Oh well, all’s well that ends very-ok. I thought the pacing of the finale was terribly rushed – it definately should have been a two hour episode. There was just too much to wrap up to do it effectively in one hour. BTW, did Joss always write such terrible dialogue for Faith?

“Why you straight trippin, yo?”

I was just waiting for her to call Principle Wood “Dawg.” and bust into a 50 Cent cover. “Yo, word up, wodie.” My eyes hurt after their scene from having been rolled so far into the back of my head for so long. Y’eard’me?

I guess I respect the decision to kill Anya and Spike, although I was expecting Giles to be one of the ones to go as well. I’m glad I was wrong! :) I was actually hoping Spike would have gotten killed off earlier in the season (not because I don’t like the character, but because I thought he and Buffy had played the cat and mouse game for too long – I REALLY just wanted that whole plot line to end.)

Overall a good episode, but definately not the best of the series, nor of the season for that matter – and definately not how I wanted the series to end. The Buff I’m-dead-again-no-I’m-not fake out was a cheap b-movie trick (rehashed on the bus with principle Woods at the end) plus I thought the dialogue was kind of cheesy at some points, and not in the good way that is typical on Buffy. “Where’s Caleb?” “He had to split.” Joss has written MUCH better.

Plus, I think it raised more questions that it answered…

In no particular order: How was it that after suffering a mortal wound, Buffy gets up, does back flips and jumps from rooftop to rooftop, then to the roof of a moving school bus?

If the sythe was so old, why did it look so Buck Rogersey?

What did Joyce mean when she told Dawn that when it came time, Buffy would not choose her? Did they just forget that whole episode?

Why, at the end of the previous episode, did they set up the notion that Spike and the first were in cahoots?

What was UP with the amulet thing? How did it just happen to surface when they needed it, and they explained it, or what it was, or where it came from, or anything. Real convienient. Marshall said it’s called a Deux ex machina, or:

“When somewhere, out of nowhere, with no foreshadowing whatsoever, something comes in to save the day and end the story miraculously. It’s popular with people who don’t create outlines and thus have no ending when they get to the appropriate place in the story. Faced with no idea of how to get the characters out of the situation, they employ the deux ex machina.” It translates from Latin as god out of machine. Early playwrights would have a god descend from the “heavens” on a platform (the machine used) and give the characters in the play the solution to end the play.

Plus, while I inderstand cross-marketing and exposure is a good thing, but it was very lame to have Angel show up for like, 3 minutes to do nothing.

Good comment from slayage.com:

Shortly after CWDP questions have been piling up (why did the First need Jonathan and Andrew to open the seal in the first place? Just how did Andrew ‘close’ it, even though it needed blood to open, and his ‘closing’ it didn’t stop the SIT’s blood from opening it again? Why was it so obsessed with Spike? Why was its entire plan an army of Ubervamps and nothing else, and why did we see it do practically NOTHING the entire season? Why did the First choose Caleb to be it’s right arm? Why did they want thy sythe? Why had no one heard about that old lady before? Why was everyone finally leaving Sunnydale even though we never saw anything going on? Why did Caleb let Buffy live the two times he could have easily killed her?) but it just brought up more gaping holes (why were these Ubervamps so easy to kill for the new Slayers even though it took Buffy TWO episodes to kill just ONE awhile back, and she almost died from it TWICE? Even if you buy that how come it was so easy for Anya/Giles/Wood/Xander/Dawn to kill a bunch of Ubervamps!? Just what was it that Angel brought to Buffy? What were the notes? What was the amulet? Why did it do what it did? Do they all realize that the whole plan was a total bust except for the part where that amulet killed all the Ubervamps and made the Hellmouth cave-in? Why have we been led to believe over 7 seasons that the Hellmouth was this foul place with all sorts of evil creatures in it, but here it seems to be a standard cave filled with Ubervamps and not much else? Why do they seem to think they’ve stopped the First when we know they haven’t killed it, just that they’ve stopped it’s Ubervamp army in Sunnydale? As far as Hellmouths go we know there are more of them, and we know that the First seems to have global powers – the Bringers got all over killing Watchers and SIT’s so…? Why, out of all the main characters, did Anya die so pointlessly? And why did no one even notice, except for a throwaway line from Xander? Oh, and what was the whole point of Buffy sending off Dawn and Xander when they were going to be back and have nothing to do ANYWAY? And where the hell did she get a stun gun!?)

But, I don’t want to slam it completely.

I loved the part where they original four start bantering in the halls of Sunnydale High about what they’re going to do the next day. Aparently this was a homage to Season 1’s “The Harvest.” I don’t remember that one so I’ll have to borrow Julie’s DVDs and watch it again.

I LOVED the AD&D scene where you think Giles, Xander, Andrew and Amanda are planning the attack, until you see Rupert role dice and make mention that his character is a Level 1 troll, or something. Andrew’s “Step off girlfriend, who do you think you are?” was classic. I hope we see more from Andrew, maybe in Angel? The world needs more gay RPGing geeks on television. :)

It wasn’t great, but it was still Buffy and mediocre Buffy is still better than no Buffy at all – which is what we have now.

I think I’m gonna watch it again.