Liz Giles yells into a microphone. “Attention party humans and other species!”

Faith and Buffy clink fluted glasses of champagne. “Here’s to 2023!”

Willow sits in bed in her pajamas. “The big four-oh, and I’m nowhere I expected to be in life.”

Two large Council vans pull into a garage at night.

Reporter, V.O.: “The Council’s approval ratings have never been higher.”

Grace stands at a podium with a Council coat of arms on the front, with a screen showing numerous other faces behind her.

Rowena teaches a classroom full of students reading from tablets.

Liz looks up at something flying through the air, her mouth open.

Kennedy looks at Shannon over a conference table and says, “First rule of slaying. Stay alive.”

Willow turns to Rowena. “This is gonna go off the rails.”

Grace V.O.: “There are always threats.”

A man stands looking out a floor-to-ceiling office window with a view of Downtown Cleveland and Lake Erie.

Grace V.O.: “You try and hold the darkness back but it’s still very, very dark.”

A girl flies backward, thrown through a series of what looks like several ancient tablets and statues, then crashes into a wall.

Grace V.O.: “And there are people, good people, who don’t deserve any of…”

Willow scrambles backwards on her hands and knees, eyes wide and terrified.

Grace V.O.: “Who have devoted their lives to all of this, who give up, just…everything.”

Liz hides behind a wall, holding her breath in fear.

Grace V.O.: “But there will always be a next thing, and then a next thing, and then a next thing.”

A girl screams as she is pulled underneath a school bus by an unseen force, her fingernails scraping the concrete.

Grace: “There is no glorious victory, at the end.”

Black Out

The darkness is broken by an orange light growing from Willow’s hands. It quickly grows into an ethereal flaming sword. Alone, she assumes a fighting stance, her jaw set.

COMING TUES. JANUARY 31st