Season Seven was spectacular.
The Buffy/Giles story did not end badly, they very clearly reconciled in Chosen, with one short, beautiful and totally BtVS exchange
Giles: “I think it’s bloody brilliant...if you want my opinion"
Buffy: “Really do"
The look between them is one of complete respect and love for one another, with no animosity at all, and that means a thousand times more to me, than if they had spent half an episode talking around it.
As for the subject of Xander not getting enough screen time, Xander didn’t need huge chunks of an episode to make a mark on the season, even when he was quietly sat in the background, taking things in, it’s clear he truly is the heart of the group. From the way the others act around them, to the way he addresses people, how he unequivocally stays loyal to the people he loves, regardless of being left out of the loop at times, Xander’s presence is always felt whether he has 2 lines or 20.
Xander had a huge storyline last year, and this was ongoing throughout the season, unlike Buffy and Angel, or Buffy and Spike, Xander and Anya quietly got on learning how to interact with each other once more. This wasn’t given major focus throughout the season because that would be unrealistic, when you break up, or divorce someone, generally the couple, and those around them accept what has happened, acknowledge it’s importance and begin to move on. This was shown in season 7, and the fact that it wasn’t constantly forced into the foreground, only makes it more real and effective.
People should also start getting used to the idea that people change, these guys aren’t same teens we met in Welcome to the Hellmouth, they’ve been through too much, lost too many loved ones; their outlooks on life have changed. Buffy is not cold and unsympathetic, she understands her destiny, her calling and, rather than fight it, embraces it and helps the potentials to do so also, people like her make amazing teachers because they tell it how it is, not sugar-coating it to make it more palatable.
Willow can’t stay perky and fun forever either, she’s lost her true love, killed people, hurt loved ones and tried to destroy the world, to be honest I think her handling of her situation in S7 is astonishing, to remain calm, focused and thoughtful after all that, that speaks of true maturity and humanity. Also beautiful is her relationship with Kennedy, who helped Willow release all the grief and guilt she had been holding on to for so long. Kennedy, with her fresh eyes, saw things for what they were, Tara was amazing, wonderful and beautiful, but you can’t hold on to a ghost, and Willow had to understand that, Kennedy was the perfect person to help Willow out of her purgatory because she wasn’t loaded with emotional baggage from the past 6 years, and this made her accessible and fun for both Willow and the audience.
Xander can’t crack stupid jokes until he dies because he’s seen when being serious and heartfelt is important e.g. Into the Woods, Grave etc. He also understands that he doesn’t need to say anything, because the rest of the group get comfort from just knowing he’s there and ready to help them in any way he can
Spike distanced himself from most of the group because he wasn’t sure how to act around them any more, given the events of “Seeing Red” and the restoration of his soul, only Buffy, who he connects with on so many levels, Xander, who he never really had much of a friendship with anyway and who understood that Spike was a different man than the one who tried to rape Buffy, and Faith, whom he never really knew anyway, really spent any time with him in a non-hatred capacity.
Spike couldn’t talk to Dawn or Giles or most of the other Scoobies, because of their emotional irrationality when it came to Buffy. His storyline, like Buffy’s, was one of accepting one’s true self and discovering what it means to be a hero, but in a quiet, beautiful manner, rather than Buffy’s in-the-forefront- training of the potentials.
Another thing, new characters honestly needed to be introduced, because it gave us the chance to see how the Core Four (although I always maintain my belief that Cordelia was an original Scooby, but that’s a different argument) reacted to an influx of fighters and new Scoobies, making them all much less “special” and putting their battle against evil into perspective. This was summed up beautifully in Potential, with Dawn accepting that she is not a superhero, she’s just regular person, doing what’s right because she wants to, not because she was “called” or made to, which in Xander’s and my own eyes, makes her a true heroine.
Faith came back and demonstrated that she had truly taken that rocky redemptive road, by, in her own words, “do[ing] right, however it works”. She wasn’t there to make waves, and force things to revolve around her, she was there because she wanted to avert the apocalypse any way she knew how, she always accepted other ideas (unless they sucked) and, after a brief spell, realised that she wasn’t capable of leading because she still needed to guide herself, and quietly, and unashamedly, handed the reigns back to Buffy, with a full understanding of how Buffy’s life is and how lonely the girl she has envied all this time, truly feels.
The potentials, like Vi, Rona, Molly and Annabelle, cast new ideas and opinions on a familiar scenario, because it honestly can’t be too surprising for the Scoobies to be facing yet another apocalypse. Their reactions gave us a sweet and subtle reminder of where we’ve come from, with Vi as a mirror to what Willow was, Rona’s constant pessimistic attitude vocalising what most of the viewers would be saying, if thrust into that situation and Molly’s British perkiness demonstrating that sweet and funny side of Giles we occasionally saw on the days when the world wasn’t in great peril.
Season Seven was astounding because it did all this whilst in the throes of a major apocalypse and dealing with the need to wrap the show up nicely. It maintained its sense of inappropriate humour in bad situations, but it also knew when to shut up and “get it done”. The sense of impending doom was always palpable in the later episodes and the growing ranks of both good and bad guys let us understand that this was THE BIG ONE. The final episode said everything that needed to be said about the show and its achievements, with no time for grudges or agendas. Conflicts, such as the final one between Buffy and Dawn, are put into perspective with lines as simple as “Dumbass.”, “If you get killed, I’m telling.” And “Anything you say is just gonna sound like goodbye”.
These are the reasons I fell in love with Buffy and haven’t fallen out of it yet, the ability the show has to take “complex issue and boil it down to it’s simplest form” yet still keeping it beautiful.
That’s just my opinion though.
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