S05.E22: The Gift

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; The final battle especially the bait and switch with the Buffybot and the Dawn/Buffy scene at the end. Also like the way Buffy casually announces to the gang she killed a vampire and they treat it like no big deal. Love the Scooby strategising session and Anya's gameshow hostess introduction of the troll hammer. Best ever Minion toadying 'Oh groovetastic one' and 'Oh sweaty naughty feelings causing one'.

The Bad; Doesn't anyone notice Glory's tower? Since when was Olaf a troll 'god'? Some of the minion makeup doesn't look so good, one rather looks like Michael Myers from the Halloween series. WHY NO COMMENTARY? Especially as this could have been the last ever Buffy ep.

Best line; Minion 1; "This shall be our day of Glory!" Minion 2; "Nicely put!" Minion 1; "Well it just cried out to me!" (takes crossbow bolt in the chest) "Ugh!"

Jeez!; How heartrending is it when Dawn folds her clothes up before she is to be sacrificed, like Joyce taught her? Just as Buffy wishes that Joyce was still there.

Kinky dinky;

Xander and Anya have a world in peril quickie. Then he proposes. Anya and Xander call each other pervert.

Captain Subtext; Tara's back, hooray! "I got so lost". So you can restore Glory's brainsucking. She also tells Giles 'You're a killer' before he kills Ben. Dawn asks Ben to turn into Glory as she prefers her, Glory refers to Buffy as sweetcheeks. Xander observes 'Smart chicks are so hot'. "You couldn't have figured that out in 10th grade?" asks Willow ruefully (another mark in the bi column). Xander however doubts that Willow thinks of Buffy like that but what does he know, he never noticed Tara and Willow and Spike did. Spike quotes Henry V, William the Bloody sensitive poet still in there somewhere.

Guantanamo Bay; Giles kills Ben/Glory. The right thing to do but still ruthless as hell. Would Xander have done it if Giles hadn't? It's him who comes up with the idea in the first place. Giles proposes killing Dawn. Too much to ask of Buffy but there are millions of Dawns all over the world, sacrifice one to save them all? Buffy tells Giles that if Dawn dies the council can get someone else (Faith?). But could she ever walk away from all those other Dawns?

Scoobies to the ER; All pretty banged up, I heard a rumour that season 6 would see Anya in a wheelchair but it never happened.

Buffy and Dawn more than sisters? Buffy once again hints that the connection between her and Dawn is deeper than just sisters, she describes it as physical and says that she is closer to Dawn than anyone (as the final scene with the Summers' blood will prove).

Questions and observations; Lovely recap of past 100 eps, especially nice to have Cordy and Angel. The vamp in the alley goes 'Oh god'? I know it's weird but I always rather liked Glory's minions. Very clever that when we see the Buffybot it's wearing the clothes we've last seen Buffy in. SMG puts on her white jumper which later turns up in 'The Grudge'. The creatures from the transformed city hall rather resemble the bugs from Aliens especially the Alien Hybrid from Alien 4 which Joss wrote.

So what happens to the people Glory brainsucked? We know that there is a link between Glory and them, when Glory dies do they return to normal? (I remember reading one very inventive fic where Faith had been brainsucked by Glory and in the follow-up story DarkWillow cures her by

Spoiler

brainsucking Warren before she kills him and giving Faith his mental energy.

But you figure if Faith can recover from her coma Slayer healing would easily take care of it?) Spike says blood is life which is what possessed Xander says in Buffy vs Dracula. Please note all Dawn-haters, Dawn was quite willing to commit suicide to save the world. And if Buffy's blood hadn't worked she'd have followed her off the tower, Faith would be the Slayer and the Summers girls would all be together in heaven.

A lot of people wanted Buffy to end at this point but I don't, I don't want Buffy to die young like all the other Slayers, I want her to live a long and happy life and I don't want poor Dawn to lose the mother and sister she loves within 6 weeks of each other. But still, stonking ep, if it had ended like this it would have been OK with me.

Marks out of 10; 10/10 for the girl who saved the world a lot (and still does

[lembergwatcher]

After watching The Gift for the very first time my initial reaction was like this.

 

Well, who can blame me? There's a stereotype that any episode Joss wrote and directed is some kind of masterpiece or divine revelation. Nowhere near in this case unfortunately. In fact it gets pretty annoying when Team Whedon decided to emphasize on cheap dramatic effect, rather than some resemblance of plot consistency. Sad, sad, sad.
 

2 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Xander and Anya have a world in peril quickie. Then he proposes. Anya and Xander call each other pervert.

Words can't describe how I hate Xanya. Actually I would give said ep higher score if the whole X/A scene was deleted. I can totally accept X/A as some sort of joke, comic relief or momentary lapse of reason from Xander's side.  But to take the whole thing that serious?.. No decent woman for Xander on the entire West Coast?? Joss, why did you hate Xander so much?.. "Miraculous love"? No way. No fucking way!

 

One of the reasons I dislike The Gift.

Spoiler

And one of the main reasons I dislike seasons 6 and 7 even more.

Sigh.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Quote

GILES: If the ritual starts, then every living creature in this and every other dimension imaginable will suffer unbearable torment and death ...including Dawn.
BUFFY: Then the last thing she'll see is me protecting her.

 

Quote

BUFFY: Everybody knows their jobs. Remember, the ritual starts, we all die. And I'll kill anyone who comes near Dawn.

Sorry Buffy, you are dead to me after those lines. Oh, you actually died and I am supposed to be sad? Good one, Joss.

Also, the Summers blood "loophole" is such a blatant logical fallacy that it makes other convenient developments in the show look minuscule. Buffy, even if Dawn were made of you (which you have no way of knowing) this wouldn't make a Key!

So yeah, Joss tried to top Becoming but forgot to do his homework. Fail.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Jack Shaftoe

[Loandbehold]

2 hours ago, nosleepforme said:

Ben never really popped as a character, sadly. Too bad that nothing ever comes out of Giles having killed him. Along with Buffy being blamed for Kendra's murder and searched by the place, that's one of the major plot points that they sadly chose not to revisit.

So much this.

Spoiler

There being no mention of Giles murdering a human throughout the rest of the series bothers me more than anything else. I realize nobody else saw him do it, but I would have appreciated one scene in season 6 where Giles reflects on what he's done. Hell, it could have even served as one of the reasons that he felt he had to leave Sunndydale.

Even though I liked the final two seasons, The Gift would have made a nice poetic ending for the series. Sad, yet happy at the same time.

[Halting Hex]

Contemporary  review by TWoP's SNeaker:  

Quote

Very pretty crap.

[Joe Hellandback]

15 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Contemporary  review by TWoP's SNeaker:  

Whoever posted that should be locked up as a danger to themselves and others. 

21 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

After watching The Gift for the very first time my initial reaction was like this.

 

Well, who can blame me? There's a stereotype that any episode Joss wrote and directed is some kind of masterpiece or divine revelation. Nowhere near in this case unfortunately. In fact it gets pretty annoying when Team Whedon decided to emphasize on cheap dramatic effect, rather than some resemblance of plot consistency. Sad, sad, sad.
 

Words can't describe how I hate Xanya. Actually I would give said ep higher score if the whole X/A scene was deleted. I can totally accept X/A as some sort of joke, comic relief or momentary lapse of reason from Xander's side.  But to take the whole thing that serious?.. No decent woman for Xander on the entire West Coast?? Joss, why did you hate Xander so much?.. "Miraculous love"? No way. No fucking way!

 

One of the reasons I dislike The Gift.

  Reveal hidden contents

And one of the main reasons I dislike seasons 6 and 7 even more.

Sigh.

It's not that they're aren't other girls for Xander, it's that Anya is special, the girl for him as I think we see in 

Spoiler

Storyteller. 

[Joe Hellandback]

20 hours ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

 

Sorry Buffy, you are dead to me after those lines. Oh, you actually died and I am supposed to be sad? Good one, Joss.

Also, the Summers blood "loophole" is such a blatant logical fallacy that it makes other convenient developments in the show look minuscule. Buffy, even if Dawn were made of you (which you have no way of knowing) this wouldn't make a Key!

So yeah, Joss tried to top Becoming but forgot to do his homework. Fail.

No, I buy the whole Summer's blood idea, we're talking about the mystical here and it was a clever way out of the corner he'd painted himself into.  

[Joe Hellandback]

19 hours ago, nosleepforme said:

No finale in Buffy was ever as well done as Becoming and Graduation Day, however I think The Gift wraps up the Glory storyline in a far more satisfying way than the initiative arc was finished up in Primeval, where the whole fight between Adam and Superbuffy borders on ridiculous. 

 

So, what I like about this finale in particular is the tension throughout and the return of Christophe Beck as a composer, who is far superior to all the other composers on the show. One of my particular favorites from the finale is "THE CONSTRUCTION", a mix of the Buffy/Angel love theme and Sacrifice, which plays in the scene that Buffy and Giles share in the Magic Box. But I do also love the short "Willow/Tara love theme", when Tara gets her mind back, sadly it is not repeated in Wander's score later in the series. And of course, Sacrifice is a beautiful piece of music.

 

Favorite moments, other than Buffy's sacrifice include Buffy's "That's what I keep saying" as well as Glory's "what do you want to hit me with now." Cue Xander. Whoever argues Xander was not useful in the later seasons of the show is obviously wrong.

 

The whole Blood Sisters loop hole, I honestly just run with it, it makes a certain sense to me, even if I don't quite understand how the hell the monks made her out of Buffy. Did they kidnap her before they created Dawn and drained her blood? But honestly, the moment where Buffy jumps and sacrifices herself for her little sister is just so moving and touching, and surprising that I tend to just run with it. I also like that Dawn continues to be a part of the show, because if she had just been killed or disappeared after getting so much focus, it would have been really anticlimactic. Though I wish they had given her better material in S6.

 

Ben never really popped as a character, sadly. Too bad that nothing ever comes out of Giles having killed him. Along with Buffy being blamed for Kendra's murder and searched by the police, that's one of the major plot points that they sadly chose not to revisit.

 

Yeah, honestly, despite its flaws, I think Chosen is a better series finale, because it feels more outright nostalgic, more on that maybe later. The Gift certainly works as a series finale, but it would be kind of downer to go out on and I think there was still plenty of story to tell. I know plenty of people hate S6 and S7 and neither of those seasons is my favorite, but they still did some incredible stuff in those years and I think the last two years are still kind of crucial for Buffy's and Willow's series-long arcs.

I was recently on the Glee board discussing where they should have ended it and it was almost universally accepted that it should have been at the end of 3 where the series hit its' peak. By contrast whilst Buffy peaks at the end of three the remaining seasons were still better than 99% of everything else on TV.  I felt sorry for Ben but I'd have done what Giles did in his place. 

16 hours ago, Loandbehold said:

So much this.

  Hide contents

There being no mention of Giles murdering a human throughout the rest of the series bothers me more than anything else. I realize nobody else saw him do it, but I would have appreciated one scene in season 6 where Giles reflects on what he's done. Hell, it could have even served as one of the reasons that he felt he had to leave Sunndydale.

Even though I liked the final two seasons, The Gift would have made a nice poetic ending for the series. Sad, yet happy at the same time.

Spoiler

We don't actually know if any of the other Scoobs knew? It would be an interesting storyline in the comics if some spell gone wrong made everyone confess they're darkest secrets, Giles killing Ben, Xander's lie about Angel, Willow confessing she cheated with...

[Halting Hex]

On 10/3/2018 at 5:19 AM, Joe Hellandback said:

Whoever posted that should be locked up as a danger to themselves and others. 

A brilliant girl, not only for her pithy dismissal of this shit, but her being able to call it in advance, in her review of The Weight of The World.  IIRC, it went something like this: 

Quote

Spoiler

A Buffy death and resurrection will be the series's ultimate shark-jump, because there goes Joss's whole "Death is scary and it's real" riff.

Therefore, I believe that's exactly what is going to happen.

 

 

On 10/2/2018 at 10:14 AM, nosleepforme said:

Whoever argues Xander was not useful in the later seasons of the show is obviously wrong.

Yeah, that X-Ray vision of his saved the group a bunch of other times, too!  That's why they called him

Spoiler

"The One Who Sees"

, you know!

Oh, wait…that's not at all what happened.  Never mind.

On 10/2/2018 at 9:00 AM, Jack Shaftoe said:

GILES: If the ritual starts, then every living creature in this and every other dimension imaginable will suffer unbearable torment and death ...including Dawn.
BUFFY: Then the last thing she'll see is me protecting Spike.

One of the best "Lines You'll Never Hear on Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ever.  (No, not my work.  I self-cite sometimes, but not here.)  It's the near-realism that sells it, you see.

Let's not forget the "brilliance" of Buffybot's battle against Glory.  First she affects Glory by using the Dagon Sphere (one of the "random plot points pulled out of Anya's ass" in that laughable "strategy" scene early on) against her, then she throws Glory the Glory-fighting weapon, so Glory can crush it!  Wow, that's dumb on a level beyond dumb, isn't it?

Meanwhile, what is Buffy doing while this is going on?  Sneak-attacking Glory to take advantage of her confusion?  Double-teaming her to keep the pressure on?  I don't know, how about RESCUING DAWN??  

Nah, none of that; Buffy is apparently busy making popcorn or doing her nails or checking her email or whatever.  The key thing (heh) is that Joss is busy setting up his "did everybody know the Slayer was a robot?" joke, yet another cheap-cheap-cheap-ass "trick the audience" moment, so he didn't bother to have Buffy act in any way, shape or form like a hero whose baby sister was in mortal danger.  Hell, at this point, fucking Anya was doing more in terms of heroics than Buffy was.

High points:  Spike offering Willow "courage" in the flask.  And the W/T moments would be okay

Spoiler

if I didn't know what they're supposed to be setting up for next season

.  Just as "I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man" might get points if the whole idea of the 'ship didn't make me want to projectile vomit.  But it does, so no points awarded, after all.

Marks:  2/10.  Because it is, indeed, very pretty crap.  But you can only polish a turd so well, after all.

PS-I'm also repulsed by the very concept of the Ben-smothering, that because Buffy is "a hero", she's incapable of Making the Hard Choices.  I know what Angel would say about that: "Ouch!"

Instead, Joss explicitly writes Buffy to be less mature, less capable, and less heroic at age 20 than she was at 17, just so Giles can get an unearned moment of "cool" in her place.  Fuck you, Joss.

God, I really hate this episode. 

Spoiler

And just think, what's to come…

Edited October 7, 2018 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎07‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 4:26 AM, Halting Hex said:

A brilliant girl, not only for her pithy dismissal of this shit, but her being able to call it in advance, in her review of The Weight of The World.  IIRC, it went something like this: 

 

Yeah, that X-Ray vision of his saved the group a bunch of other times, too!  That's why they called him

  Reveal hidden contents

"The One Who Sees"

, you know!

Oh, wait…that's not at all what happened.  Never mind.

One of the best "Lines You'll Never Hear on Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ever.  (No, not my work.  I self-cite sometimes, but not here.)  It's the near-realism that sells it, you see.

Let's not forget the "brilliance" of Buffybot's battle against Glory.  First she affects Glory by using the Dagon Sphere (one of the "random plot points pulled out of Anya's ass" in that laughable "strategy" scene early on) against her, then she throws Glory the Glory-fighting weapon, so Glory can crush it!  Wow, that's dumb on a level beyond dumb, isn't it?

Meanwhile, what is Buffy doing while this is going on?  Sneak-attacking Glory to take advantage of her confusion?  Double-teaming her to keep the pressure on?  I don't know, how about RESCUING DAWN??  

Nah, none of that; Buffy is apparently busy making popcorn or doing her nails or checking her email or whatever.  The key thing (heh) is that Joss is busy setting up his "did everybody know the Slayer was a robot?" joke, yet another cheap-cheap-cheap-ass "trick the audience" moment, so he didn't bother to have Buffy act in any way, shape or form like a hero whose baby sister was in mortal danger.  Hell, at this point, fucking Anya was doing more in terms of heroics than Buffy was.

High points:  Spike offering Willow "courage" in the flask.  And the W/T moments would be okay

  Reveal hidden contents

if I didn't know what they're supposed to be setting up for next season

.  Just as "I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man" might get points if the whole idea of the 'ship didn't make me want to projectile vomit.  But it does, so no points awarded, after all.

Marks:  2/10.  Because it is, indeed, very pretty crap.  But you can only polish a turd so well, after all.

PS-I'm also repulsed by the very concept of the Ben-smothering, that because Buffy is "a hero", she's incapable of Making the Hard Choices.  I know what Angel would say about that: "Ouch!"

Instead, Joss explicitly writes Buffy to be less mature, less capable, and less heroic at age 20 than she was at 17, just so Giles can get an unearned moment of "cool" in her place.  Fuck you, Joss.

God, I really hate this episode. 

  Reveal hidden contents

And just think, what's to come…

I would agree with you EXCEPT Buffy's resurrection isn't just simple thing, Willow didn't just cast a spell and there she was, we had to pay for it. Making the globe physically touch Glory weakened her all the more although I'm not sure why she caught it? Giles killed Ben to spare Buffy or the others from having to do it, he's still the adult (although Xander is obviously getting there to judge by his suggestion?) One assumes Buffy was using the diversion of the Buffybot to sneak in the back way. 

[Halting Hex]

4 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

One assumes Buffy was using the diversion of the Buffybot to sneak in the back way. 

Given that Buffy ends up in the same place as Botty, only later, and Botty had no difficulty getting there, what benefit was there to "sneak[ing] in the back way", exactly?  Just wondering.

[Joe Hellandback]

18 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Given that Buffy ends up in the same place as Botty, only later, and Botty had no difficulty getting there, what benefit was there to "sneak[ing] in the back way", exactly?  Just wondering.

Perhaps she was taking out some of Glory's minions? Also just letting Glory exhaust herself? 

[Halting Hex]

I hope you warmed up before you did all that reaching.  Wouldn't want you to strain a muscle ;)

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎09‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:32 PM, Halting Hex said:

I hope you warmed up before you did all that reaching.  Wouldn't want you to strain a muscle ;)

You should hear my 'Elizabeth' from The Fog is actually Laurie Strode idea!

[lembergwatcher]

I love it how Joss the Writing Genius starts stealing from himself due to his own infinite wisdom. Because Xanya sex in the Magic Box's basement looks like a freaky carbon copy of Willoz pre-graduation ceremony coitus in Oz's minivan forty five eps earlier. I guess what we've got here is either lack of ideas or another way of torturing the small group of Xillow shippers by showing the similarity of W/X behavioral patterns in dealing with life-threatening situations (turning to sex in the face of possible death)

Spoiler

 - just the way both did 40-plus-something episodes later, in Touched.

Apparently Joss likes to tease Xillow fans with giving one more proof of the Witch and the Carpenter being just the opposite sides of the same coin. But JMO, of course...

And yeah, I'm glad Tara is healed. But what about other Sunnydale residents brain-sucked by Glory? Does it mean that hellgod's demise cured them all as well?

Edited January 24, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

On 1/23/2019 at 8:23 PM, lembergwatcher said:

torturing the small group of Xillow shippers by showing the similarity of W/X behavioral patterns in dealing with life-threatening situations (turning to sex in the face of possible death)

Hey, this was Xillow's idea in the first place!  Remember Lovers Walk?  "Exception for impending-death situation"?  Not W/X's fault that Cordelia wasn't around to barge in on later iterations, too.  A girl can only take so much rebar through the gut, after all.

On the "at least he's starting to wonder" front, this time Xander manages to somewhat contemplate the possibility of Willow keeping Buffybot around for "wanting-to-date-Buffy" purposes.  Back in Prophecy Girl, all he could manage about the idea of Wiffy was "or if [Willow] is, she's playing it awfully close to her chest."

As Willow herself says, "you couldn't have figured that out in 10th grade?"  Give him time, Will; he's teachable.  Honest.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Halting Hex

[Halting Hex]

As I don't watch this one that often, I had somehow missed that Buffy's quest to save her sister concludes at (and is symbolized by) sunrise.  In other words, "dawn". 

In the words of a certain "formerly evil and currently annoying" Bleached Ham, way back when, "this is just…neat."  Well done, Whedon.

[MagnusHex]

"A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It's a privilege to be among them."

There's a lot of mixed feelings on this finale, not least because of how Glory has been benched this entire season save a few episodes here and there and the final stretch of the season. And yet, it still grabs me in a similar way that Lie to Me grabbed me in season 2, where the final moments of the episode calls back to the overarching theme of the series, except in this case, Buffy's final words here resonate more with overarching theme of the season. "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it," said Buffy to Dawn, urging her not to give up in the face of many hurdles in life that's to come, to cherish the gift Buffy has granted her: life, and all its joys and pains.

Buffy has endured a lot over five seasons. It all felt like it was inevitably building up to this epiphany. Even the "Previously on..." montage confirms the build-up, reflecting on everything Buffy has been through for five years. While I still think it's a clumsily-written season finale compared to the likes of Becoming and Graduation which had been fleshed out over the course of their respective seasons (instead of the last three to four episodes), I feel like it's still quite a strong contender for would-be series finales (I also heard that Chosen is a weaker series finale compared to this). The girl who just wants a normal life ("You're just a girl." "That's what I keep saying.") constantly has her happiness deprived from her in one form or other, sometimes because of her role as a Slayer, but other times it feels like life's cruelty at play (Buffy's mum). Yet, the ending here feels like Buffy embracing all that cursed fate to do the right thing regardless. It feels like the natural growth for Buffy ever since she stopped running away in Anne (season 3), accepting being a Slayer as a part of her identity in Restless (season 4), and eventually coming to terms this episode with her responsibility to protect her loved ones, even if it means her own death.

In that sense, I disagree with the whole "death wish" notion because it not only oversimplifies what Buffy feels about dying for the greater good of the people, it implies that Buffy wants to die because of all the despair she has endured. "Tell Giles I've figured it out... and I'm okay." That doesn't sound like someone who's giving up because of all the pressure; that sounds like someone accepting the end in peace and tranquility. It's a complex mix of free will and determinism, almost as if Buffy believes she has that free will, and she drives it to fulfill her destiny of sacrifice...

Spoiler

...at least until season 6 anyway. If it were not for the next two seasons, this message would've been a lot more powerful in hindsight.

But frankly, I've not that peeved by the continuation because could you imagine how anticlimactic it would be if the series did end here? Sure, we've had a great message about making lemonades out of the lemons life gives you, but there was no reflection whatsoever on any of the Scoobies' feelings about Buffy's death. How would that work as a satisfying payoff? It wouldn't. Granted, they would've added those details in the last few minutes of the episode had Whedon really intended for the series to end here. I'm just saying, a lot of folks said that "this should be where it ends," - including myself not 30 minutes ago - but should it really? How would it work? Should they pull a Dark Knight Rises where Spike and the others just stand around Buffy's grave as Giles recite some Charles Dickens? It's hard to imagine.

So as I said, mixed feelings. On the one hand, I could see why it would serve as the ideal ending. But practically speaking, it might not work as well. We won't know what happens to Spike (unless he pops on over to Angel S3); we won't know what that magic addiction subplot of Willow's really means. We won't know diddly-squat.

I'll tell you what we would know if the series did end here though, that the series has come a long way from a teenage girl that kills monsters. Spike of all people, the evil demonic vampire, breaks down in tears over the Slayer's death. That's how far we've come.

 

Edited October 8, 2020 by MagnusHex

[Joe Hellandback]

1 hour ago, MagnusHex said:

"A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It's a privilege to be among them."

There's a lot of mixed feelings on this finale, not least because of how Glory has been benched this entire season save a few episodes here and there and the final stretch of the season. And yet, it still grabs me in a similar way that Lie to Me grabbed me in season 2, where the final moments of the episode calls back to the overarching theme of the series, except in this case, Buffy's final words here resonate more with overarching theme of the season. "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it," said Buffy to Dawn, urging her not to give up in the face of many hurdles in life that's to come, to cherish the gift Buffy has granted her: life, and all its joys and pains.

Buffy has endured a lot over five seasons. It all felt like it was inevitably building up to this epiphany. Even the "Previously on..." montage confirms the build-up, reflecting on everything Buffy has been through for five years. While I still think it's a clumsily-written season finale compared to the likes of Becoming and Graduation which had been fleshed out over the course of their respective seasons (instead of the last three to four episodes), I feel like it's still quite a strong contender for would-be series finales (I also heard that Chosen is a weaker series finale compared to this). The girl who just wants a normal life ("You're just a girl." "That's what I keep saying.") constantly has her happiness deprived from her in one form or other, sometimes because of her role as a Slayer, but other times it feels like life's cruelty at play (Joyce's mum). Yet, the ending here feels like Buffy embracing all that cursed fate to do the right thing regardless. It feels like the natural growth for Buffy ever since she stopped running away in Anne (season 3), accepting being a Slayer as a part of her identity in Restless (season 4), and eventually coming to terms this episode with her responsibility to protect her loved ones, even if it means her own death.

In that sense, I disagree with the whole "death wish" notion because it not only oversimplifies what Buffy feels about dying for the greater good of the people, it implies that Buffy wants to die because of all the despair she has endured. "Tell Giles I've figured it out... and I'm okay." That doesn't sound like someone who's giving up because of all the pressure; that sounds like someone accepting the end in peace and tranquility. It's a complex mix of free will and determinism, almost as if Buffy believes she has that free will, and she drives it to fulfill her destiny of sacrifice...

  Hide contents

...at least until season 6 anyway. If it were not for the next two seasons, this message would've been a lot more powerful in hindsight.

But frankly, I've not that peeved by the continuation because could you imagine how anticlimactic it would be if the series did end here? Sure, we've had a great message about making lemonades out of the lemons life gives you, but there was no reflection whatsoever on any of the Scoobies' feelings about Buffy's death. How would that work as a satisfying payoff? It wouldn't. Granted, they would've added those details in the last few minutes of the episode had Whedon really intended for the series to end here. I'm just saying, a lot of folks said that "this should be where it ends," - including myself not 30 minutes ago - but should it really? How would it work? Should they pull a Dark Knight Rises where Spike and the others just stand around Buffy's grave as Giles recite some Charles Dickens? It's hard to imagine.

So as I said, mixed feelings. On the one hand, I could see why it would serve as the ideal ending. But practically speaking, it might not work as well. We won't know what happens to Spike (unless he pops on over to Angel S3); we won't know what that magic addiction subplot of Willow's really means. We won't know diddly-squat.

I'll tell you what we would know if the series did end here though, that the series has come a long way from a teenage girl that kills monsters. Spike of all people, the evil demonic vampire, breaks down in tears over the Slayer's death. That's how far we've come.

 

I know many have that problem but no, I think the sacrifice motif still works, arguably tougher for Buffy to come back with everything she then has to put up with. 

[Halting Hex]

On 10/7/2020 at 9:01 PM, MagnusHex said:

I also heard that Chosen is a weaker series finale compared to this

"Heard", meaning that this is as far as you've seen?  Oh, pleeeease!  Unspoiled reactions are deeply sought after here!

("Yeah, the hype was out of control." —Riley to Giles, re Willow, No Place Like Home.  But still.)

[MagnusHex]

9 minutes ago, Halting Hex said:

"Heard", meaning that this is as far as you've seen?  Oh, pleeeease!  Unspoiled reactions are deeply sought after here!

Yeah, I've only seen up 'till season 5 so far. Like I said in my introductory post, I'm watching five '90s series. Having just seen season 5 of The X-Files recently, I'm now done with Buffy S5, and now I'm moving onto The Simpsons S6. Buffy S6 (along with Angel S3) would have to wait a little while in the rotation. 😆

I'll be sure to post lots of reactions though once I get around to it. 🙂

Edited October 9, 2020 by MagnusHex

[Joe Hellandback]

2 hours ago, MagnusHex said:

Yeah, I've only seen up 'till season 5 so far. Like I said in my introductory post, I'm watching five '90s series. Having just seen season 5 of The X-Files recently, I'm now done with Buffy S5, and now I'm moving onto The Simpsons S6. Buffy S6 (along with Angel S3) would have to wait a little while in the rotation. 😆

I'll be sure to post lots of reactions though once I get around to it. 🙂

BRILLIANT! Let us know what you think of each ep as you go!