Buffy The Vampire Slayer

05/13/2003 Entry: "TONIGHT’S BUFFY (Spoilers)"

Y’know...maybe BtVS might work better as a half hour program.

Once again Jane Espenson helps deliver a witty, character driven episode. But with one episode to go, wouldn’t this be a good time to be plot driven?

The episode starts off with a bang (which is how the previous one ended.) Then we have fifteen minutes of excitement.

Followed by a half hour of very well written character scenes that do nothing to move the plot forward, rolling us into a puzzling five minute sequence with a druid woman who appears to serve the same purpose as the Knights of Expositionium from season 5 (come out of nowhere, deliver exposition, and die), and a climactic final act in which Buffy seems to have tons more trouble with one guy than she did with three uber-Vamps forty minutes earlier. I don’t care how amped Caleb was. Either she’s lethal with this thing or she’s not. Either the uber-Vamps are super-dangerous or they’re not. SOMEbody make up their minds.

Was there fun to be had? Sure. Lots. The classic Whedon-esque twists that Espenson has mastered, from Caleb’s "Oh darn" to Dawn’s literal short-circuiting of Buffy’s syrupy farewell plan. Wheelchair fights. Anya’s off-hand pronouncements of doom while her patient keeps saying "WHAT?!"

Plus, I keep waiting for Xander to solve the problem by calling in SHIELD. Or possibly Brenda Starr.

But. No. Urgency.

Look no further than the TV series that follows on another channel. You know the one I mean. "Smallville" is building with a head of steam that’s...well...more powerful than a locomotive. I’m interested to see what happens in next week’s "BtVS." I can’t WAIT to see what happens in next week’s "Smallville." And that, kiddies, is the mark of top flight pacing, and that’s what’s been lacking for weeks now. There’s only so much that can be chalked up to UPN’s abominable scheduling. We are exactly one week away from the end, and we STILL DON’T KNOW FOR SURE WHAT THE FIRST EVIL WANTS. To unleash a horde of ubervamps? WHY NOW? The schemes of every other Big Bad in Buffy history has moved on some sort of schedule. Granted, sometimes it was an arbitrary schedule (Glory had a "narrow window" to bleed Dawn. Why? Dunno.) but at least there was something.

Bottom line, by this point there’s always been a ticking clock. Something bringing matters to a head that gives us a real sense of everything coming together. They’ve done it before on BtVS (sometimes it even outspeeds the villains themselves. Remember, the mayor never got to read his whole section on civic pride.) They did it on "Angel." They’re doing in now on "Smallville."

And BtVS just kind of meanders to its conclusion.

Good character stuff. Decent in and of itself, and it wouldn’t have bothered me if this episode had aired, I dunno...five weeks ago. As the penultimate episode? Nope.

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From Scoopme.com :

End of Days: Penultimate by Hunter Maxin 5/14/2003

This was the set up.

The foundation.

The last brick before the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

There will be no thematic overtone, no lecture, no sermonizing. "End of Days" was what it said it was...the beginning of the end, and all that mattered was setting the stage for the final act.

I don’t know about you, but I am as sad as I am excited. It’s actually kind of hard to focus, what with the loominess of the end. This is the last opportunity to guess at "what comes next." This is the last we get to argue over what everything might mean.

This is the last time we don’t have all the answers.

But what are questions?

What is the weapon? For all of Buffy’s curiosity about m? , our Excalibur of scythes, I’m not sure what it is or where it came from is really all that important. She knows it belongs to her, and Faith, and that, whatever it is, it definitely works. It is a weapon that levels the playing field considerably, and that, for now, is enough.

Is it the answer to all of their problems? Of course not, but knowing that is only half of the equation. I think we all know that Angel holds the other half.

Will Buffy lead them? Buffy has returned, and, again, the leadership falls to her. But things are different already. Faith and Buffy stand together on this now. Time is up. Planning, strategy, these concerns are behind them. The final battle, whether they go to it, or it to them, is preordained. They will be in the right place when the time comes, and they will be ready to fight because they have no other choice. There are no other options open to them.

Fine, but will they be ready? In a short period of time, key members of the slayerettes have logged some serious field experience. In capturing the bringer, they learned victory in battle. In falling into the trap at the armory, they learned bitter defeat and loss. In their mad flight from the trap, they learned the desperation of battle, and kept their wits about them.

Through all of it, they saw all sides of battle, and as bad as things got, they still fought, and fought reasonable well. They lived, and, with that, they are battle forged. They now know what they are capable of, and they will trust themselves to keep their nerve when the end comes.

And, the others? The remaining girls, the ones that have been sheltered thus far, they will be less prepared, but they will know that their sisters fought and lived. Some will find their strength on the battlefield and some will shrink under the responsibility. Many, perhaps, will die, but they will die so that others may live. That is war. It sucks for them, but there is no other way.

What about Dawn? Ahhh, Li’l Bit has certainly come into her own, and just in the nick of time. I understand why Buffy removed her from harm’s way, and I understand why Dawn wouldn’t let it happen. Poor Xander had to be put in the middle of all this, but did you really think the two of them wouldn’t be at Buffy’s side for the end?

I just hope they survive.

On a pure character note, I reiterate that I am saddened by our early (and premature) insistence that Dawn not bear the slayer burden. I think now, we could agree, that she has grown into the role quite nicely, and, whatever happens, she will play a key role in the rebuilding that follows. There will always be a place for her in the annals of our heroes, perhaps more so in that she does what she does while "ordinary" and human.

Dawn and Xander share this, their mortality, their powerlessness. They come to the fight unlike all of the others. They have no special advantage, no special power, no special birth right, when all else do.

This is a testament to their heart and courage.

Who will live? Who will die? Who are we hoping will make it? I don’t know, I don’t know, and we all have our opinions on the matter. Surely, someone important is bound to make the final sacrifice. This is a necessity, simply so that we believe that this apocalypse is as bad as they want us to believe. That means a main character must die, the question remains as to whom.

My money is on Anya, for any number of reasons, but, first and foremost, she wrote her own tombstone tonight. Anya and Andrew are comic gems separately, and together I could only pray for their own screwball comedy sitcom. Their ruminations on the nobility of humanity, and the parts they have had to play in the struggle between good and evil - this was brilliant and touching.

But also full of foreboding.

Both have much to atone for in their lives. Both owe good a bit of themselves to make up for the evil they inflicted on a flawed, noble humanity. Both could well pay that price in blood.

What better way for Andrew to achieve final redemption and acceptance? What better way for Anya to prove her love?

Either way, I’ll miss them both, if only because we don’t get to watch anymore. That exchange - "You’re the perfect woman"/"I’ve often thought that" - all the way through Anya’s teary-eyed speech, it encapsulated their perfection as comic foils.

It pains me how much I miss it already.

As for the others, I’m more reluctant to sign their death warrants just yet. Spike would be a prime candidate, for all of the reasons illustrated above, but the rumors of his jump to Angel are too prominent to discount. One would hope he would put his life on the line and make the final sacrifice for Buffy, and I believe he would, but I don’t think anyone really wants to see him gone for good.

Willow? Well she’s marrying Wesley, so to speak, and he’s still got that regular gig on The WB, so it’s safe to assume they might want to spend a few weeks together at work over the next few years. Besides, Willow is too much gold in spin-off land to kill her off completely. A couple of wrong moves on Hannigan’s part in the film world, she might be clamoring for a return to TV, and Willow the Wicca has a certain series appeal.

While we’re on the subject, Willow has to use the magic. Of course, scenes supplied us with the answer to that when we saw White Willow doing the power up. My guess is that the White bit means Willow channels the Wicca good and love the earth and women power style mojo to do something so large and powerful that discussing it - spoiler free - would be pointless. Any ill-informed guess work would be a waste of time.

Xander? This a bit more possible, but let’s not think on it too hard. Xander ain’t getting his own show, so he’s expendable, but for the audience, he might not be. Xander is the human one, the one we most connect with in a personal way, and his loss would be the most painful. I say no chance.

Giles? His BBC show, Ripper, should take care of that possibility, though not completely. I will say that the rift seems to have been healed, at least under the strain of the immediate circumstances. Only time will tell if it lasts.

Faith? Jealous, redemptive, comprehending Faith. Her recognition that Buffy has been more alone because of her connection to her friends is the final band aid on the relationship. These two are ready to stand together in the end. These two are ready to trust each other with their respective lives.

Will Spike succumb to jealousy? I don’t think so. It must have been hard watching Buffy kiss Angel. It must have killed him, and to have TFE whispering in his ear through it all must have been an awful temptation to fold beneath the pain of it all. But he won’t. He’s too true in his love, too sure of his role to play. His life is Buffy’s, and hers alone. It no longer belongs to him to devote to another, and that is enough for me.

Buffy didn’t exactly tell him, tonight, but she gave him enough. She gave him hope that, someday, if they live, their lives might be tagged with the "happily ever after" we all dream about after watching Meg Ryan movies.

How will we carry on without them? Whatever happens. Whoever lives. Whoever dies. We lose them anyway.

It hurts. It hurts a lot, and it hurts already. I can’t watch now, without it being connected to this inevitable ending, this final bow. Every moment of beautiful joy extracted from clever, intelligent, hysterical, awesome, captivating writing wrecks me as it lifts me up.

Every line pricks, because I smile or cheer, and then remember that it is the last time that Anya and Andrew will ever get to wheelchair fight. It is the last time that Buffy and Faith reach across the void at each other. It is the last time that Willow doubts her magic, or Giles holds the family together.

Every thing is the last thing, and knowing it is coming makes me incapable of seeing just the moment.

It’s because we love them. We will lose them, and we will mourn them, and, in a way, that preemptive grief is all we have. Because when it ends, next week, there will be nothing left to hold on to. Nothing rational. It will just be gone, and each and everyone of us will clutch the empty spaces where our hearts used to be, and we will feel silly for mourning something so seemingly trivial and small as it were actually family.

It is almost easier to say goodbye now, but it really isn’t goodbye, as long as we know there is one tale left. We still have one week left to rationalize that these people aren’t really real. They aren’t really with us.

But we’re just fooling ourselves, or at least I am.

They are real, if only because they are the better natures we hope for in ourselves. Through thick and thin, these people have laid it all out on the line for each other because of friendship and loyalty over crisis that we could never hope to overcome. We all want friends like these.

We all want to be like them ourselves, and not because they have powers and gifts and a calling.

Anya summed up our allegiance to them best:

And, yet, here’s the thing, when it’s something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they’re lame morons for fighting, but they do. They never... they never quit. And so I guess, I’ll keep fighting too.

Amen.

Go.

Go be heroes.

One last time.

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From Entertainment-geekly.com :

Buffy, "End of Days" A moment of silence for Miss Kitty Fantastico...

By Sarah Kuhn May 14, 2003

Oh, dear. I guess we finally know what happened to Miss Kitty Fantastico. I bet the kitten playing Miss Kitty just became such a diva that they wrote her out of the show. I would love to see the Us Weekly photo spread on that, complete with paparazzi photos featuring Miss Kitty trying to cover her face with her little paws, annotated with colorful pop-up graphics. The sidebar could have a body language specialist analyzing her photos for tantalizing clues about her diva-ness.

What? They devoted at least as much space (and a body language specialist) to the recent Jennifer Garner/Scott Foley break-up. Miss Kitty deserves the face time!

Now that I’ve completed alienated at least half of you, let’s get to this week’s episode! So Buffy has the Fray scythe. It makes her feel all powerful and shit. Meanwhile, Faith and the Slayerettes encounter a bomb that leaves some Slayerettes dead and Faith badly wounded. They also run into a bunch of Turok-Han. Luckily, Buffy swoops in at the last second and saves their collective ass with the scythe. What follows is essentially a well-crafted series of two-character scenes as our gang gears up for the apocalypse.

I think I most enjoyed the scenes featuring the old school Scoobs - as we ride off into the sunset, I’ve been longing for more Buff/Willow/Giles/Xander action, and this ep delivers at least a bit of that. The scene between Buff and Xander (in which she asks him to get out of town and take Dawn with him) is a touching throwback to the old days, as is the research sequence featuring Willow and Giles. I’m still hoping we’ll get a good Buff/Giles reconciliation moment, though…otherwise, I’m going to cry even harder every time I watch that part in "Graduation Day" where he saves her diploma.

And of course, the Big Shipper Moment comes near the end. After visiting a woman who reveals a bunch about the origins of the scythe, Buff fights off Caleb using her shiny new weapon and who should show up but…Angel! He’s lookin’ good and considerably more relaxed than we’ve seen him in recent months. SMG still has great chemistry with Boreanaz, and there’s a touch of something more mature and easygoing to their dynamic as well (hey, anything minus swelling music and tortured, longing looks is "easygoing" when it comes to Buffy and Angel). I dug their dynamic, and the reminder of Spike (as he skulks in the background, watching B and A mack) is nice and potent and surely means that Buff hasn’t made her final decision, romance-wise (personally, I’m hoping she pulls a Kelly Taylor: "I choose me").

Overall, this ep is an engaging collection of character scenes. I’m not sure if that’s quite powerful enough, given that it’s the penultimate hour, but at least it feels like all of the characters are working toward something big and epic-y. Also, having a powerful being express dismay at the name "Buffy" made me giggle.