My Review of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's 8x33: "Twilight Part 2"

Written by Brad Meltzer
Artwork by Georges Jeanty

Buffy: “You listen to me, Twilight – my God is that really the name you picked? Twilight? Y’know I lived that idea first, right? And my vampire was so much better.”
Angel/Twilight: “Yeah ... I missed you.”

I thought with the identity of Twilight being released so early that enough time would’ve passed between the spoiler and the actual issue itself for me to get my head around the idea. Well that didn’t work and I call bullshit on this one.

I’m as much as of a Joss Whedon fan as the next person but what the hell possessed him to actually make the Big Bad of the season actually turn out to be Angel? He didn’t get enough out of that twice with Season Two and Angel’s fourth season? And doesn’t that sort of invalidate the Angel comics as well, come to think of it?

Giles, Faith and Andrew were the first three to realise the identity of their captor and they weren’t particularly impressed with it. Faith even went as far as to try and kill Angel, who reacted by pounding her skull into the ground with little effort. Twilight’s invulnerable and apparently, sunlight isn’t that much of a deterrent for him either. I mean Angel.

The moment where Buffy found out that her former honey was now her latest enemy, I thought she would lose it but she didn’t. I actually admired the fact that Buffy’s first instinct was to kill Angel even if he knew that a) she wouldn’t be able to and b) she thought that he might have been Angelus again.

According to Angel, he’s not Angelus but he’s also not evil. It seems that all season long we were lead to believe that Twilight was orchestrating the worst of the worst but it seemed that Angel was donning a disguise to keep the real villains distracted for as long as possible in a bid to push Buffy.

What is it with people pushing Buffy to be her best? You know what would’ve helped on Angel’s part? Actually contacting her over a year ago and telling her directly what he was planning instead of his usual bout of subterfuge. But Angel had to go about it the wrong way because he thought that it was the best method of helping Buffy out in the long run.

And there’s the invulnerability thing as well – it seems that Buffy and Angel have these newfound powers that have naff all to do with them being a vampire or a slayer. How? And what’s up with that cryptic about Giles supposedly knowing of Buffy’s eventual evolution and the potential hell that it might release?

I knew as soon as Angel managed to talk to Buffy, some of this stuff would make more sense but it did feel a lot like nonsense and the kiss between them on the page of this issue would’ve made me care a long time ago but not anymore. Guess my liking of Buffy and Angel as a couple days really are long gone. Unless the next two issues make more sense out of all the crap that’s gone down in this particular arc.

Also in “Twilight”

The cover showed Angel removing his Twilight mask to the horror of Buffy. Again, good work, Jo Chen.

Buffy (to Xander, re dead slayers): “But don’t you see what it does make me? If I’m sucking their power ... it makes me a vampire.”

Buffy only gets the slayer powers after the girls are dead but the pep talk with her and Xander – even them I’m getting a little sick of right now.

Angel/Twilight: “Do you not understand this isn’t a fair fight?”
Faith: “Who said I was fighting fair?”
Angel/Twilight: “And what makes you think ‘invulnerable’ isn’t ‘all over’?”

Willow: “Still a rat.”
Amy: “Still a bitch.”

Dawn earned some points in this issue for alerting Xander to Warren and the general’s chatter. I did like Willow and Amy’s sniping as well.

Angel/Twilight: “Oh and Buff -,”
Buffy: “Stop talking! Your biggest asset was that you weren’t a talker!”

Xander: “What was that?”
Satsu: “I don’t hear anything.”
Willow: “I think they’re talking.”

There was a two page preview of Felicia Day’s comic series for The Guild in this issue as well as some pretty out of date letters in Slay The Critics section.

Angel/Twilight: “What if, just once, the right thing for us to do is also the most wonderful, Buffy ... don’t you want to be happy?”

The next issue is already out and I’ll post a review for it next week when I get through some other reviews first.

I tried giving “Twilight Part 2” the benefit of the doubt but the truth was that even with months of knowing, I just don’t like Angel as Twilight and I’m not sure if I like the evolution that him and Buffy has supposedly taken as well. There’s about seven more issues before this season actually ends so hopefully things will make better sense as the months progress.

Rating: 5 out of 10.