BtVS S8.38 "Last Gleaming" Part 4
So there’s this girl, Buffy, and she’s the Slayer and there can only be one but she changed all that and the world was all different. And a bunch of girls hooked up and got connected on purpose and told stories about her and thought she was really cool, and she was like a cult hit. But the generals didn’t like it and their story was all "regiment of monstrous women" and the demons didn’t like it either. And this guy turned up in fetish gear and a mask and said he could totally end it all for them and wouldn’t they like to see rid of this pesky magic stuff anyway. And I guess he told the demons a different story but anyway they all got together and kicked slayer ass and the story got out about the poor sad sparkly vampires and everybody cheered when the slayers got kicked some more. So they went to Tibet in a submarine and gave up their powers and Buffy said it was all her fault for letting them be slayers but everyone said “no it isn’t, you’re amazing” and then she got superpowers and they found out where fetish guy was hiding and she went after him and was really, really pissed but then he turned out to be her ex and she threw a tree at him. But his story was that it was all her fault and she said “That’s what I said, fuck it” and they did and there were trains through tunnels and magic snow and a whole bunch of demons came in through the gaps and Angel said “Welcome to Paradise” and Buffy said “tell me another one and I’m not wearing that.” So she made him come back to save everyone and Spike turned up like Zebedee and said “Time to go home.” And Buffy sent Angel away but while he was there he met Paradise who turned into lion that called him Daddy and made him go green and kind of scary. And Buffy teamed up with Angel’s Grandaddy, well sort of, she didn’t like him because he killed her but she got better and it was Willow’s idea. And Giles and Buffy talked about casualties and how they have to be them and Buffy said she needed him to stay and Giles said she was all grown up and he’d be back but Angel came back instead and was really mean.
It’s the big all-action finale and it’s all action in the first panel, it’s war. Slayers being ripped in half, dead human soldiers. There’s been fighting in the previous issues but this is the first time they’ve shown the bloody human cost since the Retreat arc. Next pages recap the ending of the last issue, Willow soaking up seed magic, Angel/Twilight getting in the first punch. Angel/Twilight has Spike issues and flies him up into the setting sun to fry but Buffy separates them. Next two-page spread is explosive. Spike survives, too burned to do much but watch while Angel in anti-Superman mode, throws a fighter plane at Buffy, which misses her but kills a whole platoon of soldiers as it lands. More death more chaos. Xander watches and despairs. Flashback to Giles recommending unlikely alliances. In the next page he’s leading a charge of the unspeakable demons he was negotiating with in The Long Way Home and calling for no mercy but barely manages to save Leah from dragon fire while a squad of other slayers burn. Willow mocks the Master and invokes mother earth to save them. Tree magic slays the dragon while Willow flies up into a giant floating vagina dentata. Next up is Faith rallying Slayer and human troops (former mortal enemies) and refusing to be mind-melted by an electric blue boogaloo demon.
Scene change to Amy and Warren enjoying café society in a Roman piazza strikingly unaffected by current events. Buffy and Angel/Twilight crash down into the seed cavern with Twilight still bitching about its abandonment issues. The Master approaches, Xander watches from the wings. Angel turns on his grandsire punching him through the head much as his own son destroyed Jasmine. Buffy approves the patricide while getting in her own. While they go at it, Giles arrives with the scythe and tells Xander he needs to do what Buffy cannot - kill Angel/Twilight. He enters the room and Angel snaps his neck framed in the arch as Angelus was in the window when he killed Jenny. Buffy and Xander look on horrified. Buffy slugs Angel, grabs the scythe and saying `’no more” smashes the seed with it. There’s a flash of white light, the same effect used when she killed FutureWillow and around the world demons are sucked back into hell; Warren collapses in a heap of bones and viscera; Willow falls, crying out for mother earth; a group of Wiccans in a clearly intact New York (Vi is there) lose their connection with Sunnydale. Twilight is left to pad its empty paradise alone; Spike goes chasing after Willow’s fleeing vagina monster (don’t want to think what that’s a metaphor for). Buffy falls to the floor next to Giles’s body. Xander brushes off Angel to go to her and there the story ends.
The story began with Buffy missing her mother and ends with her father figure gone too. It’s a brave new orphaned world, a twilight of the mother goddess. They fuck you up, your mum and dad, but in this story your kids are just as bad. Parents tell tales, children spin stories, they keep the truth from you or refuse to see it. The circle of life and Buffy wanted out. “No more.” No more being manipulated, pushed or mythologised. It’s not clear what Giles intended, did he really think he had a chance against Twilight or was he hoping his death would spur Buffy to avenge him? She didn’t. She never does what she’s meant to and she was tired of all these magical solutions that always seem to bring more death, more conflict, demons beget more demons and so the dance goes on. Buffy stopped the music. Things will be quieter. Is that a good?
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