in the mental hospital, the doctors urge buffy to make her task easy on herself, so buffy unchains the demon in the basement to kill her friends for her. xander pleads with buffy to free his hands, but she retreats under the stairs. meanwhile, tara shows up at the house and finds everyone in the basement. she uses magic to free willow and dawn and attack the demon, but the demon is too strong for them; buffy grabs tara's feet through the stairs, making her fall and knocking her unconscious. at the hospital, joyce encourages buffy to fight against the sunnydale reality, telling her that she has the strength to fight against the harshness of the world and must fight it because she has people who love her. buffy, inspired by her mother's mis-chosen words, takes her advice to "believe in" herself literally, thanking her mother and saying goodbye to her as she chooses a life of suffering in the nightmarish sunnydale reality over the much less arduous world represented by the mental hospital.