Buffy The Vampire Slayer

“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 want to kill the world, then start with me. I’ve earned that.” - Nicholas Brendon as Xander saving the world from Willow in “Grave”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Sixth Season DVD Review

Reviewed by Marlo Serritella

The Sixth Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer stands as my favorite in the series. For all the vampires and other monsters making trouble, the show has always been about conquering inner demons and the emotional price for that battle. Nowhere is that theme more pronounced than in Season Six. At first, it’s a bit unclear why Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) doesn’t seem happier now that Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and the gang have called upon the darkest of magic to return her from the dead. Convinced that the mystical energy that took Buffy’s life last season also sucked “her soul, her essence” into some hell dimension, Willow takes the lead in releasing Buffy from the beyond (“Bargaining” Part 1). Perhaps you will understand Buffy’s lack of gratitude when you discover that she actually spent her summer vacation in heaven. As she explains to Spike-the only character with whom she seems able to relate since her resurrection-“I was happy. . . . I was warm and I was loved and I was finished” (“After Life”). Come on, did you really think that they were going to send Buffy to even a tiny bit of hell? But, if you thought that death would be the most difficult test that Buffy could endure, well then, you have no faith in the depths to which the Buffy writers can take us. Buffy said it herself at the end of Season Five, “the hardest thing in this world is to live in it” (“The Gift”). So Buffy fights her way out of her grave so that the real work can begin-living.

It isn’t long before Buffy dusts the dirt from her funeral dress that this Season’s baddies make their presence known. Except this time, the Sunnydale super-villains include Jonathan (little nerd from high school), Andrew (skinny nerd from high school) and the leader, Warren (nerd-who-thinks-he’s-so-cool from high school). You have to wonder how these three morons are ever going to even register on Buffy’s evil radar with their lame plans for destruction that include inventing a freeze ray, conjuring fake IDs and controlling the weather (“Flooded”). However, two important things mark Warren (Adam Busch) as a monster. Number one, he’s a woman-hater. When first we met Warren back in Season Five, he was busy making girlfriend-robots. But this was the first clue to his treachery. He wasn’t making sex-bots. That would have been gross and sad, but understandable for a guy as hard-up for some lovin’ as Warren. No, Warren created his bionic girl with only one purpose-to feel emotional love for him (“I Was Made to Love You”). And then, he dumped her. Later in Season Six, as his taste for power grows, Warren-along with his dim-witted sidekicks, Jonathan (Danny Strong) and Andrew (Tom Lenk)-uses magic to hypnotize his (human) ex-girlfriend. But this time, it’s not love he’s after. Dressed in a French-maid uniform as if under the power of some demonic Roofie, she’s forced to prance around serving these three a-holes drinks. But Warren is so kind and gentle with her, saying sexy things like, “get on your knees” (“Dead Things”). And he ain’t asking her to scrub the floors. Although, I’m sure she preferred this warped sweet talk to getting all killed with a blow to the head. Warren is not even contrite in the moments before Willow is about to skin him alive: “you are really asking for it” (“Villains”). Oh, the second way that we know Warren is pure evil-he uses guns. Take my word for it, in the Buffyverse, this means Warren will not meet a happy end.

With all this evil afoot, what is there to do but . . .sing? I am hoping I don’t lose you when I tell you that one entire episode of Season Six is written as a bona-fide musical. I know that even some of the most die-hard Buffy fans had their doubts about this one. That was before they saw it. Fan-freakin-tastic is all I can say. It’s as if Shakespeare got together with Walt Disney and made a musical fantasy. What I love most about this episode is that every song and pirouette in the thirty-six minutes of music has a definite purpose; the characters may be trapped inside some “wacky Broadway nightmare,” but the plot progresses (“Once More with Feeling”). In fact, some of the most important revelations and realizations occur within the context of a song. In the typical musical comedy, characters break into song as if it were completely normal to sing about being stranded at the drive-in. (I know that when I lived in the orphanage, we always sang about cleaning the toilets). But the Scoobies will not go down that yellow brick road without a fight. They recognize that they are compelled to sing-in this case by the spell of a musical demon-and furthermore, that they are uncontrollably revealing secrets within these catchy little numbers. Anya (Emma Caulfield) and Xander sing of their deep-seated fears about marriage in a way that they could never just talk about. Giles (Anthony Head) faces the fact that if he doesn’t leave, Buffy may never fully take on the responsibility of adulthood. Buffy finally admits that since rising from the dead, she’s just “going through the motions/walking through the part/nothing seems to penetrate my heart.” She also lets it slip that the gang tore her out of heaven, not hell. But the best part of any musical is when the guy and gal finally share that final high note. And if you wondered how Whedon was ever going to bring Spike (James Marsters) and Buffy together in that truly satisfying lip-lock that the audience was so hungry for-wonder no more. With the backdrop of trumpets sounding and curtains closing, Buffy and Spike share a real, old-fashioned, nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-again kiss.

What starts with a kiss quickly turns into a torrid, passionate and really dirty affair. I clearly have issues with this. I am so blinded by my own obsession with the character of Spike that I overlooked the fact that Buffy’s sexual/romantic/twisted relationship with him in Season Six was really painful. Really hot, but really painful. In my defense, there is a tenderness to Spike’s love of Buffy that is continuously disarming. Still, I probably should have gotten a clue that this wouldn’t end with a white wedding from the fact that Buffy and Spike’s first sexual encounter is some sort of natural outgrowth of beating the crap out of each other (“Smashed”). Upon re-watching Season Six on DVD (straight through in a weekend that almost induced my own clinical depression), Buffy’s feeling of degradation is obvious. After her return from the dead, she clings to Spike as the one character with whom she has a connection. (I mean, none of the other Slayerettes have had to dig out of their own graves). When Buffy is at her lowest, she doesn’t just go to Spike for sex. She goes to feel something: “tell me that you love me” (“As You Were”). But she doesn’t love him...well, not yet anyway (“Entropy”). What’s worse is, Spike knows all this. But he loves her so darn much that he doesn’t complain about being used. Note to Buffy: when the only time you can feel at ease with your lover is after you’ve been hit with an invisibility ray, there’s a problem (“Gone”). Also, having sex out by the dumpster of the Doublemeat Palace does not exactly bespeak of intense romance (“Doublemeat Palace”). But the most striking moment comes in Buffy’s breakdown to Tara (Amber Benson): “It’s wrong! Tell me that I’m wrong! Don’t forgive me!” (“Dead Things”). You know it’s really over when Buffy calls Spike by his real, human name, “I’m using you . . . and it’s killing me. I’m sorry William” (“As You Were”). Ouch.

When I think of Spike sobbing at the sight of Buffy’s dead body, or how he kept count of the number of days Buffy was gone (“147 days, yesterday”), it’s easy to forget that he is still a vampire without a soul (“After Life”). But there is no clearer reminder of Spike’s demonic nature than his attempted rape of Buffy (“Seeing Red”). I fought this for a long time. I seriously thought the writers had lost their minds. There is a tiny little part of me that is still really bitter that they gave us such a horrible image of Spike attacking Buffy with the desperate plea of, “let yourself love me” ("Seeing Red”). I have a lot of strong feelings about this one. Maybe the show indicts the audience, just a bit. Just because we sooo love Spike loving Buffy doesn’t mean that he is good. Whedon won’t let us forget that. Ultimately, I think we are back to the feminist message of the show. Spike has maimed and murdered and tortured countless innocents for over a century. But the thing that makes him hate himself-the thing that disgusts him the most-is his attempted rape of the girl he claims to love: “what have I done?” (“Seeing Red”). What ultimately redeems Spike is his desire to be good in the face of such evil. Angel was cursed with a soul. Xander has a soul that seems to be getting rusty. Spike, in the meantime, has to work everyday, every moment against the demon that lives inside him. He finally reaches the brink after he tries to force himself on Buffy. When last we see Spike at the end of Season Six, he is enduring life-threatening trials on the other side of the world with the hope of being restored to his “former self” (“Villians”). I must admit the fake out is pretty good. Whedon and the gang throw in just enough confusion so that it might appear that Spike hopes to return to his former, bad self. For Spike to return to Buffy as the monster he once was-that would be far too simple. Spike is coming back with his soul, or he’s not coming back at all. But there’ll be no fancy gypsy curses for this vampire. He gets his soul back the old-fashioned way: he earns it.

Love just keeps on taking a beating in Season Six, as Willow chooses her addiction to magic over her commitment to Tara. Willow’s increasing reliance on magic to do everything from fight demons to change her clothes takes on a life of its own in Season Six. Her magical dependence comes to a really awful, though absolutely hysterical head in the episode, “Tabula Rasa.” Hoping to erase Buffy’s memory of heaven and Tara’s anger about all the magic abuse, Willow makes with the spell-casting. Only this time, she unwittingly wipes out everyone’s memories, of everything. But one’s destiny cannot long be forgotten. When Buffy realizes that she’s “like a superhero or something,” she has to give her self a super cool name. I dare you not to giggle as she proclaims herself “Joan the Vampire Slayer.” Giles thinks he’s marrying Anya. Willow thinks she’s dating Xander. And Spike thinks he’s a noble vampire “on a mission of redemption . . . a vampire with a soul.” (Which, by the way, Joan thinks is really lame). But mom always said, don’t play ball in the house, or something like that. So, the spell is broken. Tara realizes what happened, and as special guest Michelle Branch croons Goodbye to You, Tara packs her bags and leaves. But it will take more than a little amnesia disaster or the loss of her love to cure Willow’s addiction. Oddly enough, I never thought it would be Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) bitch-slapping Willow that would wake her up to the truth that she’s a junkie. Actually, it was probably the fact that she almost killed Dawn in a car crash while on a magic high (‘Wrecked”). The underlying issue here is one that has remained since Season One-Willow is still trying to escape the same insecurity from her days as a geeky teeneager. Magic, she believes, makes her special (“Wrecked”). After Warren shoots and kills Tara and Willow lets loose with the dark magic, she sums up her feelings about herself: “Let me tell you something about Willow. She’s a loser. And she always has been” (“Two to Go”). See, it’s those inner demons that will get you every time.

Looking back, I think the most eerie thing about Xander and Anya’s wedding episode is that I knew it was never going to happen. I’m a little worried that if anyone is actually reading this, you are either going to be unduly biased by the harsh words that I have to share about the character of Xander Harris; or, alternatively, for you true-blue fans, you’re going to be pissed. Here’s the thing, I love Xander just as much as the next crazed Buffy fan. Xander has a lot of good qualities-loyalty and the paramount importance of his friendships come to mind. But he was never going to be able to commit to marriage to a thousand-year-old former vengeance demon, or anyone else for that matter. There, I said it. This is true, not only because he still has issues with his unresolved feelings for Buffy. Not only because he may have asked Anya to marry him in a desperate attempt to be a grown-up. And not even because some cranky demon showed him an ugly (but we later find out, fabricated) vision of what married life would bring (“Hells Bells”). It’s true because, well, Xander is still a big baby-wanting what he can’t have and not recognizing what he does have. Shall I remind you about a little matter back in Season Two when a jealous Xander failed to tell Buffy that Willow was trying to restore Angel’s soul? I always thought that Xander was never properly busted for that. Maybe this is his punishment. And after years of failing to recognize Willow’s feelings for him in high school, guess when he decides to make with the smoochies? After she finds a boyfriend who loves her. Just a few months before Xander proposed back in Season Five, he made a heart-felt speech about his love for Anya. But, when he proclaimed that one of the reasons for his love was that Anya made him feel like a man, didn’t we all kind of wince a bit? (“Into the Woods”). Feeling like a man, and being a man-not the same thing. So, I’m not surprised that Xander ends up leaving Anya at the altar. I think I’m being tough on poor Xander here because I can’t help but look at his lack of maturity as compared to Spike. As Xander himself points out, Spike is an “evil, soulless thing” (“Entropy”). But an evil, soulless thing that claws and fights his way to redemption. What’s your excuse, Xander?

Although I could easily make a case for the musical episode this Season, my pick for favorite episode of Season Six has to go to “Normal Again.” This episode, more than any other, challenges the audience to sort out our own beliefs about this fictitious world that we’ve come to need. Infected with the poison of a demon sent by the three nerds, Buffy suffers from violent and convincing hallucinations that her life is a lie. She is not, in fact, a superhero imbued with the power to fight demons and save the world from evil. She’s actually a kook who’s cooked up this whole fantasy life while actually strapped to a bed in some psycho ward. The episode alternates back and forth between the Buffyverse that we know, and the stark reality of a mental hospital where Buffy’s mom (still alive and married to Buffy’s dad, mind you) longs to bring her only daughter (that’s right, no Dawnie here) back from these sick delusions. But here’s the disturbing part-the world where she is a mental patient locked away in an institution may actually be preferable to Buffy. When faced with the choice, Buffy turns her back on her sister and her friends and chooses to believe instead that she’s mentally ill. In other words, by accepting the “truth” that she is crazy, Buffy actually makes herself into a normal girl. No demons, no vampires, no sisters fashioned out of dimension-altering energy. Just a mom and a dad and a scared girl who wants to go home. It’s so hurtful to hear Buffy talk with such contempt about this character who we have come to love: “What’s more real? A sick girl in an institution? Or some kind of supergirl chosen to fight demons and save the world? That’s ridiculous.” In order to fight her “delusion,” Buffy has to literally kill off the Scoobies one by one. Buffy hitting Xander with a frying pan-that’s an image that will stick with you. In the end, what ultimately brings our girl back is what always saves the day-Buffy’s own inner strength. As Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) tries to coax her daughter to stay in the demon-free world, she reminds Buffy of what she’s always known: “I know you’re afraid. . . . You’ve got a world of strength in your heart. I know you do. You just have to find it again. Believe in yourself.” That’s just what she needed to hear, and just who she needed to hear it from.

At the end of Season Six, Willow and Tara reconcile for a few glorious moments. But their happiness is cut short when Warren, in an attempt to murder Buffy, shoots and kills Tara instead. Fueled by her grief and rage, Willow infuses herself with every bit of black magic she can get her scary, veiny hands on. And while I was not sad to see Warren have his mouth sewn shut or be flayed to death, it hurt to watch Willow be the one doling out the punishment. This is Willow, people! As Jonathan succinctly puts it: “she packed her own lunches and wore floods, and was just, Willow” (“Two to Go”). Well, don’t look now, Jonathan, but guess who’s about to smite you down with a homemade lightening bolt-just Willow. Such is the power of anguish and rage. When Willow decides that she has to finish the world in order to stop the pain, we learn the one thing more powerful than all that hate. I guess I’ll have to take back some of those mean things I said about Xander since he goes and puts himself in the path of Willow’s destruction in an effort to stop her. His weapon- just three little words. And for those of you who think it’s a little hokey to have Xander save the world with his boring, old love for Willow, I’m here to tell you that you’ve missed the point of the show. Because, for six years, it’s never been about magic or supernatural forces. It’s been about love and hate and fear and lust and joy and sorrow. Of course it’s love that saves the day.

Video and Audio Picture, pretty. Sound, good.

Extras In no particular order, here are a few highlights.

Audio Commentaries. I like the fact that for many of these commentaries, the writer and director now share their thoughts together. Again, Whedon wins with his commentary on “Once More with Feeling.” I really enjoyed hearing his reasoning behind different song stylings and choreography. In contrast to this, first-timers Rosenthal and Gutierez (“Normal Again”) talking about one of the best episodes of the entire series caused me much angst. “The actors deliver.” “Sarah’s incredibly athletic.” “These guys are great to work with.” “She nailed it.” Come on, folks. I will forgive these inane comments only because this episode is amazing. Also, I don’t care if the guy did write the script-this episode should not be viewed as a cliff-hanger. This isn’t Dallas. Buffy’s world isn’t a dream, or an illusion. And I don’t want to hear another word about it. Bottom line-if you’ve got the time, I would at least sort of skip through all the commentaries in this set. If you don’t, just make room for Whedon’s commentary and you won’t be sorry.

“David Fury’s Behind the Scenes of ‘Once More with Feeling.’ ” The only thing wrong with this look at the making of “Once More with Feeling” is that I wanted so much more! Is there some sort of gag order on Sarah Michelle Gellar that she rarely appears in any of the featurettes? But it was still enjoyable. I pretty much had my money’s worth when James Marsters showed up playing the guitar in a ripped T-shirt. Seriously, lots of good stuff here. Amber Benson talking about her character’s development and love for Willow made me miss her just a little bit more. I think I know Nick Brendon’s lines better than he does. And we forgive Alyson Hannigan for not singing more in the episode.

“Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Panel Discussion.” This may be one of my favorite extras from all six sets. To have Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon and the majority of cast members (again, no Gellar) on a stage together talking about the show-post-Season six-was just fantastic. Problem-I clearly should have been the one asking the questions and not the dope who asked if Spike wasn’t going to be able to have sex anymore since he got his soul back. Excuse me, that’s only for souls returned via gypsy curses. Jeez, everybody knows that.

“This is my Verse, Hello! Buffy Karaoke.” Only losers need the lyrics on screen to sing along with the musical episode of Buffy. I memorized the words long ago. On second thought, maybe I have a little too much time on my hands. Enjoy these few numbers in a sing-along with your friends. If you live in this world, you know how karaoke works. No instructions necessary.

“Buffy Goes to Work.” These are fun little interviews with some cast members and writers, producers, etc. on things like their first jobs and their dream jobs. Except, are you kidding me? Working on Buffy is not Joss Whedon’s dream job? He wants to be a teacher. He’s so noble! I think I shall love him even more now. He also mentions that his first job was working in a video store, with the commentary that future actors work as waiters and future directors work in video stores. Now I know why I am so obsessed with analyzing this show-I’m a director at heart.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Television with a Bite.” This is a nice overview of the creation of the show. Thank God for the vision and bravery of the WB.

Series Outtakes. Very disappointing. Although it’s nice to know that when Emma Caulfield forgets a line, she yells, “whore!”

Summary In the first season of BtVS, Buffy struggled with her identity as the Slayer. Willow tried to find her place in the world. Xander blundered through growing up. And Giles fought to protect Buffy and ready her all at the same time. Here we are in the penultimate season of the series, and nothing has gotten easier. The gang may rescue the world from certain annihilation at the end of every year; but the real conflict continues without resolution. It’s quiet and it’s painful and you can’t fight it with wooden stakes. It’s about how you’re going to live your life each day, each moment. That’s why I love Buffy; somehow in the midst of entertaining us, it never lets us off the hook. So, this is where I’ll leave you. Wow, this is harder than I thought it would be. But you’re ready. Come on, it’s time. Buffy is waiting.