Buffy Season 8 Recap - Wolves at the Gate - Conclusion

Toru pulls the Scythe out of Renee’s body and then we switch to Renee’s point of view and her inner monologue. She is angry at herself for falling to the ground, she is trying to will herself to stay standing but she is too weak. Xander runs towards her and we see behind him that the vampires are appearing from the fog. Toru’s witch glides towards Willow and they fly out of the window as the other vampires attack Buffy and the Slayers. Xander holds Renee as she thinks about how much she loves Xander, she is too weak to talk and wishes she had a chance to tell Xander how she felt, her final though and regret is that she never got to tell Xander how she felt.

Dracula and Buffy are fighting off the vampires and he tells her that he can stop these vampires but he needs her to go get Willow, Buffy tells him that she is not leaving Xander alone who is still cradling Renee’s now dead body. Dracula yells at Buffy and tells her that Xander is not alone and puts his vampire face on. He runs at a group of the vampires slashing them with his claws and beheading some of them with pure force. Buffy runs past Satsu and tells her that she is in command, Satsu asks where Buffy is going and she tells Satsu that she is going to bring back Willow as she looks out of the broken window to see Willow and Toru’s witch fighting in mid air far below.

The Asian witch introduces herself to Willow, her name is Kumiko. She tells Willow that she has been watching Willow’s ascension for quite some time. She tells Willow that she is not the only student of Saga Vasuki and that they share a lot of the same magics, Willow grabs Kumiko’s head and forces herself into her mind. Willow sees the green snake woman who we saw a few issues ago which is presumably Saga Vasuki. Her voice speaks to Willow, she tells Willow that she has been looking for her and asks her why she would try to hide from her, from what she is and from what’s coming. Willow passes out while being strangled by Kumiko, Buffy closes her eyes and tries to convince herself it is just like jumping from a diving board and then jumps and falls towards Willow. Once again Buffy is seen falling from the sky. She lands on the two witches and stabs Kumiko through her back and throws her to one side as we seem to see her burn up in flames. Buffy and Willow are now hurtling towards the ground as Willow is still passed out, Buffy tries to wake her. Willow wakes up just in time and mutters a spell and both Willow and Buffy fall into the ground which is now deep water.

A team of Slayers on the ground are fighting the vampires and seem to be losing, one of the Slayers yells at the others that they need to retreat as she is beaten to the floor by a vampire, the vampire stands over her ready to kill her. Dawn’s giant foot comes down and crushes the vampire, Dawn tells the Slayers that they don’t run. Dawn helps kill the remaining vampires and points towards the building with the giant red ring, she tells the Slayers that that’s the building they want. Toru looks out from the building, he is watching Dawn and the Slayers, he tells someone on a phone that when she gets to the intersection they should deploy the counter measure. Dawn begins to tell the Slayers the plan when suddenly she is hit in the face, she looks around to see a giant mechanical Dawn that matches her size.










The head vampires are working on initiating the red ring and removing all of the Slayer's powers but they cannot get through to Kumiko, Toru tells them that it may take longer but he can also do the spell and begins reciting the spell to activate the power remover. Raidon asks one of the scientists what that noise is, he tells him that its simply the mechanics of the giant red ring, Raidon disagrees, it seems more like screaming rather than mechanics. Dracula Satsu and some other Slayers burst through the rooftop door with vampires being slain in front of them. Dracula charges at Toru knocking the Scythe out of his hands and stopping the spell. He tells Satsu to retrieve the Scythe which has been thrown through the air, she runs towards the vampires, jumps up and uses one of the vampires heads to jump even higher, she grabs the Scythe and suddenly realises that she has managed to jump off the edge of the building “oh hell” she says.

Willow and Buffy are draining the excess water from their hair when Willow looks up to see Satsu falling from the building, she asks if Satsu is her girlfriend which Buffy quickly denies. Willow tells her to be careful with her, she has to look out for her fellow lesbians. Willow also clarifies that she never wanted to sleep with Buffy so she is glad she didn’t try to experiment with her. In fact, Willow tells Buffy that she isn’t even on her ‘list’, Buffy is glad because Willow isn’t on hers either, its strictly for Judi Dench and then she struggles to find another name “… and Eleanor Roosevelt”. Buffy and Willow’s heads tilt to the side as they continue to watch Satsu fall form the building, “we should probably go catch Satsu now” Willow says, “yeah I was just thinking that” says Buffy with a straight face.

Willow flies up with Buffy on one arm and Satsu on the other. Satsu has her samurai sword ready and Buffy has been reunited with her Scythe. They reach the top and return to the fight, which is still made difficult because the vampires keep turning into fog as they try to make a killing blow. Dracula throws his sword to Willow, he tells Willow that sword holds the power to all these vampires extra powers in the same way the Scythe holds the extra power wielded by the Slayers. He tells her to do the spell using his sword. Toru realises what Willow is doing too late and a white light showers the battle. Buffy yells out to all that can hear “scales are balanced again, they’re vampires, were vampire slayers time to do what we do!”.

Dawn and the Mecha-Dawn are fighting a little further away, Andrew is there helping Dawn. He tells her that she needs to decapitate the robot, the Mecha Dawn has been programmed with simple character instructions (much like the Buffybot) which allows Dawn to see how other people see her. “I like blue jeans and irony” it says aloud, Dawn gets up as it tells her “I cry a lot and let boys take advantage of my weak emotional states” Dawn denies that she has ever done that and manages to pull the head off of the robot in anger.

Dracula demands that Willow returns his sword, she throws it to him but Toru catches it instead. He pities Dracula and implies that Dracula’s sword is similar to an old man needing his walking stick to stand. Dracula lost his extra powers during the spell too and Toru asks Dracula how it feels to be a normal vampire again. In one swift move Dracula manages to distract Toru knock the sword from his hands and grab the sword himself. He tells Toru that he has never been an ordinary vampire, clearly Toru has forgotten his story, he tells Toru that he killed more men than God’s plagues combined and that was before he even became a vampire, he slices off Toru’s hand then his leg and then his other hand. He tells Toru that it isn’t the vampire side of him that he should be concerned about but the “old man” inside. Toru looks up at Dracula and tells him to finish it then, to kill him properly, he tells Dracula that he at least owes him the honour of killing him rather than leaving him to die slowly. Dracula tells him that it is not his place to kill him and looks towards Xander and gives Xander the sword, Dracula then adds that Toru knows nothing about honour. Xander raises the sword and beheads Toru. One of the head Slayers talks to Buffy through her headset, she tells Buffy that the remaining vampires are running away. Buffy looks towards Xander who is still holding the sword “chase them” she tells the Slayer. “Seal off the streets. No prisoners. Cut them down as they flee” she tells her and she walks towards Xander, Xander drops the sword in both shock and grief. “Kill every single one of them” Buffy demands. She gets to Xander just as he falls to his knees he turns and hugs her, she places her hands on Xander’s head in comfort as the Slayers kill every remaining vampire.








It is now much later, perhaps even the next day. Xander is sat alone on a bench with Renee’s urn. Dracula walks towards him and asks if he would like assistance in his ceremony, Xander tells him that he would like to do it himself. Dracula’s ship will be leaving soon so Dracula tells him that this is goodbye for now. “Goodbye manservant” Dracula says to him, Xander stops him and tells him that he ever calls him that again he will kill him in his sleep. Dracula accepts, he prefers “minion” anyway, Xander tells him that will also result in his death. “How about houseboy?” Dracula asks jokingly. Satsu and Buffy are talking privately, Satsu has requested taking over Aiko's role as head Slayer in Tokyo, Buffy asks if it is because of Buffy and Satsu admits that it is partly due their indiscretion. Buffy tells Satsu that it is a hard job, the Tokyo Slayers are still grieving for Aiko, Buffy tells Satsu that she is perfect for the job. Buffy prepares to leave and asks her if this is goodbye, Satsu tells Buffy that it doesn't have to be goodbye just yet and they can spend the night together one last time. The issue ends on Dracula discussing with the captain of his boat the long night they have ahead of them which is dark and cold as we have corresponding images of the other characters which relate to Dracula's words. Satsu and Buffy are in the throes of passion, Willow is meditating and apparently contacting the green snake woman called Saga Vasuki as Xander spreads Renee's ashes alone.