SEASON THREE: Anne

Identity and isolation. The tension between community and self is a recurring theme, one of the key issues that Buffy as a character is torn between. Because of the danger involved with helping her, she believes she doesn't have the right to want community. In the reality of the Buffy-verse, she is ultimately the only one who can do her job. So friends and family are on the outside, even when they are invested in the struggle.

Given that, her attraction to Spike and Angel is simple: she doesn't have to watch their backs; they understand her and her mission on a level that even Giles can't--he's a voyeur to her mission, a watcher. Everyone else is potentially a liability because she feels responsible for them.

That's a long introduction to a simple season opener: Buffy left Sunnydale at the end of season 2, kicked out in the heat of the moment by her mother. She's in an unidentified city (later mentioned at L.A.) working as a waitress in a bad section of town. There are cuts to Sunnydale, where school is starting, Giles is trying to find Buffy, etc, but the bulk of the action follows Buffy.

She's going by her middle name, Anne, and evidently not in Slayer mode. When she meets someone who knows her real identity, it's someone whose identity is constantly in flux (we last saw her with a fancy french name, wanting to be a vampire); now she is Lily, and at the end of the episode, she decides to be Anne when she takes over Buffy's apartment and job. She resurfaces on Angel as a woman running a shelter for kids, someone Gunn helps out--still named Anne. She understands not knowing who you are, and gives Buffy tacit permission to not be Buffy. (I assume that there's a reason the name Lily fits; I should look it up, because Whedon almost never names spuriously. Maybe later)

By the end of the episode, though, Buffy claims her identity in full, resisting the demons who force their slaves to become "nobody." Buffy announces that she is Buffy the Vampire Slayer loud and clear, then begins to show them what that means as she saves the enslaved street kids. Buffy can't escape her identity, and because of her basic personality, she can't stay isolated. Lily finds her power because Buffy needs her to, and it's fair to surmise that Lily's life changes because of it. Buffy changes people, usually for the better--and she can't stay alone like previous slayers have.

And of course, Mom takes her back, after telling Giles that she blames him, that he should have done things differently, told her about Buffy. Giles doesn't argue much, but sees Buffy's destiny as beyond his control.

And Xander and Cordy are sniping and immature--what happened to make Xander go backwards? And Willow and Oz are cute, but barely sidebars. I'm hoping it's only this episode--I don't remember the next few episodes, though, so we'll see....