Buffy the Vampire Slayer S05 E22 – These are the choices.

Previously: Buffy came out of a trauma induced catatonic state only to learn that the only way to stop Glory’s ritual is for Dawn to die.
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Kirsti: It’s finale time, kids! Can we all just stop and marvel at how this season seemed to last about five minutes while season 4 dragged on for a freaking millennium? Also, we’ve now made it through a whopping ONE HUNDRED episodes of Buffy. I feel like that warrants celebration.

Lorraine: I’m really feeling all nostalgic over Buffy. I know we have two full seasons to go, but it’s just that much more over. I’m sorry. I’m clouding our celebration with my attachment-to-TV feels. Here. Have a happy dance gif:

Sweeney: I’m glad it’s also a well dressed happy dance gif. This is a big event and we must dress accordingly.

K: Absolutely! One cannot turn up to a 100th episode party in just anything!

ANYWAY. The previouslies go right back to the pilot, which lends further credence to the “this was designed to be the series finale” theory.

Lor: And also helps feed into ALL OF THE NOSTALGIA FEELS.

K: YUP. We open with the camera zooming through a dark alley and suspense-y music plays. Upon reaching a convenient open space, the camera pans around to show us a guy in a stripey t-shirt running for his life. But there’s nowhere to go but back the way he came. He creeps back towards the alley, but a vampire stalks out of it. He looks panicky while the vamp talks far too much about blood. Buffy sticks her head out of a nearby door and asks what’s going on. Stripey T-Shirt Guy begs for help, while the vamp tells her to leave. She dumb blondes that fighting isn’t cool, and the vamp decides that she’d make a nice appetiser. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘biting off more than you can chew’?” she asks. The vamp looks confused. She follows up by asking if he’s heard of the Slayer, and he’s still confused.

Sweeney: Potential series finale or not, the full-series previouslies were smart/necessary for Buffy Banter to hit the right note, considering that things have gotten so serious that Buffy had a nervous break in the last episode.

K: The Buffy Banter was definitely welcome here.

They fight as Stripey T-Shirt Guy cowers in a corner. At one point, Buffy throws the vamp into a stack of wooden boxes, and a stake shaped chunk of box conveniently flies towards her. She grabs it out of the air and stakes him.

Lor: A lovely, early show call back. I haven’t been able to use my Buffy Break tag in a while, but it’s nice to know stakes still perfectly break for our girl.

K: Truth. Stripey T-Shirt Guy is all impressed and she says that it’s what she does. He says “But…you’re just a girl,” and she replies “That’s what I keep saying.” Cue wolf howl.

After the credits, Buffy wanders back into the Magic Box. Xander asks if something was happening outside, and she says there was a vampire before bringing the gang back on topic – Glory’s ritual.

Sweeney: Plot move fun times – they’ve clearly already discussed this and Buffy is adamant that we go through it again, because obvs the viewer hasn’t heard yet!

K: Giles fills us in: the Key needs to be pressed into a specific shape in a specific place at a specific time. And once the ritual has started, all manner of hell will break loose. Anya gets panicky and wants to know if the walls between dimensions will come back up. Willow replies that they’ll only come back if the ritual is stopped. And the only way to stop the ritual once it’s started is to kill Dawn.

Xander wants to know why it had to be blood, which reminds me of precisely one thing:

Ahem.

Spike’s on hand to say that it’s ALWAYS blood: “Blood is life, lackbrain. Why do you think we eat it? It’s what keeps you going. Makes you warm. Makes you hard. Makes you other than dead.” Buffy’s plan is pretty simple – stop the ritual before it starts. Giles wants to know what she’ll do if…but Buffy interrupts him and starts yelling about how she doesn’t want to hear about it. It’s the Slayer equivalent of sticking her fingers in her ears and singing “LALALALALALALA”.

Giles yells right back that they have to talk about it. Everyone looks shocked. Buffy demands that he say it – that she needs to kill Dawn. He tells her that Dawn’s not really her sister, and the entire world will suffer – including Dawn – if the ritual can’t be stopped. Buffy replies tearfully that Dawn’s a part of her, and the last thing Dawn will see is Buffy protecting her. “You’ll fail. You’ll die. We all will,” Giles says quietly, and Buffy apologises, but she’s putting the last remaining piece of her family ahead of the Scoobies and the world.

Anya’s in favour of dealing with Glory before the ritual starts, and suggests turning her into a toad and hitting her with a hammer. Xander, on the other hand, suggests killing Ben. He quickly realises what he’s said, and looks disgusted with himself. Giles says that it’s unlikely Ben will appear so close to the ritual.

The gang realise that they don’t need to KILL Glory, just stop her from doing the ritual, because it’s pretty much a one time deal. Anya says that they need to think outside the box, and Spike and Giles sass at her to do it herself. She does some quick thinking and comes up with the Dagon Sphere, which was meant to repel Glory, and Olaf the Troll’s hammer. I love this so freaking much – Anya’s been kind of up and down recently for me, so this scene was pure freaking win. Bless your heart, Anya.

Lor: Agreed! This is another moment where Anya’s “newness” helped the Scoobies. They are all mired deep in their totally legit wallow, but Anya is able to keep it going.

K: Buffy says that they have a plan, but still no way to find Glory. That’s Tara’s cue to deliver some crazy from the corner about how it’s the big day and she has to be there.

Cut to the warehouse. Ben brings Dawn a bunch of ceremonial clothing, and says she has to put it on. She death stares him, and wants to know what will happen if she refuses. He dithers a little, and she snaps, demanding that he turn into Glory because at least she’s upfront about being a monster. Glory appears and says that she shouldn’t blame Ben because he just wants to live. Dawn says again that Buffy will save her, and Glory’s all “Dude, you’ve been here for hours. Where’s your sister at?” before mentioning that if Buffy DOES turn up, it might not be to save Dawn. She throws Dawn to the floor and we get a close up of her “nooooooooo” face.

Back at the Magic Box, Buffy’s beating the living shit out of a punching bag. Giles comes in and warns her not to tire herself out. He follows up by saying that their best bet is to wait until basically the last minute because it increases the chances of them distracting Glory long enough for her to miss the window of opportunity.

He then says that he imagines she hates him right now, but that sometimes his job is to say and do the things that others can’t. She turns and says that if he tries to hurt Dawn, she’ll stop him. She then asks how many apocalypses they’ve been through now, and he replies that he thinks it’s at least six, but it feels like a hundred. HUNDREDTH EPISODE JOKE SHOTS!

Buffy tearfully mentions having to sacrifice Angel to save the world and says that she’s sick of making the tough choices – if Dawn dies, she’s going to quit being the Slayer.

Sweeney: Since you’re emphasizing the slayer thing, I just want to back up and remember the, “I don’t know how to live in this world if these are the choices” bit. While she does mention the Slayerness and death, her exit line is actually, “If Dawn dies, I’m done with it. I quit.” That is all I will say right now. BRB, having feels.

K: Right there with you.

Cut to the warehouse. Dawn’s now wearing the ugly ritual dress. (L: A distant cousin of the Pretty White Virginal Dress!) A couple of Flattery Demons grab her, and she starts screaming for Buffy. They drag her outside, and she looks up to see a massive and very haphazard tower that’s been constructed by Glory’s brainsuck victims. The Flattery Demons drag her towards the stairs as she screams some more. Fade to black and I hand over to Sweeney.

 

Sweeney: Right in the heart of Sister Trauma Time. It’s been a while since I’ve had a proper nightmare, but there was a period where I had them often and they were always always about bad stuff happening to my sister and me not being able to save her. Just watching Katniss volunteer in the trailers for The Hunger Games always turned me into a sobby mess because OMFG SISTER FEELS. So. Cool.

To lighten the mood, Xander and Anya are in the basement allegedly looking for the orb but actually they clearly just had sex. Anya is now having all the morose feels. This is interesting, particularly in light of Lor’s earlier comment about her newness. We’ve seen a number of occasions in which Xander is sort of the chief humanizing factor in Anya’s life — specifically, being in love with him. She was the one holding it together earlier while everyone else was having feels. Forgive me for making you think a little more than we’d all like to about sex with Xander, but the show made me do it, because now we got Anya playing catch up on the defeatist, this apocalypse might be the real one feelings.

Lor: Her delayed feels are part of her charm, and part of what makes the newness okay with me. She isn’t unfeeling– it just takes her a little longer to get there. Well pointed out.

K: Either that, or sex with Xander is one hell of a downer…

Sweeney: Anyway, they spot the Buffybot while they’re searching and Xander freaks out. Anya freaks out about something unseen and then we learn that it’s a stuffed bunny. She’s convinced that higher powers are warning her of their imminent demise. She goes on to confirm all the stuff I just said, because usually she skips town during an apocalypse but she can’t do that now because she’s in love with Xander.

She says that she doesn’t know if she could be more nervous than she is right now and Xander chooses that moment to pop the question. She answers by slapping him because she believes that he’s only doing it because he thinks the world is going to end. He goes on to say that he is proposing because he thinks it’s not, and that he is going to live a long and silly life and he wants to do it with her. With that, she accepts, but tells him to give it to her when the world doesn’t end.

K: Awww. Can we talk about how much Xander’s matured since he got split into two people and then put back together?

Lor: Things only Buffy fans would ever say.

Sweeney: Out in The Magic Box, Buffy goes to Willow and says she needs her now because she’s the strongest person there. She says it so matter-of-factly and Willow is a little dumbfounded, as this is news to her. Having spent the last five years with a superpowered best friend, it stands to reason that she’d be the last to notice how strong she’s gotten. Buffy points out that Willow is the only one to have ever hurt Glory. Willow stammers that she’s got an idea, but apologetically she’s been a little more focused on Tara. Buffy assures Willow that Tara absolutely should be her priority. Willow’s got a plan that could either reverse what Glory did to Tara or, you know, make all their heads explode.

Lor: I’m a little sad that this realization comes in so many words because Buffy needs Willow and saying this is a means to that end. But it’s true and I’m glad that it was said, either way. Go ahead, Willow, and try to keep the head exploding to a minimum.

K: Seriously. There’s enough of that happening over in Pylea…

Sweeney: Giles calls Buffy over and Willow goes to Tara. Tara slaps her and yells, before freaking out and starting to cry again. Willow tears up too and promises to bring her back. FEELS.

The rest of the team is discussing some big plan we haven’t actually gotten to hear while Giles holds the orb. Xander and Spike have pointless banter and Buffy leaves, telling Spike to go with her to get weapons.

At Buffy’s house, she’s telling him where the weapons are, and there’s an awkward moment where he can’t actually come in. He offers to have her just hand them over the barrier, but she invites him in. More awkward silence as Spike is surprised and grateful.

K: HIS FACE, YOU GUYS. I can’t even.

Sweeney: He then goes to get the weapons, but she stays in serious mode, reminding him that not everyone will make it. “I’m counting on you — to protect her.” “Till the end of the world — even if that happens to be tonight.” MORE FEELS!

Sorry, the middle section of this recap will now just be a series of events interrupted by the word “FEELS.” It’s a good thing we do this finale business as a team so I’m bookended by, like, actual recapping.

Lor: Crap, that’s a lot of pressure. What’s another word for “feels?”

Sweeney: Oh but wait! There’s more feels! They just keep coming, because, you know, Whedon + finale. Buffy goes upstairs, but he stops her and this happens:

 

Back at the Badly Constructed Tower of Sister Trauma, Dawn is tied precariously to the edge, and some flattery demons say that Glory will come to her and they peace out.

At The Magic Box they’ve all reconvened and are, apparently, right on schedule. Willow asks if Tara has somewhere she needs to be and coaxes her into going to where she obviously wants to go. She stops to yell at Giles for being a killer before heading off. (L: INTERESTING.) Before they all follow, Buffy also stops the troops to let them know that if the ritual starts, they will all die and she will kill anyone who comes near Dawn.

The gang follow Tara to the Badly Constructed Tower of Sister Trauma and stop to be appropriately anxious. Willow says she could use a little courage and Spike offers her his flask. LOLZ. Thanks for that, Whedon/Spike. Willow declines, but thanks him too.

 

K: I love how Spike has this weird background role as Offerer of Booze to Various Scooby Members.

Sweeney: Tara is wandering about and is spotted by Glory, who wants to know what she’s doing there. Willow appears and BAMFs that she’s with her, before grabbing both of their heads and getting some super badass lightning special effects that ultimately send everyone flying. Glory comes to and doesn’t know what the fuck just happened.

Tara and Willow have apparently split. Glory concludes that whatever Willow did left a hole and she needs a brain to eat. She briefly crazies that it’s a big day. Then she looks up and says that she supposes she could always use the brain of someone off screen. Pan over to Buffy who BAMFs, “Come and get it.”

With that, we go to a Not Commercial Break and I hand it off to Lor.

 

Lorraine: FEELS. Sorry. I was just practicing.

Sweeney: Smart move.

Lor: After the break, Buffy notes that Glory isn’t looking too good– Willow’s brain juju has left her with a headache. Glory tries to make with the big threats, but Buffy notes that there is a whole lot of talking and not a lot of attacking. Glory sends some Flattery Demons to guard Dawn, and blames Willow for her current magically induced drunkenness.  Buffy says that it wasn’t Willow and reveals that she’s holding the Dagon Sphere. She tosses it Glory, who inexplicably is all, “sure! I’ll catch this thing that will hurt me!” Maybe I’m extra sensitive to this inexplicable catching because I never catch anything that’s tossed my way. I watch it sail, step out of the way, and watch it fall. I don’t catch.

K: I usually flail awkwardly and knock the thing being thrown at me into someone nearby. Sorry, Person I Hit In The Face With A Stack Of Index Cards In Class Last Year… So yeah, the catching was a world of contrivance.

Lor: Anyway. Glory wobbles a bit but then crushes the sphere. Buffy attacks and manages to get some great kicks to the face in. The Flattery Demons are commanding all of the Brain Sucked Minions to guard the staircase that will lead to Dawn, and the Scoobies attack them.

Dawn is still tied to the Badly Constructed Tower of Sister Trauma, just sort of waiting for the sister trauma to reach her.

Buffy slams Glory down on a pile of bricks and Glory repays her with a flip into a pile of wooden planks. Willow comes to and crawls over to Tara, calling out her name. Tara’s been dabbling in Faith’s Coma Make-up and it takes her a moment to respond, but she does by saying Willow’s name.

 

SENTIMENTOS.

Sweeney: Nicely done.

Lor: Thank you. I knew being bilingual would help me out in life.

Meanwhile, Glory has recovered some of her strength and knocks Buffy in the head… KNOCKING IT CLEAR OFF. BECAUSE THIS IS THE BUFFYBOT.

YES.

I’m so excited over this development, specifically when real!Buffy appears behind Glory with Olaf’s troll hammer. AMAZING.

Sweeney: It was such an amazing plan! It also speaks to Buffybot’s detail, too! 

K: I’m just gonna go ahead and mention that my headcanon states that Willow’s been tinkering with the Buffybot’s programming to make her more personality realistic and less Spike sexytimes focused.

Lor: I thought about this way after the episode- how uncheery and more realistic Buffybot was- and decided I DIDN’T CARE. But, also, headcanon accepted.

Dawn starts yelling from on top of the tower with her amazing lung capacity, but Glory is hot on Buffy’s trail and manages to knock the hammer away from her. They fight amidst the steel beams. Buffy tries her best to climb up, but Glory is there ever step and eventually, they both fall from the tower to ground below. Buffy’s again lost the hammer, and Glory puns about it, giving Xander the chance to appear with a perfectly timed and placed wrecking ball.

Okay, Xander. I’ll forgive the sheer luck of this because you get your little moment in the finale. Take it, run, and don’t look back.

The rest of the Scoobies didn’t fare well against the Brain Sucked Minions and are hiding out, hoping that Buffy will be able to detain Glory. We cut to that fight, where B is hitting Glory IN THE FACE with the troll hammer, repeatedly.

Sweeney: IN THE FACE! Much more fun capslock shouting!

K: Part of me wishes that Glory had a hand on the hammer so Buffy could say, “Stop hitting yourself!”

Lor: Back on top of the Badly Constructed Tower of Sister Trauma, Joel Grey shows up. Dawn begs for his help, but it’s clear he’s up to no good. He pulls out a knife, as he’s the back-up plan in case Glory isn’t on time to bleed her.

On the ground, Willow communicates telepathically with Spike, and tells him to make a run for Dawn. He starts to protest, but she uses her HBIC voice to head-yell, “GO!” and he takes off. Just as he does, Willow grabs Tara’s hand, and their combined powers of awesome and adorable and I’m so glad Tara isn’t brain sucked anymore!! cause the Brain Sucked Minions to fly apart and create a free passage for Spike.

Spike gets up there and baits Joel Grey into a fight. He gets stabbed for his trouble.

Buffy’s STILL beating Glory in the face with the hammer and punning about how her arm isn’t even tired. I’m not really tired of watching this either. I’m taking my fun where I can get it, before the feels train arrives again.

Joel Grey asks Spike why he even cares about Dawn.

 

Joel Grey grabs Spike easily. Spike looks at Dawn apologetically and JG throws him from the tower into a pile of bricks below.

Glory is on her knees, telling Buffy to stop. Buffy: You’re a god. Make it stop. With Glory now flat on her back, Buffy wails on her with the hammer several times and there is all sorts of sick crunching noises until Glory turns back into Ben. He apologizes, and Buffy tells him to tell Glory it’s over. Ben promises never to come near Buffy or her loved ones again, AND BUFFY DROPS HER HAMMER AND RUNS.

WHAT IN THE HELL, BUFFY?

BUT THEN! Giles comes from out of the shadows and asks if Ben can move. He says he needs a minute and notes that Buffy could’ve killed him. Giles says she couldn’t, because she’s the hero, and even in the case where leaving Glory alive was THE STUPIDEST THING EVER, she couldn’t kill Ben. “She’s not like us,” Giles finishes as he puts his glasses on, and then suffocates the crap out of Ben.

Well, damn. I always feel marginally bad cheering death, but, um, YES. RIPPER FTW.

Sweeney: Always cheer for Ripper. Shots for Ripper, too, because I hear that Feels Train a-coming.

K: RIPPER! RIPPER! RIPPER!! Also, TARA! TARA! TARA! because she foreshadowed the shit out of this moment.

Lor: Up on the tower, Joel Grey is slicing up Dawn with his knife. The blood is flowing down her legs and it’s happening! Even after all that, she’s bleeding. Buffy shows up and easily pushes Joel Grey the fuck out of the way and off the tower and grabs her little sister. But it’s too late. The portal is opening and mediocre lightening effects are attacking all around and rifts are opening and people scream in pain.

Anya pushes Xander out of the way of lightening.

Dawn is sorry and she knows about the ritual. She tries to run, but Buffy holds her as she cries that she has to stop it. She  begs her sister to let her go, because it won’t end until it has blood. It has to be blood.

K: Can we talk about how much I love Dawn for this and why I can’t understand why chunks of the fandom hate her? Yes, she started out super whiny and annoying. But she was WILLING TO DIE TO SAVE THE WORLD. Homegirl is a Summers through and through.

Sweeney: THIS FOREVER.

Lor: Buffy has a series of flashbacks that let the slow viewers bring it home: blood must be given. Dawn has Summers blood. Dawn is part of her. Death is Buffy’s gift.

Realization fully bloomed, Buffy turns toward the open portal and the destruction. Dawn knows what’s coming and protests, but Buffy says she has to. They stand together for a second and we pull out of the shot. Buffy kisses her sister tenderly. She takes off at a run, and dives straight into the open portal as Dawn breaks down in tears.

We see Buffy being jostled around by the portal, clearly in pain, and then struggling no more, as her voice-over tells us this: Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you. But this is the work I have to do. 

The portal closes and the sun rises, and we cut to the ground below, which is a dusty, debris covered mess. Willow is helping Tara walk. Xander is carrying Anya.

Tell Giles … tell Giles I figured it out. And, and I’m okay. Giles walks forward into the shot, and the camera pans back to reveal Buffy’s body sprawled on the ground. She’s wearing white, and she’s dead again.

Spike sits nearby and he takes a big heaving breath.

And give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. Willow holds Tara, but perhaps it is now Tara holding Willow up as her face crumbles. Giles looks forlorn.

Sweeney: Interrupting just to say that there is lots of great acting here, but Alyson Hannigan wins this sequence.

Lor: You have to be strong. Spike holds his head in his hands and cries.

K: This fucking moment breaks my heart every single time. It’s possible that I’m crying just as a result of that gif. 

Lor: Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Dawn has made her way down, and she holds her wounds as she sees her sister’s body and cries. We flash back to that moment on the Trauma Tower where we just watched Buffy stand in front of her sister, and understand that these were her final words.

Be brave. Live. For me.

The final shot is of Buffy’s headstone.

 

Despite some contrivance here and there, I think this episode was beautifully executed. I had a feeling that Buffy would die at the end of it, and that was rather confirmed at the beginning where they kept emphasizing BLOOD and SACRIFICE. Furthermore, it’s a bit strange to watch knowing Buffy doesn’t die. I suppose at this point, even those watching real time knew she wouldn’t stay in the ground. It says a lot about the effectiveness of the actors and the fullness of the storyline that this still manages to be such a heart-tugging episode.

I loved the beginning sequence, and the call back to those early days when fighting a vampire in an alley was all it was about. A pun here, a conveniently fashioned stake there, and bam. In those days, all Buffy wanted to be was a girl, but she’s long since become a woman, and accepted that she’ll never be just a woman. As Giles pointed out, she’s a hero.

There were a number of parallels between Ben and Dawn throughout the season and this is brought home here, in which Ben is willing to let everyone die so that he can live, and Dawn is willing to die, so that everyone can live. Neither one of them feel entirely human, but they both reach different conclusions about their lives and what they are worth.

It’ll be interesting to see where the show goes on from here, because this felt like such a natural conclusion. Buffy has sacrificed everything, and finally she isn’t willing to sacrifice the last thing she has. She leaps to her death, but knows that a part of her lives on.

Sweeney: One last interruption, because you’re ending this so eloquently and I’d like it to end with your lovely words, but that speech of Buffy’s? Top 10 favorite moments of the show for sure. Buffy’s got a number of epic show-and-character-defining lines in all the finales, but this one is my favorite. Just seeing gifsets of it makes me cry. This really is such a natural conclusion for the show that I have mixed emotions about the fact that they didn’t just end it here. (But there is some really fantastic stuff ahead, fear not!)

K: Totally agree. A+, Sweeney.

Lor:  The Spike and Buffy moments were fantastic in this episode. His face when she invited him back in? Oy. She trusts him, regardless of whether or not she understands what that trust means. And he does love her, regardless of whether or not he always knew what that love meant. This is not the same Spike and Buffy that was sparked when Spike first realized his feelings. They are changing, and it’s amazing to watch.

This show has changed. Gone are the days of black and white– vampires bad, Scooby Gang good. A vampire loves Buffy, and she trusts him with the thing most precious to her. Our Willow grows in her magic and power. Giles suffocates Ben, and admits he’s a killer by comparing himself to Ben. Buffy herself admits that gone are her simple views of life: “I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much… but I knew. What was right. I don’t have that any more.”

Buffy worried about being hardened because of her Slayer duties, and yet, we end the season with her ultimate gift to those she loves: her life.

 

 

Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Giles leaves town and death is not an answer for the Scoobies in S06 E01 – Bargaining (Part 1).