S06.E03: After Life

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; Buffy rediscovers her life and confesses to Spike the truth

The Bad; Not bad but lacks lustre

Best line; Anya (on a books and coffee joint becoming just a coffee joint) "It's like evolution only without the getting better part"

Jeez!; Spike self-harms a recurring theme in the series.

Kinky dinky; Xander says he feels the need for some 'vigorous doing'.

Captain Subtext; Buffy glances at Joyce's picture. Was she with her in heaven? Dawn bathes and dresses Buffy although you wonder how she didn't notice her bloodied knuckles before? Contrast the hug Buffy gives Dawn in 'Bargaining' and the one she gives her at the end here, obviously she's adapting to life again and has rediscovered her love for her sister.

Apocalypses; 6

Scoobies in bondage: Buffy: 8 Giles: 4 Cordy: 5 Will: 3 Jenny: 1 Angel: 4 Oz: 1 Faith: 3 Joyce: 1 Wes: 1 Xander; 1 Dawn; 3

Scoobies knocked out: Anya, Dawn, Xander Buffy: 16 Giles: 10 Cordy: 6 Xander: 9 Will: 5 Jenny: 2 Angel: 6 Oz: 3 Faith: 1 Joyce: 3 Wes: 1 Anya;2 Dawn; 1

Kills: 1 demon for Buffy Buffy: 96 vamps, 36 demons, 6 monsters, 3 humans, 1 werewolf, 1 spirit warrior & a robot Giles: 5 vamps, 2 demon, 1 human, 1 god. Cordy: 3 vamps, a demon Will: 6 vamps + 1 demon +1 fawn. Angel: 3 vamps, 1 demon, 1 human Oz: 3 vamps, 1 zombie Faith: 16 vamps, 5 demons, 3 humans Xander: 5 vamps, 2 zombies, 1 a demon, Anya: 1 vamp and 1 a demon Riley; 18 vamps + 7 demons Spike; 3 vamps and 2 demon Buffybot; 2 vamps Tara; 1 demon

Scoobies go evil: Anya (who is VERY Evil Dead when she's possessed) Dawn, Xander Giles: 1 Cordy: 1 Will: 2 Jenny: 1 Angel: 1 Oz: 1 Joyce: 1 Xander: 4 Anya; 1 Dawn; 1

Alternate scoobies: Buffy: 6 Giles: 3 Cordy: 1 Will: 2 Jenny: 2 Angel: 3 Oz: 2 Joyce: 2 Xander: 3

Recurring characters killed: 10 Jesse, Flutie, Jenny, Kendra, Larry, Snyder, Professor Walsh, Forrest, McNamara, Joyce

Sunnydale deaths; 89;

Total number of scoobies: 6 Xander, Willow, Buffy, Anya, Tara, Spike

Xander demon magnet: 5(6?) Preying Mantis Lady, Inca Mummy Girl, Drusilla, VampWillow, Anya (arguably Buffy & Faith with their demon essences?), Dracula?

Scoobies shot: Giles: 2 Angel: 3 Oz: 4 Riley; 1

Notches on Scooby bedpost: Giles: 2; Joyce & Olivia, possibly Jenny and 3xDraccy babes? Cordy: 1? Buffy: 3 confirmed; Angel, Parker,Riley, 1 possible, Dracula(?) Angel: 1;Buffy Joyce: 1;Giles, 2 possible, Ted and Dracula(?) Oz: 3; Groupie, Willow & Verucca Faith:2 ;Xander, Riley Xander: 2; Faith, Anya Willow: 2;Oz and Tara Riley; 3; Buffy, Sandy and unnamed vampwhore

Spike; good or bad? Spike hints at Darkwillow. His confrontation with Xander is entirely justified. Buffy starts once again to turn to Spike

Questions and observations; According to Dawn Joyce used to say 'Wash your neck or plant potatoes'. Not sure if it's deliberate but Kristine Sutherland is from Idaho 'The Potato State' so maybe this is something she really did say? Here we have Dawn taking care of Buffy to a huge extent, emotionally and physically. Great scene where the rest of the Scoobs are crowding Buffy and Dawn tells them all to back off.

Spike claims to have clawed his way out of a coffin but we see no evidence of this in 'Fool for Love' or

Spoiler

'Lies my parents told me'.

Marks out of 10; 6/10 the season still trying to find it's feet

[Halting Hex]

"They can never know."  

Spoiler

Well, for four episodes anyhow, while the season comes to a complete stall and the divide is used to pit the Spuffy 'shippers against those Dumb Stupid Humans who don't understand Buffy's PAIN!  She was PULLED OUT OF HEEEEEAVEN!! Thank God she has Spike!  He's the only one who's watching her back!

Jane Espenson is a worthless hack who can fuck off and die.  Seriously.

Marks:  1/10, for the cited bookstore/coffee shoppe "evolution" joke.  But one good line does not an episode make.

Okay, Anya nearly hacking herself to death was also pleasant, but I'm told I'm supposed to be horrified by that.

Amongst the worst of the series, a possible Bottom 5 candidate.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Halting Hex

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎06‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 2:46 AM, Halting Hex said:

"They can never know."  

  Hide contents

Well, for four episodes anyhow, while the season comes to a complete stall and the divide is used to pit the Spuffy 'shippers against those Dumb Stupid Humans who don't understand Buffy's PAIN!  She was PULLED OUT OF HEEEEEAVEN!! Thank God she has Spike!  He's the only one who's watching her back!

Jane Espenson is a worthless hack who can fuck off and die.  Seriously.

Marks:  1/10, for the cited bookstore/coffee shoppe "evolution" joke.  But one good line does not an episode make.

Okay, Anya nearly hacking herself to death was also pleasant, but I'm told I'm supposed to be horrified by that.

Amongst the worst of the series, a possible Bottom 5 candidate.

'Magic' Jane? I agree this is a sort of stalled episode but that actually suits the character of Buffy, she's having trouble adjusting to being back and so are we. She needs someone to confide in and can't go to the scoobs who brought he back and doesn't want to burden Dawn. Spike is the obvious choice because he's NOT her friend. There are worse eps than this by a long chalk although yes, Evil Dead Anya is pretty scary. more so than the other possessed Scoobs, she really sells it.  

[Halting Hex]

Espenson seems to have a condescending view of high-schoolers (from Band Candy to

Spoiler

Storyteller

) and a, er,…rather unique conception of Willow as being a "bad friend" who's "too into her own stuff" to be there for Buffy.  (Band Candy, Gingerbread, Pangs, this episode, etc)  Given as I venerate Willow and adore the "high school as Hell" metaphor, this almost guarantees that her episodes will be less than "magical" for me.  But JMO.

[Melancholy]

12 minutes ago, Halting Hex said:

Espenson seems to have a condescending view of high-schoolers (from Band Candy to

  Reveal hidden contents

Storyteller

) and a, er,…rather unique conception of Willow as being a "bad friend" who's "too into her own stuff" to be there for Buffy.  (Band Candy, Gingerbread, Pangs, this episode, etc)  Given as I venerate Willow and adore the "high school as Hell" metaphor, this almost guarantees that her episodes will be less than "magical" for me.  But JMO.

I don’t think Willow was a bad friend in Band Candy, Gingerbread, Pangs or Life Serial...

[Halting Hex]

In Band Candy, Willow is too involved with her secret romance to help Buffy investigate the candy as quickly as she otherwise could.

In Gingerbread, Willow is too involved with her secret coven to help Buffy discover the demon in a more timely manner.  She ends up being first a red herring and then a hostage because of this.

In Pangs, Willow becomes almost a parody of a political activist.  Buffy even claims Willow is parroting her mother, and Giles claims Willow isn't being level-headed.  (And legions of Xander-fen claim Willow doesn't care about his dying of "the funny syphillis".)

In After Life, Willow (and Tara) are explicitly called out by the "hitch-hiker" demon for doing bad, bad magic and bringing Buffy back when she shouldn't have.  And Willow is seen to be in the driver's seat, both in her conversations with Tara, and when she takes over to defeat the demon.  Meanwhile, Buffy seems repelled because she was pulled out of HEEEEEAVEN "by my friends", and she can't stand to be around them.

And I see that I skipped over Triangle, where Willow is portrayed as a brat and a shoplifter and threat to Xanya's relationship, where Willow screws up a spell and unleashes Olaf on the town, to devastating effect, and yet tries to avoid taking responsibility for her actions.  What a baby!

Now, mind you, I still have sympathy for Willow in all these episodes and will defend her actions.  And even if I didn't, I would argue that Willow's actions were not indicative of her larger character.  But It's clear that Jane Espenson intends the negative characterization that she consistently gives to Willow in her episodes, and sees it as part of Willow's larger "flawed" character.  

And so I have very little interest in Jane, her skill at fan relations aside.  But again, JMO.

[Melancholy]

In Band Candy, Willow just had ONE charged moment with Xander while they were exchanging books. It lasted two seconds. The rest of the time, Willow was incredibly focused on the weeks mystery and even identified Lurconis. Also, it's really hard for me to say that ep was making Willow out like a bad friend when she was so intent on not yelling at Buffy for driving like a maniac and endangering both of their lives and not yelling at Buffy for dragging her out of the house the night before the SATs (even though she was clearly itching to study more) but still trying to wheedle Buffy into making more responsible choices.

In Gingerbread, that whole "coven" scene was Willow making a protection spell for Buffy's birthday. So, she wasn't too busy with the coven to help Buffy. She was using the coven to hep Buffy. She was focused on the mystery of the dead children from the lunch table but the true culprit's colors didn't start to come out until the mothers started laying down the hammer i.e. Willow was grounded and couldn't fully research. She still did her best to research, under lock and key, against her mother's commands. Plus, this is actually one of my favorite eps for B/W friendship and the scene where both of them are on the stake stands out as one of their best scenes together.

I agree that Pangs has an anti-Willow tenor. It mainly bashes Willow as just unreasonable or not good to Xander. I don't think it bashes Willow for her friendship with Buffy because Buffy was just as tunnel-visioned about the holiday meal as Willow was about Native American history. I don't think the ep was saying the holiday meal was a more worthy obsession than the history of Thanksgiving. The girls' head were just in those places, as opposed to ONLY on defeating the Chumash. The anti-Willow tenor still doesn't work though. Full stop, Willow was *right* that Native Americans were brutalized and the wrongs committed against have not been redressed or sufficiently acknowledged by any means. Willow still came out to fight for her living friends where it counted but I give her lots of points for being the only one in touch with history to not handwave or outright celebrate genocide. Willow was still a great friend to Buffy to do the holiday meal (over her justified ideological objections) and help Angel while still arguing with him about the stupid secrecy. The ep had solid B/W scenes of them in the dorm room and investigating the murder of the professor. 

I'll give you Triangle. Although yeah, I don't like a few of the things that Willow does but I'm mostly on her side. I don't think she was shoplifting. I think it's awesome that she was wary of Anya as a possible danger to Xander. And while Willow should have left the Magic Box when Anya wouldn't STFU through the delicate spell, the whole Olaf-thing WAS mostly Anya's fault. Anya's fault for not shutting up when Willow asked her to and Anya's fault in the first place for turning her boyfriend into a troll. 

I mean, all of S6 has some kind of anti-Willow stench. However, Afterlife is actually one of the more reasonable eps. 

[Joe Hellandback]

18 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

Espenson seems to have a condescending view of high-schoolers (from Band Candy to

  Hide contents

Storyteller

) and a, er,…rather unique conception of Willow as being a "bad friend" who's "too into her own stuff" to be there for Buffy.  (Band Candy, Gingerbread, Pangs, this episode, etc)  Given as I venerate Willow and adore the "high school as Hell" metaphor, this almost guarantees that her episodes will be less than "magical" for me.  But JMO.

I actually think the show's depiction of high schoolers is pretty generous! Willow's not a bad friend but as you observe she has her own issues (as does every character).

[lembergwatcher]

Quote

XANDER: Look. You're just covering. Don't tell me you're not happy. Look me in the eyes, and tell me when you saw Buffy alive, that wasn't the happiest moment of your entire existence.

I don't understand why would Xander of all people say something like that to Spike? He does know about the taser, keeping Buffy in chains and the Buffybot, right? Spikey isn't the one who should be told about the joys of Buffy being around. Because to me it all sounds like some sort of encouragement: "Come on, Spikey, Buffy's back. I know you didn't succeed with her back then but now you can try again and maybe this time you'll be able to do it with real Buffy, not just Buffybot". Dunno why those words have to come from the mouth of Xander who is supposed to be soooo jealous when it comes to Buffy and vampires. Happiest moment, my ass.

Spoiler

No wonder Spike continued stalking Buffy and eventually got what he wanted because he could have understood Xander's words as an open invitation to try his luck (I'm not saying those words played any role in Spike's subsequent attempts to get all naked and sweaty with the Slayer, but still...) 

 

[MagnusHex]

Buffy season 6 continues to make me feel miserable about Buffy coming back... and me coming back.

So what's new?

Honestly, if the rest of the season's gonna be a depressing sob fest just so they could whine about doing the one thing they shouldn't have done, it's gonna be a drag. An ironic, self-contradicting drag.

Oh, and there's that horrid scene with Spike coming up in Seeing Red, so there's that to look forward to. Yipee.

Edited March 8, 2021 by MagnusHex

[Halting Hex]

   

On 3/8/2021 at 5:54 AM, MagnusHex said:

Honestly, if the rest of the season's gonna be a depressing sob fest just so they could whine about doing the one thing they shouldn't have done, it's gonna be a drag. An ironic, self-contradicting drag.

Oh, and there's

Spoiler

that horrid scene with Spike coming up in Seeing Red

, so there's that to look forward to. Yipee.

 But, but…Spike is the ONLY ONE who cares about Buffy!  That's the whole point of this episode, don't you know?

(Which of course is why I hate it so, as my review a few posts upthread should tell you.  It's the episode that first made me worried that "my show" was broken and irreversibly doomed, as I've written elsewhere.  The one solace I had to help me endure was that I didn't know what lay ahead;  I don't know how spoiled you are, but I can only imagine how much "fun" it must be to watch

Spoiler

the blossoming Spuffy "relationship"

, knowing what's coming.  Lotsa luck!}

[MagnusHex]

1 hour ago, Halting Hex said:

   

 But, but…Spike is the ONLY ONE who cares about Buffy!  That's the whole point of this episode, don't you know?

(Which of course is why I hate it so, as my review a few posts upthread should tell you.  It's the episode that first made me worried that "my show" was broken and irreversibly doomed, as I've written elsewhere.  The one solace I had to help me endure was that I didn't know what lay ahead;  I don't know how spoiled you are, but I can only imagine how much "fun" it must be to watch

  Reveal spoiler

the blossoming Spuffy "relationship"

, knowing what's coming.  Lotsa luck!}

I'm pretty spoiled on a couple of important details, but not nearly enough to make me lose interest. lol

Spoiler

Never really a fan of Spuffy, but it's not a shipping I hate either. It's more like indifference than hate. I prefer the more sappy Shakespearian tragedy of Bangel. lol

I don't know if Seeing Red will deteriorate my impression of Spuffy (even though I already know what's coming), but so far, prior to that episode, I don't really have anything against Spike, and James Marsters is great in the role. I guess I was never really the kind of guy who bought into the whole "liking the bad boy" kind of romance, even when I was in school back then.

 

[Halting Hex]

Quote

BUFFY: Blah blah blah, safe and warm blah blah, and I was finished

(Not an accurate quote, but surely you don't expect to check the transcripts for this festering pile, right?)

So, why is Buffy experiencing an afterlife here that she didn't during Prophecy Girl?  What, does it take a certain about of time for the soul to travel to the Great Beyond?  Are the trains to 

Spoiler

Heaaaaaaaaaaaven

delayed?

I mean, the Slayer Power was able to realize "Yup, she dead" and zip over to Jamaica and zotz Kendra quickly enough; it seems a bit strange that Buffy's own soul would take longer to reach its mystical destination than a random aspect of it.

As "Why is this death different from Buffy's previous death?" explanations go, not exactly a lot on offer.

[lembergwatcher]

On 10/16/2023 at 9:06 AM, Halting Hex said:

As "Why is this death different from Buffy's previous death?" explanations go, not exactly a lot on offer.

Buffy's deaths are different because they've happened in different seasons. And the later seasons turned out to be the deconstruction of the early ones in many ways. Besides, it's Dawnverse now so anything is possible and any explanation makes sense.

[Halting Hex]

Whilst I remain more than willing to attribute any or all of the final 66 episodes to blatant Monkfuckery, I do wonder why the Monks went to all the trouble of rewiring Buffy's brain so that she was in "MUST PROTECT DAWNIE!"  mode to the point of leaping off of towers based on nothing but "Summers blood = Key" illogic…

…yet are allowing Buffy to pout and gloom at the prospect being reuniited with Precious Dawnie, a mere 147 days down the road.  Either Buffy was in a Monk Zone that defied the rules of her previous death (but then she should be all "oh, Dawn, I'm so glad to be back! I missed you so much!") or her death cancelled the previous Monkalicious programming and she is now allowed to value other things beyond Dawn's Shiny Shiny Hair™.

But then we wonder why the two deaths are not the same, if there was no Monastic Interference in the Beyond.  Hmmm.

[lembergwatcher]

Buffyverse has its own laws and logic the we are not supposed to understand.

 

Quote

I do wonder why the Monks went to all the trouble of rewiring Buffy's brain so that she was in "MUST PROTECT DAWNIE!"  mode to the point of leaping off of towers based on nothing but "Summers blood = Key" illogic…

…yet are allowing Buffy to pout and gloom at the prospect being reuniited with Precious Dawnie, a mere 147 days down the road.

And like I said many times before that's the thing about the series as a whole. Every new season rebuts the previous season one way or another. 
Wondering why Buffy was ready to give her life for Dawn only to

Spoiler

pout and ignore her throughout the next season

is like wondering why Willow's wiccanism went from being synonimous with homosexualitty

Spoiler

to ending up as an equivalent of drug addiction.

Why? I guess only Joss knows why.

Edited October 20, 2023 by lembergwatcher