Welcome to Rewatching Buffy, the part of the blog where I rewatch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each Tuesday evening, you’re invited to join me as I attempt to rediscover what made me love this show so many years ago.
Grave
- Buff and Anya are excited to see Giles standing in the doorway of the Magic Box.
- Willow mocks him and his borrowed power.
- Giles insists that he’s here to help her.
- His borrowed power is enough to keep her on the floor.
- Buffy tells Willow to listen to Giles because she doesn’t want to fight her anymore.
- Willow agrees.
- She wants to fight him instead.
- Willow brings up the argument that she and Giles had about her abuse of magic to bring Buffy back to life.
- He called her “a rank, arrogant amateur.”
- Her response now: “Buckle up, Rupert. ‘Cause I’ve gone pro.”
- Sidebar: The thing I love about this whole thing is that this is so not Willow.
- She’s still a good person inside there.
- But in becoming the villain of the story, she is so blinded by rage and her lust for power, the person she really is just can’t come to the surface.
- Back to live action… Willow tries to cast a spell, but Giles binds her in some kind of thing that basically immobilizes her.
- This gives Buffy a chance to hug her surrogate father.
- Anya wants in on this action.
- Giles walks up to Willow and offers his condolences regarding Tara.
- Willow just tells him that this won’t hold her forever.
- In the training room, Giles tells Buffy that a coven in England made him aware of an extremely powerful, dark magical force fueled by grief and rage that had risen in Sunnydale.
- They imbued him with their power and he left right away.
- Buffy gives Giles the “Previously on Buffy…” spiel.
- When she gets to, “I’ve been sleeping with Spike,” Giles bursts into laughter.
- Which is kind of how lots of people felt about season six in general.
- You just have to laugh to keep from being so utterly depressed.
- Out in the store, Anya is trying to clean up a little, but Willow interrupts with some telepathy.
- She uses something akin to a Jedi mind trick to get Anya to free her from the binding spell.
- Giles and Buffy’s conversation comes back to the question of why Buffy is back from the dead.
- Then they question what will happen to Willow.
- Giles says that, no matter what, Willow may never be the same, citing the fact that she’s killed a human being.
- But then she comes in, holding an unconscious Anya in front of her.
- “I wouldn’t worry about that. Willow doesn’t live here anymore.”
- Giles magics Willow through a wall.
- Xander and Dawn are still leading the nerds away.
- He complains that he can’t even run away right.
- Dawn says they should go back, but Xander squashes that.
- Then Dawn says, “If Spike were here…”
- Which leads Xander to spill the beans about Spike’s attempted rape and that the only good thing he ever did was finally leave town.
- Meanwhile, Spike is still going through these trials, the latest of which involve a bunch of gnarly looking beetles crawling all over him.
- Willow is still talking a good game as Giles is barely standing up and the Magic Box is falling apart around them.
- He asks her what Tara would think about this, and Willow says he can ask her himself.
- Buffy saves Giles from the killing blow, and Willow complains that Buffy is always saving people.
- Then she creates a fireball that she sends after Jonathan and Andrew, saying it’ll bury them and anyone who’s helping them.
- So Buffy rushes off to save Dawn and Xander.
- Willow keeps toying with Giles, until he finally goads her into draining him of his borrowed magic.
- Now she’s connected to… well… everything.
- She’s feeling all of the pain and sorrow of humanity and she’s ready to make it all stop.
- Time for another apocalypse.
- Willow’s fireball finds the runaways and Buffy gets there just in time to knock them out of the way.
- But Dawn falls into a pit and Buffy falls in right behind her.
- Oh, and the nerds’ swords drop into the pit, too… that’ll be important later.
- The nerds run away when they notice that Xander was knocked unconscious when he was thrown into a tombstone.
- Anya comes to and emerges from the training room and checks on Giles.
- He can see what Willow’s doing.
- And he tells Anya he’s dying.
- “It was the only way… I thought we… There’d be a chance…”
- He tells Anya that Willow is going to end the world.
- Buffy and Dawn try to climb out, but can’t quite get it.
- And Dawn confronts Buffy about her not saying anything about what Spike did.
- Xander wakes up and Buffy tells him to go get a rope.
- But before he takes off, Anya teleports in to inform Buffy about Willow’s plan to kill the world.
- Willow is raising an old Satanic temple on Kingman’s Bluff.
- Anya says her plan is to drain the earth’s energy and channel it into some kind of demonic effigy that will destroy the everything.
- Anya also throws in Giles’ warning that no magic or supernatural force can stop her at this point.
- Buffy yells for Xander to get that rope, but he’s already gone.
- Willow is aware of what Buffy is doing and gives her something to fight in the end.
- “It was me who took you out of the earth. Well, now, the earth wants you back.”
- And she sends some kind of mud/root monsters after Buffy and Dawn.
- An endless supply for Buffy to fight until the world ends.
- That’s nice of Willow, to give Buffy something to do.
- This is where those swords come in handy.
- Willow starts her apocalyptic ritual, sending dark energy into this scary looking statue.
- Then Xander gets to Kingman’s Bluff and steps in the way of her energy transfer.
- She tells him to get out of her way and when he doesn’t, she blasts him.
- Giles wakes up and tells Anya it isn’t over.
- Buffy and Dawn continue fighting and Buffy’s impressed with Dawn’s moves.
- “What? You think I never watched you?”
- Willow starts back up, and Xander gets in the way again.
- “You can’t stop this!”
- But Xander insists that he’s going to be there with her.
- She’s his best friend and if it’s gonna be the end of the world, he wants to spend it with her.
- “Is this your plan, you’re gonna tell me you love me?”
- Yeah… that’s the plan.
- And it works.
- Xander repeating that he loves her pulls Willow out of her darkness until she returns to a place where she can properly grieve the loss of Tara.
- Her hair goes back to red, the mud monsters vanish, and Giles recovers.
- Giles explains to Anya that Xander managed to save the world.
- The magic she stole from Giles tapped into the spark of humanity she had left, which gave Xander the opportunity to reach her.
- In the pit, Buffy begins to cry.
- Dawn doesn’t realize, at first, that it’s happy crying.
- Because Dawn thought for sure that Buffy would have been fine with the world ending.
- Buffy hugs Dawn and apologizes to her for the way things have been.
- Buffy’s ready to embrace life once more.
- Hey, remember Spike?
- Remember those trials he’s been dealing with?
- Yeah… apparently he passed.
- His reward?
- A soul.
- See you next season, kids.
- Body count: Mud Monsters – A bunch?
“I love crayon breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow.”
Gets me every single time!
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