This was bloody brilliant and if it weren't for the fact that I'm rotten with a cold I'd pick up lots of points for comment. Instead, I'll focus on the 'Angel as father to Connor' theme and how he hands Spike the job of saving the baby. I see how it could be viewed as seeing Spike as the version of himself without the failures that torment him, but I go back to And I like to think that in a very real sense Connor is the shashu come true and say Yes, Connor is Angel's shanshu, not Spike. Connor as Angel's Shanshu is a theme I'm exploring in my WIP. It makes perfect sense to me because Angel handed back his humanity in IWRY thereby making it possible for Connor to come into being (in addition to the episode in which he won a life for Darla only to have it denied to her directly for some reason that eludes me at the moment.

::sneeze::