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Despite his powers, even Giles can't stop Willow's insatiable rage as her vengeance explodes into a campaign to destroy the world. Elsewhere, Spike's quest leads him to an encounter with a horrific demon.

Link to the reaction:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y8w3ije9jwj8g3x/Buffy%206x22.mp4?dl=0

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Comments

Macca Fan

the video being up top kind of hard to watch.

Dudley, The Stardew Valley Cat

willow got connected to everyone through Gile's magic, and felt the painful emotions of all the people. Kinda like Cordelia in the last episode of Season 1 Angel. So willow thought to destroy the planet to stop everyones suffering.

AlexisTheDragon

It's just cinematography, he wanted his soul back. It's just meant to be unrealistically ambiguous so people didn't guess the surprise, it's a tv show at the end of the day.

Eric C. Johnson

I like that there are quite a few callbacks to prior seasons but in subtle ways. The finale takes place on Kingman's Bluff, the same cliff Angel tried to kill himself at during Amends. I could be wrong, but I think "the big earthquake of 32" is supposed to be "the big earthquake of 37" that trapped the Master (counterpoint: it is California). Finally, both this and Becoming Part 2, the season finales of the second and penultimate seasons, both end with a montage to Sarah MacLachlan.

Gary Marshall

Buffy finales do not disappoint and this one is no exception. I love the fact that it was Xander, with the help of Giles's magical doping of Willow, that saves the day. And I agree with you that didnt necessarily think he would stop Willow but thinking that the world was about to end he would want to spend it with his best friend. Kudos to Alyson and Nicholas for acting their hearts out in that scene, as it was freezing cold that day and very windy which wasnt great as Alyson had her black contacts in for the most part. Ive read a lot of articles over the years since originally watching this show abd one of the factoids that really intrigued me about this finale is that is was envisioned, Dark Willow et al, before they shot the season 5 finale. The whole arc of Willow's misuse of magic was skillfully orchestrated throughout the season until it culminated when Warren killed Tara andw without her death who knows how the season would have ended. Would Buffy's death have been enough to turn Willow dark? Unlikely. So as much as it pains me, because I adore Willow and Tara's love for one another (I dont ship much at all, FitzSimmons from AoS and David & Maddy from Moonlighting are the exceptions along with Tillow), but the only catalyst that would have driven the story arc in the way the writers wanted was her death. It is hard to imagine today that this show came out before social media and the studio was getting hate mail via fax (for those of us old enough to remember this stone age machine) and so I truly believe that the writers did not know the full affect of killing Tara. Sorry for my rambling thoughts.

Gary Marshall

Oh, and this was the first finale not to have been written and directed by Joss, as he was shooting the Firefly pilot. David 'Mustard Guy' Fury wrote it and James A. Contner directed it.

Stargazer1682

It's always weird and kind of dissonant thinking about when production on Firefly was happening, versus when it aired and everything. Because Firefly and Joss' absence (to the degree that he was stepped back) from Buffy or Angel during this season, is so intertwined in my memory; that it's kind of wild that they were only just shooting the Firefly pilot when this episode was being made. Especially since by the next season he was back and much more involved with both shows again. And yet it does make some sense, given the amount of pre-production that needs to go into a new show; and then that show only gets a little more than half a season. There still would have been more overlap between the three productions than I normally associated.

Graham Nickless

The song playing at the end is called Prayer of St. Francis by Sarah MacLachlan. She also had another song in the show which played at the end of the Season 2 finale (Full of Grace)

Lex Larae

I was waiting for the soul reveal freak out lmao I was not disappointed.

Ava Sinclair

This is exactly the distraction I needed from some real life epic fuckery in my world. It was so great to see you enjoying the finale after most of season 6 and especially 6x19. This was a freaking amazing end to the season. So many moments I loved but my number one would have to be, of course, Xander breaking through to Willow. Right after that though was the surprise with Spike. When I first saw this episode I was convinced that Spike thought he was getting his chip out/nullified, and him getting his soul back was not what he was expecting. Oh, how I laughed and laughed. I'll not spoil whether I was right or not. o.O

cosmotron

This finale makes me emotional, but I've always maintained that I think Xander should have died instead of Tara. I know people like to argue that nothing but Tara's death would have driven Willow to this point, but I don't think that's true. We could have started with a very similar situation. Warren shoots at Buffy, and one of his stray shots goes up through the window and hits Tara. Only, it's Xander who is hit instead of Buffy (maybe because Warren is a bad shot, maybe because Xander managed to react just fast enough to get in front of Buffy). And up in the house, instead of Tara being dead, she's badly injured, and Willow immediately teleports her to the hospital. Not realizing that by doing so, she is leaving Xander bleeding out in the back yard. Buffy calls an ambulance, they get him to the hospital, but it's too late for him. Tara is unconscious but stable, and it's only now that Willow runs into Buffy, and learns what has happened. Devastated, filled with fury and guilt, Willow does much of what she does in these past episodes, and tries to track down Warren for revenge. We can get a lot of the same character interactions, except there will be an even more complicated edge to it. We could see Buffy really struggling to stick to her convictions in the wake of losing Xander. We could see Anya struggling to understand what she feels, after thinking she wanted vengeance on Xander herself. Dawn would likely take very similar actions as she does here, initially wanting to help Willow and then realizing that Willow is going too far. And Tara of course. Tara would try to reach out to Willow, get her to stop. And it would probably seem the most effective at first. Except we have already seen Willow rationalize doing something that would upset Tara under the basis of it being 'all for the best' or the like. Tara could make a great impassioned speech, almost reach Willow. Willow could smile, approach Tara gently, maybe even kiss her on the head, or hold her face in her hands. "You don't understand now, but someday you will. When I've made this world safer for you, you'll understand." And then she used magic to maybe put Tara to sleep, or else put her somewhere 'safe' that she can stay until Willow comes for her again. But most of all, this would allow Buffy (or even Buffy and Dawn) to be the one to convince Willow to live again. I like Xander's speech in this episode, it makes me emotional. But it's always left Buffy's arc wanting. I like the symmetry of her climbing out of her own grave again, but I never really felt *why* her feelings had changed. If she were there before Willow, facing the end of the world, having been to Heaven and struggled all this time with the idea of being alive...for her to convince Willow that life must go on, that they have to keep being a part of this world....it would have worked perfectly with the arc she's had all season. The Spike stuff just straight up doesn't work for me. I don't think it's written in a way that really conveys the proper ambiguity. The fact that the actor didn't even know what was actually happening doesn't help either: he could have played it in a very subtle way that was rewarding on rewatch. As is, every time I'm back watching his trials I'm just rolling my eyes at all of his dialogue.

Victoria

yea at a convention joss said he purposely didn't tell james about the plot twist and I was like...whyyy did you think that was a good idea?? James is one of the best actors on the show, he could've portrayed the ambiguity perfectly so that it would've worked in the moment and in retrospect.

Enas Bassiony

Actually the stuff with Spike, the dialogue is intentionally misleading .. and so in character for him.. he has been calling Buffy the B word since S5 and talking in that same tone about her .. so in the context of the last surprise everything still holds up and the double meaning is played well

Enas Bassiony

I know everyone who loved Spike and shipped him with Buffy wanted him to get a soul anyways .. but I think whether or not he seeked that soul really matters big deal I love Angel.. but I can't stand him talking about his heroic self sometimes because I don't like the concept of double personality (Stefan/Ripper  or Angel/Angelus) It feels like a cheap way for the writers to give the characters a dark past and skip the redemption arch.. and just have everything be easily not their fault and is their evil self's fault So If Spike seeked that soul, that would make him the exception here ... Soulless Spike faught and went through trials to be the man Buffy deserves is WAAAAY higher on my scale and way better then him being cursed or tricked into having a soul that he never wanted. Specially if his real intentions were to get revenge on Buffy or become more evil than he was So you see, this is why Spike is my fav character and actually fav vampire

Anonymous

Two reasons Spike intentionally went there for his soul. Reason #1: Spike has already shown he can fight Buffy with the chip. So removing it becomes redundant. Reason #2: If he knew of a magical way to get rid of the chip he would've went through these trials back in season 4.

Leora Nechama

After stealing Giles' magic Willow felt people's emotions over the world including their pain. And in her own pain over Tara she believed that the only way to get rid of the pain people felt was to end their lives. At least that's the way I always saw it.

Thom Purdy

The fourth time Xander saves the world!