Buffy Season Eight: Twilight, Part 4

Buffy: "And I wanna just make sure we're not somehow standing here in my mind, or in some dream where I'm the snowglobe at the end of St. Elsewhere."

Synopsis:

Buffy and Angel are in a beautiful Eden-like but alienish landscape. Buffy is expecting the worst, that the orcs will come over the mountain at any time, but no. Their toga clothes change to something exotic. A gorgeous sun is going down. The world they're in is called 'Twilight'.

Back in the real world, Giles tells Willow that Twilight was a myth, an "unprovable hypothesis based on theories that seek to explain the beginning of time." Xander responds with, "I don't wanna talk about religion, Giles! I wanna know why Angel dressed like a fetish bad guy and became a killer!" And so say all of us.

Since Buffy and Angel have ascended, the old world isn't important any more. Dimensional rifts continue to form all over the world and demons keep pouring through, including into Twilight's HQ. Xander orders Kennedy to mobilize slayers all over the world near the dimensional rifts.

Andrew and Warren argue like the old friends they are over the Captain America shield, but it ends up not being enough to defend either of them and a huge demon with a flaming sword attacks, seriously injuring Andrew and upsetting Warren, who doesn't realize that Amy and the General still plan to eventually take the Scoobies out.

Back to Buffy and Angel, whose clothes and surroundings keep changing. Angel tells Buffy it's because the place is reacting to them, and the costumes and places apply to slayers of old. Buffy, still insisting it's all a trap, walks through a door and into a completely blank white space. Gee, it's just like two cartoon characters walked into panel where no one drew a background.

Since they create their own reality, Buffy insists on creating one that includes her friends. She swipes the air and sees through it to where the battle on earth is happening. Angel tries to close the opening and tells Buffy her friends will get along fine without her, like when she was dead. She says, "Are you really not getting this?"

The slayers, even with their powers back, are having a tough time of it with the demons. Willow and Amy are hocusing as fast as they can but aren't doing well, either, and a demon knocks Amy out. There are bleeding bodies everywhere. Xander, holding a bloody Andrew in his arms, screams "Buffy!" Buffy and Angel jump through the opening and join the battle, even though it seems hopeless.

At the last moment, a huge metal sphere bursts through the wall, and Spike emerges. He says, "You wanna put these demons down and end this 'Twilight' crap once and for all? You talk to me."

Review:

I appreciate that they were trying to go for a really huge and extraordinary story, and I appreciate that they thought they were giving us something we wanted (i.e., Buffy and Angel finally together), but come on -- what were they thinking?

At least Buffy is still Buffy, because I was starting to wonder. She refused to accept an Eden of beauty and pleasure with Angel if it didn't include her friends. Angel was less ready to give it up, but honestly -- he expected her to be happy with just him, with nothing to fight, no challenges to overcome, and the fate of the world they left behind uncertain, not to mention her friends? Does Angel know Buffy at all?

So Angel committed many, many evil acts so that he and Buffy could ascend to Twilight, and I just don't get that. It's not the Angel I knew. At least he went back to the real world with her.

And at least we finally have Spike. It'll be interesting to find out where he came from (three days ago?) and what he has in mind. It has to be better than the acid trip we've been experiencing for the last four issues.

Bits and pieces:

-- Chapter four's subtitle is "The Power of Love." Whose love? Whose power? Probably that of Buffy for her friends. I'm okay with that.

-- Spike is wearing his eternal clothes: tee, red shirt, black leather jacket, black nail polish. Wow, it's good to see him. Even on paper.

-- The final caption says, "The End (of the beginning) (of the end)."

Quotes:

Buffy: "We get one moment of peace--"
Angel: "That was way more than peace. Your finger was--"
Buffy: "Do not talk about it yet. We're not talking about it yet."

Giles: "When Buffy and Angel ascended -- in naughty fashion -- they were breached into a new reality. And there is no birth without blood."
Xander: "So these demons pouring out all over us are some sort of afterbirth? Wait! 'Placenturians'! That I'm gonna copyright."

Buffy: "That is the single Velveeta cheesiest come-on line I've ever heard."

Angel: "This place -- think of it as a higher plane -- "
Buffy: "It's not a higher plane. It's like I said. It's a trap."
Angel: "Both of those statements can be true."
Buffy: "Will you stop talking like Giles? See? It's not a higher plane! It's a Daffy Duck cartoon!"

Angel: "If you stay here, we can evolve."
Buffy: "F#*% evolution."
Angel: "So you'll just walk away and ignore what the universe has spent millions of years setting in motion?"
Buffy: "Yup."

Buffy: "I'll take the ones on the left."
Angel: "Then I get the ones on the right."
Deliberate echo of the final scene in the Angel series, I assume.

Buffy: "Willow, I'm sorry."
Willow: "I know, I know -- you don't know what came all over you."

One out of four stakes for "Twilight, Parts 1-4,"

Billie
---
Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.

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