Nope. She wasn't in Europe. If I were a betting man, I'd wanna put a fiver on it being Buffy's fault. In fact, let's get T-shirts made: "Blame The Blackout on Buffy Summers." I so very much hope that when Whedon & Company return this October to continue telling us stories from the universe in which Buffy Summers, Cordelia Chase and Angel Darknmoody are the center, they purposefully incorporate the blackout into their snide comments.

It would make perfect sense to me that after the Slayerettes climbed back in that school bus and left the Sunnydale crater, they rushed to Cleveland Ohio and spent a couple few months there seeking out a second hellmouth. Rather than waste another seven years waiting for the evil to come after them, and still high from their last success, the Scoobies decided to close this second hellmouth post haste. They may or may not have succeeded, but in so doing they accidently took out power in five states and parts of Canada. It just sounds so incredibly like our favorite demon possie. The survivors of Cleveland would probably hightail it out of there, and at the time of Angel season five episode one they're in England licking their wounds. However, I do hope that at least a passing reference to Cleveland and the Blackout is made. A throw away joke line, similar to the one Giles mentioned in Chosen which started all this, "There’s another one in Cleveland. Not to spoil the moment." I'll be sorely disappointed if the writers don't take advantage of this. It's golden.

ZachsMind | August 17, 03:44 CET

Ummmm according to the recent Angel spoilers, Buffy is actually in Europe so I'm going to have to edit c lake's post to show that it is a spoiler.

Simon | August 17, 04:02 CET

Well yeah but did she have to be in Europe the whole time? Or maybe she went to Europe and some of the others went to Cleveland. They could blame the blackout on Xander. That'd be even funnier.

ZachsMind | August 17, 04:04 CET

Cleveland is a bust (mentioned by Joss in the finale to satisfy continuity loving fans). My guess is Buffy went to England to reform whats remaining of the Watchers Council or who knows maybe her and the Scoobies are sunning themselves in the Greek island of Lefkada where coincidentally there was an earthquake the other day.

Simon | August 17, 04:12 CET

Whoops. Sorry - that was my first ever link posted. I realised I hadn't "spoilered" it, so I emailed the board administrators to delete it because I couldn't see how to edit it into a "spoiled" state or to delete it myself. Sorry again.

[ edited by c lake on 2003-08-17 13:33 ]

c lake | August 17, 15:32 CET

Sorry c lake, I was away for the weekend so I didn't see your e-mail.

Caroline | August 17, 23:05 CET

Cleveland doesn't have to be a bust. There are possibilities there. Maybe Whedon saw it as an inside joke, but personally I think it'd be fun if on Angel there's some references to it, indicating that at least some of the principals went to Cleveland for awhile. Perhaps on their way to England. There's many ways they could go.

Or perhaps they were forced out of the U.S. because authorities were asking them too many questions, and the whole gang might be in exile. We do know if Faith remained in America she'd have to go back to prison. Then again, England would just extradite her, so if Faith's in Europe, it's probably a third world country that won't send her back. OR she could just voluntarily go back to jail, but that doesn't sound like the Faith we know.

With the destruction of the Watcher's Council building, remnants of what once was will have to rebuild. My guess is though, we'd see a Slayer's Council, either instead or in conjunction with a Watcher's Council. Now that there's more than one Slayer, it seems only fitting.

ZachsMind | August 18, 22:58 CET

Joss has made several comments about clearing up some of the inconsistancies between Fray and the rest of the Buffyverse during Angel Season 5. One of those inconsistancies is the Watcher's Council. It's actually still around in the Fray comics (despite the fact that all of it's members are insane) so I'd assume we'd get some clues as to its rebuilding this year.

ringworm | August 18, 23:08 CET

ZachsMind: A "third world country" in Europe? You americans are so damn funny :-D

PowerToThePeople | August 19, 15:35 CET