7.22 Chosen

[Clare]

7.22 Chosen - Episode #144
The last ever Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode - Determined to defeat the First once and for all, Buffy forges a new plan that will change the path of the Slayers forever. The battle is won, but not without some surprising fatalities…

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

[Twisted Slayer]

Episode Rating - 10/10

I didn't see any flaws with this episode. They ended the series with a cliffhanger, which is always a good thing. They killed off two main characters, which gives you a PANG if you were a fan; Joss never has a completely happy ending!

The fact that Joss made it appear as if Buffy was going to die was great; it made an episode that was great become fantastic.

I did, however, dislike one thing:

They said that Anya died protecting Andrew, but that wasn't so. Andrew was huddled in a corner being attacked by Turok-hans, while Anya was fighting a separate fight, not even paying attention to him, when she was slice open from the back.

[partcynic]

They said that Anya died protecting Andrew, but that wasn't so. Andrew was huddled in a corner being attacked by Turok-hans, while Anya was fighting a separate fight, not even paying attention to him, when she was slice open from the back.

I don't think that was a mistake or flaw - I think we were supposed to infer that Andrew told Xander that lie to comfort him. It's better for Xander to have the idea that Anya was being brave and protecting someone in her last moments than to know that she was just randomly killed.

[partcynic]

7x22 “Chosen”

Episode Rating = 5

The final ever episode of the series, “Chosen” was burdened from the start by having to resolve both the year’s arc and its ongoing character conflicts, so it’s not really surprising that it wasn’t able to do either especially well. However, what really made this episode stand out was its dialogue – it’s easy to tell that Joss was writing, and the enjoyable nature of each individual scene meant that it moved at a tremendous pace. And in the interests of fairness, criticising “Chosen” for not being able to sort out so much of the mess of the year (and of S6) isn’t right – it was many prior episodes that failed, and not this one. Instead, we got a story that was fast, funny, had good character moments, action and a bit of emotion – and that’s more than enough for this season.

What I Liked about “Chosen”:

- In terms of specific lines, this was the best-written episode since “Once More, With Feeling”. Every single one was worth hearing, and the script contained lots of wit and some humorous jokes. Even more effectively, said jokes also tended to serve dual purposes, in both being funny and providing character development.

- As I said in the introduction, the pacing is excellent. There was something going on/being dealt with in each scene, and the episode only stumbled in one place (Andrew’s annoying ‘I’d like to thank...’ speech at the school). In terms of overall punch and vibe, this felt like it could have taken place in the high school seasons – and this suggests that if Joss had been fully hands-on during S6/7, they could have been really good.

- Angel and Buffy’s material was solid. Their exchanges were snappily written, and acknowledged the couple’s fans without wading too far into shipper territory. I loved Angel’s reaction to finding out that Spike had a soul, as well as his juvenile “ah! You said boyfriend!” comment and embarrassment at Buffy’s cookie dough analogy.

- Dawn kicking Buffy was humorous, and dealt with the strange turn of events in “End of Days” quickly and effectively.

- Buffy and Spike were at their very best here, and I think that their coupling would have worked wonderfully if they were always as witty and smart as this. Spike’s Angel pin-up on the punching bag was fantastic, and his conversation with Buffy was emotional without being as blatantly fanfic-like as the ones in the last two episodes.

- The D&D playing scene was lots of fun. Andrew and Amanda were in their element, and Giles’ quip about being “a wounded dwarf with the mystical strength of a doily” was brilliant.

- Continuing the ‘couples’ trend, Kennedy and Willow were much improved. Iyari Limon still can’t act, but I liked Kennedy showing a bit more maturity and support for Willow, and she was driven and headstrong while acknowledging her own flaws.

- Faith and Wood also worked well. The chat they had at the school was charming, and I wouldn’t mind seeing where their story might go in the future.

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

- The core-Scooby scene in the hallway was cute (especially Giles’ reference to “The Harvest”), but very hollow. The forced joviality wasn’t believable, and there’s a ton of stuff from S6/7 that needs to be dealt with before they’ll make a believable family unit again.

- The ending was merely okay. It was good that Buffy could finally see more of a life opening up to her, but the destruction of Sunnydale should also have provided a sense of loss. The town is now a smoking crater, and it was cold for the gang to be joking about the mall when a big part of their history (not to mention the bodies of their friends/family) is now lost forever.

What I Disliked about “Chosen”:

- Caleb getting back up after Buffy ‘killed’ him was predictable, and his calling her a ‘bitch’ was just a way of underlining his misogyny (in case you hadn’t already noticed it). I also have to criticise the trite symbolism of an evil man getting killed via a blow to the crotch - it’s barely even metaphor, and something the show had done better before (Warren’s orbs in “Seeing Red”).

- It’s convenient that Angel gets knocked out by a single punch for the exact duration of the Buffy/Caleb fight.

- Angel says that he can smell Spike on Buffy, yet couldn’t detect him when they were in the same crypt together?

- If Buffy really wanted a second front, couldn’t she have called Angel and asked him to set one up months ago? Or how about asking Faith, Giles or Spike to lead one elsewhere? The scene was a weak excuse for Angel to leave – I understand that Buffy would have been apprehensive about he and Spike working together, but it’s not like she doesn’t already have lots of mortal enemies/people with negative relationships contributing to the battle (Buffy/Faith; Willow/Faith; Xander/Faith; Willow/Andrew; Giles/Spike; Wood/Spike; Xander/Spike).

- I understand what Joss was trying to say with the cookie dough analogy, but the idea of Buffy needing to become comfortable with being single was expressed so much better in “I Was Made to Love You”. It would be nice if the writers stopped having characters learn lessons, only to forget them and learn them all over again.

- The plot is a disaster. We were finally given the First’s motive: it wanted to unleash its army, and when half of the world belonged to it, it would be able to manifest in corporeal form. That’s an uninteresting goal, but passable – though looking back, nothing the First did during the season makes sense. If it wanted to unleash its army, it should have done just that. If it hadn’t wasted so much time taunting the Scoobs, triggering and kidnapping Spike, and summoning the Turok-han and Caleb, it would have easily won.

- What on earth was going on with Buffy’s plan? If she was going to randomly ask Willow to come up with a super-powerful spell, couldn’t she have done that some time ago (how about that ‘ball of sunlight’ thing from “Triangle”)? Why wait until the morning to make everyone Slayers, instead of doing it right away? Why open the seal and enter the Hellmouth before the spell was cast? Why even bother doing any of that when they could just send Spike and his destroy-everything amulet down there instead?

- What exactly was the amulet? Who made it? When was it created? Was it intended for this specific occasion, or for any apocalypse scenario?

- Buffy’s plan involved Andrew, Anya, Dawn, Xander, Wood and Giles being able to defeat multiple Turok-hans, when twelve episodes ago, a single one was able to completely batter a Slayer. Hmm...

- What happened to Turok-han strength, and staking them being like “driving wood through solid steel”? How was Anya(!) able to defeat two or three with a single sword stroke?

- Why did Buffy even need her human allies stationed in the school? They didn’t really need to fight themselves – the daylight would keep any escaped vampires trapped within the school grounds, and allow the Slayers to finish them off (or they could make like S3 and just blow the building up again).

- This episode states that the Seal is the doorway to the Hellmouth, which contradicts multiple things we were told and shown earlier in the series. Why didn’t we see any Turok-hans when the Hellmouth was opened in “Prophecy Girl” and “The Zeppo”, and why were there no other types of monsters (like that tentacle thing from those episodes) in the cavern?

- The Seal needs to work in the same manner each time it’s used. In “Never Leave Me” and “First Date”, it functioned by summoning exactly one Turok-han, and then closing. However, it now opens up to reveal stairs into the Hellmouth, and no vampires emerge.

- Willow’s development was unsatisfying. After having so much time spent on her angsting over magic, she was suddenly completely fine with it, and even gets some poor symbolism (black hair – bad. White hair – good). And while her post-spell giggling on the floor was funny, shouldn’t she have gotten up and helped her friends fight?

- Buffy shrugging off a sword through the abdomen was ridiculous, and the First’s dialogue (“ow, Mommy, this mortal wound is all itchy”) was terrible. Yes, Slayers heal quickly, but not that quickly.

- The character deaths were flat and emotionless. I didn’t mind people being killed off, but Anya and Amanda deserved better (especially Anya, who’d been around for five years). In comparison, Spike’s was okay, but it didn’t really mean anything, and it’s undercut by knowing he’ll be brought back for “Angel”.

- While it tries to make a sweeping, pro-woman theme, said theme doesn't fit very well. In “Get it Done”, it was made clear that the Shadow Men forcing demonic power into the First Slayer was akin to rape, yet now, Buffy does just that to thousands of women, and it’s supposed to be empowering. She may have talked about ‘choice’ with the potentials, but the truth is they had none – she would have done it regardless. And while some women may have benefitted from what happened, an equal number may not have wanted Slayer powers (and thus responsibilities) – not to mention the social/political consequences (what happens if a whole bunch of Slayers are as dangerous as Faith was in S3)? What makes this even weaker is that at the end of the day, the Slayer activation meant nothing. It was Spike who ultimately destroyed the Turok-hans and the Hellmouth, undercutting the whole thing and making it completely irrelevant!

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

I enjoyed this episode just as much as I did before – it’s just that it doesn’t hold up to much analysis or critical thought. Still, the very long list of negatives can’t erase the qualities here, and unlike many S7 shows, this one at least expended some effort and tried to be good. “Chosen” isn’t a classic episode in any sense of the word, but it’s one of only a handful from the final two years I’ll watch with any regularity, and it managed to close the series in a reasonable manner. As such, I’ve opted to keep my previous score of a respectable five out of ten.