After last episode’s dismantling of the remaining Scoobies, we finally get to see the final player enter the resolution to this season’s threat: Giles. To say that his presence has been sorely missed would be one hell of an understatement. As soon as he comes into the Magic Box, his arm raised as he calmly and methodically puts Willow in her place, he adds a gravity to the proceedings that simply cannot be matched.
With some effort, considering what kind of adversary Willow has become, Giles manages to contain Willow within a stasis field. While Xander and Dawn search for some kind of shelter in one of the many local cemeteries, Giles and Buffy reflect on what brought them to this dire turn of events. Granted, most of that reflection is spent laughing themselves silly, but Giles does admit that he feels a certain amount of responsibility for not making sure things were all right. His return, in fact, is based on the threat Willow represents to the world, and his desire to set it right. He has been given a great deal of power from a coven, power tied to all life, and he intends to use it to restore Willow if he can.
Meanwhile, Willow convinces Anya (with a little minor mind control) to let her go, and soon enough, Willow is wiping the floor with Giles and Buffy. Willow sends a flaming ball of death to destroy the two remaining nerds, and since it will also destroy anyone currently trying to help them hide, Buffy sets off to save Xander and Dawn. That leaves Giles to battle Willow, a rip-roaring slugfest that ends with Willow tearing all of Giles’ borrowed power out of him, absorbing it into herself.
The result is what can only be called a massive magical headrush of the practically orgasmic kind, and once Willow get over the best of it, she begins to realize that she’s connected to every living person on the planet. It’s more than she can readily handle, because riding on her own personal loss as she is, she tunes into the pain and suffering of six billion other souls. Awed and crushed by the thought, she vows to end the suffering.
Buffy’s arrival coincides with the detonation of the great ball of fire, and it tosses her and Dawn into a cave under the cemetery. Anya manages to get to Giles, and discovers that he believes that he is dying…and that Willow is set on destroying the world to end all pain. Giles, it seems, is connected to Willow now. After Dawn confronts Buffy about her constant overprotection and Spike’s attempted rape before his departure, Anya informs them that Giles is close to death, and that they need to get out of the cave right away.
Through the bond between them, Giles determines that Willow has unearthed a buried Satanic temple, up on some mountainside in Sunnydale. She intends to channel her power into an effigy of a demonic figure that will destroy the world, and no supernatural power can stop her. Buffy wants to stop that from happening, for obvious reasons, but Willow is tapped into her thoughts and feelings as well, and sets magical creatures against her to keep her occupied. Buffy is initially overwhelmed, until she realizes that Dawn needs to help her. Finally, she allows Dawn to fight with her, and together they keep the demons at bay.
As it looks as though there is no hope, with Willow on the verge of “victory”, Xander intervenes. With no powers to draw on, he can only appeal to what is left of her humanity. He tells her plainly that she has always been his best friend, and remains so even now, and that he loves her. It is the one thing that Willow cannot bear to hear, because she cannot simply dismiss Xander’s comments and face him as an opposing force with no identity. Xander is simply a regular human being, with nothing but his heart on his sleeve. Faced with someone that can still make her feel loved, despite Tara’s death, Willow’s rage disappears, and with it her need to harness so much power. She falls into Xander’s arms, the darkness leaving her as she finally begins to grieve.
With Willow’s defeat, Buffy and Dawn are no longer threatened, and Buffy tells Dawn that she realizes that it’s time that she stop protecting Dawn, and started showing her the world that she has to live in now. She also has come to realize that she does want to be alive, that she’s not ready to return to the grave. She’s been mired in her own darkness as well, she muses, and it’s time to make sure that her friends are happy again.
Giles, no longer dying, explains to Anya that this was the only way to derail Willow’s rage…to deliver to her a source of magic that would overload her system as well as force her to connect with all of humanity. It would push her to the breaking point, which nearly backfired, except that Xander was able to connect with her on a personal level and complete the process. Anya is shocked to discover that Xander was the one to save the day, especially in a way that shows how much he really does care for the people in his life.
For all that the world nearly came to an end, albeit rather quickly and not for very long, everything seems like it could work out. But there is some trouble looming. Spike has passed all of the trials set forth by the big mysterious demon with the really deep voice, and he demands that he receive what he came for, so the Slayer can get what she deserves. The demon agrees, and promptly restores Spike’s soul.
While I can certainly understand how the last few episodes manage to bring most of the season’s issues to some sense of resolution, one can only do so much with the kinds of inner conflicts that were resolved. Personally, I didn’t find Anya’s sudden revelation about Xander to be all that involving, because it was just a matter of time before she remembered what kind of person he had been for the years they were together. And as far as Buffy reconciling with Dawn, well, the dialogue was so incredibly awkward that it was impossible to take it seriously.
I personally feel as though Willow’s quick return to normalcy was too soon, and some remnant of her dark persona ought to have remained. Perhaps it will, since she is going to have to find some kind of rehabilitation at the start of next season. The fact that Giles will be around ought to help quite a bit, and he will probably stick around just long enough to give the Scoobies a fresh start.
At the very least, we might get to see Xander and Anya either accepting their separate lives, or finding a way to reconcile peaceably. With Buffy’s decision to allow Dawn to live fully as one of the gang, maybe she will be less annoying. I doubt it, but there is at least the possibility! Hopefully Buffy herself will get out of the moody, bland funk she’s been stuck in since the fourth season and regain some of her spunky, sexy attitude. I, at least, remember the leather pants and wicked smiles fondly.
I’m not sure how I feel about the change in Spike…especially since it was kept intentionally vague and therefore more than a little open to interpretation. Is he another vampire with a soul, prompting the inevitable “been there, done that” comments, or is he restored to his former humanity? The latter would be an interesting twist, if only because he would return to Sunnydale a mortal, but his behavior before his departure would make it impossible for him to resume a relationship with Buffy. But it might lead to him trying to prove his worth, making him a worthy addition to the Scoobies.
Still, doesn’t that take away from his “forever evil” charm? A good and contrite Spike sounds like a very dull boy. Unless he retains some of his rebel edge, and none of the brooding that Angel was dragging around like a wet blanket for years before finding his own voice, Spike will lose what made him fun to watch in the first place.
The weak point of this episode, I thought, was the resolution. Xander’s character has grown so little in the past couple years that he has been reduced to a cardboard cutout. I imagine that Nick is getting tired of playing the same thing, over and over, and it’s starting to show. The final confrontation felt a little flat, then, and didn’t convince me as well as it might have. The dialogue could have been a little better, and the scene would have benefited from a darker background. If the resolution was as I gathered, a matter of Xander’s inherent mundane nature making it impossible for Willow to cast him as a faceless threat, then it wasn’t quite clear enough. If that’s not what they intended, then it really wasn’t clear enough.
In any case, what must stand as the least energetic and least impressive season of the series has come to an end. While it managed to reach some inspired and unexpected heights along the way, most of this season was spent mired in seemingly endless rumination over real life problems and inner demons, and it suffered from the lack of characters with substance (Giles, for instance) and any consistently compelling threat. It also took the delicious sexual tension between Buffy and Spike and turned it into a constant cycle of whining from Buffy over her weakness and Spike over his love.
One way or another, it’s going to be hard for next season not to bring this series back to some semblance of its early glory.
Some other thoughts:
- “Uh, oh…Daddy’s home…”
- Apparently we have confirmation that the authority of the Watchers has degraded to the point where they are no longer aware of what is happening in the world. It would be interesting to see how, if at all, that affects the future.
- Even Giles can’t help but laugh at how pathetic Buffy’s problems are!
- “I can’t even run away well!”
- I hope the Magic Box was well insured! (I wonder if it’s the same company that was insuring Caritas…)
- I couldn’t help but enjoy Willow’s reaction to the magical headrush. Damn, is she sexy when she’s being naughty…
- So…out of compassion, kill everyone and everything to end suffering. Who came up with this plan? Pat Buchanan?
- Anyone else notice that the entire crypt was moving when Xander was pushing on the door?
- Oh, yeah, that ol’ buried Satanic temple in the middle of nowhere. Because we’ve heard of that before. Right down the road from Dracula’s castle, across the street from the airport…
- Those earth creatures were very cheesy. Especially the noise they made…like zombies with complexion issues.
- Too bad Dawn didn’t get torn apart by those things, though. Would have settled the problem of what to do with her, other than the frightening notion of grooming her as Buffy’s replacement.
- “Ending the world…not a terrific notion…”
Overall, as much as I enjoyed the beginning of this episode and the welcome return of Giles, the resolution of the Dark Willow threat was just a little too easy for my liking. I understand what they were trying to accomplish, and that it was just a matter of getting her past the rage and able to grieve, but it was just too quick an ending, with too many lame conclusions to the personal conflicts.
