He's not furthering the characters any. They don't start out in one place emotionally and end up in another towards the end of the arc. Don’t take this wrong but is that really the function of a season opener? Any journey needs a starting place and I thought what this story did extremely well was to gradually reveal what that place was. Like a cubist painting in every issue we see Buffy from a different angle, contemplative in the first, confident respected leader in the second (but still subject to nightmare vulnerabilities). Warm even affectionate reunited with her old friends in the third, implacable against the enemy in the fourth. Overall it’s the Buffy we loved, new and all grown up but not infallible (I was both shocked when she found Ethan dead and shocked that I cared) and with big new grown up challenges looming on the beautiful horizon. Actually I think there is quite a dramatic transition, from wondering what the hell she was doing in the opening monologue to deciding what she had to do on that final page.
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Don’t take this wrong but is that really the function of a season opener? Any journey needs a starting place and I thought what this story did extremely well was to gradually reveal what that place was. Like a cubist painting in every issue we see Buffy from a different angle, contemplative in the first, confident respected leader in the second (but still subject to nightmare vulnerabilities). Warm even affectionate reunited with her old friends in the third, implacable against the enemy in the fourth. Overall it’s the Buffy we loved, new and all grown up but not infallible (I was both shocked when she found Ethan dead and shocked that I cared) and with big new grown up challenges looming on the beautiful horizon. Actually I think there is quite a dramatic transition, from wondering what the hell she was doing in the opening monologue to deciding what she had to do on that final page.