It occurs to me that folks who are concerned about reading key bits involving “Buffy” episodes are really only affected if *I* say something in my blog. Because anything in the response area can only be seen via a separate, additional action on the part of the reader. Only my journal is “in your face,” so to speak.
So henceforth, what I’ll do is simply open up the discussion area, and that’s all that will appear in the journal entry itself. I’ll then put my opinions into the response area, safe from eyes of those who taped but haven’t watched it, or had it preempted for basketball or live in England or something. Same deal with “Angel.”
Instead in the main blog area I’ll simply speak in vague generalities: This week’s episode rates a solid “B,” and lays some groundwork that could factor in to the resolution of the story arc. Spoilers and detailed comments follow.
Okay, so…
Some people claim that nothing much happened this week, and we only learned what we already knew. I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion. For instance, back in the fifth season Buffy sought help from the First Slayer, who informed her that death was her gift. The phrase meant nothing to her, or us. It wasn’t until the season ender that we saw how it tied together. That may well be the case here.
Downsides: Character arcs were more or less by the numbers. Buffy told each of the regulars what she needed them to be. She then disappeared and they promptly became exactly what she said she needed from them. In script parlance, the general term for that is “too on-the-nose.”
Upsides: A popular soap opera technique is to introduce some piece of information that only the viewers and maybe one character knows, and then we wait with increasing tension for the others to discover it, knowing all hëll will break loose. BTVS does that as well as anyone, and better than some, and the Spike/Wood angle is the latest and niftiest of those angles. Spike obviously knows something’s up, but he’s not sure what yet. You just know it’s NOT going to end well. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to a Spike/Wood confrontation, Spike could deliver the coup de grace, hesitates, and Wood dusts him. That would seriously suck.
The origins of the First. Now we’re talking. We see not only how the Slayer was first created, but also what were presumably the first Watchers. If I’m understanding what I saw, the Slayer power is based in what is effectively demonic possession. The First Slayer asked for it, and the “watchers” provided it. That means that, even though Buffy shied away from getting a booster shot, she’s still got some incredibly potent demonic energy swirling around in her.
What could be interesting is if the climax of the storyline involves her (and Faith?) effectively “releasing” that power to fight the First, and the resulting battle effectively annihilates the Hellmouth and all the demonic entities on earth…and leaves Buffy and Faith basically normal, their job done. Where this would leave Angel, I haven’t a clue.
Still not sure where all this is leading, but I know I’m enjoying the ride far more than the previous season. At least we’ve got heroes trying to act like heroes.
And Buffy really does need to work on her skills as a motivational speaker. I’m reminded of her rather sour exhortation to battle in the fifth season closer which prompted Spike to observe, “Not exactly the Saint Crispin’s day speech, is it.” “We few, we happy few,” replied the Shakespeare-Savvy Giles, to which Spike deliberately misquoted, “We band of bûggërëd.”
PAD
• 
the thing about spikes coat and the whole getting dangerous. Didn’t make me thing of dangermouse but of another Animated animal superhero. It made me think of Darkwing duck with his Line. “lets get dangerous”
I wish I had a leather coat that still looked good after wearing it for 25 years while killing humans and fighting demons.
I just kinda wish I looked good in a duster.
Well, Demons in Angel seem to be able to find other ways to get to Earth than the Hellmouth – Portals, rifts, summonings, demonic elevators. And there’s got to be lots of clean up work that needs to be done.
Where did you hear that Faith would be taking over?
*Sigh.*
Does ANYONE ELSE think it odd that a ‘Slayer Survival Kit’, supposedly to be passed down from Slayer to Slayer, containing such vital pieces as a honkin’ big tome and the whole ‘puppet gods’ shadow theatre dealie, wasn’t mentioned or inquired about by Giles, the Watchers Council, etc. for seven-plus years??
A deus ex machina, sloppy story-editing, not as important a detail as discussing cartoon references and the condition of leather dusters, or WHAT??!
Hooper
Yeah the survival kit was pretty much placed in here to further the plot. Writing has gotten a bit sloppier, but in general the stuff was all replacable and since this slayer actually had a child it kind of became a family heirloom. Since the watcher (who maybe was actually Wood’s dad) took a liking to Wood maybe he just lied to the council about hte whereabouts of the SSK. Maybe he said spike stole it.
Actually, now that I think about it, the “why didn’t anyone go looking for the kit?” and the “wasn’t it convenient that Buffy got it right when she needed it?” issues cancel each other out. If Buffy’d received it when she became the Slayer she would’ve put the stakes in her hope chest and chucked the rest of it in the back of her closet. (How much interest did she ever show in the Slayer Handbook?) The fact that it took this long to get to her meant that it was actually useful when she needed it. (Or would’ve been if she’d wanted the help, anyway.)
(In reality, I’m rationalizing like crazy, and I may be giving this more thought than the writers did…but it actually sort of makes sense…)
If we’re talking about all-time spectacular Buffy endings, I’ve another one to add:
“I Only Have Eyes For You” — Angelus and Dru go off to feed (“a nice toddler”), and Angelus tells Spike, “Try to have fun while I’m gone.”
Spike: “Oh, don’t worry, I will…”
… as he gets up from his wheelchair, very much ambulatory and quite pìššëd øff.
“Sooner than you think.”
Cut to credits.
Definitely worth a look or three.
TWL
“Two To Go,” had it not been aired as the first hour of a two, would have had the best Buffy ending ever with the dramatic-as-heck nick-of-time return of Giles.
PatrickH wrote:
Was anyone else surprised by Dawn all of a sudden having translating skills? I mean, when did she learn to read ancient Sumerian?
Not at all. Finding a Sumerian-English dictionary (complete with a freeware cuniform font) took me about two minutes on Google:
http://www.sumerian.org/sumerian.htm
Addressing various comments:
1) Yeah, I thought the Slayer Kit pretty much came out of nowhere. On the other hand, there’s any number of ways to rationalize it, and the explanation would have taken up more screen time than I think it needed.
2) “Actual size” was pretty dámņëd funny, yes. Okay, I’d probably drop it into #3 and switch it out with Giles walking into the tree–which, by the way, I understand was actually Tony Head’s idea.
3) I’ve been watching the first season of “Angel” on DVD and was interested in a sequence in “Sanctuary” wherein Buffy is trying to go after Faith and Angel prevents her. She promptly slugs him…and he hits her back. Her eyes go wide, she’s stunned, and says, “I can’t believe you hit me.” To which Angel replies, “Well, not to go all school yard, but you hit me first.” For Buffy, lashing out was so automatic, so second nature, that when it was returned in kind it shocked her. She’s used to dishing it out and gets surprised when required to take it.
This put me in mind of the comments about her rather sour speech to the troops. It seems to me if there’s one thing Buffy’s been portrayed as consistently, it’s someone who not only has stunted communications skills, but doesn’t do well with frustration. When she’s frustrated, she’s got exactly one way of dealing with it: Lashing out. Preferably physically. On the rare occasions when that option isn’t available, she lashes out orally. She doesn’t do well with redirecting her energies, or trying to deal with frustration in any sort of contemplative or intellectual way. She just wants to hurt someone. Spike, on the receiving end more often than not, understood this the most clearly.
Given that, her angry speech at the Wannaslays might have come across as incredibly harsh, and made her unlikable. But it was certainly consistent with what’s gone before. We’re just so used to seeing her act out by hitting that it comes as a shock to see her using a different method.
PAD
Don’t forget that Dracula told Buffy that even she must sense that her power was rooted in darkness?
Big Mama Slayer’s slayerkit seemed tacked on, and I’m curious why a son who wants to avenge his mother wouldn’t have thought he could use what was in the bag to further that end?
MYOB’
One ending that rates putting on the list:
The Angel episode when Dru makes a surprise appearance in the last 2 minutes of the episode to re-vamp Darla. I definitly didn’t see that one coming.
PAD,
I’ve gotta agree. Walking into the tree was dámņëd funny.
I also rather enjoyed the ending of HUSH. “We should talk,” then neither knows what to say. It’s a more understated ending, but a good one. Of course, that whole episode was very well done.
Bobby
Bobby Nash
Writer @ Large
So, I was in the grocery store when I noticed James Marsters behind me in line.
As he only had a few items, and it was one in the morning, I let him go ahead, and he was gracious. We talked about his appearance on Loveline, his band, and how he was hospitalized with bronchitis recently.
And that’s when I noticed he was buying Rolos. And I thought, “So that’s what happens when a vampire gets his soul back… he loses his bad-ášš-ness and eats Rolos.”
Chris Yost
Writer, ‘X-Men: Evolution’
Someone said above: “On an MB I frequent, several persons are interpreting the empowering of the First Slayer as a having a rape subtext. Did anyone else think that, or are they just all crazy?”
Then someone else replied: “From what I understood the FS didn’t ask for it. The “Watcher’s” basically picked a girl, chained her to the earth and forced the demon into her. I wouldn’t call it rape, that would imply sexual intercourse, involuntary possession yes, not rape.”
She didn’t ask for it. She was chained to the ground, as Buffy was when she came over to the box-world. As for whether or not it was rape, well, that depends on how you define rape. Was Tara mind-raped, or was she “merely” violated by Glory? In any event, it was a horrible act done against the girl’s will, as was quite obvious when the puppet-first slayer began to scream and scream and scream. Not exactly puppies and flowers. I think I’d classify it as soul-rape. Demonic violation of the girl’s very self.
(Credit questions to Michael Pullman (1) and Heather (2).)
Also, I’m going to state again that I strongly dislike Kennedy.
I also strongly dislike the idea of Kennedy and Willow, in that I very much like Willow and I very much dislike Kennedy.
I am hoping Kennedy dies a horrible death. Or a plain death. Or chokes on a doughnut and dies. Off screen. Anything. Just so long as we no longer have to deal with her and her extreme ickiness and very-much-non-Scoobies-ness.
She gives SITs a bad name.
She gives Scoobies a bad name.
She gives lesbians a bad name.
She gives women a bad name.
She gives females of any species a bad name.
She gives mortals a bad name.
She. Must. Go.
I’ve never felt this way about any of the characters added (long term) to the show at any point during the nearly-seven-year run. Even when the yumdilicious Spike was rolling about with the teeth-gratingly-annoying Harmony. (How can you hate Riley? He was far too sweet. Or Anya? She was far too amusing.)
Kennedy is dislikable to the nth degree. Why her? Why focus on this particular SIT? Especially when there are other, much more interesting ones upon whom they can focus?
Note I have purposely avoided using the word “hate,” as it would be inappropriate to use such a strong word with a television show. But, if I were to use the word, I’d, like, totally use it when talking about Kennedy. grrrr! growl! phawg! Rid Buffy of the Kennedy taint! (And, perhaps, did they purposely give the most unlikeable character that particular name?)
Normally, I don’t like it when people respond to someone else’s post by typing “I agree,” or “Me too.”
But Cat’s post about Kennedy: Me too.
–Daniel
I heard a rumor that the gal who playes Willow is now engaged to the guy who plays Wesley.
Any truth to this?
Tom asked: I heard a rumor that the gal who playes Willow is now engaged to the guy who plays Wesley. Any truth to this?
Yup.
On BUffy, two things :
1- I
James said:
“I have to agree with the idea that the First obviously shops for troops at the same place as Saruman.”
Not only that, but the demon Spike fought seemed to be a hurikai(or however you spell it).
What I liked about this episode outweighed what I didn’t. While the one two weeks ago was sloppy, this one was tighter.
I liked the overall story but the biggest bur to me was Kennedy. “Willow, just do magic!”. Gee girl, think she would if she could? Think there is a reason the ones with more experience aren’t pushing it?
The thing that I liked most I guess was oddly Spike. His becoming bad again would be super great.
I didn’t get the Dr. Strangelove refference, thanks to whoever pointed that out.
If anyone runs into anyone with any Buffy-related power, thank them for not giving Andrew yet another Star Wars refference this week. That is getting way old.
Col
“Not at all. Finding a Sumerian-English dictionary (complete with a freeware cuniform font) took me about two minutes on Google:”
“http://www.sumerian.org/sumerian.htm”
Finding a dictionary is still a far cry from being able to read it on the fly.
I’d actually give this episode a “C” – mediocre. The Wannaslayers have gone from being Buffy’s proteges to just being in the way. I was annoyed that Buffy sent them to their rooms and then they apparently disappeared as none of them reacted to Spike being thrown through the ceiling – Except, of course for Kennedy.
I agree. She is annoying. Is it me or is Whedon trying too hard to make her the anti-Tara? Assertive and obnoxious where Tara was quiet and reserved, almost meek.
The highpoint was this exchange where Spike gets his mojo back, as symbolized by the leather jacker:
Wood: Nice jacket. Where’d you get it?
Spike: New York.
If Wood hasn’t made the connection to Spike and his mother by now, he’s a nimrod. The only question is, will he betray Buffy to the First just to get his revenge on Spike?
>>>Y’know…I keep thinking back to that episode in season 3 when the First first showed up…everyone seems to think that a Higher Power saved Angel from offing himself by bringing in the snow storm…personally I think that the First was behind that, because even though Angel had refused to kill Buffy, it wasn’t done with him (and had made a comment to that regard just after he left its lair).
Not to sound like a stickler or anything, but what the First said when Angel left was something to the effect of: “This wasn’t the plan . . . but it’ll do.” The snow was meant to represent hope (or that’s what I feel anyway). The First just wanted to screw with Buffy, if it couldn’t do it by turning Angel, it wanted to do it by killing him. Angel was saved because he’s still got work to do, or at least that’s my take.