Buffy the Vampire Slayer S06 E20 – Body count.

Previously: Spike tried to rape Buffy and a stray bullet killed Tara, so we’re pretty sure Whedon was trying to kill us with an episode.
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Villains

Lorraine: I actually just finished watching Seeing Red about 20 minutes ago. After unloading all of my WHY TARA WHY feelings on Twitter (and the last post), I decided to just finish off my emotions and watch this episode too. The point of all this is just to warn you that I wrote this while my emotions were freshly Whedon-ed. Also, WHY TARA WHY?

An ambulance arrives at 1630 Revello.

Kirsti: I stop to have thousands and thousands of feels because the last time an ambulance was called to Chez Summers, it was in The Body.

Sweeney: And this episode makes plenty of allusions to that one. Thousands of feels totally called for.

Lor: And we’re just getting started.

Xander runs to meet the paramedics and leads them to the backyard, where Buffy is still, and bleeding on the ground. One paramedic asks if it was accidental and Xander stammers that someone was trying to kill her. The paramedics get to work and we cut to Willow upstairs, crying over Tara’s lifeless body. My heart breaks as she begs Tara to “come on.” Suddenly, the room darkens and magic clouds gather. Willow invokes Osiris to bring Tara back.

Back outside, the paramedic says Buffy’s pulse is weak and her lung sounds are wet. Buffy blinks slowly. It’s such a chilling sight as the music rises, a very small amount of breeze plays in her hair, and she blinks, but we aren’t sure if she’s seeing.

 

K: It’s pretty reminiscent of The Body, once again.

Lor: The darkness in Willow’s room is a stark contrast to Buffy in the backyard. Willow calls out again to the keeper of darkness. A face comes out of the clouds and asks the witch how she dares to invoke Osiris. Willow begs for Tara’s life, but is told she cannot violate the law of natural passing. Even though Willow once raised someone killed by mystical forces, this isn’t the same. Tara died a human death by human means. “It is done,” Osiris says. Willow yells at Osiris so loud, her cries push him away. He screams and vanishes.

Wolf howl.

The paramedics are rolling Buffy into the ambulance. Willow is leaving the house at the same time. She asks Xander how this happened, and he briefly explains that Warren had a gun. Willow simply says, “Warren,” and stalks off. Seriously, she is acting the shit out of the angry walk right now. She’s bitch slapping the sidewalk. (K: A+) Xander looks after her confusedly, but the paramedics say that they have to go, now.

Jail. Jonathan is freaking out about the entire experience and I find it hard to care about them, given what we’re in the middle of. I can’t even take their nerdy jokes right now. SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTHS. TARA IS DEAD.

Sweeney: SAME. I HATE THEM. STOP TALKING.

Lor: Ahem. Right. The point of that scene was that Andrew still thinks Warren is going to come for them and Jonathan doesn’t buy it for a second.

Cut to Warren waltzing into a bar, ordering a round for everyone. He sits down next to a vampire who shushes him because he’s watching a TV show. Warren then buys back his attention with gloating– he just killed the Slayer! This catches everyone’s attention. The bartender asks if Warren’s some sort of warlock. Warren says he tried all sorts of black magic and demonology, but in the end, a gun was what did it. He shot the Slayer in her own backyard. He laughs and the vampire and bartender laugh as well, but it takes him entirely too long to realize that they are laughing at him, not with him. See, it’s been all over the news: a girl was shot in her backyard and she survived. The vampire says he was going to eat Warren during commercial break, but now he’s just going to leave him for the Slayer. “Might want to get a head start, my friend. ‘Cause this girl is gonna be coming for you, big time.”

K: You know someone’s bad news when even demons and vampires and the seedy underbelly of Sunnydale want nothing to do with them.

Lor: Segue Magic to Willow busting down the door of the Magic Box, lights shorting out as she passes under them. Willow asks Anya where the black arts books are. Anya tries to protest, telling her that she doesn’t need those books, but Willow stops her with magic, keeping her silent and frozen in place. Willow telekines-es the books she needs from the balcony, bringing them down to a table before her. She pushes her hands into the pages of one of the books, and the black text starts creeping her her arms and face, until her hair and eyes are blacked out. “That’s better,” she finishes.

 

That scrolling text effect is nicely done.

Sweeney: I get that “our baby is all grown up!” feeling each time I see the Special Effects team do something well on this show!

Lor: Understandable. We’ve spent so much time with those guys.

Dawn gets home and finds the front door open. The moment she crossed the threshold, I put my hand over my mouth and started “oh my god, oh my god,”ing. Dawn heads upstairs, calling out for her sister. She looks into Willow’s room and finds Tara’s dead body. Dawn loses her breath as the scene washes out in white.

K: DAWNIE FEELS OH GOD SO MANY DAWNIE FEELS. With another dose of leftover feels from The Body.

Sweeney: FEELS FOR DAYS AND DAYS. NEED MORE CHOCOLATE.

Lor: Rack emerges from his magic drug dealer room and asks who is next. Warren jumps up and flashes money, so he can skip the line and skip any small talk. Rack ushers him into the magic drug dealer room and shuts the door. Warren tells Rack about his failed attempt to kill the Slayer, again name dropping the Trio and receiving very little recognition. The point is that Warren needs protection from the Slayer, but Rack tells him the Slayer is the least of his worries. Willow is after him, and Rack can sense her growing power. Warren is confused as he doesn’t know why Willow would be after him. Rack senses death.

Warren lunges forward and puts a wad of money in Rack’s hand. Rack asks if he wants to hide or fight. Warren wants both. Rack again warns him that Willow is running on pure fury and he can’t guarantee his services. Warren says to just load him up.

Xander looks in on Buffy’s room in the hospital. Basically, anyone can look in on this surgery room because it’s in a busy hallway and has lots of windows.

K: RIGHT?! I mean, I know that 90% of my awareness of how surgery works is because of M*A*S*H* and Grey’s Anatomy, but I’m pretty sure hospitals don’t do surgery where just anyone can walk past and see in. 

Lor: It’s convenient for us, though, because we watch the surgery for a bit, as the doctors tell us Buffy’s heart rate is dropping. Suddenly, the lights and monitors start shorting, and sure enough, Willow appears. She tells everyone in the room to leave. Xander enters the room just as the doctors all leave, though it’s unclear whether they are compelled or are just all, “fuck it. Listen to the girl with little to no sclera.” Xander is worried Buffy’s going to die, but Willow isn’t. She gets closer to Buffy and draws the bullet out with her mind. The bullet wound closes up and heals.

K: Question – given that Buffy’s heart rate flatlines just before Willow appears, does this mean that Buffy’s actually died THREE times?! Also, I really like Dark!Willow’s jacket.

Sweeney: I was wondering the same thing. So, as we soon learn, was Xander:

Lor: I’m going with no. We’ve seen already that Willow’s been causing things to short out, and that happens right before she arrives. I took the flatline not as a death, but as a technological failure.

Willow looks at the bullet and says it’s such a small thing. She grabs it out of the air but when she opens her hand again, it’s gone. Buffy wakes up and asks what happened. She’s fine but wants to know how she got to a hospital. Xander hugs her. “You’ve got to stop doing this. This dying thing’s funny once, maybe twice.” 

Buffy notices Willow and asks her what’s wrong. Will says she’ll explain but they have to go find Warren.

A short scene shows us Warren boarding a bus.

Xander, Buffy and Willow are in a car. From the back seat, Willow tells Xander to go faster. He starts to say he’s going as fast as he can, but Willow magics down the accelerator. Xander tells her to cut it out. Buffy wants to pull over because this doesn’t feel right. I know that we are on this end of viewing privilege, but Buffy and Xander don’t seem quite worried enough. Buffy does say it isn’t right that Willow is using magic. Willow replies that sometimes you don’t have a choice.

Xander is asking about her “make-over” when Willow yells at him to turn right. He doesn’t do it fast enough, so Willow takes full magical control of the car. They ride through some desert until they cut across to an adjacent stretch of road. Willow magic-parks the car and climbs out. Buffy tries to run after her, but Will puts up a magic barrier to keep her friends back. Willow walks out into the road and a second later we see a bus coming toward her. She takes control of the bus and makes it stop just before it reaches her. She walks to the doors, opens them and says, “get out.” We watch Warren get off. He begs for his life as Willow grabs his throat and starts squeezing. HIS EYEBALL POPS OUT AND OH MY GOD I THOUGHT THIS WAS REALLY WARREN. EW. EW. EW.

Okay. Okay. Deep breaths.

This wasn’t Warren. He tricked them with a robot. (K: Because he just has one of himself lying around for emergencies? Actually. Why do I suspect that this was a “let the robot go to jail in my place” back up plan?)(S: Yeah, with Warren’s robot making skillz and penchant for criminal behavior, I don’t question for a second that he had one of these lying around.) Willow says they will find real Warren another way and kill him. Buffy grabs her arm and tells her to calm down. Willow finally tells her friends that Warren shot Tara. “She’s dead. Now he’s dead too.” Buffy whispers Tara’s name (WHY TARA. WHY.) and Xander asks why Willow didn’t say anything. “I’m busy,” she says, as tries to walk away. Buffy grabs her again and says that killing a human isn’t the answer. Willow doesn’t understand how Buffy can say that when Tara is dead. Buffy can’t understand what Willow feels, but she tells her, “if you do this, you let Warren destroy you too.”

What’s that argument to Willow, who already feels destroyed? She doesn’t plan on coming back from this. She doesn’t plan on ever recovering. Willow blasts her friends backwards and by the time they look up again she’s gone.

Cut to Chez Summers at night. Buffy and Xander find the door still open. They call out to Willow and Dawn. Xander thinks Dawn might’ve gone to the hospital but it’s been hours since Buffy left there. Buffy heads upstairs and finds herself in Willow’s room, looking at Tara’s dead body. From behind Buffy, we hear Dawn’s small voice saying, “I didn’t want to leave her alone.” Dawn is sitting up against the wall, just staring at the body. THIS SERIES IS RUINING ALL OF MY EMOTIONS.

K: SO MUCH. We saw a similar thing in The Body (one day, I’ll stop harping on about that episode. Today is not that day), but Buffy was able to call Giles, who came running. Dawnie doesn’t have anybody to call. (Or doesn’t FEEL like she has anybody to call, at least.) BRB, CRYING FOREVER.

Sweeney: YES! You’re not harping; there are tons of allusions to that episode in this one. It was a whole episode dedicated to that, whereas here we only have a few little moments, but the precedent of the earlier episode allows them to do a lot of heavy lifting in a small space of time. The parallels seem deliberate.

Lor: Very much agreed.

Buffy gets up close to Dawn and tells her to be strong. They have to go downstairs. Xander walks in, wide eyed and unbelieving as he too sees the body. Dawn breaks down as she says that she doesn’t understand. Buffy hugs her and says she doesn’t understand either.

Cut to a body bag being carried out of the Summers’ home. Buffy sits next to her sister in the living room as Xander signs the necessary papers and sees the coroner off. He joins the sisters in the living room. Buffy wants to find Willow. If she finds Warren, he’s a dead man. Dawn says, “good.” She’d do it herself if she could. Buffy thinks Dawn doesn’t really feel that way, but Dawn insists that she does, and feels Buffy should share the sentiment. Xander agrees with Dawn; Warren is just as bad as any vampire Buffy’s killed.

Buffy evenly explains that being a slayer doesn’t give her a license to kill. The human world has its own rules. Xander notes that those rules don’t always work well.

Buffy: Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. We can’t control the universe. If we were supposed to then the magic wouldn’t change Willow the way it does. And we’d be able to bring Tara back.

Dawn quietly adds, “and mom,” pretty much cementing all the “THE BODY!” that’s happened throughout this recap.

Right now, Willow doesn’t want to believe in her own limitations. Buffy says Warren will get his, but that she won’t let Willow destroy herself in the process. Buffy suggests heading to the Magic Box for a locating spell. Dawn wants to tag along with them, but Buffy wants her somewhere safe. Dawn quickly suggests going to Spike’s place. Buffy sighs and acquiesces and DEAR GOD. THE RAGE. THE RAGE I FEEL.

No, you know what. I don’t even want to talk about it. Fine, B. Send your little sister to your attempted rapist. Let’s move it along.

K: Meanwhile, Xander had an appropriate and understandable reaction for the first time in a good long while. So…there’s that? Wait, nope. Still Hulk smashy. 

Sweeney: Yeah, while you’re moving along with the recap, I’ll be over here SMASHING ALL THE THINGS.

Lor: UC Sunnydale. Willow is in Tara’s dorm room holding her white shirt, covered in Tara’s blood. She spreads it out on the floor and tells the blood of the slain to guide her to Tara’s killer. The shirt turns into a Maurader’s-like Map and highlights where Warren is hiding.

TARDIS crypt. Clem is startled when Buffy and Dawn arrive and spills his snacks everywhere. Buffy apologizes for startling him and making him spill, but he gamely says it’s fine. He shakes around his loose skin and says he doesn’t need anymore of that. Buffy explains that they are looking for Spike and Clem tells them he’s left town. Buffy asks Clem to watch Dawn and he agrees as he offers board games or movie rental entertainment. Buffy hugs Dawn tightly and says she’ll be back as soon as possible.

Establishing shot of a full moon. Spike is somewhere sandy. What the hell? Where are we? Did he motorcycle all the way to Africa? Whatever.

K: I’m working on the theory that his entire timeline is majorly out of whack with everything that’s going down in Sunnydale, but they didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Or something. Mostly though, I don’t really care.

Lor: Cool. Either he’s in the future or he motorcycled to a different continent. Whichever you guys want.

He blows past some guy yelling at him in a foreign language and heads into a cave. I have the same feeling with him right now that I did with the Jonathan and Andrew. DON’T CARE. OTHER STUFF TO SEE. Some shadowy creature with aquamarine eyes asks if Spike is seeking him. Spike is. Aqua Eyes knows that it’s all about a Slayer. Spike responds, “bitch thinks she’s better than me.”

 

Spike explains that he isn’t right ever since the chip in his head. He wants to return to his “former self,” which is just vague enough that you may be thinking he means evil self, or he could mean former human self. This is all very melodramatic (or maybe I feel that way because I can’t feel a thing for him and thus everything trying to make me feel a thing for him seems melodramatic). Aqua Eyes laughs at Spike, about what he’s become, and how he has the audacity to demand restoration. Spike says he’s still a warrior and Aqua Eyes should send all the trials and tests he’s got. Spike says, “bitch” one more time too, just so we really aren’t sure if he’s gonna go bad or good.

Sweeney: And/or to piss me off.

Lor: I think I’ve read enough, “JUST YOU WAIT. YOU’LL CHANGE YOUR MIND,” comments to go with, “good.” I was blindsided by Tara’s death, but I will not be by Spike’s becoming human and/or gaining a soul perhaps. SNARKY PROPHET. (Also, don’t feel bad! You’ve keep me nice and spoiler free. Sometimes being a Snark Prophet is a curse.)

Magic Box. Xander helps Anya to a chair as she says the magic blast Willow hit her with is wearing off. Anya already knows about Tara, and she can also feel Willow wrath. Xander asks if this is a vengeance demon leftover thing, and Anya leads him to the realization of what she is again. Xander asks when, and choked up, she replies, “when do you think?”.

K: I’m guessing there’s no good way to tell your ex that you’re a vengeance demon again, but this was a pretty bad way to tell him… 

Sweeney: I don’t know. As ways to tell him goes, letting him know at a time when it’s useful seems preferable.

Lor: Or at least less awkward than, “how’s the weather, oh by the way…”

Buffy arrives and Xander fills her in on Anya being a demon again. Buffy asks her what side she’s going to be on in all of this, and Anya says she’ll help. She’ll help for Willow. She tells them that Willow is in the woods and she’s close to Warren.

Cut to Willow in the woods, trees shaking in the evil wind she’s producing. Willow stops in a small clearing and says Warren can run all night, but she’ll find him. Something hits Willow’s back and she falls down, face first. Warren is behind her and there is an axe buried in her back.

Willow floats up again and pulls the axe out of her back, unscathed. Warren takes off running and pulls a steel box out of his bag. The box has wings (K: Like a really ugly Snitch) (S: Same thought!) and it flies over to Willow and explodes. She freezes the fire with magic and walks through it like glass. Warren runs on and runs right into Willow. He tells Willow that that’s a “cute trick,” because even now, as he’s probably shitting in his pants, he’s going to be a giant tremdodouche.

 

“I didn’t mean to,” doesn’t count for very much.

Willow hits Warren with a blast that knocks him off his feet. He turns and throws a ball of something at Willow, yelling, “capture.” The ball expands and encases Willow in some flubbery substance. Warren runs.

Willow’s eyes glow red and she easily melts away the flubber. She says a one word spell and Warren is captured and held by some tree roots. As Willow bitch slaps the ground en route to Warren, she returns his, “cute tricks.”

Warren is bouncing around nervously, but he tells Willow she’s really asking for it now. “I’m gonna walk away from this. And when I do, you’re gonna beg to go join your little girlfriend.” Willow realizes something: Tara wasn’t the first girl Warren killed. She says, “reveal,” and from the woods zombie Katrina appears. She tells Warren she should’ve strangled him in his sleep.

He yells at Willow to make Katrina shut up, but she keeps talking. Katrina asks how he could do this to her when he claimed to love her and he yells, “because you deserved it, bitch.”

Willow: You never felt you had the power with her. Not until you killed her.
Warren: Women. You know, you’re just like the rest of them. Mind games.
Willow: You get off on it. That’s why you had a mad-on for the Slayer. She was your big O, wasn’t she, Warren?
Warren: Are you done yet? Or can we talk some more about our feelings?

K: UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH. There are literally no words for how much I despise Warren. I actually feel really bad for Adam Busch, because I’m sure he’s a lovely person, and he’s clearly a pretty great actor given how convincing he makes Warren. But I can’t watch anything he’s in, because I see his face and just want to punch him in the junk repeatedly. 

Sweeney: I had to check IMDB to see what that might include. Will have to report back later to find out if American Dreamz has been ruined for me by his amazing ability to play a misogynistic prick.

Lor: Elsewhere in the woods, Anya is leading Buffy and Xander, telling them that Willow is getting stronger.

Warren starts screaming for help and Willow says she thought he wanted to talk. He doesn’t anymore, so she says she will. She makes the bullet she retrieved appear and rips open his shirt. She places the bullet just beyond his chest and makes it hover there. She think he needs to feel what a real bullet feels like.

The bullet starts to push into Warren’s chest, slowly, as Willow narrates its journey. It’ll obliterate his organs, collapse his lung, drown him, and destroy his central nervous system. Warren is crying out in pain, and Willow shuts him up by sewing his mouth shut via magic. It’s incredibly disturbing. Willow keeps pushing the bullet further, Warren’s face draining of color.

 

Tara is gone and Warren lives and this is the biggest injustice Willow has known. She asks him if he can feel the bullet, and frees his mouth. He begs her, tells her that he sees he’s done wrong, but that he needs jail. She isn’t a bad person, like he is.

Anya, Buffy and Xander approach and Warren tells Willow that when she gets caught, she’ll lose her friends too. He starts, “I know you’re in pain,” but Willow interrupts him with a, “bored now.” It was the last thing I expected her to say– the catchphrase of her soulless counterpart.

A small flick of her hand, and power runs through Warren’s body and skins him alive. His body sags and Anya, Buffy and Xander are just in time to see it.

Buffy asks Willow what she did. Warren’s body goes up in flames and disappears.

She turns to them, completely calm and says, “one down.” Red fire flashes in Willow’s eyes again and she disappears in into a puff of smoke, leaving her friends staring in horror.

And I freaked out about an eyeball popping out.

For me, this here is an example of a dark, uncomfortable, controversial BUT GOOD episode. We’ve gotten some push back about disliking things because they are dark and not because they are dark AND bad. This episode was well written, beautifully acted (ALYSON. HANNIGAN.) and it followed a natural story progression. It wasn’t perfect, but it almost got there. Still, it wasn’t easy to watch. (S: +1 to all of this.)

Xander says in this episode that Willow fell off the wagon, and I’ve been saying all along that Willow’s problem was never magic, per se, but power. In the moment she felt most powerless– holding the lifeless body of the love she just managed to get back– she gave into that power. She tried to take control. She was judge, jury and executioner in this episode and it brought up so many interesting points.

K: BRB, making you a Snark Prophet crown.

Lor: Amazing. I’ll wear it always.

We see this in the living room as Xander, Dawn and Buffy take a time out for a morality chat. Buffy is absolutely against going to kill Warren, but we see righteous Xander and naive Dawn in favor of an eye for an eye. Buffy’s come up against this issue of killing humans before (think Faith and even Katrina), though. She has the most experience in death and what it does to you.

K: I said to the girls via email recently that I’ve now seen this so many times that the insta-skinning scene has lost all its impact, and I yelled “BYE, WARREN, YOU COMPLETE FUCK KNUCKLE!!” at my television when it happened. As a result of this episode having lost a lot of its impact, I didn’t see it as great quite as much as Lor did. Instead, I saw it as set up for the finale, the stuff that we have to get through to finally reach the end of the long, dark, painful road that’s been season 6. This isn’t to say that it wasn’t well written and fabulously acted. It was. It IS. It just suffers from me being far too familiar with the series and what’s to come.

Lor: That’s two for two with these last episodes that try to make you sympathize with a crime. No one, I’m sure, will cry any tears over Warren, but it doesn’t make what Willow’s done any less terrifying or terrible.

And, on that note, we’re almost there guys! Season 6 is almost done.

 

Next time: Willow keeps on her rampage and it pits her against Buffy in S06 E21 – Two to Go.