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Remembering Buffy
Written By: Justine Manzano
After seven years on the air, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of 
the most influential shows in pop culture today has come to a dramatic close, leaving all viewers wondering what will come next? Viewers watched in awe as their heroine, who arrived in the town of Sunnydale 7 years ago, stood over the gaping hole that had once been her town with a smile on her face. The Hellmouth was closed. Not bad for a mid-season replacement that premiered on an un-established station in 1997 and was named after a movie that failed miserably in 1992. And despite all going against its success, Buffy the Vampire Slayer the series rose against it, and became the "little show that could." While it is arguable that the show never became a mainstream hit, it garnered the most rabid cult fan base, and even spawned a spin-off in 1999-Angel. This was a tremendous coup for Joss Whedon, the series creator who claimed that he had never gotten what he truly wanted out of the movie. The series flourished, and his vision was realized.
Choose Your Path
So, what exactly is Buffy’s legacy? For its entire run, the show followed a group of friends in their realistic evolution from teenagers to adulthood, many times leaving you thinking I've been through that! or That's exactly what that's like! Despite what outsiders saw as a show about a female superhero fighting demons and vampires, the loyal fans saw Whedon metaphor up a storm,. From the boyfriend that turns into a bastard when you sleep with him, to the alcoholic trying to find a way to fight his addiction, to the classic Whedonism, High School is hell. Buffy brought most of the troubles of the young adults of today into blinding daylight, showing the world what it's like to be young and constantly feeling like the world is against you. Only in Buffy's case, the world truly was. The series has turned Buffy herself into a pop icon. No one can hear her name without connecting in to the actress who played her through the run of the series, Sarah Michelle Gellar, or the show.
Thankfully, the show didn't end abruptly. Whedon and Gellar simultaneously chose to turn in their stakes this year, deciding that it was best for the show to go out while it was still on top, instead of ending when the viewers were wishing it dead. So, the series wrapped itself up, and what tremendous closure it provided! This series first began with the arrival of Buffy in this new town of Sunnydale on her first day of school. Joss destroyed the high school and killed Buffy and the show did not end. The school was rebuilt three years later, and Buffy was resurrected three months later. The show went on. But most of the evil Buffy fought on a weekly basis came from the mystical center of the town, the Hellmouth, which brought the nasties of the world towards it like a magnet. What better way to end the show then to destroy the town, altogether, thus causing Buffy to take a new route in life.
On top of that, the stories main characters were given closure. Buffy, who'd always wanted to be a normal girl can be, with all of the potential slayers activated as full time slayers. She now gets to choose when she has to jump into the fray, and when she can stand back and live her own life. The life of Buffy Summers. Not the life of the Slayer. This is truly the closest thing that she will ever get to a normal life, and the show ends on that note.
As for Willow, Buffy's best friend (played by Alyson Hannigan), the show began during a bad time in her life. She has smarts, but no real power over the world around her. Through the seasons, we watched her develop skills in magick, and slowly turn them into great powers that went beyond her control. In this, the final episode of the series, Willow does the spell to release the power of the Slayers, a spell more powerful than anything she has ever tried before, and she controls it like a pro.
Xander and Dawn (played by Nicholas Brendon and Michelle Trachtenberg) shared similar stories, both having trouble coping with their normalcy in comparison to their droves of supernatural friends. Yeah, you may be the only normal one around, but to be normal in the face of all this insanity and still have the courage to face it is what counts.
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