Chris Greenland: Season 8 has vastly increased the scope of these characters, taking them from Sunnydale and making their fight worldwide. In this arc we finally return to Sunnydale. Will this finale similarly reduce the book's scope back to the Scoobies?
Scott Allie: The final arc is all about bringin' it all back home. The first arc was called "The Long Way Home." This arc brings us back to Sunnydale. We are definitely reducing things. Yes.
Chris Greenland: Why was the Master chosen as the Big Bad behind it all?
Scott Allie: Is he?
Chris Greenland: Are we heading towards a magic-less Buffyverse? (Very strongly hinted at in the Fray mini-series and in this season's "Time Of Your Life" arc.) Is this one apocalypse our characters can't avoid?
Scott Allie: The world is not gonna end, but some big stuff is gonna happen, some things are going to change, and it will set us up for a very different approach to Season 9 than we had to Season 8. Our heroes can always avert apocalypse, but their choices are narrowing.
Chris Greenland: Is there anything in Season 8 (or earlier) that we'd do well to remind ourselves of as the final arc gets underway?
Scott Allie: We do dig up a lot of things in this final arc. There was a line in Brian K. Vaughan's arc (The Faith-centric "No Future For You"), "The Queen is dead..." That's gonna come back. The image Willow and Buffy saw in Buffy #10...
For readers who've got some time, I really think it'd be worthwhile to go back and read it all from the beginning in the next few weeks, so that when you're reading issues #38 & #39 it's all fresh. If you're like me, you won't remember all the stuff we dropped along the way that wasn't underlined and bolded. I think there will be some nice pay off for people who've read from the beginning.
