Buffy the Vampire Slayer || 6x17 || Discussion

I also hate that trope. Mostly because of the stigma it amplifies against the psych patients I see at work.

Esther Boogie

I love this episodes, but at the same time i hate it... You will forever wonder "wich is the real world?"

Leonard Ledung

paraphrase, not quote

John Alexander

Ah my most hated episode... This episode began my lifelong hatred of what's called the "cuckoo's nest" trope. I'm not saying it's bad, it's objectively well done but this specific TV trope is just subjectively not for me.

John Alexander

THANK YOU

CrookedCat

To quote Dumbledore, even it's just happening in buffy head doesn't mean it not real

david borokovsky

Ummm, did Xander not suffer through a whole trauma literally right before he was supposed to walk down the aisle?...

Ash Lee Can

Note: I wrote the above comment before reading the other comments, and before listening to Alley's comments after the episode, because I wanted to get my thoughts down without being influenced by everyone else's thoughts.

UTU49

I adore this episode. I think it's one of the most interesting things they ever did. I find it fascinating how many people find this episode downright threatening. Aside from just being a really interesting story, I see this episode as an examination of the very concept of fiction. Fiction is not real. There is therefore no objective truth. It’s all an illusion. This means that it is open to interpretation. You and your friends can interpret things differently. Not only that, but you don’t even have to commit to a particular interpretation. You can simultaneously consider more than one interpretation at the same time. If you want to, you could interpret fiction differently every day. This means that it is 100% valid to interpret the ENTIRE series as the figment of the imagination of a girl in a psych ward. Or not. Is Buffy’s life in Sunnydale real? Or is Buffy’s life in the psych ward real? NEITHER OF THEM ARE REAL. It doesn’t matter which is “real” to Buffy, because they are BOTH fiction to us. If I want to, I can choose to believe that everything we’ve seen for nearly 6 full seasons are the delusions of a sick girl. Tomorrow I can choose the other interpretation that Buffy’s time in the psych ward was the delusion, and that it was simply brought on by the demon’s poison. The day after tomorrow I can choose some other interpretation. Some people can’t stand the final shot, because they feel that it suggests that Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Sunnydale are not real. If you don’t like that idea, how do you interpret that final shot? I have an answer for you. If you want to completely reject the possibility that the psych ward is Buffy’s real world, you don’t have to fear or reject that final shot. One way I like to interpret that final shot is that it represents the part of Buffy’s mind that would prefer to be with her mother… and not be living her current life that blends a hellish existence with many people that she loves… including Xander, Willow, and Dawn. Would Buffy trade Xander, Willow, and Dawn, to have her mother back, if it also meant that she could be free of the pain she has been in since they brought her back to life? Quite possibly. Buffy’s mental health has been in trouble ever since Restless. It makes complete sense to me that some part of Buffy would rather not be living this existence.

UTU49

The part I hated was Xander coming back & everyone forgiving him , the part I loved was Buffy beating up Xander .👌

Jim Greer

top 10 episode for me

Abby

Everytime Buffy (the series) dared, it was wonderfully done. Hush, Restless, The Body, OMWF and Normal Again are all masterpieces. This one is more divisive but it fits so well in this season... It's easy to just wave it all as "Buffy gets momentarily crazy" but no, it's not. It's also a clever interrogation about us, our relation to reality, to fiction, to our fantasies, to our coping mechanisms. To the things that make life worth living. I have my personal opinion about Buffy's final words to her mother, which I will not divulge (spoilerish), I will just say something clicked in her mind at that point.

Gau Thier

When she is talking to Willow she says it's after she became the slayer. There is also a comic that shows her time in the institution.

TheMew

I'm a little late to this episode so I don't know if you're gonna see this, BUT I have to say I am so happy you loved this episode!! Personally I think this episode is phenomenal! At the top with episodes like hush, restless, the body, once more with feeling and so on. And sometimes i feel like it doesn't get the credit it deserves. Honestly there's so much to unpack in this episode, but I would be writing forever so I'm just gonna comment on a minor thing I think gets overlooked despite it being such a perfect detail for this season, and that is how Tara comes and kind of saves the day. She has been the moral compass during Giles absence and how she in this episode comes in and frees the reason Buffy has to stay in the Sunnydale reality and brings Buffy back to what hopefully is the real world and brings her back to her sanity. Like I said, there's so much more about this episode, but I would be writing forever. Thank you for such an awesome reaction. It was so much fun to watch! Edit: Okay I have to mention another thing. As someone who has struggled a lot and can relate to season 6 Buffy and Willow this episode is so good. The ultimatum and struggle about choosing the fight or the comfort is done in such a clever way this episode. And I don't think it should be looked at as a kind of "dream" episode and an easy escape from the all over plot, I think its an episode made to deep dive and reflect around how mental illness makes it hard to always understand that our thoughts aren't always true, honestly it is so much that especially makes sense if the one watching have been struggling with depression or other mental illness. I think I wrote this a little messy haha, but I just got so exited watching this with you, and I am so pleased you liked it!

Saga

She doesn’t say when exactly she went into the institution. I like to think it was before she knew she was the slayer. Like a month before the movie, before her watcher found her. So she saw monsters and had a nervous breakdown; but now she is determined to live her best happy life, then the watcher shows up and is like nope it’s all real. So, she would be distrustful, yet still easier to convince. And she would never tell her parents about slaying.

CW: suicide I take the most meaning away from this episode when I view Buffys decision to stay in the other world as her attempting suicide. Buffy is desperate for relief from her pain and sees no other way out besides literally leaving this world. Spike backs her into a corner and threatens to reveal her biggest shame, which turns her suicidal ideation (visiting the other world) into planning (deciding to stay there). But first, she has to actively demonstrate that her need for relief from her suffering is more powerful than her attachments. In reality, for people planning suicide, this process is entirely internal. But in this, Buffy has to witness the pain that her suicide would bring to her loved ones in real time through an inversion, as she needs to kill them in order to 'kill' herself. This reading makes me extremely glad that everyone immediately forgave and understood her afterwards, that no one punished her for it. Sure, in the actual literal events, Buffy tried to kill them and they'd be valid to react in any number of ways. But the subtext is that they almost lost Buffy again, but didn't. That relief in that last bit feels palpable to me. "I know you're afraid. I know the world feels like a hard place sometimes. But you've got people who love you. Your dad and I, we have all the faith in the world in you. We'll always be with you. You've got a world of strength in your heart, I know you do, you just have to find it again. Believe in yourself." For me, THIS is what this episode IS. The question of what's real is irrelevant. As always, it's about what Buffy is going through this episode and this season, and the choices she makes. She chooses to live, chooses the life that's making her miserable, chooses *herself* after a season of not recognizing the person she is now. THAT is real.

KT

I wonder if the doctors found a little side-part of her brain which is where she's imagining Angel's show...

I LOVE this episode so much! In a masochistic kind of way.. I've seen this trope done in a number of sci-fi shows (Like Star Trek and Stargate..) but none of them did it as well as Buffy did.. One of my theories was always that Joyce had an aneurism as a result of the memory shift that the monks did when they inserted Dawn into their reality - and this episode somewhat confirmed it for me - with Joyce being alive and well, while Dawn not existing But in all honesty.. It broke me when I first saw it and it concluded the way it did..

Ashtara Levin