"Empty Places"

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg
Directed by James A. Contner


In which Buffy tries to regroup after her utter defeat at the hands of Caleb, only to discover that her choices over the past several months have had an unexpected consequence...

Synopsis - Analysis - Memorable Quotes - Observations


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Synopsis

As the episode begins, the residents of Sunnydale have begun a mass exodus. As Buffy walks through the traffic, she comes upon Clem, who is leaving along with them. Clem notes that the evil activity seems much worse than usual, and everyone is picking up on the negative vibes. In fact, Clem suggests that Buffy might want to leave this time as well.

At the police station, Willow helps Giles get some possible information on Caleb, using a spell to disguise Giles as an agent for Interpol. The police seem to be taking just a little too much joy in subduing criminals. As Willow leaves to check on Xander at the hospital, the police get word of a fugitive in town. At the hospital, Buffy seems to have trouble being around Xander, while Willow tries her best to maintain a stiff upper lip.

Back at the house, Anya lectures the Potentials yet again on the nature of the Toruk-han and their short list of weaknesses. Andrew helps, in his own peculiar way. The Potentials are less than inspired, especially Rhona, who wants to know more about Caleb. Amanda, however, speaks for those Potentials who believe that nothing is going to help them against the evil preacher.

Kennedy and Amanda leave the sinking-morale session and hang out with Faith in the kitchen. Buffy comes in and passes out information that Willow retrieved, hoping that someone can find a link to Caleb somewhere. Ignoring her questions about Xander, Buffy recruits Dawn, who is at home now that the school has been closed. Kennedy makes an offhand comment about Caleb’s ability to take down Buffy so easily, which reflects the poor morale rather well. Buffy pretends that it doesn’t bother her, but clearly, it is weighing on her mind.

Buffy takes a walk through the deserted school, and ends up at her cubicle. She finds an old picture of her with Xander and Willow, and for a moment, her grief threatens to bubble to the surface. All of that changes when Caleb announces his presence. Caleb mocks her about her defeat, and then makes it clear that she shouldn’t try to get in the way of what’s coming. Buffy responds by attacking Caleb, but he easily knocks her around. Before long, she’s unconscious, and Caleb walks away with a smile.

As Andrew whines about Faith stealing his food, Dawn shows Giles a picture from a monastery to the north. Unlike the other reported incidents, the deserted monastery was never vandalized. Giles looks more closely at the picture, and finds the symbol from Caleb’s ring on the wall of the monastery. Giles asks Spike to go to the monastery and investigate, and when Andrew starts whining again, he suggests that Spike take Andrew as a “demon expert”.

Noticing that even that lead isn’t boosting the morale of the Potentials, Faith takes them out to the Bronze for a night out. A good time is had by all, but in the meantime, Buffy returns home. Giles tells her about the lead and his decision to send Spike to investigate. Buffy is displeased that Giles would make that decision in her place. She is even more displeased when she learns that Faith took the girls partying.

Meanwhile, Caleb informs the First that he encountered Buffy, and laid the groundwork for Buffy to fall into another trap. It is clear that Caleb expects Buffy to respond to their encounter with another frontal assault, which Caleb is more than prepared for.

At the Bronze, the people arrive and confront Faith. They ask Faith to come with them, but when she refuses, the police drag her outside. One of the officers stands guard inside, so the Potentials don’t interrupt. The officers have no intention of taking Faith into custody. As Faith fights for her life outside, Dawn, Kennedy, and Amanda confront the officer guarding the door. Soon Faith and the Potentials are beating down the Hellmouthed officers...and finish just in time for Buffy to arrive.

Buffy sends the Potentials home so she can speak with Faith. Buffy rails at Faith for getting the Potentials drunk and into a fight. For some reason, Buffy expects Faith to keep the Potentials safe in her absence. Faith wonders where that concern for safety was during the attack on the vineyard, which compels Buffy to punch Faith in the face. Faith watches in stunned silence as Buffy walks away.

Later, Robin Wood arrives at the house and finds Faith sitting on the porch. Faith tells him about Buffy’s reaction to her comments, and they discuss Faith’s recent turn towards a more enlightened reaction to adversity. Faith notices that Wood appears to be looking for a bit of a fight.

Spike and Andrew arrive at the monastery, where they are attacked by a man in a hooded cloak. They react like he’s a Bringer, until they realize that the man was attacking them because he thought they were with Caleb. The man’s face has been burned by Caleb’s ring.

Back at the house, everyone gathers to welcome Xander back home. While everyone is glad to see him home, it isn’t the main point of the gathering. Buffy wants to inform them of her latest decision on their attack strategy. She intends to lead another attack on Caleb at the vineyard. She believes that the lack of any protection at the abandoned school, the Hellmouth, or the Seal of Danzathar means that they are not as important as whatever Caleb is presumably protecting.

At the monastery, Spike tells the man to tell them what happened, and that they are trying to fight Caleb. Instead of telling Spike what Caleb went there for, the man shows him. Caleb knew about a secret room at the monastery, where an ancient inscription was made on the wall in Latin. Unhappy at what the inscription said, Caleb went mad, and killed everyone he could. The man was the single survivor, thanks to his decision to run away. Spike reads the inscription: “It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield.”

Back at the house, Faith disagrees with Buffy’s plan, since there is no proof. Wood and Giles back Faith’s objection, much to Buffy’s extreme annoyance. Buffy doesn’t understand why they would question her judgment, even though she has made it clear that she doesn’t trust anyone else’s judgment. Rhona and Kennedy accuse Buffy of making snap decisions, and while Willow asks Kennedy to back off, she agrees.

Buffy makes it clear she doesn’t consider the group to be a democracy; someone has to lead. Anya, however, points out that as the Chosen, Buffy has the power, but she isn’t any better or wiser than anyone else. Buffy doesn’t care, telling them that her plan is the plan they will follow, and they have to be together on it. Giles makes it clear that they are not together on it, and the issue needs to be addressed before they move forward.

Buffy insists that everyone fall in line with her decision, because she’s in charge. But the Potentials offer that Buffy doesn’t have any specific claim on that position. They offer that Faith, as a Slayer, might be a better choice. Despite the fact that Faith objects, claiming that she wasn’t looking to take over, Buffy reacts to the suggestion as a betrayal. She can’t conceive of following someone else’s lead, not when she’s so sure that she’s right.

Buffy tells them that she can’t stay and watch Faith lead them into disaster. So Dawn tells Buffy that she has to leave, if she can’t go with the decision of the group. Without a moment of hesitation, Buffy walks out the door. Faith rushes after her, to make sure Buffy understands that the coup wasn’t planned, but Buffy just tells her not to be afraid to lead the Potentials. Despite it all, Buffy wants everyone to be safe, even if they don’t trust her with the job anymore.


Analysis

If there is one thing that was at the heart of the series in its early years, it was the tension between Buffy and Giles over the correct course. In the end, it was critical that Buffy be the one with the critical insight, or in her place, one of her friends. Giles represented the father figure, and as such, it was important that Buffy represent the power of the younger generation as it rises to eclipse the earlier generation. In that sense, the fifth season ended with Buffy taking the ultimate level of control and responsibility, having essentially taken control of her own life, out of the shadow of the Watcher Council.

The sixth season effectively took that supremely confident and justified Buffy and pulled her support system out from under her. This was reflective of life in general, but also reflective of the context in which the earlier seasons had been rendered. In the classical sense, what happens when the child grows to rival the parent? The parent must leave, to allow the child to rise or fall on their own fully realized merits. The sixth season demonstrated that while Buffy had taken hold of her destiny as the Slayer, she had essentially lost touch with the real world that she had once found so much more important.

This seventh and final season has been, in many ways, the natural extension of the sixth season. While for many this is the season for seeking redemption, it is really about balance. Ever since she decided to take control of her life, she has pushed herself and those around her into equal but opposite extremes. Instead of failing to take responsibility, she has assumed responsibility that is not hers to take. In essence, in the face of a massive obstacle, she has forgotten that her earlier journey to self-realization came with the independent help of her friends, not her all-powerful and controlling vision.

It’s interesting how, in retrospect, this has been building in amazingly well-rendered fashion all season. From the very beginning, Buffy has made it clear that she is the only one she can trust to make the hard decisions. Spike’s return to Sunnydale, Anya’s fate, the training of the Potentials, Spike’s chip, Willow’s magic...in every case, with every issue, Buffy has rendered an absolute and self-appointed judgment in how the issue should be handled.

As Buffy points out, this is the way she has approached situations over the past seven years, but she conveniently fails to recall how many times her decisions were the wrong decisions. This is a part of the overcompensation that Buffy is suffering through, the need to prove herself and her dedication to solving her problems so badly that she can’t trust anyone else to offer advice. Her inability to even consider the opinions and feelings of others has led he friends to make equally desperate and out-of-character decisions.

Buffy’s past success is inherently part of the problem. As pig-headed as she has been since the beginning of the season, her decisions have been cast as the correct ones, or ultimately proven to be so. If there is a failing in this episode, it comes with that context in the plot development. But in reality, it’s not a failing. It’s the logical progression of a series of questionable decisions that Buffy has made.

The other characters have been questioning Buffy’s insistence of total authority since at least “Selfless”, and as Buffy’s attitudes have become more resolute, so have the criticism become more frequent. The best thing about this episode is that the writers had the courage to bring that process through to its logical conclusion. It may be that Buffy will never completely mend her relationships with her loved ones, but that is a realistic if heart-rending consequence.

Of course, the theme of balance suggests that in the end, Buffy might figure out that being in control of one’s life doesn’t require the control of every other person around. Or, alternatively, the larger balance of good and evil might require Buffy to sacrifice the resolution of her personal balance. This would fit the warning that Dawn received in “Conversations with Dead People”, where it was said that in the end, Buffy wouldn’t choose Dawn. Since Dawn stood as the final arbiter of the decision to send Buffy away, that plot thread appears to be working towards culmination.

This would be in keeping with the idea that the Slayer ultimately must stand alone. Indeed, the inscription that Spike deciphers would appear to underscore that possibility. Whatever is coming, the final resolution will come down to one solitary female. The question becomes: is that Buffy, or is it the true Slayer, Faith?

It should be Faith, but perhaps that’s part of the undone balance. It’s clear by now that the point at which things began to go wrong was Buffy’s first return from death. Buffy’s second resurrection only made the situation that much worse. So one way or another, the full power of the Slayer needs to return to one single Slayer, or the balance can never be restored.

Based on that inscription, the theory that the power of the Slayer stands at the heart of the conflict appears to be valid. What else would be “for her alone to wield”? Buffy rejected the source of the power of the Slayer, leaving it open for the First to grant to Caleb. If there is anything that would have angered Caleb as it did at the monastery, it is the knowledge that everything granted to him could be taken by a woman.

So the solution appears to be obvious. To restore the balance and defeat the plans of the First to open the Hellmouth and bring about the end of the world, Buffy or Faith must embrace the demonic power that is the legacy of the Slayer. Since this is a series about Buffy, it’s likely that she will discover this truth at Spike’s side, and make that decision on her own.

Of course, the only way for that to work is for Buffy to be the only Slayer. Now that Faith is reluctantly in charge of preparing the Potentials and leading them against the forces of the First and Caleb, the stage is set for Faith’s ultimate and final act of redemption. In essence, Buffy can only succeed if Faith falls.

But that wouldn’t solve the problem completely. What is actually required, if the power of the Slayer is at the heart of the undone balance between good and evil, is a single Slayer that is not Buffy. For that to happen, both Buffy and Faith must be dead. But if Buffy is the one that must embrace the power of the Slayer, and the Chosen Line runs through Faith, it’s not entirely clear how that could be resolved.

So here’s one theory: what if Buffy, in the end, must choose to allow herself to die to pass on the power to the true Slayer, the one that would come with Faith’s heroic death? And what better way, than to allow herself to be sired by the man who sought a soul for her love? Since it’s never been shown what happens when a vampire with a soul sires another vampire, it’s entirely possible that Buffy would come out of the process with a soul herself.

Only three episodes remain to see how closely this theory matches the intent of the writers and Joss Whedon. But one thing is assured...however it ends, this is the culmination of one of the finest seasons in the history of the series. This is practically a primer for how a series should end with its dignity fully intact.


Memorable Quotes

CLEM: “Not that I would swing a cat...”

CLEM: “I mean, I’m sure you’ll do fine...complete confidence!”

OFFICER: “Right...wait...who are you?”

XANDER: “I might need a parrot...”

FAITH: “Sorry...habit...shouldn’t you be down at Hogwarts?”

CALEB: “And how is poor, sweet Xander? Let him know he’s in my prayers...and any time he’s willing, I’m more than ready to...finish the job...”

CALEB: “I’m gonna take such, sweet pleasure in taming you...”

SPIKE: “Oh really? Because sometimes our missions end up with you trying to kill me. I’m not fond of those.”

BUFFY: “Again, I ask the question!”

CALEB: “Know what I figured out tonight? Every high school in this country, from one end to the other, smells exactly alike...now why do you suppose that is?”

SPIKE: “Tell anyone we had this conversation, I’ll bite you.”

FAITH: “It’s my favorite of all my current bruises.”

FAITH: “I think you need to brush up on your Buffy and Faith history...”

ANDREW: “Run is a four-letter word!”

XANDER: “I’m trying to see your point here, Buff...but it must be a little bit to my left...”

FAITH: “I don’t know if I can lead, but the real question is, can you follow?”


Observations

- Fitting that Clem should drive a VW Beetle!

- Either Sarah Michelle Gellar gets very bad allergies, or she is nursing one hell of a cold this episode. She can barely get her dialogue out...

- Now those are the fingers you need to do the “rock” sign justice!

- So the Hellmouth is making the Sunnydale PD act like the LAPD?

- Nice continuity to have Xander making indirect references to “Daredevil”...

- Andrew’s antics on the flipchart were absolutely priceless...especially the misspelling and the emphasis on make-up sex!

- Also hilarious: the Potentials rushing off the cot after learning about the aforementioned make-up sex...

- As much as Kennedy probably lost even more fan support in this episode, she continues to be the hottest supporting character since Faith!

- I love Andrew’s ongoing tirade about the Hot Pockets...

- So Kennedy dresses like a total hottie at the house...and then dresses down for a night out?

- Typical...everyone else is running out of town as fast as they can, but the party crowd sticks around!

- Yes, that band was Nerf Herder, which is just another great way to end the series...

- Great continuity with Spike and the Bloomin’ Onions...and his in-depth knowledge of the recipe!

- Why does Wood show his understandable attraction to Faith by staring at her like he’s some dirty old man?

- Once again, I notice that Faith smokes without so much as a single inhale. Why go to the trouble, when her bad girl image is more than apparent?

- It’s hard to tell, but the symbol on Caleb’s ring appears to be a star...maybe the Morning Star, one of the names for Lucifer...

- How ancient could the inscription be, if it’s written in Latin on a monastery wall in California? Maybe a few hundred years?

- Nice touch having Spike read the inscription. Andrew only studied demonic languages, while Spike would have studied Latin in his youth, based on the period in which he was born...

- Interesting how a few words from Dawn were enough to put Rhona in her place!

Overall, this episode brought the plot thread of Buffy’s growing sense of absolute authority to a head, while also laying the foundation for the ultimate conclusion of the season’s conflict and the themes of the series. While this was essentially a transitional episode, it carried more weight than one might have expected.

I give it an 8/10.


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