Anya's latest vengeance effort has left 12 frat boys dead, their hearts ripped out. Feeling this is suspiciously like overkill, Buffy decides that Anya will have to die.
As Buffy herself says, it's been a while coming, but this day has been on the cards for a long time. The trouble is that it doesn't offer a great deal that's new even if it has some inspired ideas. For a start, it's the fullest insight into Anya we've ever had, looking at her early life and how she became the person she is today. What it doesn't do, for some reason, is full in all the blanks. After she goes out of her way to mention how nice rabbits are, there's no explanation of the event that caused her to develop her huge anti-bunny phobia. When D'Hoffryn appears to her the first time, while he says she is Anyanka deep down, there is nothing that reveals why she is then living in Norway under the name of Aud with little knowledge of what she is. There seem to be bits missing somewhere.
Elsewhere, there's a lot of good stuff. The Norway parts are simply wonderful, with some superb subtitling and the way it's been doctored to look like grainy old film stock, even though it's set way before cameras were created. Then there's the spider creeping up on Willow which is fantastic, although better is the resurrection of Evil Willow again when she zaps the spider and insults the crying girl at the frat house. It's so sudden and surprising that it's even more creepy and demonstrates that our loveable little Wiccan still has a monster inside wanting to take over. Xander continues to be Buffy's most useful ally, once more taking sidekick duties, and the pair really are starting to be more of a force to be reckoned with, even if Xander should be seen to be more proactive.
It's certain key scenes that work best though. The confrontation between Buffy, Willow and Xander about Anya is well handled, Xander forced to admit he still loves Anya and Buffy explaining just why she has to kill Anya, that in matters of demon-killing, she is the only authority. It's an effective reminder of what she does, however hard it might be, and when her friends come down hard on her, you're itching for her to remind them how much she's lost doing her Slayer work. And once she mentions Angel, you know she's won. How soon her friends seem to have forgotten. On top of this, the episode as a whole finally demonstrates that demons are, traditionally, evil, and Buffy must put them down. We've been seeing down-on-their-luck demons, nice demons, ineffective demons and so on for so long that it's good to see just how vicious they can get here. Anya and Buffy's fight is excellent, and you see someone who really is a match for the Slayer for a chance, and D'Hoffryn, long painted as a bit of a soft touch, is very much a malevolent and powerful force here. It's about time.
The end is a bit of letdown, however. It's obvious where D'Hoffryn is going when he makes a deal with Anya, and you still know deep down that even Buffy won't kill her, even though she gives it her best shot. A better approach might have been to keep Anya as a vengeance demon and show her really embracing her abilities again and frequently pitting herself against Buffy. Still, it will be interesting to see where things go from here; it's just a shame that it once more feels as though the writers will have trouble finding reasons to write Anya into the stories. Oh yes, and I loved the song in the Once More, with Feeling flashback. Nicely written. So I'm awarding this a three, but a high one.
***
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