Buffy Season 8 Recap - The Long Way Home - Part 2

For those who do not remember who Amy is, she is the witch who was introduced in Season 1 of Buffy. In a later season she turned herself into a rat, Willow then kept her as a pet until she could transform her back to her human body. Willow finally became powerful enough in Season Six and fixed Amy who then introduced Willow to magic addiction. When Willow finally decided to ‘get clean’ Amy took it as a personal insult and in Season Seven she manipulated Willow’s guilt in Tara’s death to mentally torture her until Willow instead came to terms with her death and found some peace. Amy has always held some jealousy for Willow and her magic ability.
















The 'previously' part at the start of the issue also confirms that Buffy's castle is situated in Scotland. We’ve seen Buffy’s inner monologue, we’ve seen Xander’s, now its Giles’ turn. The first image is a just boiled cup of tea with the words “I used to be a Watcher”, we turn the page to see Giles looking down onto over thirty young girls fighting. He tells us that there used to be hundreds of Watchers and only one Slayer, but says that lately the scales have tipped. He calmly demands that the girls stop fighting and they immediately do, they are all Slayers and they are all being trained by him.
He tells them that they are fighting incorrectly, they are fighting on their own and the Slayer no longer needs to fight alone, they need to work together to fight at their full potential. Giles’ speech flows directly into the next page where Buffy is giving the same lesson to a group of Slayers she is training, the Slayer no longer fights alone but they fight together. We then move to Andrew training his group of Slayers who instead is rambling about Star Wars, “does that answer your question?” he finally states. The puzzled Slayers reply “no”. One Slayer speaks up and asks why they can’t just use guns, Andrew reminds her (and the reader) that the Slayer never uses guns, guns are bad.

Xander is now seen sat next to a bathing Dawn, she is seemingly bathing in a lake due to her giantness. Xander sits with his back to her discussing her relationship with Buffy, Dawn thinks it’s clear that Buffy doesn’t want her there and Xander admits that Buffy would prefer if she was still in college and is disappointed she had to drop out due to her current mystical condition but she likes having Dawn around again. Dawn doesn’t quite believe him; she thinks that Buffy is more interested in her new Slayers, why would she care about her sister when Buffy has hundreds of new sisters who she relates to. Xander takes a moment then asks if she possibly caused this giant problem on purpose to get Buffy’s attention, she doesn’t respond and simply splashes water over him which at her size soaks him.

The General who was seen in the last issue is talking to another member of the military, he tells them that Amy has co-ordinates and is going in to get “her”, and if Amy fails they should send in her boyfriend. The General says that he is only to be woken when a report comes through; he closes the door on the man and walks into his room. He takes off his shirt and it is revealed that the symbol from the previous issue is carved into his chest just like the dead bodies in the previous issue.

Buffy and Xander are walking down a hallway that is clearly within their castle, Xander is telling Buffy about his concern that Dawn is trying to get attention and is putting off the reason why she has become a giant to prolong it. Xander points out that it wouldn’t be surprising as Dawn must be full of abandonment issues, her Mom, Tara, Buffy… twice. Buffy begins to blame herself saying that its always her fault, Xander tells her not to think like that, she has done the guilt thing before and he doesn’t want to see her doing it again. She looks up and we have a close up of her eyes as she asks him “are you coming to bed?”.

If this was still a television programme this would most certainly be where the adverts would run, in the comics they have adverts too which help give moments like this a dramatic pause however they do not work as well because the dramatic pause is only a couple of seconds as you turn the page. We return and Xander seems instantly alarmed “we both know what a mistake that is” Buffy smiles “I’ll be gentle this time” implying that this has happened before. She kisses him and his head falls from his body, Xander sarcastically points out “Yeah… gentle”. Suddenly the window smashes and tries to suck Buffy out making it very clear that this a dream,
“I can’t go outside, I’m afraid of the dark!” screams Buffy as she is pulled out of the window by an unseen force.
“Buffy, you are the dark” Xander’s head replies.



Buffy falls from the window into the hand of giant rock demon, her hands and feet are pierced by his sharp fingers. She manages to mutter “I know you…” the demon replies that she does indeed recognise him and then uses its fire breath to engulf her in flames. We then cut to what is really happening and Amy is seen holding a dagger about to plunge it into a sleeping, screaming, Buffy who is tied to the bed. Xander storms in with a crossbow and some back up in the form of Slayers in their nightwear. Amy looks at them and decides to kill Buffy anyway, she brings the dagger down and Buffy screams. Amy is shot by Xander’s crossbow and the Slayers tackle her to the floor, Xander runs towards Buffy to find the dagger mangled. Xander points out that Amy is stupid for thinking that Buffy would not be protected with magic. Amy smiles because they haven’t realised that Buffy is still under her spell and dreaming, she gloats that the only thing that can wake her up is true loves kiss. Once again the advertisements in the comic are placed perfectly to give the reader a dramatic pause, and then we get a close up of Xander in disbelief “Seriously?”.

We then see the Slayer who was talking to Xander in issue 1 standing guard atop the castle. She is talking to another Slayer on guard, “its not love” Renee says talking about “Mr Harris”, but her friend thinks otherwise commenting how Renee has taken up sudden interest in things that Xander likes, including comic books and dry walling. Before Renee has a chance to defend herself they hear a noise, “like crawling” and look down from their high point on the castle to see zombies climbing the walls of the castle.




We return to Xander and Amy arguing almost like friends as Amy tells him that to wake Buffy up the kiss needs to be done by someone passionately in love with Buffy so it cannot be ‘friend’ love or the love between family but someone who wants to kiss her passionately, she looks at him and asks if Xander would be able to break the curse, he doesn’t respond. A Slayer runs in and informs Xander of the zombie attack to which he replies to Amy in annoyance “You’re really pulling out the classics tonight”.
We see the chaos that is happening outside the castle as the Slayers attempt to kill the zombies, Renee is stabbed with a sword and we return to Buffy’s dream.

She is surrounded by darkness screaming in pain and then a voice attempts to comfort her, “you can’t give up that easily Buffy…” we turn the page to see a man in a long black coat and a red t-shirt holding out his hand to Buffy. We cannot see his face but we presume Buffy can. “I have so much I need to show you…my love”.
The battle outside is becoming more chaotic. The Slayers reveal they cannot kill the zombies; even head shots do not seem to slow them down. Amy sits high in the tower looking down on the chaos she has caused, she speaks aloud, amused “a Hundred Slayers, and not one person powerful enough to stop me”. She is interrupted and looks up at the person speaking “As a friend of mine once said…” we turn the page to see who Amy is looking at and there floats Willow “I’d like to test that theory” echoing the words Giles said to her when Willow thought she was too powerful to be taken down.



















Past Recaps:
Buffy Season 8 - The Long way home - Part 1