Episode Report Card Sep: B+ | 10 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT I wonder what the return policy is?
By Sep | Season 5 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.21.2001
Back at Der Zauber Kasten, Buffy is in the back room, beating the crap out of a punching bag. Giles walks in and warns her not to strain herself. He tries to facilitate a little therapy session and explains that he's "sworn to protect this sorry world, and sometimes that means saying and doing what other people can't." Buffy warns him that to get to Dawn, he'll have to go through her, but softens as they take a seat on the couch. They reminisce about their apocalyptic salad days. Buffy muses that she's always come out ahead. She recalls how she killed Angel even though she "loved him so much." ["Sniff." -- Ace] She was able to do it because she knew what was right. She goes on to tell Giles that she doesn't have that anymore, and how much she misses her mommy. SMG does a really good job of selling this speech. Buffy presses her lips together, bites back some tears, and gets up. She tells Giles about how the spirit guide told her that death was Buffy's gift, and that means that she really is just a killing machine. Giles disagrees, but she says it doesn't matter because "if Dawn dies. I'm done with it. I'm quitting."
Back at the wacky factory, Dawn is wearing her dress for the ceremony, and she folds her clothes neatly and puts them on the chair, arranging her shoes under it. Oh man. That really got to me. Glory sits writing…something. What? What the hell would she have to write about? "Dear Mom and Dad. Camp Sunnydale has been real fun. In arts and crafts I got to stick my hands in people's heads and suck their brains out. I kan run reel fast. I beat all of the other hell gods in the Key race. You have to slaughter a whole bunch of knights and make it back home all without letting go of the Key or spilling any of her pure green energy. Tonight we are going to sing songs, toast marshmallows, and open a portal to all the other dimensions. If it's okay with you I'm going to bring my friend Ben home with me. I promised to make him immortal. Love, Glory." A minion approaches to whisper in her ear that it's time for the ritual. She gets up and claps excitedly, saying that it's "almost stab time" Two of the minions grab Dawn to take her upstairs, and she screams. A lot. Real loud.
Der Zauber Kasten. Giles opens the door to the basement and calls down to ask Xander and Anya if they've had any luck find the Dagon Sphere. Downstairs, they struggle to quickly get dressed again and then get down to the serious business of looking. Xander asks Anya if she's calmer now, and she says that she isn't, and I really don't want to write about them talking about having sex. Xander pulls a tarp off of something and jumps back in surprise when the Buffybot is revealed. Blah blah blah we all know where this is going. Anya finds a bunny rabbit and freaks, saying that it's a sign that the world is going to end. Xander tries to comfort her. She explains that she usually takes off for these sorts of things, but now she can't, because she loves Xander too much. "I honestly don't think I could be more nervous," she finishes. "Care to wager on that?" asks Xander, holding up a little black velvet box. And -- excuse me? Did I fall and hit my head, only to wake up on the set of Boy Meets World? I. Cannot. Handle. Xander and Anya getting hitched. It is impossible express how much this idea sucks. It sucks more than a cokehead on a Friday-night bender the weekend of both family and high-school reunions. It sucks more than the amount of suckage needed to suck a cannonball through one of those teeny red coffee-stirrer straws. If you put a thousand industrial-strength Hoovers with X-tra dirt-busting sucking capacity in a room with a thousand monkeys (because there's gotta be monkeys!) for a thousand years, there would still not be more sucking than the inherent suck contained in the idea of Xander and Anya tying the knot. First of all, teen marriages in general are just a bad idea, and then with Anya it's the Buffyverse equivalent of marrying your mildly retarded first cousin. And can someone please explain why Xander took the time during the impending apocalypse to go out and buy a ring? I could go on here, but I'd have to build an extra storage shed to house the terabytes of hard-drive space necessary for me to detail all my objections to this incipient and insipid plot line, so instead let us never speak of it again.