BtVS S8.21-25

[hazelk]

So with this issue rounding off an arc that’s been more like a zoo, time to look back and see whether the whole thing fits together. Five stories in search of a theme and the obvious thing they have in common is suggested by the collective title Predators and Prey. But who’s really who in the supernatural food chain? Vampires eat people, Slayers slay vampires. The first issue postulates a revolution that will be televised as viewers decide that vampires are really symbiotes and Slayers the common enemy. Except that what actually happens is Harmony kills Soledad. Slayers come under attack again in Swell and although this time they turn the tables on the would-be nemesis the episode still ends with them in hiding from a predatory media. In the eponymous central issue Slayers prey on humans and on each other. In Safe a town peopled with Hammer Horror extras feeds Slayers to a monstrous protector but in Living Doll the potential people-eaters turn out to be drunk and delusional, well-intentioned if patriarchal or Kenny makes three. Which brings things back around to the original point about the power of spin just in time for the next phase of the story to begin.

Thematics, schematics. Considered as a stand-alone this is a Dawn episode. This is *the* Dawn episode, the third and final transformation, which allows her to become a real girl again. Cabin in the Woods meets Dollhouse but Gepetto only wants to keep her safe (the big crack in her head does heal as a result of his knife work). However, humans are contrary and finally having someone to watch over her 24/7 is the one thing Dawn needs to discover she doesn’t want to be saved. So obviously that’s exactly when two champions (maybe they’re like buses) turn up to do just that. Her sister and her ex. Sorry! Nakedness! Let’s go home.

In retrospect each of the issues following Harmonic Divergence has ended with some kind of reconciliation within the Slayer ranks. Satsu worked through her post-Buffyness and bonded with Kennedy. Andrew discovered he was part of the team. Faith moved on from her initial ambivalence bringing her and Giles back into the game Twilight had celebrated them leaving. Dawn and Buffy is the big heartwarming one but could it all have happened much earlier and with less mighty morphin’ Dawn? Couldn’t she have called Kenny in #1? Couldn’t Buffy have ordered Willow transport him. Couldn’t Willow have thought to do so herself? Couldn’t Xander have suggested it? Can’t people just say what they mean and mean what they say? Dawn tells Kenny sex with him would have been too intense. She tells Buffy she dated a thricewise and pissed him off to create a rescue Dawn sitch (not the movie). She’s a liminal being, part girl part woman, a feeble giant, a mighty freak and a doll with soul. Buffy is part Slayer part sister and therein lies every working parent’s dilemma. In her dreams she blames herself not Kenny for Dawn’s extravagantly visible, attention-grabbing issues (but as long as she’s visible she’s safe). The one thing nobody seems in the least ambivalent about is Kenny being a three-eyed, giant squid-thing. Love across phyla is many splendoured and the thricewise community adds yet another shade to the rainbow alliance of shapeshifters, tricksters and legend blender rejects who Twilight seeks to banish along with that uppity Slayer and her monstrous, demon-killing spawn.