SPOILERS: Chiming in on the finale

[Jason Rune <winter_herald@xxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I didn't end up being out of town this week like
I had planned, but I still didn't feel like doing an
insta-review of the two-hour finale. Here are a few
afterthoughts.

(Oh, and SPOILERS for the Angel finale as well as the
Buffy finale.)


If

you

can't

see

the

spoiler,

it

can't

eat

you!


Well, this list being what it is the B/W angle seems
to have been pretty well covered (in that it wasn't
really there, *sob*.) I thought AH was pretty good in
the role they gave her, but I wasn't getting
"I'm-in-pain" vibes at all until the very end; before
that it was all cold homicidal rage, and that's just
not Willow.

They could have made it all work quite easily, IMO. I
look back to Something Blue (which includes both
Willow's magic going wrong and a relationship between
Buffy and Spike...) and I don't see an addict or a
prototype for evil. I see, essentially, a child.

What does Willow want in S.B.? She wants her pain to
go away, and she doesn't want to wait or work. She
wants instant relief, instant gratification, and she's
willing to use whatever tools she has available to
expedite the process.

Given that the theme of this season was supposed to be
"grow up," I think the Willow arc could have been much
better cast as impetuosity, overcompensating for
insecurity, and a lack of discipline, rather than
addiction or evil. Rack could have been a direct
Spike parallel, telling Willow that she didn't belong
with her friends and that she was more powerful with
him. Plus, we wouldn't have had all that icky
cold-blooded killer stuff at the end, because that's
not Will (even depressed Will.)

As for Spike's soul... we'll see. I think one of the
major problems on both Buffy and Angel recently has
been an influx of deus ex machina plots. Cordelia is
the utter worst in that regard, but I'm seeing some
elements of it over in Sunnydale as well. What I'm
worried about right now is this: does Spike's soul
have any conditions on it?

If it doesn't, what's the point of Angel's curse? Why
doesn't Angel just fly to Africa on in his magic
convertable and get a demon to give him a real
re-souling?

So here's to hoping that Spike's soul comes with
something interesting... say, he loses it if he ever 
uses the word "effulgent" in a sentence.

Anyway, just a little while ago I was complaining
about how the Powers that Be seemed much more
interested in L.A. than Sunnydale. I think it would
be better if they'd just stay out of it entirely. The
Powers work in mysterious ways, nobody ever really
sees them, and that's a *good thing.* None of this
stuff about making women into goddess-like demons and
making them ascend into heaven after just a few weeks
of using their powers (mostly involuntarily,) and
giving vamps back their souls on a whim. Make 'em
work for it.

I guess that's what happens when you try to follow up
on defeating a goddess... but still, that's no excuse.

I thought the finale was fairly well done in general,
except for the end, some of the beginning, and most of
the middle. Buffy/Dawn reconciliation was nice to see
but much too sudden and unearned (and where'd Dawn
learn to use a sword like that?) Buffy/Willow was
horrible. And Xander's stopping Willow at the end was
much too *easy* considering her behavior in the rest
of the episode.

Giles showing up was cool.

One final note: was it just me, or was that Xander's
voice introducing the summary of the season's events
at the very beginning of the finale? Interesting hint
towards him saving the day, if so.

I remain,

Jason Rune

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