Previously: Buffy got demon cooties and almost went crazy and Jonathan, the context-less wonder, acquired some context.
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Choices
Sweeney: In the mayor’s office, we’re having another creepy daddy/daughter exchange, because he bought Faith a present and also baked her cookies. Her present is a really murdery looking knife, and Faith’s OMG YES I LOVE MURDER face is “his reward” for giving it to her. Also, a package is arriving tomorrow that is totes required for the Ascension.
In the cemetery, Buffy and Angel are fighting vamps together. After, Buffy complains that they are in a rut and never do anything new and I know Team Heartless Cow is thinking, “YEAH. WE KNOW,” and I’m like, “Fuck you,” but also, didn’t she just say that they could be no more like two episodes ago?
K: a) You’re right about what Team Heartless Cow is saying, and b) SERIOUSLY. Shit or get off the pot, Buff. You can’t have it both ways.
Lor: I was legit confused when I started this episode and thought maybe I clicked out of order. “Hmm, didn’t she break up with him two episodes ago?” Yes, yes she did. But I guess that one time he got a demon’s heart for her set things right. I forgot that.
Sweeney: I did the same thing. I clicked back to my watchlist to double check.
Regardless, I love this scene anyway. Angel jokes about all the fun new demony encounters they get to have! Buffy starts to complain about their future when she’s fifty and he’s… still-the-same-age-he-is-now. I’m not sure that’s quite how age works, but I get her point. More demony noises, and Angel suggests they work on getting her to fifty. Roll credits.
Joyce is upset that Buffy didn’t tell her something and Buffy assumes it was stealing her earrings. Meanwhile, I am surprised that Buffy was able to come to such a quick conclusion on narrowing this down among the many things she doesn’t tell her mother. The actual thing is that she got into Northwestern and Joyce is super proud.
K: I like that Joyce emphasises the word “university” for those of us from Not America. It’s very thoughtful.
Sweeney: I know she got that 1430, but that would be in the lower end of their average even in 1999, her grades are crap, and she can’t possibly have swung a letter of recommendation from anyone other than Giles, as prior evidence suggests. So no. Just no. She didn’t. That’s a lie.
K: I would say “Slaying scholarship”, but Joyce thoughtfully points out that it’s crazy expensive, which would indicate NOPE.
Lor: I’m not with you here, especially on the 1430. I had to look it up, not to be an asshole, but because we’ve been doling out 1430’s around her like woah, and I’d hate to think each time we were saying, “wow! That joke was the lower end of average.” Remember that a perfect score then was a 1600. The average score in the US in 1999 was 1019. Buffy did way above average.
Sweeney: Right — I should clarify: I meant the lower end of Northwestern’s average. That was my bad (the word “their” was added retroactively). It’s a competitive school and I only meant that while her score was in their range (NU’s range is going to be WAY above the national average) it wasn’t high enough to compensate for all the other areas where she is not competitive. Namely, her terrible attendance, mediocre grades, and lack of extra-curricular activities that she could put on an application.
ANY-really-long-tangent-WAY, Joyce gushes about how proud she is and Buffy gets real uncomfortable, presumably because of the very-far-away-ness of Evanston, IL. As Buffy leaves for school, Joyce tells her to make sure she puts the earrings back and then calls to tell some friend that she’ll never believe where Buffy got into school. No, Joyce, I don’t.
At school, Snyder is being Snyder to random students for no apparent reason. Buffy is telling Willow and Oz that far away places are not an option for her, what with Faith crossing over to the dark side. At least she got into UC Sunnydale!
Willow got into Oxford though and Buffy is excited because “That’s where they make Gileses!” LOVE.
Lor: SIGN ME UP FOR OXFORD.
Sweeney: Willow’s stoked about the idea of learning and eating scones, but she’s not sure about going to school in a foreign country.
Meanwhile, Xander is sitting by a tree reading On The Road and being ridiculous, so while I’ve pointed out Xander’s feels during these futurey conversations, he totes asked for Buffy’s dumpster comment (K: Agreed).
Lor: Because Oz is getting so few lines, I have to stop and add that Xander says, “Go ahead. Mock me.” and Oz replies, “I think she just did.” Indeed.
Sweeney: Well played, Oz.
Cordelia appears and they have more banter, only now she’s branching out to shitting on all of Willow’s schools and also telling Buffy that “This conversation is reserved for those who actually have a future.” WOAH THERE. Bitch mode activated.
K: The fact that Cordy says Oxford = 4 years of study just goes to show that she knows jack about how the rest of the world operates. THREE YEAR DEGREES FTW. But yeah. She’s clearly running for Uber-Bitch of the Decade.
Sweeney: She disappears so that Willow can make with the consoling, because she’s an A+ friend. I mean, Cordelia’s comments about Willow getting into every amazing school ever had zero capacity to sting, while she hit Buffy right in her currently prominent feel zone. Still, Willow wins at being a friend. She also tells Xander that maybe he needs a better nature, a comment I am including because it is true.
In the library, Buffy has been inspired by Cordelia’s bitchiness to tell Wesley that she wants to go away to college. He’s totes against it. Giles appears and while he has a proud papa moment when she says she got into Northwestern, he reiterate the basic, “You know that’s not really an option,” thing. Buffy insists that they probably have tons of monsters in Illinois (Zombie voters, anyone? Political humor? No? K.) and if she stops Faith and prevents the Ascension, then all they have to do is hold off the run-of-the-mill monsters long enough for her to come home for every single school break.
K: I’m going to stop and LOL at the fact that Wesley makes a weird little hand symbol that’s like the Junior Watcher version of DFTBA only lame, and says that by the power given to him by the Watchers’ Council, NOPE NOT LEAVING SUNNYDALE EVER EVER EVER. Good luck with that plan, Wes. Also, Buffy looks like she’s wearing a nightie.
Sweeney: I love you for that description of his weird hand symbol.
Wesley says that if circumstances were different, then maybe, to which Buffy insists that she’ll make them different. She’s sick of waiting for Mayor McSleaze, a nickname that I wish we’d come up with back when they first introduced that creepy daddy/daughter vibe; Buffy is going to take the fight to him. Mostly because this is episode 19 and we have to do some buildup to the finale now.
The first step is figuring out what exactly Mayor McSleaze and Faith are up to, so we segue magic to Sunnydale’s random airport, where a tiny plane is arriving to deliver a package!
K: I love that Sunnydale Airport is set up for both international flights AND dinky little twin props.
Lor: And for any and all supernatural being transportation. Probably.
Sweeney: A creepy dude exits the plane with a box and meets a vampire who doesn’t have the package-carrying dude’s money, and so he’s pissed. An arrow shoots him through the chest and after he collapses we see Faith standing on a nearby roof with a bow.
K: Bows and arrows make me think of precisely one thing:
Faith is in no way this much of a BAMF. Sorry, Faith. (Everyone else – you’re welcome for that gratuitous gif of Jeremy Renner’s arms)
Sweeney: Faith jumps down and the vampire is apparently mega stupid and confused. They can’t uncuff the guy from this box because they can’t find the keys, so Faith pulls out her creepy knife. The vamp points out that it won’t cut through steel, and Faith the mega creep responds, “No, but it’ll cut through bone.” Ew.
Lor: Even the vampire looks at her like, “DUDE. GROSS. WHAT THE FUCK?” That’s how you know it’s bad.
Sweeney: Buffy is doing some Angel-grade lurking in the shadows as Faith and the random minion vamp return to City Hall. (I’m just assuming. Is that where the mayor’s office is? Should I know this?) Faith delivers the box and Mayor McSleaze wonders where the courier is so he can pay him, but Faith “made him an offer he couldn’t survive,” which Mayor McSleaze thinks is highlarious. He’s totes impressed with her initiative and skill. Then his compliment becomes a you’re-better-than-Buffy thing and Faith is no longer happy because she’d just rather not think about her Buffy inferiority complex.
Faith starts to open the box, but Mayor McSleaze stops her before she can see. Segue magic to Buffy yanking the stupid minion vampire out of the car to ask him what’s in the box.
K:
Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Again…
Sweeney: Segue magic again to the library where she’s answering Brad Pitt’s question: it’s the Box of Gavrok and it is filled with all sorts of creepy shit because, you know, duh.
Giles and Willow walk up with “maps and stuff,” and the team makes quick work of coming up with a strategy over the map as Wesley tries to interject while being unsurprisingly ignored. Wesley freaks out and tries to shut their operation down. What if they have supernatural safeguards? They all give him SRSLY? faces. Buffy’s all, “LOL, Willow, you’re on it, right?” And then they leave.
We start with Xander’s stuff-getting-guy mission. He sees Cordelia inside a store, looking at a dress. He decides to seize this opportunity to go in and torment Cordelia.
K: If nothing else, this scene speaks to his lack of brain power.
Sweeney: He insists that she was being snide because she didn’t get into any good schools. Cordelia just happens to have her acceptance letters handy because of reasons. Sidebar on one of my great tv/film pet peeves: THEY ARE ALL IN STANDARD LETTER ENVELOPES. COLLEGE ACCEPTANCE LETTERS DO NOT COME IN STANDARD LETTER ENVELOPES. Envelope size is how you know a rejection (or wait list) letter before you open it.
K: Because Australia is super rock n roll, we do all our applications through a central government agency and list them in preference order, and they print the offers in the newspaper. But even *I* knew that skinny envelope = bad news.
Sweeney: Anyway, Xander says that they must have seen a different side of her father’s money. He goes off to help the gang “save some lives,” and we get a tight shot of Brooding Cordelia, which is a Cordelia we have never seen before. Her brooding reverie ends when a bell rings in the store.
Lor: I was going to make a comment about how Willow’s “get a better nature” comment was a little unfair, seeing as how Cordelia is usually the one to start the bitch-fest. But. Xander HAD to walk into the store, right? He had to and he couldn’t walk away on his mission to save the world. Cordelia was this episode’s Jell-o.
It’s hard to say who “deserves” what between these two anymore. When they are being awful to each other, they both suck.
Sweeney: Our watchers drop off Buffy, Willow, and Angel, and it’s got this hilarious, “Dropping the kids off at a party!” feel to it. Wesley wants them to synchronize their watches which, obvs, they do not have. Giles tells them to be careful, like the good Parental Stand-In that he is.
K: GILES. HONEY. That is not a thermos. I used one of those for water when I was on an archaeological dig in the desert where it was 100 degrees F in the shade. It’s not even remotely insulated. Your tea’s already cold.
Lor: …iced tea?
Sweeney: Oz and Xander are teamed up in the library and before the scene even starts, I’m kind of excited because I feel that I might kind of like Xander when paired with Oz, but I realize now that this is mostly because that’s just the kind of character Oz is, so whatever. Oz pulls out a diagram of what they’re supposed to be doing but it quickly becomes clear that it’s not actually a productive diagram at all.
Lor: But it has stick figures drawn by Willow! Okay, fine. Probably not productive.
Sweeney: Up on the roof, Angel opens the skylight and Willow dumps out some powder while she reads some Latin out loud from a book. The powder looks like magic special effects glitter as it falls over the box, which has a cool little invisible shield dome thing. This description is probably about the level of clarity that the special effects team was working with to make this happen.
K: Agreed. 1430, special effects team. It doesn’t look half bad! (Unlike 90% of the special effects this season…)
Sweeney: Anyway, the magic apparently worked because the powder all collapses, so the shield thing is gone.
Lor: I’m annoyed here when Buffy sends Willow away. It seems like such a silly thing to be all, “Okay! Run off into the dark with no protection and no slayer BFF with evil people afoot.” I can’t tell if I’m more annoyed because it’s WILLOW! or contrivance.
Sweeney: All of the above.
Angel lowers Buffy into the room with a harness-pulley thing that’s very Mission Impossible. As soon as B grabs the box, the alarm goes off. Unfortunately, at that same time, the pulley system locks up, so she stays stuck long enough for two vamps to come in.
Angel jumps down and they all fight. She gets down much sooner than I would have liked because that could have made for some cool stunt stuff.
They don’t manage to actually kill either of the vampires, because of reasons, but they do flip a table on them and run away with the box. They get them to chase a black van, but then we see the two of them team-lurking in the shadows.
Mayor McSleaze is seriously pissed with his minion vamps, what with them tearing up the building at tax payer expense and also losing his box. Faith enternounces that while the Scoobies have the box, they have something else: we see her holding a knife to Willow’s throat. AND DON’T YOU DARE HURT HER FAITH. YOU STOP THREATENING WILLOW RIGHT FREAKING NOW.
K: Agreed.
Sweeney: Back at Wiggins Library, Buffy starts to ask how they could let this happen, but corrects herself to be more diplomatic and rephrases, “How did this happen,” because of character growth. Angel apologizes for leaving Willow up there by herself, but, you know, if I had to choose between Buffy and Willow, I’d choose B too, except that hypothetical Willow death is already giving me loads of feels so let’s just stop this now.
Buffy promises Oz that she won’t let them hurt Willow, which is cute because Buffy is the most visibly rattled, and nobody doubts how much Buffy loves Willow. Xander says that they have to go back and that’s that. As they speculate about Willow death some more, Buffy realizes that Team Evil knows how valuable Willow is and won’t kill her as long as DRAMATIC PAUSE they have the box.
K: That DRAMATIC PAUSE was both super dramatic and hilariously over the top.
Sweeney: Buffy suggests a trade, as it is the only way. Wesley is not having that because the box needs to be destroyed, and it’s a fascinating scene because the entire gang is all WILLOW and Wesley is all, “HEY, SAVING THE WORLD!”
Lor: I totally get Wesley’s point. I even understand his feels as exemplified by the earlier scene when he was being ignored. My beef with him mostly come in his method. He isn’t winning any friends, and if he wants say and pull within this group, he isn’t doing it the smart way. Namely, no one is going to like you, Wesley, if you suggest letting Willow die.
Sweeney: This whole scene is good in that way. He absolutely does have a point, but, as usual, his tactics are all sorts of wrong.
Giles is hesitant to say anything either way, so bickering ensues. Everyone is shouting except Oz, who says nothing during this entire scene. He merely gets up, during the bickering, and smashes a pot that was probably super old and magical.
K: It was the pot that they needed to use to destroy the box. So basically, Oz decided the argument for them. SUCK ON THAT, WESLEY.
Sweeney: OH. Got it. I should have been paying closer attention. Anyway, the crashing noise shuts everyone up and Buffy instructs Giles to call the mayor.
Back in captivity, Willow is searching her windowless room for crap that she can use to get free. A vampire appears and goes in for “a little taste,” but fortunately one of the things she did find was a pencil that she levitates from the drawer and into the vamps back for a pretty fantastic staking.
Elsewhere in the building, Faith is telling Mayor McSleaze that they won’t be stupid enough to come back tonight. The mayor responds by talking about his dog who was loyal beyond the point of self-preservation. Buffy, he says, is the same. Which, you know, true.
Willow makes her way into the mayor’s office and breaks into his creepy cabinet of creepy magic. She pokes around and happens to find the hiding spot for the Books of Ascension. We montage between shots of her going through the books with them sprawled out all over the floor.
K: I like to think that in the same situation, I’d have taken the books, run away, and looked at them later. But I’m pretty sure the lure of old books overpowers self preservation, so…yeah. I’d be sitting on the floor surrounded by books too.
Lor: I love books, but fuck that. I’m running and I’ll read later.
Sweeney: YUP! RUN FIRST. READ LATER.
And then! Faith shows up and says that if she were smart she would have tried to escape (which, you know, true) but she had to keep “Nancy Drewing” (we like to call that “detecting the shit out of things”). Faith says that now she knows too much and that leads to killing. When Willow starts to speak, she tells her to go ahead and give the speech again, about how it’s not too late.
“It’s way too late,” Willow responds. She goes on to give a speech that mirrors a lot of the discussion we’ve been having recently about Faith. Faith had a lot of bad breaks, but she also had things in her life, including a friend like Buffy (which I love less because of what a great point it is and more because of how Willow says it, with all of her best-friend-adoration). Now, however, she is nothing. “You’re just a big selfish, worthless waste.”
K: Willow Rosenberg: BAMF.
Sweeney: That causes Faith to deck Willow, because if Willow hurts Faith, Faith will hurt her. Willow tells Faith that she’s not afraid of her, so Faith breaks out the creepy knife. Mayor McSleaze returns in time to break up the fight because he just received “a heck of an interesting phone call.”
The gang is holed up in the cafeteria because of the moonlight providing window and, “One way out means one way in.” (But what about that window?) The lights go out. Xander guesses they’re shy. The mayor and his posse arrive with Willow.
They exchange some banter and I realize that the mayor and Buffy have never actually met, which is weird. Going back a few posts, the way in which elements of this arc are revealed differently to the audience and Buffy is really interesting.
K: Huh. You know, that had never actually occurred to me!! All their interactions took place through Mr. Trick or through Faith. Nifty.
Sweeney: Mayor McSleaze says that Buffy is pretty but a little skinny, and he can’t see why things didn’t work out between Angel and Faith. Angel likes them sane, he says. (Uhh, Dru? K: That was Angelus. S: Fair.) Faith tightens her grip on Willow and Oz has the most tragic puppy angry-petrified look ever. The mayor uses this opportunity to rehash the whole Buffy/Angel-can’t-work thing because Whedon thinks it’s hilarious to annoy everyone (K: Team Heartless Cow says “by ‘annoy everyone’, you mean ‘state the bleeding obvious’, yes?”). The takeaway from this conversation is that Angel is holding Buffy back and, “Is that what [he] came back from hell for? Is that [his] greater purpose?” In other words, spinoff justification!
The other important thing that happens here is a bit more subtle: the mayor starts talking about how he got married in aught-three and was faithful until the very end, when she was old and crazy.
Lor: Funny story: he’s old and crazy. They were the same, he just doesn’t LOOK old. He looks crazy though so there is that.
Sweeney: Pointless banter over, they make their trade. But then! Snyder shows up with police. Buffy tries to make him leave, but he’s not listening to that. He snatches the box, assuming it’s drugs, and Faith pulls her crazy murdering knife. Then the mayor appears from the shadows to try to diplomatically resolve the situation, but it’s too late because one of the cops is already opening the box.
K: The look on Snyder’s face when the Mayor appears is HILAR. A world of “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh SHIT.”
Sweeney: The mayor hears it happening and tells him to stop, but, again, too late. A crazy fucking spider comes out and MURDERS THE COP’S FACE OFF. (Lor, I love how often faces get literally murdered off! It seemed like such an outlandish phrase AND YET IT IS EVERYWHERE.)
Lor: “Murdered your face off” is actually one of those phrases (like chanting! chanting! chanting!) that came to the blog via my real life. Now that I’ve written that out it’s either the weirdest or best thing I’ve ever told you all about myself.
Sweeney: BEST.
They rally together to get rid of the spider. It attacks the mayor, because of the impending finale which makes it about the right time for the whole gang to see the mayor’s invincibility in action.
Buffy slams the box shut before too many more can get out. One falls off the ceiling and lands on her back. She flips over and crushes it pretty easily. Faith sees one behind Wesley and scares the shit out of him as she throws her crazy murder knife and kills it. As the mayor is gathering his box, Oz asks if that’s the last of them, and he answers that there are actually about fifty billion of them in there, because the box is, you know, magical.
K: Hermione had the same deal, only smaller and more stylish. Just saying, Mr. Mayor…
Lor: Um. The TARDIS: Best example of bigger on the inside.
Sweeney: He offers to let them put their hands in to see, and uses this to drive home the “invulnerable” thing. He tells Faith to go with him as he leaves. She glances back at the spider held to the wall by her murdery knife and hesitates due to the epic evil, but goes anyway.
Lor: She always goes. Also, that knife didn’t last long. This is why Faith can’t have nice things.
Buffy asks Snyder if he’s all right and he has his best moment all season:
Then he walks off to go deal with his PTSD.
Buffy yanks Faith’s crazy murder knife off the wall. Wesley is peeved, but B doesn’t give any shits because she saved her friend.
K: Wesley should just be thrilled that his crazy Slayer saved his pathetic little arse with her crazy murder knife.
Sweeney: The pair are sitting on the counter in the Wiggins Library as Willow talks about her ordeal with Faith. Giles cuts her off to get back to the Books of Ascension, because, you know, useful stuff. She tells him they were way overwritten and there were parts that were really involved and so she didn’t get a chance to read them very thoroughly. This is all just her teasing Giles before she pulls out the pages that she stole from the books and Giles gets SUPER GIDDY as he runs off with his new homework.
Buffy jokes that Willow should get captured more often because it was her night for suave. Wesley is being a buzzkill and jumps in to say that he hopes that there is something useful in those pages because the mayor has the box and they’re right back where they started.
The next day, Buffy and Willow chat at school about how Buffy is sure she is never getting out of Sunnydale. She kept thinking that if she stopped the mayor or found some way, she could get out, but she is realizing that she has no options. Willow then does more teasing by listening all of her many choices as a lead-in to telling Buffy that she’s going to UC Sunnydale too. THEN THE TACKLE HUG MOMENT!
Lor: TACKLE HUG! Sweeney once gifted me this gif, and I wish I could remember in what post (almost certain Fifty Shades Darker) and why. It’s cool to see it in context.
Sweeney: But then Buffy says that she can’t let Willow do that. Willow’s response is one of my new favorite sentences, as there are so many characters we need to introduce it to: “Of the two people here, which is the boss of me?”
K: I think I’m going to start using that line on my parents. Also, the tackle hug is the best.
Lor: Best ever. Be prepared to see that often.
Sweeney: Buffy says that she can’t let Willow stay because of her. Willow says that this isn’t really about Buffy because being captured by Faith and doing all of that helped make things clear. B has been there fighting evil for three years and Willow has helped some; last night she realized that that is what she wants to be doing. She wants to fight evil and help people. She adds that she doesn’t think that Buffy does it because she has to either, revisiting a recurring theme, in which other people help remind Buffy of how much slayerdom is who she is, at her core, rather than just a fate that she endures.
This whole speech is filled with all of the amazing mythical-meets-real that this show does so brilliantly. Willow talking about figuring out what she wants to do, who she wants to be, is the sort of thing that I imagine many a high school senior appreciated hearing when this first aired. Her understanding of Buffy is just the icing on the cake of what was an awesome episode for their epic friendship.
K: A+.
Lor: Agreed. I think Buffy gets caught up in the stream of what others are doing. Everyone is talking about going away to college and she gets dazed by it. Having Willow here to sort of make things clear about her calling, her purpose and the good she does… I’m all warm and fuzzy.
Sweeney: All the fuzzies! Helping you sift through the noise around you is one of those essential best friend duties.
Oh, but we’re not done. They go off to get more sugar than their bodies can handle, because they’re adorable. Sometimes you look at things and it’s not what it seems, Buffy says. This segue magics us to Cordelia standing in front of the mirror holding up a pretty dress before an older lady comes in and tells her to go sweep up the storage room, so that we understand that Cordelia works there now.
Back in the cemetery, Buffy is telling Angel about all of her staying-in-Sunnydale plans as they sit on a picnic blanket, leaned against a tombstone (K: Mmmm, ROMANTIC). Buffy tries to say that she has no idea what the mayor is talking about, since the most lasting relationship he’s ever had was probably with evil. She insists that they’re going to be all right, but Angel is pretty checked out of this conversation. And so: roll credits.
Next time: It’s time for prom in Sunnydale, y’all! Something tells me it’s going to get hellmouthy. Find out how on Buffy the Vampire Slayer S03 E20 – The Prom
