One could say that beginning this issue with a three page flashback to the moment Buffy stabs Faith in "Graduation Day Pt. 1" (3x21) is a way to get cheap mileage out of the past to lend credence to a comic book adaptation. I'm happy to say this is not the case, as this flashback has significant relevance to the story at hand. Faith's mission is to gut another slayer, just like Buffy did to her back in the day. The personal connection to the objective makes it significantly more difficult to accomplish. With this dilemma being the center of this issue, I'm already fond of it.

Rather than going in for the kill, Faith decides to take things at her own pace by disconnecting Giles and having some alone time first. After a few moments to herself, Faith finally meets Gigi, who clearly connects with her. This is a neat development, although not completely surprising considering they both have many shared personality traits. Although the very fact that Faith is doing this mission shows her change from before, it's obvious that she's still someone who hasn't completely shrugged off the attitude that she should be in it for herself. Gigi clearly has that mindset, and Faith smartly plays into the similarity.

I found a couple things in particular about their conversation interesting. The first being that Faith is calling herself Hope -- how intriguing. I feel the choice of this name reflects her feelings of "hope" for a better life for herself after Angel had so much "faith" in her. The second interesting thing is how, when asked about how her parents are doing, she tells the utter truth: "Dad may as well be a ghost and mum is a filthy drunk." It's at this point when Faith pulls the "hair knife" out, but for what purpose I'm not sure. Considering they were actually somewhat bonding, it's entirely possible she didn't intend to kill Gigi right there. My guess is that she was about to stab her. I do like how, after the gargoyle fight, Gigi wants to give "Hope" a shot, especially now that she knows Faith is a slayer that appears sympathetic to her.

So while I enjoyed the overall idea of "No Future for You Pt. 2," there's several things holding it back from working as well as intended. The first of which is some unusual clunky dialogue. While Briak K. Vaughan is able to nail the overall theme and even character voices, to an extent, some of the humor that's supposed to be witty feels forced, which is readily apparent in the Dawn/Willow scene. Most of this 'scene' doesn't sit well with me either. Willow's floating everywhere, Dawn's still not saying much of anything new or interesting about her situation, and their heart-to-heart gets conveniently interrupted. I find myself missing the direct follow-through we saw in "Doomed" (4x11): Buffy and Riley don't get to slip out of their important conversation there.

One last thing that bugged me was simply discovering that Gigi's motives are simply the same as the run-of-the-mill vampire: kill Buffy. My responses consist of "who cares" and "very uninteresting." It's to the issue's credit that this plot of hers is not the focus of the arc, Faith is. Fortunately the Faith material is actually pretty sharp in this entire arc. In the end, there's definately much more to like than dislike, but I'm still a tad disappointed Vaughan couldn't keep up and improve on what he had going for him in "" (8x06).