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So I'm first rewatching some season 7 BTVS episodes for the first time since quite a while (a good experience, too, I might add, more about that later), and then I start season 4 of Six Feet Under. And in the second episode of that fourth season, there is this scene of Claire and friend attending a punk poetry/performance session, and who should show up in a cameo but Tom Lenk. I was sitting in front of my tv screen and yelled "ANDREW!"

Now I have to know: are there any BTVS (or A:TS)/ Six Feet Under crossovers? Because they must be written, given that the Fishers live in Los Angeles. I even have the weird idea of letting Nate Senior's ghost hang out with Darla's ghost and banter about significant others and kids. *g*

Anyway: back to my season 7 rewatch. Which was Selfless till Showtime these last days. Season 7 isn't controversial the way 6 is (i.e. with people taking a love or hate position), it's just regarded as weak, and I agree there are signs of exhaustion, plus the Big Bad doesn't work the way it should, but there is still so much about it which does work for me and which I like that I'm currently feeling all warm and fuzzy about it. It doesn't have my passionate adoration the way, say, season 4 of AtS does, just the fondness for a dear friend who managed to put on socks with two different colours in the morning without noticing but still cheers me up by being himself. I feel similar about season 5 of AtS, so maybe it's a last season thing for me.

Selfless, Drew Goddard's debut, rocks both as the Anya background story it primarily is and as a continuity orgy, from Willow using the talisman D'Hoffryn gave her to the big scene between Buffy, Xander and Willow with its back references to Becoming. I love all the detail, like the blood on the gloves Anya and Halfrek are wearing during the Russia flashbacks (nobody ever mentions it, the camera doesn't draw particular attention to it, but it's clearly visible), the bloody scratches on Buffy's back - Buffy getting more and more scarred is an ongoing visible and emotional theme this season - or the Mustard Man and the Parking Ticket Lady (i.e. David Fury and Marti Noxon) singing in the background of the musical flashback. Incidentally, on the audio commentary, Drew Goddard says he originally wanted to do the Anya-defining-herself-through-Xander scene as a flashback to Hush but then thought it's hard to get the point across when there is utter silence, so picked the musical instead. When he told this to Joss, Joss said he really couldn't write another song, and Ultimate Drew was crushed, but the very next morning our Mr. Whedon showed up with a new tune for Anya to sing. Said audio commentary also contains some useful information about Joss as head producer (you know, that thing fannish lore has him not doing anymore the last seasons) as Drew mentions how he (Joss) sketched out the act breaks to him. The last scene between Xander and Anya is pure Whedon, as Drew said he didn't feel able to write it.

Selfless brings on both the funny and the tragic - the gag with the scratchy film and the subtitles for the early flashbacks never gets old, though I bet anyone listening to this in Sweden must feel like I do each time I hear someone on Alias pretending to speak German. And Anya going from blissful bride to stabbed through the heart in more than one sense, to her reaction when D'Hoffryn kills Hallie in front of her is heartbreaking. At the same time, this episode doesn't show us exclusively Anya The Wronged Woman but keeps a balance. When D'Hoffryn during his original recruiting speech says she'd punish only those who deserve it and Anya replies "they all deserve it", she signs on to the death of however hundreds and hundreds died during her millennium as a vengeance demon, and the Russia flashback showcases her complete indifference to the victims of her mayhem. In contrast, of course, to her reaction in the teaser when she's sitting among the slaughtered frat boys, which is also a rare case of the camera lingering on victims unknown to the viewer. In Beneath You when Buffy & Co. came to the Bronze after Anya had transformed Ronnie into a giant worm, Buffy carried her sword with her and put it on the table in front of Anya, which is a clear warning. In this episode, she actually uses it. At the time when it was originally broadcast, there was a big debate as to whether or not Buffy is unfair/too quick/too cold when deciding to kill Anya, and of course her "I am the law" was quoted without the context of the preceding or concluding words (the last thing Buffy says in that scene is, in reply to Xander's "there has to be another way", "then please find it"). I stand by my original opinion. "There is only me. I am the law," is said with much sadness, not in a self-righteous way. Anya has become a demon again and for the second time (Ronnie being the first) has used her powers to cause serious physical harm to humans.

(By contrast, Warren, had he survived, could have been put in jail for shooting Tara and - depending on whether or not Jonathan would have testified - killing Katrina. These weren't just human crimes but crimes performed without mystical aid in a manner that was provable to human justice, so Buffy arguing in Villains that killing Warren isn't something the Slayer can do is no contradiction.)

I think it's also significant that Buffy when fighting with Anya doesn't make any quips - which Anya remarks upon - but is silent, except for that "I'm sorry, Anya" before she stabs her. No, she doesn't want Anya dead. But she does think it is her task to kill her if nobody can find an alternative, which, as I mentioned above, Buffy is open for.

What makes the big argument so good is that you can see both Xander's and Buffy's pov, but imo Xander is losing it the moment he says "if you knew what I felt". And you can see how her "I killed Angel" retort hits him, even before Buffy says "Do you remember giving me Willow's message: Kick his ass". Ever since starting his relationship with Anya in season 4, Xander never seems to have drawn parallels between it and Buffy's relationships first with Angel, then with Spike. He calls Anya "my demon" in his dream in "Restless" and sings "am I marrying a demon?" in OMWF, when he has no control over his subconscious, but consciously, he seems to put Anya into a completely different category, even though she speaks as gleefully of her vengeance demon days as soulless Spike ever does of his past. Until this point, when he can't avoid the parallels any longer.

Another thing: I had forgotten that Willow - who is probably the one of the core four I am least emotionally invested in - becomes some I do like very much in season 7. She's a sadder, wiser woman, and her help for Anya - whom she always had issues with - comes without fuss, with efficiency, and with compassion that comes from having been in that place herself.

Conversations with Dead People isn't just one of my fave season 7 episodes but one of my all time favourite BTVS episodes, and that rare thing, an instance of many cooks not spoiling anything. As mentioned in the audio commentary and in many an interview before, only Jane Espenson and Drew Goddard are in the credits but it was in fact co-written by Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon as well, with Joss writing the Buffy-Holden scenes and Marti the Willow-Cassie scenes. And of course Cassie is a last minute replacement for the First-as-Tara due to Amber Benson not being available. Which works amazingly well, because it fits with Willow's idea of herself as unworthy of seeing Tara.

Each of the four different plot threads bear rewatching - Jane E. is a comedy writer most often, but some of the Dawn scenes are among the creepiest scenes in the show - that short flash of Joyce's body on the couch, for example, or the "mother's milk is red today" on the wall. Marti wrote some of Aly Hannigan's most memorable Willow scenes in Wild at Heart or New Moon Rising, so it's not surprising that Willow in the library with her grief for Tara and her final realisation that she's getting played when Cassie/FE suggests suicide are so affecting. And I love the Jonathan and Andrew scenes with their mixture of humour, creepiness (FE/Warren's appearance in the basement still freaks me out) and tragedy, as Jonathan finally comes to terms with his life, isn't looking to be a superhero or a supervillain anymore, has gotten over High School and its wounds and grudges, just wants to help - and dies. As

andrastewhite once put it when we were discussing the Trio, it's infinitely sad - and yet fitting from a storytelling pov - that Jonathan, trying so hard for seven years to insert himself into the narrative, dies just when there would have been room for him, and when he's not trying anymore. His place in the BTVS narrative is taken over by the one who kills him: Andrew.

I remember that back in season 6, I was sure Andrew - the least mature, weakest member of the Trio - would die before the season ended. In season 7, after he killed Jonathan, I was also dead certain; at that point, I suspected he'd be the equivalent of Gollum. But he didn't die - and I think the reason is pretty much laid out in the final scene of Storyteller - and I'm grateful for it. Andrew is one of the endearing aspects of season 7 to me. The death of Jonathan makes him a murderer, after he was already co-responsible for covering up manslaughter (Katrina) and of course co-responsible for brainwashing her and bringing her into a situation which, if she hadn't snapped out of the cerebral dampener effect, would have ended in rape. (And then there were the various miseries inflicted on Buffy throughout season 6, which included the attempt to frame her for murder and driving her nearly insane via poison.) As opposed to Jonathan - who woke up after Katrina's death and realized what exactly he had signed on for - and Warren (who also woke up and realized, but as opposed to Jonathan concluded it wasn't bad at all), Andrew as of Conversations with Dead People is still living in his dream world. And he even tries to rewrite his murder into something that fits by casting himself as a tragic, noble figure; dare we say, someone like a vampire with a soul (of which there are two around as of that point in the Jossverse time line, and Andrew at the start of Sleeper wears an outfit clearly modelled on Spike's), a rogue Slayer, or a fallen Watcher? (That's the challenge of the Trio anyway - they present the audience which narratives that evoke a very different response when occupied by sexy, glamorous characters.) Which is exactly why killing off Andrew, in a Gollum fashion or otherwise, would have been completely the wrong thing to do. Andrew gets to wake up and to live.

My own personal favourite scenes in Conversations with dead People, though, are the ones between Buffy and Holden. (BTW, thank you, audio commentary, for clearing something up I've been wondering about, which is the order in which Jonathan D. Woodward played his three characters - first Holden on BTVS, then Tracy on Firefly, then Knox on AtS.) Holden Webster is about the most memorable one shot character since the Gentlemen showed up, and definitely the most interesting vampire since Spike and Dru came to town. (Mr. Trick never did anything for me.) The casting helps - Woodward is just so damm likeable - but you do see these were written by Joss, imo. There is never any question as to whether or not Buffy will in the end kill Holden, and the script doesn't downtalk to us by pretending to go for a "OMG, can she beat him?" thing, and that adds to their poignancy. And they're both emotional and witty and endlessly quotable, from "Buffy, I'm here to kill you, not to judge you" to "Oh my god - well, not my god, because I defy him and all his works - is there any word on that, by the way? Does he exist?" to Buffy explaining vampire terminology to Holden ("it's 'sire' - that word when you turn someone into a vampire? It's also noun!"). Holden is just so perfect as the stranger Buffy opens up to because he's both a vampire and someone who was in High School with her, thus combining her two worlds. What she tells him regarding her relationship with Spike and about her feelings in general could in the hands of a lesser writer come across as anvilly meta, but in these scenes, it just feels natural, both the "the last guy I was with, I treated him like a monster", "he loved me, but I didn't want to be loved" and the confession of feeling at the same time better and worse than anyone, inferior to her friends and superior at once.

The question of whether or not Buffy loved Spike was violently debated by 'shippers and anti-'shippers alike, and probably still is. To me, their relationship in season 7 is the necessary counterpoint to their relationship in season 6, and the most significant thing Buffy does isn't to say "I love you" at the end but two earlier statements. One in Sleeper: "I'll help you". And one in Never Leave Me - "I believe in you". Both of which she proves to be true. Buffy and Spike both damaged each other in season 6; and I think that helping Spike, Buffy also recovers that part of herself which was lost in her own personal post resurrection hell. If he's able to bring out the worst in her, he's also able to bring out the best. Because it really would be easier for her to stake him - what the First had him do certainly provides all the excuse of the world if she needs one -, or to just send him to Los Angeles in his unstable emotional state, asking Angel to take care of him. Spike as an ally in purely pragmatic terms doesn't become useful until months later. She helps him because he needs help. And her faith - especially for someone like Buffy with her intimacy and trust issues ever since Angel - is a more important thing to give him than her body in season 6 ever was.

What strikes me about Sleeper and Never Leave Me as well is, as indicated, the ongoing parallelling of Andrew and Spike. They both get used by the First at the same time, they both end up at Casa Summers at the same time. And incidentally, it's also true for Andrew that, once he has spilled his information on the First, there are no real pragmatic reasons to keep him around regarding his usefulness. And he probably could have been handed over to the police for the attempted bank robbery in Seeing Red, if not for the death of Jonathan (remember, the body has dissappeared). Chances are, though, that Andrew would either have gotten killed by the Bringers or if left on his own would have completed his development to sociopath. (Sleeper does contain the hint Andrew isn't irredeemable, of course, by letting him refuse to commit another murder since Jonathan's wasn't enough.) The acerbic, unsentimental hospitality he gets instead (going from prisoner to "guestage" to comrade in the fight) works an unspectacular but effective rehabilitation therapy instead. Is it just that Andrew gets this second chance instead of doing jailtime? Probably not, but then again: getting what you "deserve" is not something any of the three shows Joss Whedon created presents as something necessarily good. When characters declare "they all deserve it" like Anya does in her Selfless flashback, or that someone doesn't deserve mercy, as a distraught Buffy does in I've only got eyes for you when she projecting herself on James the ghost, they're usually either on their road to villainy or just plain wrong.