From: "macha" To: ; ; ; ; Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 4:50 PM Subject: like pink paper: really Hellmouthed [unspoiled exegesis, on BtVS 7.19 Empty Places, BtVS episode #141 (and three to go), buffyverse ep#227. written by Drew Z.Greenberg, directed James A. Contner. i have seen the ep four times before i sat down to write. i have read no commentary. all transcriptions from the episode are mine, directly off the screen; transcriptions from other eps are most likely from the Buffy dBase. the last word of the piece is "People)" and if you don't find it, you don't have the whole thing, but the webpage for your list will, and soon so will The Crypt at this spot: http://lubakmetyk.hispeed.com/others/macha/musings/7-19.txt macha macha@ntl.sympatico.ca ] Little girls tear so easily, like pink paper. (FirstEvilDru, BtVS 7.10 Bring On the Night, written by Marti Noxon & Doug Petrie) These are the empty places now, in this heart of darkness that once was sunny Sunnydale: there are hollow Men, there's the dry socket of Xander's eye, there's the Slayer's bag of tricks, there's the emptying town, there's the fear that Anya smells in the overripe basement as she mouths empty reassurances at the ever-growing number of Potentials, there's the Dead Man gone north beyond the Slayer's limits to the empty mission, there's the empty box in the freezer where the last meatball mozzarella-flavored Hot Pocket used to be.... Wait. Edit that later. "Buffy, we've got important work here. A lot of filing, giving things names." (Riley in Buffy's Dream,BtVS 4.22 Restless, written by Joss Whedon) I have something of yours. (Caleb's message to Buffy, 7.18 Dirty Girls, written by Drew Goddard) Trust doesn't come so easily these apocalypty days. It's kinda like lying your body down in front of a bulldozer, maybe: once it keeps on coming, the cause begins to seem a bit less important than saving your lily-white. Even the incorrigibly optimistic Clem lacks faith in Buffy's power to stop the Powers that Oughtn't Be, in spite of her clean record: Clem: I don't think anyone's gonna be able to stop it. (off her look:) I mean, I'm sure you'll do fine. Complete confidence in you. If anyone can do it, you can, because you rock. If you save the world, I'll come back, we'll have drinks. When. When, I mean, when you save the world, it's gonna be great, with all the rocking. Maybe, maybe you should just get out of town this time. Buffy: Yeah, probably should. Clem: You take care of yourself, okay? So why isn't she grabbing off a Winnebago this time, and just skedaddling? Hard to find one, right enough, that will hold all those Potentials. Plus, of course, duty, the blah de blah blah blah. Still, what's a girl to do, with an ubervamp army coming, a Man of the cloth she can't make a dent in, a Hellmouth she can't close, a critical shortage of Knowledge, a Children's Crusade about to stampede in the opposite direction, any number of personal agendas to negotiate (minefields every one), and a source of Power she doesn't want to tap? They can all see it, they're not blind, well mostly, as well as she can. The End, no kidding, is bloody well Nigh. A crazy guy in custody is passing behind Giles and Willow, on a covert mission at the police station: "A single step, a single step and it is upon us, it is nigh, from beneath you, it (sound of blows)". He's singing Caleb's story to FirstEvilBuffy at the end of Dirty Girls: "You show up, they'll get in line. Cause they followed her. And all they have to do is take one more step. And I'll kill them all." The her, that's Real Buffy. The You, then, who is that? Is that You already in the house? Keep thinking on that one. Cause we all do want our happy ending, we surely do. Willow's at the hospital with Xander, holding his hand. Buffy comes in, and reports on the doctors' verdict, and then she flees. Her way of coping everywhere, data and flight. But Willow stays, and tries to rise to his jokes in the piratical, and can't keep it going, and stops to cry, and he tells her "please don't" and she tries to stop, and she keeps on holding his hand, this man she tried to kill, on the way to ending the world, who wouldn't let go of her.... But the one who sees, self-styled, has lost his depth perception. He's still waiting for the 50% gain to his other senses to kick in. He sees nothing on the left (where Dawn will later stand, in the meeting). Anya's down in the basement, giving a presentation on how to fight ubervamps to legions of Potentials. Andrew's behind her, doing the A/V in the primitive. It's fairly irrelevant: Caleb has trumped the ubervamp, fear factoring. She's under the misapprehension that the Potentials have superstrength already. Andrew's written "steak" on the sketchpad above the ubervamp, and crossed it out in favor of "stake". It's a Hush essay in miscommunication. Anya's peptalk on the fear front segues suddenly into "a certain awkward discussion" she had with Xander "right over there on the cot immediately following some exciting and unexpected breakup sex". The girls on the cot stand up suddenly and move away from it, all yucked out. Andrew is writing "breakup sex" on a big picture of the sun under the words "teeth, claws". This, it transpires, is why she happens to be free to graciously contribute by making the presentation. Ah, right. Cut to kitchen. Faith is sitting alone on the counter top opposite the window eating chips, in the light with her back to the camera. Interesting frame. First Kennedy, then Amanda, come through the basement door escaping AnyaRelentless: Amanda: Do you think there are going to be questions about her sex life on the test? Cause I really hope I don't have to study all that. Faith: Yeah, whenever she starts talking about getting all sweaty with Xander like that, I just remind her I had him first. Shuts her right the hell up. Faith's sexuality, like Anya's, is always right out there. Faith talks to the girls about their frustration, their feelings. Then Buffy comes in and gives them assignments. When Dawn tries to corner her on Xander's condition, and Buffy cringes, Faith intervenes. She's plainly concerned about Buffy. Despite their violent history, Faith always cared for her in the dreams they shared. Now she's trying for empathy in the real world, keeping out of B's space but watching her back, very big leap for Faith. Buffy as usual, so closed off, expecting messes, doesn't seem to notice. With Buffy there, it's all eggshells. There are Things that cannot be said. It might even be that we've reached the moment when Nothing can be said. Empty places. Kennedy makes a misstep, accidental: B: Try to find anything that looks like Caleb. His church, his ring - K: His ability to render a Slayer useless in just one punch. (B freezes.) I didn't - that was stupid. I don't know why I said that. (B gets up to leave.) I really didn't mean - B: It's fine. Really, it's fine. Don't worry about it. It's only a fact that Kennedy is stating. But it hits to the guilt Buffy doesn't acknowledge, the sorrow she won't show, the hope she doesn't have. Kennedy and Amanda go back downstairs, away from the awkward. Buffy goes over to the school, away from questions and the pain of looking at the human cost of her decisions. She leaves Faith alone to organize the files, and Faith remarkably accepts even that task with grace. She came to help. At the school we see the corridor, lockers open, debris on the floor. We see Buffy's very long shadow, and hear her footprints, before she comes into view. She still casts a long shadow. But she's also a shadow of her former self. She goes to her desk and picks up the framed photo of herself with Willow and Xander, and she touches Xander's likeness, and she starts to cry. She has failed him, twice, in the winecellar and at the hospital. And she always cries alone: 5.07 Fool for Love on the back porch, 5.09 Listening to Fear in the kitchen. "My sweet, brave Buffy", Joyce says to her near the end, so strong. "Strength and resilience", she tells Giles in 5.18 Intervention, "those are all words for hardness. I'm starting to feel like being the Slayer is turning me into stone." And that's two years back. The Slayer does not belong to herself. She carries the Weight of the World. It's what it means to be Chosen. And into this moment, unerringly, Caleb comes: C: Oh now, look. Things don't go exactly your way, so here come the waterworks. Ain't that just like a woman? B: Get out of here. C: Now, now, little girl. Manners. I do imagine that firebrand tongue of yours has inflamed many a man, weak as they are. Note the tongue thing. What does it mean, that the Slayer's tears draw demons to her, for good or ill? In Fool for Love, Spike comes to kill her. In Listening to Fear, the Queller demon invades the household. Now Caleb comes, and he means to break her. "There's an order. The Slayer's not in order. But it can't hurt to play. Get your claws in the mouse, you know?" (FirstEvilSpike to Spike, BtVS 7.08 Sleeper, written by David Fury & Jane Espenson): C: Talking back didn't do you much good last time, did it? But how is poor sweet Xander? Let him know he's in my prayers? And any time he's willing, I'm ready to (poking at his right eye with his thumb:) finish the job. B: Go near Xander again and I will end you. C (upends the table between them, angry:) Mind your manners. I do believe I did warn you once. You're angry. Frustrated. Scared. I like that in a girl. Like all the Potentials now at Revello Drive. Caleb's perfect harvest. C: You really should relax a little. Look at where you are. History's gonna look back at you, at me, at this place, and they're gonna see the glory. Great things are happening now, right here. This school, the seal, it's all gonna be a part of the great sweeping tide of change, and you're gonna be a part of it. Now why would you want to miss that? More importantly, why would you want to get in its way? B: I guess I'm just ornery. (Slugs him.) C (laughing:) Oh, I knew you'd be a wild one. (She slugs him again. He slugs her back, and kicks her when she's down. Lifts her up by the neck.) I'm gonna take such sweet pleasure in taming you. (He throws her through the window and she hits the far wall in the hallway, breaking the plaster, to lie face down and still in a shower of glass. He goes out into the hallway.) I'll see you soon, little lady. (He walks off down the hall.) Glory. Is Glory still out there, looking for her Key? 'Taming you', there's a chiller. 'History', first of several mentions. What is Buffy, in the historical? Especially in the midst of so much competition, two slayers, any number of Potentials, why is Buffy Summers in herself so important to the history Caleb plans to make? We don't see him making this kind of fuss over Faith. Why does Buffy, who appears to be powerless against him so far, matter in the evil scheme of things? The Last Guardian of the Hellmouth, or so the Men informed her. Melaka: Why don't you tell me what happened to the last one? Urkonn: Because I don't know. It was some hundreds of years ago, in the twenty-first century. What we know is this - there was a battle. A Slayer, possibly with some mystical allies, faced an apocalyptic army of demons. And when it was done... they were gone. All demons, all magicks, banished from this earthly dimension. Melaka: And the Slayer? Did she... Urkonn: I do not know if she lived. But, the demons being gone, she was the last to be called. ("Ready, Steady...", Fray #3, written by Joss Whedon) So here we come to the End of Days, and the prophecies about the Slayer in the Pergamum Codex that Fred wanted to discuss with Willow in Los Angeles (AtS 4.15 Orpheus) only the other day. This Slayer, of course, be it noted, has always been a great confounder of It-Is-Writtens. Two Slayers, apparently not predicted. Apocalyptic army of demons, check. Mystical allies, maybe. No mention of an army of Children on the side of the Slayer. But anyway, the makings of history. What does Caleb want that only Buffy has? "I have something of yours", was his original message to her. What does she have that he wishes to make his? "Taming you", there's a chiller. He touches with affection only her incorporeal double. The Men, the box, and the demon essence. Sexuality and the Power of dirty girls. Are we there? Back at Revello Drive, Dawn finds for Giles an anomaly in a report on a mission up north in Gilroy. Andrew is seeking justice for a grievance concerning an empty Hot Pocket box in the freezer with his post-it claim still attached. They ignore him. He is oblivious to their conversation. G: I don't see anything. D: Exactly. No vandalism at all. G: Then why was it in the file. D: The place was abandoned. Ah, the Hound of the Baskervilles solution: the mystery solved in negative space. Empty places in the mission, in the Mission, in the Slayer, in the freezer. It's existential. Andrew sails through his alternate reality, oblivious to the world he actually, arguably, lives in: Andrew: ...It's just the fundamental lack of respect. Giles: Shut up! And pay attention. He sits. Spike: What's up, Rupert? Giles: Spike. I have a mission for you. S: Oh, really? Cause, you know, sometimes our missions end up with you trying to kill me. I'm not so fond of those. (Shot of Faith considering that one.) G: This is bona fide. With real ramifications. Take a look at this. (hands him the file.) S: Looks like our boy's been here. You want to go check it out? G: I need someone who can take care of themselves, in case Caleb has - left some souvenirs. Andrew: Are we gonna get to the food-stealing issue soon? G: Take Andrew. Andrew & Spike (in unison:) What? Huh. Echo of the endshot from BtVS5.01 Buffy vs Dracula, very first appearance of Dawn. Are Spike and Andrew playing Buffy and Dawn, in some weird way? Whatever. It's certainly a pointer. Best keep a close eye on Dawn, this ep, just in case it Means. Faith proposes a field trip for the Potentials, so they don't "gotta sit and stew, feeling crappier by the minute". To the Bronze. Cut to the dancefloor at the Bronze, Faith dancing surrounded by four male partners, yep she's still got the stuff, Potentials everywhere looking happy (Chao-Ahn with an earsplitting grin), Kennedy and Dawn dancing. Five by five. Buffy limps back to Revello Drive, doing fake perky: G: Buffy. Are you hurt? B: Caleb came back, looking for seconds. G: My god. Is he - B: Still able to make me see cartoon birdies all around my head. You betcha. But the short lack of consciousness was nice. I feel rested. So, how did those police files work out? Were they helpful? G: Um, yes. Very much so, I think. There's evidence that, uh, Caleb may have established a foothold up north. B: That's great. They're both sitting at the diningroom table. It's more normal between them, for a moment. There's even quippage. But it doesn't last: G: Uh, I, uh, I sent Spike to look into it. B (truce over, flatly:) Spike. Is this a mission from which you intend Spike to return alive? Huh. Properly grammatical, too. Not even sure her mother could have managed to conjugate that one.Very bad sign. G: Yes. I sent Andrew with him. B: Again I ask the question. G: Buffy, you weren't here. Decisions have to be made in your absence. B: Yeah, well, those are the ones that have been scaring me. G: I did what I thought was right. B: You sent away the one person that's been watching my back. Again. G: We're all watching your back. B: Funny. That's not really what it feels like. Where did everybody go? Faith, the girls. Where are they? G: Faith thought that the girls could do with some time off their studies. I - I thought... (Pause.) She took them to the Bronze. (Buffy leaves without a word.) This pretty much looks like an irreparable break. There is no trust at all on either side, hopeless for a working relationship in which trust is a life and death matter every day. Giles does not seem to understand how monumentally his actions have breached his fiduciary duty to Buffy, though he continues to see her as his charge. Buffy, betrayed again, cannot seem to accept him in any role at all. On the other hand, in the last apocalypse but one, he urged her to kill her sister to save the world, and she told him she'd kill him if he tried it, so hey, business as usual, maybe. Nothing like an apocalypse to put a bit of a strain on relationships. And hey, anybody noticing that Buffy, in Faith's parlance, is about ready to pop? Yes, thank you, Clem noticed on his way out of town, and expressed his concern. And Faith, Buffy's bitterest enemy ever, has been noticing, and worrying, all day on Buffy's behalf. Everyone else, caught up in their own deal. Tough job being the Slayer. As Whistler told her once: "In the end, you're always by yourself. You're all you've got. That's the point." (BtVS 2.22 Becoming 2, written by Joss Whedon). Not the best recipe, though, for learning how to look after all those little girls. Nurture, never gonna be Buffy's best thing. Even Faith, endearingly, turns out to be better at it, and Faith had no RealLifeModels at all from which to build: but here we see Faith lay it out as they make the bed again: the mother side, the general side, the teaching side. She is opening up, unfolding. Cut to the winery. Caleb, astonishingly, is telling FirstEvilBuffy how all high schools smell alike: FEBuffy (emerging from the shadows:) And how was our best girl? Caleb: They always think they should put up a fight. FEB: Did you lay the proper groundwork? C: That I did. Reckon she got the message. Even if she doesn't know it yet. So now the big strong Slayer goes back to those girls. She's just so ready to walk them right into it. And all we have to do is give her that one final gentle nudge. (He demonstrates by nudging, his hand going right through her.) FEB: Excellent. Okay, this looks to be clearly stated. They want Buffy to take the girls back into their trap, presumably at the winery, so Caleb can kill them. They plan to give her one final nudge. But what's the nudge? Why didn't they execute this plan the first time Buffy stopped by? And why are they so confident, considering that we can already see that there's a big whopping spanner in this works, which is that the residents of Revello Drive. Don't. Trust. Buffy. And that feeling is mutual, pretty much. So, 'big strong Slayer', meant to be ironical, but has Caleb got hold of the wrong end of that stick? The situation at the Bronze unravels. Cops come to take Faith down (and out?). The girls (and now we can see the dynamic really shifting) are willing to fight for Faith. Four of the cops drag her outside and the fifth bars the door inside. Dawn is first up, facing down the inside cop, who says (twice, so it Means) "best thing you can do is wait here". Kennedy: You're gonna have to shoot us all to stop us. Cop: That doesn't really bother me. Rona: These cops are all getting hellmouthed. Cop: Back up. Amanda: No. Cop: What? Now finally here they learn how to fight effectively as a team. Kennedy grabs the gun and passes it back. Kennedy and Amanda in front get out the door, leaving Dawn and Rona in front inside. Kennedy and Amanda do an excellent job streetfighting beside Faith. Buffy appears just as the fight is over. She's horrified. Faith doesn't really explain the situation well: the fact that the cops meant to kill her, for instance, might have rounded out the big picture. Like Angel and for the same reasons, Faith has a tendency never to make excuses on her own behalf. The other girls come out of the Bronze. Buffy sends them home, cutting Dawn off when she tries to explain. They go, grumbling, but Dawn in particular is furious. They've just negotiated their first successful fight, empowering themselves, and Buffy has effectively rendered them children again (and therefore powerless). They're not in Hogwarts any more. Buffy, being Buffy, hasn't even noticed the dynamic change. But Faith has. She even tries to explain it to Buffy. But it goes badly: F: They needed a break, all right? They've been running themselves into the ground. Things just got out of hand. B: Taking a break is one thing. I get blowing off steam. But they were fighting. And those girls were drunk. What were you thinking? F: Seemed like a good idea at the time. B: Yeah? What if someone had gotten hurt? F: They didn't. B: Faith, I need to know that these girls are gonna be safe when I'm not around. F: Noone got hurt, B. Look, you don't even know these girls. Maybe you should have a little more confidence in them. Let them mess up sometimes, you know, get down and dirty. How the hell else are they gonna learn? Excellent points, all of them. The problem is, I think, partly that Buffy looks at Faith and she still thinks "Want. Take. Have". She takes it for granted that Faith is irresponsible, reckless, and indifferent to consequences. Instead, in some odd way, they have changed places. Buffy is playing at general, deploying troops in a war game, playing them like chess pieces on a board. She doesn't know them, she cannot (in fact) bear to know them because she believes they will all die. Faith, on the other hand, tries to answer their questions, and trusts them to do their best, and so they rise to the challenge. But Faith and Buffy are trapped inside their history with one another: B: Learning from your mistakes is one thing. But you don't throw children into - F (interrupts:) They're not children. B: That really isn't the point. (She turns and starts to walk away.) F: Okay, what about the vineyard? B (turns:) What? F: How safe were they when you dragged them off to meet Caleb? How safe was Rona, or Amanda, or Molly? (Buffy decks her, and stalks away.) And Faith's right about that one, too. Either they are children, giving Buffy a duty to protect them, or they are warriors, giving Buffy a duty to train them. Because if they are children, they offer such easy prey to Caleb they are simply born to die. And on some level both Buffy and the Potentials understand that, and it drives the dynamic between them. They are either pawns or they are real, they cannot be both, and it is Faith who has that figured out. Meanwhile, Andrew and Spike, hilariously, are finding common ground. Spike confides the secret recipe for the onion flower. Andrew: Masterful. Spike: Yeah. (Pause.) Tell anyone we had this conversation, I'll bite you. Andrew (grinning behind the helmet:) Right. Then Faith and Robin Wood meet up on the front porch, and they have an interesting conversation: R: Looks like someone banged you up pretty well. F: Yeah. Cops. Mostly. R: Mostly? F: Yeah, but this one's (She's pointing to her left eye.) from someone who just thinks she's a cop. It's my favorite of all my current bruises. R: So, someone who thinks she's a cop, huh? You gonna have to, like, ice her now or something like that? F: I'm not gonna kill her. Wanted to, but didn't. And by the way, bully for me, since noone else said it. R: For what? For not killing Buffy? F: It's this new thing I'm trying. R: She told me about you. F: Believe every word. R: So what changed? I mean, why didn't you fight back? F: Other things matter more. R: I think you're worried about her. F: I think you need to brush up on your Buffy and Faith history. R (laughs:) All right, if you say so, but I read people pretty well. It's a thing I do. Are we watching the Changing of the Guard here, at our own End of Days? Faith turning the other cheek. What were the odds? "Other things matter more." There's a commitment there, of Faith to light, expressed in the laconic. And there's Buffy, still using her fists to make her points. And Faith responds by giving back compassion. Which Slayer reads more damaged, now? Seven years on the Hellmouth, gotta take its toll. Maybe Faith got off easy at that. "No Slayer has ever turned her back on her duty." (Urkonn to Melaka Fray, "The Calling", Fray #2, written by Joss Whedon) In the Kingdom of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King. Xander gets a great welcome from the troops when he enters, flanked by Anya and Willow. Dawn sits at his damaged left, touching him. Giles is standing by the fireplace. Faith and Robin Wood are standing near the stairs. It's not a setup, is it? There's no evidence of foul play. There's no real evidence that any of them have been Firsted. But the subject is Buffy's plan to take them all back into the winery. Traps that mirror traps. And Spike and Andrew have been sent out of town. We are drawing negative space. Have we been in it since that day in art class, in 5.16 The Body (written by Joss Whedon), when Buffy comes to tell Dawn that her mother is dead? Now here comes 5.18 Intervention (written by Jane Espenson) again, with all the parallels that Empty Places creates. In that old episode Buffy worries that she may be turning into stone. Giles organizes a spirit quest in which he cedes his guardianship to the mountain lion. The spirit guide tells her to forgive and love, to risk the pain. Her friends can't tell the difference between her and the BuffyBot. The BuffyBot and Spike are doing the dirty. Spike risks himself to protect the Key. And Buffy tells him what is real. So are we there again, on our way to 5.22 The Gift, still trying metaphorically to change that ending? But Spike and Andrew, arriving at the mission, are operating outside that Hellmouth negative space. And Spike is oddly kind, in spite of The Coat, to both the boy and the terrified Cleric. He sees them both, and finds them common ground: A: These kind of places make me feel funny inside. S: How about that? You and me got something else in common after all. He treats Andrew as real, and that assigns him value, and Andrew rises, as much as he can, to that value. It's interesting, to contrast that with how Buffy and Faith each treat the Potentials. With the benevolent Cleric, Spike engages his real desire to help (as Buffy did with him once, in the school basement in 7.04 Help), which overrides the fear ("You can't fight him. You can't stop him. You can only run."), and then the Cleric can freely choose to trust him. Hmmm. There's a model. And the Cleric gives them his gift of Knowledge: a secret room, an ancient Greek inscription carved into a wall. Caleb was all excited, until he read it: Cleric: He read it. And he didn't like what it said. His temper -- He was the purest evil I've ever seen. He burned his mark upon me. And then I ran. And I hid. And I listened to the others die. Andrew (to Cleric:) Running away saved your life. (to Spike:) What does it say? Spike: "It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield." Well. Would you look at that? Her alone. Meanwhile the Slayer at her Meeting, in her own livingroom stuffed to overflowing, is Alone: B: We spent all this time worrying about the Seal, and the Hellmouth. Why isn't Caleb guarding them? Why doesn't he have someone there proptecting it? Why is he camped out at the Vineyard? The bad guys always go where the power is. So if the Seal was so important to Caleb and the First, they would be there right now. They're protecting the Vineyard, or something at the Vineyard. I say it's their Power. And I say it's time we go in there and take it away from them. It's possible she's right. But it's still a terrible plan, no doubt about it. Because it's Caleb's plan. And the Potentials know better, sadly, because of Buffy's own Lesson: B: Don't fight on his terms. Your gut's telling you to run, run. Okay? Regain the higher ground. Make the fight your own. Spike, what did your instincts tell you to do just then? S: Hunt. Kill. ... B: Instinct. Understand his, but trust yours. You were chosen for a reason. (BtVS 7.12 Potential, written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner) This setup is a classic ambush let's call, oh humour me a little, the Rape of Daphoene. The Bloody One, the wine even, the virgins in the Temple, the threshing floor, the ninth year of reign, the sanctuary set on fire with the girls inside, the great usurper, the purification rite. Ach, forget it. It's a patriarchal Thing, okay? So Faith objects, and stands her ground: F: Or, in the alternative, how about - we don't. I mean, it's a neat theory, B, but I'm not going back in that place, not without proof. And neither should you, and neither should they. B: I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. Robin: I think Faith had the floor. F: Maybe it ends okay, the way you want to play it. But maybe it doesn't. And right now I don't think I want you playing the odds. Faith is admirably clear, as always. But Buffy responds by questioning Faith's desire to fight, which is a pretty foolish tack to take. Giles refers to tilting at windmills. Buffy shifts to her seven-year safety record: no good, there's Xander in the midst of the girls, proving her wrong without saying a word. She brings up trust, and that's a mistake: B: Now, what?, suddenly you're all acting like you can't trust me? Giles (angry:) Didn't you say to me today you can't trust us I mean, maybe there's something there that should be addressed. B: Is that why you sent Spike away? To ambush me? G: Come off it. Rona: You know what, I am sick of your deal with this Spike guy. This isn't about him, this is about you. You're being reckless. Now Kennedy chimes in, and even Willow declares herself worried about Buffy's judgement. Buffy jumps headfirst into the question of leadership, another mistake. Anya goes on about the holier than thou attitude Buffy brings to being Chosen: those Powers, she says, "were just handed to you. So that doesn't make you better than us, it makes you luckier than us". To Buffy's "I've gotten us this far", Xander responds "but not without a price". And that makes it unanimous against (except for Dawn, who sits with Xander and does not speak to the issue). Buffy still doesn't understand the extent of the damage: B: Look, I'm willing to talk strategy, okay? I'll hear suggestions on how to break this down. But this is the plan. We have to be together on this, or we will fail again. Giles: We are clearly demonstrating that we are not together on this. B: Which is why you have to fall in line. I'm still in charge here. Rona: And why is that exactly? B: Because I'm the Slayer. Rona: And isn't Faith a Slayer too? F: What? Whoa, whoa, whoa. So not what I meant. I'm not in charge, chick. I think B here just needs to chill out for a little bit, take a siesta or something, but I'm not the one you want. But she is. Kennedy suggests a vote. And Buffy, reliving her whole bitter past with Faith, the Chosen Two, takes the ad hominem road: B: No. You don't get to vote until I've had my chance to pal around, you know, get everybody drunk. See, I didn't get that this was a popularity contest. I should have equal time to bake them cookies, braid their hair. Faith refutes it in three: "Learn their names." Faith has won the battle she didn't mean to fight. And we already knew she would, because they were willing to fight for her, all those not so little girls. Because she saw them, and Buffy never stopped (dared?) to learn their names. Because if Faith ever sends them out to die, by god it'll be for something they can understand, and she'll do the best for them she could. "Other things matter more." Because Faith will let them in, will open up, and listen, and care, and Buffy can never show them who she is. Four years and a lot of damage later, and they are still opposites, yin and yang, except they have traded places: To Slay. To kill. It means being hard on the inside. Maybe being the perfect Slayer means being too hard to love at all. I already feel like I can hardly say the words. (Buffy to Giles, BtVS 5.18 Intervention, written by Jane Espenson) And Buffy, cornered, steps effortlessly back into the third season: B (bitter laugh, to Faith:) You're just loving this, aren't you? F: You have no idea what I'm feeling. B: Come in here, take everything that I have, I mean, you did it before. Did you tell them that? Did you tell them how you used to kill people for fun, hey you guys think that's nifty? Giles: Buffy, that's enough. She's playing Faith on her trip to the dark side to pick up a lot of things: B: Why, Faith? What's in it for you? F: What isn't? You know, I come to Sunnydale. I'm the Slayer. I do my job kicking ass better than anyone. What do I hear about everywhere I go? Buffy. So I slay, I behave, I do the good little girl routine. And who's everybody thank? Buffy. B: It's not my fault. F: Everybody always asks, why can't you be more like Buffy? But did anyone ever ask if you could be more like me? Angel: I know I didn't. F: You get the Watcher. You get the mom. You get the little Scooby gang. What do I get? Jack squat. This is supposed to be my town! B: Faith, listen to me! F: Why? So you can impart some special Buffy wisdom, that it? Do you think you're better than me? Do you? Say it, you think you're better than me. B: I am. Always have been. (BtVS 3.17 Enemies, written by Douglas Petrie) History. Hard to reach past it. But Faith, remarkably, chooses not to go there ("it's this new thing I'm trying"): I didn't come here to take anything away from you. But I'm not gonna be your little lapdog either. I came here to beat the other guy, to do right however it works. I don't know if I can lead. But the real question is, can you follow? And Buffy's answer comes as an end: B: Wait. Guys. I can't watch you throw away just everything that - I know I'm right about this. I just need a little - I can't stay here and watch her lead you into some disaster. Dawn (getting up from beside Xander, and facing Buffy down, in her first comment of the meeting:) Then you can't stay here. Buffy, I love you. But you were right. We have to be together on this. You can't be a part of it. So I need you to leave. I'm sorry, but this is my house too. (Buffy looks around, to dead silence, grabs her coat, and goes out the door.) Rona (venomously:) Ding dong, the witch is dead. Dawn (darkly:) Shut your mouth. It's astonishing. Not the deposing part, that's a foregone, the throwing out part. It's her house, Dawn being a minor. Beloved sister, blood of her blood. Her dearest friends. Her Watcher/Father. She's been feeding and clothing them all for months. She's been fighting on their behalf. Trust. Have they all been Hellmouthed? Hmm. Nobody offers a place to go, a last farewell, a thanks for the fish, after seven years. Who are these people, when they're at home? So at home, in Buffy's home. Cast out. Only Faith comes out the door after Buffy, who is still trying to get her coat on and facing down the walk. F: Hey. Look, I swear I didn't want it to go this way. B (not turning:) Don't - Faith thinks, what?, there's no way Buffy will ever let her try to make amends, something like that. But it's way more complicated than that. Two Slayers. Both have the Power. One holds the Line. Who holds the Office? The Chosen Two are two broke-down halves of a single whole. There's history between them, but they're both complicated dirty girls: B: You're not gonna run, Faith. F: What do you wanna do? You're gonna throw me off the roof -again? B: Any reason why I shouldn't? F: There is nothing I can do for you, B. I can't ever make it right. B: So you're just going to take off again. Leave us to clean up yet another one of your messes. F: It would make things easier for you. B: Till you got bored with the whole guilt thing - decided to come back to shake things up? F: That's not gonna happen. B: You're right. It's not. F: Angel said there was no way you were gonna give me a chance. B: I gave you every chance! I tried so hard to help you, and you spat on me. My life was just something for you to play with. Angel - Riley - anything that you could take from me - you took. I've lost battles before - but nobody else has -ever- made me a victim. F: And you can't stand that. You're all about control. You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything. You can't even.. B: Shut up! F: Just tell me how to make it better. (The door to the roof bursts open and Collins steps through, machinegun in hand. Buffy tackles Faith to safety as Collins opens fire.) (AtS 1.19 Sanctuary, Tim Minear wrote Faith's half of the dialogue, and Joss Whedon wrote Buffy's) Buffy's still facing away, down the walk to the empty night. But she's not where Faith thinks she is at all. She steps right over all of that dark history that lies between them. And Buffy gives her, instead, something real, a piece of her heart, from inside all her empty places: trust and honour and love, from wherever she left them after she figured out that the fate of a general is to send people out to die: F: I mean it, I - B: Don't - be afraid to lead them (she's crying). Whether you wanted it or not, their lives are yours. It's only gonna get harder. Protect them. (She turns around and looks Faith in the eye.) Lead them. She gives to Faith her seven-year duty. Faith nods, accepting the charge, then goes inside. Buffy walks down her own front walk, turning once to look inside, at the light that shelters all the people that she cared enough to gather in. Noone looks out at her. She's still crying. She keeps on walking, her steps uncertain. Away. Alone. These are the empty places now, in this heart of darkness that once was sunny Sunnydale: there's the empty cot in the basement, the empty room of the Slayer in Exile, the empty mission, the empty Mission. There's the Slayer's headstone, empty words over an empty grave. So give us something we can own here, against this great whack of empty, even if it is only pain. For even Angelus knew that passion is all we have to stand against the darkness, the Big Empty, and even rage will do if there's nothing else: It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead. (Angelus monologue, written Ty King, BtVS 2.17 Passion) Here's what we get at the heart of the matter: the Red Witch sitting with Xander and crying at last for somebody else's pain. How long has it been? And the Slayer crying at both ends of the ep, first for Xander and finally for all the Innocents that she has sheltered and cannot protect. How long has it been? And Faith, born to play Cain to Buffy's Abel, daring to care. How long has it been? "Love. Give. Forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. For it will bring you to your gift." They cast her out, but they also set her free. To throw out the existing models. To act unilaterally. To follow her instincts. To risk only herself. To listen to her heart. To make her own choices. Angelus: Now that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends... No hope. Take all that away... and what's left? Buffy: Me. (BtVS 2.22 Becoming 2, written by Joss Whedon) Where's Caleb's story now? "This woman, she was filled with darkness, despair, and why? Because she did not know. She could not see." And now all those links between her and the prey have all been severed. Nobody took that "one more step". And he didn't like what he read on the mission wall. "It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield." Wild eyed I died and where were you? I crawled out of the world and you said I shouldn't start. I crawled out of the world. Can I make it right? Can I spend the night? Alone. ("Blue", lyrics by Joss Whedon, BtVS 7.07 Conversations with Dead People)