Stew’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective: Season 6, Episode 8

With the sing-song episode left in the rearview mirror, I worry I have nothing left to look forward to except a season-and-a-half of episodes which I’m told are not very good. But I endeavor to finish the series and move on, so here we are!

We kick things off, as we so often do, with Buffy out at nighttime in a cemetery. She doesn’t appear dressed for slaying in a white frumpy sweater. She quickly runs into Spike, who wants to talk about their kiss. Buffy doesn’t want to talk about it and vows that it will never happen again, and Spike says he knows what kind of girl she is. Super classy stuff, but it’s Spike, so I guess I’ll allow it. But doesn’t it FEEL like something Joss Whedon would say behind the scenes?

Before we can get too into their emotions and debate, they are set upon by a shark man! He is after 40 kittens that Spike owes him from gambling. Buffy appears ready to fight, but Spike flees the scene, and she allows shark man and his minions to walk away. She curses how she keeps saving Spike’s life.

Hey! I told you all through season five you should have killed him AFTER HE TRIED TO KILL YOU AND RILEY.

OH MAN! Riley! Remember Riley? He was written out barely a season ago, but it feels like forever. Farewell, Riley; we barely wanted to know thee.

The rest of the team are gathered in Xander and Anya’s apartment, pondering what heaven was like for Buffy. Willow is all “I can use magic to fix this!”, and this quickly devolves into an argument between her and Tara. Tara brings up all her good points about, you know, how Willow is degrading and using magic all the time, up to and including mind controlling Tara herself, but Willow is like, “No, I’m good”. Finally it ends with Willow promising to not use any magic for a week and Tara agreeing to see how she feels about everything after that.

As that drama crescendos, we cut to Buffy and Giles. Giles is ALSO talking about leaving. As has been the plot development of the last several episodes, Giles sees his presence as hindering Buffy’s growth as a human being. Buffy tries to play the “I just got kicked out of heaven” card, but Giles says that shows she needs to grow up or whatever more than ever. Buffy storms off.

Back at Buffy’s home, Willow IMMEDIATELY uses magic to get dressed after a shower. God damn it, girl; what is into you? Actually, you know what, I blame the writers, as usual. They created a Get Out Of Jail Free card for the team, so now they are trying to nerf it and or make it outright villainous for our heroes to use. Magic was perfectly fine for a few seasons, and now it’s all “Oh no, don’t change clothes, Willow, how will we get along with this truly awful development from you?”.

Much more troublesome than just changing clothes, Willow then casts another spell to AGAIN fuck with Tara’s mind, only this time she throws Buffy into the mix, too.

At the magic shop, Giles is about to announce to the team that he is leaving, when Spike busts in and asks them all for help from the shark man. They kind of blow him off, and Giles makes his announcement after all. Buffy starts kvetching about how it feels being back on Earth, and then the entire team passes out from Willow’s spell back at the Summers’ abode concluding.

(Oh yeah, she only CAST the spell on Buffy and Tara, but the flames show out of the fireplace and burned the rest of her magic doohickey, so I GUESS it’s affecting everyone now. Look, it’s not the best explanation, but we get what we get from this show)

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

Several hours later–it’s night now–everyone wakes up. They all have amnesia; good times! Oh, I see why some stuff was set up now… Willow is wearing Xander’s jacket, and Spike is in a dorky disguise. We are going to get some classic mistaken identity shenanigans!

And here we go: Giles and Anya believe they are the two that are engaged because when they woke up, she was resting on him and the shop is in both of their names (and they notice her ring). Giles and Spike believe they are father and son because they share the British accent, and Spike believes his name is Randy because it’s the name in the jacket he is wearing. Willow and Xander believe they are dating because she is wearing his jacket.

Everyone agrees to go to the hospital to get help, but when they try to leave, shark man’s vampiric minions are at the door! The vamps bust in, and Buffy–having decided to call herself Joan since she isn’t carrying an ID card–instinctively slays one of them. The other leaves, vowing revenge.

Buffy and Spike decide to fight off the minions so the others can escape to safety. Giles hugs Spike for good luck, and I admit: I laughed out loud at that. This episode is fun! Out with the vamps, Spike vamps out himself, causing Buffy to run away in terror and leave him with Team Shark.

Back inside the shop, Anya and Giles are trying to find a spell in a book that might help in some–any–way. Anya accidentally summons a bunny, and she remembers enough of her life to recoil in fear from it. Again, I laughed. This episode is better than Once More With Feeling, guys; I’m just sayin’.

Buffy takes down Spike and tells him he is a vampire. Spike realizes he doesn’t want to bite Buffy, so he must be a good guy–a vampire with a soul. Buffy says that’s a stupid thing to imagine. Har har.

But it’s okay, because then we get back to the real fun stuff: Anya has somehow summon TONS of bunnies at the magic shop! She thinks she can send them away and casts another spell: it summons another bunny. We intersperse this with scenes of Willow, Tara, Dawn, and Xander hiding from a vampire in the sewers, but that’s far less enjoyable.

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

We continue bouncing from scene-to-scene now: Willow realizes she is a lesbian in the tunnels after being in close quarters with Tara. Giles sword fights a skeleton that Anya has accidentally summoned. Buffy and Spike fight off shark man’s minions. Giles finds the ticket to London in his pocket and tells Anya he must be leaving her due to her incompetence. Giles ends up sending the perils Anya has summoned away, then the two apologize to each other and share a romantic kiss.

Xander fights off the vampiric threat, and Dawn helps him stake it, while Willow and Tara get closer. The crystal tied to all of this magic falls out of Willow’s pocket, and Xander steps on it, seeming to break the spell on everyone. Tara immediately realizes what must have happened. But that was convenient as heck that this spell just had an Undo button!

Buffy gets her memory back mid-fight and gets clobbered by a vamp. Spike kills the remaining vampire minions, then faces off against shark man himself. Shark man excuses Spike’s debt, but the latter agrees to pay it off anyway since he is so honorable. A distraught Buffy–I’m assuming she remembers getting kicked out of heaven and the trauma that comes with it–walks away from Spike.

THEN WE CUT TO THE BRONZE, WHERE SOME INDIE ACT IS ON STAGE SINGING AWAY. Wow! Flashbacks to season, like, one or two! We haven’t done this in a while. It’s, of course, a sad song, as Buffy is sad and Tara is sad and Willow is sad and EVERYONE IS SAD, I suppose. We get a montage of Tara packing up and leaving Willow, Giles flying back to London, and Buffy at the bar, ignoring Spike and sending him away in anger.

EXCEPT after a few more cuts in the montage, we go back to The Bronze and see Buffy and Spike kissing again to end the episode.

*******

I’m not kidding… I actually thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Amnesia storylines are a cliche for sure, but this one was done well enough and had several moments that made me laugh. And there are aspects of this season that I like where they are going: The whole Willow subplot, especially as it relates to Tara, is being handled well, especially when you consider Willow has had character flaws before that allow me to believe she’d behave like this.

That said, oh my gosh am I over Buffy’s “wah wah I’m not in heaven anymore” drama. I get it, but on another level, there’s no reason she wouldn’t be happy to be back on Earth and back able to protect Dawn and her friends. This is the height of forced melodrama, and it reminds me of the weaker elements of Supernatural.

But this show has… well, it hasn’t earned the benefit of my doubt, but I’ve vowed to stick through it no matter what regardless! So we’ll see how it all plays out!