I am powerless. I read a recap of the Buffy finale. Man, it wasn’t anything like I thought. I’d like to discuss it with some of you that saw it, so if you haven’t seen it and you’re trying to stay spoiler-free, stay away from the comments on this post…
Kris
May 20, 2003 — 7:57 pm
Be sure to preface your comments with a sentence or two full or crap, so that a spoiler won’t pop up on the home page. Anyway, that said, what the heck was up with that? Spike died? How the heck is he going to show up on Angel then? And Buffy didn’t die? Does this mean she and Angel might still end up together way down the line? (I know SMG probably isn’t up for any guest spots, but if Dawson’s Creek can end happily for me, I’ll maintain my Buffy + Angel hopes.)
robert
May 21, 2003 — 1:45 am
a sentence or two of crap? i’m sure i can supply that. what i can’t get over is the big scooby death… anya. sometimes you can see why the show can at times be misconstrued as misogynist – all the female characters die! you can’t count spike because we all know he is going to turn up on angel.
and i never used to be an angel/buffy ‘shipper, but after riley and spike i am like “come back angel! all is forgiven!”
brigita
May 21, 2003 — 2:35 am
you temptress!
my hand is now covering the screen as i type. 😉
brigita
May 21, 2003 — 1:11 pm
ok, now that i’ve seen the series finale (god, typing that just seems so final) i have this to say: if i had to wade through a season full of scooby pep talks for one last decent episode of buffy, couldn’t they have least made it two hours?!
that being said, i’m relatively satisfied with how things turned out. there were a few things i wish were explained more (what’s up with the sunny necklace doo-dad? did the first actually get wiped out? how did willow get to her happy place?) but just seeing the “core four” chatting like it was just another apocalypse—even if it was done for all of our benefit—made me all kinds of squishy.
i still can’t believe they’re really gone. :::sniff:::
Adrien
May 21, 2003 — 1:41 pm
No kidding, really, shouldn’t the series finale have been two hours? Despite that, I was really pleased with this episode- it’s got Joss written (or Joss writing!) all over it. Lots of good previous season throw-backs, geeky references and a couple of really sweet moments. My only real question: what happened to Buffy’s mortal wound? Did Spike heal it? Was she just too strong to die? Also, are they going to bring Spike back to life so he can be on Angel or was that just a fake lead to throw off the spoilers?
And Anya! Nooo! I was weeping by then and my friends were kind enough to not laugh at me. What am I going to watch now? *sob*
Kris
May 21, 2003 — 2:36 pm
I’m in so much trouble for this. The Snook HATES it when I read spoilers and get ahead of him! Anyway, good call on the Spike thing being a red herring. I’m hoping that’s the case. I really don’t see him and Angel getting along at all. Which, yeah, might be the point, but it’ll drag Angel (the show) down, I think.
I really don’t see the female deaths on Buffy as misogynist so much as melodramatic. Joss knows how to wring the maximum sob potential out of every situation.
I’ve been thinking about the “lots of Slayers” thing for a while now, and I’m not sure it’s the greatest idea. I mean, look, Faith was a rogue slayer at one point and it was a very bad situation. Who’s to say that all the Slayers are “good”? (Or are we to assume that they are and Faith just went bad?) Or am I just reading too much into what was obviously a last minute “deux ex machine” designed to wrap up the show, make us feel good about Buffy’s future, and give us girls a little feminist empowerment?
Nicci
May 21, 2003 — 11:04 pm
No more Buffy. What the HELL am I supposed to do now? Good grief. Anyways, I’m with Kris.
The whole idea of oodles of Slayers left a bad taste in my mouth. Why? Because Buffy has really enjoyed harping on about the shadowmen giving girls an unwanted gift. Yes, the Potentials in Sunnydale agreed, but what about all the others? Forced with a power they might not want, and as Kris pointed out, a bunch of them will be Faith-esque, and unable to handle it. Case in point? A girl is besotwed with power, suffering domestic abuse. Who’s to say she doesn’t just kill whoever now? Issues, peope. It’s all about issues.
I am so bitter about how it ended.
brigita
May 22, 2003 — 3:33 am
thinking too hard about buffy (continuity, logic, etc) tends to make my head hurt, so i stopped doing that at some point last season.
Nora
May 22, 2003 — 6:12 am
Watched the finale last night, so I can now come here and see what’s going on. I watched it with a bunch of people and we all adored it. The second half of this season has been kinda crappy, but Joss pulled it together.
I’d like to know what the deal was with Dawn and Joyce’s ghost and “she won’t choose you,” from Conversations with Dead People, but I can live with not knowing. And Willow’s transition to good-magic would could have been better explained, too, but. . . I refuse to be bitter about it. The end was funny and exciting and fun and sweet, and I’m happy with the good taste it left in my mouth.
Of course, they had to kill off my favorite character, but at least Anya went in a kind of cool way. Shocking, but not too graphic. And my Andrew survived! That’s enough for me.
Interesting thought about the unwanted gift in making everyone a slayer. I don’t think that the power itself was the problem so much as the responsibility of being singled out. Ultimately, the point in making all potentials full slayers is that nobody has to shoulder all that on their own. Buffy can relax and go to the mall because everyone is capable of fighting the good fight when they need to.
As for the Spike bit, it seems pretty clear to me (unspoiled speculation) that Spike is the Champion who’s gonna shanshu — not Angel. That means that Spike would be human on Angel, Angel himself will be pretty bitter, and they get around the nasty reality of James Marsters actually looking his age. I think a Shanshu’d Spike on Angel will make for pretty interesting plotting, especially if he’s fighting for his version of “good” while Angel is coping with heading up W&H.
brigita
May 22, 2003 — 6:32 am
i’m not as familiar with the Angel mythology, but is this whole “shanshu” thing some kind of prophecy about a vampire becoming human? there was some discussion about this over at Whedonesque.
Nora
May 22, 2003 — 7:09 am
Yeah, that’s it exactly. In the first season finale of Angel, there’s a prophecy that a vampire with a soul, a champion, will redeem his past and will “shanshu” — a word Wesley had a really hard time translating. At first he thinks it means to die, but then he realizes it means to gain mortality. The promise of Shanshu is the one thing that’s kept Angel going on the path of “good” this whole time.
brigita
May 22, 2003 — 8:03 am
so if Spike’s not dead and is actually the “champion” (if i hear that word one. more. time. outta Angel and his ilk i’m gonna freak) who’ll be getting his shanshu on, then there’s a chance that Angel could go bad?
yippee!!
Nora
May 22, 2003 — 8:20 am
My sentiments exactly. Heh.
robert
May 22, 2003 — 10:42 am
in regards to the whole “joyce” saying “buffy won’t choose you”,i kinda thought that was resolved when buffy made xander kidnap dawn and take her out of the danger zone, hence “choosing” dawn not to be in the big fight, choosing the scoobies and the potentials over her. thus, dawn made her own decision to come back, and buffy allowed her to stay. so, happy endings fo all!
except anya 🙁
and i’m hoping that the wholespike going to angel thing was just an elaborate hoax to cover up the ending of buffy, and that he is truly dead.
(ducking to avoid all heavy bjects thrown at me)
brigita
May 22, 2003 — 3:04 pm
dead, undead, i really don’t care all that much about what happens to spike, to be honest. i’m just glad that there’s an Angel methadone program i can fall back on when i have to quit this denial and come to grips with my Buffy addiction this fall. 😉
Kris
May 22, 2003 — 3:04 pm
I’m not chucking anything at you! I hope he’s gone for good too. I loved him back when he was a villain, but Marti Noxon’s obsession with getting him nekkid has just left me cold on the character altogether. And dammit, I want Angel to be the one to get redeemed!
Max
May 22, 2003 — 3:19 pm
Anybody here read Joss Whedon’s comic book “Fray”? Maybe I’m missing something, but it sort of contradicts the whole “world full of slayers” conclusion from the finale, and the comic is supposed to be pretty firmly in line with the Buffyverse. I may be overthinking this, naturally…
Kris
May 22, 2003 — 3:22 pm
I haven’t read it, Max, but is it definitely considered “canon”? Or is it like the Star Wars books in that they don’t adhere strictly to the movie plotlines?
Jenny
May 22, 2003 — 4:02 pm
I was happy w/ the ending and the scooby circle made me all warm and fuzzy. As far as the making all potentials slayers, @ the end, it sounded like they were taking to the road to round them up. And what was w/ there being another Hellmouth?? In Cleveland, no less…although that did make me giggle. So all the baddies just decided that they’d head to Sunnydale to mess w/ the slayer rather than treck over to Cleveland and live it up? Wha????
I was very tickled when Andrew mentioned bunnies and Anya got a little light in her eye. A little part of me was hoping for a musical refrain, but it’s probably better that there wasn’t. Just the hint was enough for me.
Did you guys catch the Trogdar the Burninator reference? My sister sent me this.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.html
*sigh* it’s a cold world w/ no new Buffies to look forward to. At least they ended well (but COME ON! Dawson gets 2 hours in the future, but Buffy can’t even take 2 hours to save the whole wide world. Life’s not far)
Kris
May 22, 2003 — 6:34 pm
What. the. hell. was. THAT?? Trogdar? That was hilarious! There was a reference on the show? I’ve never seen it before!
Kris
May 22, 2003 — 6:37 pm
Oh, and another thing I was fixated on today… Buffy didn’t know what a Slayer was until she became one. Now there are all these girls with sudden superpowers who are gonna be mighty confused. Plus Buffy needed a Watcher to talk her through the experience and train her. What the heck are the new ones going to do? If I suddenly got superpowers I’d freak out. Also – I assume there aren’t a finite number of potential Slayers in the world. I mean, old ones never get called and die, new ones are born, etc. Does this mean that girls will be BORN as Slayers? Or will another girl get chosen as each Slayer bites it?
There are just too many plot holes when you think about it.
robert
May 22, 2003 — 11:37 pm
from what i’ve read “fray” takes places about 200 years after one slayer manages to close off the source to all hell dimensions, and over time people forget about demons and vampires and are totally freaked out when they emerge again,and then the slayers emerge again as well, and fray is the first. perhaps all slayerness stops with the closing of the hell dimensions. apparently the scythe buffy uses in the finale is very similar to fray’s weapon. maybe this slayer is buffy. and they are waiting to do a totally kick-ass angel/buffy movie when all the series are finished… man, i feel andrew right at this point of time grinning with glee at the geeky coolness of such a scenario…
Kayla Benson
January 24, 2005 — 10:29 am
I personaly think that Spike is the HOTTEST man to ever appear on the show Buffy or Angel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I could meet him I would probabily start droolling I would be the happiest person in the world He is the only person I have ever liked that appeared on a tv show