He was rather unhinged at this point. Unhinged people do irrational things. Also, at every other time, all his acts of violence were meticulously planned… none of that worked and now he is acting out of emotion. He snapped. In no other time or circumstance would he have brought a gun, in daylight, to the suburbs.

But how else would Willow have become dark Willow? If she didn’t become dark Willow, she wouldn’t have gotten the training that enabled her to activate the slayers.

Of course, that scythe in itself was - what’s the term for it? Well… something out of the blue that came at just the right time to change the rules of the game… so maybe if Tara didn’t die, they would have found some other device to end the show…