Eye yi yi…
So what did we learn tonight, kids?
1) When actors come back from “Firefly,” they come back reeaaaally pìššëd øff and reeaaally nasty. Malcolm is now Caleb and he makes Holtz from last season’s “Angel” look like Misterrogers. Me, I keep waiting to see if Jewel Staite shows up as a potential.
2) Listen. To. Giles. Buffy, in a staggering display of hubris, blows off Giles’ caution with remarks so cutting you’d think she’d turned into first season Cordelia (a role SMG was originally considered for), gets her ášš kicked, and suffers casualties. She’s gonna wind up eating serious crow.
3) The Chinese slayer wannabe is still the most fun.
4) No one delivers exposition like Andrew. His hilarious mangling of Faith having killed a Volcanist into killing a Vulcan was a comedic highpoint. Then again, there wasn’t tons of competition (it narrowly edged out Xanders dream vs. reality scenario. Leg cramp indeed). Remember when Whedon said this was going to be the season that got back to the basic fun of BTVS? Oh yeah. Fun fun fun.
5) Xander is a better inspirational speaker than Buffy. Then again, who isn’t?
6) Watching five minutes of Faith and Spike is more fun than watching five weeks of Buffy and Spike. Man, I thought they were going to do it right there. You could just feel the love being sucked right out of the room when Buffy walked in. Remember when the show could function on the chemistry of SMG and the supporting cast alone? Boy, those days are gone. Buffy enters a room and whatever’s going on just grinds to a halt as everyone looks at her with dread. While Faith and Spike were reminiscing about their fourth season out-of-body encounter, I was reminded of an earlier part of the exchange: “Summers, you know why I hate you?” “Because I’m a stuck up tight ášš with no sense of fun?” “Well, yeah, that covers a lot of it.” Whatever she was then, she’s ten times that now.
7) Anya appears to have vanished. Perhaps she was out promoting “Darkness Falls.”
8) Sucks to be Xander. I have to say, I wouldn’t want to be Caleb about now. If I were the guy who just lay a major hurt on the lifelong friends of the most powerful witch in the hemisphere, I wouldn’t want to start reading any continued stories. Rather than Buffy wandering the streets and Willow sitting at Xander’s bedside looking shellshocked, I’m surprised the show didn’t end with Willow walking up to Buffy, saying, “He’s mine,” and heading out after Caleb herself. Perhaps she will. We’ll have to wait two weeks to find out.
PAD
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Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but I saw a not-overly-subtle “Iraqui Freedom” metaphor here, with Buffy being the “hawk,” Giles being the “dove,” & the vinyard being “Iraq.” Thankfully (so far), life dosn’t appear to be imitating art.
So far? The combat part is over. (At least Giles didn’t predict hundreds of thousands of dead Harbringers.)
I agree on all counts.
Faith is a bolt of lightning to the show. Great stuff.
But one topic I was *hoping* they’d touch on, but never did, is the the whole slayer succession thing.
Now maybe someone had commented on this before, but why has no one in the show asked about a 3rd slayer?
Buffy died *twice*, right?
And characthers have lamented (more than once) that for a potential to be chosen, Buffy has to die. No one has caught on that the line of succession is passed to Faith. I can see that and that’s fine. But why has no one mentioned that there should be a 3rd slayer around, then?
Seems kind of…sloppy. Maybe its a future plot point. Dunno.
Still looking forward to more Faith, though. 🙂
As for the Xander being in the new generation of Watchers comments…
Does everyone remember “Restless,” with those weird prophetic dreams the Scoobies all had? In Xander’s dream, Giles and Spike are both dressed in tweed, swinging on a set of swings, in broad daylight. Spike says something to the effect that Giles is teaching him to be a Watcher, to which Giles comments that he’s like a son to him. Well, in that episode where everyone lost their memory, “Tabula Rasa,” we got Spike wearing tweed and suspecting that Giles was his father.
*blinks*
Now, I’m wondering about the whole Watcher thing. If, and this is a possible major spoiler for the finale, [spoiler]Spike is the vampire with a soul that gets to “shanshu,” or become human, than it’s possible he will fill some sort of Watcher capacity.[/end spoiler]. Pretty cool, if you ask me.
Also, in “Restless,” Xander says, in reference to Spike’s comments about becoming a Watcher, “I was into that for a while, but… I got other stuff goin’ on.” Still, he’s seems unsure. It’s very curious to me. And exciting.
I believe the official word from Joss Whedon (and I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong) is that when Buffy died for the first time, the Slayer line passed to Kendra. That ended Buffy’s ability to pass on the Slayer abilities. That’s why when Kendra died, Faith became the new Slayer and there is no third. Be kinda cool, though, if you could somehow stop Faith’s heart for a few seconds, then start it back again, then repeat the process. Just to see the look on Caleb’s face when 100 Slayers march into his wine cellar – well, it’d be cool, is all I’m saying.
That would be the smart thing.. kill Faith temporarily and get a new slayer then repeat. Then you might even get a spin-off from it, “The Slayers”
Insideman said:
\\Maybe it is “part” Buffy.
But it AIN’T the REAL Buffy.
I believe the REAL Buffy is STILL DEAD.\\
I could very easily see that being the case. In fact, I half-expected Faith to make some comment to that effect this week.
In fact, I was there in San Diego when Joss explained the whole “the Slayer line runs through Faith now, so if Buffy died again there’d be no new Slayer from it” bit.
Of course, he did end that explanation with “…unless we come up with a *really* good story from it.”. Or Laura Anne Gilman is known to say on Buffy panels; “Trust Joss, Joss lies”.
As for the army o’Slayers, there was a live action role playing game at MIT a few years ago with that premise. The Council had decided to wipe out vampires once and for all, and so did the death/resurrect bit repeatedly. There was a great war. Slayers and vamps were both wiped out. Now, a new Hellmouth has opened, and the Watchers are up the creek since they’ve exhausted all the potentials and hence have no Slayer.
Oww!!! The pain, the pain. Poor Xander, I can’t get that image out of my head, everything seemed to happen in slow motion from the moment Caleb grabbed him, and it was subtle but if you look at his face (specially his cheek) you can see that Xander was shaking, he probably thought his neck was about to be snapped.
I think that Caleb’s saying that Xander is the “one who sees” might be a reference to Xander’s speech earlier when he said that he’d seen Buffy’s heart. Xander seems to be the most inspirational member of the scoobies right now, so it would make sense that Caleb would try to crush his spirit.
This was a good, albeit disturbing, episode and I also loved the funny bits.
Andrew’s presentation of Faith seems to me like it would have been a great opening for the Faith spin-off, just replace the part with the Vulcan with something like:
“Now, having finally seen the error of her ways and embracing the Light once more, Faith constantly struggles to punish those who need to be punished and to protect those who need protection. There’s no room for despair, when you have Faith!”
One bit that no one has mentioned here yet was when Andrew immediately turned to Xander for help the moment that a geek point (that the Hollywood Godzilla wasn’t the real deal) had to be made to mundanes. It reminds us that Xander is a big geek too, but that he’s also a bridge between the two worlds. In a way, he’s Andrew’s translator.
And speaking of translators, I love the Chinese potential, but she’s been there for weeks already. By now shouldn’t someone have come up with a translating spell for her, or at the very least bought a English-Chinese dictionary? They can decipher a language that’s been dead for thousands of years in a matter of hours, but throw them a language that’s spoken by over a billion people and they’re dead in the water. How did they even get her to go in the mission with them?
I think that Buffy has no idea what she’s doing anymore. She accepts advice from Wood, whom she’s only known for a few months, even after he tried to kill Spike, but dismisses Giles advice because he conspired with Wood to kill Spike. True, in her eyes Giles betrayal was much greater, but still… I’ll bet that she’s aware that things are way over her head, she just doesn’t want to admit to anyone that she could be wrong. Notice, for instance, how she says that she’s the one who decided to quit her job.
Final nitpick, Willow was in a car alone with Faith for at least a couple of hours, you’d think that she’d have filled her in on all the important stuff that had been happening, like the fact that Spike was one of the good guys now. But then we wouldn’t have had that great scene in the graveyard.
Raphy
Re: “And why does Faith keep getting horizontally kicked into barrels and debris? Her ribs must be springier than a Serta.”
GOD! I’d like to find out!!! Mmmmm…
Nobody’s mentioned this yet but if you want some major spoilers, this is from the “Watch with Wanda” column on E! Online:
“Wanda”, who is a big fan of both Buffy and Angel said she recently had a chance to talk to the entire “BTVS” cast. The only no-show: SMG. (“Make of that what you will,” Wanda wrote.)
Among her spoiler/scoops was that a regular would die before the end of the season and the regular would die saving Andrew’s life. The obvious choice is Anya because Wanda goes on to ask all the Buffy regulars if they’ll be appearing on Angel and the only one whose answer doesn’t appear, besides SMG, is Emma Caulfield.
Nicholas Brendon appeared to be disappointed that he wasn’t moving to Angel, at least for a guest-starring bit, according to Wanda, so that leads me to think he won’t be killed.
Oz will not be back for the finale.
The most interesting thing she said, however, and, if it’s true, I expect it to cause much howling on these boards in a few weeks, is that the ending resolves…
Nothing.
She said that Joss wants to keep the door open to reviving the characters in a movie or whatever so Buffy doesn’t die or move on or go to prison for allowing a bystander to get mugged, it just sorta… ends.
This actually makes sense. I’ve heard lots of times that Joss wants to make a movie some day and both Star Trek and X-Files found success as movies so why kill the goose?
But if there are no major resolutions and no new Buffy confirmed, I think there’s going to be a lot of unhappy fans.
Tom Galloway, you big jerk, you stole my thunder!
For a few weeks now, I’ve been toying with the idea of posting about my own little theory:
This season was about high school, that one was about college, the other one was becoming an adult… So what was this season about…?
Sarah Michelle Gellar.
I know it seems unlikely but I’ve heard a few things recently that lead me to belive that SMG isn’t the sweetheart I’ve always wanted to believe she is. Is it possible that this season is a very, very veiled story about her?
Well, let’s see… They’re facing a Big, Bad that has been very vague but worse than anything that they’ve ever faced before. Cancellation?
Throughout the season, Buffy has been distant and cut off her friends. Every time any momentum of fun is built up, she tells them, “You’re all going to die.” (Or cease to exist.) Her friends turn to her and tell her, Only you can save us, but she keeps turning away. Her indeciveness keeps hurting them, the way, say a lead actresses indecision, could hurt all the actors, writers, directors, production people, etc. who depend on her and only her. (Remember that from the beginning of the season, the answer to the question, Will there be another season? has always been, It’s up to Sarah. Obviously, Joss Whedon and at least most of the actors were willing to go on. Just as obviously, there’s no Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Buffy.)
This season, Buffy has come across like she’s superior to everyone around her, unaware of their pain and uncaring of their needs if they conflict with her goals.
How about the recent scenes between Buffy (SMG?) and her mentor Giles (Joss Whedon?) where Buffy slams the door in his face and snarls, “I think I’ve learned all I need from you”?
Final piece of evidence? What has the First looked like most often this season?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who thinks an actress “lets us down” because she no longer wants to play a certain role. I have absolutely no issue with SMG leaving the show or doing whatever. I don’t know her and I have no insight into why she does anything she does.
But I think there may be some precedent for this. 20 years or more ago, I remember reading articles about M*A*S*H and how many of the actors couldn’t stand Gary Burghoff. One of the things that struck me was that even though these feelings were out enough that big stars (at the time) were talking to national magazines about them, Burghoff seemed completely unaware of how they felt.
Also, in this day and age of surreal mainstream entertainments like “Being John Malkovich” starring John Malkovich as John Malkovich or the Seinfeld sitcom plotline where standup Jerry Seinfeld plays a character on a sitcom named Jerry Seinfeld who’s a standup comedian who pitches a sitcom starring himself as Jerry Seinfeld, (and DC didn’t think we could understand Earth-1 and Earth-2…?), who can say what topic would be too “inside” for a series?
\\And characthers have lamented (more than once) that for a potential to be chosen, Buffy has to die. No one has caught on that the line of succession is passed to Faith. I can see that and that’s fine. But why has no one mentioned that there should be a 3rd slayer around, then?
Seems kind of…sloppy. Maybe its a future plot point. Dunno.\\
And I was thinking (and this is incredibly farfetched) that maybe — between the two deaths/resurrections and Buffy’s refusal of the original Watcher’s ‘dark side’ stuff — that somehow Caleb was a slayer, but a male one. There have been hints, after all, that something is wrong with the slayer line and Buffy herself after the second resurrection. Now, it’s been established (kind of) that the slayer line now goes through Faith, but what if Buffy’s second death somehow screwed something up, and triggered a male slayer? It would explain, to some degree, Caleb’s strength and interest in the slayers — and, if Caleb somehow took the ‘dark’ stuff that Buffy refused, that would make him even more powerful (perhaps to the point that he seems to be in the show).
That seems like it would be a really great twist — that the slayer line is corrupted by a male slayer — and might be an explanation for why the ‘why isn’t there a third slayer’ questions (since Joss’ “the line goes through Faith” speech isn’t in the show’s canon).
I’m in Canada so I just saw this episode tonight. Gotta agree with the comments of “what, no guns?”. Does no one in that group know how to stage an attack? They go into an obvious trap and plan to win by “poking them with sharp sticks”. Xander’s got good enough aim that he can shoot a guy’s hand, but he can’t shoot him in the head/neck when it really counts? They couldn’t bring a big ol’ bazooka or surround the place and plant incendiary devices, in the event that everything went to hëll and they couldn’t “rescue” whatever Caleb “had”? (There is *never* a backup plan for when things go Horribly Wrong, it’s just punch ’em till they bleed.) There was no need for all that hand-to-hand. That’s where losses occur. I know Buffy missed most of her high school history classes, but someone in the bunch should know how wars are best won: drop a nuke or smart bomb from a distance (watch the news, girl!) and then you don’t have to worry about untested Slayers. They should be training the potentials in the use of firearms! In my opinion: the fight scene was pathetic, because the good guys fought stupidly. Instead, take out all the bringers quickly and home in on the superdude with everything you’ve got, and I don’t mean weak punches from humans and an anorexic SMG. Nobody had the poor potentials’ backs. Willow should have at least loaned Xander her gun so he could pick ’em off from the sidelines. Oh, and I do think Caleb is feeding off a power similar to what created the first Slayer.
The injuries/deaths to the potentials and the Xander was just gratuitous pain for the viewers, a sad attempt to grab our attention and prove that the writers are to be taken seriously. And I really think there’s a strong element of misogyny running through this series. It’s been cropping up a lot this season, and I don’t think it can be dismissed easily by ‘it’s the bad guys who are like that’.
I miss Buffy when it was good and SMG was still eating =(
I just got around to watching the tape of the show.
Ow. Poor Xander. He’s always been my favorite character on the show because he’s easier to relate to than the others. I hope he’s the one that takes down Caleb. It only seems fair after what happened.
I really liked Spike and Faith’s conversation in the basement. It figures that the two rogues of the group would get along so well.
Not sure about Andrew’s bit or the Chinese potential thing. I don’t remember anything about a vulcanologist in the original Faith storyline. Also, I just feel bad for that Chinese girl. She probably has no idea what is going on.
Faith killed the vulcanologist because he found relics from the last time someone ascended (spelling) in a volcano in asia back towards the end of season three.
Faith killed the vulcanologist because he found relics from the last time someone ascended (spelling) in a volcano in asia back towards the end of season three.
I haven’t read all the posts and I haven’t seen all the episodes, but in the ones I have seen, I’ve noticed nothing ever touches Giles. Nothing. No people no objects nothing at all. So maybe he’s not corporeal. I could be wrong.
juice – Um… That was resolved quite some time ago. Giles is coporeal. Solid. And out of character.