BECOMING PART 2
SEASON 2 EPISODE 22
This is a big finale, certainly bigger than Prophecy Girl; it might be my favorite finale of the series. I'll get back to you on that. We pick up exactly where we left off, with Buffy kneeling over Kendra's dead body. From behind her two cops have her at gunpoint, thinking she killed Kendra. Snyder shows up to pretty much confirm that she did it and the cops try to arrest her. Of course, being Buffy, she punches the cop in the face and makes a run for it, with one of the cops even shooting at her! I guess it makes sense, but it seems a little odd, they don't really have any evidence she did it other than the fact she's running.
So Buffy has to stealthily invade the hospital to check on her friends, and she does so with a master disguise! A beanie. Nice work Buffy, no one will be able to see your face with that hat on! She wanders aimlessly for a minute until Xander gets her attention and the two share a hug. She jokes about him copping a feel but for once, Xander gets to be the somber one as he informs that Willow is in a coma. Cordy shows up at the hospital, saying that Giles never followed her. Turns out, Angel has Giles ready for torture in his mansion. There's a really chilling moment where he says he hopes Giles doesn't know how to waken Acathla because he REALLY wants to torture him. Joyce gets a visit from the police, saying that Buffy should turn herself in, and Buffy heads to Giles's house to look for him finding Whistler instead. He gives her some vague advice which will soon become a Powers That Be staple.
As she's headed home, she's stopped by the police again, and just as the cop is about to take her in, she's saved by...Spike of all people! This is a great scene; she immediately runs up and starts wailing on him while he's saying he wants to talk instead. Even this early in the series, these two have fantastic chemistry and play off of each other really well. He announces that he wants to form an alliance against Angel in exchange for letting he and Dru go free. Meanwhile Xander is waiting at Willow's bedside, and he gives her a heartfelt speech about how he needs her. He even tells her he loves her, and she miraculously starts to wake up, whispering Oz's name. The look on Xander's face is devastating. Then Oz shows up and comforts her.
Inside Buffy's house there's a hilariously awkward scene between Joyce and Spike, sitting in the living room as Buffy calls to check on Willow. Spike even brings up the time when she hit him with an axe. It's such a good scene, it's kind of sad that they only get a couple scenes throughout the series. Spike heads back to the mansion to protect Giles from Angel while Buffy and her mom get into an argument about calling the police. Buffy ends up defying her and leaving, and Joyce tells her to never come back. Joyce really overreacts in this scene; I guess it's understandable since she just saw a guy explode into dust a few minutes earlier, but it's still a little forced. And it sort of remedied by seeing Joyce realize her mistake after Buffy walks away.
At the hospital, the two couples are talking about doing the spell again. Willow wants to do the ritual a second time before Buffy has to fight Angel. Willow turns on the leader/teacher mode and sends Oz and Cordy to get the ritual supplies. She then tells Xander to go and catch up with Buffy and tell her they're doing the ritual again. Back at the mansion, Angel is ready to grant Giles mercy by killing him if he'll tell him how to wake Acathla. But Giles gets to be super courageous and insult him instead, even going as far to call him a pillock, which I assume is very offensive. Must be some of that latent Ripper coming through. Giles doesn't get to be cool that often so when he is, he seems like the coolest of the cool. Luckily Spike is now there to keep Giles safe for the time being. Spike proposes an alternate way of getting info using Dru.
Buffy heads to the library and is confronted by Snyder. He finally expels her from high school, and she pretty much shrugs it off. See what they're doing here? They're stripping everything away from Buffy. Snyder makes a call to the mayor saying he has "good news". More on this infamous Mayor later on. Then we get a really weird and out of place scene where Dru hypnotizes Giles into thinking she's Jenny to get the information. It makes sense I guess, it's just weird that Dru has all these crazy hypnotic powers and to my knowledge it's never explained why. It's quite a good scene though, and good to see Jenny again, even if she's not real. Angel finally figures out the key to the ritual and things aren't looking good.
Xander: Calvary's here. The Calvary is a frightened guy with a rock, but it's here.
He stops her to tell her what Willow said, but...minces words a bit. Instead of saying to stall for time while Willow does the spell, he says that Willow said to "kick his ass". And sort of gets away with it for a long time; it's not brought up again for like five seasons. People use this as an example of why they hate Xander, but it's one of the many reasons I find him to be the most human character on the show. Meanwhile, the two rituals are being performed simultaneously, with Angel waking Acathla in the mansion and Willow doing the restoration spell in the hospital. Buffy arrives at the mansion, interrupting the spell and taking on the lesser vamps while Spike helps. Xander even doubles back and shows up to save Giles. Dru gets pissed and starts fighting Spike, leaving Buffy and Angel to duke it out.
Unfortunately Angel gets to pull out the sword from Acathla and the two fight it out in a cool sword fight. If you want to make a fight entertaining, throw some swords in it and presto, you're good to go. Spike chokes Dru out (odd considering they don't need to breathe) and escapes in their cool car with blacked out windshields. Angel gets the upper hand in the fight and had Buffy cornered, about to kill her. She decides to fight back, however, realizing that she's strong enough to keep going. From here on, it's not even fair, she absolutely destroys him. But just as she's about to deliver the killing blow, Willow completes the spell, restoring Angel's soul.
And what follows are some of the most heartbreaking moments the show has to offer. Angel is groggy and doesn't really remember what he's done, and Buffy is just glad to have him back. Unfortunately Acathla is still opening, and the only way to close the portal is to kill Angel. So she tells him to close his eyes (calling back to when Darla told him that right before she turned him) before running him through. And all he can say is a very confused, why-are-you-doing-this "Buffy?" It's awful, and the music just makes it that much more painful to watch. Buffy then heads home and packs, leaving her mom a note saying she's running away. The gang at school wonder what happened to her, but kind of trick themselves into thinking that she's coming. But we see that she's really headed on a bus, away from Sunnydale.
Overall this is one of the best and most powerful episodes of the series. It's certainly not the cheeriest of episodes, but there are so many great moments in the episode that it's hard to count. It also left the series on such a perfect bittersweet note that it would have still been beautiful had the show been canceled after Season 2. But don't worry, we still have five seasons left to go, and from here on in is where the show really starts to find it's identity.
*****
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