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Here's the article from Cult Times #70. It's a long, long thing. And to be honest, I think in parts it's a little grandiose. The writer, whilst focusing on some interesting issues in Buffy, seems to like Anya, Xander, Spike, Giles, Buffy and Dawn. Erm...oh that's right, there's little to no mention of Willow and/or Tara. But it's worth a read anyway, if you don't want to buy it.quote:
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THE GIFT UNWRAPPED by Mark Wyman
So, did you manage to watch Sky 1’s broadcast of the Buffy Season Five finale without knowing the end? It wasn’t the two-hour epic being rumoured during spring: ‘Centennial’ never existed – yup, we were fooled too – but the series’ 100th episode certainly pulled the stops out.
Sky 1 achieved its best ever Buffy ratings with The Gift, securing 1.11 million viewers on June 1st. A pity they had spoiled Buffy’s fate in the badly-judged trailer, but the phenomenal reaction to what was for one American network the ‘series finale’ made the shocking resolution of her battle against Glory a news item in its own right. What with London’s Evening Standard and the Daily Star illustrating a certain gravestone before June 1st, you were lucky if The Gift retained its full shock value.
Just as well that the episode delivered on so many levels, then. The new Cult Times Special lists 100 top moments from Buffy’s five triumphant years to date: we’ve selected 10 more from The Gift for you here.
1. Previously on Buffy
Nothing emphasizes the end-of-an-era status of The Gift quite like its unique recap sequence. It spans the entire series, in an accelerating blur which crams images from pretty much all of the previous 99 episodes, in sequence, into 37 seconds. If you had time to reflect here, it might be to think that this was going to be an even more significant finale than was expected. Since we emerge from the fusillade to hit the ground running – along with the teenage boy being cornered by a vampire – any such reflection will have been fleeting.
2. The Retro Vamp-Fight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer progressed early on from being a series about a girl destined to slay vampires into one about a girl who typically slays vampires as a pre-titles chore, before wrestling with deeper issues. Here, the veteran Slayer defuses an ignorant vampire’s threats by playing the confrontation very lightly, until they start fighting. Improvizing as usual, she catches a flying splinter and stakes him. But this diversion is pure trivia compared with Buffy’s overwhelming burdens – including her own puzzling destiny. Hence her wistful response to the astonished boy that she’s just rescued, who blurts out that Buffy’s ‘just a girl’: “That’s what I keep saying.”
3. Smart Anya
Mostly bereft of ideas about how to forestall the ritual that will kill Dawn of bring universal chaos, the gang is urged to focus by the increasingly constructive Anya. Maybe it comes from having a skilled construction worker (Xander) as her partner. Fittingly, it’s Anya who suggests the enchanted hammer of her ex-boyfriend Olaf the Trollgod, as a weapon of choice. At which point Xander opines aloud: “Smart chicks are so hot”. Hardly deep and meaningful by itself, but poor Willow’s softly-delivered yet gently barbed response “You couldn’t have figured that out in tenth grade…?” to her one time crush is a delicious moment of character continuity.
4. Marking the Centenary
Giles and Buffy have one of their bleakest scenes ever in the training room. Having disagreed fiercely about whether sacrificing Dawn could be justified, they resign themselves to facing the impending chaos with separate agendas, and sit in uneasy silence. Buffy wonders aloud how many apocalypses they’ve faces, and Giles replies, almost in a murmur, “Well, six, at least. Seems like a hundred.” In character, it’s a reflection of how close they are to despair: but for alert viewers, it’s also a clever reference to the landmark which Buffy the series is now dealing with: the hundredth episode.
5. St. Cripsin’s Day
Before the battle of Agincourt, Shakespeare’s Henry V makes a motivating speech to his beleaguered army upon St Crispin’s Day. Buffy’s words as the gang embarks strike no such tone, hence Spike’s quip to Giles, “Not exactly the St Crispin’s Day speech, was it?” They then sardonically misquote some of Shakespeare’s lines to each other: “We few…we happy few…we band of buggered…” But look at Henry V’s next lines:
“For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile.”
Having warned Spike away previously, Giles is now ready to accept Spike’s almost-noble devotion. It also reminds us that William the Bloody had an ear for literature, which Spike retains.
6. Hammer of the Gods
An excellent game to play during Season Five was ‘Spot the Robot before they do’. Watching Spike’s face fall in the closing scene of Intervention, when Buffy pretends to be his mechanical, was priceless. Surpassing it for excitement is the moment when Glory decapitates Buffy. Except that it was the Buffybot, re-activated to weaken Glory while the real Buffy waits in the wings, waiting to swing a Troll-god hammer, and to goad Glory plenty more by telling her she’s “Not the brightest god in the heavens.”
7. Glory flies, brick-layer
Xander’s construction industry skills have been part of his welcome advance to maturity this year. Yet he can still be sensitive under fire: see his second-rate response to Spike’s needling comment about being a ‘glorified brick-layer’ as they choose weapons. This sets up a priceless double whammy when, having pulled Glory off the tower, Buffy pushes the hellgod away from her…to be sent flying by a wrecking ball crashing unannounced through the wall. The crane operator: Xander Harris. That’s part of their battle plan – but the stray brick that Xander throws at Spike’s head is just the glorified brick-layer getting his comeback.
8. Who’s the killer?
In the season opener, Buffy is discomfited when Dracula announces, “I came to meet the renowned killer.” In Intervention she is told by her Spirit Guide that, “Death is your Gift” by the finale Buffy has concluded, “I guess…a Slayer really is just a killer after all.” Yet she still walks away from Ben after a battered Glory morphs back into her human prison: she remains the hero who won’t take a life in cold blood. Giles, however, is different: hence the deranged Tara’s outburst “You’re a killer!” – and so it proves. Giles chokes the weakened Ben to prevent Glory from ever resurfacing: the Ripper’s dark side has done its grim duty.
9. Slowdive
By the time Buffy rescues Dawn, the ritual bleeding has begun, and the dimensions are breaking down. But rather than let Dawn sacrifice herself, it’s Buffy who resolves to provide the Summers blood to close the portal. Death is her Gift, spent to save Dawn, and the world. It’s a powerful enough climax as narrative, made searing by Buffy’s sunrise leap of faith from the tower. The stunning overhead shot of her sacrificial dive is surely reminiscent of Ripley’s suicide at the end of Alien. Curiously, the script reviving that battle-scarred hero in Alien Resurrection came from a Mr J Whedon…
10. All for love
“I know you’ll never love me…” admits Spike once Buffy re-admits him to her home. Yet The Gift has so much precisely because it’s all done for love. There’s Anya, who would normally flee an apocalypse, staying because of Xander and providing solutions. There’s Xander, proposing because he believes the world won’t end. There’s Willow confessing that restoring Tara has been her priority – one Buffy completely understands. There’s Spike’s obsession with Buffy, unrequited and rightly so, but acknowledged by her and turned to good as he vows to protect Dawn. There’s Giles’ love for the world, along with the burden that imposes on a Watcher. And above all, there’s Buffy’s for Dawn, which is why she sacrifices herself…
What next? Joss Whedon had to speak up quickly to reassure fans that Sarah Michelle Gellar will return as Buffy in Season Six after the show changes networks. Just how remains to be seen, and we’re left with the image of a gravestone in a tranquil, tree-shaded setting. A grave dedicated to Buffy Anne Summers: in a grove of – hang on, those are willow trees…
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Edited to add: Me fingers! Me poor fingers!
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"She looked across at Willow, whose face was filled with light. She had never felt so calm and happy, and strong..." ~ Unseen: Door To Alternity
*transplanted by xita
