Selfless

Written by Drew Goddard
Directed by David Solomon

Perri's Review | SunSpeak

Sunnydale, 2001: As Xander sleeps in an armchair, Anya comes out and looks at him fondly. From outside the window, we hear David Fury and Marti Noxon's voices raised in dismayed song, lamenting the mustard on his shirt. Yup, we're in Once More With Feeling again, as Anya begins singing in a very Donna Reed kind of mode. "I'm just lately Anya/Not very much to the world, I know/All these years with nothing to show./I've boned a troll,/I wreaked some wrath,/But on the whole I've had no path,/I like to bowl, I'm good with math,/But who am I?/Now I reply, that I'm the missis,/I will be his missis./Mrs. Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins Harris." It's a very cheerful, sweet song, dwelling quite depressingly on how much of her life and identity Anya has built around being Xander's girlfriend/wife. She whirls out onto the balcony in her mermaid dress, exulting in the fact that she'll soon be Mrs.-- --And Anyanka's head is slumped to the side, her body still pinned to the wall, her face back to normal. As Xander struggles back to consciousness, calling her name, her eyes open with a gasp. And with a scream, she pulls the sword back out of her body, smiling at Buffy. "You know better than that, Buffy. Takes a lot more to kill a vengeance demon." She holds the sword pointed at Buffy, who assures Anya she's just getting started. Anya attacks, but Buffy manages to trip her to the floor, knocking the sword loose; Buffy retrieves it, and raises it above Anya for a more decisive blow. But before it can fall, Xander tackles Buffy from the side, sending them both the floor. Anya bounces back to her feet. "Stop trying to save me, Xander!"

Before hostilities can resume, lighting flashes, and D'Hoffryn suddenly appears in the middle of the room. "Please, don't mind me," he says cheerfully. "Continue with whatever you whatever you were doing." Buffy drags herself painfully back to her feet, and manages to regain her sword. D'Hoffryn reminds her that "I could be gone before you swing," as he helps Anya up. "Isn't that just like a Slyer? Solving all of her problems by sticking them with sharp objects?" He tells them he was talking to Willow; "Miss Rosenburg seems to think Anyanka would be better suited to life outside the vengeance fold. I think we already know what Lady Hacks-Alot wants. And the young man... well, he sees with the eyeballs of love. But I'm not sure anyone's bothered to find out what Anyanka herself really wants." Anya whispers, "I want to take it back." She repeats it when D'Hoffryn prompts her -- "I want to take it back. I want to undo what I did." That won't be easy, D'Hoffryn tells her, not with 12 bodies. "The proverbial scales must balance. In order to restore the lives of the victims, the Fates require a sacrifice -- the life and soul of a vengeance demon." Anya takes a shuddering breath. "Do it." Xander shouts, but Anya tells him to stay out of it; he, of course, ignores her, searching for an alternate price. Anya tells him, "You can't help me. I'm not even sure there's a me to help." Her voice is stronger when she turns back to D'Hoffryn. "I understand the price. Do it." He asks her if she's sure, if this is her wish; she says it is. "Very well," he says, and claps his hands.

Xander shouts again as a bright light flashes across the room -- Halfrek appears, and smiles at all of them in surprise. But only for a moment, before her body is consumed in flames as she screams. In a moment, she's gone. Anya's entire body screams grief and horror, as D'Hoffryn demands, "Who did you think you were dealing with? Did you think it would be that easy to get away?" Anya says, tearfully, "But she was yours." D'Hoffryn: "The way you were mine? Haven't I taught you anything, Anya? Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain." Xander goes for his throat; Buffy catches him even as D'Hoffryn warns him off. He turns back to Anya. "I've got plenty of girls; there will always be vengeance demons. But now you, Anya -- you're out. Congratulations. Wish granted." Tears run down Anya's cheeks. "You should have killed me," she manages to whisper. D'Hoffryn laughs as he turns away. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. From beneath you, it devours." That hits home for Buffy and Xander as he continues, "Be patient. All good things in time." Then he disappears, leaving anguish in his wake.

Buffy can barely look up at Anya; Xander can't look away. Anya gazes at him for a long moment, then walks slowly out the front door. "Go," Buffy tells Xander quietly. "I'll check on the boys." He goes, catching up with Anya outside. She stops several feet away, not turning. "Xander, please, just go away." He won't. "Whatever's between us, it doesn't matter. You shouldn't be alone in this." She turns to face him. "Yes, I should. My whole life... I've just clung to whatever came along." Xander: "Well, speaking as a clingee, I kind of didn't mind." Anya is near tears again, but holding it together. "Thanks... for everything." Xander tries to speak, but can't; finally, he lowers his head and walks past her, but stops when she calls his name this time. "What if I'm really nobody?" she asks. Xander grins. "Don't be a dope." It's almost funny; Anya almost smiles. "I'm a dope." Xander shrugs. "Sometimes." She almost smiles again. "That's a start." Xander walks slowly backwards, then turns and walks away. He doesn't look back. Anya walks after him, but, after a long look at his back, she turns in the opposite direction. She walks away alone, still fighting back the tears that glisten on her cheeks.

Continuity:
Anya was born sometime around 860, probably in Sweden. She was recruited by D'Hoffryn after turning Olaf (boyfriend? Husband?) into a troll because he slept with a barmaid. She went on to wreak vengeance everywhere, including Russia during the 1905 Revolution, which she was instrumental in starting.

Anya no longer works for D'Hoffryn; he killed Halfrek to undo Anya's wish, and kicked her out. Whether she still has any of her powers is up in the air.

Willow is back in college.

Relationships:
Xander admitted he still loves Anya, to no one's surprise.

Characters:
So. Anya's always been like this? Literal interpretations and lack of tact and irritation and all? Well, that's just... incredibly cool and funny. < snicker > All of the things we've been attributing to post-demon stress syndrome is just Anya being herself -- whomever that may be. I really, really love that, it's a gorgeous twist and a great joke on us. the good news is that Anya has finally gotten at a gut-level what we've been saying for years -- she spends too much defining herself by the people around her, instead of trying to be herself. She was trying after she got re-demoned, but with Halfrek nattering at her about what "real" demons do, and no other voices from the Scoobie side, she got sucked back into other people's expectations again. Now she sees that, so now, she can start doing something about it. Go Anya. I respect the hell out of her for managing to fight her own inclinations as well as she did -- she did the vengeance thing, but she felt remorse, even when Halfrek told her not to. She was unhappy about it, even as she defended it to Willow. She was willing to sacrifice herself to fix it, even after Buffy tried to kill her. And she will grieve for Halfrek for a long, long time. Once she figures out who she is, Anya's going to be one to the strongest Scoobies, I think -- she's already well on her way.

It's hard to figure out where, exactly, Anya's lack of self-image came from. It doesn't seem to have been anything Olaf did -- okay, he cheated at least once, but he accepted Anya for what she was. "You are annoying and literal and that's one of the reasons I love you." Childhood conditioning? Dark Ages brainwashing of females? Desperate attempts to make people like her? I'd love to see more of Anya's past explored, so we can figure more of this out. And find out about the bunny-phobia....

D'Hoffryn is scary and nasty and EvilBad. Yeah. We never saw him in full master mode before -- he was that kind of funny, used-car-salesman type who did his business and treated his demons like daughters and brought wedding presents. He did a really good job of keeping us all off-guard, so that Halfrek's death is a brutal shock to the system. This is the guy who's been recruiting and training vengeance demons for eons, killing people by proxy for as long as he's existed. Oh yes. But I'll tell you, the only thing I regret about Halfrek's death is how much it upset Anya -- this prevents me from cheering, shouting and singing "Ding, dong the bitch is dead!" Really hated her. And I still want to know about the whole Cecily/William connection!

Willow rocked. She's seriously back to the Willow we used to love, all happy and defending her friends and trying to help wherever she can, and being amped about school. I was really happy to see that glimpse of EvilWillow, though; making the badness just go away-- poof! -- would be too easy and not at all Joss-like. But both Dawn and Spike just got 'the actors must get paid this week' bits, which isn't any fun. :(

I love Xander. It's such a relief to be able to say that, since I've been quite unhappy with him for most of a year now. The combination of his treatment of Spike and his treatment of Anya were just too much for me to deal with; all that anti-demon prejudice coming out, not just against his old enemy, but against someone he purported to love, made me really, really upset with him, because that's not the Xander we love. And, of course, does love, which he proved tonight, bless him. I'm never more impressed with Xander than when he goes against Buffy; when he actually gets in the middle of a fight to stop her, in order to defend his ex, then I'm fantastically impressed. He's a good guy, Xander is, when he's not letting his emotional devils shout down his emotional angels. I'm not expecting a turn-around in his attitude towards Spike any time soon -- I'd like a touch of sympathy or pity, but I'm not expecting it. He has real, actual issues with Spike that go above and beyond Spike merely being a vampire and by-definition-evil; he hates him for hurting his friends and that is never going to change. I don't like it, but I can accept it because, by defending Anya, he's proven that he is capable of dealing with gray areas, not just defaulting to "demon bad" and throwing everything out. Well, he does default, but he can get past it. So I'm back to loving him, albeit with the occasional deep desire to dope smack him. But he wouldn't be Xander if I didn't want to dope smack him, now would he?

Would we could say the same for Buffy. Relax, I'm not starting Yet Another Rant about Buffy -- I was actually happy that, for the first time, she showed some signs of caring what's happening to Spike, showing some responsibility towards him. Go, Buffy! I've just concluded the woman needs therapy. (Wooo, big shock.) Was I heinously disappointed in her decision that Anya must die? Yes, I was. I'll comment on the poor writing that engendered that decision and made it hugely irritating below. Here, I'll just shake my head at Buffy, who proves once again how desperately she is in love with the Hard Choices. She even told us why during her little rant about "I killed Angel!" (with which she is going to be winning every argument from now until the end of time, since that was, obviously, the ultimate sacrifice, so everyone else has to be just like her, or at least give in. Never mind the ongoing debate about whether Angel actually had to die, or whether his blood would have sealed it back up without the associated trauma; it's irrelevant. Mostly, I just wanted to slap her so hard for getting self-righteous at Xander -- "I killed my love, so it's okay to kill yours, and make you suffer like I did." Oh, dear, that turned into a rant, didn't it? Ahem. Moving on.)

[Warning: In-depth psychoanalysis of fictional character follows.] It really does all come back to Angel. After he became Angelus (again, see below for rant re: black/white), Buffy did not immediately kill him. She spent something like four months fighting to find an alternative -- any alternative -- to doing so, in fact. And because she did spend all of that time looking for an alternative, because she couldn't kill him in the mall when she had the chance, Jenny Calendar died, Willow and Xander were injured, Kendra died, Giles was tortured, and the world almost ended. To Buffy, Guilt Queen of the Universe, her indecisions, her attempt to find an answer other than killing Angelus, caused all of this. Did it? Didn't it? Irrelevant -- Buffy knows it was All Her Fault for trying to find an easier way. In the end, the hardest thing, the thing she fought most terribly again, was the only thing she could do. She had to kill Angelus -- and because she'd taken so long about it, it was Angel that got sent to hell. (again, this is her POV; I disagree.) So, the connection in Buffy's brain gets made, and hard-wired with trauma -- in any given situation, the hardest thing to do must be the right one. The more I fight against it, the more I don't want to do it, the more right it becomes. It's about sacrifice and duty, and trying to do things an easier way is Just Wrong and people die. Look how insane Buffy made herself for wishing, just for a second, that Dawn was dead and she didn't have to protect her. Yeesh. Mind you, she can overcome this -- she managed it for Willow, and god knows she fought to keep Dawn alive. But it takes serious, serious love to do it.

Now, into this complex, we're going to add a pernicious influence called Bad Writing. Inconsistent Writing. Lazy Writing. Writing that starts out, seven years ago, with the premise that All Vampires Are Evil and Bad. Period. Except, you know, if they have a soul. The premise is extended as demons begin to show up -- All Demons Are Evil. Period. Go kill them, it's okay, that's what they're there for. No humans, because humans have souls so that's Bad, but kill all the demons you like. Except then there's Doyle. And suddenly, all demons aren't Evil, just some of them. So it becomes necessary to distinguish between good demons and bad demons, and demons who used to be bad, but got turned into humans, so it's really not fair to hold the things they did as a demon and are still unrepentant about against them, right? (I love Anya, but this has always made me crazed -- when she becomes human, even before she starts helping, and all sins are forgiven. Spike remains a vampire, helping, and all sins are held against him world without end.) The point is, that the writers have spent seven years and two series blurring the lines between the clear-cut black/white we started with. Everything is shades of gray now -- unless, for dramatic purposes, they don't want it to be. Unless it's not a human who suddenly starts killing people -- that human, our friend, we will chase after and try to help and do everything possible not to kill her even if it costs us our own lives and ends the universe. No, it's not a human, it's a demon -- she was a our friend, but now she's a demon, and she killed people, so we must kill her. No discussion, no attempts to help the demon, to make her see she's wrong and bring her back to the light side, because she's just a demon. Time to kill her. No more grayscale, black and white only.

Buffy is the character most vilified by this horrific writing glitch. She's not bad, she's just being written that way, and I can accept that, but it doesn't change what we see on-screen. We see Willow being happy to see her friend, demon or not, trying to help her before telling Buffy, and refusing to help Buffy kill her. We see Xander defending the woman he loves against all comers, including his best friend/hero, demon or not. What do we see of Buffy? We see a woman who was maid of honor in Anya's wedding, who fought by Anya's side and went to her for help and generally accepted her as a friend -- who abandoned that woman after she, hurting and alone, chose to become a demon again. There is absolutely no evidence that any of the Scoobies reached out to Anya during that summer, or any time after the wedding, actually. She was still fighting beside them, even saving them, but she was a demon (who slept with Spike, eww!), so they left her. Even one scene of Buffy reaching out, one line of throw-away dialogue ("I tried to talk to her a few times, but she blew me off."), could have made it obvious that Anya's isolation was of her own doing. We didn't get that. We got Buffy deciding to kill her friend because she became a demon again. Not going to her friend after she became a demon and trying to keep her on the good side. Not talking to her friend about why vengeance is wrong, and reminding her of the stuff she learned as a human. Not trying to keep her friend from crossing the line from Good Demon back to Evil Demon. None of that. None of the things she did to try to save Willow.

What we got was Buffy finding out that Anya is a demon, and sitting back and waiting for Anya to cross the line, after which, she will kill her. Very simple. Black and white. Hardest Choice, so it must be the right one. Did she want to kill Anya? No, or she would have remembered that the sword thing doesn't work. Her own subconscious was fighting her decision as hard as possible. But Buffy made the choice anyway, and that last sword stroke, before Xander took her down, would, in all likelihood, have been the one that did the job. That's not admirable. that's not duty. That's not sacrifice. That's throwing away the life of a friend because of Buffy's own Issues. And it's just damn wrong. I don't blame Buffy, although it's hard; I love Buffy. Or, I used to. I blame writers who can't stick to their own rules, who fall back on black and white when it's easier and use impassioned speeches to justify it, after painting their world in endless shades of gray. They win back some points for having Xander react as he did, for having him make many of these same points, but then ignore him so they can have the Big Dramatic Fight Scene. Were they not listening to themselves? Is their opinion of Buffy that low? Or do they just not care that they keep turning their characters into howling hypocrites?

Isn't it wrong that I should feel the need to spend five long paragraphs on Buffy after an episode that was finally all about Anya? Sheesh. Guess it really is all about Buffy.

Best Moments:
All of the 880 flashbacks. The use of the film grain was really neat, the language was hysterical, Olaf was amusing, and the whole thing was just very well done.

And made the cut to her trying to wash the blood off that much more chilling. < shudder > Gorgeous directing and segues throughout.

Willow finding the girl in the closet. Really, really effective directing, and the spider attack was totally wigsome.

Post-Troll Olaf stuff. Just way too hysterically funny.

Buffy balancing the pencil cup on her forehead. A quick, fun little throwaway bit that was so very Buffy.

Willow's confrontation with Anya. No punches pulled, just one friend trying to get through to another. This is what it's all about.

Xander's confrontation with Buffy. He was making all of the right points, and she was just refusing to hear him. Willow's miserable expression as she listened just made it rougher.

Anya's song in the OMWF flashback. The song itself is fluff and silly and worth muting, but the sheer jolt of delight as we realized we were back in that wonderful, awesome episode was the best! And the mustard singing in the background was hilarious.

Which, of course, made the segue to Anya impaled that much more brutal. Again, awesome transitions.

Xander tackling Buffy. Cheers all around.

Anya's confrontation with D'Hoffryn. Give it up for Emma Caulfield, who was just amazing throughout the entire scene. Halfrek's death was particularly well-done -- unexpected and horrifying even if you hated her.

Anya walking away from Xander. Totally heart-breaking.

Questions and Comments:
This episode was just rife with continuity -- not only the factual stuff, like Anya's past, but scenes that were reminiscent of things we saw a long time ago, and brought back all those old echoes. Willow finding the bodies in the frat house took us back to first season, and her friends' bodies sprawled throughout the AV room. Buffy's sword through Anya's chest was an unavoidable echo of when she sent Angel to hell. Anya walking across the UC Sunnydale campus at night, crying, brought but memories of the end of Harsh Light of Day, after her one-night stand with Xander. Truly gorgeous work throughout.

And one more touch of continuity -- almost five years later, Xander's lie to Buffy as she headed off to fight Angelus is finally revealed. Just when you think you'd forgotten....

Wow, that was a bad wig on Anya in the OMWF flashback.

Question: D'Hoffryn told Anya the price for unmaking the wish, was a vengeance demon's "life and soul." Vengeance demons have souls? So, where does that put them in the "kill/don't kill" rules? is it still okay to fight them? Another shade of gray for everyone to deal with.

Rating: 4.5 stars out of five. A really brilliantly done episode, all characterization issues on Buffy aside. Emma Caulfield was amazing, Nick Brendon turned in a great performance, the directing was first rate, and most of the writing was at the top of the charts.

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