Spoiler Slayer

Finally, The Finale

Although I'm still somewhat surprised that an entire script has surfaced (this has not happened during the time I've been tracking spoilers), Bubonic has posted a summary at Fan Forums. Due to length and, although totally hilarious, more than a bit of her snarkiness, I'm not going to post the full summary here. Please head over to Fan Forums to check out her entire take on the episode. In summary, here is a brief synopsis of the episode (yes, I know I'm glossing over things or not focusing on certain scenes. It's way long and I'm doing my best to summarize. To be honest, this is essentially everything I had last week).

The episode opens with Buffy and Angel kissing while Spike looks on. After breaking their embrace, there is a brief tussle with Caleb ("I'm Not Dead Yet") in which Buffy quickly dispatches him for good. Angel provides Buffy with some papers and an amulet that he brought from Los Angeles. The amulet is designed to be worn by a champion, someone with a soul. She then ask Angel to return to LA, there's a bit of verbal sparring about Buffy/Spike and some hints about a possible Buffy/Angel future. And then he's gone

Buffy returns home, hand over the papers to the others to research, and then goes to see Spike in the basement. Surprisingly, viewing the Buffy/Angel embrace didn't really have the effect that I guess 'The First' was looking for. Buffy gives the amulet to Spike, and then spends the night with him (just sleeping). 'The First' arrives on scene to taunt her, Buffy tells it that she's going to win.

The game plan is that the gang is going to take the battle to the hellmouth, by opening it and destroying all the Ubervamps. While Faith and Wood block off possible escape routes from the basement, Willow tells Kennedy to kill her if the magic takes her over, Giles and Xander maps out battle strategy while Andrew plays Dungeons and Dragons. Buffy goes to see Spike in the basement one final time (something may or may not happen).

At the school, Willow and Kennedy work on casting the spell. Wood, Giles, Xander, Anya, Andrew and Dawn patrol the halls, Buffy, Faith, Spike and the SIT's proceed to the basement. The Slayers and SIT's cut their hands and let their blood spill onto the seal. It opens and the battle commences.

It's touchy for a moment, but then Willow's spell goes off, essentially activating every Slayer in Training. This is where we get the montage from the casting call. Kennedy heads down to the battle. In the course of the battle, Amanda and some nameless SIT's are killed. Upstairs, Bringers arrive, Anya is killed by one of them. The amulet activates, causing Spike a great deal of pain. He ends up on the seal, as energy flows from him causing the roof to collapse. This lets in the sunlight, which begins to kill all the Ubervamps. Everyone else but Buffy heads out the door, while Buffy tries to convince Spike to come with her. He declines and say he wants to stay until the end. Buffy tells Spike that she loves him, Spike doesn't believe her. After Buffy leaves Spike dies (essentially he burns up from within).

On the surface, the entire town is falling apart around them. Buffy and the remaining Scoobies escape the destruction on a school bus. I'm going to include the last bit of Bub's summary for the final scenes.

"At the edge of the Hellmouth, Giles looks out and says he doesn’t understand what did this. “Spike,” Buffy says. Everyone is milling about near the crater. Giles says there is another Hellmouth in Cleveland, and Xander says they saved the world. Willow clarifies that they *changed* the world. She can feel Slayers awakening everywhere. Dawn says they have to find them, and Willow says they will.

Giles mentions the mall, and that there’s no hope of getting there tomorrow. Xander mourns the loss of the stores – no more Gap or Starbucks or Toys R Us. Giles says there’s a lot of work ahead, and Faith offers to push him into the crater. Willow asks Buffy what she wants to do. Faith says yeah, Buffy has to live like a person now. Dawn asks what they will do, as well. Close on Buffy, as she looks at the crater. A small smile creeps up on her lips. "

So that's that. The reason why I decided to sit on this information when I first received it, was that it was from a new source. This source, 'Whistler', laid out everything that Bubonic has described. However, the strangeness of a few scenes (ie: Andrew playing Dungeons and Dragons), made me want to be absolutely certain before posting anything. When Wendy did not mention the fact that Spike actually does die, and Kristen also mentioned that he only vanishes, I wanted to be absolutely sure before posting something that major.

In terms of the accuracy of this spoilage, I have no doubts that Bubonic does have a script for the finale. My question would be if this is the real thing. As I mentioned earlier, I have never seen this much in terms of finale spoilage since I've been covering the show. It seems strange that there are a number of unanswered questions, for example, what did the slayer lineage have anything to do with the plans of the 'The First'. Obviously, whatever it intended didn't work. In addition, although we might have an answer to the 'One day she'll tell you' question, there is no resolution at all to Joyce's 'She won't choose you, Dawn'.

So I don't know. While this ending certainly makes sense to me, even down to Spike's sacrifice, it still feels as if there were some pieces of the puzzle missing. It comes down to this. Either this is what is going to happen, or Mutant Enemy found a way to snooker us all. If this was last season, I would go for the latter. However, with the way the writing has been going for the last half of this season, I think this is it folks.

Spoiler Slayer will be updated later tonight or tomorrow.