The Gift

Buffy Episode Review

In which everyone runs around and then there is an apocalypse.

What Did I Think?

The blood of someone special to Buffy is the key to opening a portal to Hell which will engulf the world in chaos and if the door is opened, she will have to kill the someone special in order to close it again.

Sound familiar?

It's the plot to the second season finale "Becoming" and to this season's ender, "The Gift." In one case, Buffy has to skewer Angel to stop the demon Akathla; in the other, the hellgod Glory threatens to sacrifice Dawn. Essentially, it's the same story. So how do they get away with this?

'Cause Joss Whedon is God.

Well, ok, maybe not THE God, but you know what I mean. He is just really good at making you care about the characters. Some shows think, "Let's kill a major character! That'll be good way to end the season," and write a single event, manhandling the characters every which way to make them fit in. For Buffy, the "story" has been going the whole season. The producers may have thought it was a cool idea, but they were thinking it way back and have been writing to the event for at least the past twenty episodes.

Buffy's discussions with Spike in "Fool for Love," were a good starting point, as he described how he killed the other Slayers. Being the Hero of the series, Buffy has to go out with a bang, to make a conscious sacrifice. It couldn't have been accidental, or a failure, like Spike implied happened with the others.

Unlike his diagnosis of her love life, Spike put his finger right on the reason Buffy had lasted so long as the Slayer: she had a support system. Piece by piece through the season, however, those supports started disappearing. Her boyfriend left, her friends found lives of their own, her mother died, she had to quit school. Everything that happened all season was putting this character in this place.

And how cool was it that "little sister" was set up all the way back at the end of season three? The end result was effective as much because we'd been getting to know Dawn all season as anything else.

Of course, Buffy won't stay dead for very long. And it should be fun getting her back. Bring on the fall.