"We're gonna need a bigger boat."
This is it, then, or at least the first half of it. You could cut the tension with a knife and, er, Buffy sort of does exactly that. There's mere hours to go until the end of school and, since the Mayor will be making his speech and doing all that Ascension stuff right there, also the end of everyone's lives. Jonathan may have been a bit premature when he said that the Class of '99 has had the lowest mortality rate ever.
The American concept of graduating high school is a fascinating one to me as a Brit; we don't have anything like that. Lessons end, you take your final A Level exams, and you wait until the results come in mid-August, long after school ended, when either you'll have achieved the grades you needed for your provisional place at University or it's time to panic. There's no graduation as such, just separate qualifications in the three or four subjects you studies post-16, and nit much of a sense of ceremony although, obviously, the fact that school, ends means something. On the other hand, my degree ceremony was just like this, with gowns and speeches and balls. It feels odd to me to see that sort of thing happening to teenagers.
There's a real contrast between the liberating feeling of school ending, winding down into yearbooks and games of hangman, and the sense of imminent death, as Xander pretty much articulates at the very beginning. But either way it means leaving childhood behind. In fact, this is an episode full of rituals to do with growing up. Willow loses her virginity and Buffy (finally!) severs all ties with the Watchers' Council, calling it a "graduation". She's an adult now and she'll make her own decisions.
Willow and Oz's short scene of post-coital bliss is incredibly sweet, obviously, and so are Anya's obvious feelings for Xander. I love Anya, as do all right-thinking people. But there's something of a cruel contrast between these two couples being brought closer together by the upcoming apocalypse and the fact that they seem to have no future. The whole mood of this episode is so very ambiguous, yet so very powerful too. But then, that always happens in these episodes where Joss Whedon both writes and directs.
The Ascension is near, but the Scoobies still have very little idea how to stop it, and the Mayor is careful to keep them distracted with finding a cure for the mortally wounded Angel and, much though he may bleat about no father being prouder, he's essentially using Faith as expendable bait; he must have known that the blood of a Slayer was the only cure. She doesn't know it, but it seems she's been tossed aside.
It feels the whole series has been running up to this: an epic showdown between Buffy and Faith. It ends inconclusively, of course, as we need a cliffhanger, but it's so, so meaningful, in the context of these two characters and their arc, to see Buffy actually stabbing Faith. Even Faith is more surprised than anything.
Like all first parts to series finales, though, this is just the build-up, and it seems to end on a big suspended chord, just as it should. Tomorrow there should be a proper sense of closure, as I finally get the end of what is still my favourite season.
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