Warren and Andrew make Jonathan wrap himself in the dead Nezzla's skin to cross a barrier that can only be passed by one of the demons, and as he fetches the orbs the other two conspire against him.
Later, Buffy, badly injured from patrolling earlier, runs a bath for herself when Spike shows up uninvited and tries to convince her that she loves him.
Jonathan jumps on Buffy's back and quietly coaches her to smash the orbs on Warren's belt in order to defeat him.
Warren rants about his recent defeat, pulls out the gun, fires directly at Buffy as revenge, then shoots randomly over his shoulder as he runs away.
As Tara collapses and dies, Willow cries out holding her as her eyes turn magically dark red, while outside, Xander tries to staunch the bleeding of Buffy's chest wound.
Joss Whedon had long wanted to kill off a major character the first time they joined the main credits.
Series writer and producer Marti Noxon was unable to read some of the mail because it was so distressing, but she counted the response as a natural indication that television simply had few strong female role models, and no lesbian representation.
"[4] Author Rhonda Wilcox writes that Tara's death is made more poignant by her earthy naturalness representing the "fragility of the physical".
"[6] Kaveney concurs with the opinion that the series avoided playing a cliché, "proving that it is possible for a queer character to die in popular culture without that death being the surrogate vengeance of the straight world".
[2] In the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences panel discussion that took place between seasons six and seven, Alyson Hannigan revealed that getting the shot of Tara's blood spraying onto Willow's shirt was incredibly difficult.
Hannigan joked that when they finally got the take she was not sure what she was doing acting-wise, she was just concerned with the appearance of the blood on the shirt remaining consistent.
[7] In the DVD commentary, James Marsters said that filming the scene in which Spike attempts to rape Buffy was one of the hardest he ever had to do.
"[11] In her essay on sex and violence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gwyn Symonds calls the scene itself "technically and emotionally intricate" in that, unlike most depictions of attempted rape, it "encourages a complex audience engagement with both... the perpetrator and the victim.
[12] Writer Rebecca Rand Kirshner agrees that the viewer "could feel how [Spike's] very innards were twisted into this perversion of what he wanted," and she found that experiencing the scene from his perspective was additionally disturbing.