Stew’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective: Season 6, Episodes 1-2

I have eaten A LOT of shit for how long my between-seasons delay was here, but I HAVE HEARD YOU, and I am back! But you don’t want to hear from me, you want to know about Buffy season six, so let’s go!

Episode 1

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

Season six opens up with Giles, Spike, and Tara chasing down a fat vampire, which… really? I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, ups to the show for casting a more diverse body type of character! But can vampires get fat? I guess if they feed off of the blood of fat people? People with clogged arteries and fat in their bloodstream? Is there sensibility there?

Anyway, they lose the vamp–big boy can RUN–but Willow uses her new telepathy to warn them he’s circling back around to them. Thereupon he’s attacked by BUFFY! But before we get an explanation on that, he starts kicking all of our heroes’ asses. Spike sets him on fire, and that kills the beast. Are vampires weak to fire? I have so many questions about vampires in this universe now, and we are just four minutes in!

Turns out “Buffy” is the Buffybot, which I thought was as dead as Buffyhuman last season, but I guess they can rebuild her. They have the technology.

New season, new opening credits! Tara still does not merit being part of the ongoing cast. Neither does Giles, oddly enough. Wasn’t he always in the credits, or am I just noticing he is not? During the next scene, both Amber Benson and Anthony Stewart Head are listed as “Guest stars”. Weird. Weird weird weird.

The witch couple, Dawn, and Buffybot are seen living in domesticity in the Summers abode! The phone rings, and Dawn thinks it might be Dad (HEY REMEMBER THAT HER DAD EXISTS, GUYS?!), but it’s just Anya. Willow and Tara instruct Buffybot to let the answering machine pick up calls so she doesn’t have to talk to Dad and blow their cover.

Buffybot and Dawn attend parent-teacher day at Dawn’s school, which is presumably the newly rebuilt and substantially less burnt-out husk of SunnyDale High. Buffybot’s mundane observations about life start a mini revolt from the parents about the quality of lunch food. I’m here for the subplot of SunnyDale High lunch woes.

At the magic shop, we see Anya and Xander get into a spat over Xander’s refusal to tell anyone they are engaged. Xander references some plan the Scoobies are hatching to make everything less “up in the air”.

At the Summers household, Dawn and Spike share a scene where Spike lambastes the usefulness of public school. After that, we get Emotional Development, as we see the Spike refuses to leave Dawn alone to get hurt “again”. He’s clearly upset at himself for not only allowing Dawn to get harmed in the season finale, but that that harm then did in Buffy. Good characterization! Love to see that. We are finally moved away from the nonsense of “Why are they letting this guy live?”.

We DO get a statement from Dawn that she’s not The Key anymore (or if she is, she no longer opens anything). But she’s still just… around, huh? The monks who turned her into Dawn aren’t coming back to poof her back into energy or whatever? Oh, or maybe they will, and that will be a future episode plot! Stay tuned, person reading this who probably already knows the answer to it all!

Buffybot attacks a vampire who was about to feed on a lady walking down the street. The vamp bops her on the head and figures out she is a robot when she goes on the fritz and can’t walk in a straight line anymore.

NEVER MIND that the Buffyverse robots were shown to be much stronger and more durable than this previously, I guess. As usual, nuts to me for wanting ANY consistency out of this program.

The Scoobies have a meeting, and they have procured an/the Urn Of Osiris–Anya bought it on EBay, sigh–and they are ready to go through with their plan. Which is, of course, to bring Buffy back to life. And Tara is on board with this for… reasons. Despite the fact that they are leaving Dawn, Giles, and Spike all in the dark, Tara is involved and not doing her typical worrry-warting. Xander and Anya are the two that are barely on board. Tara even work to convince those two that what they are doing is right!

Here’s my thing: I HATE when season premieres immediately undo the damage of the previous finale. Supernaturalused to do this all the time. Why do we have to bring the Buffster back on night one? We could have had an episode where the gang had to procure the Urn of Osiris first. But no, Status Quo Is God, so here we are.

Willow and Tara point out the plot device of Buffy having been killed by “mystical energy”, so this revival–remember how fervently they fought Dawn on such things last season?!–is DIFFERENT. They have a shot! Her soul could be anywhere! Plot contrivances abound, Xander, don’t you understand?!

At home, Willow meets up with Spike and the malfunctioning Buffybot. She jacks in to BB and starts fixing it right up. Buffybot flirts with Spike during the process, pissing him off, and he orders Willow to get rid of all of that programming.

In the middle of the night, Dawn goes into Buffybot’s room and cuddles up to her.

Presumably the next day, Buffybot is sparring with Giles. After their session, Giles expresses remorse and feels like he somehow got Buffy killed. BB disagrees, however. You know what? I never would have imagined Spike’s sex robot would have ended up being this important of a “character”. She played a part in fighting off Glory, and now she is the replacement Slayer. And something tells me she isn’t going to take the return of the real Buffy lying down.

Or maybe she will. This show, you know?

At a demon/monster bar somewhere–not the one we previously knew with the informant guy working there, but a different one–the vampire from earlier is telling the story of how he found out Buffy has been replaced by a robot. A gang of beasties mount their motorcycles and head to the undefended SunnyDale.

In an empty field, Willow finds and sacrifices a baby deer. She then heads to the magic shop to meet up with everyone and is cagey about what the last ingredient for the spell was. Because killing baby deers is bad, Willow! The Willow I know would never! Anyway, Anya finds a note that Giles has headed back to England. Cut to the airport, and the team meets him at the gate to see him off, despite my being relatively sure we are post-9/11 here. Research time!

Well, it AIRED 10/2/2001, so it was undoubtedly shot BEFORE 9/11. Fair enough. You win this round, BTVS. But, as always, I’m watching you!

Anyway, Tara gives him a little plastic monster to remember SunnyDale by, and she makes the “Grrr, Argh” sound that ends every episode with the Mutant Enemy production logo. Easter eggs! After a hug-filled goodbye, Giles boards his plane and heads home.

Wait, does Giles just leave the show? Is this why he isn’t on the opening credits? Curses! I will miss him!

Also: There is a SunnyDale Airport because OF COURSE THERE IS. This place is bigger than Springfield.

That night, the team starts the ritual. As Willow is tested physically by Osiris (I guess? She gets some cuts and pukes up a rattlesnake), SunnyDale is invaded by motorcycle riding demons! All of our plots are coming together! With the demons tearing apart SunnyDale, they are confronted by the BuffyBot. They immediately confirm she is a machine by slashing her shoulder, but she fights them off and escapes.

Man, remember when these robots were capable of tossing Spike around effortlessly and matching Buffy one-on-one? I do.

Anyway, Buffybot brings the demons to the ritual–because it was established earlier this episode that when she needs repairs, she has a beacon to find Willow–whereupon they promptly run over the urn of Osiris, breaking the spell and causing Willow to pass out. Xander grabs her and runs off. Underground, Buffy’s rotting body–holy crap, Buffy’s ROTTING BODY, guys!–is replenished with life force, and she awakens in her casket. So I guess the spell worked regardless. Lame! I want consequences, show! Although I guess the consequences would be renaming the show The Scooby Gang, Vampire Slayers.

I might be okay with that.

Episode 2

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

As the demons work over the Buffybot, a panicking real Buffy tries to break free from her underground prison. It’s only a matter of time, I suppose, until she Kill Bills her way out, which would actually be a decent feat because she’s in a real casket, not a wood box.

So that brings up this: The Bride vs Buffy! Fight takes place in the SunnyDale cemetery. Who wins?

After a few inconsequential scenes (Xander tells Willow the urn was crushed, devastating the witch; Anya and Tara overhear the demons say they are going into town to loot some store, causing Anya to get upset for the magic shop; Spike vows to protect Dawn), Buffy does, in fact, claw her way out of the dirt. Wow! Like I said: solid feat of power for her. A bewildered Buffy takes in her own tombstone, then makes her way into town to see it burning.

Tara and Anya make their way to the magic shop, which is looting-free at this point. Anya starts panicking that Xander could be injured or dying somewhere, but Tara calms her down with a relaxing lesbian hug. She then starts a little spell that allows her and Willow to find each other.

A still recovering Buffy decides to lean up against someone’s Toyota Camry, setting off their car alarm. This brings out a local yokel with a shotgun to yell at her to scram. It’s the kind of scene that this episode would be incomplete without. I guess. I don’t know. Feels like we’re stalling!

Elsewhere, Spike takes out one of the cyclists and steal their ride, giving himself and Dawn some wheels.

Anya, Tara, Xander, and Willow reconvene at the magic shop, with Anya astutely noting that they are really screwed without Spike or the Buffybot and with Willow being weakened. But Willow reiterates that Buffy isn’t coming back, so they need to arm themselves and do what they can.

Meanwhile, a very much back Buffy runs into the gang leader of the demons as he makes a speech about how SunnyDale is their home now. He then orders his men to dismember the Buffybot, and they do so. Buffyhuman shouts “No!”, alerting them to her presence.

A fleeing Buffy encounters her friends, but runs from them. They initially think it’s the ‘bot, but Willow quickly figures out it’s the real deal Holyfield. Xander then pieces together that they abandoned her, and she had to claw her own way to freedom from inside her coffin. While they chat all this out, a cowering and borderline feral Buffy crouches in a corner. Anya wants to cheer her up by announcing her and Xander’s engagement, but he stops her. He is REALLY direly opposed to telling anyone, and this is going to be a stupid plot point that I don’t care about for a while, isn’t it? God, Xander is STILL the worst, gang.

The demons appear and start taunting everyone. The leader of the biker gang clobbers Xander and Willow and then–holy shit!–threatens to rape them all in Network TV Language. That is unnecessary, and Joss didn’t even write this episode!

At the threat of rape of her friends, Buffy gets to her feet and starts raining down holy hell on the demon horde.

Dawn and Spike come across the destroyed Buffybot, who gets some last words because that’s how things work in fiction. It lets Dawn know there was another Buffy who ran off. Then, realizing Buffy is back, Dawn runs off. Summers sisters doing a lot of running off from the Buffybot this episode! This upsets Spike, who yells after her.

Buffy and the gang continue their decimation of the demon horde, but when they are done, Buffy still won’t talk to her friends. She just runs off. Everyone is running off from things this episode. While the others decide what to do, the leader of the gang opens his eyes like he’s the post-credit scene of a horror movie.

Lots of stuff happens as the episode hits its climax! Buffy finds the tower she dove from to end season 5. So does Dawn. The leader of the biker gang fights the Scoobies, but is done in by an axe to the back from Tara as he threatens Willow! Excitement! Fast cuts!

Buffy, now at the top of the tower, has a flashback to her own demise. Then Dawn climbs up after her. Buffy seems determined to relive her sacrifice, but Dawn tearfully pleads with her to, you know, not do that. All this while the tower threatens to collapse. Buffy finally speaks: “Is this hell?”. Dawn rejects the notion and begs Buffy to stay with her! This scene goes on for SOME TIME, as I’m sure everyone behind the cameras thought it was very dramatic.

The peril of the tower breaking apart FINALLY brings some sense to the slayer. She rushes forward and saves Dawn, rappelling down the tower as it finally collapses.

As the episode ends, A joyful Dawn embraces Buffy and says “you’re home!”. But Buffy doesn’t look super thrilled with life on the other end of the embrace.

*******

And that’s it. As noted, one night in–this two-part season premiere aired on one night–and we have already set up a return to the status quo, although the revived Slayer clearly has issues. Oh, but Giles left! He’ll either return in an episode or two or maybe he’s gone for a while. This sho will definitely lose something without his presence if he is away for an extended period of time. So let’s home he is not.

Until next time… take care!