Time of Your Life: Part 3
I've been hesitating to offer a post on the canon changes in part 3. So much is up in the air, and not understood at this point one runs the risk of having to apologize for being wrong next month.
In fact let's start with that. I may have to apologize for a point made last month. It's because of this.
Last month Fray pegged Buffy as the "last girl". This appeared to place Buffy as the last girl in Urkon's tale of the last slayer in the final battle.
Buffy now appears to be qualifying this. She appears to be saying the books where Fray got the information leading her to believe Buffy was the "last girl", is fuzzy...unclear as to who actually did what.
Even more confusing, there is no mention in the books of Buffy's slayer army. Was the book edited? Was the past edited? At this point who knows? (I have a feeling I'll be saying that again in future paragraphs).
But Buffy appears to take enough from what she read in the books, and what she is seeing in the future to be knocked for a psychological loop. She's not happy. There's even tears.
Here's a problem with this issue from a canon perspective. Nothing much actually happens. Things are about to happen, but there's no real changes. Part 3 is about the set up.
Dawn and Xander are still running through the forest. Oh, one interesting thing there though. They meet talking trees. Dawn accuses them of being in "legend blend". This may be a sneaky general reference by Whedon not only to the unusual circumstance in this scene, but to background stuff in Season 8 in general. It's a writer's trick I've heard mentioned before. When you've introduced stuff that feels off, draw attention to it. In this way you let the reader know you get it too.
And even when something does happen you're not sure exactly what that is. Fray's vampire brother Harth goes to visit Gunther. Harth is up to something.
What though? Does he plan to kill Gunther, to kidnap him, to hold him down, and give him a stern talking to? Who knows.
We know this at least. Buffy is still a bad driver.
Fray and Buffy go Lurk hunting. They want to find out what Harth is up to. They find some.
Buffy has become a "big picture" kind of strategist. She wants to hold back, watch and see what the lurks are up to. This in spite of the fact humans are being attacked, and that's interesting, I think.
Fray, of course is Fray, and her solution is to jump into (if you'll excuse the expression), the Fray. Buffy holds back, watching.
Or as Fray puts it...
Fray chases the lurks off. Buffy follows. She finds lurk central, but not before she crashes her hover craft.
Back at the aftermath of the battle Fray meets Dark Willow.
DW wants to show Fray something. She conjures up a ball of green energy. This is interesting...
In the last issue Willow expressed concern who ever arranged the time transfer had more power than she did. Here it appears DW does not have much power. Is DW lying? Was Willow wrong? Is somebody else involved? Who knows?
We do know Buffy returns to Melaka's Watcher pad where she meets Melaka's sister, Erin. Buffy tells her she "thought about being a cop". That's a little more information than what What's My Line told us. Apparently a big consideration was she didn't like the outfits.
😉
Oh, but wait...we forgot Willow. Canony bits are happening to Willow.
Willow is still trying to figure out how to get Buffy back to the present. She wants to know why Saga Visuki appears to have set her up. She asks Kennedy to trust her. She is going to try contact SV.
Remember how in Anywhere but Here we were offered the disturbing image of Naked Willow with Saga Visuki. We are given some info to explain that particular outfit, or lack of one. In order for willow to enter Saga Visuki's plain of existence it appears to be necessary to be naked. Kind of a Terminator thing, I guess.
Willow tells SV it's tricky, and she can't stay long. I'm going to assume that's because she left naked from the room she was sharing with Kennedy after telling Kennedy "Trust me".
Saga Visuki suggests there's more to the story than her simply lying to Willow about the true nature of the time rift. She also appears to doubt Willow when she tells her she does not have the power to retrieve Buffy. But Willow says only somebody on the "deep dark" can do it. So what does that mean? Who knows?
We learn the information concerning the time rift did not come from Saga Visuki herself, but from "someone she trusted".
Who was that? Dark Willow? Twilight? Somebody we haven't met yet? You know the anwer by now. Starts with who, ends with knows.
We do discover the rift will open again "that night". Saga Visuki makes Willow promise when she retrieves Buffy she will not look across it.
Meanwhile back at Fray's Buffy has been having a big sisterly bonding session with Erin. All at once Fray walks in and zaps Buffy with a stun gun.
Whatever Dark Willow showed Fray it must have been some mean mojo, because when Erin asks her what she's doing she replies...
So what does that mean? Who knows? Hopefully next issue, we will.
