5.22 The Gift

[Clare]

5.22 The Gift - Episode #100
Season Five finale - Buffy enters her biggest battle yet as she tries to stop Glory from using the Key's power; forced to choose between Dawn's life and her own, she makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Review (also post a score out of 10) and discuss this episode.

[cyclica]

I'm giving this ep a high 7, but if I was rating the opening sequence alone I'd give it a full 10. The flashbacks to every episode, the simple fight with the vampire, everything there was perfect.

This is a big, climactic and emotional episode, but its also choc full of flaws. First of all, since when was olaf a troll god? They made a big deal about fighting a god with the weapon of a god... but he wasn't a god at all. And if he was, was anyanka really so powerful that she could turn someone else into a god?

During the fight, willow seemed to have aquired telepathy out of nowhere. What's more she cured tara, but made no attempt to cure the other crazy people, in fact the scoobies beat them up. And where was buffy when the robot was fighting glory? Was she sneaking up to find dawn? Nope. And why did buffy change her clothes, and put her old clothes on the buffybot? That fooled no one except the audience, its not like glory would have noticed.

Then of cource thers the big one- buffy's blood sealing the rift. It makes no sense that there would be an existing ritual for this obviously unprecidented event. It also makes no sense that buffy's blood can seal the rift because its dawn who is the key, or has the key inside her blood, or whatever. The way I see it, if the monks did make dawn out of buffy, then they added the key part later. What's more they never did explain why this ritual needs to be performed at a certain time (surely a key can open a door at anytime?) and buffy was in no hurry to close the hole even though demons and dragons were constanly coming through, though that was understandable.

Still, with all those flaws there were a lot of good moments. Like 'I may be a monster, but you treat me like a man', giles taking ben's life, and dawn being willing to die to close the rift. And the ending, with spike crying, and the gravestone- 'She saved the world. A lot.'

And it was just such a ride, building up to the death scene, I couldn't possibly give it a low mark. Even with its flaws, it was just too powerful of an episode.

[partcynic]

5x22 “The Gift”

Episode Rating = 6

One of the series’ sacred cows, “The Gift” gets my vote for what is probably the most over-rated episode ever. Although I really enjoy it (and the score I’ve awarded puts it in my top 6/7 of the season), I think people have a tendency to focus on its ending to the point that its glaring plot problems get ignored. Make no mistake – there’s a lot to love here, but I don’t believe that the omnipresent praise is entirely warranted, and analysing the episode as a whole reveals that it’s more ‘above-average’ as opposed to a true classic. Still, there’s no denying that “The Gift” is a fine closer to season five, as well as a more-than-worthy entry marking the show’s hundredth episode.

What I Liked about “The Gift”:

- The ‘previously on’ segment was excellent. It was an inspired idea to have a story that ended with Buffy’s death commence with a summary of her life, and it really fed in to the episode’s epic, mythical atmosphere.

- I loved the teaser. It was great to go back and capture the vibe of S1, with a classic Buffy versus vampire confrontation. Bits like Buffy being “just a girl” and her commenting that “it’s been a long time since I met one who didn’t know me” were important thematic pieces, and there was some nice humour with the “Ow! My leg” exchange.

- Anya’s contributions to the battle plan were good, and I enjoyed seeing her take an active role. The character has been too constrained to her money/sex jokes and partnership with Xander to get much individual time, but she’s at her most interesting when she’s acting on her own.

- The early Scooby scenes are very tense, yet still have lots of humour. Lines like Willow asking Xander why he couldn’t have figured out that “smart chicks are hot” in tenth grade were amusing, and other pieces like Spike’s “when you said you loved us...” (followed by the simultaneous Giles/Xander “shut up”) provided comedy without disrupting the story.

- Christophe Beck got invited to do the incidental music for this episode, which was a huge bonus. After a season of mediocre, cloying ‘emotional’ synth tones and blaring horns, it was wonderful to hear music that was subtle and melodic, and the piece that played as Buffy sacrificed herself was beautiful.

- I could feel the divide between Buffy and Giles over how to deal with Dawn, and understood both characters’ motivations (though I sided with Giles). The subsequent chat they had in the training room was deeply emotional, and I liked its subtlety and nuance in comparison to the more obvious stuff at the story’s climax. It was saddening to see how Buffy had slowly lost her sense of hope and clarity, but I could understand how the cumulative events of the season had pushed her there. Her quiet wish that Joyce could be with her was moving, and I felt her despair.

- The relationship moments between Xander/Anya (basement scene and engagement) and Willow/Tara (restoring Tara’s mind) were well-written, and among the strongest emotional material either couple has received this season.

- The dynamic between Buffy and Spike (when they visit the Summers home) was brilliant. I loved the symbolism of Buffy inviting him in, and Spike’s “I know I’m a monster, but you treat me like a man” line was one of the best in the episode.

- It was a blast to watch Buffy go after Glory with the troll hammer, but the true highlight of the battle came when Glory reverted to Ben and Buffy departed. Giles’ subsequent approach and dialogue were superb, and I liked that the show moved beyond its simplistic morality and had Giles kill Ben. I felt no negativity about what happened, and personally believe that it was the right thing to do.

- This episode’s theme of humanity and its relationship to love is perfect, and expressed beautifully though Buffy’s sacrifice. I thought it was a wonderful statement that it wasn’t the Slayer who saved the world, but instead Buffy Summers, the flawed human being. In addition, the sequence with her dive from the tower (and the accompanying final speech), her friends grieving, and the shot of her gravestone was flawless, and worked not only as a conclusion to the season and her character arc, but to the show itself.

What I found to be a mixed bag about “The Gift”:

- It was cool to bring back the Buffybot, but I can’t believe that Willow was able to effectively reprogram it from a single-minded sex slave to a convincing Buffy replica in the limited time she had.

- The Buffy/Glory fight sequence on the tower was uneven. Parts of it looked cool and were exciting, but the same actions/strikes were repeated again and again, and the enclosed space prevented anything truly impressive from happening.

What I Disliked about “The Gift”:

- As I’ve mentioned before, the plot of this episode is a repeat. While there are a few minor differences between Glory’s plan and that of Angelus in “Becoming”, it doesn’t alter the fact that both stories are about the world being sucked into hell and the only way to stop it being the death of the person Buffy loves most. Even accepting that we’re being shown how Buffy has changed (in her chosen method of solving the problem), it would have been nice to do this with an original concept.

- Keeping with the S2/S5 comparisons, I have to say that I wasn’t as involved in (or concerned with) Dawn’s safety as I was with Angel’s – and bear in mind that I’ve never been a massive Angel fan. Because seasons one and two took the time to build the Bangel relationship, I was able to see just why his death had such an impact on Buffy, yet I can’t say I feel the same about Dawn. One of the big flaws of the season is that the writers never really tried to make her a likeable, sympathetic individual on her own merits, and while she’s had comparatively positive moments, the audience has been given no reason to care about her, nor understand why other characters like her so. The only real explanation we’ve been given for the hyper-attentiveness is because they’re family – and while that rationale may count on a soap opera, I expect more from “Buffy”. If you’re fine with this reasoning, then Buffy’s willingness to let every being in the universe suffer an excruciating death probably comes across as bad, yet coming from the right place - but I just found it cold and nasty.

- There’s a basic continuity error with Olaf being referred to as a god, and I have a slight issue with the Dagon sphere being in the shop’s basement. It’s fine for it to be there, but shouldn’t its presence have caused Glory some discomfort when she bought her spell supplies in “Shadow”?

- I’m not quite sure how Giles was able to deduce the specifics of the portal-opening ritual from Doc’s papers. I’m hoping that they were written very recently, as the Key has only been human for eight-or-so months (and thus the part about blood has only been relevant for that period of time). And as I said before, I still don’t buy that the Key could only be used at a certain time in a certain place.

- Xander’s attack with the wrecking ball was over-the-top. Just how accurately could you aim that thing?

- Willow’s newfound ability to speak in people’s heads is too much. I understand that she may have stepped up her study of black magic after embracing it in “Tough Love”, but we’re stumbling into the S6 swamp of implausible spells.

- Spike makes it up the tower too quickly, even when taking his supernatural speed and strength into account. His failure against Doc was contrived and unbelievable, and zero effort was put into making it look like he’d been outwitted or tricked. And couldn’t he have at least been bright enough to replicate Buffy’s move with Glory and pull Doc from the tower when he fell?

- Dawn’s constant screaming is annoying (“GLOR-EEE!”; “BUFF-AAAAAY!”), and calling out to Spike (and thus alerting Doc to his presence) was stupid beyond belief.

- Giles’ statement about Buffy being a ‘hero’ and not willing to take human life is strange when you consider that she killed several people only two episodes ago.

- Buffy being able to take Dawn’s place in the Key ritual makes no sense, and the explanation given is a poor one. Even if the monks did make Dawn from Buffy (and they share genetic markers, etc), the whole point was that Dawn’s blood held the power of the Key, while Buffy’s didn’t. There’s no viable in-universe explanation for them being able to switch places, and it kills the emotion of Buffy’s death when you’re raising an eyebrow at how convoluted and silly the plot twist is.

- Shouldn’t Spike have been set alight by the rising sun? He’s in broad daylight when he’s sobbing over Buffy, yet experiences no adverse effects.

Do I like this episode more or less than the last time I watched it?

I feel identically. “The Gift” is an episode that really should have served as the show’s grand finale, with some top-notch character development and emotional material offsetting its questionable facsimile of a plot. Almost every character gets material displaying them at their best, and the dialogue is amongst the wittiest and most meaningful of the season. However, these qualities still don’t eliminate some of the big logic issues, nor the characterisation problems that have slowly built during the arc’s run. Taking both its qualities and problems into account, I’ve decided to keep my old rating of six out of ten, which I think is the fairest one I can offer.