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Grave (Ep. 6.22)

"Emotional Rescue"

In "Two to Go," Buffy faced off against Willow... and Buffy lost. That is, until she was rescued by the unexpected arrival of her father-figure, Giles. Oh, Giles! How good it is to see you!

"Uh-oh. Daddy's home. I'm in wicked trouble now," Willow quips from the floor where she was thrown by Giles's power blast. Giles is wary, not taking his eyes off her. "Stay down," he tells her, and with a hand gesture he ensures that she does. Willow definitely isn't the only one to have picked up some power lately.

Smiling, Willow gets to her feet, recognizing that Giles's new abilities have been "borrowed." "No way it's strong enough" she taunts him. Her fight with Buffy immediately dismissed as insignificant, Willow focuses on Giles, realizing that he presents the real threat. She brings up the argument they'd had before he'd left. "You called me an arrogant, rank amateur," she growls, her eyes flashing with power, readying to strike, and informs him she's since "turned pro."

But before she can let loose with her worst, Giles unleashes a spell that envelops Willow in a ring of green energy, holding her floating powerless a foot or so off the ground, her head falling back as she lapses into a near unconsciousness.

Stunned by the sudden cessation of hostilities, Buffy sidles up to ask what he did. Giles patiently explains that it's a binding field that holds her powers in a stasis... then distractedly wonders aloud about her new haircut. At this oh-so-mundane observation, Buffy's stoic mask finally cracks, and she throws her arms around her former Watcher and hugs him for all she's worth. In a touching plea for attention, Anya steps up to the embracing pair and blurts "I'm blonde!", drawing his attention to yet another hairstyle change. Giles smiles indulgently and hugs her as well. Aww. Then, turning back to business, he slips away from the two women for a moment to consider the catatonic Willow. "I'm very sorry about Tara," he tells her. Willow's response is to lift her head and speak with great effort. "This won't hold me forever," she whispers before sinking once more into a daze.

 
Giles Catches Up
Buffy and Giles retreat to the back-of-the-shop training room to catch their breath. Giles explains how he knew what was happening from faraway England - not the council (the ignorant state of which now seems to be a running joke), but a "powerful coven in Devon" who "sensed the rise of a dangerous magical force... fueled by grief." He'd been told about Tara by one of their seers, magically powered up by the group, and sent to, as Buffy puts it, "take Willow down."

Thus having brought Buffy up to date, Giles asks for her side of the story. "I don't know where to start," she begins helplessly, then recaps for him in a sparing sentence that strips the last few grim months down to this: "Dawn's a total klepto, Xander left Anya at the altar, Anya's become a demon again, money's so tight I've been slinging burgers at the DoubleMeat Palace, and I've been sleeping with Spike." She looks at Giles in nervous anticipation, bracing herself for the expected condemnations and recriminations... but Giles's response is perhaps the only one possible at this point - he bursts out laughing. It's downright infectious - even Buffy gives into the ridiculousness of it all, and begins to laugh herself.

By his spontaneous laughter over Buffy's serious recitation, Giles proves once more that he has the adult perspective that the Scoobies lack. To Buffy, everything she has mentioned is a catastrophe, Earth-shatteringly important, it-can't-get-worse-than-this. To Giles, it's just an absurd list of events, ludicrous. Hardly the end of the world. The pair continue laughing until they're literally gasping for breath, holding their sides, Buffy draped bonelessly over the vaulting horse, tortured by helpless giggles.

There's much to be said about the parental imagery here. It's finally clear what Giles meant when he tried to encourage Buffy that she could handle grownup responsiblities in "Flooded" by reminding her of her mother, who got through life without the benefit of superpowers. And look at what Joyce had to deal with - a secretive, delinquent daughter who got kicked out of high school, burned down the school gym, continually sneaked out of the house at night, lied to her, had a sexual relationship with a much older man... and all that was before she even knew Buffy was the Slayer, that there was a reason for her strange behaviour. Seen from that perspective, Dawn's shoplifting doesn't seem all that big a deal. Likewise, Giles, as father figure to the gang, is the obvious choice to intervene when one of his "children" has gone so wildly out of control, but just like Joyce, he can only help so much. When he apologizes "I never should have left," Buffy, disagrees, and means it. "You were right to leave. We're just... stupid," she tells him. Giles tells her: "Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is to ask for help when you need it."

Sobering, Buffy then does just that, revealing something she's clearly been holding in for some time. "Guess the thing is... I wasn't ready before," she explains haltingly. "It took a long time for that feeling to go away. That I wasn't really here. Like when I clawed my way out of that grave... I left something behind. Part of me." She looks at him, and asks the question that's clearly been bothering her the most. "I just... don't understand why I'm back." She died doing her duty. Someone would have replaced her. "So why?" she whispers. Giles doesn't have an answer. Even the adult in her life can't explain everything. Buffy looks down again, suddenly uncomfortable, and changes the subject to what's going to happen to Willow.

After a brief pause, Giles explains that the coven is "working on a way to extract her powers without killing her" and adds that there's no guarantee she be "as she was," since she has now taken human life. "How will she be able to live with herself?" he asks. This is no rhetorical question - given that Giles has himself committed murder (Ben, in "The Gift"), he is speaking from grim personal experience. I wonder how Buffy would react to that knowledge? And that is a rhetorical question, since Giles knows better than to burden a "hero" with such a fact. In a way, Giles is still doing his part to keep Buffy innocent... and that paternal impulse, the desire to protect her from harsh reality, is the main reason he left in the first place. He knows he can no longer keep her safe, but the instinct remains to try.

Any further bonding is banished by Willow's appearance in the doorway, free from restraint, holding an unconscious Anya like a rag doll. The black-eyed witch mocks their concern. "Willow doesn't live here anymore," she smiles. And the fight begins anew.

Now, more suspense! A check-in with the rest of the gang.

 
Among The Zeta Males
While all this is happening, Xander is leading the two nerds plus Dawn through the darkened streets of Sunnydale, generally away from the Magic Shop. The leftover "Duo" is still unimpressed by their knights errants' efforts to protect them, expecting "Sabrina to show up and disembowel" them at any minute. Worn out from the stress, Andrew panics, holding Xander at swordpoint and encouraging Jonathan to make a run for Mexico with him. Jonathan picks a side... and takes responsiblity for his actions, facing off against his former teammate with his own sword, insisting that they'll return to jail to do their time when all is done. Realizing that his nerves are no match for Jonathan's, Andrew meekly backs down. The tense standoff ends, and the group returns to its aimless sidewalk wandering.

Restless and feeling far from the real action, Dawn pesters Xander for his battle plan. "I have no idea," he retorts, and again lapses into a self-hating diatribe about how he's been "such a big help already," probably not enjoying the fact that his role only moments ago had been that of hostage in need of rescuing by one of the people he's supposed to protect. "Feeling sorry for yourself isn't helping either, Xander," she snipes, then, showing that she has the classic teenager's knack for knowing just what buttons to press to get to her way, Dawn pulls out the same trump card she'd used to talk Clem into helping her find Rack's hideaway. "Y'know if Spike was here, he'd go back and fight," she goads. Even steeped in his own self-loathing, this is more than Xander can take. "Sure," he blurts. "If he wasn't too busy trying to rape your sister."

Dawn halts, stunned. She doesn't believe him. Xander acidly asks, "Is this blind spot a genetic trait with you Summers women?" Dawn falls silent, nothing to say.

As painful as this revelation is for Dawn (and by extension, Buffy, who'd made it explicitly clear that she didn't want Dawn to know) Xander can hardly be blamed for spitting out the news of the assault. Like Spike's own disclosure of his affair with Buffy, Xander was already at an emotional all-time low, and lashed out with the only weapon he had left, unable to tolerate hearing Buffy's little sister compare him unfavorably to "Mr. Attempted Rape." That his outburst ended up shattering Dawn's hero-worshipping image of her vampire protector was simply a side-effect. But it's a side effect with larger implications.

Xander rants continuously about feeling useless in both this episode and the previous one. "I can't even run away well, and that's something I'm usually good at," he complains. (He made the same comment in "Entropy" as well.) But who told him he was good at running away? Not his friends, who've done nothing but pat his back and make comforting excuses for him. Not Anya. No, it was Spike, in "Normal Again," with his "king of the big exit" speech. Several times now, we've seen Xander internalize something Spike has said to him and later come to accept it as the truth. Having known and observed the vampire for years now, Xander grudgingly recognizes that Spike is indeed particularly perceptive. What's more, when Xander angrily tells Dawn "the only useful thing that animal ever did was to finally leave town," he knows it isn't true. They've "fought side by side" too many times for that. He's been a force in their lives ever since he first appeared - positive or negative, but never nothing, never entirely helpless. Even in Season 4's "Doomed," on the verge of suicide from chip-induced impotence, Spike still managed to strike a verbal nerve with Xander and Willow, with the suggestion that they were more of a burden to Buffy than help to her.

It's been made glaringly obvious that Xander, as the Scooby gang's one totally "normal" member, wants desperately to help Buffy but feels inadequate to do so. This was most clearly detailed in his future dream in "Hell's Bells," where his subconscious suggested that trying to help her fight demons would eventually land him with a physical disability. His useful skills are minimal - he can't identify demons, mix potions, or even sling the terminology correctly. ("I happen to be a very powerful manwitch myself... uh, is that warlock?" he'd tried bluffing in "Bargaining.") Worse, recent events have rubbed his nose in the fact that he falls short emotionally as well - so much so that Spike, the evil, soulless thing, has become the one his friends turn to for "solace." This was once, according to Xander's own self-image, his own role in the gang. ("I'm a comfortador," he'd told his dream version of Joyce in Season 4's "Restless.") This string of realizations has left Xander feeling even lower than the vampire he despises... and considering how low that is these days, it's no wonder he's hating himself.

 
Meet The Beetles
As to what said vampire is up to, he's still fighting on with his trials (in Africa... okay, okay, I've stopped fighting it). This time, the Real Bout was apparently against a pair of demons, of which all we actually see are their bristly severed heads, post Fight Club outcome. Decapitation seems to be a technique that works for damn near anything.

Eyeing the PoMD (check last episode's recap for the acronym), Spike is weary but defiant. He's in the zone now, like a marathoner geared up to go the distance. "I'll take anything you throw at me," he rambles. "If it'll get me what I need to take care of the Slayer, give her what's coming to her. You just bring it on." But the next challenge isn't a physical one. It's one of those "Fear Factor" things where the bugs come after you and crawl around on your face. Actually, the bugs here are scarab beetles, just like in The Mummy... which, as I recall, eat dead flesh. Yech. I suppose if there's anything a reanimated corpse might be slightly phobic about, this might be it. Okay. We get enough of this icky picture to know that he puts up with it. Whatever it takes.

 
Brat Attack
Back at the Magic Box, Willow's gotten her second wind as well. She brushes off Buffy's physical attack with barely a gesture, momentarily knocking her out. Giles's magic gives her more of a fight, and the shop takes the damage as they trade power blasts. In short order, the place is trashed, walls collapsed, the furniture and merchandise in ruins, fires burning randomly in spots. Giles is on his last legs, breathing hard. Willow smirks at him, telling him she could go another ten rounds, and performs a simple spell to erase the injuries from her face. All of Giles's efforts have been for nothing.

"You just don't get it, do you?" she says, her voice drained of emotion. "Nothing can hurt me anymore. It's all... nothing." Gently, Giles tries to get her to reconnect with her grief by asking her "I wonder what Tara would say about that?" Willow glowers at him and frosts, "You can ask her yourself," and delivers her finishing move... but Buffy recovers just in time to push Giles out of the way.

Willow sighs in frustration, and comes up with a way to get rid of the "pesky" Slayer - a fireball to track Jonathan and Andrew and "bury" them, along with anyone helping them. "Fly, my pretty, fly!" she cackles, very Wicked Witch of the West, sending the glowing flame on its way. Buffy has no choice but to take off running in pursuit. "Thought she'd never leave," Willow says brightly, and turns her dark attentions back to Giles. "Now I have you all to myself," she gloats.

What she does with this opportunity is to indulge herself by lecturing the former Watcher. "You're such such a hypocrite," she tells him. "Waltzing in here with borrowed magicks, so you can tell me... what? Magic is bad? Behave? Be a good girl?" She reinforces her superior power by holding him trapped helpless against the ceiling, slamming him to the floor and back up again. "I used to think you had all the answers," she rants. "That I had so much to learn from you. Now I see you for the fraud you are."

This tirade follows up on the parental imagery brought up in the earlier scene with Buffy. Willow is behaving like the classic rebellious teen, in the throes of the cynical, "you're not the boss of me" phase where she feels that she suddenly understands that the world is an unfair place, that adults don't have all the answers, and that, more often than not, adults have lied to you about that fact. "You were jealous. You still are. You couldn't bear that I was the one with the power," she says. The note of betrayal is obvious. No matter how much power she gains, no matter what she does, it won't get her what she really wants - love and respect. Tara is dead. Buffy has lied to her, betrayed her, abandoned her. Giles will never love her as much as he loves Buffy. Willow is jealous for "daddy's" attention, and angry as hell that she'll never be able to measure up to his favorite daughter.

In typical Giles fashion, he tries to talk her down with a technical approach, explaining that she's using too much of her power, that she's in danger of burning out. Willow shrugs that she just needs "a little pick-me-up," and promptly drains his power in the same way she did Rack's.

But Giles's power isn't like Rack's. She falls back, tripping. "Head rush!" she slurs. "It's incredible... I am so juiced." (If you were playing our "Magic Addiction Drinking Game" - check our writeup for "As You Were" - you'd be getting pretty sloshed about now.) She babbles on some more about how she feels "connected to everything"... then loses her euphoria once the full impact of that sinks in. "All the emotion... all the pain... it's too much." Giles tries to tell her that it doesn't have to be that way, that she can "make it stop." Beyond agony, Willow seizes on this, saying that she can stop it. "You poor bastards! Your suffering has to end," she says plaintively, rising into the air. Things have just gotten worse.

 
Cemeteries Are The Pits
Meanwhile, Xander has led Dawn and the others to - where else? - one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries, where they're trying to pry open a masoleum, presumably to hide in, without much success. Buffy appears on the horizon, running hard to try to save them from Willow's magical fireball. She gets there in time to shove Jonathan and Andrew out of the way, but the fireball's blast knocks everyone down - Xander hitting his head on a tombstone - and creates a huge hole which Dawn promptly falls into. Buffy tries to grab her but misses, and she falls in herself, narrowly avoiding being impaled by the swords Jonathan and Andrew had brought along. Brushing herself off, Buffy surveys their surroundings. The hole is a deep one. They're trapped.

Topside, Jonathan and Andrew survey their sitation. Xander knocked out. Buffy and Dawn lost underground. "Mexico, huh?" Jonathan asks. Apparently, he's reconsidered the whole responsibility thing. They beat feet out of there.

Using tree roots as ropes, Buffy struggles hard to climb out of the pit but falls. Frustrated, she looks around for something to help her. Coffins are embedded in the walls of the pit. Grabbing one of the swords, she tries to dig one out, hoping to stack them and climb out. Bystander Dawn leadingly observes, "this looks a little like Spike's place. Y'know, under his crypt," and watches for her sister's response. When Buffy ignores her, she pushes the button again. "Maybe one of the tunnels Spike uses is around here." Buffy finally answers her with the ground-out statement: "that's the last place we need to be." Having gotten a reaction, Dawn jumps at the opening. "Oh, but it was good enough for you to take me there after what he did to you," she snarks. At Buffy's puzzled look, she clarifies, "Tried to do. Whatever."

Buffy eyes her, unsure of what she knows, then puts two and two together. "Xander," she breathes, and stabs her sword into the dirt. "So it's true?" Dawn asks. Buffy hedges that "now's not the time" and that she "didn't need to know." Dawn blows up at this, as well she should. "Yes I do! I need to know! I'm not a kid anymore!" She rails that Buffy can't protect her from what's happening. "Look around!" she yells.

Dawn's lament is a straight echo of Buffy's father/daughter relationship to Giles. As her surrogate parent, Buffy has not allowed her sister to grow. She's been overprotecting Dawn, shielding her from danger to the point where Dawn now feels stifled and cut off from Buffy's life, prevented from being a part of her group. She needs her sister to treat her like a person rather than a doll to be coddled and tucked away safely. But Buffy has yet to draw the parallel between about her own approach to parenting and Giles' - her answer to this outburst is to stare at her sister as if she's grown a second head. She seems about on the verge of saying something when Xander, having recovered consciousness, hollers down after them. In a blink of an eye, Buffy has returned to business mode, ordering him to find a rope to pull them out. Xander obediently wanders off on his mission.

 
Whither Vengeance?
Back at the Magic Box, Anya has finally recovered, and stumbles out of the ruins to find Giles, bleeding and hurt on the floor. She kneels next to him and tries to offer some comfort, especially when he offers the distressing news that he's dying. Anya looks stricken. "No you're not," she stammers.

Anya's actions in these last few episodes are telling ones. Although she's "got her vengeance on" once again, she actually acts more human than ever. She told Xander and Buffy that she would be "helping Willow" when they went looking for her in "Villains," but she ended up doing just the opposite, trying to talk Willow down, even actively blocking her vengeance with the protection spell. What's more, when Willow spoke to her via telepathy, trying to get assistance to release Giles's binding field, Anya's response was the confident boast, "mind-control mojo doesn't work on vengeance demons." But it did. The implication is that Anya's growth as a person, a human, is irreversible. She's gained something that can't be banished simply by returning to the demon fold. She's gone native. No wonder the demon guests at her wedding seemed so innocuous.... so human.

Anya teleports to the pit trap to let Buffy and Dawn know what's going on, passing on Giles's information that Willow plans to end the world. "No magic or supernatural force can stop her," Anya tells them. The Slayer can't stop her. Having delivered this message, Anya adds, "I should get back to him. He's alone," softly breaking the news of his condition as: "I don't think he has a lot of time." She teleports away with a whispered apology, leaving a stunned Buffy and Dawn behind.

 
Just For The Hell Of It
Buffy immediately goes into overdrive, struggling hard once again to stack up the coffins and get out, to do something. Willow, meanwhile, is getting on with her destroy-the-world mission, raising a huge demonic temple from the Earth that was "buried in the quake of '32," according to Anya. (A satanic temple! Sunnydale has everything!) The raising is something to watch, and the temple itself is quite the treat - not only is its huge spire topped by a pentagram, but also a cute little pitchforklike trident. Aww. At its front, mounted figurehead-style, is a statue of a hideous she-demon, through which Willow intends to funnel the world's energy, burning it to a cinder.

Chanting her first incantations, she hears Buffy's mental cry of frustration - "I'm not just gonna sit here while Willow incinerates what I've chosen to protect" - and responds telepathically. "Always the Slayer," she murmurs, musing that "for all your fighting... thinking you're saving the world," that Willow herself is the only one who can "stop the pain." "But I know you, Buffy," Willow transmits. "You're a warrior. You won't go without a fight." And although she herself doesn't "have time for one," she provides something for Buffy to fight. "It was me that took you out of the Earth," Willow says. "Now the Earth wants you back." The soil and tree roots in the pit suddenly come alive, emerging as monsters with huge, bony claws.

Buffy fights desperately against the courtesy monsters with her sword but they just keep coming. Finally, she looks over at her sister. "Will you help me?" she asks Dawn, and hands her a sword. Dawn's eyes light, and although it's likely that Buffy only made the offer because she figured they were about to die anyway, Dawn throws her all into the battle, showing some serious flair, leaping and rolling and decapitating a monster with a smooth swing of her blade. At her sister's surprised glance, she says wryly, "What? You think I never watched you?"

 
What The World Needs Now
While Buffy and Dawn fight just to stay alive, Willow gets down to the business of making everyone soon to be dead. She gathers energy and begins to channel it into the temple's statue in a continuous stream. The ground rumbles with earthquakes as the power build... until its suddenly cut off. Willow blinks, and sees Xander, who has stepped in front of the stream, blocking her energy flow. "Hey, black-eyed girl," he says.

Voice normal as if he had just run into her on the street, he asks, "Whatcha doin'?" Willow growls at him to get out of her way, and hits him with a magic blast to emphasize her point, then gets back to work. He staggers back to his feet, and once again, blocks her. The energy dissapates, and Willow scowls at him, perturbed. "You can't stop this," she tells him. "Yeah, I get that," he says. "It's just... where else am I gonna go? You've been my best friend my whole life. World gonna end, where else would I want to be?" Willow chuckles a little at this: "You're gonna stop me by telling me you love me?" Actually, that is his plan. Barring that, he's made the emotional decision that he'd rather die by the side of his oldest friend than continue to fight the wind like his friend Buffy. Good, evil, about to destroy the world, he'd rather be with Willow when everything stops. Willow he understands.

The deep friendship of years, the rapport that's been missing between them for so long, is poignantly remembered. He makes a funny about walking her off a cliff and handing her an anvil. It earns him the grimace "still making jokes." They're not kids anymore. Jokes aren't enough to make this one go away. He gets serious. "I know you're in pain. I can't imagine the pain you're in," he tells her. "I know you're about to do something apocalyptically evil and stupid and hey, still want to hang." He then goes into a reminiscence about the first day of kindergarten, and how she'd cried because she'd broken her crayon. "I love you," he says simply. "I love crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow." He tells her if she wants to end the world, to start with him. "I'll still love you," he says.

Willow shouts at him to shut up, lashing out with her magic. Xander is slashed, and thrown back, again and again. Each time, he picks himself, and tells her he loves her. She keeps trying to push him away, but her powers begin to fail her, her emotions getting the better of her. Finally, Xander manages to reach her, extending his arms to hold her, telling her he loves her. Willow hits him with her fists, then breaks down in tears. The two hold each other in the morning light, Xander rocking her as she sobs her way back to humanity, her hair blossoming back to its original red as her dark power falls away.

 
When The World Doesn't End
At the Magic Box, Giles sits up suddenly, surprising Anya. "You're not dead?" she wonders. Giles explains that the magic Willow took from him "was the true essence of magic, which comes, in all its purity, from the Earth itself," unlike Willow's magic, which "came from a place of rage and power." "And vengeance," Anya adds. Aha! It was all a clever plan! Wear Willow out with fighting until she took the bait and drained his magic. Sneaky. Giles then goes on to explain that it was Xander who helped Willow feel again, who saved them all. Anya's face shows her bemusement... but she also seems happy to hear that he's finally done "something right."

In the pit, the dirt monsters suddenly vanish. The threat is over. Buffy sits down wearily and begins to sob with relief... or is it? Dawn is first puzzled, then irritated - is her sister upset that the world didn't end? She asks Buffy if that's what she's crying about. Buffy looks up, her face streaked with tears, horrified. "I'm so sorry," she chokes, hugging Dawn and crying, and in a rush tells her sister that "it's all gonna change... and I want to be there when it does. I want to see my friends happy again. And I want to see you grow up." She rhapsodizes about the woman she sees Dawn becoming, claiming, "I got it so wrong. I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you."

After a year of pain and emotional distance, that the season comes down to a straightforward message of Love Conquers All is appropriate in ways I can't even begin to sum up. But it's a nuanced message as well - the love that Xander offers Willow is not that of a Jesus figure (carpenter or no), my-life-in trade-for-the-world - that would be Buffy in "The Gift." Xander's love for Willow is unconditional, complete. He's asking for nothing in return. He just wants to be there for her. That this is what saves the world - not a sacrifice, but simple, selfless love, is such a turning point it's hard to even describe well. It's as if we've witnessed a transition point from an Old Testament-style outlook of justice and retribution - an "eye for an eye" - to one of forgiveness and hippylike New Age-y love.

But it's not all sunlight and roses - her hopeful, optimistic outlook at the episode's end notwithstanding, Buffy still has huge issues left over from her post-resurrection year. It's now clear why "the Slayer couldn't stop" Willow. Emotion, human feelings, were the only way to reach her friend, and the bitter message of "Grave" is that the Slayer, the "Warrior of the People," has lost her ability to tap into the full force of the Power of Love she displayed in "The Gift." With Willow's hateful rampage, Buffy was faced with a situation where no amount of heroic posturing or self-sacrifice could save the day. What Willow required were the emotions that Buffy was least-equipped to provide: empathy, forgiveness, and unconditional love. Buffy's season in hell has uncovered the most painful, sad truth about her - that at this point she is simply incapable of loving unconditionally.

In Buffy's vision quest in "Intervention," the spirit guide answered her worried question about losing her ability to love with "only if you reject it." Buffy has spent an entire year rejecting love, pushing away everyone who cares about her, cutting herself off from her own feelings, allowing nothing to really touch her. The only way she could have helped Willow was to "love, give, forgive," as the guide counseled her. But Buffy can no longer even forgive herself, much less others. All she can do is rage and fight, leaving it to Xander to come up with the kind of genuine emotion that Buffy's shut off. This is the reason why Buffy's contribution to the final battle is negligible, adding nothing to the sum total, pointlessly fighting conjured tree-root monsters in a submerged grave.

As Buffy and Dawn help each other climb out of the pit, we hear the dewy strains of a Sarah McLachlan song begin to play, and see a montage of the battle-weary Scoobies picking themselves up and comforting each other. We also see Jonathan and Andrew making their run for the border in the cab of a big rig truck, edging away as a scary tattooed driver smiles at them. Wildflowers bloom from a beautiful vista overlooking the town. A new day is dawning in Sunnydale.

 
Be Careful What You... Arrrrgh!
...but in Africa, it's still dark. The PoMD thumps across the floor of the cave to hover over a bruised and beaten Spike. "You have endured the required trials," it rumbles. The Ultimate Fighting Tournament is now closed. Spike pulls himself up. "So give me what I want," he rasps. "Make me what I was, so Buffy can get what she deserves." The demon reaches out a massive claw. "Very well," it says. "We will return your soul." There's a bright flare of light, and the episode fades on Spike's horrible scream.

So Spike now has a soul (!)... but is that really what he'd asked for? The wording of his request was ambiguous enough that the viewers on our couch had a split decision - Chevy Impaler came down on the side that he'd actually asked for his soul back; I felt he seemed far too angry to have had such a thing in mind, and just wanted the chip out. In that light, you could easily read the soul return as the glowy-eyed demon's Wishmaster-style didn't-word-that-just right practical joke, a gag gift - here, have a soul, smartass - the metaphysical equivalent of one of those rubber snakes in a can.

Or was gaining a soul something that had been on his mind? Spike's memory-wiped persona in "Tabula Rasa" would seem to suggest this, and it had been established that green-eyed stony demon is a mind-reader. Was the reward a sincere one, based on his real desire? Or was it a punishment for having become such a "pathetic excuse for a demon"? Either way, I was surprised that return-of-soul was the route chosen here - I'd almost expected to see Spike turned human. I could even see the point of such an exercise, even though we've already gone through that with Anya, mostly because it would allow for more pointed Xander/Spike parallels. (Which I still wouldn't rule out.) But it would seem Spike will remain a gray character, a little from column A, a little from column B, an exception to the usual rules. Redeemable? Irredeemable? Who knows?

But the exciting part of all this is that, for the first time, we may finally have enough information to really tackle the whole "soul" issue - what is it, really? What does it add to the equation? In the Spike-with-a-soul scenario, we're coming in from a totally different angle than we saw with the original I've-got-a-soul vampire, Angel. By now, we're intimately familiar with the personality of soulless Spike; soulless Angelus, we hardly knew ye. This is radically different from our introduction to Angel, a hundred years after being cursed, a blank slate to the viewer... and to Buffy.

So it's not strictly a cliffhanger for next season, but a big open question remains: What will a souled version of Spike be like? Like his human self? Like the vampire we already know? Something entirely new? What?

...or does it even matter? Could Buffy, or any of the Scoobies, ever forgive him for what he's done? Or, as Giles pointed out about Willow, will he even be able to forgive himself?

And finally, will Buffy "get what she deserves"? And will she ever graduate from Sarah McLachlan to Ani DiFranco?

 
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