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EW.com rates the ''Buffy'' finale | buffyht_l
SISTER ACTION Glory (Kramer, at r.) holds a key plotline, Buffy's sister Dawn (Trachtenberg), in her hot little hands
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Randy Tepper/The WB
By Jeff Jensen
Jeff Jensen
Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''

As I sat there after the season finale of ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' Tuesday night, trying to scoop my jaw up off the floor, one line kept echoing in my head: ''Hey kid. Wanna see a trick''? Because that's what I just saw: a spellbinding bit of sleight of hand, performed by ''Buffy'''s master magician, series creator Joss Whedon. His trick: salvaging an inconsistent season with a single, mesmerizing hour of TV.

By now, we should expect nothing but magic from Whedon when he writes and directs. Last year, he was robbed of an Emmy for the silent thriller ''Hush.'' He'll be robbed again this season if he doesn't win for ''The Body,'' that eerily observed study of reactions to the death of Buffy's mom, Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland). May 22's ''The Gift,'' ''Buffy'''s last original episode on the WB (it will move to UPN next season), wasn't as audacious as those previous two, but it was every bit as riveting and entertaining.

The plot was simple: Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar, in top form) versus demon deity Glory (Clare Kramer) for all the marbles. Those marbles: Buffy's sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), the incarnation of a magic key, and the continued existence of our universe (with said key, Glory could unleash Armageddon).

I've thundered on before about how Glory hasn't lived up to the show's tradition of great villains, and I still believe that. But Glory was almost beside the point last night; what carried the episode was the great depth and feeling Whedon created for his glorious crew of characters. Buffy, coolly resigned to apocalypse if preventing it meant killing Dawn (but threatening to kill any of her friends if they made a move against her sister); Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Anya (Emma), finding a moment for ''inappropriate sex,'' followed by Xander's touching marriage proposal; Spike (James Marsters), the vampire turned chivalrous knight, thanking Buffy for treating him ''like a human, like a man''; Willow (Alyson Hannigan), ''stronger than all of us,'' as Buffy said, wielding her witching power to get some payback against Glory; Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), killing Glory / Ben (Charlie Weber) with cold blooded calm; and Buffy again, finally understanding her ''gift of death,'' sacrificing her life to save us all.

Too much good stuff. And we didn't even cover how Whedon skillfully tied up dangling plot threads and incorporated seemingly innocuous elements from previous episodes to great effect. The Hammer. The Buffybot. And best of all, Doc, the slithery sycophant played by ''Cabaret'''s Joel Grey, who issued that aforementioned ''trick'' line while whipping out one of those scary serial killer knives and slashing ''shallow cuts, shallow cuts'' into Dawn. Truly, the stuff of nightmares. In his handful of appearances, Grey brought more menace than a season's worth of Kramer's screeching. Let's hope we haven't seen the last of him.

Now we have the summer to wonder how Whedon and Co. will bring Buffy back from the dead (easily the best cliffhanger on TV).


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Posted May 23, 2001 | Order Article Reprints
 

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