Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Two to Go

"She's like Dark Phoenix in there."

The fact that the episode begins with a recap of the entire season thus far alerts us to the fact that, structurally, this is the first episode of a two part finale. Hence, yes, plot-wise the episode is pretty much just treading water via some big set pieces, but there's a lot of valuable character stuff along the way and we get to see both how powerful Willow is and how nasty she can be- deliberately evoking the "bored now" Evil Willow.

The title, of course, is a rather nice pun; the penultimate episode consists almost entirely of Buffy, Anya and Xander trying desperately to stop Willow from killing Jonathan and Andrew before the cliffhanger and Giles’ surprise return. But along the way we have so many little moments. Yes, there’s the contractual Spike scene where he survives the first of his trials, yawn, but more interestingly there is also the clear sense that, while Andrew remains immature and unrepentant, Jonathan has come to terms with his responsibility for the terrible things that hVe happened and his need to atone. Willow mills that nasty magic/drug dealer after he tries to sexually assault her and, andway, its implied that he’s a paedo. Although that’s a nice Circle Jerks t-shirt on one of his junkie customers.

What happens next isn’t nice, though, as Willow says horrible things to Dawn. When all this is over that will cause her paroxysms of guilt. Buffy’s big talk with Willow fails, and a still understandably bitter Anya has another row with a notably useless-feeling Xander.

It’s all about this last chance to have these little character moments, really, and it works well. Next episode I’m sure we will have plenty of plot...