By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Buffy’s life changed dramatically in season five. She discovered feelings for Spike, her mother Joyce died from a brain aneurysm, she discovered her sister was in fact a mystical key made human so Buffy would protect her. She was broke and had to take a job in a burger joint. On top of that, the Slayer was facing a god in the form of the mad over the top Glory. Played by Clare Kramer. She left dozens of mindless zombies in her wake whose minds she stole as well as morphing into her doctor brother, Ben. Her victims included Willow’s girlfriend Tara. Glory wanted the key to unlock reality and bring forth all sorts of nightmares from another dimension.
But the last thing Buffy expected was to give her life up to save Dawn and the world.
Now in all genres lead characters die and can be brought back at any time if the writer is clever enough or desperate enough as in the case of Bobby Ewing in the eighties soap Dallas. Soaps are infamous for it with Eastenders bringing back Dirty Den, Kathy Beale and Cindy Beale from the dead. I wonder if Ian Beale ever sought to claim back the money he paid for burying his mother. It wouldn’t be like him.
But in the world of sci-fi and horror, people can come back with just the click of a finger. It’s usually some dark magic, a clone, a parallel universe, a transporter or a some ripple in time. Someone once said it took away from the death as you knew they would come back but for me, it is how it is done that matters. Bobby was brought back because the ratings dropped immensely. In Supernatural it was either a duplicate world or heaven or hell bringing the dead back including the Winchester boys themselves at times. Even The Vampire Diaries had more deaths and resurrections than you could count until it was the final season and the dead stayed dead until they reunited in the afterlife.
Buffy followed the same route with other worlds where vampire Willow crossed over into our world thanks to a temporal spell that snatched her away just before she was impaled. Spike died in the Buffy season finale and reappeared in the final Angel season thanks to an amulet. But Joyce never came back nor did Tara. When you think of it, Buffy’s had the biggest body count where few came back. The dead stayed dead.
So with that track record Buffy also left this earth in a blaze of glory. Now we knew there would be at least another two seasons of the show so the question was how Buffy would return from the dead. Rumours and theories flew everywhere but it was handled in a realistic and deeply affecting way.
But her actual death was just as impactful and stands today as one of the most powerful and saddest events on television. Given how devastating this season had already been on the cast, season five will be the most tragic year of Buffy’s and the gang’s life. Were there genuine tears? Well, you don’t spend 5 years watching a series grow and seeing characters grow without becoming attached. Fans, including me, cried a literal river and not in a ‘Westlife have split’ way but in a ‘we have lost a family member’ way.
Dawn has been discovered by Glory and her army and is now high above Sunnydale on a platform where she will be thrown off into a portal which will shatter to unleash more horrors on the world.
Buffy and the rest of the gang fight Glory and her hordes to get to Dawn before she plunges to her death and the world falls. They all have lifelong memories about Dawn regardless of the fact that they are false since Dawn has only been alive for about a year. Nevertheless she is part of their family, they love her and will die to keep her safe. They need to get just one person up there to save Dawn. The fight is bloody and brutal as Glory, within minutes of winning, is determined to smash Buffy to pieces. They fight on the ground and on the struts of the platform itself, but through a combination of witchcraft, wrecking ball, Buffybot, punching and a magical hammer, they fight long and hard. Buffy beats a weakened Glory with the Troll God’s hammer until she morphs into her brother again. Before she can remerge, in a brilliant piece of ‘what the f*ck?’ television, Giles suffocates him to death.
But Dawn’s blood has been spilled. Doc, whom Dawn and Spike had gone previously to for a spell to resurrect her dead mother, appears and reveals himself to be a worshipper of Glory also known Glorificus. He wants the world to fall and cuts Dawn across the stomach letting just enough blood out to bring the portal forth and to keep her alive. By the time Buffy reaches her sister, some monsters have already gotten into our world and the fabric of reality is breaking down. On a side note; the way Buffy nonchalantly throws Doc off the crane is another great moment in this episode.
And this is it; the tipping point and the moment the entire season has led up to. I had a Buffy party in my house for the screening of this and it was a powerful time. I saw first-hand the impact the final shot had. What made the ending worse is that the final headstone shot was in the trailer and, of course, everyone thought it was a red herring. How wrong we were?
Family has been a strong theme all through this season and it is solidified and best demonstrated in the Summer sisters’ final scene; Dawn is ready to throw herself to close the portal but is stopped by Buffy. When Dawn tells her until her blood stops flowing the chaos will not stop. Buffy then realises what she must do; she is reminded that earlier in the season Spike said, it was always about blood, that Dawn was made from Buffy’s genetic material and the first Slayer told her that death was her gift. Dawn is a Summers because they share the same blood but no-one said it had to be Dawn’s blood.
As the sun begins to rise time has run out. Dawn realises what Buffy is doing and tries to stop her but Buffy tells her to listen. The camera then pulls away so you cannot hear what Buffy is saying to her sister. With one last kiss, Buffy swan dives into the portal where she is wracked with lightning. The soundtrack is really emotional. The viewer is roaring at the screen as they realise, just as Dawn did, what is about to happen. Death is Buffy’s gift to the world and especially her friends and family. If you are not crying or welling up at this point you have no heart.
But as you watch Buffy die you then hear what she said to Dawn. This monologue is probably one of the most powerful and emotionally draining in the entire series. When it mixed with the image of her friends finding her shattered body you have to cry; you can’t help it. The look of Giles’ face as he realises he has failed Buffy. A restored Tara helping a wounded and sobbing Willow along as Xander stands helplessly with an injured Anya in his arms, it is the sight of Spike breaking down and weeping into his hands that sells it to us. As a collective we are mourning with them with a dual mentality. We know she is dead especially as the final shot of her headstone reads “She saved the world.”
There isn’t a dry eye in the house. The world can live without the Buffy Slayer but the Slayer cannot live without her friends and family. It is easier to give herself up for them than lose Dawn. You are so familiar with them all that you feel you know them simply because they are in your living room every week for half the year. You are connected to them because you become so entwined with their stories. You laugh when they are funny, grimace when they do something dumb and cry at their tragedy. Why? Because life isn’t fair and what we are watching is our own lives in an exaggerated fashion, yes, but the raw emotions are universal.
To paraphrase someone recently, we had fun, you know. Then a day came along and at the end of that day I lost them. Death rarely gives us a warning and that is why it hurts so much when it comes as clockwork as the sun. Think about that and the power of words that affect us all so deeply. That is why the death of Buffy Summers is such an event and one you should all watch. As Buffy herself said,
“Dawn, listen to me. Listen: I love you. I will always love you. This is the work that I have to do. Tell Giles I… tell Giles I figured it out, and I’m ok. Give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live… for me.”
The Time Warriors and Beyond 