[REPOST] Alex and Freudian bicker...

Other Scott (5/31/14):
OK. Starting over. I watched Grave again to make sure it hit me the same way as it did the first time, and it does.

First off, I don't require things to be flawless for them to be great. And considering how much all of you like Buffy, I'm thinking surface cracks don't bother you guys so much either. And this episode has its surface cracks. Specifically:
1. Willow's reaction after absorbing the coven's power is groanworthy ("Who's your supplier?" Really? We're going back to that again?)
2. Spike has no business being in this episode. The way they try to hide the truth of what he's doing is pretty lame just adds salt to the issue.

The Gift is a great episode. It all leads up to the sacrifice of Buffy, a decision that it is more important for her for her sister to live than it is for her. This is despite the fact that she knew her sister was never really hers to begin and was artificially placed in her life. This is despite the fact that she was the only slayer that was currently fighting the forces of evil, and when she died, there would be no new one created. Buffy had every reason to let her sister die to save the world instead of herself, but she decided to die anyways. It's an absolute pinnacle and triumphant moment for Buffy, and earns every bit of sentimentality it creates. Except for possibly the hand wavy explanation for why Buffy's blood is equivalent to Dawn's, it's basically a flawless episode. It's tense, it's emotional, and it's exciting.

But where The Gift represents a pinnacle for Buffy, Grave represents a pinnacle for at least five of the characters. Plus, it beautifully ties up the themes of the most thematically strong season of the show, and has perhaps my favourite scene of the entire show. It's not flashy in the same way that The Gift is, a lot of its points are somewhat subtle, but I believe it has a greater overall effect that is in tune with all the characters, and not just Buffy.

The fact that Xander got to save the day in this episode just makes me so happy and is so satisfying. Xander has struggled for a long time with being more of accessory to the group than an actual part, the person who does the stuff normal people can do so the powerful people can worry about the important stuff. To take advantage of his relationship with Willow, the most important relationship in the show, is just such a victory for his character.

And the scene itself is so great. The things Xander says just feel inconsequential. It's the amount of emotion that's clearly there. He's so sympathetic to Willow here, someone who had killed someone in cold blood, and was about to destroy the world. Yet he cared. And everything he said, about how he felt he needed to be with her while the world ended just felt so sincere. The crayon speech doesn't even really seem relevant to the situation, except to show how well Xander knows Willow, and how much he has invested in her feelings. The relationship between Willow and Xander is the type that is so rare on television, a non-romantic relationship between a male and female that is in some ways stronger than any romantic relationship can be. To play off it here, at Willow's lowest moment is exactly fitting.

For Willow herself, she's always had trouble dealing with pain. It was clear when Oz left, when it took her 4 episodes to recover. When Tara broke up with her, she quickly turned to the magic equivalent of hard drugs. When Tara died, she completely lost it. So it makes sense that when she becomes in touch with every living thing, all she can feel is the pain. But there's more than just pain there, there's joy and there's love. And she needed Xander to make her see that, to feel the love that was there, to dwell on the things that are good and causes for happiness that exist in every living thing, and not just the things that hurt. It's never made clear from the show whether being in touch with everything means she could pinpoint the source of where all the emotions are coming from, but I like to think that she can feel Xander's love for her at that moment, and realize that it is something she ca't bring herself to destroy just to stop the pain. And it's important that Willow learns to focus on those things and ignore or put the pain aside, because she's going to be in pain for a good portion of the rest of her life. She killed someone, and she is going to have to deal with that forever.

Buffy really was the centre of the season, so it seems a little odd she's not the centre of this episode. However, it relates to Buffy's problem this entire season. Being pulled out of the grave, and out of the happiness she was experiencing in death combined with all the difficulties that life had been bringing her put her in a state of depression. And in that depression she couldn't see the things that were sort of falling apart around her. She couldn't see that Willow was losing control, and that the cold turkey solution was a bad idea. She couldn't see that Dawn's frustration with not having her around when she needed her, and not getting the chance to be her sister when Buffy clearly needed someone to talk to was what was causing Dawn to be bitter and annoying. And I think that moment in the grave, the same place Buffy had been brought up out of caused Buffy to see what she had failed to until that point. Her friends brought her back because they needed her; because there was so much that she could do for them. Including showing Dawn the reigns of how to be a helpful part of the group. That's why you needed the zombies in the graveyard. Buffy needed to see Dawn as someone who could help in times where she needed a sister, that she wasn't in it alone. That she had help, and that she could still be a help.

And Giles knew what Buffy needed in that moment when he came back. He needed Buffy to lighten up about the situation. I believe his laughter at Buffy's situation was someone calculated, to give her permission to laugh at things that were in the past. Giles came back exactly when he needed to, and his plan was not crazy. He knew enough about Xander and Willow to know that the combination of the two of them would have to save the day. To save Willow he had to give her the opportunity to feel again, and he knew someone would be there to help her with that.

Buffy at its best is an ensemble piece, centred around Buffy but giving all the characters a chance to shine. I'm not sure there's an episode of the show that is more in touch with all its characters as Grave, and gives all of them such satisfying conclusions to the things they had each been dealing with in the season. And it does that without any major deaths, or playing with the format. Grave feels like every other episode of Buffy, the Scoobies against the apocalypse, but this time there's so much depth and resolution.

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Freudian Vampire (6/01/14):
I think "Grave" is more flawed than you're allowing for, Scott. You're right that it has a few blemishes on the surface and that this is to be expected for Buffy - although I will note that "The Gift" did not have such imperfections - but I also think you're underselling just how detrimental some of the writer's decisions where to the episode. Namely:

1) The decision to keep the audience in the dark about Spike's intentions was a disservice to his character, enough so that it alone would hold me back from awarding "Grave" an A+ score (which I'm sure we agree "The Gift" is fully deserving of).

2) I haven't seen the episode recently so I can't remember whether the events I'm referring to occur here or in "Two to Go", but I think the idea of turning Dark Willow into yet another apocalypse plot kind of defeats what the arc was all about. Xander's speech would be just as emotional if her were dissuading her from killing herself, or destroying Sunnydale or whatnot.

3) Giles is going to die, just kidding.

4) Let's have Buffy stand around in a cave the whole episode! Pacing? What pacing?

In spite of these flaws, I do very much enjoy "Grave" - it lurks on the outer reaches of my Top 30 most of the time, occasionally climbing up to my top 25. But better than "The Gift"? I can't see it.

Oh, and "Restless" is a better ensemble piece. Sorry.

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Other Scott:
1) The Spike stuff literally takes up 45 seconds of the episode. It's not a big enough part to have a considerable impact.

2) The arc was about Willow and power. She was powerless to stop Tara from being killed so she turned to revenge. Then she got the power to stop everything from feeling all the pain she felt, so she tried to do that. The dealing with pain and her attempts at using her power to "help" were always big parts of who Willow were, so to have those things taken to their extreme makes sense that it would cause an apocalypse, especially in the Buffy world.

3) Not sure what happened there. I also don't really care.

4) Buffy wasn't in the grave for the whole episode. I don't even think she was in the grave for half the episode. The first part of the episode which is also important is her working out her problems with Giles. She ends up in the cave, tries to climb out, calls for Xander to get a rope, Anya shows up to tell her there's an apocalypse, talks to Dawn, then fights the zombies. The pacing was fine.

Don't be sorry about calling Restless a better ensemble piece. That's a completely reasonable thing to say. However, Restless is character work that was forced on the Scoobies by an outside force, basically. It's a "special episode" in that it is outside the framework of how Buffy normally works. Grave is character work caused by the characters themselves, and is very much a Buffy episode with almost no bells or whistles. I also think that Grave is in some ways subtler, as Restless is very clearly going for symbolism, even if its not always clear where that symbolism is, where you have to dig a little deeper to get into what Grave is trying to do a lot of the time.

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Freudian Vampire:
The Dark Willow arc blends together for me, so even though "Grave" is a much better episode than it's predecessor I find it difficult to remember what happened in each of them. It's possible some of my frustrations with "Two to Go" are bleeding into the finale and making me remember it less fondly than I probably should.

As for great character pieces that aren't as a result of outside influences a la "Restless" or "Once More with Feeling" - I'm trying to think of some better than "Grave", but in the end all I got is "Innocence". You have a good point here.

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Iguana-on-a-stick:
I think the Spike scenes in "Grave" are a real minus, no matter how short they are, because they are so very important. To the character of Spike, to the whole Buffy/Spike relationship thing that was such a prominent part of the whole season, to the coming season, as the extremely necessary follow-up to Seeing Red and the attempted rape... it's absolutely integral to all these things.

And they flub it on a fakeout.

Now, just like the Dark Willow arc itself this is something I blame more on the last part of season 6 than on "Grave" specifically as an episode, but I still couldn't give a finale a perfect score if it does such a terrible disservice to what has become one of the most important characters on the show.

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Freudian Vampire:
It doesn't help that the final image of a mostly incredible season involves some lame special effects and a cheesy voice pronouncing 'we will restore .... your SOOOOUUUUUL!' That's the note they wanted to leave the viewers on? Shameful, shameful writing.

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Alex C.:
Replying to Other Scott:

First things first. I'd like to compliment you for writing out a really great post there. All disagreements aside, that was a highly eloquent summation and argument for considering the better aspects of "Grave" as an episode and finale. Kudos. I can certainly see where you're coming from in liking it so much.

However, with that being said, I think that you are sugar-coating the weaknesses of the episode enormously. Describing the flaws in it as "surface cracks" is just not going to cut it. The problems in the writing go a lot deeper than that. The main ones being:

1) Willow trying to destroy the world. Unlike Freudian, I do not think that having the Dark Willow arc turn into an apocalypse plot was a mistake. In fact, I think quite the opposite: the idea was a brilliant stroke on the part of the writers for rounding out the troubled arc of the 6th season, although I would argue that it was so for different reasons to yours (we'll get to them momentarily).

But noting that this development was a good idea in concept, is to ignore the glaring fact of just how badly it was executed. And by badly, I mean woefully.

Apocalypses are certainly no strange element to Buffy, and are used as plot devices time and again throughout the show. However, not all apocalypses are created equal. In order for a threat to end the world (or something similarly drastic) to be meaningful instead of a punchline, two key ingredients need to go into it: first, the threat needs to manifest and be built-up for the audience, as well as the characters; and secondly, the antagonist who acts as the primary catalyst needs to be established sufficiently in advance as having credible motivations.

The 3rd and 5th seasons are models in this regard: the Mayor's Ascension and Glory's Ritual were both the end product of an entire season of build-up, and were a major focus of the plot long before the details started coming into focus. And the motivations for the villains were done excellently: the Mayor wanted to become a pure-demon so that he would have the power to impose order on an unruly society, and Glory wanted to go home, not caring what consequences her departure would have for the world. The Season 2 apocalypse is a bit more iffy, but still worked: the Acathla demon got at least one episode of build-up (even so, the suddeness of its arrival is grounds for marking down Part 1 of "Becoming"), and the season had done a good job of characterizing Angelus as the sort of madman who, if he found a doomsday device lying in the street, would set it off just because he could. Having all of these things established in advance meant that the finales were free to focus on the conflict surrounding the dilemma, instead of having to create it on the fly.

None of this adroitness that characterized the previous finales is present in the writing of "Grave". Willow's desire to end the world emerges as a narrative bolt from the blue. You can argue that it was the logical culmination of her previously established character-trait of always wanting to use magic to avoid pain, but this is not subtle writing. The anviliciousness gets dialed up to eleven when a satanic temple plot-device to accomplish her new ambition is immediately located, without even a pretence of build-up. The fact that the writers were clearly planning this all season, but couldn't give even a single line to foreshadow it, is pretty much inexcusable.

2) Buffy being stuck in a cave. It's funny that in your previous post, you failed to mention the single most important reason why I might have loved the fact that there is an apocalypse in this finale, and that it is Xander who stops it. As much as I find large parts of Buffy's arc in the 6th season to be quite troublesome (too much Spike, too much Doublemeat Palace, too much moping), I do like the essentials of how it accomplishes the narrative feat of bringing her back to life without nullifying the emotional significance of her death in "The Gift". In particular, I like that even after she overcomes her depression from having been taken out of heaven, she's still left wrestling with an existential dilemma: why was she brought back when she had already fulfilled her destiny (read: character arc) so perfectly? (a nice touch of meta writing, there).

The answer that Giles gives her - that she has a calling to be the Slayer - is what underpinned everything about her return to Sunnydale: the very first thing that she had to do after she dug herself out of her grave in "Bargaining" was save her friends from being mauled by a gang of demons, followed by saving her sister's life; and she beat her depression (in "Normal Again") largely by deciding that her need to protect her friends from danger was more important than her pain. Being forced to the sidelines while someone else does what would normally fall to her (saving the world) thus forms the catalyst for her epiphany that there are in fact reasons for her to be back that have nothing to do with her duty to protect people.

Unfortunatly, there's a problem: just because this part of the episode works so well in theory doesn't mean it isn't also hopelessly bungled in practice.

I reject the notion that putting the heroine in a cave and making her fight root monsters wasn't a failure of imagination on the part of the writers. They could have come up with something better than that to keep her occupied, and they didn't.

The cave scenes are seriously mediocre even if you get over how disappointing they are - none of the other finales have dialogue in them that is this clunky. The only real positive thing about them is that they set up the moments at the end where Buffy and Dawn make their emergence to the strains of Sarah Mclachlan.

3) Giles. I love the fact that Giles is back in the last episode of the season. He is my second favourite character on the show, and I missed his presence terribly while he was gone. But that doesn't mean there aren't big problems with his role in "Grave".

I'll leave aside the way that a hash is made out of the mortal danger he is in from the injuries inflicted by Willow, until suddenly the episode is ending and he's going to be okay, and get down to the main point: that I cannot accept what the episode is trying to tell me about the plan he had to save the day without thinking that it is extremely problematic in a number of ways. Simply saying that he knew what was right and needed to be done doesn't cut it for me - the idea that pragmatic, traditionalist Giles would deliberately goad Willow into swallowing the magic that would make her both able and desirous of ending the world, just on the off chance that Xander (a person whose capabilities he has never shown any particular regard for) would be able to talk her out of it, is to impart the character with a degree of omniscience that smacks of bad writing at best, or at worst is just plain out-of-character.

The conversation he was with Buffy is great though. I'll definitely give you that.

4) Spike's scenes may only take up a small amount of time in this episode, but that doesn't stop them from being an enormously significant part of the episode. Or a big problem with the episode.

5) Having Xander berate himself out loud about the terrible guilt he feels for not having acted to stop Warren when he showed up in the yard with the gun is just horribly gratuitous writing. I have no idea why the writers thought that they needed to spend this season relentlessly pushing Xander down into the lowest of lows, just so that his confrontation with Willow at the end would be a redemptive moment for him. The ending would have worked just as well if it had been an easier season for him (and the season would have been a lot more enjoyable).

Also, speaking of the big Xander/Willow scene - it's not nearly as well constructed as the climax of "The Gift" was. Just saying. 8)

******

Whew. Good to get all that out.

Bottom line: "Grave" is an episode with a lot of problems in it as well as good stuff.

If I rank the finales of Buffy in order from strongest to weakest, they go like this:

1: The Gift
2: Restless
3: Graduation Day
4: Becoming
5: Prophecy Girl
6: Grave
7: Chosen

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Freudian Vampire:
I think we're actually in agreement regarding the Proserpexa plot, Alex - it's the execution I find the most questionable, although I think the very idea of turning Dark Willow into an apocalyptic threat simplifies her character somewhat.

Season finale wise, I'd say that "Restless" reigns supreme, followed by "The Gift" and "Becoming". "Grave" and "Graduation Day Pt.2" are excellent, but not quite on that level; "Prophecy Girl" starts strong but is hampered by bad execution at the end and "Chosen" is a mess from start to finish.

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Alex C.:


Considering the role that Tara's death and magic play in driving almost everything that happens in "Grave" (without the Coven and the magic they give to Giles, the entire thing falls apart), I don't think that it qualifies as being free of outside influences.

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Alex C.:


I love "Prophecy Girl", and its ending doesn't bother me. It anticipates Buffy's arc throughout the show to come astonishingly well - I consider it an indispensable companion piece to "The Gift".

There needs to be less complaining about the giant snake in "Graduation Day", and more praise for the fact that everything else in those episodes is pretty much perfect.

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Damon:
In Grave, I never liked the implication in Giles’ plan that Willow had no control over her actions. If he can infuse her with light magic to counteract the effects of dark magic in order to give her the opportunity to be good again, then it raises the question of if Willow is actually responsible for what she is doing or if it is all the magic’s fault. Season 7 seems to only double down on this idea, with her fear that the evil Willow will randomly take over if she uses magic, and it flows fairly well with the previously established idea of magic as drugs, but in that case, “Willow” never killed Warren or fought Buffy. Instead, she just had a moment of weakness when Tara died and then some evil entity possessed her. That seems to me like a completely unneeded bit of ambiguity over actions that fit her character anyway.’

On a related note, I would have preferred they left her looking like Willow during this arc, instead of having her looking like evil incarnated.

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Freudian Vampire:
By free on outside influences I mean not as the result of a spell or some tweaking of the series' formula, thereby disqualifying the likes of "The Wish", "Hush", "Who Are You?", "Once More with Feeling" and the like.

On the subject of "Prophecy Girl", I found the quality of writing and direction suffered a sharp dip after Buffy's sort-of death and subsequent sort-of resurrection. In particular, I felt the use of the Nerf Herder theme and her line 'oh look, a bad guy' to be cringe-inducingly awful and thought the brevity of the final fight with the Master somewhat jarring given how hyped he was as a villain. I also thought the episode suffered from all the other pitfalls of the first season - the acting of David Boreanaz, poor production values - and despite some very emotional moments it lacked the overall polish of the other finales.

That's not to say I did not like it, but rather that I liked it less than the other five.

Regarding "Graduation Day", the Mayor's ascension is the culmination of the plot arc of the season and the fact that it fails as spectacularly as it does means it's more than just a little downside - it single-handedly disqualifies the episode from an A+ score for me.

Once again, I still thought it was an excellent finish to an excellent season, but it was up against stiff competition and whatever qualms I may have with Whistler and Acathla there was no way I could bring myself to knock "Becoming" out of the top 3.

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Alex C.:


Don't you know? It is an iron law of the Buffyverse that every Good Girl Gone Bad must wear too much eyeliner and dress like a dominatrix. [/Sarcasm]

Where is the subtext, the humour, the subtlety?

Boscalyn (6/24/14):


I'll admit that "Chosen" is honestly a pretty shitty finale, but if there's one thing that's to it's credit, it's precisely what you're saying here.

See, the theme of this episode is that power should be shared equally. "Every girl who could have the power, will have the power." What makes the episode's theme resonate is that it actually carries through with the theme instead of giving the audience what they want. Consider just who dies here: Anya. Spike. The only potential who dies is Amanda, a.k.a. The Potential Everyone Likes. (Maybe The Potential That Less Of The Fandom Hates would be a better name.)

Rona could have been split in half and the fandom would rejoice. Yet Joss lets Anya get bisected instead. Why? A lesser show would give lip service to the episode's themes, but ignore all the characters who are supposed to be given power because that's what the audience wants. But "Chosen" doesn't do that. Well, except when Buffy and Spike talk for ten minutes as he slowly burns up. Interestingly, the one scene where the episode does do exactly what everyone wants is the one scene everyone seems to love.

Tl;dr: for Buffy to really dole out power evenly amongst all the girls of the world, she needs to give that power to people that we as an audience couldn't care less about. I applaud "Chosen" for not cutting the theme short to pander to the audience. Then I piss all over "Chosen" for being a shitty episode, but E for effort.

(By the way, something no one points out about this episode, and part of the reason I think Rona got to survive: I'm almost certain Joss went out of his way to not kill any of the characters of color here. Neither of the two gay characters die either, much as I'm sure half the fandom would love to see Kennedy and Andrew torn in half. And yes, Andrew is totally and indisputably gay, and I refuse to believe otherwise!!)

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Iguana-on-a-stick:
Good point, that may well be what helped Kennedy and Rona survive.

Andrew, though, needs no such protection. The writers liked him far too much to kill him off regardless.

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Boscalyn:
No, no, no: Espenson loved Andrew. The rest of the writers were more ambivalent; not to mention that there's a notable subset of the fandom that wanted him to be ground into a fine powder and snorted. Anyone who gets compared to Jar Jar Binks is not a popular character.

Maybe Joss was just going for the pain with "Chosen?" After all, Anya and Spike were pretty universally beloved. And people liked Amanda.

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Iguana-on-a-stick (6/25/14):
Just Espenson, hm?

I got the impression most of them liked him from watching DVD commentaries, I think, but honestly I'm not entirely sure whence this idea came. Where'd you get your info from?

As for fandom being divided... yeah, I know. I loathed the little creep in season 7 and on Angel. (He worked quite well as a clueless villain in season 6, mind you.) Not sure about the powder thing, though. I have to say that snorting up ground Andrew sounds extremely unappetising.

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Boscalyn:
Maybe ground-up Andrew would taste better with a cool, refreshing Zima? ;0)

Well, the Trio were Espenson's babies, given that she wrote the first episodes where they played an important role. She indisputably loved Jonathan to pieces, considering that she wrote him back into the story on no less than FOUR separate occasions ("Earshot," "Superstar," "Flooded," "Convos"). But when I watched "Storyteller," I have the feeling she went up to Joss and practically pleaded for him to let her do an Andrew-centric episode; I can't imagine anyone else would dedicate an entire episode to the guy.

Granted, the Trio were very well developed, and "Storyteller" isn't the first episode to delve into Andrew's avoidance of reality. "Gone" tackled that too. (I think we all know how I feel about "Gone" by this point.) But "Storyteller" shows a deep understanding of his character while being really funny and incredibly moving. By my measure, it's the last really great episode of the show (unless I'm being nicer to "Lies My Parents Told Me" than usual).

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Alex C. (6/27/14):

There's actually a Doylist explanation for this one. Although I can't quote a source for your (i.e. "I read it on the internet somewhere") I'm fairly certain that Emma Caulfield requested that her character be killed off in the finale, so that she wouldn't get written into any future spin-off projects. One can quibble with the way that Whedon went about obliging her request (personally I thought it worked not spectacularly, but well), but this seems to be the source of the decision to kill off Anya.

As for Rona and Kennedy, I agree that the writers were probably reluctant to kill off any of the characters who were gay or a person of color (this worked for Andrew and Wood too), especially in light of the show's previously sketchy record on both of these fronts. However, I think that the bigger issue is simply that the writers saw these characters in a really different light to the audience, and didn't realise beforehand that the way they were used for the story would come off badly for the viewers. (I think of this as "Riley Finn Syndrome").


I think that "Chosen" is a wonderful episode. It's flawed for sure, and very sloppy in places, but the parts that work work so well that I don't have any problem loving it.

To shamelessly make use of a sentiment that I've been strenuously arguing against until now in this thread, "Chosen" might be riddled with surface cracks, but underneath these the core of what the episode does is just great. In no particular order:

1) Buffy's final farewell to Spike. I think this might be one of the most overlooked best character moments in the entire show. After seven seasons of watching the heroine slowly but progressively shed her sense of humanity, the instant when she has the revelation that it never really left her - and it all comes flooding back - is so powerful, and so significant, that it literally takes her breath away. Admittedly the symbolism employed (hands bursting into flame and all that) is not particularly subtle, but the actors play off each other in making the moment so well that it doesn't matter. The dialogue is almost superfluous to the real story of what happens, which is written all over the facial expressions of JM and SMG.

2) The mass-activation of the Potentials. I honestly could have done without all the emphasis that was put on the theme of empowerment - which I really didn't find to be very affecting. But I'm willing to overlook that in favor of noting just how great I think the idea was of creating an entire multitude of new Slayers as a way to end the story. The rule that there could only be one Chosen One was so integral to the show that its ultimate subversion was the perfect development to close it. I would have forgiven it even if it had been more clumsily handled than it actually was.

3) Sunnydale does a swan dive into Hell. Again, perfect development to close out the story. The idea of Sunnydale as the ultimate trap for the lives of all the characters was established so well throughout the show, that I actually find it hard to concieve of an emotionally satisfying ending to the story that didn't feature the town being destroyed.

4) Angel's amulet. So many people rag on this one for being a deus ex machina, but that's only really valid if you view it in isolation. If Buffy and Angel are considered as two parts of a single contiguous story, I think it was actually quite a clever plot device.

5) The characters being themselves. On the tail end of two deeply uneven seasons in which almost every one of the main cast were victims of character assassination at some point, it really is a thing of beauty to watch them all come back to themselves for the finale. Instead of contrived reasons for Buffy to be cut off from the people around her like we'd been having for much of the season, "Chosen" has her back to doing what she does best: getting the group of misfits around her to do things they never thought they were capable of. And they all come through for her. This is such a lovely thing to watch, I can even forget for a moment how much I hate the Potentials.

6) The Big Battle. From a tactical perspective, Buffy's grand plan makes about as much sense as Aragorn's last stand in The Return of the King. I ignore that, in favor of the emotional satisfaction of how awesome it is to watch the Scoobies and co. wailing on an infinite army of primordial vampires, before Spike incinerates the whole lot of them with the power of his soul.

7) I thought that the resolution given to Willow's character was satisfactory.

8. I'm probably the only BtVS fan in existence who actually liked the Buffy/Angel exchange. The cookie dough speech was badly written, but the sentiment rang true.

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Boscalyn:

You're absolutely right that the scene is well acted. That being said, the episode taking a three-minute pause in the climactic final battle so that Spike and Buff can get their love on is awful. It doesn't help that Spike has Valiantly Sacrificed Himself For Buffy Out Of Pure Love. Can you say shipper bait??


I agree that Buffy making a new generation of Slayers is a really clever subversion. (Although it doesn't make up for the awfulness that is "Get It Done.") Unfortunately, everything about it is very poorly executed. I need to find Freudian's point about the thematic failure of this episode and Potentials as a concept in general, but the tl;dr is that the concept that only a tiny subset of the world's girls can be Slayers undercuts the central theme of the episode.


Sunnydale literally collapsing is a cool and fitting ending, but "Graduation Day" did that a lot better. (And this is ignoring that quite a few people hadn't abandoned town [as shown in "Touched"] and that they presumably died when the town imploded.)


The two shows were on different networks, and I don't think it was explained all that well on Angel either. (I know the whole "It's to trap Angel in the W&H basement" thing.) It's a deus ex machina. Sorry.


Hey, you know when else all the characters were being themselves? Literally every other season.


It is a lot better to watch, but it raises the question of why Buffy even needed to bring all the Potentials in there if Spike was going to just make everything go kablooey.


Fair enough.


Finally, something I agree with. :0)

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Freudian Vampire:

That's the quote you were looking for, Boscalyn.

All of the moments you love about "Chosen", Alex, I find pretty average. Buffy's farewell to Spike kind of fell down because in season 7 I stopped loving Buffy and Spike. Also, it was really ridiculous fan service, unrealistic and on the nose. I just quoted my thoughts on your second point. As for three, four and five I agree with Boscalyn. Six, I'm sorry but no amount of coolness can make up for how insultingly bad the plot of that episode was. I mean, seriously. I was writing stories with endings less contrived when I was three. Not exaggerating. Seven, I thought White Willow was stupid. Sorry, but that was too on the nose. Eight, I hated Angel's return. Seemed so utterly pointless.

The death knell for "Chosen" comes when you realize that this is the last episode of a show in contention for best ever, and it's a sloppy, ridiculous, contrived, shallow mess. Whether you like the episode or not, nobody can tell me it has a patch on "Made in America", "Felina", "30", "Family Meeting", "Always" (I've not seen FNL but Darren says it's amazing), "Not Fade Away", "Objects in Space" or "Discos and Dragons". All those episodes are among the best, if not the very best, of their respective shows. "Chosen" is not Buffy going out on a high note.

I have no idea how the episode managed to score a 90 by Mike. It'd be lucky to get 60 from me.

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Alex C.:

Well, since the battle was already over by that point, it really doesn't bother me that the episode paused to devote several minutes to a last exchange between the most important character and the most interesting character in the show.

And even if it was contrived, I don't care, because it was way too significant for Buffy for that to matter much. The importance has absolutely nothing to do with the characters "getting their love on" - it's about Buffy having spent four seasons slowly distancing herself from her emotional humanity (think of it as the "Doomed"-to-"Intervention"-to-"Once More With Feeling"-to-"Conversations With Dead People" trajectory), and now finally getting to have a moment at the end when she can just throw all that to the wind and revel in being able to say the words "I love you" to a person while really feeling it. Whether there's some actual romance between them is beside the point - this is all about payoff to the heroine's emotional development over the entire later part of the series. The scene may be short, but what it manages to pack into that brief space is incredible. (For a longer and much more eloquent explanation of what the scene accomplishes, see: This).

The fact that Whedon was able to write a moment like that into the finale, and get the actors to pull it off so well is reason enough that I probably would have liked "Chosen" even if the rest of it had been complete shit (luckily, it isn't).


I find that the solution to this is simple: ignore what the episode is trying to tell you about this being an important thing re. female empowerment, and concentrate instead on what it means for Buffy. That's how I look at it, and that's how I enjoy it and find it meaningful. After seven seasons full of issues for the character about being the Chosen One, she finally got to deal with them once and for all by making the entire notion of the Chosen One meaningless. That's a cool thing, in my opinion, enough so that I can overlook how garbled the main thrust of the story in Season 7 is.


"Graduation Day" does everything better, but that doesn't mean it isn't good in "Chosen" too. It was cooler when the high school was destroyed, but the town being sucked into hell was a more significant moment - and not because it was bigger explosion. As long as Sunnydale and its Hellmouth existed, there was the sense that Buffy would be stuck having all her adventures there for the rest of her life. By ending the town (and ending the problem of the Slayer lineage) she gained her own freedom, and I like that a lot.

I took "Touched" as indicating that Sunnydale was completely abandoned - by the point when vampires could walk into houses without needing an invitation, I think the audience is meant to deduce that the town is completely lost.


Different networks or no, the two are joined at the hip, and I thought it worked well enough. Given what we later learn about the plans of the Senior Partners in Angel s.5, it makes sense that they would take action to help prevent the First Evil from taking over the world, and it sets up the excuse to bring Spike over onto the show.

I have never tested this theory, but I am leaning more and more these days toward thinking that ss.4-7 of Buffy and ss.1-4 of Angel work better if they are watched in conjunction than seperately. I'd like to hear other peoples' opinion on this.


Large parts of the sixth and seventh seasons disagree with you. Painfully.

After having to spend so much of the run of Season 7 watching the story torture itself with contrived angst and out-of-character developments (almost as bad as the tortured angst and OOCnss from s.6) it was a pure and blessed relief to see Buffy just be Buffy at the end - kicking ass and tossing quips, asking the people around her to do great things, and letting them know that she believed in them when they doubted themselves. After the last season had squandered so much potential earlier on, it was never going to live up to the heights of the show's best seasons (2, 3, & 5) in the end. But it was nice to see it just be the best of itself, again.


Rule of cool.

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Damon:



I don't think it's ever implied that Buffy knew what the amulet was going to do...

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Alex C.

This is mostly addressed above, but I maintain that you don't need to be a Buffy+Spike shipper to appreciate the importance of this moment, which is better seen in context of the last four seasons as a whole rather than season 7 in particular. Suffice to say that I still think it was brilliant, and complaints that it was "fan service" miss the point entirely.


Sorry, but I refuse to concede that the story in "Chosen" wasn't better by a long way than "Grave".

You might think White Willow was stupid, but I honestly preferred it to the Yellow Crayon speech.

And Angel's return might not have been necessary, but I was happy to see him anyway.


I'm not saying that "Chosen" is a highlight of the show. I stand by my earlier assertion that in a ranking of the seven Buffy finales, it would come in at 6th place. But even if it wasn't a great episode, I thought that it was a good one - and I'm content with it as such.


I'd give "Chosen" about an ~85. "Grave" would get ~60.