Selfless (Buffy episode)
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"Selfless" is the fifth episode of the seventh and final season of television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Plot synopsis
Summary
Anya finally gets back into her old vengeance demon ways by helping a girl get revenge on an entire fraternity by having a spider demon tear all of their hearts out. Willow, returning to college, discovers this and she, Buffy and Xander fear the worst of Anya.
While Buffy is determined to kill Anya, Xander cannot believe she could do such a thing, particularly as he is still in love with her. Anya, meanwhile, is feeling deep remorse about the event - even though Halfrek tries to convince her that what she did was a work of art.
Buffy and Xander track Anya back to the Frat house, where the two women fight. Buffy stabs Anya, seemingly killing her, but Anya's demon side prevents her from dying. Xander begs Buffy to stop, and Anya realizes that she does not want to be a demon anymore. Willow has called forth Anya's boss D'Hoffryn, using the amulet he gave her while trying to recruit her as Anya's replacement during the episode Something Blue. When he interrupts the fight between her and Buffy, Anya begs him to reverse the spell she did - even though she knows the cost of reversing such a spell is the life of a vengeance demon.
Anya is ready to die, even if Xander does not want her to, but D'Hoffryn instead summons Halfrek and kills her. He wants Anya to feel the pain and suffer for leaving him. A distraught Anya leaves, Xander attempting to follow her. She now is alone.
Flashbacks:
- 880, when Anya first became a demon, after turning her lover Olaf into a troll
- 1905, when Anya and Halfrek were involved in the onset of the Russian Revolution of 1905
- 2001, a few months before Anya and Xander's failed wedding (see below).
Expanded overview
Dawn helps Willow move into her new room at the Summer's house while giving her advice on how to fit in with people at school. Buffy and Xander contribute to the effort as well while talking about Anya. Buffy wonders about Anya's evil intentions, but Xander thinks she's getting better and isn't a threat. At a frat house, dead male bodies litter the room, each one with his hearts ripped out. Anya sits on the floor, covered in blood and in complete shock by the violence she's caused. In Sjornjost, Sweden, 880 A.D., a pre-demon Anya, then named Aud, cares for her Viking husband Olaf after he returns home from a hard day of fighting trolls. She feeds him, but worries about whether he's been faithful to her.
In the school basement, Spike talks to Buffy about his mental struggles and Drusilla. Buffy is kind and reassuring that she'll help him get through his struggles. Then the real Buffy comes downstairs and tells a tearful Spike to get out of the basement and away from whatever is making him so crazy down there. Willow talks with one of her professors about returning to class and then she runs into Anya leaving one of the fraternity houses wearing a trench coat. Anya's very distant and claims she's dating one of the frat boys before quickly rushing off. Willow spots a streak of blood on Anya wrist before she runs off and goes to investigate the building.
Willow finds the frat house covered in blood and a young woman cowering and crying in the closet. The woman explains how she wished the fraternity boys could have their hearts ripped out after her heart was broken by one of the boys. She didn't intend for it to really happen, but then a giant spider showed up and ripped out the hearts of all the boys in the house. Willow uses dark magic to hold the spider at bay and loses control for a minute, snapping at the cowering woman before tossing the spider through a window and apologizing for her outburst. Back in Sjornjost, 880, as a newly turned troll, Olaf runs from a mob of villagers who intend to kill him. Aud watches the proceedings along with D'Hoffryn who appreciates her fine magic. She had turned Olaf into a troll after he cheated on her with a barmaid. D'Hoffryn convinces Aud that she should go into the vengeance business and that her true destiny is as Anyanka, Vengeance Demon.
At work, Buffy receives a call from Willow about the frat house and the spider demon. Meanwhile, Halfrek praises Anya violent vengeance while Anya expresses her difficulty to deal with the effect the act has had on her. Willow barges into Anya's place and orders Halfrek out. She tries to offer help, but Anya isn't in assistance, especially from Willow. Buffy and Xander search through the woods outside the frat house for the spider and find another dead body. The spider attacks them and nearly kills Buffy, but she manages to throw it off and kill it with an ax.
Buffy and Xander return to the house and find Willow waiting with an explanation about where the demon originated and the damage it caused. Xander blows up at Willow because she didn't tell them, but she did it because Buffy would feel obligated to kill Anya as a result. In St. Petersburg, Russia, 1905, Anyanka and Halfrek dine on champagne after massacring a room full of men. Anyanka is clearly set in her ways and focused on Vengeance. In Sunnydale the present day, Buffy is determined to kill Anya because of the violence she's caused. Xander can't believe she would kill Anya and desperately tries to convince Buffy to change her mind. They argue about their actions with Spike and Willow and Buffy reminds Xander that she killed Angel (from the episode Becoming Part 2) in spite of her love for him. Buffy thinks Xander's love for Anya is clouding his judgment and encourages him to find another alternative, although she doesn't believe one exists. Xander rushes out to find a way to prevent Anya's death while Buffy sets out to cause it.
Left on her own, Willow rushes to her room and finds the talisman D'Hoffryn gave her years ago (from the Something Blue episode) and she summons him. Xander finds Anya at the fraternity house and tries to offer help and warning of Buffy's intentions, but again Anya isn't interested in his assistance. Buffy shows up and after Anya turns into Anyanka and knocks Xander out of the way, the girls break out in a fight. The struggle and toss each other around for a while, but armed with a sword, Buffy as a mild advantage and manages to stab Anya in the chest. In a flashback to 2001 when Sunnydale residents were consumed by the desire to sing, Xander sleeps in recliner while Anya breaks out into song about her relationship, life as a human, and her upcoming marriage to him.
In the present, Anya wakes up from her stabbing induced unconsciousness and rips the sword out. The fight continues and Xander intervenes when Buffy raises the sword to stab Anya again and D'Hoffryn pops in, interrupting the rest of the battle. He examines the viewpoints of all the Scooby Gang in regards to Anya's future, but wonders what Anya wants to do. She asks to take back her vengeance wish. Unable to believe his eyes or ears, D'Hoffryn says that because of the enormity of the act, a vengeance demon must die in exchange for the reversal of the wish in order to restore the lives of the victims. Anya accepts the steep price and is prepared to die to undo what she's done despite Xander's protest to do so. Instead though, D'Hoffryn makes Halfrek appear and die in Anya's place as a punishment to her. With a parting threat about the big evil coming for all of them by echoing the quote that was said by Spike and others, "from beneath you, it devours," D'Hoffryn then departs. Hurt and scared, Anya walks out alone, but Xander follows. She expresses her worries about surviving on her own and whether she actually has a role in the world. He offers some comforting words, but her problems and fears require time to be repaired. Xander walks off into the night while tearfully, Anya moves in the opposite direction, facing the future on her own.
Writing and acting
Regular cast
- Sarah Michelle Gellar — Buffy Summers
- Nicholas Brendon — Xander Harris
- Emma Caulfield — Anya Jenkins
- Michelle Trachtenberg — Dawn Summers
- James Marsters — Spike
- and Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Guest cast
- Abraham Benrubi as Olaf
- Kali Rocha as Halfrek
- Andy Umberger as D'Hoffryn
Production details
Music
In a flashback to the season six episode, "Once More, with Feeling", which was a musical. Two songs are heard, both written by Joss Whedon.
- Marti Noxon & David Fury - Mustard/Parking ticket song. - A brief off-screen number sung by David Fury and Marti Noxon. In the original episode, they played respectively a man ecstatic that the drycleaner had gotten mustard out of his shirt, and a woman complaining about a parking ticket. Here, in a flashback set the night before their numbers, we hear the aftermath of Noxon's character spilling mustard on Fury's character.
- Anya - "I'll Be His Missus". Sung by Anya (Emma Caulfield). Xander has fallen asleep and she muses over how good her life will be once she becomes Mrs. Xander Harris.
Quotes and trivia
- Olaf: "You speak poetry, and are annoying." Olaf explains to Anya why he loves her.
Continuity
Errors
- Anya's everchanging hair color throughout the show's run proved too much for even the make-up department to keep up with; in her musical flashback, she has long, platinum blonde hair, when in fact she had rather short, light brown hair in the episode "Once More, With Feeling!".
Arc significance
- The episode provides an important point for the early development of what would become the seventh season's overlying theme near its conclusion: that Buffy's judgement is realistic and harsh, even when it comes to those she cares about. Her stoic "I'm the hero" routine briefly shown in an argument with Xander and Willow is clearly masking a serious crisis of morality in her heart, a defense mechanism seen throughout the rest of the series as the situation around her becomes worse and worse. Buffy's willingness to see that Spike, Angel, and Willow were human is seriously offput by her turning a blind eye to the fact that Anya was human. This is the same zealous behavior that causes such problems later on.
- The Xander and Anya problem is reversed in Buffy and Spike, which would be fully explored in further episodes.
Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Location, time (if known) | Buffyverse: Fall 2002 - December 2002 (non-canon = italic) |
|---|---|
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.01 Lessons (Buffy episode)>Lessons |
| Mexico, 2002 | Buffy/Angel book: Seven Crows (Buffy/Angel novel)>Seven Crows |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.01 Deep Down (Angel episode)>Deep Down |
| L.A., 2002 | B7.02 Beneath You (Buffy episode)>Beneath You |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.02 Ground State (Angel episode)>Ground State |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.03 Same Time, Same Place (Buffy episode)>Same Time, Same Place |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | Buffy book: Apocalypse Memories (Buffy novel)>Apocalypse Memories |
| L.A., Las Vegas, 2002 | A4.03 The House Always Wins (Angel episode)>The House Always Wins |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.04 Help (Buffy episode)>Help |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Dark Mirror (Angel novel)>Dark Mirror |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | Buffy book: Mortal Fear (Buffy novel)>Mortal Fear |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | Buffy book: Spark and Burn (Buffy novel)>Spark and Burn |
| Sunnydale, L.A., 2002 | Buffy/Angel book: Heat (Buffy/Angel novel)>Heat |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.04 Slouching Toward Bethlehem (Angel episode)>Slouching Toward Bethlehem |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.05 Selfless (Buffy episode)>Selfless |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.05 Supersymmetry (Angel episode)>Supersymmetry |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.06 Him (Buffy episode)>Him |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Solitary Man (Angel novel)>Solitary Man |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.06 Spin the Bottle (Angel episode)>Spin the Bottle |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Love and Death (Angel novel)>Love and Death |
| L.A., 2002 | Angel book: Monolith (Angel novel)>Monolith |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.07 Conversations with Dead People (Buffy episode)>Conversations with Dead People |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.07 Apocalypse, Nowish (Angel episode)>Apocalypse, Nowish |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.08 Sleeper (Buffy episode)>Sleeper |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.08 Habeas Corpses (Angel episode)>Habeas Corpses |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.09 Never Leave Me (Buffy episode)>Never Leave Me |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.09 Long Day's Journey (Angel episode)>Long Day's Journey |
| Sunnydale, 2002 | B7.10 Bring on the Night (Buffy episode)>Bring on the Night |
| Unknown, 2002 | |
| New York, 2002 | |
| Unknown 2002 | |
| L.A., 2002 | A4.10 Awakening (Angel episode)>Awakening |
External links
| Buffyverse | ||
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| Places | L.A. | Sunnydale Bronze | Caritas | Hellmouth | Hyperion | Library | Magic Box | Pylea | Sunnydale High | |
| Music | Complete Tracklist | Use of Music in Buffy & Angel | Dingoes Ate My Baby | Film | | | Once More, With Feeling | |
| Key Terminology | "Demon" | "Slayer" | "Vampire" | "Watcher" | "Werewolf" | "Witch" "Child of Senior Partners" | Shanshu | Sunnydale Syndrome | Tro-Clon | |
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