The Wish

"The Wish" is the ninth episode of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is the forty-third episode altogether.

Cordelia Chase makes a wish that Buffy Summers never came to Sunnydale, causing an alternate reality to be created.

Synopsis
Following Xander and Willow's kiss in "Lovers Walk", Oz has called a time-out on his relationship with Willow and Cordelia is decidedly avoiding any contact with Xander. Cordelia returns to school, only to be rejected and taunted by Harmony and her former clique as being "Xander's castoff". Cordelia goes to the Bronze that night and Buffy accidentally humiliates Cordelia further by knocking her into a pile of trash in front of her friends while fighting a vampire. Cordelia later determines Buffy is to blame for her predicament as she never would have dated Xander if Buffy hadn't hung out with him and made him cooler. The next day, Anya - a new girl who has been trying to befriend Cordelia - gives Cordelia an amulet while goading Cordelia into making a wish to hurt Xander. Cordelia wishes that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale. Anya immediately switches to demon form, that of Anyanka, and grants it.

Cordelia finds herself in a town overrun by The Master, where most of the student body are either dead or vampires, there is now a monthly memorial at the school, dances are held during the day and there is a nighttime curfew. Students wear dull colors in order to make them less conspicuous to the vampires who have taken over Sunnydale. Cordy finds that she is back in with her former group, but quickly loses her cool when she finds out that Willow and Xander are dead. Walking through the streets at night she is stopped by Xander and Willow, whom she realizes are vampires (and are also a couple in this reality). Cordy is saved by the "White Hats", a group of human vampire-hunters led by Giles and including Oz and Larry.

Cordelia tries to explain to Giles what happened and asks to have Buffy back so that things could be the way they were. Giles realises Cordelia could be telling the truth due to her knowledge that he is a Watcher (something he hadn't told anyone else in Sunnydale) but, before she can elaborate further, she is killed by Xander and Willow, whom the Master had sent as assassins, fearing that Cordelia would summon the Slayer to Sunnydale. Giles calls Buffy's Watcher in Cleveland intending to summon her to Sunnydale, but finds out that she doesn't often check in with her Watcher who, as a result, doesn't know where she is. Giving up, Giles turns to research and discovers that the amulet that Cordelia was wearing was that of Anyanka, the patron saint of scorned women.

At the same time, the Master has created a human blood processing chamber in the Bronze, where he plans to industrialize blood removal from humans through assembly lines, thereby eliminating the predatory aspect of the vampire's nature. Hearing of Xander and Willow's success in killing Cordelia, he allows them to go into the back and 'play' with Angel (referred to as 'puppy' by Willow), who is kept locked up in a cage and suffers regular torture at their hands.

On his way home, Giles encounters vampires who are herding humans for the plant, and, an extremely "different", war-worn Buffy rescues him when he is nearly captured himself. This Buffy is only interested in the kill and is emotionally shut down. She is cynical about Giles's prospects of reversing Anya's spell, but does offer to kill the Master while she is in town.

Buffy finds Angel in his jail cell and agrees to take him along despite her misgivings about allying herself with a vampire, after Angel relates his desire to stop the Master after the torture that was inflicted on him.

The Master starts up the plant with the first human victim before a cage of prisoners. Giles summons Anyanka, who confirms Cordelia's story. Buffy and Angel attack the vampires, but most of the characters die in the fight: Angel is staked by Xander, Xander is killed by Buffy and Willow is killed by Oz. Finally, Buffy takes on the Master but the fight doesn't last very long and she is killed when her neck is broken by the Master. As Buffy's lifeless body falls to the ground, Giles realizes that Anyanka's amulet contains her powers and tears it from her neck. To distract Giles, she asks how he can be sure the real world is a better one. Giles replies "Because it has to be" and destroys her amulet...

With a flash, Anya is back at Sunnydale High attempting to grant Cordelia's wish but finds herself unable to. As Cordelia walks off wishing horrors on her former friends, Anya tries desperately to grant them, while Buffy, Xander and Willow enjoy each other's company, as usual.

Continuity

 * This episode marks the first appearance of Anya. At the start of the episode after Buffy slays the demon, Willow asks "is anyone else waiting for it to go poof?" she would say the say line on Xander and Anya's wedding day in Hells Bells as a tribute to her first episode.
 * It is worth noting that Jesse McNally, Darla and Luke (all of which were prominent characters in the first two episodes) do not appear in the Wishverse. While it's entirely feasible that Jesse was killed prior to the events of this episode, it is unknown what happened to Darla and Luke, considering they were the main disciples of the Master.


 * There is no mention of Jenny Calendar, who would have never been killed by Angelus. Her main duty was to watch over Angel and keep him from the Slayer, which is presumably unnecessary with them so far apart and Angel imprisoned and tortured by the Order of Aurelius.


 * Even in the alternate reality, the prophecy of the Pergamum Codex still comes to pass as the Master kills Buffy in both realities (although, unlike the Buffy of our reality who was drowned then revived, this Buffy has her neck snapped by the Master, meaning reviving her would be impossible).


 * The Buffy from the alternate reality has a scar above her lip, like Melaka Fray.


 * This is the first mention of Cleveland, Ohio as another Hellmouth and center of demon activity.


 * Anya arrives to exact vengeance on Xander, whom she later falls in love with.


 * Vampires are attracted to bright colors.


 * Angel (the Buffyverse version) does not appear, as he is keeping his distance from Buffy after the events of "Lovers Walk". The Buffyverse version of Giles appears only briefly.


 * Along with "Doppelgängland", "The Prom" and "Graduation Day, Part One", this is the first of only four episodes in which both Cordelia and Anya appear and the only one in which they have an exchange of dialogue.

Production

 * Giles's exposition was changed:
 * Giles: "Anyanka raised a demon to ruin her unfaithful lover. The demon did her bidding - but then cursed her and turned her into a sort of patron saint for scorned women. Apparently the cry of a wronged woman is like a siren's call to Anyanka."


 * Because of this alteration to Giles' dialogue, the first direct mention of Anya having been human before she was a vengeance demon comes in "Something Blue". However, the aired "The Wish" does still have Giles say that destroying Anyanka's power center will make her an ordinary woman "again", implying that she had been one before.


 * This version of events is different from what would eventually be established in "Something Blue", "Triangle" and "Selfless" (though the tome Giles is reading from might not be 100% accurate): Anya cursed her unfaithful lover Olaf herself, attracting the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, and accepted D'Hoffryn's offer to "elevate" her to demon status.

Deleted Scenes

 * Two lines were cut from Giles' conversation with Anyanka:
 * (Giles: "Cordelia Chase, what did she wish for?")
 * (Anyanka: "I had no idea her wish would be so exciting. Brave new world. I hope she likes it.")
 * Giles: "She's dead."
 * Anyanka: "It happens."

Pop Culture References

 * When the Master sits down at the Bronze and asks for news from Xander, he says: "Now, what news on the Rialto?" This is a quote from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, at least the third time this play has been mentioned on Buffy.

Goofs, Bloopers & Continuity Errors

 * Giles claims that destroying Anyanka's power center would reverse all of the wishes she fulfilled. However, later episodes clearly contradict this, including "Selfless", where we learn that she was partly responsible for the Russian Revolution, and "Hell's Bells", where one of her former victims returns to ruin her wedding.

Music

 * Christophe Beck - "Bizzaro Sunnydale"
 * Christophe Beck - "Blood machine"
 * Christophe Beck - "Slayer's Elegy"
 * Gingersol - "Never noticed"
 * Music House - "Get out of my way"
 * Plastic - "Dedicated to Pain"
 * The Spies - "Tired of being alone"

Other

 * This is the first appearance of The Master since "When She Was Bad", and the first appearance of Mark Metcalf since "Prophecy Girl".


 * Some viewers have claimed that Faith is visible in the background, being bitten by a vampire in the Wishverse. In actuality, the woman is simply a background extra with a similar hairstyle to Eliza Dushku.


 * This is a Cordelia-centric episode.