Home > Schedule > Where Do We Go From Here?

Week 18 - Conclusion
"Where Do We Go From Here?"

Background

These two episodes are a critical turning point in season six. One of the episodes, "Once More With Feeling" is one of the great Buffy shows, combining a powerful story with taking great risks in front of the camera as well as behind it. This episode runs several minutes longer than usual, so please be on time.

Last week, we saw Buffy die. Prior to this week's episodes, she has died again, and was brought back to life by Willow, using powerful, dark magic. In this week's episodes, the costs of that choice come home to everyone.

Opening

[Buffy is about] the relationships you build with people while you struggle. [Although the final destination of our journey may be elusive,] the quest and the questors, and the people that you find, who are not necessarily your family, are the only thing that lends the journey meaning.

-Marti Noxon,
Buffy writer and producer

Episode 6.7: Once More, With Feeling

Continuity

  • Buffy died again
  • Willow used magic to bring Buffy back to life
  • Buffy was in heaven, but only Spike knows this
  • Willow and Tara had a fight about Willow using too much magic. Willow used a spell to make Tara forget.
  • Xander and Anya are engaged

What to watch for

  • The secrets that each character shares through song

Transcript is available at http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season6/transcripts/107_tran.shtml

Episode 6.8: Tabula Rasa

What to watch for

  • How Willow misuses magic, again
  • How each character responds when the spell ends

Transcript is available at http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season6/transcripts/108_tran.shtml

Metaphor Watch

The "loan shark" demon is a real shark.

Questions

How is Buffy different, now that she has come back from the grave?

How do you think Willow will deal with Tara's leaving?

How do you think Buffy will deal with Giles's leaving?

How do we heal ourselves after broken relationships? After other kinds of personal loss, including deaths?

What is the hardest part of "moving on," when the break was not our choice?

One of the things that is remarkably true about Buffy is that in its later years, in spite of the main characters' growth, they still screw up in the same ways. How is their spiritual journey like our spiritual journeys?

How does it help our spiritual journeys to know, in truthful detail, exactly how we have failed before?

What is the answer to the closing question in the musical:

Where do we go from here?
The battle's done and we kind of won
So we sound our victory cheer
Where do we go from here?

Why is the path unclear
When we know hope is near?
Understand we'll go hand in hand,
But we'll walk alone in fear
Tell me!
Where do we go from here?

Closing

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has.

-Margaret Mead

Don't give me songs;
Give me something to sing about.

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Additional Reading

Brock, Rita Nakashima, and Rebecca Ann Parker, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.

Kaverny, Roz, She Saved The World. A Lot. An Introduction to the Themes and Structures of Buffy and Angel. Kaveny, Roz, Reading the Vampire Slayer, second edition. London: Taurisparke Paperbacks, 2004.

Kopp, Sheldon B., If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! Toronto: Bantam Books, 1972.

Marinucci, Mimi, Feminism and the Ethics of Violence. South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.

Riess, Jana, What Would Buffy Do? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Sakal, Gregory J., No Big Win: Themes of Sacrifice, Salvation, and Redemption. South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.