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Hell's Bells (Ep 6.16)"Band of Gold" Having done bridesmaid duty three times and hailing as I do from a large family on both parents' sides, I attended more than my fair share of weddings (funerals too) before reaching moving-out age and, just as my work experience led me to expect a lot from "DoubleMeat Palace," I had a list of things I expected to see in "Hell's Bells," such as lots of drinking, embarrassing behavior, bonding between strangers, couples dancing, toasting, bouquet throwing, and hopefully a polka band. For many of these - most, in fact - I was left disappointed, but as for the rest of what we got... well, get out your hankies. . . . The scene opens on Willow and Buffy, staring at something offscreen we can't see. "Buffy, it's hideous... ohmigod, look at its arms!" Willow says, her face contorting with disgust. "I know... but it's my duty" Buffy answers, resigned. The camera shows what they're looking at - a mirror. Both are attired in full bridesmaid regalia. There's an ominous clap of thunder outside as we're given a good long look at the results of Anya's fashion taste - tight-fitting emerald green gowns with hobble skirts, frothy ruffles below the knee and a big fake rose over the bodice. Buffy's hair is pulled back into a bun and decorated with a large white flower. They look like flamenco dancers at a Spanish restaurant. Willow is distraught. "I'm supposed to be best man. Shouldn't I be all Marlene Dietrich-y in a dashing tuxedo number?" she complains. Buffy pipes up that would be unfair - "we must share equally in the cosmic joke that is bridesmaid-dom." Then why is it that Willow's dress sports horrific sleeves consisting of a cascading petal shapes in sheer fabric and Buffy's has relatively flattering cap sleeves? Doesn't seem fair to me. The two compare notes on the pre-wedding hijinks - the rehearsal dinner, the meeting of family and demons, the drunkeness and insults. Good god, we've missed the whole thing! We're left with a verbal sum-up of the wacky goings-on. Argh! Sue me, but I was looking forward to that. The brief recap of the rehearsal dinner contains the following details: 1) The Harris family all drank like fishes and Xander's father threw up in Buffy's purse and 2) Anya's demon friends were passed off as "circus folk," which I've gotta admit is a pretty creative explanation. So much so that Buffy can't quite believe that they got away with it. "Did you see the guy with the tentacles?" she wows to Willow. "What's he supposed to be - Inky the Squid Boy?" A gasp from the doorway draws their attention - Anya, still in her dressing gown. "You guys look so beautiful!" she squeals, grabbing them both in a teary hug. "This is the happiest day of my whole life!" So, the morning of the wedding. The weather is grim and gray. Thunder continues to peal outside as Xander putters around the kitchen in his tux, looking for his cufflinks. Some of Xander's family members are also in the kitchen, including the infamous Uncle Rory - a stocky old man in a bathrobe, boxers, and stocking suspenders who's prone to practical jokes - and "Cousin Carol," an overweight, middle-aged woman with a sullen, preteen daughter and an overactive libido. A warty-faced demon named Krevlin is also in attendance. Xander's parents appear - his father immediately begins riding him for not being ready yet, and his mother sniping that it doesn't matter what she looks like because she "won't be in any of the pictures." In this scene, it's hard not to notice that Krevlin the demon is easily the most well-behaved person in the room, offering to help fix the coffee machine Rory is fidding with and complimenting Mrs. Harris on her hair. He even draws the eye of Cousin Carol, who takes Xander aside and whispers, "if he could clear up his skin problem... do you suppose he'd date a woman with a kid? I mean, I really can't afford to be very picky." As a representative of the far side of tolerance, Mr. Harris crassly points the demon out, asking if he's "one of hers." Krevlin reminds him that they've already met at the dinner and that Mr. Harris insulted his "heritage." Xander's dad snorts in disbelief. "Being circus folks is suddenly heritage now? I mean no disrespect, of course. I'm sure you come from a long, proud line of... geeks." Well, at least now we have an origin story for some of Xander's less attractive personality traits. Xander himself is holding up pretty well, all told. He does his best to ignore his father, reassure his mother, and, finally locating his cufflinks, proclaims "Nothing on earth can stop this wedding now." Which he should so know better than to say by now. In downtown Sunnydale, we see a figure materialize in a burst of hellfire - an old man in a raincoat who pops open an umbrella against the downpour and calmly walks on. Uh-oh. Next we see Xander trying to pull the last of his outfit together - literally - with the help of Buffy. His cummerbund won't close and needs a dose of Slayer strength. Guess Anya was right about all those chips. "You look great, Mr. about-to-get-married," Buffy smiles as she helps with his bow tie, commenting that he's "glowing." "Maybe you're pregnant!" she jokes. "Maybe I'm just happy," he answers. Buffy tears up at this, still struggling with the tie. Xander notices and asks if she's "happy teary." "Yes... Happy for you. That makes me happy for me." Caught up in emotion, Buffy then shares her insights on how the wedding relates to - whaddya know - herself. "You and Anya give me hope," Buffy says. "It's like ... you two are proof that there's light at the end of this very long, long, nasty tunnel." She gives up on the tie, wondering "where's your best man, isn't she supposed to do this?" Willow, the aforementioned best man, is off doing something "very important" - helping Tara with the buttons on the back of Anya's dress, the ex-couple indulging in a shy glances and happy smiles behind the bride's back. Anya, standing on a box while the two fiddle with her dress, is rehearsing her wedding vows - which she seems to be making up as she goes - and asking for feedback. Anya's vows begin with the standards, love, cherish, honor. Then, she moves into more customized territory. "I entrust you... with my heart. Take care of my heart, won't you please? Take care of it because it's all that I have. And, if you let me, I'll take care of your heart too. I'll protect it and tend to it, like a little stray. Wait, no - like a little mangy stray that needs a home." The camera pulls back and we see her dress, a strapless, form-fitting ivory gown that spreads out at the bottom like a mermaid's costume. Venus emerging from the seafoam. She looks wonderful, eye mask, curlers, and all. She's enthuses over the dress, saying she wants to show it to Xander; Tara and Willow tell her it's bad luck for the groom to see her in her gown. "It's just I'm so excited and I want to share it all with my best friend," Anya squeals. "I get to be with my best friend forever!" Aw... The wedding location is revealed - the Sunnydale Bison's Lodge. Good choice - the only thing more middle-American would have been the VFW hall. Dawn is standing at the door, attired in the same cap-sleeved variant of the bridesmaid's dress as Buffy, greeting guests as they dash in from the rain. Anya's ex-boss, the Vengeance Demon recruiter D'Hoffryn enters, festively wrapped box in hand, followed by Halfrek, also in a bridesmaid's gown. Dawn looks less than thrilled to see her, but Halfrek doesn't seem to care, and hovers over her with a solitictous air. "So Dawnie, how's everything going? Nothing you... wish was different?" she prods. "Hallie, take a day off," D'Hoffryn sighs. Both push further into the wedding hall. Dawn deposits the box with D'Hoffryn's squirmy present on the gifts table and turns back to the door to greet Spike, who enters with a casual air and his arm draped around a girl dressed in an outfit that might best be described as bubblegum gothic. "I want you to meet my date," he proclaims to Dawn, who greets the girl with a polite "hi," getting a disinterested "uh-huh" in response. "So, yeah. Anyway, that's my date. She's with me. My date for the wedding," Spike persists, trying to impress Dawn with the importance of this message. Dawn nods, her face clearly showing her puzzlement. "Yeah, okay, nice meeting you," she says and wanders off. Dawn moves into the crowd and we get a better look at the assembled group. Clem the loose-skinned, poker-playing demon is there, nattily dressed in a black sweater and blazer. There's a suit-wearing fellow with spines on his chin like a catfish and short tentacles for hands. The demons are chatting to Harris family members Rory and Carol about their "circus heritage." Clem turns out to be pretty good with the bluffing - "Well, there are ancient ways. Clowning, as an occupation, grew out of the commedia del'arte, and ancient sports, of course," he says. This talent probably explains why he's a fixture in the poker games. Rory goes off about the wrongness of the idea that Xander might have to "bring up his kids in some kinda foreign-speaky bow-to-the-easty kinda cult." "So you think the children should be raised in ignorance of our ways?" the tentacle demon challenges, really getting into the meat of the whole "circus folk" role. Cousin Carol reassures the inhuman pair that "the Harrises are very broad-minded. We're Episcopalians." Right. Across the room, Mr. Harris is already bellied up to the bar. "Til death do us part. That's what cracks me up," he slurs, telling the bartender to hit him again. This is not looking like smooth sailing. In the groom's ready-room, Xander has almost reached launching stage. "How do I look?" he asks Buffy. She looks him over. "Well, let's see... found your shoes... your fly's zipped... I'd say you look like you're ready to get married." She smiles. "You're one of the decent ones, Xander. I hope I'm as lucky as you guys someday." Xander smiles back. "You wanna get lucky? I've still got, what, fifteen, twenty minutes?" This gets him a smile and a hug. I guess since we missed seeing the bachelor party (the injustice!) Xander is due at least one off-color gag about making time with Buffy. They move to the door, and start the long walk down the hallway, going over a checklist of items that Buffy needs to be aware of, mostly consisting of not letting his parents near the bar. Too late. Dawn joins them. "Spike's here and he brought a total skank," Dawn chirps, helpfully sharing that the vampire and his date are "totally macking... in the middle of the room." For someone without a clue as to the point of this little exercise, Dawn is doing a great job of carrying the message to the right person. "Spike brought a date?" Buffy asks softly. "Yeah. Wait till you see her," Dawn enthuses. Xander presses on, leaving the girls to their girl talk. Reaching the doors to the main hall, he pauses, gathering his courage, then pushes into the room. Into the breach. As he moves inexorably forward, people step in to shake his hand, pat him on the back, pinch his cheeks. He begins to draw more directed attention - his mother, complaining about the seating arrangements; Rory, wondering where the photographer is; Dawn, claiming that D'Hoffryn's present has escaped... and an old man who plucks at his sleeve, saying he needs to talk to him. Persistent, the old man finally succeeds in pulling Xander aside. "You have to listen to me," he says urgently. "You can't get married today. It's a huge mistake." Xander eyes him, unable to figure out who he is. "I'm Xander Harris," the man says. "I'm you from the future." Xander rolls his eyes. "Oh, from the future! For a minute I thought you were a nutball, but now that you're from the future..." The old man begins to yammer that he came back to warn Xander, grabbing his arm and dragging him into another room, saying he can "prove it to him." Back in the main room, Mr. Harris loudly shouting from the bar. He raises a glass to toast his wife. "To my wife. What would I do without you?" he begins, earning a smile from Mrs. Harris, then dashes her good mood and that of everyone else in the room with, "Well, for starters, I probably wouldn't need to drink so much, would I?" He caps his comments with the not-so-delightful, "On the brighter side, marriage has probably saved me from a nasty dose of the clap. Here's to ya." The demon side of the room eyes Xander's father with disdain. "Does that jerk ever shut up?" Clem mutters. "He's starting to make my suckers twitch," his spiny-chinned pal adds. Mr. Harris isn't done yet - he's got another toast in mind. "To the bride's dermatologically challenged family shrub..." he begins, almost managing to provoke a fight before Buffy heads him off at the pass, dragging him toward the kitchen for a cup of sobering hot coffee. "Nice chassis, what's under the hood?" Mr. Harris oinks, adding a suggestion that they slip into the back room. Buffy cuts him off with an unsubtle threat to his masculine parts and manhandles him out of the hall. In a side room, the old man shows Xander a glass orb that he says contains powerful magic. "Look at it. You'll see what I've seen. Feel what I've felt." A pink light emerges from the orb, a beam of light that goes into Xander's forehead - very Philip K. Dick. The beam seems to suck Xander into it, and suddenly, the scene has changed... Xander is sitting in a reclining chair, still in his tux. He holds a bottle of beer and a remote control. A football game plays on TV. He looks around. A suburban-style living room, messy, unstylish, cluttered. He yells for Anya. Two small children emerge - a little boy and girl. The girl has large, elfin ears. The children squabble. Anya appears, wearing a suit and makeup, picking up bottles from the floor. They argue about her going out. "One of us has to make some money," she fires at him. He complains that he can't work because his back is shot. "And whose fault is that?" she asks, adding "You had no business fighting demons with her." "Buffy needed me!" Xander insists. "Well it didn't save her, did it?" Anya says bitterly. "All it did was ruin our lives." She exits, slamming the door. Another flash. It's years later. The kids are at least in their late teens. The family is having dinner at a restaurant. The children argue, the boy calling the daughter a freak. Her ears are even more pronounced now - she's starting to look more than a little like Clem. "You've had too much wine," Anya tells Xander tiredly. He looks at her in contempt. "Have I?" he says, cold, sneering. The girl stands. "I hate you guys! And I know that you're not my real dad, and I hate you, I hate you both! I wish you'd die!" she storms away from the table. More years later. A '50s-style kitchen, piled with dishes. Anya is grey haired, dressed in a cardigan sweater, sitting at the table. They argue about what went wrong between them, who "stopped touching" first. "What did you expect me to do?" Anya yells. "You wouldn't come near me after Buffy..." He cuts her off from what is obviously a sore spot. "Fine, forget her!" Anya wails. "Maybe you were just born to be a bitter, angry old man!" "Shut up," Xander whispers. "No! I want my life back!" she sobs. "If I hadn't married you I wouldn't have had to hate myself for the last thirty years!" Xander snaps, grabbing a frying pan and swinging it toward her face, screaming for her to SHUT UP... ...And the vision ends. Xander finds himself back in the empty room in the wedding hall, staring at the old man. "Is she okay? What did I do?" Xander stammers in shock. The man explains that it's a glimpse of his future. "But you can change things. It doesn't have to go like this." He tells Xander that he can't marry Anya. "You'll hurt her less today than you will later," he says. "Believe me. Sometimes, two people... all they bring each other is pain." Xander stares at him, trembling. Xander's nightmare vision is followed by a segue directly to Sunnydale's currently reigning king and queen of couples who "bring each other pain" - Spike and Buffy. In a hallway outside, Buffy has somehow gotten rid of Mr. Harris and is heading back toward the main room. As she crosses the floor, she catches sight of her former lover, leaning against a wall apart from everyone else. His date is nowhere to be seen. He lifts his head, sees her, then returns his gaze to the floor. She pauses, smooths her skirt, and musters up the courage to walk over to him. They exchange quiet hellos. He starts off a little challengingly, asking if she's met his "friend." Buffy forces a smile and says no, not yet, but... "she seems like a very nice attempt at making me jealous." He pauses, unsure how to react to that. "Is it working?" he finally asks. Buffy holds the smile, but there's some sadness in it. "A little," she says. "It doesn't change anything... but if you're wildly curious, yeah... it hurts." Genuine regret immediately shows on his face. "I'm sorry," he says automatically, then abruptly changes his response to "or, good!" A little late to be convincing, but Buffy looks grateful for the revision. "You want us to go?" he suddenly offers. "No, I... you have every right to be here," she answers, adding, "I pretty much deserve..." He cuts her off with "that's not true..." They both trail off. "God, this is hard," he sighs, staring at the ceiling. He decides to go. "Give 'em my best or whatever. The happy couple," he says with a wave of his hand, eyes rolling. He looks longingly at her for a moment. "It's nice to watch you be happy," he says. "For them, even. I don't see it a lot." He smiles at her, eyes soft. "You glow," he says. She answers with a joke about her dress being "radioactive." Both break into genuine grins at this. The pair exchange quiet goodbyes, and he leaves the hall, dragging his protesting date behind him. This is an unexpectedly sweet scene, full of gentleness and respect, with a comforting hint of their usual banter. Perhaps it's just the "happy occasion," but the affection between them here is palpable - there's nothing ambiguous about it. The pain both are feeling over the breakup is referred to obliquely: Buffy's admission that seeing him with another girl "hurts," but that she "probably deserve(s)" it; Spike's reassurance that although taking miss bubblegum gothic back to his place was the original idea - "Evil," he offers as a cursory explanation; she nods in understanding - that "I won't..." he trails off, but hardly needs to finish the thought. The girl is a showpiece; he has no other plans for her. Giving his full attention to another woman would break whatever silent agreement exists between he and Buffy at the moment, and neither is quite ready for that yet. I was also rather intrigued by his choice of girl - not a severe, Elvira-style Drusilla clone nor a bubbly Buffy substitute like Harmony, but an odd mixture of both with her dark hair and makeup but spritely white t-shirt. Since Buffy never really got a chance to react to the girl the subtlety of this message is somewhat lost, but it's interesting all the same. Finally, it could just be the surprisingly flattering lodge-hall lighting, but you can't help but notice what a frighteningly photogenic couple they are in this scene, especially when they both smile. The chemistry is just amazing - they are just as cute as two hamsters in a toy car. It's really hard not to root for them to somehow work things out when they look like this. Sigh. At any rate, it's nice to see at least one exchange of words that involves neither bruises nor hurtful insults on either side. In the kitchen, Xander paces, tortured by thoughts of the disturbing future he's just seen. Willow enters, commenting how good he looks in his tux. "It's a good thing I realized I was gay, otherwise, hey - you, me and formal wear..." Willow jokes, bringing up memories of their Homecoming-inspired smoochies, but the history between them goes much deeper than that. "You're getting married. My little Xander," she says affectionately. Childhood friends who were "squalling infants together," as Anya observed in "Triangle," Xander and Willow have both grown up, grown away from each other to love other people, but the bond still remains. "Do you know how much I love you?" Willow asks. "'Bout half as much as I love you," he answers, and they share an emotional hug. Odd then, that Xander lets her leave the room without mentioning his distress. Why doesn't Xander tell Willow about what he's seen, what his fears are? Obviously she has a clear idea what his family background is like - while commiserating with Buffy over their horrible bridal wear, she commented the she hadn't seen the Harris family act "that bad since my bat mitzvah." Willow is perhaps the one person who has enough perspective to reassure Xander that he doesn't share the traits that have made his family life unbearable. But things have changed. Once upon a time, Willow was Xander's best friend. Now Anya is... and what can he say to her? In Anya's ready room, her hair is now arranged and draped in a veil. Nearly ready to go. She's still verbally polishing her vows, a patient Tara still providing the test audience. "I'm not sure you should say 'sex poodle' in your vows," Tara dryly comments. Music is heard down the hall. Buffy sticks her head in the door to ask if Anya is ready to go, but is pulled back by Willow with the dire message that Xander has disappeared. Uh-oh. Panicky, the two women huddle in the hallway, Willow deciding that Buffy will stall Anya while she searches high and low for Xander. Bad tactical choice, Field Marshall Rosenberg! You'd think by now they'd remember each other's strong points: Willow is a pretty good on-the-spot liar (remember the "Frogs! Frogs! Get 'em off me!" from the Freddy-Kreuger-in-the-hospital episode as well as passing herself off as Vampire Willow in "Dopplegangland"?). Buffy is most certainly not the best at it, especially not on the fly, and without anyone to back her up - her most successful impromptu fake-out ("I'm in a band!") was to her mother way back in "Becoming, Part Two," and then she had an expert liar (Spike) on hand to support her feeble story. No such luck here. Buffy re-enters Anya's dressing room and makes up the world's worst lie about the minister being called away to perform an emergency C-section, because he's also a baby-delivering doctor, or something. Anya, too excited and nervous to be thinking clearly, absorbs this with frustration and returns to rehearsing her vows while a fidgety Buffy withdraws. Anya takes a deep breath and delivers her long-thought-out vows, final version: "Okay. For the last time. 'I, Anya, want to marry you, Xander, because I love you and I'll always love you. And before I knew you, I was like a completely different person - not even a person, really. And I had seen what love could do to people, and it was hurt and sadness. Alone was better. And then suddenly there was you, and you knew me. You saw me... you make me feel safe and warm. So I get it now. I finally get love, Xander. I really do.'" As we listen to Anya's voice, Xander walks through deserted Sunnydale streets, lost in thought, his tux soaking up the pouring rain. (And dear heaven, we've seen Emma Caulfield give hints of what she could do in "Triangle" and "The Body," but if you can get through this scene without giving into tears over her moving realization of what love really is, what it means to her, then you're a stronger person than I.) Anya's insights here show how far into humanity she has come. She is a reversal of the typical wants-to-be-human character going back to the Greek myths, and probably farther... the epic of Gilgamesh, even. Having lived a life so far outside humanity and human emotions for so long, Anya's voyage is not one of discovery - she's not Pinocchio - but rediscovery. She knows these emotions, but only from the other side - the hurt and pain they cause, not the warmth or joy. That she now has the capacity to "get" love means she has absorbed the lessons of living beyond simple sensation or social conformity. Her maturity is now obvious - Anya can now give of herself with the best of them. She wants to share her feelings with this other person, her best friend, to experience life in all its glory, to "take care of his heart" and trust him to take care of hers. But that kind of trust also comes with the largest risk of hurt in the worst way possible... Outside in the hall, the guests are getting restless. Buffy approaches the podium to explain the delay to the minister; the band promptly strikes up the wedding march despite her glares and hand-waving cut-off gestures. Xander's parents hover at the bar making sniping comments. "This is a disaster," Mrs. Harris moans. "It's that Anya, I know it," Mr. Harris grumbles, tossing back another double whiskey. "She made us pay for the whole thing and now she's going to louse it up." In the audience, D'Hoffryn expresses fatherly concern about Anya, getting a jealous, you-always-liked-her-better huff from Halfrek. "You know I love all my demons equally," D'Hoffryn reassures her. More bored grumbling from the audience. Encouraged by Cousin Carol to "do something," Buffy returns to the stage, grabs the microphone, and begins to do a sort of stand-up act. "So who's here from out of town?" she asks brightly, and continues in that vein, eventually resorting to charades and juggling (accompanied by Krevlin - commedia del'arte, indeed). In the entranceway to the hall, Dawn is drinking fruit punch and talking to a lanky demon boy with horns on his head (promptly dubbed "James Dea-mon" from the peanut gallery on our couch). They're comparing notes on whose family is worse. "Mine is so messed up you have no idea," Dawn snorts. "No, just wait until you see my mom dance at the reception, okay, and then tell me who's messed up," James Dea-mon drawls. They both share a bonding teen laugh, and oblivious to an impatient Anya, who has left the confines of her dressing room and begun to storm down the hall - missing minister be damned! - Dawn lets slip the reason for the delay. Anya screeches to a halt, eyes wide. "Xander's missing? What do you mean Xander's missing!?" she barks. The entire wedding hall turns to look. Uncle Rory makes a stab at lightening the mood, claiming that "it's a joke. Xander's playing a joke. It's like one time, at one of Carol's weddings, I had this ape suit..." But the demon audience has had enough - the last thing they want to hear is another "Harris family joke." The tentacled demon tells Mr. Harris to "have another drink." "Drinking is the only way I can dull the pain of looking at your ugly face," Xander's father replies. The expected brawl erupts. An unsurprised Buffy, still onstage, rolls her eyes in disgust, obviously feeling no need to play peacemaker at this point. Tara is shoved to and fro as she tries to make her way through the fighting crowd until she's suddenly pulled to safety by Willow. (Hey! I thought Willow was out looking for Xander?) The two huddle on the floor, exchanging soft glances. (Willow? Where is Xander? Where did you look for him? The ladies' room?) Anya wanders the hall as if lost, calling for Xander. "I saw him go into the Trophy Room with that guy!" Carol says, pointing out the old man, still lurking in a corner. Anya marches up to him, her faced etched with worry. "You were talking to Xander right before he left. What did he say to you? What did you say to him?" she asks, her voice trembling with panic. The old man studies her with contempt, drawling that "It doesn't really matter now. It's done" and observing that she's still "vindictive as ever." Anya doesn't recognize him. "He left because of you," the old man says. "I didn't do anything!" Anya insists. "Oh, really? What about this?" he retorts and begins to shimmer and change, growing taller, and morphing into a gray-skinned demon with spiky protrubences all over his head. "I've waited a long time for this, Anyanka," the demon rumbles. He then tries to jog her memory - "Remember Chicago? South Side, 1914?" only to be met with a blank look. "You'd think you'd remember," the demon says, frustrated. "I remember you. But then again, you ruined my life." She finally realizes - he's one of her vengeance victims. "Some hussy I'd been taking around summons you, next thing I know, I look like this and I'm being tortured in another dimension," the demon angrily recaps for her benefit. "I forgot," Anya sniffles. "Well I didn't," he snarls and backhands her across the face. "Every day I remembered... and every day I thought how I would somehow get here, and ruin your life like you ruined mine." He rubs it in further, saying it didn't take much to scare off her fiance, just "his nightmare vision of your future." He gloats as she cries in misery. "Oh, cry, Anyanka, cry. I love to see you cry. And now, I'd love to see you scream." He attacks her, knocking her down and slashing her arm with his talons. As Anya falls, Buffy finally enters the fray and begins kicking the demon's ass. A sopping-wet Xander makes a sudden reappearance in the doorway. His sobbing bride runs into his arms, trying to explain that "It was all lies, what he showed you. It wasn't true. He just wanted to break us up." Xander replies, "it doesn't matter now," his voice strangely calm. Buffy rushes between them, grabs a decorative veil from one of the wall-mounted mooseheads and uses it to choke the struggling demon. Xander pitches in, grabbing one of the small pedestals and bashing the demon over the head with it, killing it. The assembled guests cheer. Exhausted by the overload of emotion, the wedding party gathers around the body, wondering if they should try to cover it with flowers. For a moment, things look like they might be returning to normal... that is, until Mr. Harris shouts "Look at this damage. I'm not paying for this, you freaks!" "Stop calling us freaks!" Krevlin growls, and the fighting starts all over again. "Stop it!" Anya shouts. Obediently, everyone does, and as she orders them back to their seats like an angry schoolmarm they comply, abashed. Brightly, Anya then turns back to Xander, taking his hands in hers. "You know, it's bad luck to see me in my dress," she jokes, her good humor having promptly returned with the demon's dispatch, just as the realization that they were under Halfrek's curse snapped her out of her panic in "Older and Far Away." However, Xander still looks stricken, and her expression falters a little as she observes this. "Hey. It's okay. It's all over now, he's dead, and it was just smoke and mirrors," she tries, hopeful and upbeat. "So... we're ready now. Let's get married!" She tries to turn and start the proceedings but he stops her. "I... I'm not. I'm not ready. I can't, Ahn. I'm sorry," he stutters. Shocked, Anya protests that nothing he saw was real. "But it could be," he says. "I had these thoughts and fears before this." His eyes drift to his parents. Arguing. Yellling. Looking like they might resort to blows. "If this is a mistake, it's forever, and... I don't want to hurt you. Not that way." His hands let go of hers. He says again that he's sorry, she chokes back a sob and turns her back, shuffling away from him in a daze. He turns and walks out into the sunshine, the rain having stopped at last. Anya stumbles forward, into the aisle. The band, whom we've already established as being deeply stupid, strikes up the wedding march. The audience all rise, their faces slowly registering the deep wrongness of it all as Anya walks only a few steps before drifting to a halt, her face slack with grief. The music trails off. Night in the Summers home. Buffy, Willow, and Dawn are curled up on the couch, wearing identical expressions of sadness. "It just hurts my heart to think of her," Willow confesses."I feel like I should be hating Xander, but I can't... I just hope he's okay." This is a fairly remarkable progression for Willow - she hated Anya's guts as recently as Season 5's "Triangle," but now she feels such sympathy for Anya that she feels she should hate the person she's been friends with nearly her entire life. "I thought they were happy," Dawn muses. "They were. I know they were," Buffy replies sadly, then follows up with the painfully self-centered observation that, "They were supposed to be my light at the end of the tunnel. I guess they were a train." The previously happy couple have gone off to reflect on their misery alone - Xander having checked into a fleabag motel, and Anya having retreated into a strangely empty dimensional void, accepting comfort and handkerchiefs from a solitictous D'Hoffryn. Surrounded by blankness, Anya's white wedding dress stands out like a beacon. "I'm just so tired, D'Hoffryn." she says, her voice drained of emotion. D'Hoffryn expresses his sympathy, then adds, "You let him domesticate you. When you were a vengeance demon, you were powerful, at the top of your game. You crushed men like him." He looks at her, grim and serious. "It's time you got back to what you do best... don't you think?" She lifts her head and looks him in the eye, her expression giving nothing away. The episode ends there, on Anya's tearstreaked face. Does Anya deserve happiness? As a vengeance demon, Anya wreaked havoc for 1,000 years, destroying lives with no qualms. In a way, I found it rather odd that the vengeance victim who showed up at their wedding had to be killed - wasn't his vengeance just as justified as hers had been? What's the difference? If Anya's former occupation was justified, does she have the right to expect to be loved herself? That the answer seems obvious to anyone watching - of course she does - says a lot. Anya is not what she was. She has indeed done much to be sorry for. But vengeance, the moral of the story seems to go, is a double-edged sword. That vengeance demons are demons should be the first hint. There are things you simply can't "get even" for, and it's essentially wrong to try. Love is one of them. Trust comes with risk. The point of love is to take that risk. So then, was Xander right to leave his bride at the altar, to give in to his eleventh-hour doubts rather than run the risk of a failed marriage, of finding out whether he had it in him to turn into his own father? I'd say no - Xander's response to his newly awakened fears was to bottle them up rather than try to talk about them. In this, he is acting just like Buffy - he's so uncomfortable with this part of himself, his painful childhood and his fears about what he himself might be capable of, that he can't even imagine confessing it to his friends. What would they say? It's himself, his own darkness, that scares him... but in trying to push it away, he's chosen to push away the one person that has come to love him unconditionally, hurting her beyond belief and essentially pulling his entire, carefully constructed adult life down into ruins behind him. Last season, we saw Xander grow up - in "Buffy vs. Dracula," Xander proclaimed he was done being everyone's "butt monkey." In "The Replacement," he made the realization that he could be a responsible person, that he could succeed - he didn't have to think of himself as a failure, a screw-up. In "Into the Woods," he lectured Buffy about throwing love away and then followed his own advice by going directly to Anya to tell how much he loved her, that she made him feel "like a man." In "The Gift," he proposed, because he told her couldn't imagine a life without her. Now, in Season 6, Xander has forgotten those lessons, and his own progress toward adulthood, all thanks to his own fears. Is there any chance that this rift can be repaired? Maybe not - that the heartbroken Anya turns away herself when Xander refuses to marry her shows the depth of the break. She may indeed turn back to vengeance after this - what else does she have at this point? But as her "I get love" speech seemed to demonstrate, I wonder if she hasn't become too human to go back to life as a demon at this point. Having learned how to love, to give, can she take the final step... the one that was given to Buffy by the Slayer's guide-in-the-desert... forgive? Can she believe in the possibility of happiness again, after having the pain of being scorned proven to her personally? Or will Xander wake up some morning to discover the same kind of surprise as the demon who intruded upon their wedding happiness. They say vengeance is a dish best served cold, don't they...?
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