I noticed that. But, it was impossible to tell if it was direct sunlight. Besides, if Angel is still subject to instantaneous severe sunburn, then certainly Spike is.
It’ll be very interesting if those two ever meet again, won’t it?
As for Buffy, I don’t know if she’ll be back or not, but I trust Joss. I just hope the UPN lets him do his thing. Heck, I hope I get UPN when the show is on. WB and UPN are on the same channel here, at different times of the day. I think. Since the show lineup goes Buffy, Angel, Voyager on that one channel, I’m pretty sure.
Okay, okay. I’m calmer now. Here’s what I think will happen.
The first few episodes next season will be the Scooby Gang struggling to continue the fight. About episode three, the Watcher’s Council will reappear and inform Giles that a new Slayer has not arisen (BTW, my belief is that Faith and Buffy represent two separate lines of Slayers now - if either dies, a new one will emerge). Wacky research ensues, and it it realized that the Buffy Life Force (BLF) was subsumed by the portal (remember the neat light effects crawling over Buffy’s face as she was suspended?). The gang, possibly including Angel and/or Reilly, go to another dimension to find her and reunite her with her body.
And, in the inimitable Joss Whedon style, it will all make sense.
A few comments - Spike: yep, that was sunlight. And even if it wasn’t direct, from past episodes he would at least have been smoking gently.
Lyllan - no one ever said the other two hellgods would come through the portal.
Trion - yep, you’re the only one. I thought the Angel finale was excellent - it was an appropriate continuity ending for season two - all the side-kicks (except Gunn, who Joss really needs to work on) have emerged as full characters. My only complaint is that Wesley’s emergence was a bit too abrupt - his actions as leader of the rebels were somewhat out of character (except to the extent that all British are cold-hearted :D).
I couldn’t help giggling every time Buff smacked Glory upside the head with that big-ass hammer. Man, that hadda hurt!
My biggest complaint was with Dawn whining Buff’s name. Hello! It’s not as tho she doesn’t know you are up there. Looks as tho she’s doing her darnedest to get up to you, and kinda has her hands full with Glory whaling on her. What is the purpose behind repeatedly calling your sister’s name other than distracting her?
Also, someone fill me in on the logic of how Buffy’s swan dive stopped everything. Dawn was still bleeding, wasn’t she? And couldn’t they just have applied pressure to those “shallow cuts” (God, Joel Grey was excellent!) to stop the bleeding? When the gate was closed, and the walls went back up, did everyone necessarily go back to their own universe? Personally, I hoped that dragon would stick around for a while. Pretty cool effects there IMO. Really liked those guys with the long white heads.
Oh yeah. Of course SMG’s coming back.
Suffice it to say I did not score any points with my family. Wife and all 3 kids were crying. And I was chuckling and said, “Well, it’s not as tho she hasn’t died before.” I’ve been getting the silent treatment ever since.
C’mon, guys, keep the faith. [sub]I’m TERRIBLY sorry I had to use that pun.[/sub]
The show hasn’t ended - it’s STILL all about Buffy Summers. My female unit and I discussed it after the show and we figure it will all come down to Willow. And Tara.
We’d talked before about how (or even IF) Tara would be restored. Then we realized that in the past few months Willow has become amazingly strong in her witchly powers. She’s demonstrated it by repeatedly going toe-to-toe against Glory, as Buffy pointed out in her “You’re my big gun” talk.
But y’all did notice how Willow grabbed Tera just to clear a path through that crowd for Spike? We think that will be the key - Willow and Tera together bringing Buffy back. As for specifically how? I don’t really care, I prefer to find out the particulars as I watch the show (I never read spoilers in advance).
As for the episode itself:
My heart just sank when Anya saved Xander only to get hurt herself. I mean, if you want to be callous then YES, the big sacrifice just after the full declaration of love moment has been done a jillion times before, esp. on soap operas. But seeing that she was still alive at the end was such a relief.
Hang on a minute - something just occurred to me. Earlier in the show someone (Buffy?) said that not everyone would make it through this final confrontation…
Spike got (nearly) killed - thrown off of the tower.
Anya got (nearly) killed - load of bricks dropped on her head.
Also, at first it wasn’t clear that Tara had survived getting her brain back.
Looks to me like the writers were having a little fun toying with us by having several characters (almost) die.
SMG is contracted for another two years, so unless she’s been released from it by UPN, she’ll be coming back. But still… what an amazing episode.
I’ve got some ideas about how it’s going to work out next season, mostly revolving around the fact that Buffy jumped into the rift between dimensions. Angel has been exploring alternate dimensions and realities that are subject to different rules. I think that although her body is dead on Earth, she may have been replicated in another dimension, or her soul separated but still around. She’ll be back. Although I must say, I’m haunted by the memory of when the 80s sitcom “Valerie” became “Valerie’s Family”. I hope to God “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” isn’t about to become “Vampire Slayer: The Scooby Gang”.
I think they will meet again, in the season openers. Angel ended with Willow there to tell Angel’s crew about Buffy’s death, so I presume that they’ll return to Sunnydale for another show-crossover when the new season kicks off (two hour, eh? Woo hoo!).
I disagree. Wesley has been being groomed to be a leader for much of this season, beginning with the episode in which Wesley posed as Angel in order to become the bodyguard of… oh, arrgh. I am forgetting her name, and the website’s no help. You know, with the curly hair. In pretending to be Angel, he realized that he was capable of being a Fearless Leader. After Angel fired the rest, Wesley again assumed leadership of Angel Investigations and has kept it ever since. I think he’s really grown into the challenge and responsibilities of leading the group, and the season finale was a fitting culmination of that.
Now, see, this is the time of year where I listen very carefuly to the ads for shows. A lot of important information comes up in mere seconds during those commercial teasers. For instance, NYPD Blue had their “Season Finale” with something major happening to Sorrenson (Rick Schroeder.) You know it was going to be something big to hold you over to the next season. Same thing with Third Watch. Big mention that this was the “Season Finale” and showing a few action scenes of a SWAT team entering a school. Third Rock from the Sun had teasers mentioning that it would be the show’s “Series Finale” and that the aliens would be going home, so you know that even if you were only a casual watcher of that show, you might want to check it out.
That’s the thing: with the Buffy commercials, they specifically said “Series Finale”. Series, not season.
I wasn’t surprised to see the “Thank you for a wonderful 5 years.”
Actually, someone in the gang asked that exact question as soon as they saw it. The answer was that the portal would open that high, so they needed to get Dawn up where her blood could get into the portal. Angel made it clear that portals can open anywhere, not just on the ground, and that if you want to use a portal, you have to know where it’s going to open, since you can’t control where it will show up, only when. Was that a run-on?
thinksnow: I assumed that the “Series Finale” was called that because the show will no longer be a series on the WB. As far as the WB goes, it’s no longer a series, anyway. The “Thank You for a Five Wonderful Years” thing was, in my opinion, a thank-you to the WB network and the fans who supported it there. Now they’ll have at least two wonderful years on UPN. Says me, anyway.
That’s because the series is leaving the WB, and they are doing everything they can to fool everyone like they’ve fooled you. None of the ads called it the “series finale”, they all called it “the WB series finale”. You’ve been suckered, Thinks! Those sneaky network types…If you notice, the “thanks for 5 wornderful years” or whatever had the WB logo at the bottom as kind of a signature.
Actually, David Bianculli, the TV critic for the N.Y. Daily News, berated WB for advertising the episode that way, saying it was misleading.
Let’s get practical here.
UPN is not going to get into a bidding war, then pay out the a–, for the right to broadcast a cult hit show that has just lost its star (nor, as I saw speculation about on buffy.com, is UPN going to pay out the ass for the right to broadcast re-runs of BtVS;
Joss Whedon and Fox would be sued out their ass if they hid from UPN the fact that the star was leaving the show; and
Conversely, UPN is not going to help WB by becoming involved in a massive practical joke on Buffydom by pretending to acquire BtVS when the show was actually ending. [lawyer hat ON] Indeed, it may be illegal for them to do so - the acquisition of BtVS may be considered by the SEC to have an impact on UPN’s stock price, and it is illegal to give out false information that has a material effect on share prices. [lawyer hat OFF]
Did anybody else notice the Donkey Kong aspect of the show?
Character with oversized hammer trying to negotiate through a metal gridwork hitting obstacles with aformentioned oversized hammer? Donkey Kong all the way.
It’ll probably involve Dawn somehow. Remember Buffy’s realization that Dawn was Buffy - that Dawn was “made from” her? This tidbit was repeated during Buffy’s flashback sequence, before she jumped into the interdimensional maelstrom.
That can’t be inconsequential. Besides, they have to give Trachtenberg something to do. “Standing around being The Key” grows dull fast.
One possibility: Buffy comes back through Dawn, in much the same way that Glory manifested through Ben. Weird, yes, and drastically reduces screen time for both SMG and MT. But just imagine Spike’s reaction, especially if Buffy develops feelings for him - he’ll be too freaked to touch her ever again, fearful that she’d turn back into Dawn mid-liplock…
I just remembered that it was mentioned in an episode of Angel, when he was wondering about whether the powers that be had lifted his curse to make him human, the conversation went:
Angel: “How can this be? Did the powers that be do this?”
Oracle twins: “Did you save the world from an apocalypse? no.”…
Spike did (help) save the world from an apocalypse, in a very direct manner. Maybe he got his reward, even though he didn’t ask for one. Classic PTB move.
Am I the only one besides Dinsdale wondering why Buffy’s jumping into the portal made it close? There was nothing in Giles’ research about this, but Buffy figures it out through some incoherent flashbacks. There seemed to be some significance about “Summers blood”–as if Buffy’s and Dawn’s blood were the same, so Buffy could substitute for Dawn at the end. I realize Dawn was “made out of” Buffy somehow, but that would explain Dawn being human-like, not Buffy being Key-like. So does this mean Buffy’s really some sort of supernatural entity? That would be an interesting twist on the whole thing.
Something I have been trying to figure out, and maybe this is just too much nit-picking…When Buffy spoke with her spirit guide, the guide said “Death is your gift.” Not "you are a death giver, or that Buffy’s death is her gift. But maybe once again she has to “die” in order to make things right.
And the hellgod thing. After I posted I wondered if that was something on the actual show or was it just something that was mentioned on the numerous Buffyboards. So, am I crazy, or was it mentioned on the show that there are three hellgods?
I thought the Angel finale was excellent - it was an appropriate continuity ending for season two - all the side-kicks (except Gunn, who Joss really needs to work on) have emerged as full characters. My only complaint is that Wesley’s emergence was a bit too abrupt - his actions as leader of the rebels were somewhat out of character (except to the extent that all British are cold-hearted :D).