Everybody ready for the fakest, most implausible hospital room scene this side of a Mad TV sketch? Yeah? Well, Mutant Enemy is ready to deliver! Xander looks at some sweet babies in the newborn nursery, and I wonder suddenly if the Friends finale is airing a few days early. Xander, Chandler, I'm not the first to see the parallels. Oh, wait. Xander is actually staring through one of those big picture windows they use in nurseries (at least on TV), but it actually opens into an operating room. In the operating room, a doctor is working on Buffy's left ventricle, despite the fact that her chest isn't opened for surgery and she is in fact still wearing her damn tank top. Yeah, sure. Why cut off her shirt to operate on her heart when you live in a city where the medical profession is so advanced that it can remove a brain tumor through a pore? Buffy is not hooked up to any machines or IVs; nor is she wearing an oxygen mask, and nor is there any tape or even a sterile drape over the incision they've supposedly cut into her chest. The doctor twiddles two fingertips on Buffy's chest, which signifies operating, I guess. It's like a fourth grade play in here. An assistant stands near a bank of machines and claims that Buffy's "BP is down to 80/palp," despite the fact that there are no electrodes or sensors of any sort attached to Buffy. I may not know what "80/palp" means, but I do know that heart monitors don't take readings with freakin' telepathy.

All the lights in the room flash, and the machines beep frantically as we see that Willow has entered. She's taken the time to change into all-black clothes, but in a nice touch from Wardrobe, her severe black jacket is one we've seen her wear before. She tells the operating staff to leave. And why not, since all they were doing to help was waving gauze over Buffy's throat? Everyone stares for a second; then the medical staff files out. Buffy's heart-monitor flat-lines, which is the first thing in this scene that makes sense, because it wasn't fuckin' attached to anything in the first place. Or, as the shooting script so kindly explains, because Willow's magical emissions caused it to malfunction. I like my explanation better. Xander hurries in behind Willow and frets that Buffy is going to die, but Willow blandly says she won't. Where's the Willow that Rack said was running on pure fury? I was totally looking forward to her, but instead we got gypped; all we got was Willow running on pure zombie. Willow then performs a little faith healing of her own. I wrote that, and then I guess because I've been thinking about the The X-Files ending Sunday, I thought of the first season The X-Files episode "Miracle Man." Sigh. Back when the The X-Files was still good and I cared enough to watch every week (I haven't actually seen any episodes from Season Seven on, despite it once being my most favorite show; chew on that, Mutant Enemy!) and Scott Bairstow was still cute and I wasn't a jaded bitter broken woman. The bullet levitates out of Buffy's chest. Zombie Willow stares at it and zombies, "It's so small." She closes the bullet in her fist, and when she opens her hand, it's gone. On the table, Buffy stirs and slowly sits up. She's confused as to where she is, and Xander embraces her, telling her she has to stop dying. Buffy stares at black-haired Willow, who smiles and says, "Buffy. Hey." Where's the fury? I want the fury! Willow walks out, droning that it's time to find Warren.