Reviewed by Sanguine

Besides the musical episode and Jane Espenson's poignant After Life, the quality of Buffy has not been up to its usual standard this season. That's not to say Episodes 1-6 completely sucked; however, it was very obvious that all roads led to "Once More, With Feeling." After the major revelations of the musical, this reviewer, along with the Scooby Gang, wondered "Where Do We Go From Here?" By way of response, Rebecca Rand Kirschner provided a well-written and fast-paced hour of television. With her humourous and poignant Tabula Rasa, Buffy returned to its usual high standard.

The episode opens soon after the infamous Buffy/Spike liplock. Spike pursues his lady love (now clad in the white sweater coat of desperate chastity instead of the red and black ensemble of succumbing to sinister attraction). Spike wants to "talk" about what happened; Buffy does not. This follows a pattern we've seen before. After the cattle-prodding debacle of Crush, Spike also wanted to talk, to resolve their problems. In both Tabula Rasa and Crush Buffy responds by running away. In Crush she had a good reason to run from Spike. But in Tabula Rasa the tables have turned. If Spike knew what was good for him, he'd run from Buffy. She's treating him very unfairly, sending mixed signals ("I'll never touch you ever, ever again," followed by multiple incidents of Spike-straddling and the make-out session in the Bronze at the end of the episode). In keeping with the professed theme of the season, "Oh, grow up", this scene also reveals the immaturity of both characters. Spike is a "willing slave," completely subjugating his own identity in order to please his object of desire (he did this with Drusilla, too). He needs to find his own identity, one that isn't completely predicated upon pleasing his lover. Buffy also needs to "grow up," examine what she feels for Spike, and then come to a decision. In order to achieve these goals, both characters need to come to terms with parts of their personalities they don't like (for Spike, his lameness as a Big Bad, for Buffy, her attraction to darkness). And that's what Tabula Rasa was ultimately all about--identity. What if everything dropped away and you had no idea who you were? How would you behave?

Willow, a gal who shares Buffy's attraction to things sinister, inadvertently facilitates this psychological experiment. After promising Tara that she will abstain from magic, Willow, the addict, decides to do yet another mind-manipulation spell. She hopes to kill two birds with one stone, uh, spell, erasing both Tara and Buffy's memories in one fell swoop. Naturally, something goes terribly wrong (by now a rather hackneyed conceit in the Buffyverse) and everyone loses their memories. Willow's behaviour in this episode is completely reprehensible. Early in Tabula Rasa, Willow admits that bringing Buffy back from the dead was "selfish". She knows that manipulating natural laws to assuage her own pain is deeply problematic, but she does it anyway. She is no longer thinking rationally. As Tara succinctly puts it, "You're helping yourself now." Willow may know her spell-casting serves her own selfish agenda, but she is so frightened of being abandoned, of being alone, that she will do anything to avoid that pain. After Tara gives her an ultimatum (no magic, or I'm outta here), Willow plaintively asks, "Are you saying you're going to leave me?" Immediately, the scene cuts to another scene of leave-taking. Giles tells Buffy "I have to go." With this brilliant move, Buffy's fear of desertion and Willow's anxiety about abandonment are juxtaposed. Both characters are willing to do morally questionable and selfish things to avoid being alone. Willow uses magic. Buffy uses Spike.

But do Tara and Giles really have to go? Tara obviously needs to leave for her own safety. If she were to stay, she would only facilitate Willow's bad behaviour; Willow would experience no penalty for her misuse of magic. If Giles were to stay, Buffy would continue to float aimlessly above her life, refusing to deal directly with her problems. She needs to fight, to get her hands dirty, to experience the pain and frustration of living, to lecture her little sister when needed, to pay the bills, to leave the past (the pleasures of heaven, the pain of failed relationships), behind. While Giles's exit was hasty (and I'll miss Anthony Stewart Head) it is somewhat necessary. Since Buffy left high school, Giles's presence has seemed increasingly awkward (this was particularly true in Season 4, where he spent a lot of time drinking and depressed in his apartment). As Giles explains to Buffy, "I've taught you all I can about being the Slayer. And your mother taught you everything about life." It's time for her to stand on her own.

As the previous paragraph suggests, many of the Scoobies were dealing with identity crises even before Willow's misguided amnesia spell. Willow is no longer a geek, but can she be powerful and a good person? Spike needs to find an internal motivation to fight for good. And Buffy needs to balance her role as Slayer with her role as human being. In addition, Xander must adjust to his new role as fiancé. Anya is still trying to come to terms with the whole mortal coil thing. Dawn needs to learn who she is post-Key. The amnesia spell, while a humourous plot twist, also served as a great device for character development.

After awakening from a Willow-induced sleep, Spike, now dressed in the suit from Restless (he was hiding from a loan shark), yelps in a distinctly non-Big-Bad fashion as he falls off the counter. Xander wakes up next to Willow and begins to flirt. Xander then veers from horniness to paranoid insults as he wonders why he's with a bunch of freaks. Willow is still smart and observant and gay, but is far less malevolent. Spike thinks he is Giles's prodigal son and behaves accordingly (another shout-out to Restless, where Giles says that Spike is like a son to him). In a hilarious bit of laugh-out-loud comedy, Spike looks at his suit jacket liner and discovers that his outfit was made for Randy. Randy Giles? As good as Marsters and Head are at drama, watching the Giles/Spike comedy team in action was truly a treat. I'll miss that. Also on the significant name front, Buffy, who lacks I.D., decides to name herself after another famous female warrior (and martyr), Joan. Buffy's depression lifts and she is the old Slayer, bantering and self-assured. She takes charge and comforts Dawn, who reverts to her natural state as a frightened adolescent (her first words are "please, don't hurt me").

Some of the character's behaviour while under the influence of amnesia really made me wonder. Of course, Tara and Willow are still attracted to each other--that isn't surprising. But why are Anya and Giles so convinced that they are more than just business partners? The ring and waking up together seems insufficient evidence to leap to the conclusion that they are affianced. In any case, as Anya and Giles kissed I could only think, "Can I be blind, too?" Of more significance than the Anya/Giles make-out session/snark-fest, is Buffy and Spike's behaviour towards each other. Even though she doesn't remember who he is, Buffy-Joan is still protective of Randy-Spike. Ahem. Most puzzling of all, judging from Spike's post-amnesia behaviour, there's apparently nothing essentially evil about him. Even when in game face, he still doesn't know he is a vampire. He doesn't feel an overwhelming need to maim and kill. Spike wonders about his lack of homicidal feelings while Buffy is straddling him for the second time. She looks down at him and gets to the crux of their problem. "I kill your kind." He responds, "And I bite yours." But then, in a hilarious speech that gently mocks both Angel-fans and redemptionistas, Spike decides that he must have a soul and is therefore a "noble vampire. A good guy. On mission of redemption!" Buffy looks disgusted. "A vampire with a soul? Oh my God! How lame is that?" Spike then expounds at length about his noble struggle against his baser instincts (he must have visited the BAPS website ;-) until Buffy threatens to stake him.

As hilarious as these highjinks were, the amnesia spell had serious repercussions. The Scoobies all realise that Willow has tampered with their minds, and, I suspect, they resent it. Tara decides to leave Willow, for good. Buffy's bad memories come rushing back, and she sinks into depression. Giles realises he's kissing Anya, and feels that he must flee to England, posthaste. A lyric from the song performed at the end of the episode by Michelle Branch declares, "Goodbye to everything I knew." We see Scoobies packing and crying. Everything is changing in Sunnydale. As if to reinforce this point, the final shot is of two former mortal enemies passionately kissing each other. Buffy had better fasten her seatbelt. It's going to be a bumpy ride . . .