Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Empty Places

"I keep waiting for my other senses to improve 50%. That'll kick in any day now."

The end is nigh, and after six previous seasons we know that the narrative requires a wedge between the Scoobies in afvance of the final battle. We’ve already seen a bit of this with the ongoing estrangement between Buffy and Giles, but the end of this episode sees this sort of thing taken to its devastating extreme, with Buffy being kicked out of her own home by her own sister.

It’s made very clear that things are dire. There’s a mass exodus from Sunnyvale, including Clem. School is closed. No one has any way of fighting back against the horrible misogynistic Caleb, whose dialogue is horrifying and who represents an acting triumph from the great Nathan Fillion.

There’s a little humour early on, yes, with Anya’s lecture which ends up with Andrew writing “break-up sex on the board, but otherwise things are unrelentingly grim. Thevdull teality of Xander losing an eye really hits home; it’s devastating to see Willow about to cry when Xander makes a quip about being spared Jaws 3-D, and Xander simply saying “Please don’t.”

Morale is rock bottom, and Faith’s attempt to cheer up the troops by taking them to the Bronze goes horribly wrong. The police are carefully stated to be “Hellmouthed” and shown to be brutal and corrupt so that we root for Faith against them. Fair enough. But I still expect her to return to prison when this is all over. As we established long ago, slayers are no better than other people and shouldn’t have privileged status.

Faith and Robin seem to connect. And Spike and Andrew go off on a mission that may provide useful knowledge against Caleb. But things are miserable, especially after Xander Returns with that horrible injury. So the response to Buffy’s plan- to attack the Vineyard again because it’s obviously important- meets a negative response from even those closest to her. Buffy doesn’t help herself by saying the wrong things; slayers are no better than other people. It’s a hard hitting ending, but Buffy gets the last word, pointing out that Faith now has to cope with the burden of leadership.