Buffy: Chosen (7.22)

Back in the early years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the very first thing you heard at the top of every show was that gloomy proclamation: "In every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer". Of all those words, spoken first by that velvety, nondescript narrator and then with Anthony Stewart Head's silky British tones, what stood out was the use of 'alone'. Buffy had her strong support group of friends, acquaintances and allies but, after all the blood and the pain, she still stood alone. Even when similar women with her sacred duty appeared, they were quickly marked by their respective differences. Buffy Summers was surrounded by others, but she was still alone when it really mattered.

What Chosen does so successfully is undermine that very prophecy, spreading her power through every other potential slayer. After so many years of being the stoic leader, Buffy suddenly isn't as important in the world. That vast journey to some kind of freedom is finally realized, and it's the happy ending she's so long deserved. On a thematic level, it also brings to a head Buffy's journey this season, a year in which she's constantly battled with her own persona in the pursuit of success. She's led an army, but harsh treatment, repetitive speechifying and an absence of her vulnerability only led to group division and split loyalties. Because as much as the Scooby Gang and the potentials were wrong to throw her out of her own house, Buffy too was looking at all of this incorrectly. Slayers, by their nature, were lone warriors doomed to an early fate. But Buffy bucked that trend early on, utilizing a powerful ensemble of supporters to consistently save the day. She lost track of that need for unity early on this year, but her epiphany here enabled that togetherness to shine through once more. Every player was essential in the final battle, and sharing the power equaled ultimate victory.

Season seven has undoubtedly been a problematic year. Nobody exactly needs to reiterate this point anymore, but the potentials were a flawed presence from the get-go. The characters we knew and loved grew cold and alien. The First itself wasn't a hugely effective antagonist at the best of times. But, with Chosen, it's arguable that the destination somewhat justified the rocky journey. There's an undeniable sense of scale to that final battle. It's messy, violent, brutal, and the busy army of potentials really feeds into that intensity. It looks plain impressive on screen, and as much as I was crying out for certain girls to meet their ends, even the toughest whiner out there would struggle to not feel pumped up by the relentless action; these powerful women tearing uber-vamps to shreds.

Joss' script also pieces together a lot of the goodwill lost back in Empty Places. There's a ton of friendly banter between the Scooby Gang here, characters bouncing off each other like true friends would. For the last stretch of season seven, the group seemed to be working together out of an old sense of loyalty, rather than because they actually liked each other anymore, but Chosen salvages the humanity. Willow is allowed to be nervous and funny again. Xander's gags don't seem inappropriate or strained. Giles gains back his warmth. The potentials, for once, are treated like a nameless army; remaining in the shadows as a collective rather than as a loud presence unwilling to pipe down. Faith is strong and badass and sexy, finding an equal in the similarly jaded Principal Wood. It feels like a script written by somebody with an intimate knowledge of these characters. Just that final group scene before the battle is evidence enough: the knowing humor, the sarcasm, the funny. It's like the good ol' days once again.

That sense of regained goodwill is also notable in Anya. She's the 'casualty of war' death here, perishing in one fell swoop of mid-battle brutality. But before that she gets to be funny again, reminding us of a time when she wasn't this weirdly bitter caricature who says "penis" a lot. Part of me feels like she should have died back in Selfless, the last episode to fully utilize Anya's unique charm, but I do appreciate the casual harshness of her demise: a character whose always had a strained relationship with human emotion actually going out fighting for their cause.

Whedon stumbles a little when it comes to the second of the contrived deus ex machinas dropped in Buffy's lap to save the day. It's even more annoying because it comes so soon after an Angel episode that cleverly poked fun at the sudden existence of some kind of inanimate object that can avert apocalyptic crisis. But I take it as more a statement on the writers struggling to come up with any cohesive get-out clause for what rapidly became an underwhelming final nemesis, rather than simply bad writing.

In the end, Chosen is Buffy's story. She talks about her inability to think of a life without the burden of slayage at the start of the episode, and again shares an intimate moment with Spike. But there's always that weight on her shoulders. She can't fully buy into emotion or intimacy because she knows the next day could very well be her last. And that's why that ending is so powerful, because finally that weight gets removed. It's suddenly a future, real and tangible, instead of the unlikely dream of one.

As for Spike, I really do think she loved him. Angel was epic and sweeping and melodramatic, a teenage love affair where everything is new and intense. But Spike was raw, and adult. They went through human pain, exposed their deepest vulnerabilities to one another and saw the very worst of themselves together. But then came out the other side. For the second time in three weeks, they literally sleep together. No sex, no romantic fumbling... just honest intimacy, two characters that needed each other in the moment. Spike sees her heroic nature and her strength; Buffy sees everything he was and how far he's come. Oh, God. After all these years, I think I'm actually shipping these two.

Chosen is a wonderful final chapter. On a surface level, each character gets their due and the dialogue sparkles more than it has done in weeks. Elsewhere, it almost feels too easy to use the word 'epic' when describing the battle sequence, but there's a grand scope to it that's pretty unprecedented for network television. And is it even possible to not get a kick out of Buffy jumping from rooftop to rooftop as Sunnydale collapses into a crater behind her? But away from the visual awesomeness and dialogue-driven magic, Chosen stuns with its thematic resonance: not only is it a fitting closer for the greatest female TV protagonist in history, but also a majestic final message of female empowerment fitting for such a groundbreaking, feminist series.

Growing up, two television series opened up the concept of adulthood to me. One was Friends, the other was Buffy. But while Friends offered this ridiculous fantasy of huge apartments, intense friendships and careers that you love, Buffy was the real-world adulthood. Which I realize probably sounds strange, since this is a show about vampires and demons and interdimensional keys that look a hell of a lot like Harriet the Spy. But Buffy was about social anxiety, friendships that sometimes fall apart and change over time, relationships that don't work out the way you had intended, the struggles of parenting, the loneliness we can experience even in the busiest of groups, the importance of inner strength. It was a show that crossed gender, age and experience, and taught me so much about both myself and the world we live in. I've never had that love for fictional characters since, that fondness I had for them even during moments where they weren't particularly likable. It inspired me to write, and create worlds that are hopefully half as good as the world Joss and his team formed over the course of seven years.

Then again, isn't that what most fans of this show felt? We watched these characters grow up from hopeful adolescents into stable adults, through all the misery and angst in between. Even with all the genre otherworldliness, Buffy touched on those universal themes that we could all relate to and sympathize with. And we did. We watched and we learned and we loved. All because of a tiny blonde and her wood. A

Credits
Guest stars Anthony Stewart Head (Rupert Giles); Eliza Dushku (Faith); Nathan Fillion (Andrew Wells); David Boreanaz (Angel); Tom Lenk (Andrew Wells); Iyari Limon (Kennedy); Sarah Hagan (Amanda); Indigo (Rona); DB Woodside (Principal Robin Wood)
Writer Joss Whedon Director Joss Whedon