I think you’re seeing demons where there’s just life – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6

Of all the Buffy blogs, this has been the hardest to write – partially because such a lot of the meat of it has been covered in the episode by episode thread and so would just be needless repetition here, but also because it’s such a tricky season to get a handle on.

It’s no secret that the theme of this season is ‘Life is the Big Bad’ and the season arc is something of a classic misdirect. For much of the season, we’d be forgiven for thinking that Willow’s magic addiction is the ‘B’ story with the rise of the Trio being the main arc.

And indeed it is, for three quarters of the season. And the development of the Trio is done really well. We see them slowly worsen, become less harmlessly cute and incrementally more corrupted by Warren, until bang, they’re suddenly accomplices to murder and attempted rape in Dead Things. They travel from ‘we’re your arch-nemiseseses to ‘because you deserved it, bitch’. It’s chilling and genuinely scary, I think.

We’ve known Jonathan for a while now, so we kind of know the effect it’s going to have on him – and I take back my earlier snootiness about the character – as it’s been really cool to see a long-standing minor character given such development. He’s graduated from being a one-line joke to an interesting figure in his own right.

Andrew is another matter, however. His moral ambivalence at Katrina’s death – and his slavish devotion to Warren – are possibly just as shocking Warren’s murderous actions themselves and are going to have definite repercussions in future seasons.

But the extended season finale, which essentially stretches out over four episodes, switches the whole thing around. The Trio’s plans collapse and unleash a crazed, grief-stricken Dark Willow. It’s basically Buffy does the Dark Phoenix Saga but it really, really works and I’d say it counts as my favourite Buffy season finale. (The Gift is close and an awesome piece of TV, with an ending that leaves you shell-shocked, but I’d say that s6 takes you on such a prolonged, and often dark ride that you’re actually more ready for some resolution – despite the fact that what resolution you’re offered here is definitely somewhat qualified. Plenty of loose ends are left dangling to be picked up the following year.)

Those dangling threads are one of the things that make me feel that the influence of sister show Angel is starting to be felt here. It’s been one of Angel’s trademarks throughout its run that it ended each season on something of a cliffhanger, or dangling plot point. But until this year, it wasn’t something that Buffy particularly went for. (You could argue that s5 could also qualify but there was a strong possibility that Buffy was going to stay dead and that was going to be the end of the show, so I’m not sure it qualifies.) Similarly, the strong interconnectedness of the arc, with fewer standalone episodes is also an Angel trait, as is the darker colour palette of the production design this year. Lots of muted dark reds and browns and deep greens. Compare that with the brighter lit, sunny pastels of the earlier season of Buffy.

But despite the darkness, there were still lots of great Buffy moments this year. I enjoyed seeing Amy return at last. As discussed on the other thread, she’s a key figure in Buffy mythology and was in fact the catalyst for Willow’s descent into the world of magic.

And Giles benefits from possibly one of the most kick-ass entrances in, like, ever. His reappearance is a moment which can’t help but raise the hairs on the back of your neck. And yet there is part of me that feels it is somehow wrong. His departure was so that Buffy (and the rest of the Scoobies) could learn to stand on her own two feet and for him to return to bail them out seems to negate that entire lesson. The writers are clearly aware of that too because you get the line “sometimes the most grown-up thing you can do is ask for help when you need it”. But it still essentially makes a mockery of too many of the preceding episodes. And yet I don’t really care because I’d missed Giles and was really glad to see him back. And for me, it’s his last great moment for glory as I’m not a massive fan of where his character goes in s7.

And there are slight flaws in this season. The first glaring one is in Bargaining 1&2. If the Scoobies are determined to maintain the fiction that the Slayer is still alive, a prominent gravestone was probably not a good idea. And since the undead traditionally spend rather a lot of time in graveyards, it’s hardly likely they would have missed the big old clue of Buffy’s death. And the heavy metal biker demons didn’t seem to be that deterred by the idea of a Slayer anyway – and didn’t seem to be that far from Sunnydale. I didn’t buy the fact of them being terrified of Buffy to the extent they would have stayed away till now.

Similarly, great as it is, the finale has one big flaw in that it struggles to find a role for the title character within it. Dark Willow gives her a few token root monsters to battle while it is Xander who actually saves her. And this translates throughout the entire season. What are Buffy’s major achievements throughout s6? Sure, she wins a few punch-ups etc but really she achieves little except banging Spike in a destructive S&M abusive relationship. But all the big character beats this year belong to the other Scoobies – Willow, Giles, Xander, even Spike.

But the biggest flaw is perhaps the lack of texture to the season. It took me a long time to love s6 – I do now but on first viewing I kind of hated it. It’s definitely one that improves with time and rewatching. But tonally it doesn’t have the variation that most of the other seasons have. This is probably down to just a change in approach. Joss’s trademark is his high contrast – high comedy on the back of high tragedy and so on. But by this time, he’s deep in work on Firefly and this season is very much Marti Noxon’s baby. And while she’s clearly capable of comedy and has written some of the funniest Buffy episodes of the past, this time she was clearly in ‘mistress of pain’ mode.

The only real respite is the mighty Once More With Feeling and Tabula Rasa, both real high points of the season. There’s not much more to say about OMWF that hasn’t been said already. Songs that will stay in your head for months. And the songs are not there just for the sake of it – as was often the case in certain copycat musical TV episodes. Every song, every moment, was a character moment and/or progressed the arc along. The episode felt as if it were there for a reason – primarily for a major arc point that it would have been too angsty to reveal in any other way that early in the season.

Tabula Rasa too is a fine episode. Introducing Clem – again another rather Angelesque addition, a demon who is thoroughly benign and not at all evil – a great sight gag in the lone shark and lots of great comedic, Scoobie moments. And a fine send-off for ASH in his last episode as an ongoing series regular.

Six down, one more to go. Buffy’s last season coming up. And lots of questions. What’s Spike going to be like with a soul? What’s to become of Willow? Is Buffy actually going to, you know, start doing stuff. Stay tuned as we return to Sunnydale High.

Leave your thoughts, musings, violent debate and blood oaths below. Though nothing about Buffy season 7 or Angel seasons two through five please.


14 comments

  1. @Jimthefish

    I was waiting with typical baited breath and nail biting for your blog and fine it is! Thank you.

    Over on the other thread, I spent quite a bit of time going backwards and forwards justifying the various elements that were noticeable in this season.

    I saw this parent show taking on the darkness of Angel too and moving away (a little) from the black and white “monsters are evil, humans are not -always”  towards a more ‘grown up’, selective attitude. Add to that the chromatic colour tones of darkness, foreshadowed in OMWF, and you have a very inward and self-referential series which studies consequences and introduces ‘We’re the Evil Trio, you’ve-heard-of-us-right?’

    In many ways it didn’t align well with Buffy herself as I felt the recurring ‘are they ever going to do “it” ‘ theme (Spike and Buffy) took over the show without the character of Buffy necessarily returning to her previous over-arching Slayer position  -or should I say role’? 🙂 The destructive Spuffy became a real presence -and not a very nice one. I’ve dutifully stayed away from any fan sites but I can imagine the ‘Spike is Hot’ theme taking over pretty much everything else.

    Whilst I was on board with ‘magic is terrifying when taken too far’ idea I did think that the metaphoric Rack and his Crack Den was a little to obviously allusory. Staying away from spoilers, I think any idea about magic used for protection rather than for ‘evil’ makes for a more refined, complex idea -it gives more meat to a story of magic which now openly suggests that not all monsters are evil -Anya is getting ready for wedded bliss and Clem is a just a ‘great guy’ (Tabula Rasa) with none of the nervy mannerism the humans seem to have: “should he see me in this dress?”; “is this haircut too wrong?” etc.

    But I also loved the ending: seeing Xander take on the mantle of problem solver with Yellow Crayon was terrific and solidified the relationship between Xander and Will seen at the very beginning of S1 in the “We hate Cordelia” Club.

    Tara’s death provided the menace necessary to throw Willow off the wagon and the way in which it was achieved -so brutally and with a ‘mere’ human as the nemesis added richness to the idea of human destruction: carry that theme into Buffy’s own secretive world with Spike and you have a definite appointment with death.

    Whilst the tone of S5 suggested a noble ending with all the Scoobies taking an individual part (aligned with their growth) in defying Glory, S6 had Buffy herself in a side role, constantly questioning and blaming herself. If the metier of high-school kids is ‘we’re cool and those over there are not’ then the theme of 3rd year college is ‘nothing I do is right -my house costs money even when I’m not in it – so, like, what’s the point?’ Without Tara, what was the point, for Willow? Without Xander as husband, Anya may as well return to her original calling and if Buffy is going to grow up then Giles needs to leave -but then he comes back.

    I’m glad he does, because I missed him and he was always my favourite character from S1 onwards, but like you Jim, I wondered about the necessity of his return and its awkwardness-considering S7 and the repetitive farewells through S6.

    Seemingly Spike’s decision to leave is the only plot which contains a proactive element (other than bringing Buffy back in the first place near her headstone and in a graveyard with a large band of Hell’s Angels only in the next suburb. Mmm). I would have thought that Spike’s regaining of a soul could have been shown to better effect in S7’s episodes 3 or 4 – a better surprise that way?

    In this series I thought Dawn -clearly playing the parent to Buffy -as she struggles to cope with this “bright, hard and violent world” -really steps up nicely. She has a great script, actually, and manages to sort out the Scooby quartet (Willow and Tara, Anya and Xander) in short order. The middle block of episodes whilst containing some light moments -and some funny lines:

    “How have you been?”

    “Rat. You?”

    “Dead”

    “Oh”

    tends to be fairly dismal and tedious and unlike any other series I’m in no hurry to revisit these episodes. The blackness permeating them is like some terrifying Homeric tale, all misery, one-eyed monsters, collapsing buildings and no levity whatsoever-at least it feels that way. Even the wedding, which could have provided some much needed joy, sees Xander ruminating in his own purgatory . That episode ends with cold and furious rain and the tone doesn’t lift until he’s consoling Willow at the very end. And perhaps this is his resolution and role: no superpowers but spot on human sensibility. Ultimately it’s incredible how Willow has managed to develop as a person -for me, that’s the highlight of this season and she’s definitely the main character here. Buffy? Buffy who?

  2. As @pedant is itinerant, I thought I’d paste this in from one of the other threads -interesting that I had a few different things to say here than I did above! But a new series to watch is to blame for that. Hindsight also helps. I should have just linked that -I tried it and it broke (or more likely I don’t know what I’m doing)

    **********

    (As for bleak, Jim) I think watching so much of it in such a short time made it relentless. Had I taken more time, let things stew happily, I may not have been so disillusioned. It’s one thing to fight a Big Bad, clear and delineated but it’s worse when the Big Bad is Life. And inertia. Characters like Joyce and Tara are unexpectedly taken, a wedding is stopped mid- Lohengrin -that silly robotic quartet. Hope they don’t expect to get paid! And to find that humans (The Trio) are subtly playing mind games. On top of that you should be dead and you’re not. No wonder Buffy is ready to bellow and inaugurate a course of action with the aberrant and wicked.

    I look at the general aura of Angel and see him as quite the ‘modern mind’ (unlike Spike): generous, good hearted, solid and tough, stubborn and intellectual. He has the streetwise mind too but it’s more juvenile in Spike and far less reassuring.

    Spike, without Dru and then Buffy is a mind of the Classical period -in music, of the 1700s, but in writing, and thought, of ancient times. He isn’t mild, but restless, untrustworthy, filled with wanderlust and around this iteration of Buffy, heavy, tortured and …leavened by what he thinks is love.

    Jim, I also don’t know what he’s experiencing: love or obsession? Both? The latter over the former? Love isn’t easy to admire or define. It’s hard and non-consolatory. To put it another way, death is the mother of beauty. Beauty and love being painful, merciless, pitiless (*and I take on board the idea Spike is the modern Romantic*)

    Spike’s classical personality, then, is narrow and unhesitating and in his soul (the spark of which is lit) he’s every bit the obsessive and I predict Spike With Soul will stay obsessive -it’s deeply cultivated. He’s marked by it.

    Interestingly, whenever Buffy needed someone to look after Dawn, to find help for another in some other way -she turned to Spike. Did he do things purely for her -like a puppy eager to please or was he more cunning in his long-term objective? I don’t know, actually. Not entirely.

    I’m also pretty unsure of how to judge him. Without a soul, doing any good at all -whether it be looking after Niblet or  bringing flowers after Joyce departs  – is difficult. He’s working against his natural state.

    Soulful and clever, Willow faces an altered state as well: in a place of rage she turns murderous, wildly unfaltering, happy to “put Buffy back in the ground” and kill Giles outright. Do we absolutely hate her? No. We forgive. And yet, this is a story absolutely as important as the Spuffy one: is it a discussion of wanting to channel primal needs correctly? Because otherwise those old and powerful forces mass, strengthen and erupt in a rancorous fury threatening to spill away the will completely. Willow lost her pressure valve and it’s frightening. Did Will deny her own darkness and unreason? Was she so frightened of her power that she became terribly attached to it? She was attracted to the strange (and wonderful) Oz and to Tara, a clever witch in her own right.

    Sometimes, bloody and ghastly things are beautiful. Was Willow’s and her friends ‘support’ of stopping the magic an entirely good thing (it mimicked what Buffy herself wanted to do with her own hidden relationship)? Had Will been able to control exactly how she used it, would her response to Tara’s death been different? I didn’t like the idea of Buffy and Dawn cleaning house of every piece of ‘mindful magic’. I’m not sure why -I should appreciate their efforts. I see, in a commentary, that Joss speaks of it metaphorically -the addiction -like cocaine and sex  -without personal responsibility. But I still don’t fully buy it -and that, I know, is my own problem. My own flaw.

    As for Spike, and the writing around those episodes, it seems stark but repetitive: “Buffy we have to talk”; Slayer we need to talk about what happened”; “Buffy, listen, we must talk.”

    On and on. And then in her private space, asking the same thing; apologising, and then trying rape?

    Horrifying. And I admit to having nothing pleasant left in my heart towards him. What did we expect, really?

    As I said before, did we think it would be cheeky breakfasts, asking one to buy milk on their way home and inviting the Scoobs over for Friday chicken-dinner at crypt?

    Buffy’s ‘brush with mortality’ leaves her flailing, radiating isolation and she flagellates and reproaches herself in response. One’s continuation can never be taken for granted (and this is heralded in Willow and her impending dark trip as far back as The Witch as @pedant reminded me); Buffy’s scrutinising the results and Spike’s offer of “stay in the dark as you’re a creature of darkness” is contagious. She’s disarmed by him, but never suppresses her irritation by this. Spike and Buffy abdicate their own independence to some extent. Their sex games germinate from an entirely different place: his is like religions ecstasy, wildly enthusiastic, frenzied, pre-intellectual, sadistic: barbarism over reason. Buffy’s state is more deliberate (though no less desperate and savage), appetitive, channelling the primitive impulses she’s worked so hard to subdue or ‘colour over’ in the past.

    Perhaps Buffy could have worked out her destructive passions in less vulgar array -but Spike was always present. His was a powerful mystery for her to meet. It wasn’t beautiful ‘love’ though – and neither with Riley. With him, she withered, with Spike she quivered but became enraged with the addiction of it nonetheless. She wanted to be devoured (one step closer to the death she’d reconciled with) -interesting, that the word ‘devoured’ was programmed into the Buffy sex-bot (and there might be more in S7)

    The metaphor of fire, established in S3 “fire bad, tree pretty” was shown us again in Once More With Feeling and also in the final ‘act’ of the season. Fire bad? Buffy and Willow wanted to be hidden in fire, one that refined and destroyed. For both it provided resolution. And Spike is also tested by fire.

  3. Jim

    this was pointed out to me by Boy Ilion who said that the entire development of S6 was the use of “love isn’t brains it’s blood”. In fact, so far he thinks that statement is the over-arching comment of the whole show. In S5 that was the metaphor with Dawn.

    In S6, Spike is un-dead and Buffy once dead has come back, slightly wrong. This will eventually be ‘righted’ but until that time her seeking out of Spike is necessary. In fact, rather simply (and possibly rudely) he said that “Buffy has no brains right now so she seeks out Spike who wants her blood. They both have a need and however you want to call it, it’s blood  calling”  I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what he said. I just gulped a bit. I also thought “what the hell else do you spend time thinking about at 13?”

    Without being spoilery, he also said that the statement “they [the vampires] always have the power” is key.

  4. @purofilion

    In fact, so far he thinks that statement is the over-arching comment of the whole show

    It’s certainly one of them. And it’s definitely Spike’s mantra. I’d say a key them of s6 is inertia though. Buffy returns from the grave and is questioning but overall passive ‘why do I let him do these things to me?’. And Spike reacts rather than acts until this leads him to going too far. And Willow reacts in entirely the wrong way.

    Yeah, I think the death of Tara at Warren’s hands is all the more shocking because it’s a human act. Again, a major theme of the whole season. We’re our own worst enemies. And you can’t blame demons all the time (see also Angel s2).

    No, there wasn’t anything remotely subtle about Rack’s crack den but it saw the return of the great Jeff Kober (also Kralig in s3’s Helpless) so I was quite happy to indulge it.

  5. @JimtheFish

    Great blog again and thanks @Purofilion for your usual detailed analysis.

    Dark as it is, this is one of my favourite Buffy series. In perhaps surprising ways it seeems like a back to basics in that the 1st series was clearly using the stories as metaphors for real life, and the same here, albeit in much darker territory – adults’ demons are much harder to deal with.

    Drug addictions, inappropriate, abusive relationships, death and grief.

    I agree re JtF’s comment about inertia and Buffy’s relative passivity in letting things be done to her. She feels the only person who comes near to understanding her return from the dead is the undead Spike. She’s still grieving for Joyce, and she’s grieving for her own old younger self. Sex and death very often keep close company, a primitive, deep, human reaction.

    I think Spike’s characterisation is marstersfully* done.  He’s very attractive, he’s in that traditional Brando/Dean moody bad guy with a heart of gold who just needs the love a good woman mould.  You think he might just find redemption with Buffy, but he still has that turn on a pin outright evil streak – poet vs undead demon.  Sorry, forgotten the episode title, but when he goes too far and Buffy is hurt it’s extremely shocking, a blast of reality. He’s shocked himself, apologetic – but aren’t abusers always that way after the act? It’s a brave, if bleak, move IMO and it blasts the stereotype of the  “moody romantic hero.”

    @JimtheFish Your comment above about Tara’s death –

    is all the more shocking because it’s a human act. Again, a major theme of the whole season. We’re our own worst enemies. And you can’t blame demons all the time

    Agreed, and nicely put. We have to learn and understand this to grow into fully formed adults – the transition from self centred adolescence where it’s easier to blame outside forces than take responsibility.

    I think Xander being the one to bring Willow back underscores this theme. Human, non witchy Xander, with no special powers. Yellow crayon indeed – t hat scene – so simple – gets me every time!

     

    *got my coat already – actually it’s long black leather duster 😉

  6. Re Willow’s reaction to Tara’s death – and people think Clara’s reaction to Danny’s was extreme! (that’s not a criticism of either, just a comment. Death IS extreme)

  7. @ScaryB don’t say too much that’s good about Spikey -you know, the ssh, pedantic one thinks we all crave Spike  -you know, sexually. Hah! (“Humans often worse than the demons” -you’re on shaky ground there 🙂 )

    I really quite like S6 too , check my statements on the other thread about S7 to understand where I’m coming from.

    I agree with you -Spike and Buffy is a mutually abusive relationship – she admits to using him at the end of that season (6) and I appreciate her reasons for finding him -as you said, death and sex are primitive and connected events.

  8. @Purofilion

    ssh, pedantic one thinks we all crave Spike  -you know, sexually

    And we don’t…??! Speak for yourself 🙂 (well, the cheekbones and the leathers maybe, the abuse not so much! (At all). Or the being dead thing)

    Given @pedant‘s obsession with Willow’s multicolour-coded leathers we’re allowed the odd Spike fantasy haha. I promise not to Spuffy-cise tho 😈

  9. Oh no, it was the chique-bones which got him started. What’s odd is Marsters’ supposed to be about 45 at this point? Really?

    Is it California cosmetics?

    Oh yes, the pants code- which I think extended to SMG right thru S6 so if she wore black pants then were in for a night of crashing buildings and handcuffs.

    Goodness. Fanning.

  10. @Purofilion

    It’s the lighting. And the shadows. Being a creature of the night has its benefits. Especially on film.

    (Right – am off to bed! Far too late, but glad we had a small overlap. Hmm… “fanning…” Indeedy 😈 )

    PS “chique-bones” LOL. P is probably just jealous. But I suspect his poetry is much better than Spike’s!!

  11. @JimTheFish – Tara’s death is shocking not just because it’s purely human, but because it’s random, arbitrary.  Warren was not trying to kill Tara, there was no meaning or purpose in her death.  That’s the world we all know, in the sense that when we experience death it is most likely to be the arbitrariness of disease (Joyce) or of chance (Tara).  That’s not to deny Warren’s agency in her death, of course.  It also reminds one of her own words, ‘it’s always sudden’.  The cruelty of course is heightened (Joss, you b****d) by the newness of the reconciliation between Willow and Tara, something beautiful found and then snatched away.

  12. @CathAnnabel beautifully said: arbitrary death, of course. It seems mean and bitter and small, doesn’t it? No heroics, just random. And we’re faced with it every day in some aspect.

  13. Watching the end of season six as I type, always one of my favourites,  Got to love Xander his moment to save the world

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