Graduation Day Pt.1

Note: Just like with Becoming, Sarah will be in regular font, and Kali will be in gray italics.

We open with the whole school getting ready for graduation! They're picking up their caps and gowns and signing yearbooks and it's all very touching.


Willow: (about Harmony) Aw I’m gonna miss her
Buffy: Don't you hate her?
Willow: Yes, with a fiery vengeance. She picked on me for ten years, the vacuous tramp. It's like a sickness, Buffy. I'm just missing everything. I miss P.E
Most people do the same thing as Willow. You get all nostalgic when you are leaving high school even when it comes to people or things you didn't like or weren't close to. I on the the otherhand said, "I hate you all and hope you all fall into a pit of fire snakes." I also liek how Buffy begins this episode by not liking graduation because it doesn't mean anything to her, but she'll learn exactly what its all about by the end of Part 2.

While everyone at school is celebrating growing up, Faith is off celebrating evil. She goes to a Professor's home under orders from the Mayor to kill him. Poor Lester, I have a sad. ;_; This is the first time we see Faith killing an innocent human in premeditation. Another step further on the dark side. And she killed a vulcan!

He was actually volcanologist? Nevermind then...

Faith then goes back to the Mayor and tries on a pretty pink dress that he got her for Ascension day. He then, very creepily, says “any boys that manage to survive will be lining up to ask you out." This is why the Mayor is so awesome/creepy. This is a sweet, fatherly comment that is made very evil by adding the first part about any boys that survive. Could you imagine being his daughter? It'd be weird; I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone for fear that he'd kill them. However, next he says what is probably my favorite line of the episode to Faith: "No father could be prouder." This moment with Faith and the Mayor is so sweet that it almost makes me excuse them killing people because I love the way they are with each other. The lines leading up to what Sarah quoted are great too. "Let me tell you something. Nobody knows what you are. Not even you, little miss seen-it-all. The Ascension isn't just my day, it's yours too. Your day to blossom, to show the world what a powerful girl you are. I think of what you've done, what I know you will do..." It's like a parent's speech to their kid at their graduation.

At school, Percy and Willow have a conversation. He got a B- on a paper, he's going to graduate! Everyone celebrates and then he says “got the grades and now after graduation I can forget all of this crap."

Acquiring knowledge: Ur doin it wrong

Now in class, Xander is late for a very important lecture.

Teacher: Thank you for joining us, Mr. Harris.
 Xander gives him a double thumbs-up.
Teacher: Look, I realize that you've all finished your finals and you're ready to move on. But you haven't graduated yet. This is still a class and everyone will participate. Mr. Harris, would you care to begin.
Xander: Ummm... E.
Teacher: No. There's no E. 

    Teacher: They always go the the E.

What school has class after finals? Finals were always the last thing because there is no reason to go to school after. This almost makes sense if you went to boarding school, but even then...

In the library, Giles and Wesley are fencing while discussing the murder of the professor with Buffy. Basically, Buffy and Giles plan on figuring out what the Mayor wanted to kill the professor for and what information he was trying to hide. Wesley then jumps in and orders Buffy to go investigate to which she responds: “I just love it when you take charge, you man you.”

After this conversation, Xander brings Anya in after learning back at class that she has been to an Ascension. She describes the experience to us. To cut to the chase, Ascension's are not good. The last one decimated almost the entire village, with only about three people surviving. Wesley, being a prat, begins to sound more confident saying that Lo-Hash, the ascended demon within Anya's story, isn't that fierce and the conversation gets awesome:

Anya: You've never seen a demon.

"Buffy:Uh, excuse me? Kind of professionally, four years running.
Anya: All the demons that walk the earth are tainted, are human hybrids like vampires. The Ascension means that a human becomes pure demon. They're different."

We now see how fearless the Mayor is when he just walks into the library with everyone sitting around peeing their pants in fear. If he wasn't trying to turn into a demon and didn't like killing people, he'd actually be a pretty swell guy. The only one of the gang that doesn't seem to quake in fear is Giles, since he stabs the Mayor after his comment about eating Buffy.

"Whoa! Well now, that was a little thoughtless. (pulls the sword out of his chest) Violent outbursts like that, in front of the children? You know, Mr. Giles, they look to you to see how to behave. (The Mayor takes a handkerchief and slowly wipes the blood from the sword.) I smell fear. That's smart. Some of your deaths will be quick, if that's worth anything. Well, see you all at graduation. (tosses the sword back to Giles) You don't want to miss my commencement address. It's going to be one heck of a speech."

“You can’t stop the signal ascension” –Anya. No, of course I didn't include this quote just to make a Firefly reference, that'd be silly.

Buffy packs a bag for her mom and begs for her to leave. “I wish I could be a lot of things for you. A great student, a star athlete, remotely normal. I'm not. But there is something I do that I can do better than anybody else in the world. I'm gonna fight this thing, but I can't do it and worry about you." Joyce doesn't agree at first and then Buffy tells her if she stays than she'll get her killed. This obviously puts Joyce in a very bad situation with two poor choices. She can either stay with her daughter and get herself and/or Buffy killed or she can leave town as Buffy wishes and worry about her daughter's safety while keeping herself away from harm. She chooses the latter.


Oz: Nothing useful?
Willow: No, it's great. If we want to make ferns invisible, or communicate with shrimp, I've got the goods right here.
Oz: Our lives are different than other peoples'. (I really love this line.)

Willow: Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not going to find a spell to stop the Ascension. I'm no witch. I can't even change poor Amy back to a person.
Oz: But you got the swinging Habitrail going. I think Amy is in a good place emotionally.
Willow: Oz.
Oz: What?
Willow: Could you just pretend to care about what's happening? Please?
Oz: You think I don't care?
Willow: I think we could be dead in two days time and you're being ironic detachment guy.
Oz: Would it help if I panic?
Willow: (babbling) Yes, it would be swell. Panic is a thing people can share in times of crisis. And everything's really scary now, you know, and I don't know what's gonna happen. And there's all sorts of things that you're supposed to get to do after high school, and I was really looking forward to doing them, and now we're probably just gonna die and I would like to feel that maybe you would ...
   Oz leans forward and kisses her, slowly.
Willow: What are you doing?
Oz: Panicking.

I love this "sex" scene between Willow and Oz so much. I think it's because it's the complete opposite of Angel/Buffy. It's not meant to be hot and steamy; it's sweet and meaningful.

And this is how Willow loses her virginity; when they both needed it. To quote my paper again, "this positive first sexual experience sets Willow up as a “fiercely devoted lover, who is generous with her feelings and can flourish in long-term relationships (Swain, 2010.)” Unlike Buffy and Xander, Willow's loss of virginity didn't have an immediate impact on her, but it does play a factor into some things still to come within the next season.

Apparently, David is actually very clumsy so Joss thought it'd be funny to have Angel trip a bit.

“Not my best entrance, I think they were mopping in the halls”

Angel and Buffy have a totally awesome conversation:

Buffy: You know what? Thank you, but I can take it from here.
Angel: It's alright. I'll walk you there.
Buffy: Look, I don't need an escort. I'm a big girl. Superpowers, remember? I don't need you crowding me.
Angel: I didn't think I was.
Buffy: No, of course you don't. You just show up at the prom and then you disappear into the ozone. For all I know, you left town.
Angel: Are you mad at me for being around too much or for not being around enough?
Buffy: Duh. Yes.
Angel: Which?
Buffy: What?
Angel: I don't get you.
Buffy: No, you don't, not anymore.

Buffy's a heartbroken teenager. One of these by itself will cause someone to be confused about what they're feeling and have contradicting emotions but both together? That's just a recipe for disaster. I feel like Buffy and Angel knew what they needed when they were together because part of what they both needed was just each other. Buffy telling him that he doesn't get her anymore is her saying that he doesn't know how to work their relationship anymore. She needs him there but simultaneously needs him to stay away in order to get over him and heal her broken heart. Giles was right in the last episode, this requires ice cream and time where she is able to take a step back and figure out what she wants and needs. However, Buffy doesn't get this time yet because she needs to save the world first.

Back to the conversation and scene itself, during their dialogue Angel gets shot with an arrow. Buffy's "narrowed down my list of one suspect” and knows that Faith was the shooter. However, shit gets real when the arrow is removed and they learn that it was filled with poison after Angel falls down.

One thing that I don't get- how can Buffy tell that Angel is "burning up"? One, he has no heartbeat, so his blood doesn't flow, so how can he get a fever? And two, his normal body temperature is room temperature so for him to feel hot to her means his temperature went up about 35 degrees F.

The "afterward" scene between Oz and Willow is so adorable. They are now becoming my favorite couple on the series. Willow rambles like she always does and Oz says few words but the ones he does choose to say are so full or meaning. Aww.

The Mayor plans was pretty smart, killing Angel would only piss Buffy off so she'd seek revenge, but this way she's busy looking for a way to cure him.

In which the Mayor and Faith still have an adorable relationship:

Mayor: Just, you know, go home, take it easy. It's a big day tomorrow.
Faith: You gotta give me something to do. There's no way I'm sleeping. Don't you need anyone dead? Or maimed? I can settle for maimed.
Mayor: (chuckles) You little firecracker.
Faith: My mom used to call me that when I was little. I was always running around.
  She falls silent. The Mayor observes her with a look of concern.
Faith: Tomorrow, at the Ascension and all that, am I going to get to fight?
Mayor: If everything goes smoothly, you won't have to. But how often do things go smoothly?
Faith: So you'll still need me in there. Mayor: Always. (Anytime anyone says "Always" I will forever immediately think "There's so much in one word")

Faith: When I was a kid, a couple of miles outside of Boston there was this quarry. And all the kids used to swim there and jump off the rocks. And there was this one rock like forty feet up. I was the only one that would jump off it. All the older kids were too scared.
Mayor: Not you though.
Faith: Naah. I could do it easy.
Mayor: Get some rest.  

Faith actually opened up to the Mayor. She told him about her childhood and was vulnerable. I in no way think that she's evil; she always just wanted someone to love her. She was impressionable and the Mayor showed her the love she needed in exchange for her to turn to his side. Both of them just fell together so well and the relationship is as real as Giles and Buffy. I feel so bad for Faith amd it's hard for me to watch this scene without getting teary eyed.

Anya is freaking awesome. Joss has said that she was intended to just be a one shot character for The Wish but they became fascinated by the idea of a thousand year old ex-demon being forced into a high school and learning what it means to be human. I'm glad they brought her back because Anya becomes one of my favorite characters and I agree that the idea of her discovering how humanity works is icredibly interesting. Anya reminds me a little bit of Cordelia in the sense that she doesn't have that filter that tells you not to say everything that comes to mind, but lucky for us the things that come to Anya's mind are odd and funny, not bitchy and rude. And at least Anya has the excuse of being a millenia old ex-demon.

“(After Xander doesn't agree to leave with her) You know what I hope you die!

*Xander leaves* Aren’t we gonna kiss?”

I also enjoy the beginning of the Xander/Anya relationship. It's sweet how she asks him to leave with her because "it feels bad inside. Like I might vomit." when she thinks of Xander getting hurt. 

Wesley comes back from trying to get information about a cure from the council. However, because one of the requirements for being on the council is being a jerkface, they refused to give out any information and want Buffy to focus on the mayor instead of Angel since this was obviously a ploy to get her distracted. Wesley tells her this and says "don't you understand that?" to which she replies "I'm talking about watching my lover die. I have no idea what you're talking about." Um, did anyone else go to an uncomfortable place when Buffy refers to Angel as her lover to both Giles and Wesley?

I wasn't uncomfortable, I mostly just thought "WTF? I thought you two broke up?! Did you get back together again with me realizing it? No? Then don't call him that, creeper."

After hearing all of this, Buffy says to Wesley "I don't think I’m going to be taking anymore orders” and quits the council. Wesley: “This is mutiny” Buffy: “I like to think of it as graduation” (Love this line so much!) At this moment Buffy understands what graduation really is. It's not about the cermony or the robes or the piece of paper. It's about moving on, about growing up, and about becoming your own person.


Back with the scoobies searching for a cure, the find that one sure way to cure Angel completely is to drink the blood of a Slayer. Uh-oh...From this, Buffy decides that she needs to kill Faith. Xander is worried: “I just don’t wanna lose you” Buffy: “I won’t get hurt” Xander: “That’s not what I mean”

And I agree with him. I know you love Angel but couldn't you go to a hospital and act like you're donating blood and give some to him in a cup to cure him? Does no one else think of this idea before running to go and kill Faith?

I think the ritual said you had to "drain" a Slayer, implying that it all must be drank. Although next episode we see that's not exactly the case, but it still needs to be a large amount of blood. Also, during this discussion Oz pets Willow's hair and outloud I actually went "AWWW". Xander and Giles also discover the GIANT demon that the Mayor will be turning into and Xander makes an awesome Jaws reference, "We're going to need a bigger boat."

Buffy goes to Faith's and they battle it out. It ends with Buffy stabbing Faith and starring at her in shock.

Faith: (weakly, but smiling) You did it. You killed me. Still won't help your boy,though. Shoulda been there, B, quite a ride.

Faith jumps off the freaking building and now Buffy killed her (or thinks she did) and still doesn't have a cure for Angel. She has a sad.

Buffy is really shocked at herself for stabbing a human and we see that Faith wasn't very far off when she told Buffy that she was more like her than she thought. We also see how she was willing to kill Faith in order to save Angel. But what can save him now?