I'm with Ken, this season ranks in the middle for me, with S5 being the low point.

I will never never understand the notion that Buffy mistreated Spike somehow. Aside from Ple's nicely annotated list of things Buffy has done on his behalf, recall that he was a gleeful murderer for a century, chained her up and threatened her with torture after he plead his love to her, tried to rape her, and was himself quite nastily manipulative when he fucked her on the catwalk in the Bronze.

And I like Spike. Honestly, like the character and JM's performance. The only place where I felt like Buffy entered a morally ambiguous zone in her relationship with Spike was when she didn't stake him on the many occasions when he obviously deserved it.

The very notion that Buffy toyed with Spike's feelings is insanely laughable to me. He is love's bitch, and man enough to admit it. He would totally consider it the very point of his existence to get into a warped romance with layers of sex and betrayal and redemption because he is a big fucking drama queen. Spike is, and always has been, a parody of Romance Writ Large. The guy went out laughing and saving the world with his ex-lover standing there telling him she loved him? Spike could not have scripted a finer moment for himself.

Narrative drove a lot of the decisions as well as a bit of meta. No way ever in the history of humanity was either Kennedy going to die (can't go killing Willow's lesbian lover again) nor Rona (can't go out killing yet another black person in Sunnydale). Narratively, Spike had to die for much the same reason that Xena had to die in her finale. Their crimes were too great to ever be redeemed by anything less than a total sacrifice.

Giles? Wasted this year. Oh well. Both he and Xander were wasted in S4. It's a tough juggle.

Also, Dawn kicking Buffy in the shins gets funnier each time.

The height difference between MT and SMG just makes it funnier.

Which means, I think, I can never watch it again, so as not to harsh my mellow.

I was kinda worried that this might be the case for me. Unfortunately, my damn VCR didn't tape it while I was out watching it on the big screen, so it might not be an issue.

I have fanwank! I suspect that the FE "empowered" the first UberVamp we saw, much as it did Caleb, so it was a bit tougher than usual.

Sure, Vic, I can purchase that. Hell, I can purchase anything for the sake of the finale. It doesn't really matter to me why they weren't so powerful now, although Anya hitting one in the thigh wouldn't kill a regular vamp.

But I didn't feel a need to wank the finale. I didn't care that he dispensed with a plot point I didn't like anyway. But wasn't there something earlier in the season about how scary it was going to be to have to face an army of Uber Vamps who couldn't be killed in a normal fashion? And didn't one of the SiTs just stab one in the heart a week or two ago and it did nothing? Then Buffy showed up with ScythAxe and dusted them?

The retconning doesn't bug me for the finale. It just makes the rest of the season bug me even more. Which is my problem, I know.

Narratively, Spike had to die for much the same reason that Xena had to die in her finale. Their crimes were too great to ever be redeemed by anything less than a total sacrifice.

Anya, too.

Call me a sap, but I adored the Slayers Awakening Everywhere montage. It was probably my favorite moment in the episode.

Wait, no. I think it was the shot of Buffy practically flying across the collapsing rooftops that was my favorite.

Or maybe that final smile on her face. Crap, I can't choose.

You know, Nutty is right. The season, especially near the end, was fraught with plot holes and logical inconsistencies, and I suspect the story won't bear close scrutiny. But in a way, BtVS has always been more about the characters' emotional arcs than plot plausibility, and I'm fine with getting mainly emotional satisfaction out of the finale.

2, 6, 3, 1, 4, 7, 5.

In that order.

Also liked the subtle (and not so subtle) call backs to past season finales.

Season One: Buffy gets mortally wounded and then gets better.

Season Two: Buffy has to banish Angel to Hell to stop the world from being sucked into Hell/Spike willingly sacrifices himself to close the door to Hell.

Season Three: The high school go boom/All of Sunnydale go boom.

Season Four: The spirit of the first Slayer is angry with Buffy for sharing her power and not being alone/Buffy wins by sharing her power.

Season Five: Buffy dies/Buffy gets to live her life for real.

Season 6: Willow turns evil and nearly destroys the world/Willow uses her magic to tap into a source of good and helps save the world.

Only really feel I'm reaching on Season Five.

If you want to be defined totally by your willingness to snuggle with people who love you when you don't love them the same way, then be my guest, but you're going to have to accept that I'm going to feel a certain way about you. Or you could not care, which is probably the best way to deal.

Right. That's all well and good, and I can certainly accept that you're going to feel a certain way about it, and your guess is very accurate - my response is likely to not care, but what I'm trying to say is that maybe you should at least think about it that two people can do this, be aware of what's happenening, and be okay with it, and not consider it using.

What I'm saying is that by saying "you're going to have to accept that I'm going to feel a certain way about you," you're expecting me to do something you're not willing to do yourself, ie - you're not willing to accept that maybe what happened between Spike and Buffy is not using. Not in the way you mean it.

I'm willing to try to see things your way, and yet you're not even a tiny bit willing to try to see things my way.

You don't have a problem with that?

Anya, too.

Yep. Wood also gets a pass on dying, as a kind of belated affirmative action after Kendra, Trick, Forest etc.