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Season 7, Episode 5
Written by Drew Goddard
Directed by David Solomon
Original Airdate: 22 October 2002
"This is getting to be a pattern with you,
Buffy. Are there any friends of yours left you haven't tried to kill?"
Anyanka
REGULAR CAST
GUEST STARRING
CO-STARRING
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Taylor Sutherland
as
Villager #1
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Marybeth Scherr
as
Villager #2
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Alessandro Mastrobuono
as
Villager #3
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Daniel Spanton
as
Viking #1
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John Timmons
as
Viking #2
SYNOPSIS
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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 Anyanka. Buffy wonders about Anyanka'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.
Anyanka sits on the floor, covered in blood and in completely shock by
the violence she's caused. In Sjornjost, 880, a pre-demon Anyanka, 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 Anyanka leaving one of
the fraternity houses wearing a trench coat. Anyanka's very distant and
claims she's dating one of the frat boys before quickly rushing off.
Willow spots a streak of blood on Anyanka's 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 turned him 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 Anyanka's violent vengeance
while Anyanka expresses her difficulty to deal with the effect the act
has had on her. Willow barges into Anyanka's place and orders Halfrek
out. She tries to offer help, but Anyanka isn't into 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 axe.
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 Anyanka as a result. In St.
Petersburg, 1805, Anyanka and Halfrek dine on champagne after massacring
a room full of men. Anyanka is set in her ways and focused on Vengeance.
Buffy is determined to kill Anyanka because of the violence she's
caused. Xander can't believe she would kill Anyanka 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 in spite of her love for him. Buffy thinks Xander's love for
Anyanka 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 Anyanka'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 and she summons him. Xander finds Anya at
the fraternity house and tries to offer help and warning of Buffy's
intentions, but again Anyanka isn't interested in his assistance. Buffy
shows up and after Anyanka 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
Anyanka 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, Anyanka 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 Anyanka again and
D'Hoffryn pops in, interrupting the rest of the battle. He examines the
viewpoints of all the Scooby Gang in regards to Anyanka's future, but
wonders what Anyanka wants to do. She asks to take back her vengeance
and because of the enormity of the act, a Vengeance demon must die in
exchange for the reversal. Anyanka accepts the steep price and is
prepared to die to undo what she's done. Instead though, D'Hoffryn makes
Halfrek appear and die in Anyanka's place as a punishment to her. With a
parting threat about the big evil, D'Hoffryn departs. Hurt and scared,
Anya, now human gain, 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.
TRIVIA
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Abraham Benrubi returns as Olaf in this
episode, after last being seen in season five's
Triangle. Andy Umberger also makes
his final appearance as D'Hoffryn.
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Joss Whedon wrote Anya's song for this
episode overnight. Drew Goddard posted the following at the Bronze Beta:
"Joss wrote the song. I can't take any credit for it whatsoever. We were
on the set of Firefly when he was directing
The Train Job and we were talking and he said something like, 'What
if we flash back to the musical...' And then the very next morning he
walked in and said, 'I've got the song.' Sometimes I think you can start
car batteries with his brain."
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Kali Rocha was flown in for one day and
filmed all her season seven scenes in that day, including those in
Lessons.
Kali filmed her 'death scene' on green screen which was super-imposed
onto the images featuring the other actors. This was her final
appearance on the show.
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According to Drew Goddard's DVD
commentary, the 1905 scene set in St. Petersburg was originally supposed
to be set during the Renaissance but it was changed as the time frame
clashed with the fact that Halfrek is supposed to be Cecily.
Unfortunately, in
Lessons,
Halfrek mentions a rivalry she had with Anyanka during a war that
happened when Cecily was around. This became less of a problem when Kali
Rocha confirmed that Cecily and Halfrek are one and the same and that
Halfrek was undercover during Fool for
Love.
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Sarah Michelle Gellar was only available
for three days to film this episode as she was getting married that
week. Drew Goddard said in his commentary for this episode that Sarah's
hair in the show was her "wedding hair".
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The network was unhappy with D'Hoffryn's
Abercrombie and Fitch line ("It looks like someone slaughtered an
Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue"), not because they may lose a sponsor,
but because D'Hoffryn didn't care about the deaths of the frat boys.
Drew Goddard explained that D'Hoffryn is in fact evil but the network
still didn't get it. He wrote another line - "It looks like Maxim has
just lost 15 subscriptions" - but the original line was eventually
okayed by the network.
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Drew Goddard spoke in his DVD commentary
for the episode about the scene in which Aud and Olaf speak in Swedish.
He said the scene was translated into Swedish and was originally
supposed to be dubbed over with English. Emma Caulfield and Abraham
Benrubi were given the Swedish script so they could mime along to the
language. But Emma and Abraham went one step further and learnt the
entire Swedish script (which was written phonetically). Drew said the
Swedish scene was much funnier that the dubbed version so they kept it.
CONTINUITY
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We see a flashback to a night that
obviously is intended to have taken place during the musical
Once More, With Feeling, on the
first night that everyone began singing. Anya asks Xander if the coconut
thing was weird. In the musical she told the gang, "We were arguing and,
and then everything rhymed and there were harmonies and the dance with
coconuts." Outside Xander and Anya's apartment we hear the neighbours
singing: a man sings that he has mustard on his favourite shirt, and a
woman suggests that he have it dry cleaned. The next morning in the
musical, David Fury sang a brief song that he was pleased that the dry
cleaners had got the mustard out. Marti Noxon and David Fury reprise
their roles in this episode. Anya's song here is called 'Mrs'. In the
scene where this is sung, Xander is holding the amulet that was used to
summon Sweet in Once More, With Feeling.
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Anya tells D'Hoffryn that he should have
killed her, but he flatly points out that all things come to he who
waits, repeating the line "From beneath you, it devours." His words will
have full meaning in
Chosen.
-
Anya mentions her made-up name of 'Anya
Christina Emmanuella Jenkins' during her song, which she made up to fool
the Watcher's Council in Checkpoint.
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Willow calls forth D'Hoffryn from his
dimension using the talisman he previously gave her in
Something Blue.
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Aud doesn't seem as frightened as Anya is
of bunnies, a fear which was first mentioned in
Fear, Itself.
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Spike mentions that Drusilla used to look
at the stars. She did this in Innocence.
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Buffy reminds Xander that he told her to
'kick [Angel's] ass' in Becoming (Part
2). Willow finally discovers this in this episode.
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Anyanka mentions that Buffy should know
that sword in the chest wouldn't kill her. This technique was tried on
Halfrek when the gang were stuck in the Summers' house in
Older and Far Away.
GOOFS
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In the St. Petersburg scene, the level of
champagne in Anyanka and Halfrek's glasses changes.
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In the same scene, there's a shot of
Anyanka holding her glass in hand, followed by a shot in which the glass
is suddenly on the table, and then a shot of it back in her hand again.
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Anya's hair in the
Once
More, With Feeling flashback is
far lighter than it actually was in that episode.
-
When Anya is singing and spinning round on
Xander's lap, you can see a circle around the chair which seems to be
the tracks where the chair is spun.
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Anya overhears the couple singing about a
mustard stain, but next day in
Once More, With Feeling,
she's the first to ask if the singing is affecting just the Scoobies.
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Anyanka washes her hands vigorously before
leaving the frat house, but when Willow sees Anya she still has a lot of
blood on her hands.
Lessons |
Beneath You |
Same Time, Same Place |
Help |
Selfless
Him |
Conversations With Dead People |
Sleeper |
Never Leave Me |
Bring on the Night |
Showtime
Potential |
The Killer in Me |
First Date |
Get It Done |
Storyteller |
Lies My Parents Told Me
Dirty Girls |
Empty Places |
Touched |
End of Days |
Chosen
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