Buffy The Vampire Slayer

THE WATCHER: WHAT CAN’T WE FACE IF WE’RE TOGETHER?

The Scooby Gang fought all sorts of monsters in the first five seasons of BUFFY: vampires and demons galore, a couple of Frankenstein monsters, some robots, and, oh yeah, a god. But in Season Six, they faced their greatest challenge yet: themselves.

The DVD release of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’s sixth season presents a chance to take another look at this controversial year. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t happy, and it was sometimes painful to watch, but above all else, season six was emotionally real. It took the life-shattering events of season six for Buffy, Willow, and Xander to become adults and re-establish their bonds, but they had to hit bottom to do it.

XANDER - "THAT’S WHY I’LL NEVER TELL HER THAT I’M PETRIFIED."

Xander loved Anya. His proposal in THE GIFT was a grand gesture to see them through the battle. He thought this was the way things were supposed to be: find the girl, ask her to marry you, and a narrator says, "And they lived happily ever after." His view of marriage wasn’t that of an adult. In his mind, marriage was part of the "being a grown-up" normality thing he was going for.

Buffy’s death affected him deeply, and it was a huge reminder that life doesn’t always have a happy ending. Rather than announcing his engagement to Anya, he asked her to keep it secret. Everything was suddenly more serious and real. He realized that becoming a husband also meant becoming a grown-up, and he couldn’t deal. His faults seemed larger, and his self-doubts became more crushing. Could he be an adult and be any good at it? Would they always be happy together?

Xander finally decided to announce the engagement in ALL THE WAY, a title that refers as much to Xander’s plan to take the plunge as it did to Dawn’s date with a vampire. After the big news went public, Anya was free to talk about her plans for the wedding and all the post-wedding bliss, including major purchases and (gasp!) children. Xander panicked.

The episode that followed was the brilliant ONCE MORE WITH FEELING. Just as the others did, Xander and Anya sang about their respective fears and doubts. The big revelation was that the musical situation was Xander’s fault. He had no idea that his actions would cause people to die, that honesty would reign, or that he might become a demon’s queen. He stammered out an explanation, "I just thought there were gonna be dances and songs. I just wanted to make sure we’d work out. Get a happy ending."

Normally, this would’ve been a huge red flag. But after the revelations of the musical extravaganzas - especially that they’d ripped Buffy out of heaven - his mistake was quickly forgotten. Anya, still terrified of mortality, got the wedding wheels turning as quickly as possible. Willow and Tara imploded, Buffy sank deeper into depression, Giles left town, and Xander was left to plod on the path he’d set for himself. He never dealt with his issues, never spoke to anyone about his doubts, and he went from day to day doing what he was supposed to do... until the wedding day

It wasn’t one of his friends who forced him confront his doubts. A demon presented Xander’s worst fears to him in 3-D and Technicolor. Shaken, he had to try to reconcile these visions with the conscious realization that he might ruin Anya’s life, just as he felt his father had ruined his mother’s life. He truly believed that he would hurt Anya more by marrying her than by not marrying her. Breaking both of their hearts, he left before the ceremony began.

Anya’s vision of a perfect mortal life was shattered. At D’Hoffryn’s invitation, she cast her humanity away and once again became a demon. Who could blame her? She went back to what she knew, what she was once comfortable with, and what she once excelled at: vengeance.

It didn’t take long for Xander to realize he’d screwed up. He continued to optimistically hope they might reconcile, until Anya turned to the also-hurting Spike for solace. This disgusted Xander, anti-vampire man that he is, and learning that Spike had also been with Buffy compounded his anger - in some ways, this was even more of a betrayal for him. Xander knew that he hurt Anya, but learning that Buffy had been hiding something like this was a complete shock.

Xander’s discovery that Anya was once again a vengeance demon sealed the deal. By season’s end both Anya and Xander were alone, but at least Xander and Buffy finally started to rebuild their friendship.

BUFFY - "THIS ISN’T REAL, BUT I JUST WANT TO FEEL..."

At the end of Season Five, Buffy sacrificed her life to save both her sister and the world. This was a huge sacrifice, but her state of mind when she dove off of the tower was not the best. She was still dealing with her mother’s tragic and very human death. Her adversary du jour, a bona-fide god, repeatedly bested her. And then her sister was abducted. It was all too much to bear.

Dying did more than save the world - it gave Buffy a way out. With the death of her mother, she’d been ripped out of the blissful ignorance of childhood. The mantle of adulthood descends suddenly, and she’s not ready. She dives off to tower to save the world, but she also escaped from the burdens of life.

After she was torn out of heaven, she had to adjust to life; everything from harsh sensations to mundane matters like bills and plumbing. The already-dead Spike became her confidant. She couldn’t tell her friends for fear of the pain it would cause, and she didn’t think Willow or Xander could or would understand. To her, Spike is the only one who could identify with how she felt. Eventually, this led to Buffy’s attempt to drown her misery with sex.

Sex does not automatically involve love; BUFFY has always been clear about this. Buffy was depressed and engulfed by the numbness that accompanies it, and she used Spike. Being with him let her feel something. Whether the feeling was pleasure or pain, and no matter how much self-loathing it induced, at least it was better than nothing.

Spike did love Buffy, but it was the selfish love of a soulless creature. He took advantage of Buffy’s state of mind for his own gratification. He used Buffy, just as much as Buffy used Spike. Spike continually tried to drag Buffy into "the dark." Believing that she belonged with him, he attempted to isolate her. He wanted Buffy on his terms.

Buffy was too engulfed in despair to notice when Willow began to go off the deep end until Dawn was injured, or that Xander was already starting to flounder. Riley’s reappearance in AS YOU WERE made her begin to confront who she had become, and she finally put an end to the cycle of mutual use.

Spike didn’t take no for an answer for long. Frustrated, and believing that Buffy loved him, he tried to rape her. He wanted to possess her. Spike was still a vampire: no soul, no conscience. He wanted Buffy in order to have her; he didn’t want Buffy for the person she was.

Once he realized the depths to which he had fallen, Spike left town in search of a soul. In striving to earn his soul back in order to give Buffy what she deserved, there is evidence of a selfless love. At long last, we saw that there may be hope for Spike.

Meanwhile, Buffy’s friendship with Xander was in tatters after his discovery of her trysts with Spike. Xander was already bitter about his recent life, and Buffy took the brunt of his lashing out. Xander offers the olive branch a short time later... right before Willow falls apart.

Immediately, with Willow as "Darth Rosenberg," Buffy had to sit up and look around in order to protect the people she cared about, and she saw them - primarily Dawn - in a whole new light. She realized she did have exactly what she sang about all those months ago: "All the joys life sends: family, and friends.” She remembered that life truly is worth living.

WILLOW - "THERE’LL BE NOTHING LEFT OF ME."

The roots of Willow’s unhealthy use of magic began in high school. Willow was smart and talented, but she lacked confidence, no matter how skilled she was at academics. Magic gave her a way to be special. Oz was the first to warn Willow about using magic, but he left town before she realized how much power she truly had. Then, she met Tara.

Although lacking Willow’s raw power, Tara had experience and knowledge. She understood how magic should and shouldn’t be used. As Willow’s powers grew, Tara was supportive, as it was something the two of them could share. Glory’s season five draining of Tara’s brain made Willow dive into strong powers for the first time, and Tara, sans sanity, likely never knew what Willow had done.

Tara turned a blind eye to the issue of Buffy’s resurrection because she trusted Willow. After she brought Buffy back for the dead, Willow became more confident in her talents, and Tara finally began to notice the power abuse. Her pleas went unheeded, even when she threatened to end their relationship. When Willow went too far, Tara left her. Even then, Willow still wasn’t able to stop using her powers. Although they were concerned, neither Buffy nor Xander realized how bad Willow’s situation was since they were embroiled in their own issues. The de-rat-ification of Amy in SMASHED was no help, as Willow then had a "magically-inclined friend" who encouraged her when she needed a voice of caution.

With magic, Willow was no longer the "softer side of Sears" girl. Magic made her special, but magic also became more important than her identity. As she said in WRECKED, "If you could be, you know, plain old Willow or super-Willow, who would you be?" It’s very telling that the next line she said to Buffy was, "I guess you don’t actually have an option on the whole super thing." Willow had been the self-professed sidekick for years, and whether it was conscious or not, there’d been underlying jealousy. This came into play during the season’s climactic battle.

After hurting Dawn, Willow finally began confronting her issues. She stumbled along the recuperation path and she even won back Tara, but everything shattered when Warren’s stray bullet killed Tara.

Unable to resurrect Tara as she did Buffy, Willow soaked up power to avenge Tara’s death. She tortured and killed Warren, then pursued the other members of the Nerd Trio, willing to destroy anyone in her path. Even Buffy. In fact, Willow was downright eager to confront Buffy in TWO TO GO: "Come on! This is a huge deal for me! Six years as a side man. Now I get to be the Slayer."

Without Giles and his timely entrance - possibly the best entrance in BUFFY history - Willow would have continued unchecked. Giles brought a potential key to defeat her, but no mystical forces or super-powers could defeat Willow the Uber-Witch. There was only one person who could save her, and he got to her in time without realizing that saving her was possible. David Fury wrote the fantastic episode GRAVE, and the lines bear repeating: "The first day of kindergarten you cried ’cause you broke the yellow crayon and you were too afraid to tell anyone. You’ve come pretty far. Ending the world, not a terrific notion... but the thing is, yeah. I love you. I love crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I’m going out, it’s here. If you wanna kill the world, well, then start with me. I’ve earned that."

Xander was the one person who’d known her all her life and accepted her as she was. He knew the good and the bad, the past and the present. Xander reminded her of who she was; not the witch-part, but the Willow-part. No matter what she did, she was still Willow to him, and he still loved her. Thanks to Xander, Willow found Willow again.

GILES - "I’M STANDING IN THE WAY."

With Buffy dead, Giles stayed through the summer to help defend the hellmouth, but he believed that his charges had grown up and that his presence was no longer necessary. He did what he’d hoped to do a year prior: he went home. Of course, as hellmouth luck would have it, he leaves on the day of Buffy’s resurrection.

The fact that the remaining Scoobies hid this fact from Giles showed that they realized their course of action wasn’t the wisest one. Their desperation to have Buffy back outweighed their misguided belief that she was trapped in a "untold hell dimension," for if that was the main factor, they would have included the others - especially Giles - into their plan.

Giles returned when he learned that Buffy was alive, but not to stay. He was disturbed by what he saw - Buffy’s depression, Willow’s abuse of magic, and Xander’s engagement - but he used the "sink or swim" strategy: if they were forced to rely upon themselves, then they would grow as individuals. They do grow, but the results were still disastrous.

In GRAVE, Giles admitted that he may not have made the right decision, but reminded Buffy of their greatest collective error: "Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is ask for help when you need it."

DAWN - "DOES ANYBODY EVEN NOTICE? DOES ANYBODY EVEN CARE?"

In the middle of it all, Dawn was mostly forgotten. She was left out of the loop about the plan to bring Buffy back to life - and think of the guilt she carried with her all summer, knowing that Buffy had died in her place. Buffy was her only family, and she felt abandoned by her death; when Buffy returned, Dawn wasn’t her priority, which made things worse. Nobody had time for her because they were too busy being grown-ups... Of course, she didn’t realize that they were failing as grown-ups. Also, for the first time in her entire existence, Dawn wasn’t "special." She wasn’t the Key to be protected at all costs. When Willow’s actions resulted in Dawn’s fractured arm, she was angrier with Buffy than with Willow because Buffy let it happen.

Dawn’s unintentional wish to Halfrek was exactly what she wanted to happen. Everyone was forced to spend time with her and no one could leave her. Selfish? Yes, but she was still dealing with the loss of her mother, and her remaining "family" couldn’t give her the quality time that she craved. Above all, she wanted to be involved, but Buffy repeatedly shut her down, citing the desire to protect her.

When Dawn and Buffy emerged from the ground at the end of GRAVE, Buffy finally acknowledged her as a person rather than a little sister: "I want to see you grow up. The woman you’re gonna become... because she’s gonna be beautiful. And she’s gonna be powerful. I got it so wrong. I don’t want to protect you from the world - I want to show it to you." It was exactly what Dawn needed to hear.

THE TROIKA (A.K.A. THE NERD TRIO)

No matter what calamities strike in life, mundane problems never go away. They may seem inconsequential by themselves, but they can push you over the edge just as easily as major issues. For Buffy, mundane problems include pesky plots to take over Sunnydale. When Jonathan, Warren, and Andrew decided to be Buffy’s arch-nemisis-es-es, it was the last thing the Scoobies needed.

The Troika served another purpose: comic relief. Season six’s darkness desperately needed balance, and Jonathan and newcomer Andrew provided a goofy counterpoint. In past seasons, we’d looked to Xander to lighten the mood, but he had developed far too much to be relegated to such role. The Trio was the lightest note of the season - except for one.

Warren was a human villain. There’d been others, such as Faith and Professor Walsh, but Warren was one of the most despicable characters to appear on BUFFY. 100% human, he had a soul and wasn’t under the slayer’s jurisdiction. The furious Willow didn’t care what Warren was, only what he’d done. By killing a human, no matter how vile, she crossed a line. Her actions as the true Big Bad of the sixth season had consequences that continued throughout the entire final season.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The Scoobies were finally ready to answer that question. They ended the season battered and emotionally drained, nowhere near the same as they were the year prior. What they had regained was themselves. And thank goodness for that, because they still had one more season to go.