History Recap / BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E22Grave

* GutPunch: The world is about to end, and the Scoobies are helpless to stop it. Cue a nonpowered Xander stepping up to Willow, reminding them of how they were friends in kindergarten. He says that he's earned the right for her to kill him first because he loves her and wants to take the brunt of her pain. What's more, she can sense he's ''not'' in pain now and means every word that he says. Willow tries, but her blows are reduced to giving him cuts and scratches, followed by her punching him ineffectively as he keeps reaffirming his love and their friendship. She's reduced to sobbing as he hugs her, and her hair turning red.

* IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: Xander manages to talk the real Willow out of her black magic-induced big badness.

* GoThroughMe: Xander stands between Dark Willow and the church spire.

* {{Bookends}}: Buffy starts Season 6 by clawing her way out of her grave into the night, beginning a year-long HeroicBSOD. She ends the season climbing out of her hole into the light, having rediscovered the value of living.

* BittersweetEnding: Xander saves Willow (and the world) with [[ThePowerOfFriendship his friendship speech]], Buffy regains her desire to live, and Dawn proves to Buffy that she's more than JustAKid in need of protection when it comes to battle, suggesting a healthy shift in their relationship. However, Tara is still dead, and while Willow no longer wants to destroy the world, she's still last seen sobbing into Xander's arms, with the viewer uncertain of how long it may take her to recover from the trauma of the last few episodes. Additionally, Xander and Anya are still broken up, The Magic Box [[TrashTheSet has been wrecked]], and Jonathan and Andrew, terrified of Willow's rampage, flee to Mexico (with Jonathan either [[IgnoredEpiphany ignoring the epiphany]] he had in the previous episode or deciding that Buffy's inability to stop Willow left him with no other option). Meanwhile, Spike reclaims his soul, but given how he last left things in Sunnydale, it's unclear where things might go from here now that he has it.

* TearsOfJoy: Buffy cries these tears to the shock of Dawn whom thought she'd wanted the world to end as she'd spent the season in a walking depression as she coped with being alive again.

* TheThreeTrials: Though there may be more than the three we see off-screen.

* CryIntoChest: Willow cries into Xander's chest after his gesture of friendship combined with the magic she had stolen from Giles taps into her humanity, allowing her to finally let herself feel the grief she'd been suppressing and shed tears over Tara's death for the first time.

* CryIntoChest: Willow cries into Xander's chest after his gesture of friendship combined with the magic she had stolen from Giles taps into her humanity, forcing her to see the consequences of her psychotic rampage and to come to grips with the fact that she had murdered Warren in cold blood.

* BatmanGambit: Willow steals Giles' magic from him but it ends up connecting her with the suffering of all humanity. It is this empathy that leaves her open to Xander's appeal to their friendship.

* BlackEyesOfEvil / EvilSoundsDeep: A deep voice and Black Corneas Of Evil mark Dark!Willow turning pro.
* BlackMagic vs. WhiteMagic: Dark!Willow's magic draws its strength from her rage. The magic she steals from Giles comes from love.

-->'''Dark!Willow:''' You're always saving everyone. It's kinda pesky.
* DoNotGoGentle: Dark!Willow creates the dirt and root golems because she thinks Buffy deserves to go down fighting.

* DramaticThunder: Distant thunder is heard after Dark!Willow absorbs Giles' magic.

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Rather, Dark!Willow feeling the pain of the world cannot understand a friend willing to sacrifice his life for her and willing to have no pain or regrets about the decision. It pulls her back from the brink as she realizes she can't kill Xander, though she tries to maim him.

* FlechetteStorm / MindOverMatter: Dark!Willow sends Buffy's training weapons hurling at Giles, who blocks them with the training dummy.

* GoThroughMe: Xander stands between Dark!Willow and the church spire.

* PeekABooCorpse: Dark!Willow does this with Anya's unconscious body.

* RazorWind: Dark!Willow slashes Xander's face and chest.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Dark!Willow to Giles.

-->'''Dark!Willow:''' Daddy's home. I'm in wicked trouble now.

* TemptingFate: Anya telling Dark!Willow her mind control mojo won't work on her.

-->'''Dark!Willow:''' I wouldn't worry about that. [[ThirdPersonPerson Willow doesn't live here anymore.]]

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: The human race is once more [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} saved by a carpenter]].

** Also applies to the supercharged empathy and sense of connexion Giles used to trick Willow into absorbing what caused her, in her extremely troubled state, to feel (what she at least thought was) the entire world's pain so keenly that she felt the need to use that power to destroy the world.

* GoneHorriblyRight: Giles lets Willow absorb his magic in an effort to put her in touch with humanity's pain. It works, but either because the world just [[CrapsackWorld sucks that much]] or because she's in no mood to think of the positives, decided to [[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery put an end to all that suffering permanently]].

* PlatonicDeclarationOfLove: Xander delivers one of these to Willow while trying to convince her not to [[spoiler: destroy the world]], saying, "But the thing is, yeah, I love you. I love crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow." It works.

* PlatonicDeclarationOfLove: Xander says this to Willow multiple times.

-->"You're such a hypocrite. Waltzing in here with your borrowed magicks. So you can tell me what? Magic's bad? Behave? Be a good girl? (chuckles) Well, I ... I don't think you're in any position to be telling me what to do." ([[RevealShot camera pans up]] to show Giles [[CeilingCling pinned to the ceiling]]).

Willow lectures Giles while she slams his body repeatedly against the ceiling and the floor. He interrupts her with some magic, but she doesn't let that stop her. She sucks the power from Giles' body and revels in the overflow in her body. However, said power taps into the latent humanity still inside her; she sees all the pain in the world and, ''very'' misguidely, decides she must end it all.

Dawn questions why Buffy didn't tell her about what Spike did and tells her sister that she can't protect her from the world. Anya appears in the hole and updates Buffy on the situation with Willow. On Kingman's Bluff, Willow raises the spire of a Satanic temple out of the ground to help her with her plans. Anya explains how Willow is going to end the world by using her powerful new-found magic to drain Earth's life energy though the effigy of Proserpexa; said energy keeps the planet intact, and with it gone, Earth will disintergrate causing the genocide of the entire human race. Nothing magical or supernatural (including Buffy) can stop her. She notes that Giles is short on time and leaves to return to him.

* BittersweetEnding: Xander saves Willow (and the world) with [[ThePowerOfFriendship his friendship speech]], Buffy regains her desire to live, and Dawn proves to Buffy that she's more that JustAKid in need of protection when it comes to battle, suggesting a healthy shift in their relationship. However, Tara is still dead, and while Willow no longer wants to destroy the world, she's still last seen sobbing into Xander's arms, with the viewer uncertain of how long it may take her to recover from the trauma of the last few episodes. Additionally, Xander and Anya are still broken up, The Magic Box [[TrashTheSet has been wrecked]], and Jonathan and Andrew, terrified of Willow's rampage, flee to Mexico (with Jonathan either [[IgnoredEpiphany ignoring the epiphany]] he had in the previous episode or deciding that Buffy's inability to stop Willow left him with no other option). Meanwhile, Spike reclaims his soul, but given how he last left things in Sunnydale, it's unclear where things might go from here now that he has it.

* CooldownHug: After her power and rage fades, Willow collapses sobbing in Xander's arms.

* LoveMakesYouEvil and destroy the world.

** It's possible to read some Christian imagery of the finale, in which a simple carpenter saves the world through love and forgiveness followed by a "resurrection" from a grave.

Willow lectures Giles while she slams his body repeatedly against the ceiling and the floor. He interrupts her with some magic, but she doesn't let that stop her. She sucks the power from Giles' body and revels in the overflow in her body. The magic she took from him though is accompanied by an emotional burst that makes her feel so much that she decides there's too much pain in the world and she must end it all.

Dawn questions why Buffy didn't tell her about what Spike did and tells her sister that she can't protect her from the world. Anya appears in the hole and updates Buffy on the situation with Willow. On Kingman's Bluff, Willow raises the spire of a Satanic temple out of the ground to help her with her plans. Anya explains how Willow is going to end the world by using her powerful new-found magic to drain Earth's life energy though the effigy of Proserpexa, and that nothing magical or supernatural (including Buffy) can stop her. She notes that Giles is short on time and leaves to return to him.

Willow beats Giles and plans to end the world herself. Spike passes the Demon Trials.

* RuleOfSymbolism: One of the Trials involves Spike being covered in scarab beetles, which were sacred to the ancient Egyptians who associated it with the sun which brought renewal, rebirth, and more importantly resurrection. During mummification a stone scarab was placed over the heart of the mummy to ensure the eternal endurance of the human soul as the person made the journey into the Afterworld.

* ThePowerOfLove: The platonic kind, but it's enough to save the world.

* BookEnds / RuleOfSymbolism: Buffy starts Season 6 by clawing her way out of her grave into the night, beginning a year-long HeroicBSOD. She ends the season climbing out of her hole into the light, having rediscovered the value of living.

* ContinuityNod: Willow brings up the argument she had with Giles in "Flooded." Buffy tells Giles of the events of "Normal Again." Kingman's Bluff is the same place Angel tried to kill himself in the Season 3 episode "Amends."
* CoolDownHug / CryIntoChest: After her power and rage fades, Willow collapses sobbing in Xander's arms.

* DisneyDeath: Giles.

* {{Great Balls Of Fire}}: Willow conjures a homing fireball to attack Andrew and Jonathan, as well as Dawn and Xander, declaring that Buffy's attempt to hold her off means nothing and she can kill them anytime from anywhere.

* SaveTheWorldClimax: The Scooby's must have gotten used to that by this point -- although this one's more personal then normal.

* SpecialEffectFailure
** Ropes can be seen holding up the satanic church spire as it thrusts out of the ground.
** And in the scene where Xander almost falls into the hole in the ground, you can clearly see someone holding Nicholas Brendon by the belt.

* WhamLine

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Willow, Destroyer of the World.

%%* BlahBlahBlah

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: ''Again.'' This time, by a grief-stricken, power-mad Willow.

…and the supercharged empathy and sense of connexion Giles came to trick Willow into absorbing was what caused her, in her extremely troubled state, to feel (what she at least thought was) the entire world's pain so keenly that she felt the need to use that power to destroy the world.

* ThrowItIn: Anthony Head started {{corpsing}} during the scene where SMG talks of what had gone wrong since he'd gone. Joss kept it because he thought the scene worked better that way.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Buffy originally would have fought the dragon that escaped in "The Gift." It was changed to earth monsters because of the budget.

* BlahBlahBlah

* ContinuityNod: Willow brings up the argument she had with Giles in "Flooded". Buffy tells Giles of the events of "Normal Again". Kingman's Bluff is the same place Angel tried to kill himself in the Season 3 episode "Amends".

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt

* GeographicFlexibility: I've never seen that arboretum next to the cemetery before...
** Then again, it is mentioned in previous episodes that Sunnydale has lots of cemeteries.

* JustAKid: Another Buffy/Dawn argument on the subject of Buffy's overprotectiveness. In the end Buffy accepts that she got it all wrong.

* {{MeaningfulEcho}}/OnceMoreWithClarity: After finishing his trial, Spike repeated the same like he said when he first entered "to give the Slayer what she deserved". It took on a new meaning when we learned that he was talking about getting his soul back.

* PetTheDog: After defeating and immobilising Willow, Giles tells her [[ImSoSorry he was sorry to learn]] of [[TheLostLenore Tara's death]].

-->"You're such a hypocrite. Waltzing in here with your borrowed magicks. So you can tell me what? Magic's bad? Behave? Be a good girl? (chuckles) Well, I ... I don't think you're in any position to be telling me what to do." ([[RevealShot camera pans up]] to show Giles [[CeilingCling pinned to the ceiling]])

* SaveTheWorldClimax

* ShockAndAwe

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath

* ThrowItIn: Anthony Head started {{corpsing}} during the scene where SMG talks of what had wrong since he'd gone. Joss kept it because he thought the scene worked better that way.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Buffy originally would have fought the dragon that escaped in "The Gift". It was changed to earth monsters because of the budget.

* Bittersweet Ending: Xander saves Willow (and the world) with [[ThePowerOfFriendship his friendship speech]], Buffy regains her desire to live, and Dawn proves to Buffy that she's more that JustAKid in need of protection when it comes to battle, suggesting a healthy shift in their relationship. However, Tara is still dead, and while Willow no longer wants to destroy the world, she's still last seen sobbing into Xander's arms, with the viewer uncertain of how long it may take her to recover from the trauma of the last few episodes. Additionally, Xander and Anya are still broken up, The Magic Box [[TrashTheSet has been wrecked]], and Jonathan and Andrew, terrified of Willow's rampage, flee to Mexico (with Jonathan either [[IgnoredEpiphany ignoring the epiphany]] he had in the previous episode or deciding that Buffy's inability to stop Willow left him with no other option). Meanwhile, Spike reclaims his soul, but given how he last left things in Sunnydale, it's unclear where things might go from here now that he has it.