Mallory Rubin

Buffy deciding to leave the Watcher's Council behind, right?

Like the idea that what Buffy is doing as the Slayer

what the Scoobies are doing as a unit, the idea of being a part of something larger is not the problem, but the idea of letting these kind of like shadowy power figures tell you what to do is in conflict in some way with how Buffy lives, which like we get to hear kind of brought to the fore again at the end in Restless when Buffy confronts the first Slayer and is like, I'm not alone, actually, right?

So I think there's something so tantalizing about putting Buffy right back in a circumstance in part because she's like, I'm interested in...

doing this with my boyfriend and Riley and I get to like kick ass together and we can be out there fighting demons together.

That's conceptually compelling.

But when Buffy was back there, I found myself so firmly rooted.

And again, it's like so quick that it all falls apart and the ComCam, like, you know, you don't know what a Slayer is moment is like, that happens really fast in these stretch of episodes.

But when Willow is like, what's going on here?

I'm so firmly rooted in the Willow camp there that I don't think I would have wanted it to last longer, actually.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that's the main crux for me as well.

Again, I like when Buffy... It feels human to me to make this big declaration about your life and then sort of be compelled back into another version of that thing.

I think that's human.

That's normal.

I agree with you that the speed and haste with which Buffy wants inside those doors is like...

what's going on here exactly feels right and interesting.

I don't think that Buffy leaving the Watchers Council at the end of season three means that for the rest of time and perpetuity, she would never be or should never be interested in participating in a larger force.

I think that the fact that so much of Buffy's storyline in the back half of this season is tied up in Riley's journey, Adam, and the initiative is just a little bit less compelling because we're watching some really wonderful stuff, I think, with

Anya and Xander and Willow and Tara and Giles.