“Selfless"

 

Episode 5 of Season 7

 

“When our friends go all crazy and start killing people, we help them.”

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Original US airdate: October 22nd, 2002

Rewatched: October 19th, 2023

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• Writer: Drew Goddard

• Director: David Solomon

• Guests: Abraham Benrubi, Andy Umberger, Kali Rocha, Joyce Guy, Jennifer Shon

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This episode centers on who Anya is and further explores what it means to be a Slayer. But first, a few notes. Xander is contemplating getting back together with Anya, and although this episode marks his realization that this is unlikely to ever happen, they end the episode on friendly terms. Buffy attempts to get Spike out of the basement, rightly noting that it’s not doing him any good, but he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go (it’s an interesting contrast that the fake Buffy is very loving of Spike, while the real Buffy is rather brusque). Willow is moving into Buffy’s room, and returning to college, all steps forward. She also uses magic when surprised by a demon (to save herself and someone else), but it makes her eyes turn black and she says some mean things. This shows that she’s not fully recovered from her black magic overload, but it also shows that she can use it and not let it fully take over, so that is positive.

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Anya summoned the demon to fulfill a vengeance wish for a young woman who had had her heart ripped out (metaphorically) by some frat guys. The demon then ripped their hearts out. Willow discovers the demon and figures out it was Anya and tries to have a bit of an intervention with Anya. In the meantime, Buffy and Xander slay the demon. Willow, in turn, tells them who summoned the demon. When Buffy goes to stop Anya, Willow uses the coin D’Hoffryn gave her to summon him and ask for his help with Anya as well. The episode ends with Halfrek dead, Anya no longer a demon, and the frat boys living. But the road there was not easy.

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First, what does it mean to be a Slayer? Ultimately, Buffy is there to protect humans from demons. While frat boys who play stupid tricks with others’ feelings are not truly innocent, they still don’t deserve to be slaughtered for their wrongs. Buffy realizes that Anya has crossed a line in this episode, and I do sometimes feel she is too quick to decide it’s time for Anya to die. Every other character was given much more opportunity for redemption (Angel, Willow and Spike, to name a few). However, one point Buffy makes is that Anya had a choice, which is very true and puts her in stark contrast to Angel and Spike, who didn’t choose to become vampires, but not in contrast to Willow, who did have a choice, although her grief left her feeling otherwise. Anya, it can’t be forgotten, was also grieving in a way when she returned to the demon fold. Xander, especially, does not take Buffy’s decision well. In their verbal fight, Xander accuses Buffy of cutting herself off. Buffy brings up killing Angel (and incidentally, Willow finds out Xander lied about her message to Buffy that day) and tells Xander that “it’s always different. It’s always complicated and at some point, someone has to draw a line and that is always going to be me … In the end, the Slayer is always cut off. There’s no mystical guidebook, no all-knowing council. Human rules don’t apply. There’s only me. I am the law.”

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Buffy is in many ways right. She’s the final word on saving the world. But I do think deciding to kill Anya without first trying to save her shows that Buffy never truly accepted her as one of the Scoobies. The Scoobies find solutions, they don’t kill each other, unless it’s absolutely necessary. But in the final fight, it does seem that Buffy’s heart is not fully in it. Anya ends up being a formidable foe, and Buffy makes the mistake of thinking a sword through the chest can kill her, which it can’t.

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Then, there’s Anya. Through flashbacks, we learn who she used to be. In Sweden in 880, she was Aud, who was dating Olaf (not yet a troll) and raising bunnies, which she planned to give away to people. She was already a woman who spoke her mind and didn’t get along with most. When Olaf cheats, she turns him into a troll and D’Hoffryn arrives, telling her she is really Anyanka, a vengeance demon. Anya says yes to that life, and throws herself into it, starting a revolution in Russia in 1905 with her actions (while also endorsing communism). She tells Halfrek that vengeance is all she needs and all she is. Finally, there’s a flashback to the musical episode. She sings a solo, “Mrs.”, where she extolls her marriage and what it means for her identity. The idea is that Anya has always defined herself through others, that she just clings to what’s around her (Xander and capitalism, vengeance and communism, Olaf and free bunnies), but I’m not sure this is fully true. While Anya claims she doesn’t know her true self, and D’Hoffryn claims he does, both are mistaken. I think Anya knows she’s a Scooby. She came in with Xander, but she made her own Scooby identity, running the Magic Box until Willow destroyed it, being a source of information for them, being someone who could finally decide to do good. In her second round as a vengeance demon, she clearly wasn’t into the mayhem and murder. At the frat house, Anya clearly struggles with what’s happened, and when confronted by Buffy and D’Hoffryn, she chooses to un-do her wish, knowing the cost. She is willing to sacrifice herself to make it right. Unfortunately, D’Hoffryn chooses to sacrifice Halfrek, leaving Anya one friend down and human again.

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Anya may not fully know who she is without Xander, but this episode is clearly the death of her desire for vengeance. At the end of the episode, she tells Xander she wants to be alone, to find out who she is. She thanks Xander for everything, but also wonders whether she might really be nobody. Xander tells her not to be a dope, and he’s right. Anyone who would pick doing the right thing at such a high price is not nobody. Anya might not be able to take it all back, as she asks to do, but she can be a good person again.

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“Him"

 

Episode 6 of Season 7

 

“No guy is worth your life. Not ever.”

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Original US airdate: November 5th, 2002

Rewatched: October 26th, 2023

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• Writer: Drew Z. Greenberg

• Director: Michael Gershman

• Guests: Thad Luckinbill, Brandon Keener, D.B. Woodside

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This episode reminds me a lot of season 1. A pretty usual issue-of-the-week one, with a high school student dabbling in hellmouth inspired dark arts. In this case, RJ wears his brother’s (and father’s and who knows whose) lettermen jacket which makes all the women fall in love with him. It hits Dawn first, then Buffy, then Anya and Willow. Willow tries to turn him into a girl. Anya robs a bank for him. Buffy tries to kill Principal Wood with the rocket launcher from season 2. Dawn tries to kill herself. Thankfully, Xander, with a little help from Spike, figures out the situation and destroy the jacket. Along the way, there are some fun flashbacks. Dawn uses Buffy’s old Sunnydale cheerleading outfit when trying out for the team herself. Xander flashes back to his love spell gone wrong.

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Despite the relative lightness of the episode, it is clear that Buffy has become an adult in many ways and is having trouble understanding Dawn’s adolescent issues. She downplays Dawn’s crush and is scandalized by Dawn’s outfit at the Bronze, which isn’t that slutty compared to what Buffy wore at a comparable age, and as for world-ending crushes, Buffy had her relationship with Angel at Dawn’s age. At least RJ was still in high school. However, when faced with Dawn trying to kill herself to show RJ how much she loves him, Buffy is able to remind Dawn that love is never worth her life, something that Buffy has lived. It’s an important message, too. No matter how big your love is, it’s not more important than yourself.

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Two other important things happen as well. First, Buffy gets Spike out of the basement and into Xander’s apartment. While Xander is not thrilled, he’s willing to help out. Spike seems to be doing better, but when they visit RJ’s brother (who, despite high school popularity and being a bully to Xander, never made it out of his mother’s house), Spike turns all the angel figurines backwards. His soul is still weighing on him. Then, Buffy tells Anya to come back to the Scoobies. This moment is a bit like Tara’s in “Family”, although a little less centered in the episode. Buffy saves Anya from a demon (evidently D’Hoffryn decided to kill her after all) and then tells Anya this isn’t a time to be alone, and calls her a friend. This moment reinforces Anya’s role as a Scooby independent of her status as Xander’s girlfriend, and it’s an important one. Anya was feeling lost in the last episode. Buffy reminds her she’s not without friends.

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Thus, despite it’s overall light feeling, this episode is important.

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“Conversations with Dead People"

 

Episode 7 of Season 7

 

“They haven't been through what I've been through.”

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Original US airdate: November 12th, 2002

Rewatched: November 29th, 2023

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• Writer: Jane Espenson & Drew Goddard

• Director: Nick Marck

• Guests: Danny Strong, Adam Busch, Tom Lenk, Jonathan M. Woodward, Azura Skye, Kristine Sutherland

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The title is really self-explanatory. In this episode, various people have conversations with dead people, which move the plot of the season away from its déjà vu quality (re-creating the early, high-school centered episodes) and face to face with this season’s big bad. Sort of.

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First, Jonathan and Andrew are back from Mexico. They’d been having nightmares there and have come to Sunnydale to find the mouth of hell in the basement of the school. The plan seems to be to then get Buffy to destroy it, hopefully cementing the duo a spot in the Scooby Gang. However, it turns out Andrew is following orders from Warren’s ghost and he actually kills Jonathan. It seems to be an attempt to activate or open the Hellmouth. What’s interesting to note is that Jonathan, in his final scenes on the series, finally seems to have grown up. He says it doesn’t matter what others think, only what he thinks. It’s too bad he won’t live to fully explore this idea. Andrew, on the other hand, is still following his dream of evil. He has a bit of a journey ahead of him.

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Then, there’s Dawn. She’s stuck at home alone. She orders anchovy pizza, plays with her sister’s clothes (and gets pizza sauce on her white blouse), and talks to her friend Kit on the phone. A typical evening alone for a high schooler. Until the haunting starts. First, it’s bangs. Then it’s violence. Dawn seems to find out it’s her mother and another ghost that is trying to prevent Dawn from talking to Joyce. Dawn uses her brains and her courage (and some magic) to cast the ghost out, leaving her living room trashed, but allowing Joyce to appear. Joyce warns Dawn that when things get tough, Buffy won’t choose her. It’s hard to know what this might mean. It seems most likely that Joyce is not Joyce (it doesn’t really seem like her to warn Dawn her sister will turn on her), but rather this season’s big bad (like ghost Warren and ghost Cassie, who Willow talks to). However, it seems like a pretty harmless “attack”, considering everything else that has happened and will happen. Ultimately, this is part of the episode that has never quite made sense.

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Next, Willow is visited by Cassie, who claims to speak for Tara, who can’t come because of what Willow did at the end of last season. This is a true attack. Ghost Cassie reminds Willow of her love for Tara, of everything bad she’s done and tells her she won’t be able to control her magic. The goal is to convince Willow to kill herself. It’s interesting that the first real move against the Scoobies is against Willow, indicating that she is the power the big bad most fears. Willow refusing to kill herself, or to believe Tara would ever expect her to do so, is a sign of her strength as well.

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Finally, Buffy talks to Holden, a guy she maybe vaguely knew in high school who is now a vampire. They chat, they do a therapy session, then they fight and he dies. The conversation, however, lets Buffy explore her feelings of loneliness that stem from being a Slayer. They explore her feelings of superiority, her feelings of inferiority, her feelings about her power and her feelings of unworthiness. It’s a good glimpse at Buffy state of mind. She’s come so far, but is still just a young woman, working through a lot of feelings about her giant responsibility to the world. Finally, before Buffy stakes Holden, he tells her he was sired by Spike.

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Spike is seen in this episode alone at the Bronze. He seems to be nursing his loneliness when a woman approaches him. They seem to hit it off and he takes her home. However, he then drains her blood. Something is not right.

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All the characters spend this episode apart (and in fact, Xander and Anya don’t even appear) and mostly alone, except for dead people. Willow’s loneliness is her grief about Tara. Buffy’s is her solitude as the Slayer. Dawn is her grief about her mother and the lack of a place in her sister’s life of slaying. But they don’t let their loneliness define them in this episode, finding the strength to stand up to the ghosts trying to haunt them. It’s a strong introduction to this season’s big bad.

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“Sleeper"

 

Episode 8 of Season 7

 

“But the soul, I got on my own.”

 

Original US airdate: November 19th, 2002

Rewatched: December 18th, 2023

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• Writer: David Fury & Jane Espenson

• Director: Alan J. Levi

• Guests: Robinne Lee, Rob Nagle

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This episode starts directly after the previous one and focuses on the aftermath. For Willow, it’s clear she faced this season’s big bad, for Dawn, it’s less clear. Deep down, she wants to believe it was her mother, although Willow tells her to be skeptical. For Buffy, it’s also less cut and dry. Was Holden a real vampire and was he telling the truth?

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The Scoobies begin their investigation of Spike. During this investigation, Buffy confronts Spike, who is adamant he isn’t killing, and not just because of the chip (which was done to him), but because of his soul, which he did himself. He claims he would remember the taste of human blood, even if he were killing while crazy. It turns out, he’s wrong about that. During his own investigation, Spike runs into a vampire he sired on the balcony at the Bronze. Much like the scene with Druscilla in season 5, she asks Spike which person he wants to kill. Spike finally remembers enough to take Buffy to the house where he’s been hiding the bodies. Once there, Spike sees a second version of himself, which Buffy doesn’t, and this version sings a song which triggers Spike to become a killer. He attacks Buffy, and so do his recent kills. The new vampires are able to grab Buffy so Spike can taste her blood (from a cut on her arm). Tasting her blood, like when Buffy tasted Dracula’s, actually brings Spike out of his trance. Buffy takes care of the vampires and then confronts Spike, who assumes she’ll kill him. Buffy chooses not to. As Buffy tells the gang, Spike has been close to the big bad and they may need to know what he knows.

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It's not the most thought-provoking episode, but it continues to slow reveal of this season’s big bad, and just how much groundwork has been laid so far. The only other significant scenes take place in England, where a watcher named Robson is attacked in his home by a robed figure similar to the ones killing young women in Buffy’s dream. Giles stumbles in, and is also attacked, although viewers do not see if he is successful in fighting off the attack.

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“Never Leave Me"

 

Episode 9 of Season 7

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“I believe in you, Spike.”

 

Original US airdate: November 26th, 2002

Rewatched: December 29th, 2023

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• Writer: Drew Goddard

• Director: David Solomon

• Guests: Danny Strong, Adam Busch, Tom Lenk, Cynthia Lamontagne, Oliver Muirhead, Kris Iyer, Harris Yulin, D.B. Woodside

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In this episode, prisoners are taken and the true nature of this season’s big bad becomes clear. Also, some serious relationship work takes place.

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First, the prisoners. Spike is first tied up in Buffy’s room. Buffy explains to the Scoobies why she’s not willing to kill him, although Anya seems put out Buffy’s not running him through with a sword. Xander figures out that Spike has been brainwashed and has a trigger that makes him evil. Then, Willow runs into Andrew at the butcher. They are both there to buy blood – Willow for Spike, Andrew to fully open the seal over the Hellmouth (Jonathan didn't have enough blood and Andrew couldn't manage to kill a pig to get more blood). Willow brings Andrew back to the house where he is tied up in Dawn’s room. Spike is triggered again, tries to kill Andrew, and ends up chained in the basement. At the end of the episode, beings in black robes attack the house. Buffy keeps Andrew safe, leaving Dawn to fend for herself (is this what her mother warned her of two episodes ago?). While Dawn does a good job, it may have ended badly for her if Xander hadn’t been there to save her. With everyone safe, Buffy realizes she knows the robed men. They are Bringers, connected to the First Evil. Buffy then realizes that Spike has been taken. The Bringers take him to the seal and use his blood to open it, releasing a Turok Han, an uber vampire, from the Hellmouth.

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Two other things happen of import. First, the Watcher’s Council in England is blown up, a serious blow despite Buffy’s rocky relationship with them. Then, Principal Wood finds Jonathan dead on the seal and buries him. It is an odd reaction, and speaks to him knowing what’s up in Sunnydale, and raising the question of whether he is involved with the First.

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On to relationships. Xander, in trying to gain information from Andrew, warns him about Anya and tells him what Anya did to him, dooming him to walk around as an empty man forever. While it’s not a fully honest conversation, as Xander doesn’t talk about what he did to Anya, it’s perhaps the first time that Xander is able to be fully honest about what ending his relationship did to him.

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Buffy and Spike finally have an honest conversation about their relationship, and Buffy makes it clear that she has forgiven Spike (and herself) for what happened. Spike, it should be noted, also doesn’t understand why Buffy isn’t killing him. He opens up about what he did to get his soul back and he says he understands Buffy’s self-hatred, that the torment of his soul is relative after their relationship. After attacking Andrew, Spike reminds Buffy how evil he once was and what he used to do. Buffy, however, isn’t willing to kill him.

Spike: Have you ever really asked yourself why you can’t do it? Off me? After everything I’ve done to you, to the people around you? It’s not love, and we both know that.

Buffy: You fought by my side. You’ve saved lives. You’ve helped.

Spike: Don’t do that. Don’t rationalize this into some noble act. We both know the truth of it. You like men who hurt you.

Buffy: No.

Spike: You need the pain we cause you. You need the hate. You need it to do your job. To be the Slayer.

Buffy: No. I don’t hate like that. Not you. Not myself. Not anymore. self. Not anymore. You think you have insight because your soul is drenched in blood? You don’t know me. You don’t even know you. Was that you who killed those people in the cellar? Was that you who waited for those girls?

Spike: There’s no one else.

Buffy: That’s not true. Listen to me. You’ve not alive because of hate or pain. You’re alive because I saw you change. Because I saw your penance… You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man… And you can be. You are. You may not see it, but I do. I believe in you, Spike.

Buffy reminds Spike that she sees him for who he is – both good and bad – and at the moment, she sees the good in him. She is ready to treat him like a man again, even if she can’t love him. Despite the rising season 7 action in this episode, it’s the relationships and revelations about them that make their mark.

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