Mallory Rubin

Yeah, I love the Xander season.

I really agree.

I think it's so compelling in the highs and the lows.

I think he feels simultaneously very assured as a character and insecure as a person, which is a great combo, you know?

And the ways in which he...

is like navigating his own anxiety about his place in the world feels, I think, very true to the Xander Harris that we have spent time with and also to just like maybe how you would be navigating that phase of your life if you went from high school into what should be the college years and your friends go off, not only to college, but to college together and you're not there, but you're close enough to be reminded every minute of every day that you're not there.

And you actually have this like,

pretty amazingly compelling relationship with this smoke show who's obsessed with you, but you're also like constantly having to remind her in plain view of other people, like this is a private moment and this is like, you know, et cetera.

It's just, it's such a great blend of, you know, that classic Xander mix of,

human, of the humanity, the humor, the heart, all of it.

I think that the vulnerability that we see from Xander, and like, I think the moments in the prior seasons where he really made big mistakes and erred and behaved badly, like I, you know, as we talked about on those pods, was often disappointed by him or frustrated, but also like had enough of a germ of understanding of like how he could be moved to behave that way.

Yeah.

I think in this stretch, like, you know, something like after Spike is...

has worked his manipulation, right?

And has incepted all of them.

And we see the way that each of them responds to that.

And Xander's just like, it's just to be bowled over, like unable to get out of bed because he's like, these people like who are the most important thing in the world to me don't need me.

You know, I thought it was like, and then Anya coming in in that sequence and like she is, I basically couldn't keep, you know, we have an Anya category again today.

And I was like, it's going to be hard to keep this like under 20.

It's just such an incredible stretch of episodes from her.