Season 7, Episode 5
Written by Drew Goddard
Directed by David Solomon
Original Airdate: 22 October 2002
“This is getting to be a pattern with you, Buffy. Are there any friends of yours left you haven’t tried to kill?”
Anyanka
REGULAR CAST
- Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
- Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
- Emma Caulfield as Anyanka
- Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers
- James Marsters as Spike
- Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
GUEST STARRING
- Abraham Benrubi as Olaf
- Andy Umberger as D’Hoffryn
- Kali Rocha as Halfrek
- Joyce Guy as Professor Hawkins
- Jennifer Shon as Rachel
CO-STARRING
- Taylor Sutherland as Villager #1
- Marybeth Scherr as Villager #2
- Alessandro Mastrobuono as Villager #3
- Daniel Spanton as Viking #1
- John Timmons as Viking #2
SYNOPSIS
Dawn helps Willow move into her new room at the Summer’s house while giving her advice on how to fit in with people at school. Buffy and Xander contribute to the effort as well while talking about Anyanka. Buffy wonders about Anyanka’s evil intentions, but Xander thinks she’s getting better and isn’t a threat. At a frat house, dead male bodies litter the room, each one with his hearts ripped out. Anyanka sits on the floor, covered in blood and in completely shock by the violence she’s caused. In Sjornjost, 880, a pre-demon Anyanka, then named Aud, cares for her Viking husband Olaf after he returns home from a hard day of fighting trolls. She feeds him, but worries about whether he’s been faithful to her.
In the school basement, Spike talks to Buffy about his mental struggles and Drusilla. Buffy is kind and reassuring that she’ll help him get through his struggles. Then the real Buffy comes downstairs and tells a tearful Spike to get out of the basement and away from whatever is making him so crazy down there. Willow talks with one of her professors about returning to class and then she runs into Anyanka leaving one of the fraternity houses wearing a trench coat. Anyanka’s very distant and claims she’s dating one of the frat boys before quickly rushing off. Willow spots a streak of blood on Anyanka’s wrist before she runs off and goes to investigate the building.
Willow finds the frat house covered in blood and a young woman cowering and crying in the closet. The woman explains how she wished the fraternity boys could have their hearts ripped out after her heart was broken by one of the boys. She didn’t intend for it to really happen, but then a giant spider showed up and ripped out the hearts of all the boys in the house. Willow uses dark magic to hold the spider at bay and loses control for a minute, snapping at the cowering woman before tossing the spider through a window and apologizing for her outburst. Back in Sjornjost, 880, as a newly turned troll, Olaf runs from a mob of villagers who intend to kill him. Aud watches the proceedings along with D’Hoffryn who appreciates her fine magic. She turned him into a troll after he cheated on her with a barmaid. D’Hoffryn convinces Aud that she should go into the vengeance business and that her true destiny is as Anyanka, Vengeance Demon.
At work, Buffy receives a call from Willow about the frat house and the spider demon. Meanwhile, Halfrek praises Anyanka’s violent vengeance while Anyanka expresses her difficulty to deal with the effect the act has had on her. Willow barges into Anyanka’s place and orders Halfrek out. She tries to offer help, but Anyanka isn’t into assistance, especially from Willow. Buffy and Xander search through the woods outside the frat house for the spider and find another dead body. The spider attacks them and nearly kills Buffy, but she manages to throw it off and kill it with an axe.
Buffy and Xander return to the house and find Willow waiting with an explanation about where the demon originated and the damage it caused. Xander blows up at Willow because she didn’t tell them, but she did it because Buffy would feel obligated to kill Anyanka as a result. In St. Petersburg, 1805, Anyanka and Halfrek dine on champagne after massacring a room full of men. Anyanka is set in her ways and focused on Vengeance. Buffy is determined to kill Anyanka because of the violence she’s caused. Xander can’t believe she would kill Anyanka and desperately tries to convince Buffy to change her mind. They argue about their actions with Spike and Willow and Buffy reminds Xander that she killed Angel in spite of her love for him. Buffy thinks Xander’s love for Anyanka is clouding his judgment and encourages him to find another alternative, although she doesn’t believe one exists. Xander rushes out to find a way to prevent Anyanka’s death while Buffy sets out to cause it.
Left on her own, Willow rushes to her room and finds the talisman D’Hoffryn gave her years ago and she summons him. Xander finds Anya at the fraternity house and tries to offer help and warning of Buffy’s intentions, but again Anyanka isn’t interested in his assistance. Buffy shows up and after Anyanka knocks Xander out of the way, the girls break out in a fight. The struggle and toss each other around for a while, but armed with a sword, Buffy as a mild advantage and manages to stab Anyanka in the chest. In a flashback to 2001 when Sunnydale residents were consumed by the desire to sing, Xander sleeps in recliner while Anya breaks out into song about her relationship, life as a human, and her upcoming marriage to him.
In the present, Anyanka wakes up from her stabbing induced unconsciousness and rips the sword out. The fight continues and Xander intervenes when Buffy raises the sword to stab Anyanka again and D’Hoffryn pops in, interrupting the rest of the battle. He examines the viewpoints of all the Scooby Gang in regards to Anyanka’s future, but wonders what Anyanka wants to do. She asks to take back her vengeance and because of the enormity of the act, a Vengeance demon must die in exchange for the reversal. Anyanka accepts the steep price and is prepared to die to undo what she’s done. Instead though, D’Hoffryn makes Halfrek appear and die in Anyanka’s place as a punishment to her. With a parting threat about the big evil, D’Hoffryn departs. Hurt and scared, Anya, now human gain, walks out alone, but Xander follows. She expresses her worries about surviving on her own and whether she actually has a role in the world. He offers some comforting words, but her problems and fears require time to be repaired. Xander walks off into the night while tearfully, Anya moves in the opposite direction, facing the future on her own.
TRIVIA
Abraham Benrubi returns as Olaf in this episode, after last being seen in season five’s Triangle. Andy Umberger also makes his final appearance as D’Hoffryn.
Joss Whedon wrote Anya’s song for this episode overnight. Drew Goddard posted the following at the Bronze Beta: “Joss wrote the song. I can’t take any credit for it whatsoever. We were on the set of Firefly when he was directing The Train Job and we were talking and he said something like, ‘What if we flash back to the musical…’ And then the very next morning he walked in and said, ‘I’ve got the song.’ Sometimes I think you can start car batteries with his brain.”
Kali Rocha was flown in for one day and filmed all her season seven scenes in that day, including those in Lessons. Kali filmed her ‘death scene’ on green screen which was super-imposed onto the images featuring the other actors. This was her final appearance on the show.
According to Drew Goddard’s DVD commentary, the 1905 scene set in St. Petersburg was originally supposed to be set during the Renaissance but it was changed as the time frame clashed with the fact that Halfrek is supposed to be Cecily. Unfortunately, in Lessons, Halfrek mentions a rivalry she had with Anyanka during a war that happened when Cecily was around. This became less of a problem when Kali Rocha confirmed that Cecily and Halfrek are one and the same and that Halfrek was undercover during Fool for Love.
Sarah Michelle Gellar was only available for three days to film this episode as she was getting married that week. Drew Goddard said in his commentary for this episode that Sarah’s hair in the show was her “wedding hair”.
The network was unhappy with D’Hoffryn’s Abercrombie and Fitch line (“It looks like someone slaughtered an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue”), not because they may lose a sponsor, but because D’Hoffryn didn’t care about the deaths of the frat boys. Drew Goddard explained that D’Hoffryn is in fact evil but the network still didn’t get it. He wrote another line – “It looks like Maxim has just lost 15 subscriptions” – but the original line was eventually okayed by the network.
Drew Goddard spoke in his DVD commentary for the episode about the scene in which Aud and Olaf speak in Swedish. He said the scene was translated into Swedish and was originally supposed to be dubbed over with English. Emma Caulfield and Abraham Benrubi were given the Swedish script so they could mime along to the language. But Emma and Abraham went one step further and learnt the entire Swedish script (which was written phonetically). Drew said the Swedish scene was much funnier than the dubbed version so they kept it.
CONTINUITY
We see a flashback to a night that obviously is intended to have taken place during the musical Once More, With Feeling, on the first night that everyone began singing. Anya asks Xander if the coconut thing was weird. In the musical she told the gang, “We were arguing and, and then everything rhymed and there were harmonies and the dance with coconuts.” Outside Xander and Anya’s apartment we hear the neighbours singing: a man sings that he has mustard on his favourite shirt, and a woman suggests that he have it dry cleaned. The next morning in the musical, David Fury sang a brief song that he was pleased that the dry cleaners had got the mustard out. Marti Noxon and David Fury reprise their roles in this episode. Anya’s song here is called ‘Mrs’. In the scene where this is sung, Xander is holding the amulet that was used to summon Sweet in Once More, With Feeling.
Anya tells D’Hoffryn that he should have killed her, but he flatly points out that all things come to he who waits, repeating the line “From beneath you, it devours.” His words will have full meaning in Chosen.
Anya mentions her made-up name of ‘Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins’ during her song, which she made up to fool the Watcher’s Council in Checkpoint. She also mentions that she’s good with math – she was flunking in Doppelgangland and has learnt about money through the Magic Box (her dance of ‘capitalistic superiority’ dance from All the Way for example).
Willow calls forth D’Hoffryn from his dimension using the talisman he previously gave her in Something Blue.
Aud doesn’t seem as frightened as Anya is of bunnies, a fear which was first mentioned in Fear, Itself.
Spike mentions that Drusilla used to look at the stars. She did this in Innocence.
Buffy reminds Xander that he told her to ‘kick [Angel’s] ass’ in Becoming (Part 2). Willow finally discovers this in this episode.
Anyanka mentions that Buffy should know that sword in the chest wouldn’t kill her. This technique was tried on Halfrek when the gang were stuck in the Summers’ house in Older and Far Away.
GOOFS
In the St. Petersburg scene, the level of champagne in Anyanka and Halfrek’s glasses changes.
In the same scene, there’s a shot of Anyanka holding her glass in hand, followed by a shot in which the glass is suddenly on the table, and then a shot of it back in her hand again.
Anya’s hair in the Once More, With Feeling flashback is far lighter than it actually was in that episode.
When Anya is singing and spinning round on Xander’s lap, you can see a circle around the chair which seems to be the tracks where the chair is spun.
Anya overhears the couple singing about a mustard stain, but next day in Once More, With Feeling, she’s the first to ask if the singing is affecting just the Scoobies.
Anyanka washes her hands vigorously before leaving the frat house, but when Willow sees Anya she still has a lot of blood on her hands.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
The Watcher's Guide 