Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Tim Sedwik hasn’t had the greatest of Tuesday nights, even for a man with three deli-sliced singles of American cheese sticking to his shiny bald head. Blame lay at the feet of two lovelies, one of whom died less than a half-hour before the other won the prize.

"Not my night," Sedwik says in between shrugs. He smiles before rolling his eyes at the cheese on his dome. "It’s still there."

It is. Welcome to Sunnydale — or as close as South Side can get on an evening most of Pittsburgh won’t remember tomorrow.

Sedwik will. So, too, will all but a few of the barely-able-to-watch members of the crowd at Rumshakers, which played host last month to a rather historic event, at least for the 80 or so people — some of them, anyway — who gathered to send off "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" proper ... living up to the free T-shirts that read, "I partied at Rumshakers during The Apocalypse."

Doing his part was Sedwik, dressed to the tilt as Cheese Man, a weirdo with whom Buffy crossed paths somewhere in the series’ fourth season, which is available today on DVD. Cheese Man arrived at Rumshakers to find fellow slayers — "We are slayers, every one of us," Buffy herself proclaims with about 15 minutes remaining in her small-screen life — imitating the art that is their favorite characters from the series. He sees Angel and Spike and the poker-playing demon with kittens and, of course, Darla.

She is the key ... though, not, as it turns out, The Key. (Wait for the fifth season on DVD, really.)

"This all started with a small group of people getting together at her (Darla’s) place," says Matt Case (Spike), of the South Side, explaining the origins of "Buffy Night in Pittsburgh," which found a home at Rumshakers this past February, thanks in no small part to Anthony Letizia, who organized this night’s chaos.

"We’ve got — what? — about 80 people here tonight?"

About that, and each a serious fan with serious hopes for how "Buffy" should burn out. Darla, however, already knows, having read spoilers for the finale on the Internet.

All she asks is that the writers have packed into these final 40-some minutes a lot of funny one-liners. Aside from that, she allows, "Fans will be happy after the show."

Sire to Angel in "Buffy"dom, Darla is Ro Viglante in Pittsburgh — a 31-year-old producer for The Summer Company’s "The Mouse Trap."

The Obvious: Viglante doesn’t have the time — less than a month before her play opens — to, uh, play dress-up and spend an evening at a bar, joining mostly strangers to watch the end of this cult hit of a TV show on a big screen.

Darla, however, wouldn’t miss this for all the blood on Earth.

"’Buffy’ fans are dedicated," Viglante says of those who, through the first 10 minutes of this finale, have shown they know on-cue when to laugh. A "classic" scene, even though it’s barely two minutes old, between Angel and Buffy doing the sexual innuendo thing while talking about cookies, "is why we love the show so much."

Buffy: "Because ... I’m cookie dough, OK!"

Angel: "Yet another curve ball."

Buffy: "I’m not done baking. I’m not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I’m going to turn out to be. I’ve been looking for someone to make me feel whole, and maybe I just need to be whole. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next ... and maybe one day I turn around and realize I’m ready. I’m cookies. And then if I want someone to eat my ... or, enjoy my warm delicious cookie, that’s fine. That’ll be then — when I’m done."

Angel: "Any thoughts on who might enjoy ... do I have to go with the cookie analogy?"

"That’s it!" Viglante says. "That’s why I started watching. I kept telling friends, ’You have to see this show; it’s hysterical.’ Once they watched, they were hooked ... and we just started getting together on Tuesdays to watch together."

With that she stops, because either the first commercial break is just about over or just to get a grip on what has become of her little group.

"We weren’t alone."

So, even though Viglante has never met Raylene Thompson and Matt Lytle, who sit no more than a few feet from her table, she is them. They are her.

A batch of Buffy cookies ... or something.

"One big ’Buffy’ family, right?" Thompson deadpans. "Except that I don’t know anybody else here, except for Matt," who clearly watches for reasons other than ...

"Hot chicks kicking ass!"

"Like that’s the only reason you watch," Thompson shoots.

"Well, Sarah Michelle Gellar ... she helps," Lytle launches.

"Uh huh," Thompson laughs. "And that’s it, right?"

Thompson claims to have never missed an episode. Her ability to answer every one of a newcomer’s questions backs up this boast. Tonight, she can hardly wait to see how the Angel-Buffy-Spike love triangle shakes out. But ... "The show isn’t about that. I mean, that isn’t why I started watching. ’Buffy’ is funny, really funny. And —"

Lytle, not intending to prove anything, even though he does, interrupts: "Joss does a pretty good job of writing a plotline that lasts the entire season."

"Joss" is Joss Whedon, the man who brought "Buffy" to TV and into the lives of all these lost souls — the ones who reference by first name a creator they’ve never met, but who they consider superior all the same.

"Joss is the one responsible for all of this," Viglante says as she continues to soak up her last live "Buffy" vibe. "In the end, we all love the show ... so much so that a night like tonight is possible."

A night, by the way, on which a man with three deli-sliced singles of American cheese sticking to his shiny bald head gets no love.

"Tell me about it," Cheese Man mockingly complains. "I wanted Buffy to die, to go out with a bang. And what does she do? She saves the world ... again."

A quick glance above shows the three slices are now one.

"And this?" he says, pointing you know where. "I’ve got cheese stuck to my head ... and I’m second place!"

They are slayers, every one of them.