It’s not Willow any more. That’s the comfort we can take from this, the one thing that leaves the door ajar for her redemption, should she survive the end of the season. And as always, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has observations for us that translate to real life. Willow’s story has been the story of an addict. The magic has changed her, and she is doing horrible things, just like people who are blind drunk or high on something might do horrible things. Afterwards, if they are strong enough or have enough support in their lives to get well again, perhaps there is some comfort in the excuse that it wasn’t really they who were doing those things. It was the alcohol. It was the drugs. It was the magic. It is just an excuse, and it doesn’t take away the responsibility of the individual for what happens, but maybe it helps a little, and allows a recovering addict to escape being eaten away by guilt until there’s nothing left.

There is in fact only one moment in the whole episode when we can really recognise Willow at all, as the person we have been watching for six seasons, and that’s her fleeting moment of grief when she reflects upon the loss of Tara. The rest of the time, it’s somebody else, or maybe something else, drawing on Willow’s anger and anything negative it can find in her past, going right back to the way she was treated by the other kids at school. This thing that looks like Willow talks about her in the third person.

In many ways, it’s a retread of the Angel/Angelus story. Dark Willow is Angelus to Willow’s Angel. The key difference is that Willow chose to become Dark Willow. She did it to herself, and that’s going to make coming back from it even more difficult. Nobody can do that for her. She has to find a way back herself.

There are lots of moments that tell us this isn’t really Willow any more. Obviously, trying to murder Jonathan and Andrew is a big one. The death of Warren can be understood as a consequence of Willow’s grief, taking revenge on the man who actually held the gun and fired the bullet that snuffed out the light of the woman Willow loved. Jonathan and Andrew were little more than Warren’s lackeys. Just about everything they did was completely revolting, and I don’t want to be the one to make the excuses that Buffy and Xander are clearly uninterested in making themselves for Jonathan and Andrew, but there is a clear difference between them and Warren, as far as Willow and her loss of Tara is concerned. Neither Jonathan nor Andrew would have fired that bullet themselves. Neither of them killed anyone. Going after them, and trying to murder them, crosses a different line to the one that Willow crossed when she killed Warren, and Buffy recognises that, despite refusing the “duo” any words of comfort.

We can also tell that it isn’t Willow any more when she endangers the lives of innocent bystanders, tossing them around in a way that might just kill them. She goes a step further, and is willing to do that with her friends, but I think the key moment in the whole episode is her treatment of Dawn. She bullies her, and threatens to turn her back into the Key, which is a credible death threat. It’s not Willow.

The writer shows us what she is instead. Willow’s banter with Buffy deliberately echoes the way Spike spoke to Drusilla in Becoming (“I don’t want to hurt you, baby.” / “Doesn’t mean I won’t.”). Willow has become like Spike in his unmuzzled form. When she drains Rack, she repeats his words back to him from Wrecked. She’s taking a little tour. So she has become like Rack. Dark Willow has become one of those evil creatures, and the real Willow is lost somewhere deep inside. The question for the final episode of the season is this: can anyone find her?   RP

The view from the Sunnydale Press:

Xander’s opening narration, summing up what happened “this year”, is a not just an excellent round up but also a surprising testament to the show, clearly illustrating how that every episode played a part in getting us here.  After Villains, we know Willow is on the war path and the Scoobies are trying to stop her.  Killing is a bridge too far and there’s no coming back from it.   But something is bothering me because while the episode went fast, it was just a heavy action piece with little to say.  In fact, I went on this binge with the show, stopping between episodes only long enough to write about each, but I realize that the last 3-4 episode come across as a big arc that could have been truncated.  Here’s what happens in this one that takes 45 minutes to play out: Willow attacks the police station, car chase, Willow gets power back from Rack (Wrecked), Willow ends up in the Magic Box to finish the deal.

The Police station scene ends up looking particularly poor as the images of the building look far too cheap to be used for a shack, let alone a holding cell.  How many people just pushed through those walls?  I know, it’s a limitation of budget or whatever, but don’t let the camera linger so much! Not to mention, what’s the logic of the police all running outside and pointing a gun at a girl in the street who, in real terms, would be just an onlooker as a building suffers severe structural damage?  If the town really doesn’t know about magic and the like, why do they think this girl has anything to do with what’s happening to their building?  (Prior to her flying up in the air, of course!)   Then the car chase is exciting but ultimately unfulfilling because Willow can be drained.  Not sure I follow that, and it seems nothing more than a way to prolong the episode because all she does is goes to see Rack to recover.  Which is ironically where Dawn is also going which adds to a good pre-commercial cliffhanger and in fairness, it is an awesome moment where Willow teleports herself, Buffy, and Dawn to the Magic Box.  That was a fantastic bit of camerawork making up for the police station in spades.  It was subtle but I did notice the change just before the reveal which made for a very rewarding moment!

Another fantastic decision was to launch each commercial break with a jarring moment from Willow; complete with dark hair, dark eyes and evil written all over her usually beautiful face, it made for a remarkably effective break.  That shriek was marvelously creepy in all the right ways!  Also I personally have to love  the sheer amount of scifi references in this show really makes me wish I had kept track – there’s got to be a book out there that has a list somewhere.  Getting a Dark Phoenix (X-Men) reference did give me a chuckle.  (That says nothing for all the Star Trek and Star Wars references throughout the entire series!)  I also had to laugh as Anya refers to Andrew the same way I do because I consistently have to look up his name: “What’s his face, the other guy.”  I know people named Andrew… I wouldn’t think it that hard to remember but he’s such a lame character, that I keep forgetting he has a name!

What worried me about the episode was Anya.  After everything that’s happened this season, when she’s found hiding behind the wall, I was convinced she was dead.  Willow knocks her out but it strikes me that there’s not a lot left for Anya. She and Xander are not together, and the store is a shambles.  So, I keep wondering if she’ll survive this ordeal.   And then there’s Xander who is spectacularly aware of his own shortcomings and inability to be anything special.  Do they intend to write him out?  Surely not??  Or is he going to be the only one who can save the day somehow?  HOW?!  Or is the solution going to be Spike who has gone to get his evil mojo back?  (That side story has absolutely no place in this epic conclusion otherwise…)

There’s also one small matter that made me punch the air at the end of the episode: Giles returns.  I confess to a degree of pride about that because I called it last week.  I don’t usually get these predictions right!  Typically my own head cannon sounds good only to me, and no one else.   I didn’t actually expect that we would really get Giles back, but there it is, so yes, I gleefully punched the air!  Giles just gave us a heck of a cliffhanger.  So yes, I’m super excited to see how we resolve this story, and I didn’t dislike it, but I felt it was prolonged unnecessarily.  Can there possibly be a good outcome to the story?  Having no foreknowledge of the show, I don’t know if Willow is in season 7, nor Anya, Giles, Xander…   I can’t believe we’re already starting off without Tara.  How much can we lose and still feel like we’re watching the same show?  I’ll know in an episode, I suppose.  ML

Read next in the Junkyard… Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Grave