Nevermind If You Already Saw the Finale
To prep you for the final episode, let someone who doesn’t know anything about Buffy recap what just happened the previous week. Here now is the rundown on my first ever (but your second to last ever) new episode.

Catching Up
Entitled "End of Days," this episode opens to "previously... on Buffy" snippets explaining everything we needed to know up to this point. The clips of this television epic were as random as a student art film.

"Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Buffy and her non ugly friend stroll at night. Some girls exercise in the front lawn. A post-haircut Kevin Sorbo-looking priest snaps some necks. A guy sticks his thumb in someone’s eye (he screamed). Different clips are shown of people rehearsing lines to each other. There’s a clip of someone falling down stairs (Whenever someone falls down stairs, I want to know). There’s a shot of a chrome plated fireplace lighter on a rock. Girls explode in a tunnel. I realize the priest doesn’t look like Kevin Sorbo as he confronts Buffy and the fireplace lighter (except that by now I know it’s just a magical axe).

And so it Begins...
Continuing from the priming collage of clips, a holy confrontation between the hillbilly priest and Buffy takes place. Then Sarah Michelle Geller’s jaded character from Cruel Intentions makes a cameo and manipulates the priest. Being May sweeps, crossovers like these aren’t uncommon. Buffy then escapes to look for her exploding tunnel friends. The slumber party survives the exploding tunnel, but is then confronted with a gang of super powered failed John Malkovich clones who are also burn victims and albino. A contemporary pirate (the guy who had his eye thumbed in), the girl from American Pie, a blonde, and Harriet the Spy then enter the Seventh Heaven house and wonder where Buffy is. They are very concerned.

Meanwhile Buffy uses the magical axe to save the slumber party gang from the failed albino burn clones. Everyone is taken back to the Seventh Heaven house, where they briefly discuss the chrome plated axe, which is actually a scythe. It really looked like a piece of metal that fell off someone’s tricked out car. It had the nice glam rock guitar glitter finish. The pirate and Buffy have a touching moment of forced dramedy.

Article’s Required Innuendo...
American Pie girl tries to figure out the glam scythe by picking it up and hesitantly staring at it. I know it’s easy to turn everything into some sexual joke, but all I know about American Pie girl is what she did to the flute. So I can’t help giggling on the inside when she holds the glam scythe and declares: "If I try something big, I change. And then it’s all black hair and veins and lightning bolts."

Meanwhile, in modern day swashbuckling fashion, the pirate kidnaps Harriet the Spy in his four door sedan. Elsewhere, Cruel Intentions girl turns into a monster from the Doom game and possesses the priest. Then it fades out into a commercial break where I pause the Tivo to go watch The Hot Chick starring Rob Schneider.

Back to Buffy...
Buffy talks to the girl from that one cheerleading movie in bed with the glam scythe. She then talks to this guy named Spike. You know that cute kid in Jerry Maguire? Imagine him growing up to be a heroin addict with dyed eyebrows.

Buffy takes the glam scythe to a mausoleum and talks to an old lady for a while then fights a priest. At the last second, David Hasselhoff stops the hillbilly priest from killing Buffy, but the camera focuses to reveal that it wasn’t Hasselhoff, but Angel: star of hit television show, Angel. She then makes out with Angel while Spike notices from afar. And I guess Buffy sees it, too. Or was it Cruel Intentions girl. They look alike.

And So it Ends...
In summary, weird stuff happens, people talk, and famous characters from other shows and movies make cameos. With the undercurrent of trying to laugh at oneself, the episode keeps a straight face as it revolves around a cherry red glitter scythe and the foreboding feeling that the world is going to end. They should lighten up. It’s just a TV show.

This article is part of Newmoanyeah's Farewell Buffy Week.