Watchers Review, PART III

Act Six: With Andrew’s instruction, Willow begins to fight back from within the sphere to do something techy. The Engineer is annoyed, because obviously Willow should have relied on her magic by now (which would only hasten her death and opened the dimensional portal). In response, he lets loose with the mystic lightening, trying to encourage her to tap her powers. In the meanwhile, the magic sucking thing is draining her too, still, but at a low rate – so, she’s really getting the tar beaten out of her here.

Ro takes off from the library, unwilling to stay behind when Wills is being killed. In the meanwhile, Tracey has been sent off to grab Jeff and return him to the library.

In the meanwhile, the Presidium army is still holding off the rest of the Slayers, including Buffy’s team. Dawn and Skye are holding their own when Ro arrives, trying to get to where Willow is suffering (and fighting to save her own life using Andrew’s relayed instructions).

There’s an important throw-away here that I’m going to bring up now – Heli, a Slayer we’ll get to know a lot more about in the coming seasons. Watch her closely – that’s all I’ll say. Watch. Her. Closely.

Back to this episode – Ro finds herself the target of Larmin, but is saved by Kennedy. Above ground, demons who’ve broken through the Slayer lines begin to invade the Council proper through the basement and streaming for the upper floors. Bonnie is freed from her basement prison….

As Willow struggles to disable the machine from within, and the Engineer is trying to get her to defensively turn to her magic, the demons invading the Council – among them vampires – have reached the upper floors. Their met by Watchers-in-Training (including Jeff’s mom that we haven’t seen since his abduction) who begin fighting for the Council’s survival!

Andrew is nearly killed by one of the vampire minions helping the Presidium, but is saved by Tracey. But the battle over the opening portal isn’t done…

Act Seven?!

Act Seven: More titanic battling – the Engineer tries to open (and temporarily succeeds) in opening the Invasion Portal himself using his own magic added to what was stolen from Willow!

Thankfully, it is only temporary and only a few dozen (!) more invaders make it through. But upstairs, the Watcher contingent is being over-run.

Becca, not able to stay locked away in Giles’ suite, ventures out to see how she can help (the lady is gutsy) and sees Bonnie trying to make her escape through the lobby in between the warring parties… OH NO YOU DON’T … Becca runs for the stairwell down into the melee, her goal to stop Bonnie!

Bonnie gets away after a brief scrape with Becca, but there’s plenty more battles to be fought. As this is taking place, Jeff finds his mother lying on the floor, a dead demon on top of her. It doesn’t look good for Lily.

Underground, as the Engineer tries again to open the portal with his own energies, Willow decides she’s safe to tap her magic. The Engineer wanted her to “die or fight”… well, she’s ready to fight!

Back in the lobby – Brell and Tram return to stand with their allies… they both wade into the grand fight for the Council’s future. And, their not alone!

Down below, the machinery has been destroyed, but it has caused a raging fire and the barrier keeping Willow down in the pit is still active. Now she’s in danger of being smothered or burned to a crisp!

Back in the lobby – remember Julia? She came to retrieve Mia forcefully… well, she suddenly finds herself in the middle of chaos. Slayer instincts win out over selfishness and she saves Giles and lends a hand (but not before she accidentally shoots Tram through the forehead – oh no!).

Oh, come on! I didn’t remember how many Acts this one has… (smile)

Act Eight: The battle ends, but there’s still one hell of a mess. The infirmary is filled to the brink with the wounded and dying. I’ll give only highlights here, because this review is really, really long – but its all SO DANG GOOD.

- Marsha was injured, but seems fine.

- Lily, Jeff’s mother lies in a coma.

- Tram was, indeed, killed by Julia on accident via bullet to head.

- Willow is beaten up and has minor burns.

- Dawn, with Buffy’s blessing (that’s a surprise!) decides she wants to stay and join the Council officially as a Watcher-in-Training. She’ll be joining the regular cast next season!

And finally, with the post-Apocalypse joking out of the way – we get a surprise visit to Willow from Tara!

Honestly, how much more could they squeeze into this episode… LOVE IT!

Tara, by the way, drops by to bless Willow and Ro’s getting together and lets Wills know that she’s alright.

We get some Faith/Buffy “beginnings of a beautiful friendship” banter and some Ro/Willow angst. For some reason, although Ro is ready to admit that she’s in love with Willow and she claims to have gotten comfortable with suddenly having gay feelings – she can’t get physical.

Willow storms off, not understanding the problem since Rowena won’t actually talk to her about it. She just believes that Ro is afraid to just accept some happiness… but we know that Ro was married to Jordan Tyrell and that he was pretty abusive (as his torturing showed in Broken Allies), but this will be an issue to be dealt with next season.

The Good: Holy Crap, that was looooooooong! But, as you’ll notice – I’m mentioning the fact in ‘The Good’. This was expansive and detailed and action packed, but the pace of the story never lagged. It was … well… something that means better than the words that are coming to mind: Damned Near Perfect.

Character Interaction: Fantastic.

Plot: Exciting. Tense. Awesome.

Artwork: Fantastic – a lot of it and really terrific. I’m just awe-struck.

Look, every detail of this gets put in ‘The Good’, alright. If you haven’t checked out WATCHERS yet – please, please do!

But if you want to just dip your toes in first, then read both parts of this season-ender, “Another Day and Another Apocalypse”.

The Bad: Not a damned thing. Even the guest-stars from episodes past were well used.

The Score: Easy and Obvious: 5.0 out of 5.

And, don’t forget to check out the MUSIC VIDEO at the end of Act 8!