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Chosen (Ep. 7.22)"Burning Up" So here we are for the finale. The End. Where everything stops. If there was a point to any of this, we get to learn it now. Given that less than an hour is not a lot of time to wrap up everything that had been introduced this season (what was The First's ultimate plan, anyway? why did it ever go after Angel, or for that matter, Spike? how did Buffy's resurrection introduce a weakness into the Slayer line? what's with Willow and the whole Dark Magic thing? and what ever happened to Dawn's friends?) I'd pretty much given up the idea that everything would be resolved. But at the very least, however, I'd hoped for an emotional resolution, something wouldn't make me look back upon the last seven years and cringe at the fact that I had invested as much time and energy rooting for these characters as I did. I didn't exactly get that. The show's overall "messages" have never been murkier, and I came away no more inclined to like Buffy than last week. If anything, I liked her even less. From the inspiring, butt-kicking girl role model she started out as seven years ago, Buffy has become to me an example of what not to do, and the sort of person not to be. Ouch. On the plus side, though, the theme of Redemption is at least carried through to its logical conclusion - although thanks to the above-noted lack of emotional resolution, even that failed to fully satisfy. Time and distance may eventually soften my regard for this state of affairs, but the fact remains that my initial reaction to the series' final wrapup was not... well, read it for yourself. . . . . We pick up directly where we left off the previous week, with Buffy kissing Angel. She is glad to see Angel. She stares at him, dewy-eyed, wanting to "bask" in his presence. If "aw, sweet" was the reaction being hoped for here, the staff has been watching a different show than I have. I'm actually kind of horrified. (It's a consistent character trait, however - possibly only the presence of Riley's wife in "As You Were" kept us from seeing a similar liplock. Fickle? Slutty? Take your pick). A totally unnecessary perk-up from Caleb interrupts this reunion (Buffy finally disposes of the evil preacher by bisecting him from the crotch up, a maneuver that took her far too long to figure out after last season's oh-so-obvious castration theme), but in short order, we're back to the Buffy/Angel conversation... ...and it's in this very conversation where the episode first began to go off the rails for me, as if I wasn't already squirming in discomfort from the soap opera triangle-in-the-making of the overseen kiss. (During this, Spike is still hovering in the background, The First whispering in his ear - no reason is ever given for why he was there.) Suddenly, thanks to writer/director Joss Whedon's return for the finale, the character dialogue is all different. Buffy is no longer the humorless bore she's been lately, but punchy, giddy, cracking jokes. "He had to split," she snickers, re: Caleb's dispatch. Angel's personality is likewise a bit off. Given that the events here take place after the Season finale of Angel's own show - he presents Buffy with the manila folder and tacky talisman he received from the evil law firm of Wolfram & Hart in that episode - he too seems unreasonably quippy, given the tragedies he has just walked away from. Is Angel supposed to be a Brave Little Toaster here, or is he desperately grasping for lost happiness with his soulmate? I'm still not sure. However, when asked point-blank by Angel if she's in love with Spike, Buffy still can't answer. Instead, she veers off into a puzzling explanation of why she's never been able to make relationships work. "I'm cookie dough," she tells him, apparently serious. She's not done baking. And she's not thinking that far ahead yet, she says, to the place where she'll be "cookies." Okay, lest my next criticisms come off sounding overly harsh, let it be known that I really liked last year's yellow crayon speech. Emotionally, it felt true - both to the situation, and to Xander's character. Buffy's cookie metaphor, on the other hand, really did not - after multiple episodes of grim speechifying, this is babble more in the manner of classic Willow, or the sixteen-year-old Buffy isn't anymore. It did not work on a character level. Worse, it hit exactly the wrong emotional notes. After months of establishing that it's Buffy's very lack of human connections that's been sapping her girl-power Slayer strength, we now see her decide that those connections aren't really important right now. That's something for the future. When she's someone else. As a payoff to Buffy's character development in Season 7, this is beyond a letdown. For one thing, it's not even new - the cookie metaphor is merely a much-hokier reprise of a better speech she made to Xander two years ago about her "guy thing," in S5's "I Was Made To Love You." Worse, none of this blather relates at all to her two years worth of relationship agonies with Spike, who has never been allowed to be a "boyfriend" to her, and with whom she does not envision a future with "fat grandchildren." In one dizzying string of platitudes, she negates their entire painful affair as irrelevant, a detour on her road to nebulous future happiness. "I used to think something was wrong with me," Buffy confesses, without the slightest hint of irony... and follows up with the implication that her cookies might be worth waiting for. "I'm not getting any older," Angel smiles. Angel's entire visit, with its ratings-boosting crossover appeal, is deeply suspect on a story level. As an "outsider" character making a brief guest appearance, his function is chiefly to be a proxy for the viewing audience. Having crossed the barrier of rival networks with his deus ex machina talisman, Angel pointedly doesn't ask the questions that the character really ought to be most interested in (e.g., why The First is back, how Spike got a soul, how Buffy ever got involved with him in the first place, etc.). His interest in Sunnydale current events can be boiled down to a single concern - "Are you in love with him?" - the one question the viewers are keenest to have answered. Buffy's weird response too, plays as another voice drowning out the character - in this case, Joss Whedon's, who refuses to have his heroine definitively choose between her two lovers because that's not the way things are supposed to go. As a result, the entire Angel scene feels forced and artificial, despite the jokes. To Spike, Buffy does not give the cookie speech. She shrugs off his obvious hurt over the kiss, airily explaining it away as "a hello," and heaps on a little playful mockery over his "jealous vampire crap," suggesting that he and Angel could "wrassle it out." "There could be oil of some kind," she muses, a peek into Buffy's fantasy life that couldn't have come at a more unappetizing moment. Pushing further what-is-he-to-you questions aside, Spike demands Angel's "trinket," which he claims should now belong to him. "Angel said this amulet is meant to be worn by a champion," Buffy says soberly. Spike's wordless reaction to this is actually one of the episode's nicer grace notes - we see him crushed under the implication that he's unworthy, then built back up again as Buffy places the amulet in his hand. This is a recreation of the chivalric ideal, a lady giving a knight her standard to carry into battle. But before you begin to wonder if this means that Buffy does care for Spike, that she maybe even loves him, that he is the one that she has "chosen," let's look at what he's been chosen for. Buffy's reasons for removing Angel from the battlefield are exactly the same ones that apply to Dawn - Angel is someone she "can't risk"; he is valued, precious. Spike, however, can be risked. Buffy's choice thus has a double-edged quality to it - the pride of place that comes from being allowed to fight by her side (a position Xander coveted in "End of Days"), and the accompanying deadly risk in doing so. The talisman is "probably very dangerous," "volatile," we're told. "You'll be needing somebody strong to bear it then... you were planning on giving it to Andrew?" Spike asks. There's an unavoidable element of simple practicality here. But if Spike is fated to be simply a tool for someone who can't love him, he seems to have made his peace with it: when Buffy asks him for the favor of yet another hold-me sleepover, his stung pride puts up a brief wall ("Can't buy me off with shiny beads and sweet talk - you've got Angel breath," he snaps) but he makes a panicky retraction in the next instant. "That whole 'having my pride' thing was a smokescreen," he sighs. As in "End of Days," in the interest of being "heroes," he allows his own feelings to be pushed aside. Her plan - laid out for us only in partial detail at this point - is described by Giles as "brilliant"; fretted over by Willow, who will be required to use her magic as part of it; and embraced by the Potential Slayers, who are given a "choice": to come with Buffy to the high school the next morning, open the Seal, and finish the war. The same can't be said for Willow, who confides in Kennedy that she's nervous about using her powers (and apparently needs comfort sex to keep her grounded). A more welcome vignette comes in the form of the unlikely assemblage of Giles, Xander, and Amanda, and Andrew playing Dungeons & Dragons in the dining room. (Geek-speak alert here goes to "Trogdor the Burninator," a vid-clip website that's totally worth checking out - Google it for yourself.) Finally, a wordless series of images shows Buffy and Spike, first lost in isolated contemplation, then facing each other from separate ends of the basement in a frozen tableau. Fade to black. This dissolve, which can't help but be read as drawing a Victorian curtain over the idea of possible S-E-X, can also be added to the list of issues that Season 7 failed to pay off, a disappointment after Season 6's courageous treatment of dysfunctional relationships. The last several episodes in particular have been on a decidedly prudish track; messy, real-life love and sex and the issues of power and trust that go with them have been replaced by a two-dimensional, parochial text in which physical love is put forth as a poor substitute for spiritual love, as if the two can't actually coexist. As a model of Buffy's psyche, perhaps this works - her head and heart do seem to operate on two separate tracks. She tells us that her heart accepts the idea of Spike as her "boyfriend." But her head, judging by her refusal to claim him openly, clearly does not. (The reverse seemed to be true of Riley, which retroactively puts a very depressing spin on their relationship.) However, this schism leaves Buffy in a very uneasy place. Would a renewal of physical relations between these two be the result of a new sense of forgiveness and closeness, or the same old convenient exploitation as before? Ultimately, we're not allowed to know. The series' most hands-down explosive material (domestic abuse, attempted rape) is left unaddressed and unresolved. The answer to these questions comes in the crux of the plan, now revealed: Willow is to use the magical McGuffin of the mystical axe for a spell to bestow Slayer powers on every Potential girl on the planet. In a montage enlivened by Buffy's voice-over, we're shown girls all over the world feeling the rush as the spell takes effect... and Willow feeling a very different rush as the magic goes through her, turning her hair white. (Get it? Bad magic, black hair; good magic, white hair. Ergo, bad drugs, bad; good drugs... good?) But undercutting that message is the fact that every image chosen for this montage is that of a stereotypical "helpless" female: a Japanese mother ("In Japan, men come first, women second," as Tiger Tanaka reminds us in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice); an Indian woman in a sari (obviously fated to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre); a little girl playing baseball (no doubt the target of jeers by her male teammates). "Those who can stand up, will stand up," Buffy claims as we see a battered wife stop a fist meant for her face. But the unspoken, underlying concept here is that until they were made into Slayers, these women were powerless residents of a man's world. Our world. As a child who attended elementary school in the '70s, I've seen the public and private of status of women go through major changes. I'm just old enough to remember "women's libber" being a schoolyard gibe; girls with too many opinions (myself included) were quickly pasted with this tag. TV shows of the decade had begun experimenting with strong female characters - Police Woman, The Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels - yet all were uncomfortable with the idea of women being too strong. None felt secure enough to show a woman going toe-to-toe with a man - Jamie Somers (note the surname) had nearly the same powers as The Six-Million Dollar Man, but almost never used them aggressively. Charlie's Angels used stealth, trickery, clever tactics. Police Woman was habitually saved from hostage situations by her male coworkers. A new social order was not just around the corner. Today, things are different. I remember when the specter of women fighting in the military was the hot-button item that kept the ERA amendment from passing. Women now handle combat posts. Olympic and professional athletes have reached heights of strength and speed that have completely redefined femininity - a gym-toned body is now the preferred standard of womanly beauty. Men find strong women hot - ask my husband, or any fan of Xena, Warrior Princess. Women are strong in politics, in Hollywood, in business. Yet in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a girl's inner strength is ultimately shown to be not enough to take on the mean, old world. Brains are not enough. Friends are not enough. They need physical power. And a big axe. So much for redefining the status quo. What does the job, finally, is Angel's tacky talisman... wielded by a man. The amulet begins working its magic on Spike about halfway through the battle. He reels back as the jewel begins glowing, then explodes with a blazing light that incinerates the orc army in sweeping beams. The apparently structurally unsound cavern promptly begins to collapse. The new army of Slayers hastens to the exit. Buffy rushes to where Spike is pinned in place, bathed in bright sunlight - the roof having collapsed with the amulet's first burst. There's a moment of indecision as Buffy tries to convince him to leave with her. "You've done enough," she quavers. "I have to do this," he insists, and tells her to go. Realizing that there's no more time, she takes his hand for a moment, finally offers up those three little words, and then runs as she's told. As Buffy escapes across collapsing rooftops, we're treated to a close-up view of Spike burning, his skull blackening and charring until he collapses into ashes, laughing all the while. So his sacrifice is no real surprise. The form it takes, however, is. By dying alone and unloved ("No you don't," he tells Buffy patiently in answer to her final "I love you"), Spike forms the final third of a three-year pattern of reflections on a Christ figure. We've seen a hero's sacrifice with Buffy's swan dive in "The Gift"; unconditional, selfless love with Xander's confrontation of Willow in "Grave"; and now, with Spike's immolation, we see a section of the Jesus saga that's traditionally less explored; the idea of redemption bought through pain and suffering, for the benefit of people who shun and despise you. Spike = Jesus is certainly not a dynamic I expected the series to end on, and it's one I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, it's a pretty powerful statement, offering vindication to any viewer who spent the last two and a half years waiting to see Spike redeemed. As a nifty side effect, Angel, the original souled vampire seeking redemption, suddenly gains new resonance. If Spike, whose simple goals of wanting to love and be loved led him to "follow his blood" into a state of selfless grace that Angel, who has been intentionally looking for redemption all along, has yet to reach.... what does that say about the entire idea of redemption? That Angel himself provided the fateful talisman only amplifies this question, and gives food for thought until the next season of Angel's own show, in which we're already being told that Spike will reappear. Is fate playing a cruel trick, or is Angel, the much-lauded vampire of prophecy, not really so special after all? On the other hand, this resolution offers us no solace for having sat through two years of relentless, dragging tragedy. Spike's progress from evil vampire to selfless martyr (the classic hero's journey qualities thereof are well detailed on the London Calling fansite) is palatable only if you're willing to reconcile yourself to feeling a mixture of contempt and pity for the rest of the characters, who end up retroactively cast in the role of jeering townspeople at the crucifixion. The Scoobies' refusal to offer him the slightest glimmer of encouragement or friendship - a decision that always seemed deeply hypocritical given their own missteps and mistakes - establishes Spike's lack of selfish motive beyond the shadow of a doubt, but it does so at the cost of every other character's moral high ground. Buffy, who was in the best position to witness Spike's changes up close, comes off particularly badly. In "Chosen," Spike makes exactly the same sacrifice she did in "The Gift," but without the benefit of a loving circle of family and friends - rather like the old adage of Ginger Rogers having had to do everything Fred Astaire did backwards and wearing high heels. Worse, it's clear that Spike had been willing to make the same sacrifice as far back as Season 5's "Intervention," when he was still soulless. Retroactively, Buffy has become the lesser hero in her own show. So Buffy, as a series and a character, is over. Buffy wants to be unexceptional, mundane, boring... and as such, we're done with her tale. But she didn't earn her "happy" ending. It was given to her by the sacrifices of people she barely acknowledged - the Potential Slayers, whose names she couldn't be bothered to learn; Anya, who she never saw as more than a lapsed demon; Spike, who she denied until the exact moment when her feelings could no longer make any possible difference to the outcome. Her victory was that of one person exploiting many, leaving her free to relax happily in the aftermath, all uncomfortable reminders of guilt or responsibility swept away. What this means, unfortunately, is that Buffy's legacy as the greatest Slayer who ever lived is not entirely due to her own merits. "Nobody saw you coming," cosmic balancer Whistler told her in "Becoming Part 2." The greater cosmic powers had expected great things of Angel, but Buffy's involvement with him had changed things. Likewise, her influence pushed Spike in unexpected directions. As "Last Guardian of the Hellmouth," Buffy's greatest achievement was finding exceptional men to inspire. Behind every great man stands a woman. It's at times like these when I remember that the creator of the series is male. From that oddly male-centric point of view, however, it's fitting that Spike is the one character that will continue past this point - he's the last character about which the staff still seems to have something to say. I remember thinking in Season 6 how odd it was that Spike seemed to be a manifestation of both the dangerous boyfriend everyone remembers from high school - the guy who smoked behind Shop class and got all the girls because he had a leather jacket or a cool car - and the too-nice guy who ended up a doormat for the popular girl, no matter how much she ran around or ignored him. In some ways, Spike has become a sort of all-encompassing rumination on the plight of the modern male - a Freudian cry of "woman, what does she want?" that has no easy answer. Buffy does not have our sympathy at the end of the series; he does. It's a terribly poignant moment when he realizes that her last-minute "I love you" was spoken not to him, but to his already fading memory; gratitude for the vampire that loved her enough to die for her. This is, the series suggests, what woman wants, what she "deserves." That's not a conclusion I agree with. Again, ask my husband - a really swell guy who I don't require to die for me. And I, like most people, like it a bit better that way.
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