Episode Report Card Ace: C- | 7 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Willow needs to spank her inner moppet
By Ace | Season 6 | Episode 20 | Aired on 05.13.2002
Buffy, Xander, and Anya pace through the woods with Anya giving updates. They're close. Warren is still alive.
Finally Warren buys a clue and starts to scream for help. Willow reveals the bullet she took from -- Tara's? Buffy's? -- body, and rips Warren's shirt open with a flick of the wrist. ["Please, please let her shave his chest as part of this torture." -- Sep] ["Really? I'm all right with a hairy chest. It's a hairy neck that really squicks me out. Wait -- why am I asiding in my own recap? Sep is the time thief that picks the pocket of my recap." -- Ace] Willow places the bullet in front of Warren's torso and uses magic to float it towards him, then slowly bores it into his chest. As she does this, Willow prattles on about the destruction that the bullet is causing in his body, while Warren looks like he's not getting as much of a refund from the IRS as he hoped. "Oh. Please. Stop. God." Ben Steins Warren. Willow hushes him with an "I'm talking" and sews his mouth shut for good measure. She's not done telling him how painful this is going to be. And not just for the audience. When I saw Warren's stitched mouth in the preview, the first thing I thought of was the Dust Witch in Something Wicked This Way Comes who has her eyes stitched shut, and I experienced a little shiver of delight, because that is a fantastic book that scared the crap outta me when I was younger. Then I had the misfortune to actually sit through this episode, and I hereby rescind any and all comparisons between Mutant Enemy's empty, flaccid stories and Ray Bradbury's oeuvre.
Willow, Anya, and Xander come upon the scene. Willow unzips Warren's lips to allow him to beg for his life. He does. "Willow!" calls out Buffy from the crest of the hill. Willow's attention is momentarily diverted, but then she looks back at Warren. "Bored now," she pronounces (and I know just what she means) and then waves her hand, ripping all the skin off of his body. Except that she helpfully left his pants on. Probably because she's a lesbian. Except for the pants, this effect was very competently done. Buffy, Xander, and maybe even Anya are suitably appalled. I'm just kinda sleepy. Willow immolates Warren in front of her friends, monotones, "One down," and then disappears herself. Huh. Who knew that such a compelling story line could be turned into this dreck?