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Buffy the Vampire Slayer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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s the self-proclaimed Scooby Gang continues its bumpy passage into adulthood, Buffy (Gellar) returns to high school, this time so she can work as a guidance counselor under mysterious new principal Robin Wood (D.B. Woodside). Willow (Hannigan) is with Giles (Head) in England, recovering from the grief-induced madness that led her to try to destroy the world. Spike (Marsden), who has recovered his soul, is hiding in the high-school basement, tormented by presences only he can see. Anya, (Emma Caulfield)—embittered by her breakup with Xander (Brendon), has reclaimed her prior role as a vengeance demon, and is looking for an excuse, any excuse, to unleash her powers on the man who left her at the altar.
In a sequence from an early episode, which in editing style and soundtrack music is easy to peg as a winking parody of that year's new show, Alias, a punked-out teenage girl is chased and then killed by mysterious assassins. Further developments establish that she's not alone: A mysterious worldwide conspiracy is targeting other girls the same age, all of whom turn out to be Potential Slayers. The terrified survivors start making their way to Sunnydale, where they join Buffy and the Gang in a house soon to become as crowded as any other refugee camp.
The season's Big Bad makes itself known in an episode called "Conversations With the Dead," in which the various cast members are confronted by deceased figures from their pasts. Dawn meets her dead mom, who warns that Buffy is going to betray her. Willow's ghostly visitor urges her toward suicide. Buffy is psychoanalyzed by a vampire whose human incarnation she had known in high school, who delivers some distressing news involving Spike.
Things go from bad to worse. The menace is revealed as The First, an ancient disembodied evil capable of attacking the Scoobies from within. The Council is destroyed by an explosion. In England, an ax-wielding assassin assaults Giles from behind. The enemy raises an Ubervamp, many times more powerful than any vampire Buffy has ever battled before and capable of shrugging off her strongest blows without effect. Killing it may be impossible even for her. Buffy finds herself succumbing to fear.
Principal Wood, who may be an ally in the war against the vampires, holds a dangerous grudge against Spike. And rogue slayer Faith (Dushku) is back.
As the citizens of Sunnydale flee town en masse, it all comes down to a final battle under the halls of Sunnydale High School, and a radical modification in the spell that created Slayers in the first place. But there's another Hellmouth in Cleveland. ...
The last stand of the Slayers
It's easy to quibble with elements in this, the final season of Joss Whedon's comic-horror vampire drama. For instance, there's the matter of the Ubervamp. The first one happens to be one of the most frightening creatures in the entire history of the show. He knocks Buffy around for episodes on end, driving her to the edge of despair before she finally figures out how to take him down in a hard-fought and deeply satisfying confrontation. But by season's end, when there are other Ubervamps running around, they don't seem any more formidable than the show's everyday, ordinary vampires. It's as if the first guy uses up all of his breed's special toughness, leaving less charged batteries for the hapless Ubervamps who come after him.
Then there's the nature of The First, an unseen presence so omnipotent, so powerful next to Buffy and her friends that defeating it means first changing the magical status quo that has defined this universe since the movie that spawned the series. The rule change makes for an exciting finale, and well serves the series theme of female empowerment, but, you know ... as storytelling, it's still a ripe deus ex machina, exacerbated by the need to introduce not just one but two Objects of Power in addition to the last-minute spell. Good guys not powerful enough? Fine, mutter some incantations that amount to an extra-large serving of the spinach Popeye used to eat. It works quite well as staged, but it still feels like the clumsy last-minute innovation of a creator who's written himself into a corner.
Finally, there's the price of victory. This season is the apocalyptic series finale, which means that nobody's safe; anybody could die. (Indeed, that's one major reason why Buffy's small band is here allowed to become a small army: so there can be more possible casualties.) Alas, the main character has not only died twice, but sung songs about dying twice ... which means that if she goes, it's not only a colossal bummer, but also old news. One season regular loses an eye along the way, but he shrugs off the trauma without much drama. The impact of the death of another series regular is muted by the common knowledge that he will be returning in another venue. Yet another last-episode death comes in the midst of battle and seems insufficiently noted.
These are all quibbles, as the season is, by and large, a strong one. The freestanding episodes, bunched at the onset, are well done, and the arc episodes are addictive. The most fiendish element may be the outcome of a midseason attack on Giles, not resolved for several episodes; when he returns, there's very real doubt that it's really him, and not The First in disguise.
Disc extras include a number of chatty episode commentaries by Whedon and others, the usual dull outtakes of actors making faces after blowing their lines, a featurette on the show's wrap party, another featurette on the next generation of Slayers and (this reviewer's favorite) a featurette that gives Whedon a chance to name his 10 favorite episodes from the entire series. There's not much room for argument in his self-appraisal.
The refreshingly open-ended final scene of the series—which seems less the end of this story than the first chapter of a new one—offers hope for a sequel series, but I wouldn't hold my breath. — Adam-Troy
Also in this issue: Blade: Trinity and Fabled
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