Previously: The Scoobies brought Buffy back from the dead, and she was a liiiiiiittle bit more messed up than they anticipated.
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After Life
Kirsti: We start immediately after the conclusion of Bargaining. The Scoobies head out of the alley where they killed the Lame-o Biker Demon, with Willow saying that Buffy has to be back at Chez Summers. Xander claims to know a shortcut through the alleys, but Anya’s less than convinced about how safe it is on account of half the town being on fire. Just as Xander’s in the middle of a speech about how he’s got wikkid skillz, a bunch of Lame-o Bikers appear behind them and blaze past on their way out of town, causing Xander to mildly wet his pants. Contrivancely, the Lame-o Bikers are all spontaneously aware that their leader is dead and are running for the hills. Okay, show. Whatever.
Sweeney: I’m glad they are being eliminated as hastily as they were introduced.
K: So are we all!
They move on to discussing Buffy. Anya thinks she’s broken, but Willow says that she’s probably just disoriented from being tortured in a hell dimension for who-knows-how-long. Tara wonders out loud if maybe they should be worried about Buffy being dangerous, and God bless the girl who wasn’t around in season 3 when Angel came back from a hell dimension all crazy and murdery for bringing this up. Segue magic over to Chez Summers. Dawn and Buffy stand outside the house, with Dawn telling Buffy that she’s home now and that everything’s okay now. Buffy, on the other hand, looks anything but okay. Roll wolf howl.
After the credits, Dawn leads Buffy into the darkened house. She turns a light on, and Buffy is taken aback at the sudden brightness before looking around the room. Dawn, honey? If your sister’s just come back from the dead and is all PTSD-y, maybe don’t welcome her home with the room where she found her mother’s body, mmmkay? (S: I mean, that room is the logical first place to go.)
Buffy says that it’s different, and Dawn says that Willow and Tara moved in so some stuff had to be moved around. We get a close up of a picture of Joyce and then Buffy looking pained. SEE, DAWN?
Lorraine: Sarah Michelle Gellar’s face when she sees the picture of Joyce? Ouch. She doesn’t do much. Her face just drains of whatever emotion or tension was there.
K: Buffy turns away and walks into the dining room, where nothing has changed, then walks upstairs as Dawn rambles awkwardly about the pile of Willow’s computer stuff on the table.
Upstairs, Dawn wets a cloth and dabs at a no-longer-in-her-grave-clothes Buffy’s face. Buffy stares at her reflection, not speaking. She’s wearing a white shirt, which Dawn suggests buttoning. But then she sees Buffy’s hands, which are all torn to shit on account of digging her way out of her coffin. Dawn starts doing up the buttons for Buffy, but only get through one before Buffy turns and walks into what was Joyce’s bedroom. She looks around the room in dismay and BRB HAVING ALL THE FEELS. Also, the way Buffy squints every time Dawn turns on a light is reminding me of how Joyce complained about things being too bright when they brought her home from hospital after her brain surgery and THIS IS NOT HELPING THE FEELS SITUATION. Dawn wants to sit down and talk about things, but Buffy’s filing that under NOPE.
Dawn fills Buffy in on Giles having left town, but is interrupted by the door opening downstairs. Buffy panics, and Spike’s voice calls out for Dawn. She heads down the stairs and Spike starts to berate her, but she tells him to look, because Buffy is coming down the stairs. He says that he’s seen the Buffybot before, then trails off mid-sentence as he realises. He stares at her, and you can SEE the shock and confusion and joy and love and relief rolling across his face.
Lor: I kind of cheated, just in that I watched this (brilliant) episode all the way through before I started to comment. This here is the first indication that even though Buffy is not okay, and could not at first feign interest or happiness in being back, she will fake it. She will button her shirt when Spike shows up, because it’s what she should do, even though seconds before she didn’t care a thing about buttons.
K: Dawn thinks Spike’s staring at Buffy’s torn up hands, and says that she doesn’t know how it happened.
Spike, on the other hand, does. He says that he’s had to claw his way out of a coffin himself, and that he’s going to take care of her. He gingerly places a hand on Buffy’s shoulder and leads her into the living room, while asking Dawn to go and get first aid supplies.
Lor: What a dark and twisted thing to be able to bond about. I’m gonna guess that’s going to be indicative of their future relationship.
K: Spoilers, sweetie. Buffy sits on the sofa and Spike takes her hands in his as the Orchestra of Feels goes into overdrive. “How long was I gone?” Buffy asks. There’s a beat before he replies: “Hundred and forty seven days yesterday. Hundred and forty eight today. ‘Cept today doesn’t count, does it?”
I think I’ve mentioned before that the first episode of Buffy I ever saw was The Gift, and so season 6 was the season that got me invested in the show. This scene, this two minute scene, is what sold me on Spuffy. Because it ripped my heart out and stamped on it repeatedly. And it still does that to me every single time I see it. Excuse me while I cry all the ugly cries.
Sweeney: This is such a lovely, heart-wrenching moment in the Spuffy arc. Buffy > any Buffy ship, but I’m totes crying all those ugly cries with you. I guess I’m usually crying ugly cries with this show, but that’s not the point.
K: Dawn returns with the medical supplies and at the same time, the Scoobies burst through the door. They’re relieved that Buffy’s there and safe. Spike, meanwhile, stands up and leaves. No one notices. The Scoobies fire question after question at Buffy until Dawn tells them to calm the fuck down – she’s pissed that they didn’t tell her they were going to do a spell. The Scoobies push some more until Buffy says that she just wants to go to bed. She heads upstairs and the gang look worriedly at Willow, who defensively says that Buffy will be fine.
Lor: This scene was so nicely done. The way the Scoobies come blustering in is so telling. They are riding this noisy wave of good intentions, but they clearly have no idea what they’ve done and how to deal with Buffy or the upcoming consequences. The camera angle is even interesting: we keep cutting to Buffy’s POV as she looks up at the Scoobies. We can see how overwhelming they must be with all noise, chatter, and their need to be reassured. Buffy just came back from the dead, and they are concerned with being told they made the right choice. If they stopped long enough to really see what was happening, to really consider Buffy’s attitude? Well, clearly they can’t bring themselves to that. They prattle, and push, and joke about pizza, because the alternative is that they are wrong.
K: The camera angle is really interesting. Buffy’s usually the Chosen One, the leader. Yet here, they’re looming over her. Xander and Anya head out, with Xander saying that he’s sure Buffy just needs a week or so to recover. “Oh yes, cause six or seven days, that’s all you really need to get over eternal hell experiences,” Anya replies. They hear a noise, and the camera pans over to show Spike behind a tree. Xander calls out to him, and Spike hurriedly wipes his eyes. Xander sasses at him, and Spike throws him against the tree, angry that they didn’t tell him what they were doing. But he’s worked it out, he says – Willow didn’t want to tell him because she knew there was a chance that Buffy would come back wrong and they’d have to kill her, and Spike wouldn’t have let them. Xander says that he’s crazy, and that clearly Spike’s thrilled that Buffy’s back. Spike gives Xander a “don’t you get it?” look, and stalks off, throwing a “That’s the thing about magic. There’s always consequences. ALWAYS.” over his shoulder.
Upstairs, Willow tells Tara that she’s spoken to Giles and he’s going to head back to Sunnydale as soon as possible. Tara asks how he took the news, and Willow replies that there were lots of “Dear Lord”s, and she’s pretty sure she heard him clean his glasses. Tara asks Willow if she’s worried about Buffy, and she is because Buffy’s reaction has been completely different to Angel’s, and also shouldn’t Buffy be happier? Tara wades through the layers to the crux of the matter: Willow thought Buffy would say thank you. Willow, honey. Give the girl five minutes to remember now to speak and breathe and feel first!! Tara backs me up, saying that Buffy probably just needs time, and that she’s sure Buffy’s fine.
Lor: I have to mention that in the comments last recap, there was a conversation about Willow’s motivations (mostly between Jojo and I) and here we get another piece of the puzzle. My heart breaks for Willow because of how far from Willow she’s come. It’s not always a bad thing, but here? There was selfishness in her motivations. She wants recognition to go along with her power. And, again, the girls dance around the obvious: Buffy is not happy to be alive. Still, they ignore it and figure she needs time.
K: With that, we cut across to Buffy’s bedroom. She’s sitting on her bed, fully dressed and in the dark. She walks over to her bulletin board where there’s an array of photos of her and the Scoobies. As she watches, all the faces in the pictures change to skulls. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Willow and Tara are asleep in bed. There’s a crash and they wake with a start to see Buffy at the end of the bed. She rants about what they’ve done, and it includes reference to the deer that Willow had to kill. As she speaks, she throws a crystal ball, which smashes above the bed and rains glass down on them. Willow scrambles out of bed and turns the light on. The room is empty, and there’s no glass in the bed. They check on Buffy, and she’s sound asleep. Back in their room (farewell, trusty Bigger on the Inside Dorm Room…), they have a moment of “WTF?!?!?!”, which is further compounded when Tara spots something moving in the wall. Willow says that she’s going to call Xander.
Lor: It’s worth mentioning that Willow straight up lies about knowing what ghost Buffy was talking about to Tara. Again, it breaks my heart.
K: YES. The fact that she never told Tara just how dark the magic involved in the spell was is pretty telling. Cut to Xander’s bedroom. He’s out cold, while Anya mopes that she can’t sleep and that she wants him to play a word game with her. Nothing wakes him until the phone rings. Anya, annoyed, gets out of bed and heads to the kitchen while Willow informs Xander that they were just attacked and it was like Buffy was possessed or something. He tells Willow to get everyone out of the house as Anya walks back into the room. Her eyes are cloudy, and she’s cackling maniacally while cutting her face with a huge knife.
Sweeney: All these bits with the white-eyed Scoobies are SO SCARY. We’ve been doing a lot of big feels; we were due for a proper nightmare-inducing episode of Buffy. This one totally fits that bill for me. Maybe you get less shocked by it around the tenth watch, but I was fucking terrified and jumpy for about 40% of this episode.
Lor: SO SCARY. Scary rarely happens on Buffy, but that image? UGH. HELP.
K: I went back and forth on whether or not to include that gif, because it freaks the hell out of me. Xander yells and grabs the knife, and Anya drops to the floor, unconscious but with her face unmarked. The camera pans down to her feet, and something slithers away under the carpet.
In the Chez Summers backyard the following day, the Scoobies discuss what it is and what’s to be done about it. Anya says it’s probably a hitchhiker that caught a lift with Buffy, and Xander wants to know if they can kill it. “We killing something?” Buffy says off-screen, and the gang are shocked to see her up and about. She’s dressed far more somberly than usual – jeans and a black, long sleeved shirt. Anya’s all kinds of annoyingly blunt and the others all cringe. (L: OVERKILL.) Buffy tells them about the pictures changing, and they say they’ll take care of it.
Cut to the Magic Box, where the gang are in research mode. They’ve got a list of possible hitchhiking suspects, which Dawn reads out over Willow’s shoulder. Xander asks if they should focus on the ones they have already or if they should try to find more, and Buffy softly says that she misses Giles. YOU AND ME BOTH, SISTER. Willow tries to be reassuring but fails, because Buffy looks around the table and announces that she should probably patrol. She stands and walks out, and Dawn calls after her that she shouldn’t worry about her because she’ll be fine with the Scoobies and I was about to make a comment on how hard it must be for Dawn to see Buffy go from “MUST PROTECT DAWN ABOVE EVERYTHING” to “MUST GET AWAY FROM ALL THE PEOPLE, CAN’T COPE WITH THIS”, but then the camera panned across to show us that Dawn’s eyes are all cloudy and she has this seriously evil look on her face and now I’m just having a wiggins… Fade to black.
Sweeney: Wiggins for sure. Having all those Dawn feels too. WHICH EMOTIONS DO I FOCUS ON? I’m so overwhelmed.
K: Agreed. After the Not Commercial Break, Buffy is wandering through the cemetery on autopilot. She pauses briefly, and the wings of the angel statue behind her frame her body.
Lor: My gosh, the imagery. Dressed in black with angel’s wings. I can’t think of this as anything but brilliant as yet another hint to what we learn at the end of the episode.
K: YES. Back at the Magic Box, Anya’s returning with coffee. She informs Dawn, who’s facing away from the group, that she gets hot chocolate because she’s too young for coffee. Dawn spins around and delivers a dose of Cloudy Eyes Craziness to the gang and then BREATHES FUCKING FIRE before collapsing on the floor. Xander puts out the flames while Willow and Tara rush over to Dawn. They reassure her that the evil thing is gone, and Anya helpfully asks where it went and what its evil plans are.
Sweeney: Worth pointing out that, possessed!Dawn, much like possessed!Buffy, mentions the blood. The fact that Willow still doesn’t own the fuck up to the severity of the black magic she got them into is just dangerous and stupid. She knows what that business is all about and she knows that nobody else does. As they are researching this thing, she’s leaving them all at a serious disadvantage by withholding that information. Particularly since, as possessed!Dawn points out, the blood and death is on all of them now. They’re all part of it.
K: I often wonder how different this season would have been if she’d just told them… With that, we cut over to Spike’s TARDIS crypt. He paces back and forth downstairs, then punches a wall. He stares at his bloody knuckles and laughs hysterically. There’s a noise from upstairs, and he grabs a dagger and heads up the ladder to find Buffy standing there. She points out his injured hand, and he says that it’s the same as hers. Shit gets awkward for a minute, then gets worse as Spike tries to make small talk.
The Orchestra of Feels strikes up as he abandons the small talk and tells Buffy that he didn’t forget his promise to save Dawn, and that if he could have done that – even if he’d died – Buffy wouldn’t have had to jump. She doesn’t reply, so he continues: “But I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but…after that. Every night after that. I’d see it all again…do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways… Every night I save you.” He looks at her with tears in his eyes.
Lor: Beautiful.
K: Back at the Magic Box, Xander’s asking Tara if Spike was right, if the spell’s having consequences. She says that it’s not just as Willow yells out that she’s worked out what happened – they kinda sorta accidentally made a demon because the world didn’t approve of them getting a massive gift (Buffy) without getting a super shitty gift (the demon) as well. Apparently it’s manifesting in them because said super shitty gift managed to leave its body behind.
Xander suggests shoving it back into the dimension where its body is, but Willow says that because the demon is linked to the spell, doing that will cancel out the spell and Buffy will be gone again. Which no one is on board with, especially Dawn. (S: Worth noting that Dawn, in her terror over re-losing Buffy, tells Willow that she can’t just mess with people’s lives like this. She’s being rather unknowingly wise with that line, in light of Willow’s already demonstrated lack of regard for cluing everyone in on how her magical decisions affect them all.) (Excellent point, Sweeney) Willow flips through the book some more, and grins with relief because the demon is only temporary. Apparently the only way it can live is to kill Buffy. With that, Xander’s eyes turn cloudy. “Thanks for the tip,” he says, before collapsing. Cut to Chez Summers. Buffy walks in and heads upstairs, without turning on any lights. Something that bears a striking resemblance to how Frodo sees the Black Riders on Weathertop appears behind her. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Buffy walks into her bedroom. The Floaty Witch King appears and tells her that she doesn’t belong there. She tries to punch it, but it’s all non-corporeal so nothing happens. Weirdly, it can punch her though, which is proceeds to several times, while taunting her about how she doesn’t belong. Cut to Xander’s car. Dawn yells at him to drive faster, and he reassures her that Willow and Tara are doing a spell to make the Floaty Witch King more solid so that Buffy can actually fight back. We see them doing a spell at the Magic Box, then cut back to Buffy’s room where she’s broken free of the FWK. She grabs a battle axe from under the bed and swings at it, but it’s still all floaty.
Back to the Magic Box. Tara continues to chant the spell, but a mysterious light has appeared around Willow and she’s not speaking. Tara stops chanting and stares at Willow in shock. Willow’s eyes snap open and are completely black as she casts the spell with a single word – “solid.”
Lor: WILLOW. Dear God, this girl is going to be the death of me. Again, not a great sign for Willow/Tara that she completely breaks free of their chanting and seems to channel something darker and more to the point.
K: Pretty much exactly. There’s a brief fight before Buffy decapitates the demon.
The next day, Dawn heads out the door to school. Buffy – looking more like her usual self (although she appears to have raided Joyce’s wardrobe) – runs after her with a bagged lunch. There’s some sisterly bonding, and Buffy smiles a little bit and it seems like things are getting back to normal.
Sweeney: This scene is one of many amazing depictions of depression in this season. Dawn tells Buffy that all anyone around her wants is to see her being happy again and we get a closeup of a very pensive looking Buffy. If I recall correctly, we’ll see this elaborated on a bit more in coming episodes. For now, though: when you’re depressed and don’t really know how to get yourself better, many well-meaning people in your life often do this thing where they just don’t get why you can’t just BE HAPPY. You’ve been asking yourself that same fucking question and it only compounds this helpless, doomed feeling. Neither is faking happy to keep everyone else content a viable solution, though it often feels like it at the time. It’s glossing over it, to the detriment of working on the problem. I’m rambling. I love this moment, in that vaguely masochistic way that we love all of the soul-crushing feels moments in good fiction.
Lor: It’s Buffy, buttoning her shirt to a greater degree. She’s reinstalling herself, perhaps only if to stop people from asking questions. She doesn’t want to hear anyone ask if she’s okay again, so she fakes being okay.
K: But this is the Whedonverse, and obviously that’s when things turn to shit, right?! Cut to the Magic Box. Willow appears to be wearing a shirt made out of Elmo, which is HIGHLY unfortunate. Buffy awkwardly says that she was in hell and thanks the gang for bringing her back, and there’s a group hug and some tears from the Scoobies, but Buffy still looks less than thrilled.
Cut to the alley behind the Magic Box. Buffy walks out, closing the door behind her, and stands there alone in the sunlight. Spike’s sitting in the shade, and says that he was going to come inside but he didn’t want to interrupt the moment. Also, shouldn’t she be inside doing the hugging thing? “Just wanted a little time alone,” she says. He goes to leave, then realises that the sunlight means there’s nowhere for him to go. She tells him that it’s okay – she can be alone with him there. (L: Another great, subtle line.) He asks if she’s okay, and she says she is but Spike’s not buying it. He says if there’s anything he can do, but she interrupts him to say that he can’t. He sits down next to her and says that if she wants to talk, he knows all about torment, despite not having been to a hell dimension. And then Whedon rips my heart out all over again:
BUFFY: I was happy. Wherever I…was. I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time…didn’t mean anything… nothing had form, but I was still me, you know? And I was warm…and I was loved…and I was finished. Complete. I don’t understand about theology or dimensions, or…any of it, really…but I think I was in heaven. And now I’m not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out…by my friends. Everything here is…hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch… This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that…knowing what I’ve lost…
Spike stares at her in horror and confusion. She stands up and walks out into the sunlight. “They can never know. NEVER,” she tells him, and walks away. Fade to black.
You guys, I love this episode. You may well put this down to me being a Spike fangirl, but I adore the fact that the first people Buffy interacts with are Dawn and Spike. They’re the two who were without a specific shoulder to lean on through the grieving process. Dawn’s her blood, the one Buffy sacrificed herself for, the one person who’s lost as much as Buffy has. And Spike is the one person who could understand – literally understand, not just sympathise – with what she had to go through, the one person who would still be counting the days since she died. While throughout much of season 5, Spike’s “love” is more infatuation, this is the episode where we see how much he’s changed, how much he cares, how much she means to him. He’s no longer willing to kill for her. He’s willing to DIE for her. And I love the ending, with Spike once again being there when Buffy has no one else to talk to, just like he was in season 5 when Joyce was sick. Plus, that ending? SO FUCKING PERFECT. I mean, it’s heart-rending. But at the same time, it’s so brilliantly Whedon, showing us that things aren’t always what you think. In short, FEELS.
Sweeney: Yes to all of that. All of the stuff with Dawn was wonderful; I liked that Dawn was the one telling everyone to shut up and back off. I just want to add, re: Buffy’s depression, that SMG did an amazing job in this episode. You really see how far she’s come as an actress from S1 to S6. Her speech to Spike was poetic and wonderfully written and that’s where most of the punch came from because it is totally clear, throughout the episode, that something is completely not right. All the subtle looks when the gang mention her time in hell? Perfection.
Lor: These three episodes together have created what I think is strongest season opener I’ve seen so far. To jump back to what Kirsti was saying, I like Buffy taking solace in Spike and defended by Dawn. These two are significant not only for their roles in Buffy’s life pre-death, but because they were innocent in bringing Buffy back. The other Scoobies are all too occupied with what they’ve done, with what they participated in to be any true consolation for their friend. “Assume crash positions,” Tara says a couple of times, and they do, and what Buffy is truly going through is overlooked.
The revelation that Buffy was in heaven, or some equivalent? Stake straight through the heart, but it was so amazingly built up to. Even going back to those first first she said after being brought back: Is this hell? She was asking, because she had been in such a different place before.
K: And things are only just beginning.
Next time: Buffy has to deal with Real Life Shit, Giles comes back, and we meet the villains of the season. Find out all the details in Buffy the Vampire Slayer S06 E04 – Flooded.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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