'Buffy' finale slays its loyal fansBy Robert Bianco, USA TODAY
In its two-hour season finale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer finally delivers the kind of Buffy-at-its-best episode fans have hoped for all season, and seldom received. Evil is vanquished, charity and fidelity are rewarded, and the core characters are rebonded in ways that will surprise you, considering one of their own, Willow, was last seen skinning a man alive and incinerating his remains.
In thrilling fashion, tonight's back-to-back episodes provide a fitting, sometimes funny and sometimes shocking payoff to all the plots set up over the last few weeks: Willow's murderous descent into witchcraft; Xander's increasing sense of isolation, and Spike's enraged desire to return to his old self. You even get to see Buffy shake off her back-from-death depression for good this time, I'm betting, though the show has teased us with that plot point before.
Yet while it's a fabulous finale, it doesn't completely make up for all the less-than-fabulous hours that came before. With the notable exception of the musical episode (a stunning hour that may finally earn creator Joss Whedon the Emmy recognition he has long deserved), it's been a disappointing and even dreary year for Buffy. There were bright spots here and there, but overall, this once dependably entertaining show became too grim for too long.
The show's decline in quality is in stark contrast to the rise of its spin-off, Angel, which had its best season yet. While Angel's stories were often even darker (a vampire father being set up to eat his baby, for one gruesome example) and its core characters were often equally at odds, the show was able to maintain an equilibrium Buffy lacked. On Angel, when one character was down, another was up. On Buffy, they all seemed to be in the dumps for long stretches at a time, as everything went wrong for everyone at once.
Still, even when Buffy fails, and this season does rank as a relative failure, it fails in interesting ways. Most long-running series stumble because the writers run out of ideas, or the producers or actors exhaust their energy and interest. It's clear Buffy suffered from Whedon's reduced involvement and suffered more than the writers may have imagined from the absence of Anthony Stewart Head as Giles, who provided a needed adult voice. But essentially, Buffy faltered because it charted a seemingly viable artistic course that simply didn't work, or didn't work well enough to maintain fan interest.
Where in previous seasons Buffy and her friends had battled some big, outside evil, this season, the evil they had to conquer was inside themselves. From Buffy's ennui to Willow's addiction to witchcraft, these no-longer-teen characters discovered they were their own worst enemies.
As always, what the show was seeking was a metaphorical expression of real-world problems and emotions. Unfortunately, whatever the artistic intention, it's hard to sustain 22 weeks of character ennui without inducing the same in an audience. Indeed, one of the best scenes tonight comes when Buffy lists everything that's gone wrong in the gang's lives this season, and finally gets the appropriate reaction.
Happily for fans, tonight's finale doesn't just look back, it also looks ahead, laying the foundation for the season to come. I don't want to spoil any of the show's surprises (and few shows are better than Angel or Buffy at springing a last-second gasper on unsuspecting viewers). But I will tell you this: One of the last things Buffy says tonight to her sister, Dawn, is "it hasn't been OK, but it's going to be now. ... I want to see my friends happy again."
by Coma123 » Thu May 23, 2002 12:30 am 
, but I have seen her type and it explains a lot, I am jealous that anyone can type so fast.
I have NEVER seen such bad writing in my entire life!! This whole arch has left me with such a bitter taste in my mouth, and all the listerine in the world isn't gonna get rid of it. As far as I can see there was only 2 highlights in this entire episode, Willow kicking muffy's ass, and *gasp* Anya being so...human. I'm finding the new Anya almost likeable, something I never thought was possible before.
