker. Two, he will fight harder. With Angel being a man of little words, one can only imagine the brooding and the second guessing or even the future planning going on in his head. With only three episodes left, I say, in all honesty, I can’t wait to find out.


So I will go, with my boxes of Kleenex in one hand, to the television for the next three Wednesdays and hope by the last one that maybe, just maybe, by the end of things, I won’t be so Fredless after all.