Buffy the Vampire Slayer/After Life

After Life
Season 6, Episode 3
Airdate	October 9, 2001
Production Number	6ABB03
Written by	Jane Espenson
Directed by	David Solomon
← 6x01/02 Bargaining	6x04 → Flooded
Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Season Six

After Life is the third episode of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the one-hundred and third episode overall.

Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), James Marsters (Spike)

and Alyson Hannigan (Willow)

Guest Starring: Amber Benson (Tara)

Co-Starring: Lisa Hoyle (Demon)

Plot Overview

As Buffy tries to adjust to her life again, she and her friends are visited by a demon that forces them to deal with the repercussions of the Slayer's resurrection.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Tamogenesis: After reviving Buffy from the dead, the gang accidentally created a by-product in the form of a bodyless demon. When they asked for her back, the world allowed it but only with the condition that they take this demon as well. Unfortunately for the demon, its body was trapped between dimensions and its only chance for survival was through killing the person who was targeted by the spell in the first place (i.e. Buffy).

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Tamogenesis	Buffy	Decapitated	Buffy's Room

Trivia

The Show

• Timeline: Spike has been counting the days since Buffy died. He tells her that she had been dead for 147 days.

• Afterlife: Several scenes imply that Buffy didn't go to Hell like Anya and Willow insinuated. In fact, it seems to be understood that the exact opposite occurred and she actually went to Heaven. In the cemetery before Dawn was possessed, Buffy stops in front of a gravestone that appears to give her angel wings. She later confides in Spike that she was happy and at peace in death because she knew everyone she loved was fine. She tells him that she thinks she was in Heaven but is now in Hell.

Allusions and References

• Super Friends: Super Friends was a cartoon series based on superheroes from DC Comics, particularly the Justice League. It ran for several seasons in a variety of formats ranging from 7 minute shorts to hour long episodes before finally ending in the 1980s.

Spike: I was going to go inside, but I overheard you and the super-friends exchanging a special moment, and I came over a bit queasy.

Memorable Moments

• Spike dramatically explaining to Buffy how he dreams of saving her every night to make up for the one time he couldn't.

• Buffy confessing to Spike that she believes she was in Heaven and can't be happy now that she's been torn from it.

Quotes

• Spike: You scared me half to death. Or more to death.

• Buffy: Tired.

Anya: Well, yeah. I mean, jet lag from Hell has gotta be, you know... jet lag from hell.

• Xander: (to Spike) Look me in the eyes and tell me when you saw Buffy alive, that wasn't the happiest moment of your entire existence.

• Spike: There's a thing about magic. There's always consequences. Always!

• Tara: (about Giles) How did he take it?

Willow: Um, I'm not sure. I mean, glad, but kinda weirded out, which I get, you know. Lots of "Dear Lord"s. And I think I actually heard him clean his glasses.

• Willow: Whatever it is, it's not the traditional haunting because it's not limited to one specific place and there's not, you know, a dead person.

Tara: Not anymore.

• Anya: I found one of those 24-hour places for coffee. Remember that bookstore? Well, they became one of those books and coffee places, and now they're just coffee. It's like evolution, only without the "getting better" part.

• Anya: Did I look like that? I hope I didn't look like that.

Willow: No, I'm sure you looked really glamorous cutting up your face.

• Spike: It's hard to get a good night's death around here.

• Spike: Uh, I do remember what I said. The promise... to protect her. If I'd have done that, even if I didn't make it, you wouldn't have had to jump. But I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again. I do something different. Faster, more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways. Every night, I save you.

• Tara: I like sunrise better when I'm getting up early than when I'm staying up late, you know? It's like I'm seeing it from the wrong side.

• Willow: This demon - it's not a demon we let out. It's a demon we made.

Xander: We made a demon? Bad us.

• Willow: Think of it like the world doesn't like you getting something for free and we asked for this huge gift - Buffy. And so the world said, "Fine, but if you have that, you have to take this, too." And it made the demon.

Anya: Well, technically, that's not a price. That's a gift with purchase.

• Xander: So we need to un-create it, right? We need to send it the rest of the way out of our world.

Willow: Uh-huh. Except that it's linked to the spell, so if we sent it away it would be like the spell didn't exist, like it never happened.

Dawn: Like it never brought Buffy back.

Willow: Yes.

Dawn: You can't do that. You can't think for a second that you're going to do that.

Tara: Dawn...

Dawn: If you think you can give her back to me and then take her away again, no. That's worse than if you never brought her back. You can't mess with people's lives this way.

• Dawn: Xander, drive faster.

Xander: I can't.

Dawn: I could drive faster and I can't drive.

Anya: She's right. You're like a snail - a snail who's driving a car very slowly.

• Buffy: And you know what they say - those of us who fail history - doomed to repeat it in summer school.

• Dawn: You okay?

Buffy: I'm going to start charging money for every person that asks me that.

• Spike: I was going to go inside, but I overheard you and the Super Friends exchanging a special moment and I came over a bit queasy. Say, aren't you leaving a hole in the middle of some soggy group hug?

• Buffy: (to Spike) I was happy. Wherever I was... I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time didn't mean anything. Nothing had form, but I was still me, you know? And I was warm. And I was loved. And I was finished. Complete. I don't understand theology or dimensions - any of it, really. But I think I was in Heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out... by my friends. Everything here is hard and bright and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch -- This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that, knowing what I've lost. They can never know. Never.