Abercrombie and Fitch

The network was unhappy with D’Hoffryn’s Abercrombie and Fitch line in Selfless (”It looks like someone slaughtered an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue”), not because they may lose a sponsor, but because D’Hoffryn didn’t care about the deaths of the frat boys. Drew Goddard explained that D’Hoffryn is in fact evil but the network still didn’t get it. He wrote another line - “It looks like Maxim has just lost 15 subscriptions” - but the original line eventually was okayed by the network.

Aud and Olaf’s Swedish scene

Drew Goddard spoke in his DVD commentary for the episode Selfless about the scene in which Anya and Olaf speak in Swedish. He said the scene was translated into Swedish and was originally supposed to be dubbed over with English. Emma Caulfield (Anya) and Abraham Benrubi (Olaf) were given the Swedish script so they could mime along to the language. But Emma and Abraham went one step further and learnt the entire Swedish script (which was written phonetically). Drew said the Swedish scene was much funnier that the dubbed version so they kept it.
I’ve had a whole ton of emails from people saying they’re not speaking Swedish at all - which isn’t odd considering Emma and Abraham aren’t natural Swedish speakers!

Change of time

The 1905 scene set in St. Petersburg in Selfless was originally supposed to be set during the Renaissance but it was changed as the time frame clashed with the fact that Halfrek was supposed to be Spike’s first crush Cecily at that time (seen in Fool For Love).

Halfrek’s season 7 scenes

Kali Rocha (Halfrek) was performing in the play ‘Noises Off’ when season seven was shooting. She was flown in for one day and filmed all her season seven scenes in that day, including those in Lessons and Selfless. Kali filmed her ‘death scene’ on green screen which was super-imposed onto the images featuring the other actors.

Tom Lenk’s favourites

Tom Lenk mentioned in an interview which his favourite Buffy episodes were:

“I’d have to say, out of respect for my character, Storyteller. I just got to make such an ass out of myself. It was so much fun. Dancing in a toga on a hillside singing with unicorns was pretty embarrassing. I don’t do that sort of thing ever in my down time. So, I just had so much fun doing it, but I loved Emma’s history episode this year [Selfless]. It was really funny. And I’m a huge fan of The Body. The most devastating hour of television I’ve ever seen and I loved that.”

Wedding belle

Sarah Michelle Gellar was only available for three days to film the episode Selfless as she was getting married to Freddie Prinze Jr. that week. Drew Goddard said in his commentary for the episode that Sarah’s hair in the show (the little braid at the side of her head) was her “wedding hair”.

Abraham Benrubi

Abraham played Olaf the troll in Triangle and Selfless. Abraham is best known as Jerry Markovic in ER and he played Larry Kubiac in Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. He appeared in Twister, a movie which was script-doctored by Joss Whedon. Abraham played ‘Young Man’ in the Coen Brothers’ movie The Man Who Wasn’t There, and appeared in Sleepwalkers, Dark Angel, The X-Files, Wings, Grace Under Fire, Married…with Children, Roseanne (as Teenage Dan), and Blossom. Abraham Rubin Hercules Benrubi is 2.01 metres tall and is an avid collector of comic books and CDs.

Jennifer Shon

Jennifer Shon played the student Rachel in Life Serial and Selfless. She has also appeared in No Prom for Cindy, Malcolm in the Middle, NYPD Blue, Strong Medicine and Boston Public.

Joyce Guy

Joyce Guy, who played Willow’s Professor in Selfless, played Mrs. Moreau in Sunset Beach, and Nurse Virginia Pine in Chicago Hope and has also been in The Santa Clause, Friends, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Beverly Hills, 90210 and Roseanne.

Kali Rocha

Kali Rocha played Spike’s crush Cecily when he was a human, and later went on to play vengeance demon Halfrek. Kali has appeared in Gods and Generals, White Oleander, Meet the Parents, The Object of My Affection, The Crucible, Will & Grace and Becker.

D’Hoffryn

D’Hoffryn was head of the vengeance demons, with the power to make humans into demons, if they show enough talent. He monitors events on Earth from a demon dimension called Arashmaha. D’Hoffryn was responsible for making Anyanka and Halfrek vengeance demons, and offered to do so for Willow in Something Blue, but she declined. He became a type of father figure for many of his demons, even attending Anya’s wedding in Hell’s Bells, though he quickly became angry when they went against his wishes. When Anya decided to become human again, D’Hoffryn killed Halfrek to spite her, in Selfless.

Olaf the Troll

Olaf was an ex-boyfriend of Anya, whom she turned into a troll, bagging herself a job as a vengeance demon at the same time. This was seen via flashback in Selfless. He was accidentally released by Willow and Anya in a spell in Triangle and wreaked havoc on Sunnydale before being magicked away again by Willow.

All good things

D’Hoffryn predicted Anya’s death in Selfless. After he killed Halfrek, Anya told him, “You should have killed me.” D’Hoffryn replied, “Be patient, all good things in time.”

Anya’s background

We learn in Selfless that Anya’s name as a human was Aud. She came from Sjornjost, and became a vengeance demon in 880 A.D. after turning her cheating boyfriend Olaf into a troll. D’Hoffryn offered her the vengeance demon job and renamed her Anyanka.

Anya’s dress

Anya wears her wedding dress from Hell’s Bells in her musical-based flashback in Selfless, implying that she brought her wedding dress long before her wedding day in season six.

Anya’s made-up life

Anya tells the Watcher’s Council in Checkpoint a made-up story about her life to cover up her ex-demonyness. She says that she grew up in South East Indiana, her full name is Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, and her birthdate as July 4th, 1980. In Selfless, whilst singing ‘Mrs’, Anya mentions her name again before singing “Anya Lame-Ass-Made-Up- Maiden-Name Harris.”

Bunnies

Anya has a fear of bunnies, first referenced in Fear, Itself when she wore a bunny costume to a Halloween party, with the simple explanation: “bunnies frighten me”. This fear is shown in Shadow, The Gift, Once More, With Feeling, Tabula Rasa, Smashed, Selfless and in Chosen. In Bargaining (Part 2), Razor asks Willow what she’s going to do, “pull a rabbit out of a hat?” Anya turns to Tara to be reassured that she won’t. Anya’s final words on the show are about bunnies. She thinks of them whilst preparing for the huge battle - “Bunnies. Floppy, hoppy, bunnies.” Anya’s bunny suit in Fear, Itself became so popular that modelmakers Clayburn Moore created a figure of the character.

Devouring evil

Both D’Hoffryn and Spike say, “From beneath you it devours” in Selfless, a reference to the coming evil first mentioned in Beneath You.

Here’s my talisman

Willow met D’Hoffryn in Something Blue, when a spell she did impressed him and he offered her a job as a vengeance demon. She refused, but he left a talisman with her so that she could contact him if she changed her mind. She uses this to summon D’Hoffryn in Selfless.

Kick his ass

In Becoming (Part 2), Xander failed to tell Buffy that Willow was going to perform the spell to re-cast Angel’s curse (instead he told her to “kick his ass”). This was never discussed until season seven’s Selfless, when Buffy finally revealed to Xander she knew this was not Willow’s true message. Buffy also reminds Xander in Selfless that she killed Angel in Becoming (Part 2).

Killing Buffy’s friends

In Selfless, Anya says to Buffy, “Are there any of your friends you haven’t tried to kill?” Buffy tried to kill Xander, Tara, Willow and Dawn in Normal Again; Spike on several occasions; Willow in Grave; Faith in Graduation Day (Part 1); Angel in Becoming… Need I go on?

Naming the stars

In Selfless, Spike says that Drusilla liked to look at the stars. We saw her doing this in Innocence:

Sword through the chest

In Selfless, Anya says that Buffy should know better than to think a sword through the chest would kill a vengeance demon. Buffy witnessed a demon shove a sword through vengeance demon Halfrek with no serious effect in Older and Far Away.

The day the songs started

In Selfless, we see a flashback to a night that obviously is intended to have taken place during the musical Once More, With Feeling, on the first night that everyone began singing. Anya asks Xander if the coconut thing was weird. In the musical she told the gang, “We were arguing and, and then everything rhymed and there were harmonies and the dance with coconuts.” Outside Xander and Anya’s apartment we hear the neighbours singing: a man sings that he has mustard on his favourite shirt, and a woman suggests that he have it dry cleaned. The next morning in the musical, David Fury sang a brief song that he was pleased that the dry cleaners had got the mustard out. Marti Noxon and David Fury reprise their roles in Selfless. In the scene where Anya sings ‘Mrs’, Xander is holding the amulet that was used to summon Sweet in Once More, With Feeling.

Troll logic

In Triangle, Xander said to Olaf the troll, “You are one crazy troll. I’m not choosing between my girlfriend and my best friend. That’s insane troll logic!”
Olaf said to Anya in Selfless, “Your logic is insane and happenstance, like that of a troll. It is no wonder the bar matrons talk of you.” In Conversations with Dead People, Buffy said to Holden, “OK, you know, this is beyond evil. This is insane troll logic.”

We are the law

In Selfless, Buffy stands up to Xander when she thinks she must kill Anya. She says, “I am the law”. In Consequences, she didn’t agree with Faith’s argument that, as Slayers, “We don’t need the law - we are the law”. It’s a symbol of Buffy’s changing attitude to her work.

Joss writes Mrs

Joss Whedon wrote Anya’s song “Mrs” for the episode Selfless overnight. Drew Goddard said the following:

Mrs lyrics

Anya’s song ‘Mrs’ is sung in Selfless. The lyrics are:

Arashmaharr

Arashmaharr is a world or dimension in which D’Hoffryn, the head of the vengeance demons, resides. In Something Blue, Anya attempted to summon D’Hoffryn using the spell, “Blessed be, the name of D’Hoffryn. Let this space be now a gateway to the world of Arashmaharr, where demons are spawned.”
In Selfless, Willow uses D’Hoffryn’s talisman and the spell, “Beatum sit in nomine D’Hoffrynis. Fiat hoc spatium porta ad mundum Arashmaharris” to summon the demon. This is the latin translation of the original spell that Anya was trying to use in Something Blue.

Grimslaw demon

In Selfless, Anyanka summoned a Grimslaw demon to kill a group of frat boys, in revenge for a cruel trick they had played on a female student. The demon is massive, speedy and spider-like, with a mouth in its abdomen. It uses the mouth to attack and rip out the hearts of its victims. Willow first encountered the spider on UC Sunnydale campus, and Buffy and Xander tracked it down to a wood, where they found it’s dark, sticky webbing. Buffy killed the Grimslaw demon by throwing an axe into a tree in which it was hiding.

Woodlow Transmogriphic spell

In Selfless, D’Hoffryn asks Aud if she used a Woodlow Transmogriphic spell to turn Olaf into a troll. She says she actually used Thornton’s Hope, with a touch of eelsbane.

Olaf and Aud

Olaf and Aud (seen in Selfless) are a legendary Viking couple. Olaf the White was a warrior king (the son of King Ingjald) who married Aud the Deep-Minded (the daughter of Ketil Flat-Nose).

Spider-Man

Spider-Man is a popular Marvel comic starring Peter Parker, who leads a double life as superhero Spider-Man. Made into two successful movies starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. There are many similarities between Peter and Buffy, as she too is trying to lead a normal life, and (occasionally) make a living, whilst saving the world. Spider-Man has been mentioned in numerous Buffy and Angel episodes, including:

• Angel - The Master says, “With power comes responsibility”, which is the motto of the Spider-Man comics and movie.
• I Robot, You Jane - Buffy says, “My spider-sense is tingling”.
• A New Man - Riley says to Buffy, “You’re strong. Like Spider-Man strong”.
• No Place Like Home - Ben suggests Buffy’s strength comes from a “Radioactive spider bite”.
• Flooded - Anya and Dawn argue over if Spider-Man charges for helping people - Xander reminds them that “Action is his reward”.
• Two To Go - Andrew says, “Lex Luthor had a false epidermis escape kit in Superman Versus the Amazing Spider-Man Treasury edition”
• Selfless - Xander says, “This isn’t springy high-flying fun!”
• Bring on the Night - Andrew says “My spider-sense is tingling”.
• Inside Out - Cordy says “That’s it? I get away with bringing the world down around you and two eensy words tingle your spider sense?”
• Additionally, Buffy stuntman Erik Betts was director Sam Raimi’s choice for doubling actor Tobey Maquire for the movie Spider-Man, but was told by the costume designer that his shoulders were too large. Nicholas Brendon auditioned for the role of Spider-Man in the movie.

The Cask of Amontillado

In Selfless, Spike says, “Scream Montresor all you like, Pet.” This is from Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Cask of Amontillado in which Montresor bricks his enemy, Fortunato, up in his cellar, while still alive. Fortunato calls out to Montresor while he bricks him in, but Montresor carries on regardless.

Seen at 06.27 minutes:

Anya washes her hands vigorously before leaving the frat house, but when Willow sees Anya she still has a lot of blood on her hands. It doesn’t seem possible that she missed that amount of blood.

Seen at 30.15 minutes:

Anya’s hair in the Once More, With Feeling flashback is far lighter than it actually was in that episode.

Seen at 30.30 minutes:

Anya overhears the couple singing about a mustard stain, but the next day (seen in the episode Once More, With Feeling), she was the first to ask if the singing was affecting just the Scoobies.

Seen at 32.16 minutes:

When Anya is singing and spinning round on Xander’s lap, you can see a circle around the chair which seem to be the tracks where the chair is spun.