AH-HA!
Very good episode.
I noticed people posting who saw it also forgot to mention when Buffy was crawling out of that hole.
Giles was suppose to be up there waiting for her, but as soon as she comes out...he's not there! Where did he go???
She gets pulled back down then pulls herself back up, and the ubervampire thing comes up behind her.
NOW, then we see a sihoulette figure, a form of a person, a shadow, run up, with the rising sun behind it.
The light from the sun causes the super-vampire to retreat and drop back into hole.
Several things about this:
1. It is never revealed who this shadowy figure is, at least not to the audience, we assume it is Giles because Buffy returns home with him. But back at the X-Mas tree lot, in that particular scene, the shadowy figure never comes over to help her.
2. The shadowy figure, to me at first, didn't make me think this was Giles, but someone else. ALSO, the figure moved kinda weird, as if the shadowy form was animated or done with some special FX. If this was Giles, then why not show Giles?
3. Was the shadowy form trying to BLOCK THE SUN for the super-vampire???
4. Buffy staked the super-vampire...but it did not die. Therefore, we can assume regular anti-vampire stuff won't work on it. If the shadowy form was The First Evil, maybe it ran up to scare, or ward the super-vampire back down into the hole, as to, say, "not blow it's cover". Because if it cannot be killed via stake, then surely, you'd think it would be immune to sunlight (then again, why is it in a cave?). Maybe it can go in the sunlight but the first evil or whatever doesn't want anyone to know that.
5. After Buffy goes into the hole, Giles looks up. He looks up and there is wire with X-MAS lights on it. I thought maybe he was looking at this to maybe use as a rope for her, or himself, in case she got into trouble. BUT, obviously, this didn't happen, so what was he looking up at, cuz the camera angle us up and pointing down on him with the wire with the X-MAS lights clearing in front of the camera too, which seems kinda of unnecessary.
OTHER THINGS:
1. Principle Wood says things to Buffy at the desk that allude to him maybe being a good-guy after all. Maybe a "Guardian"-type of person. Then again, maybe he is actually evil and the not being able to forget about the evil (which we assume he saw and traumatized him) led to him converting over to evil.
Joyce seems to be telling Buffy that evil cannot be stopped, not even by...but then she gets cut off (maybe not by Clem? DOH! HAHAHAH!), God??? Or cannot even be stopped by...her, that is, Buffy? IF YOU REMEMBER an Angel episode, last season, Angel goes to Wolfram&Hart to contact the Senior Partners, and the elevator he does into seems to go through some hell-dimension place, but ends up...back on Earth in some park or whatever. And the guide there with him, dead-bad-guy, tells him that the Senior Partners aren't battling for evil to rule all, but to keep a balance cuz evil is everywhere...or something to that effect, kinda similar theme the Joyce character was saying, I think.
IN ANY CASE, Giles seemed to be telling Buffy...not much, and kinda indicating he didn't have answers and they were screwed. He seemed pessimistic, saying there was "internal bleeding" and wasn't sure if she could fight again and stuff, and she was overhearing this.
Maybe she realized Giles could be the First Evil and decided to make that speech, part of some secretly planned ruse.
Also, on the part where she mentioned she'd personally rip the first evil's heart out, the camera switches to Giles before switching back to her.
I think Joyce could be the real Joyce.
She kept telling Buffy things, like she needed to rest and all that.
If you remember an earlier episode, Spike was asking Buffy when they could rest and all of that.
And we all know this will probably be the last season of the show anyways, and that Faith seems to be getting set up to take over "slaying".
Maybe Buffy is getting "burned out", losing her touch, or her power, and that's going into Faith.
OR, maybe the only way she could defeat the first evil is if somehow her power is given up and joined with Faith. Maybe an "Uberslayer" for the "Ubervampire".
2. Principal Wood's full name is Principal Robin Wood. If I recall, Robin Wood is the name of some real-life Wiccan. (
www.robinwood.com ). Maybe his character is suppose to be some kind of wiccan/WARLOCK-guardian-type.
I mean, we've seen lots of witches in the show so far, WHAT ABOUT THE WARLOCKS?!?!??! Maybe he's a warlock or whatever.
3.OH, I forgot to mention, Giles, when he is talking about the 1st evil, says he could only take the form of those who've died. So, maybe Giles is dead. Or in a coma on life-support, between death and life and maybe at the end, Willow go visits him and heals him. Who knows. DOH!
4. The First Evil can touch stuff. When in the form of that one dead blonde chick who was talking to Willow, she, or it, was able to sit down in the chair at the table. We see Giles sitting or leaning against things in this episode.
5. Also, about the Ubervampire actually being immune to sunlight---when he killed Annabelle, he was obviously immune to her cross. So immune to stakes-in-heart, and crosses.
6. Continuity problems or something else going on(?): Giles says the super-vampire was rare and ancient and likely summoned by the First Evil. We assume there is only one, yet, there are likely MORE, I would think. Because we see Druisilla, we actually see morphing into her form, with the ubervampire. YET, we see the, or AN ubervampire fighting and later chasing after Buffy. In between scenes of Druisilla and the ubervampire there beating on Spike (yes, I noticed the water-drowning thing being a bit odd of a way to toture a vampire). ALSO, if Giles if the First Evil, how could be also be Principle Wood and Druisilla all at the same time? HMMMM.
LASTLY, why didn't the supervampire kill Buffy? How did the gang know where to find her? Know where to find her buried under a pile of debris as well?
If Giles is evil, why bother bringing the SITs all to Sunnydale (he said more were on the way, remember?) instead of just killing them?
Here's likely why:
1. If you kill one slayer, the slayer power could go into any one of the candidates. If they are all over the world, it would be kinda hard to then search the world looking for the new slayer, killing her, only to have the power jump into another slayer...on the other side of the globe or something. SO, maybe they want all the slayers-in-training in the same at the same time, so they can kill them all together at once. IF they killed Buffy now, the power would have likely jumped to some other candidate, SO, it would be in the 1st Evil's interest to keep her alive for now, until all the candidates were found.
2. Buffy is not killed, but left totally banged up. If they keep the slayer banged up and weak and injured, then she would be easier to kill in a front-on, massive-attack. And then go back to what I said, of the 1st Evil, not needing or willing to kill Buffy just yet.
3. What the heck was Willow trying to do when that spell backfired on them? I don't recall them ever explaining what the heck that was or what exactly they were trying to do. "It will only make me stronger."-it said through her. WELL, WHAT would only make it stronger? What was she attempting to do?
4. Principle Wood has seemed eager to keep Buffy close and all. To
watch her? I think that's obvious now. But for good or evil purpose?
5. Wood ran into Buffy in the basement, both had shovels. They seemed to be coming from opposite directions. Buffy and Dawn were leaving from having buried the evil seal back up. NOW, if he had dug it up already, why was he travelling to it with a shovel? (I missed the previous episode, was Jonathan's body still on it? Did Wood movie it or what? Whatever?). Maybe he was going to cover it up but they got to it before him. Also, is it me, or is there some kind of low-key attraction between Buffy and the principle?
6. How the heck is Faith going to get outta jail to fight in any of these battles or save-the-day stuff???
OH, and back to the Buffy speech and ruse-possibility thing:
Joyce was going to tell Buffy that evil was part of nature and that no one could stop it, not even...and I kinda think now, she was going to say that not even her, Buffy, could stop it.
NOW, if the 1st Evil's tactics are to mislead people, then maybe it actually wants Buffy to believe...SHE CAN WIN, but she actually can't, so that would lead to her right into a trap if she thought she could win.
BUFFY could have figured this out, and decided to play into this, pretending she believed they could all win, and maybe force the 1st Evil's hand, making it over-confident and all, and ready, her ready as well, for its next move.
THEN AGAIN (hahahah!), Anya commented on the name of it, "The First Evil", as kinda dismissed it, in that alot of things call itselves stuff like that.
CUZ, they don't truly know this is "the ultimate evil", they only know this from what IT, the "1st evil" is telling them, declaring this to them.
Remember the Buffy-on-the-computer scene, it seemed to imply they had no success on coming up with information, background, etc. on it. So who knows if this truly is "the first evil" if the only thing telling them this is "the first evil"? It sounds like this is just implied.
And Joyce was not telling Buffy she could not defeat the "first evil", but just "all evil" in general.
The only other info seemed to come from Giles, who is suspect, and stuff from Spike, who seemingly is able to be tortured with water/drowning????????????????
In short: wE DON'T QUITE KNOW WHAT'S GOIN' ON!
