Willow

Buffy, episode 3.09

("The Wish")

 

 

Vague storyline that bears little in common with the actual storyline... :-)

 

Demon's to kill. What kills a demon? A nerf! No, not Nerf. Knife!

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But, demon killed. All in a day's work.

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Now a thoughtful moment, reflecting on how the group dynamic (see Lover's Walk) fell apart the way it did. Can Xander ever make it up to Cordelia after some 60 or 70 messages on her answering machine? Can Willow make it up to Oz?

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As that is Cordelia's hand holding the burning photo, one would assume Cordelia isn't interested.

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Willow wants to know if Oz has shown up.

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When she finds him, he wants her to leave her alone. He says Willow only really wants to talk things over to make herself feel better, he can't help there. He just wants time to think it through, alone.

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Introducing Anya. Who makes friends with Xander Harris' cast off, sorry, I mean Cordelia.

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At the Bronze, and not feeling in a party mood.

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And Willow not wanting Xander to touch her, anywhere.

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So next day Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. To Anya. Anya says done, and so it was.

Buffy was a no-show.
Everybody wore drab clothes (bright clothes attack vamps) and the place hit curfew as soon as the sun started to go down. Sunnydale was a rather different place.
Oh, Willow and Xander were killed. And brought back as vampires. The Master (the season one Big Bad) rose and ruled.

Here, Cordelia, out at night and totally clueless, is quizzing Xander and Willow on their leather look, and why in an alternate dimension, those guys are still together!

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Time to play.

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That's when Xander vamps out. The "White Hats" (Giles, Oz, Larry, and Nancy) come to the rescue and save Cordelia.

But it isn't long before the Master's most viscious recruits (Willow and Xander) kill Nancy and make moves on Cordelia, with Giles watching helplessly trapped in the cage in the library.

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Giles, briefly mourning the loss of Cordelia, instructs Larry and Oz to take her to the incinerator.

Time for Willow to play with the dog.

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Playing, means a little torture.
The dog, it turns out, is Angel.

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"Bored now."

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Human blood, fast-food mass-production style. It sucks the blood from a living (for freshness) person.

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Buffy turns up, summoned by Giles and sporting an attitude and looking bored out of her mind.

So Giles tells her about the Master. And Buffy goes to kick ass. Meanwhile Giles summons Anyanka.

In the fight at the factory, Buffy's fight, Angel is staked.
Xander is staked.
Willow is staked. In this picture, Willow is bursting into ashes, if you look really closely.

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After a brief fight with the Master, the Master breaks Buffy's neck...

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...and she falls slowly to the floor. Dead.

 

The Scooby Gang are gone.
Angel is gone.
Buffy is dead.
Anyanka has Giles pinned to the wall. Soon he'll be dead.
The remaining two White Hats will soon be de-lifed.

It is then that Giles spots the necklace around Anyanka's neck. Her power centre.

Wrenching it off and throwing Anyanka free, the power centre is smashed, rendering Anyanka mortal and reversing the spell.

 

We return to the moment Cordelia wishes Buffy never came to Sunnydale. Anya says "Done" but nothing happens.
Cordelia wishes Buffy had never been born. Done (nothing happens, surprised)
Cordelia wishes Xander never again knows the touch of a woman, and Willow wakes up tomorrow covered in monkey hair.
Poor Anya. Done! she says, but to no effect.

Giles walks by and makes a point of checking his watch. The three just smile and nod.

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HTML and text © 2001 Richard Murray
Images digitised by Richard Murray (August 2001) from a broadcast on Sky One
Storyline and images © 1998 20th Century Fox, WB, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Television, & Kuzui Enterprises
Characters created by Joss Whedon (the man!)
This episode written by Marti Noxon and directed by David Greenwalt.