Villains

by Jerry

Following on the shocking events of Seeing Red, Villains, written by Marti Noxon, delves into the horrific consequences of Warren's shooting of Buffy and Tara, exploring in the process the cost of vengeance, the limitations of the Scooby Gang's mandate, and the consequences of overstepping those limits.

We open with the aftermath of Warren's shooting spree. An ambulance races to Revelo Drive, where Xander directs the paramedics to a gravely wounded Buffy in the backyard. Upstairs, a frantic, blood-splattered Willow cradles the lifeless Tara. Overwhelmed by grief, she calls upon her magic (which she had given up largely because of Tara anyway). Willow calls upon Osiris (or a messenger of Osiris, I suppose), begging for Tara's return. In a clunky bit of exposition, she's told that Tara's death was caused by natural forces (unlike Buffy's in 'The Gift') and cannot be undone. Willow lashes out with magic, apparently destroying might-be-Osiris. If you've always wanted to be Egyptian god of the dead, there may be an opening.

As the paramedics are wheeling Buffy to the ambulance, Willow emerges from the house and asks Xander what happened. He tells her it was Warren, and she coldly stalks away. Preoccupied by Buffy's condition, Xander manages not to notice all the blood on her shirt, and he leaves to go in the ambulance with Buffy.

At the Sunnydale police station, Andrew and Jonathan are stewing in their cell. They are stuck there because Andrew's aunt wouldn't return his one phone call (doesn't anyone have parents?). They bicker about Matthew Broderick (I'd have to vote for Ferris Matthew as well, though not in the way Andrew probably means), and Jonathan fumes about how Warren and Andrew betrayed him, and Warren betrayed them both. The still love-struck Andrew defends Warren, insisting he'll break them out. "Sure," Jonathan notes bitterly. "He's a nice murderer who keeps his word." Andrew continues to insist that Warren is hard at work on a brilliant plan of rescue.

We cut to Warren as he swaggers into a demon bar (Sunnydale is a one-Starbucks town, but it has at least three demon bars). He's a bit less than obsessed with the plight of his hapless sidekicks. Throwing money around, he brags to a nearby vampire that he's just killed the Slayer. Warren introduces himself as the leader of The Trio, expecting everyone will know who he is (like Willow's, Warren's road to hell is paved with the desire to stop being a geek and start being respected). They don't. He boasts that he finally found the key to killing Buffy - a gun. The demons join him in laughter, but he slowly realizes that it isn't "the evil laugh of victory" - they've heard on the news that Buffy survived, and they think Warren is screwed.

Willow bursts into the Magic Box, shattering lights with the power she's exuding without even trying. Anya can sense something is wrong, and tries to keep her away from the "Darkest Magik" part of the merchandise. Willow immobilizes Anya with a gesture, and magically gathers the books on the Round Table of Exposition and Demon-Vampire Sex. In an enormously cool visual, she physically absorbs the print from the books into herself, turning her eyes and hair jet-black in the process.

Dawn returns home to the empty Summers house. Wandering upstairs, she stumbles upon Tara's body in the bedroom. The scene flashes out to a white screen, which is unusual and could mean something I don't currently understand.

Now we are at Rack's. Warren is there, seeking help to deal with Buffy. Rack tells him killing a Slayer is a big job for a kid. Warren insists he's no kid, he's the leader of the infamous Trio. Rack is unimpressed. He informs Warren that the Slayer isn't really his problem - Willow is. "She's the new power. She's going to blow this town apart. Starting with you." He tells the confused Warren that someone is dead, and Willow's going to make him pay. Rack agrees to help (for money) even though he doesn't know if his help will be enough. Rack is impressed by the raw power of Willow's fury. "Hide or fight?", he asks. "Both", Warren answers.

At the hospital, Xander looks on helplessly through a window as the doctors work on Buffy. As Buffy hovers near death (although the TV news has already reported that she survived), Willow appears, with new black clothes to go with the black hair and eyes. The unflappable Sunnydale ER staff calmly leaves at her request, and Willow uses her powers to extract the bullet. So much for "the magical and the medical weren't meant to mix". A eerily detached Willow gathers in the bullet, and Buffy awakens. She notices the odd new look of Willow, who announces they have to go find Warren.

We see Warren board a bus for the border.

Xander Buffy, and Willow are on the highway outside of town in Xander's car, with Willow as magical backseat driver. Buffy expresses concern over Will using magic. Willow counters that if she weren't, Buffy would be dead. Good point (and one that underscores the flaw in the magic=drugs metaphor - there are few times when it's necessary to do heroin to save the world), and Buffy has to concede it, although she and Xander remain worried. Forcing Xander's car off the road as a shortcut, Willow pulls it to a stop along a highway. Striding into the middle of the road (after easily stopping Buffy and Xander from following), she forces the oncoming bus to a halt. Willow forces Warren off the bus, and grabs him by the throat for the kill. His left eye pops out, and it becomes clear that it's a Warren-bot (you knew we'd get one eventually). Presumably, Rack somehow allowed Warren to infuse the 'bot with his 'essence' (which probably isn't as icky as it sounds) to fool Willow. "We'll find him another way", Willow says, "and then we'll kill him." Buffy challenges her on this, telling her to calm down, and Willow finally reveals (in an disturbingly unemotional tone) that Warren killed Tara. Buffy is shocked, but remains committed to the idea that taking vengeance on Warren would destroy Willow. Xander's less preoccupied with the ethics than with the addiction - there might be no coming back from the consequences of the magic. "I'm not coming back", Willow coldly declares before zapping Buffy and Xander and vanishing from the scene.

Some time later, after sunset, Xander and Buffy return to the Summers household. Upstairs, Buffy finds Tara's body, and a traumatized Dawn curled up in a corner alongside it. "I didn't want to leave her alone", Dawn says. A bit later, the coroners office (who, this being Sunnydale, are as matter-of-fact as UPS guys) pick up Tara's body. The police have come and gone, and Buffy, Xander and Dawn talk about what to do. Dawn is fully supportive of Willow's efforts to kill Warren - she'd do it herself if she could. Xander is concerned about what taking vengeance would do to Willow, but he's all for Warren's death otherwise ("He's just as bad as any vampire" - quite a statement coming from the Xanman). Buffy continues to draw the line at executing humans. "We can't control the universe. If we were meant to, then the magic wouldn't change Willow the way it does." I'm not sure how much the magic has actually changed Willow's nature, but this seems to be a hint that we'll be asked to absolve her once the magic is gone. At any rate, Buffy pegs Willow's problem - she won't accept the world as it is when doing so is painful to her. That's what led her to resurrect Buffy, that's what caused her to attempt to curse Oz, and that's what put her on her current black magic binge.

They decide to go to the Magic Box to look for a way to track Willow. Dawn wants to come along (her desire to participate in the Slaying side of Buffy's life has been a recent recurring theme, which is probably heading somewhere), but Buffy says it's too dangerous. With Buffy, Xander, and soon Anya involved in the hunt, Dawn says she'd feel safest going to Spike. Buffy reluctantly (and given the events of 'Seeing Red', surprisingly) agrees. Xander is vehemently opposed, and it takes some effort from Buffy to keep him from blurting out the news of Spike's assault on Buffy. They move off to the foyer to discuss it. It's hard to explain why Buffy would still trust Spike with Dawn, but she does. She cites the chip as a reason to convince Xander, but she seems to truly believe that Spike wouldn't hurt Dawn even if he could.

Willow is in Tara's dorm room, holding her white shirt splattered with Tara's blood. She invokes a spell that creates a map on the shirt, revealing Warren's location.

In Spike's crypt, the TV is on, showing what I've been told is "Meet John Doe". I haven't seen it, so if it has any symbolic significance, someone else will have to figure it out. Buffy enters, followed by Dawn, and surprises - Clem ! After getting over being startled, Clem tries to play the good host (he's got Bugles and liverwurst, and can mix up some Country Time). Buffy wants to know where Spike is, and Clem informs her that he's left town. Buffy seems somewhat sad to hear this - it's pretty hard to figure out where she's coming from with respect to Spike, but her attitude does not suggest that she really takes the bathroom incident as seriously as an attempted rape would normally be taken. Perhaps she has finally realized all the pain she has caused Spike, and because of that is willing to consider forgiving him (rightly or wrongly). It's hard to say until we get another scene between them, or at least one of Buffy telling Dawn what happened. At any rate, Buffy asks Clem to keep Dawn company, and Clem agrees (they can watch 'The Wedding Planner'). As Buffy is leaving, she turns with some concern to ask when Spike will be back. Clem doesn't know, but thinks it may be a while.

We cut to what is, I think, supposed to be Africa. Pending any return to Sunnydale, it's not clear if this is a part of the same timeline as the rest of the characters, or if Spike has had weeks to reach his destination. He determinedly strides through an odd village, made up of huts with TV antennas, old tires, lawn furniture, hubcaps, and what seems to be a beer keg. Real African villages may well look more like this than I would imagine. A native warns Spike about something, but Spike (who apparently speaks the language) says he's not asking for permission and keeps going. He enters a cave, examining some very old cave paintings that seem as though they may have something to do with slayers and/or vampires. He comes upon the creature he's been seeking, an ominous-sounding but somewhat cheesy-looking demon with glowing eyes. Te demon observes that spike is there about a woman - the Slayer. Spike agrees ("bitch thinks she's better than me"), but attributes it all to the chip. "You want to return to your former self?", the demon asks, and Spike (who could perhaps benefit from Bill Clinton's ability to parse the literal legalities of a question) answers yes. The demon mocks him, noting that Spike was a "legendary dark warrior" who "let yourself be castrated". Spike insists he's still a warrior (he doesn't insist he's still a dark warrior), urging the demon to bring on the trials. "The bitch is gonna see a change", Spike mutters as the scene ends. He should be prepared for the fact that he's dealing with a Joss Whedon demon - one more likely to give him what he needs than what he wants.

At the Magic Box, Xander is assisting a slowly unfreezing Anya, who explains about Willow sucking up the Dark Arts department. Xander tries to break the news about Tara, but Anya already knows. Xander is looking for a way to track Willow, and Anya says she can do it, revealing in the process that she's gone back to the vengeance lifestyle. Xander takes the news that the woman he left at the altar has become an all-powerful creature of vengeance better than I would. As Buffy arrives, Anya says that she would have to help Willow normally, but Willow prefers to do things herself. Surprisingly, Anya says she will help Xander and Buffy try to stop Willow, which she says she's doing for Willow's sake. Back in 'Triangle', Anya observed that Willow was closer to being a vengeance demon that she herself was. Even though Anya has regained her demonhood, that still seems to be true.

A coldly determined Willow is making her way through the woods, in pursuit of a nervous Warren. He gets the drop on her and buries an axe in her back. for an instant, he's pleased to have killed her and eliminated the problem, but for magical reason's I'm unaware of, this doesn't slow Willow down for long. Warren takes off running. He unveils a winged metal box, which flies to Willow and explodes in a fireball. It's amusing to see how Warren oscillates between fear and arrogance whenever he thinks one of his gizmos is going to work. This time, Willow uses her magic to neutralize the blast. She materializes suddenly in front of Warren, eyes black with power. He tries to explain that it was an accident, he didn't mean to kill Tara. Willow points out that he did, however, intend to murder her best friend. Warren tries to run, but Willow channels some sort of power, knocking him down. Warren throws a sphere at Willow that encases her temporarily (and might have killed her if she lacked the power to break out) and he makes his escape. Will's eyes go red as she busts out (it seems red eyes are even more evil than black ones). With a word, she causes Warren to get grabbed and immobilized by roots and branches.

We are now in a situation where admitting defeat and accepting prison might be a good strategy, but Warren's misogynistic ego is ill-suited to that. "You're really asking for it", he tells Willow, threatening make her beg to join Tara in death. Realizing he's killed before, Willow conjures Katrina to confront Warren. He reminds himself it's a trick, not wanting to confront his actions. Then he shouts at Katrina that she deserved it. Willow points out that Warren killed Katrina because he couldn't handle the feeling that she had the power in their relationship. Willow suggests that Warren's desire to kill the Slayer was the embodiment of his issues with strong women. She's being evil at the moment, and the evil characters are never wrong about this stuff, so I'm thinking authorial voice here. This makes an interesting contrast/comparison with Spike, the slayer of Slayers. We've seen Spike rail against women in 'Crush', and treat Harmony awfully at times, but he has an underlying romanticism in place of Warren's inner louge lizard.

Anya is leading Buffy and Xander through the woods towards Willow. She notes that Warren is still alive, meaning Willow isn't done.

Warren is yelling for help. Willow tears his shirt open as he tries to say he's sorry. She pulls out the bullet she extracted from Buffy, and propels it very slowly into Warren's chest. In a chillingly matter of fact voice, Willow describes the path of the bullet through the body. Warren begs her to stop, but she magically sews his mouth shut to silence him while she continues the torture. She finally summons some emotion as she turns the talk back to Tara, describing the arbitrariness of Tara dying and Warren living.

As Warren squirms frantically, we see Anya, Buffy, and Xander continue to approach through the woods. Willow unzips Warren's lips and he begs her to stop, assuring her that she's not the kind of person who can do this. Buffy calls out to Willow as they approach, and Warren thinks he can get Willow to relent with the approach of her friends. "Bored now", she replies, echoing the famous catchphrase of her vampire self as she skins him alive with a single gesture. Even Anya, who's been known to smile longingly at the memory of eviscerations, is horrified. As Buffy asks her what she's done, Willow incinerates the body. "One down..." she says as she teleports away, an alarming line when the next episode is titled "Two to Go".

Since the episode is called Villains, I guess it's worth considering who exactly is or is not a villain here. Anya is a vengeance demon, but recognizes that taking vengeance is a bad thing for Willow to do. Her villain credentials are shaky. Spike is working towards recovering his villainous past, but we don't actually see him do anything evil. Warren is devoid of any redeeming qualities, does atrocious things, and offers repulsive and misogynistic defenses for his actions. And yet Willow, who we have generally seen as the nicest and most sympathetic of all the characters, is the one who winds up committing the truly appalling acts. 'Softer Side of Sears' Willow has left the building, and there's no going back.

-- Jerry

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