The End of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

Maybe it’s hard to take a TV show titled “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” seriously. Sounds stupid. I tell people how great the show is, and most of them stare at me contemptuously. Fine. Who cares. Their loss. “Buffy” is the best TV show I have ever watched, and it’s among the greatest products of human imagination in my opinion. True, there were few bad episodes, but often it reached incredible heights of artistic accomplishments. For me, the name of Joss Whedon, the creator of “Buffy,” belongs in the same rank of geniuses as Chaplin and Hitchcock.

I hate to sound like a member of a cult (although I may be one), so it’s time to talk about the end of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” There are only four episodes left that have not been aired yet at this point. Obviously, I am hoping that the show ends on a high note. I am sure different fans have different wishes about how the show should end. Here is what I want to see in the final Buffy episodes:

1. Fight the Inner Demon

Lots of people see “Buffy” as some sort of feminist manifesto, about this small girl fighting the evils of this world through slaying vampires and demons. This “Buffy as a modern day Joan of Arc” theme brought great emotional qualities to some early episodes, but I think this aspect of the show has ceased to be interesting. We know Buffy can kill bad demons no matter how powerful they are.

Instead, I have begun to see “Buffy” increasingly as a meditation about life. It’s not the action scenes that take the center stage of this show; it’s dialogues among the main characters. Believe it or not, I think this show seriously is attempting to answer the question everyone struggles with: what is the purpose of life?

As a result, the show has increasingly attained philosophical and psychological depth. Some of the best episodes in recent years (“Restless,” “The Body,” “Normal Again,” “Conversations with Dead People”) have not been about Buffy fighting the physical fight; instead they looked inward into Buffy’s soul and dissected per psyche.

So personally, I don’t want fighting galore in the final episodes. Simply kicking Evil’s ass is beneath this show. I want Evil conquered through psychological drama. With strong and penetrating dialogues. Don’t think Jackie Chen, aim for Dostoevsky.

2. Conclude the Spike Saga

Of all the characters on the show, Spike is the most interesting one in my opinion. He has gone through so many changes. After starting out as an evil vampire, he is currently on the side of the good, and his conversion has been a slow, complex process.

I think that the show needs to conclude this Spike Saga brilliantly and strongly. Maybe Spike will perish as a martyr and hero, and that may be a logical conclusion of his story. But I wish that the Spike Saga will not meet a predictable end, because his transformation has been nothing but predictable.

3. Stay on the Course

An interesting thing about “Buffy” is that no major character has ever attained any sort of permanent happiness. In fact, most of the characters have experienced a major tragedy or two, and there had been no lasting romantic relationship on this show. I don’t know why that is, but I think we should keep it that way. I don’t want to see an artificial happy ending. I want a gritty, sad ending, because “Buffy” has always been at its best depicting sadness, not happiness.

4. Surprises

Finally, I want some juicy surprises. “Buffy” has always managed to surprise its viewers. Sometimes, it was just great storytelling, other times it was somebody’s imagination going crazy. Sometimes, it was just about breaking some TV taboos. I have a tantalizing feeling that greatest surprises are yet to come.

4/29/03