Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen

“Oh, you know me. Not much on the damselling."

So, this is it, after seven extraordinary and eventful years... and, with this being American network television, we still get the usual 42 minutes. Still, Joss himself is back to write and direct, so we know this will be good. and it bloody well is.

144 episodes ago we began our voyeuristic adventures of the Chosen One, a valley girl, a character always quick with a quip, but fundamentally (as we were often reminded) alone. She experienced lots of fun, lots of angst, lots of excitement, lots of peril and was always a walking feminist statement, a girl who didn’t need a man to rescue her.

The way we end here is the perfect distillation of all that and the perfect feminist statement. Buffy wins by socking it to the patriarchy, by questioning why on Earth there needs to be just the one Slayer just because a bunch of old people with penises said so, and using Willow’s gloriously feminine magic to smash that particular glass ceiling and make damn sure that every Pitentisl becomes a Slayer, now.

Oh, and if that weren’t enough, Buffy starts the episode by affectionately telling Angel to bugger off back to his own show and killing Caleb with a sword to the bollocks. You’ll excuse me if I don’t get up right now, but that’s quite the statement of intent.

There’s nuance, too, of course. The final episode takes time for Buffyvto golf out hope of getting together with Angel one day, to spend one last night with Spike, to imagine both of them wrestling with oil involved. We get to see Kennedy being a lovely girlfriend to Willow again in the night before battle, and signs that Robin may actually have been able to seduce Faith into seeing him as more than a one night stand. Shouldn’t she be off back to prison at the end, though? She’s no longer needed, and there’s more atonement that needs doing. This is the only sour note.

There’s more. We get the D&D scene, Giles gets one last “The Earth is definitely doomed” for old times sake, and Anya gets a heroic death saving Andrew. And then, of course, there’s Spike’s heroic sacrifice, with those heartrending last words as he gently tells Buffy that actually, he knows she doesn’t really love him but he appreciates the little white lie.

And so Sunnydale is gone, just a crater. No more High School, no more Hellmouth, no more mall, no more Bronze. I’ll miss the place. Thank you, Joss Whedon. He’s had a long and magnificent career but let’s not be silly: Buffy is his masterpiece.