Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 5, Episode “Fool for Love”
Broadcast November 14, 2000
Cast:
Sarah Michelle Gellar .... Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon .... Alexander 'Xander' Harris
Alyson Hannigan .... Willow Rosenberg
Marc Blucas .... Riley Finn
Michelle Trachtenberg .... Dawn Summers
Amber Benson .... Tara
Anthony Head .... Rupert Giles
James Marsters .... Spike/William the Bloody
Kristine Sutherland .... Joyce Summers
Mercedes McNab .... Harmony Kendall
Emma Caulfield .... Anya Emerson
SYNOPSIS
PROLOGUE
Buffy fights a sleazy-looking, Dokken-haired vampire with a cheap leather jacket, who manages to seize her own stake and drive it painfully into her stomach.
ACT I
Buffy runs, wounded, but the longhaired vampire catches up to her. From nowhere, Riley arrives to save her. He patches her wounds himself because Buffy refuses to go to a hospital. (Luckily, she has a Slayer healing factor.)
Buffy can’t figure out why she suddenly lost to a garden-variety vampire. She lets Dawn in on her injury so her sister can help her out around the house until she heals completely.
That night, Riley leads the Buffy-less Scooby Gang on a patrol, but he’s dissatisfied with their professionalism.
Buffy tells Giles she’s frustrated that the files on other Slayers are woefully inadequate, but she knows one person who killed two: Spike. She tells the now-defanged vampire, “You’re gonna show me how.”
ACT II
Two Slayers-- one in China during the Boxer Rebellion, one in New York. Both killed by Spike. She’ll pay for the story. Spike wants buffalo wings and he’ll talk.
We flash to a Victorian Spike in London, 1880, and he’s a middle-class, Giles-like, tan, mop-headed blond who writes poetry in the corner of parties and gets mocked by the guests. He’s called William the Bloody, and he’s in love with a lady named Cecily. Cecily rejects his love (“you’re nothing to me... you’re beneath me,”) and William runs into the streets.
A mysterious killer is stalking the streets, and the killer appears to William: it’s Drusilla, a psychic and vampire who knows him to be a man of vision. “You’re wealth lies... in the spirit and imagination. You walk in worlds that others can’t begin to imagine.” He is struck by her vocabulary, which echoes his own, and she bits him on the neck.
In modern day Sunnydale, the Scooby Gang spot the heavy metal vampire in the graveyard. They track Count Dokken to a particular vampire-infested crypt and decide to return in the morning, when the vampires sleep.
Back in the nineteenth century, Spike has now been travelling for some time with Angel, Drusilla and Darla, Angel’s sire. They’re angry with him because Spike has, along with his new name, taken to making grand, public kills. So now they have to hide. Spike hears of and is intrigued by the myth of the Slayer, the only thing he has to fear.
The Victorian Era Slayer was Chinese, and Spike fought her in 1900 in China. He bit her neck and killed her, acquiring a taste for killing Slayers.
ACT III
Drusilla is duly impressed that Spike killed a Slayer. (The blood of a Slayer, Spike says, is powerful aphrodisiac.) Angel is a little more irritated, but he might just be jealous.
As the triumphant vampire gang walks through the chaos of China as Beijing burns, Spike is drunk on his killing. It was the best day of his life, he says.
Lesson the first for Buffy was “Always reach for your weapon first.” The second, he tells her as they semi-spar outside the Bronze, is to focus not on how he won, but how the Slayer’s lost. He insists she’s not ready to know.
But he’ll try, and we’re whisked back to the New York Subway, 1977, and Spike is a punk rocker who’s traded a blond ponytail for a platinum crew cut and now fights a Pam Grier-like Slayer.
“Death is your art,” he says, “and part of you is desperate to know what it’s like... every slayer has a death wish. Even you.” All that keeps her from giving in to her death wish is her attachment on so many fronts to the everyday world-- family, friends, etc. But it will get her in the end, and all Spike needs is one good day to catch up to her.
Spike ends his lesson by trying to kiss Buffy, and she rejects him, taunting, “It would never be you... you’re beneath me.” She throws him his pay and storms away.
Alone in the alley, Spike chokes back tears and seems to reach a new resolve. He goes home to his crypt and grabs a rifle.
ACT IV
Spike is ready to take the pain that will come from shooting her.
We flash back to the period when Spike and Dru ran off together last, and learn that one other things that drove the vampire pair apart was Spike's growing obsession with Buffy, whom he had failed to kill.
Buffy cries on her porch when she learns that her mother may have cancer, and Spike walks up, preparing to shoot her. But instead he asks her what’s wrong and offers to help. He puts down his rifle and sits beside her silently in the night.
NOTES
"Fool for Love" is bound to be a fan favorite for the simple fact that it goes where no show has gone before: not only is this a cross-over episode with Angel, but it actually shares scenes with the Angel episode of the same night, Darla. It's common for a show to share flashbacks, but these are new scenes that can be understood differently depending on which episode you're watching. It's an impressive experiment.
But even without that trick, "Fool for Love" is the sort of well-written episode that Buffy earned its reputation on. The script performs neat narrative tricks like having Spike talk in his flashback to Buffy, who is listening outside the flashback. This is the sort of visualization of memory that takes work to envision but ends up looking perfect on screen.
The story centers on Spike, who we learn (as we have been reminded from time to time) was the Slayers' nightmare, having killed two of them since his vampirism at the age of 20 in Victorian England. Most impressive is that Spike is a genuine character and hero of his own story, in the way that Buffy is the hero of hers. Spike overcame rejection by the woman he loved to take on vampirism and finally found a goal to devote himself to: killing Slayers. And like every assassin in every assassin movie, Spike meets his match not when he meets a Slayer who fights better than he, but when he meets one he can't help but fall in love with.
And that's Buffy-- Buffy, who hasn't even had the training that her sister Slayer Kendra received, who knows little of tradition, who seems to have survived a long time and done a lot of historically important Slayer things-- such as firing her watcher. Buffy is the Slayer who trips Spike up. Drusilla knew it, and left Spike because he "tasted like ashes."
And for money, he's willing to tell her where her weakness would lie.
Spike's solution is that Buffy, like all Slayers, is curious about her death and all it will take is "one good day" for her foe to kill her. Indeed, we two such good days for Spike, when he kills the Chinese Slayer in 1900, and the Pam Grier Slayer in New York in 1979.
Pam Grier is my favorite-- what a groovy idea-- and I especially like that Spike got his long coat from her.
But Buffy's rejection of Spike, although completely fair in light of his evil, hurts, and even Spike chokes back tears. One suspects he would indeed have shot Buffy in the head had she not been crying at the time, which triggers Spike's mercy and love.
Spike wants to help, but he's evil. He's a demon in a human host. He has no soul. There is no evidence in the Buffy universe that a vampire can reform towards good without some special Gypsy curse at work, so Spike's love for Buffy dooms him to confusion. He should be destroyed, in fact, but he won't be. The irony is that Angel was lucky enough to get the curse, whereas Spike must suffer without it.
Buffy, meanwhile, stays attached to her life and is probably doing better as a Slayer for the very reasons that Buffy is a different Slayer to begin with: she has kept her friends close. Last season Buffy nastily said there was no ancient prophesy about "the Slayer and her friends," but Spike knows that human entanglements are keeping Buffy from giving in to the suicidal tendencies that come with being a super-powered killing machine.
In a minor note, despite Riley's experience here, we've we’ve seen Xander and Willow doing quite well hunting vampires on their own. They were doing that the whole time Buffy was missing ( see “Anne”).
Here's a question: in this episode, we see Dru kill Spike to vampirize him. Didn't Spike call Angel "old sire?" Here Angel seems more like a grand-sire.
The single best moment in the whole episode is the slow-motion shot, when the vampire family walk through burning Peking. It's a nice piece of work that gets used again in the Angel episode, "Darla."
Lastly, Joyce may have cancer. Perhaps Spike could vampirize her to save her, but only if they asked.
QUOTES
Spike: “I could have danced all night with that one.”
Buffy: "You think we’re dancing?”
Spike: "That’s all we’ve ever done.”
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Crush
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Episode: "Crush"
Broadcast February 13, 2001
By Jason Henderson
Synopsis
In "Crush," our evil hero Spike declares his love for our petulant heroine Buffy and fails utterly to win her heart. He ends the episode worse off than he began, forcibly shut out of the Slayer's life.
It's Valentine's Day, which for Spike the vampire means a final realization that, as someone observed, love is a swirling, sucking eddy of despair full of brief glimpses of false hope in an ever-darkening universe. Or something to that effect.
We open the episode with the Scooby Gang dancing at a the newly-remodeled Bronze, a club unique in that high school students gradually become college students and still go there. It's here that trouble begins, as Spike tries to hang out with Buffy only to be scorned by her. Soon Dawn, who's tired of the regulars treating her like a piece of China, goes to hang out with Spike at his lair (she's developed a thing for the Vampire Slayer Slayer, and he's the only one who talks to her with any forthrightness.) Spike is friendly and sweet towards Dawn, which infuriates Buffy when the Slayer finds her sister at Spike's lair. On the way home, Dawn reveals to her sister that Spike is in love with Buffy.
It's true, and when Spike drags Buffy out to a vampire lair to investigate a recent killing, Buffy confronts him about his feelings. Spike actually says, "I love you," causing Buffy to go rebuff him. Spike insists that he has changed and is willing to turn his back on "the whole evil thing," but Buffy thinks the chip in his head is all that keeps him from being evil. "You're like a serial killer in prison."
Spike wanders home, depressed, only to find: DRUSILLA! The vampiress has returned to retrieve Spike and bring him back to LA, where she's currently tormenting Angel. Dru insists the chip can be overcome with willpower and bloodlust, and invites Spike to drink of a dead girl at the Bronze. He drinks. But when the pair returns home, they find Buffy waiting to depress Spike even more. Spike actually goes so far as to offer to kill Dru for Buffy to prove his love, but Buffy isn't biting. Finally Dru (and the often forgotten actual girlfriend, Harmony) give up on Spike and exit, leaving Spike to beg Buffy once more to return his love. She tells him to get out of her and her friend's lives. We end with a real crusher-- as Spike discovers that Buffy has finally blocked Spike from entering her house.
Commentary
Well, finally Spike's odd love for Buffy is in the open, and the result is a dismal failure. The whole storyline has been an odd one that, like the introduction of Dawn, challenges long-held beliefs about the Buffy world. The issue is less whether Buffy could fall for Spike but whether love could reform a vampire, who is supposed to be evil by nature. Dru observes that vampires can and do feel and express love ("well, if not wisely,") but Buffy insists that the only thing keeping Spike from his evil ways is the chip in his head. Dru isn't even all that impressed with the chip-- but what stops Spike from killing Buffy, love, obsession, the chip, or emerging goodness. Actually, we've seen on Angel that demons can go from evil to good, usually paying great tribute for their betrayal of the dark side. But can a vampire demon switch?
The real test would be if Spike were to reform once the chip was out, which he might be inclined to do to prove his love or simply because he wishes the conversion. But whether or not it would work we can only guess. The best evidence for Spike is his attitude towards Dawn, whom he counsels wisely and treats humanely. Does he do this just to please Buffy? After a while, would it matter-- isn't that the plot of almost every romance?
It’s sadly ironic that Buffy has invited or at least allowed Spike into her life as long as he was "evil in chains," but shuts him out when he declares himself devoted and good. Note that despite her denial of place with her at the beginning, it is to Spike that she turns, repeatedly, when she's worried about Dawn. Mind you, Buffy is under no obligation to return Spike's affection, but her punishment feels harsh: there's a hard note of pain on Spike's face when he realizes he can no longer enter her home.
For one brief moment we also see the old Spike, as he strides into the Bronze with Dru, looking every bit the evil he always was. But when he turns on Dru, he refers to his actions as "playing." Even Spike admits he's confused.
He's gonna get more confused: as of next episode, like so many lovelorns, Spike becomes a stalker, driving Buffy farther away. We'll see how that goes.
I have one question: IF Spike is unreformable, AND he's as dangerous as Buffy says, WHY hasn't she killed him yet? If it's to keep him as an occasional ally and informant, she's playing with fire-- but she at least should have lied and strung him along for a while.
Episode: "Crush"
Broadcast February 13, 2001
By Jason Henderson
Synopsis
In "Crush," our evil hero Spike declares his love for our petulant heroine Buffy and fails utterly to win her heart. He ends the episode worse off than he began, forcibly shut out of the Slayer's life.
It's Valentine's Day, which for Spike the vampire means a final realization that, as someone observed, love is a swirling, sucking eddy of despair full of brief glimpses of false hope in an ever-darkening universe. Or something to that effect.
We open the episode with the Scooby Gang dancing at a the newly-remodeled Bronze, a club unique in that high school students gradually become college students and still go there. It's here that trouble begins, as Spike tries to hang out with Buffy only to be scorned by her. Soon Dawn, who's tired of the regulars treating her like a piece of China, goes to hang out with Spike at his lair (she's developed a thing for the Vampire Slayer Slayer, and he's the only one who talks to her with any forthrightness.) Spike is friendly and sweet towards Dawn, which infuriates Buffy when the Slayer finds her sister at Spike's lair. On the way home, Dawn reveals to her sister that Spike is in love with Buffy.
It's true, and when Spike drags Buffy out to a vampire lair to investigate a recent killing, Buffy confronts him about his feelings. Spike actually says, "I love you," causing Buffy to go rebuff him. Spike insists that he has changed and is willing to turn his back on "the whole evil thing," but Buffy thinks the chip in his head is all that keeps him from being evil. "You're like a serial killer in prison."
Spike wanders home, depressed, only to find: DRUSILLA! The vampiress has returned to retrieve Spike and bring him back to LA, where she's currently tormenting Angel. Dru insists the chip can be overcome with willpower and bloodlust, and invites Spike to drink of a dead girl at the Bronze. He drinks. But when the pair returns home, they find Buffy waiting to depress Spike even more. Spike actually goes so far as to offer to kill Dru for Buffy to prove his love, but Buffy isn't biting. Finally Dru (and the often forgotten actual girlfriend, Harmony) give up on Spike and exit, leaving Spike to beg Buffy once more to return his love. She tells him to get out of her and her friend's lives. We end with a real crusher-- as Spike discovers that Buffy has finally blocked Spike from entering her house.
Commentary
Well, finally Spike's odd love for Buffy is in the open, and the result is a dismal failure. The whole storyline has been an odd one that, like the introduction of Dawn, challenges long-held beliefs about the Buffy world. The issue is less whether Buffy could fall for Spike but whether love could reform a vampire, who is supposed to be evil by nature. Dru observes that vampires can and do feel and express love ("well, if not wisely,") but Buffy insists that the only thing keeping Spike from his evil ways is the chip in his head. Dru isn't even all that impressed with the chip-- but what stops Spike from killing Buffy, love, obsession, the chip, or emerging goodness. Actually, we've seen on Angel that demons can go from evil to good, usually paying great tribute for their betrayal of the dark side. But can a vampire demon switch?
The real test would be if Spike were to reform once the chip was out, which he might be inclined to do to prove his love or simply because he wishes the conversion. But whether or not it would work we can only guess. The best evidence for Spike is his attitude towards Dawn, whom he counsels wisely and treats humanely. Does he do this just to please Buffy? After a while, would it matter-- isn't that the plot of almost every romance?
It’s sadly ironic that Buffy has invited or at least allowed Spike into her life as long as he was "evil in chains," but shuts him out when he declares himself devoted and good. Note that despite her denial of place with her at the beginning, it is to Spike that she turns, repeatedly, when she's worried about Dawn. Mind you, Buffy is under no obligation to return Spike's affection, but her punishment feels harsh: there's a hard note of pain on Spike's face when he realizes he can no longer enter her home.
For one brief moment we also see the old Spike, as he strides into the Bronze with Dru, looking every bit the evil he always was. But when he turns on Dru, he refers to his actions as "playing." Even Spike admits he's confused.
He's gonna get more confused: as of next episode, like so many lovelorns, Spike becomes a stalker, driving Buffy farther away. We'll see how that goes.
I have one question: IF Spike is unreformable, AND he's as dangerous as Buffy says, WHY hasn't she killed him yet? If it's to keep him as an occasional ally and informant, she's playing with fire-- but she at least should have lied and strung him along for a while.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Doppelgängland
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 3
Episode: Doppelgängland
(February 23, 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
What's a sadistic, hyper-sexed vampire to do? When she's good, she's very good, and when she's bad, she's still Willow, but in a leather outfit that would scare Emma Peel. Sunnydale has suddenly become "Doppelgangland."
Credits:
Screenplay: Joss Whedon
Direction: Joss Whedon
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cordelia: Charisma Carpenter
Angel: David Boreanaz
Willows: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Wesley Price: Alexis Denisof
Synopsis
Remember Ananka, the holder of The Wish, who introduced us all to an alternate world where Xander and Willow ruled Sunnydale in a vampiric reign of terror and answered only to the Master? Ever since that episode ended with Ananka's loss of power and the reversal of the alternate-world switch, Ananka has been trapped in the body of a seventeen-year-old at Sunnydale High. She hates it, she wants her power back, and we open with her pleading with a demon for a return of The Wish. Request denied.
Willow, meanwhile, is making frighteningly fast progress with her magic: now she's spinning pencils in the air while she lounges in the schoolyard with Buffy. Buffy, meanwhile, is prepping for a battery of physical and psychological Slayer tests from Wesley, the bottom line is she wants to do better than Faith. (In the psych portion, Willow suggests, this is a cinch.)
Willow has a new job: she's been tapped by Principal Snider to tutor a bruiser football player who is allergic to work. Giles also has demands, sending her to the computer to access the Mayor's files.
Faith has run new Watcher Wesley half to death on the Watcher test, then hurries off to report in to Satanic Mayor, who's set Faith up with a really swell apartment. (She'll keep the fleabag motel to meet friends.) Oh, and the mayor thinks it's time to kill Buffy.
Willow really begins to feel put upon when she finds out the football player expects her to write his papers for him, and begins to lose it, in a Willow sort of way, when Buffy and Xander assume she remembered to tape Biography, which she did. She is "Old Reliable," and it's driving the poor girl nuts.
But Ananka comes to Willow and says she wants to work a spell to retrieve a lost necklace. (This is her attempt to get back into the Mirror Mirror Buffy Universe.) But it fails, because Willow gets a solid glimpse of that other world and the cataclysmic battle in which Willow, Xander and Buffy die, and Willow calls the spell off.
But by just before her death in the other dimension, Dark Willow has drifted through Ananka's temporal fold and landed in our Sunnydale, complete with leather bodice and a really snazzy dark lipstick that Willow 1 would do well to adopt. Dark Willow slinks down the street into a Kaye's Choice concert at the Bronze, where she kicks the bruiser football player's ass before Xander steps in. Dark Willow recognizes Xander as her dark lover, but she realizes she's in the wrong place. When she snarls away from Buffy, the Slayer realizes Willow is a vampire.
Vampires sent by the Mayor arrive to kill Willow and find Dark Willow instead, who promptly breaks a few vampire fingers and commandeers the whole posse. Within an hour of her arrival, Dark Willow has a crew.
Buffy, Xander and Giles mourn Willow for about three minutes before Willow 1 reappears at the library, very much alive and not a vampire. Across town, Dark Willow takes over the Bronze, dispersing her crew and dispatching at least one victim on the spot. Oz sends Angel to get Buffy ("Dude," says the drummer, "check out your girlfriend.") Dark Willow's feeling blue, though, because this world is "dumb," and not nearly as stimulating as her own, and Ananka proposes they both work to get back.
Off goes the Slayer gang to the Bronze, leaving Willow 1 to be attacked by Dark Willow, who's come looking for her mirror image. Luckily (for us), Dark Willow has an auto-erotic thing for her sweater-girl counterpart. "This just can't get more disturbing," Willow 1 says, and after Dark Willow puts the moves on Willow 1, Willow 1 shoots her with a tranquilizer gun.
The Slayer Gang lock Dark Willow up in the book cage and decide to dress Willow 1 up as Dark Willow, to infiltrate the Bronze thereby. ("It's really binding; I guess vampires don't have to breathe," Willow reports on the leather bodice, staring at her constricted chest. "Gosh, look at those.") But the subterfuge doesn't last long because Willow 1 lacks a certain knack for acting like Dark Willow, and Ananka isn't long fooled.
Dark Willow wakes up in the book cage just in time to be found by Cordelia, who decides to bend her ear about Xander and infidelity before setting her free. Wesley the watcher manages to save Cordy from being vampirized just yet, so Dark Willow heads off to bust into the Bronze just as the Slayer Gang head in to save Willow.
At the last moment, Willow begs Buffy not to stake Dark Willow, and instead they send her back to the Mirror Mirror Buffy dimension. (Of course, she goes straight back to the battle where she's immediately staked by Oz the White Hat.)
The next day, Willow feels like being reliable. "I see now where the path of vice leads," Willow somberly intones. But the football player brings her two outlines for the paper (he's had a change of heart now that he fears her) and an apple, of all things. As the football player vaults away, Willow changes her mind about staying in.
Notes
Good god, what a marvelous thing is Alyson Hannigan. This is a Willow episode that gives us now less than two Willows plus a hybrid: it bends the brain to watch Hannigan playing Willow playing Dark Willow and getting it wrong. (The performance is so convincing that at times I forgot I was watching one actress.)
Dark Willow is just wonderful, an S&M dream for anyone with a Willow thing, not that that would be me. Sure, it's an obvious trick- - the sexy, slightly perverse counterpart to the pure character; every speculative fiction show has had a variation on this theme. But it works, thanks to Hannigan and not a little bit of leather.
Even before the mirror cracks, though, we have Willow demonstrating her burgeoning telekinetic skill by accidentally driving a pencil deep into a tree. I can't wait to see this power put to use in battle. Willow's on her way to becoming an anime-style sorceress, which is almost as cool as a leather-festooned vampire, perhaps more so. One worries, though, about Willow going off the deep end someday and trapping the whole school in a raging cafeteria conflagration. She hates Faith with an unbecomingly purple passion, and I have this sinking feeling that if Buffy doesn't finish Faith off, Willow just might.
Cordy's hitting pretty fiercely on Wesley. She wanders into the high school wearing what a regular gal would wear to the prom, and what luck, manages to get saved by the strapping new watcher. (Incidentally, how is it that this High School is open all night, but only those close to Buffy bother to hang out there? Or does the Slayer Gang have a set of keys, and they forgot to take Cordy's back?)
I'm pleased to see that Wesley and Giles have settled into something of a status quo as active and unofficial watcher, respectively. The upshot of this is fairly simple: the powers that be have introduced another watcher character, presumably to act as a nebbishy sort of romantic interest.
Lastly, in this episode we also see that Faith's road down the dark path is well underway. She doesn't lift a finger when the Mayor announces he's sending his vampire cronies to off Willow, even if Faith can't stomach doing it herself. If we had any hope Faith were putting on an undercover act, this clinches it: Buffy undercover would have sabotaged the attempt. Faith is going bad, fast.
So there we are. Fantastic ep.
Memorable Lines:
"I know Faith's not going to be on the cover of Sanity Fair, but she had it rough."
- Buffy on Faith's prospects in a psych test
Giles: She was truly the finest of all of us.
Xander: Way better than me.
Giles: Much, much better.
- On the stairs, reeling from the news of Willow's apparent vampirization.
"I'm eleven hundred and twenty years old, just gimme a freakin' beer!"
-- Ananka, having no fun in her teenage body
And the best dialogue of the episode:
Buffy: I told you. Old Reliable.
Willow: Oh, thanks. Old Reliable; there's a sexy nickname.
Buffy: I didn't mean it as...
Willow: No, it's fine. That's me. Old Reliable.
Xander: She just means, like the geyser. You're like a geyser of fun that goes off at regular intervals.
Willow: That's Old Faithful.
Xander: Isn't that the dog that the guy had to shoot...
Willow: (growling) That's Old YELLER.
Buffy: Xander, I beg you not to help me.
Season 3
Episode: Doppelgängland
(February 23, 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
What's a sadistic, hyper-sexed vampire to do? When she's good, she's very good, and when she's bad, she's still Willow, but in a leather outfit that would scare Emma Peel. Sunnydale has suddenly become "Doppelgangland."
Credits:
Screenplay: Joss Whedon
Direction: Joss Whedon
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cordelia: Charisma Carpenter
Angel: David Boreanaz
Willows: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Wesley Price: Alexis Denisof
Synopsis
Remember Ananka, the holder of The Wish, who introduced us all to an alternate world where Xander and Willow ruled Sunnydale in a vampiric reign of terror and answered only to the Master? Ever since that episode ended with Ananka's loss of power and the reversal of the alternate-world switch, Ananka has been trapped in the body of a seventeen-year-old at Sunnydale High. She hates it, she wants her power back, and we open with her pleading with a demon for a return of The Wish. Request denied.
Willow, meanwhile, is making frighteningly fast progress with her magic: now she's spinning pencils in the air while she lounges in the schoolyard with Buffy. Buffy, meanwhile, is prepping for a battery of physical and psychological Slayer tests from Wesley, the bottom line is she wants to do better than Faith. (In the psych portion, Willow suggests, this is a cinch.)
Willow has a new job: she's been tapped by Principal Snider to tutor a bruiser football player who is allergic to work. Giles also has demands, sending her to the computer to access the Mayor's files.
Faith has run new Watcher Wesley half to death on the Watcher test, then hurries off to report in to Satanic Mayor, who's set Faith up with a really swell apartment. (She'll keep the fleabag motel to meet friends.) Oh, and the mayor thinks it's time to kill Buffy.
Willow really begins to feel put upon when she finds out the football player expects her to write his papers for him, and begins to lose it, in a Willow sort of way, when Buffy and Xander assume she remembered to tape Biography, which she did. She is "Old Reliable," and it's driving the poor girl nuts.
But Ananka comes to Willow and says she wants to work a spell to retrieve a lost necklace. (This is her attempt to get back into the Mirror Mirror Buffy Universe.) But it fails, because Willow gets a solid glimpse of that other world and the cataclysmic battle in which Willow, Xander and Buffy die, and Willow calls the spell off.
But by just before her death in the other dimension, Dark Willow has drifted through Ananka's temporal fold and landed in our Sunnydale, complete with leather bodice and a really snazzy dark lipstick that Willow 1 would do well to adopt. Dark Willow slinks down the street into a Kaye's Choice concert at the Bronze, where she kicks the bruiser football player's ass before Xander steps in. Dark Willow recognizes Xander as her dark lover, but she realizes she's in the wrong place. When she snarls away from Buffy, the Slayer realizes Willow is a vampire.
Vampires sent by the Mayor arrive to kill Willow and find Dark Willow instead, who promptly breaks a few vampire fingers and commandeers the whole posse. Within an hour of her arrival, Dark Willow has a crew.
Buffy, Xander and Giles mourn Willow for about three minutes before Willow 1 reappears at the library, very much alive and not a vampire. Across town, Dark Willow takes over the Bronze, dispersing her crew and dispatching at least one victim on the spot. Oz sends Angel to get Buffy ("Dude," says the drummer, "check out your girlfriend.") Dark Willow's feeling blue, though, because this world is "dumb," and not nearly as stimulating as her own, and Ananka proposes they both work to get back.
Off goes the Slayer gang to the Bronze, leaving Willow 1 to be attacked by Dark Willow, who's come looking for her mirror image. Luckily (for us), Dark Willow has an auto-erotic thing for her sweater-girl counterpart. "This just can't get more disturbing," Willow 1 says, and after Dark Willow puts the moves on Willow 1, Willow 1 shoots her with a tranquilizer gun.
The Slayer Gang lock Dark Willow up in the book cage and decide to dress Willow 1 up as Dark Willow, to infiltrate the Bronze thereby. ("It's really binding; I guess vampires don't have to breathe," Willow reports on the leather bodice, staring at her constricted chest. "Gosh, look at those.") But the subterfuge doesn't last long because Willow 1 lacks a certain knack for acting like Dark Willow, and Ananka isn't long fooled.
Dark Willow wakes up in the book cage just in time to be found by Cordelia, who decides to bend her ear about Xander and infidelity before setting her free. Wesley the watcher manages to save Cordy from being vampirized just yet, so Dark Willow heads off to bust into the Bronze just as the Slayer Gang head in to save Willow.
At the last moment, Willow begs Buffy not to stake Dark Willow, and instead they send her back to the Mirror Mirror Buffy dimension. (Of course, she goes straight back to the battle where she's immediately staked by Oz the White Hat.)
The next day, Willow feels like being reliable. "I see now where the path of vice leads," Willow somberly intones. But the football player brings her two outlines for the paper (he's had a change of heart now that he fears her) and an apple, of all things. As the football player vaults away, Willow changes her mind about staying in.
Notes
Good god, what a marvelous thing is Alyson Hannigan. This is a Willow episode that gives us now less than two Willows plus a hybrid: it bends the brain to watch Hannigan playing Willow playing Dark Willow and getting it wrong. (The performance is so convincing that at times I forgot I was watching one actress.)
Dark Willow is just wonderful, an S&M dream for anyone with a Willow thing, not that that would be me. Sure, it's an obvious trick- - the sexy, slightly perverse counterpart to the pure character; every speculative fiction show has had a variation on this theme. But it works, thanks to Hannigan and not a little bit of leather.
Even before the mirror cracks, though, we have Willow demonstrating her burgeoning telekinetic skill by accidentally driving a pencil deep into a tree. I can't wait to see this power put to use in battle. Willow's on her way to becoming an anime-style sorceress, which is almost as cool as a leather-festooned vampire, perhaps more so. One worries, though, about Willow going off the deep end someday and trapping the whole school in a raging cafeteria conflagration. She hates Faith with an unbecomingly purple passion, and I have this sinking feeling that if Buffy doesn't finish Faith off, Willow just might.
Cordy's hitting pretty fiercely on Wesley. She wanders into the high school wearing what a regular gal would wear to the prom, and what luck, manages to get saved by the strapping new watcher. (Incidentally, how is it that this High School is open all night, but only those close to Buffy bother to hang out there? Or does the Slayer Gang have a set of keys, and they forgot to take Cordy's back?)
I'm pleased to see that Wesley and Giles have settled into something of a status quo as active and unofficial watcher, respectively. The upshot of this is fairly simple: the powers that be have introduced another watcher character, presumably to act as a nebbishy sort of romantic interest.
Lastly, in this episode we also see that Faith's road down the dark path is well underway. She doesn't lift a finger when the Mayor announces he's sending his vampire cronies to off Willow, even if Faith can't stomach doing it herself. If we had any hope Faith were putting on an undercover act, this clinches it: Buffy undercover would have sabotaged the attempt. Faith is going bad, fast.
So there we are. Fantastic ep.
Memorable Lines:
"I know Faith's not going to be on the cover of Sanity Fair, but she had it rough."
- Buffy on Faith's prospects in a psych test
Giles: She was truly the finest of all of us.
Xander: Way better than me.
Giles: Much, much better.
- On the stairs, reeling from the news of Willow's apparent vampirization.
"I'm eleven hundred and twenty years old, just gimme a freakin' beer!"
-- Ananka, having no fun in her teenage body
And the best dialogue of the episode:
Buffy: I told you. Old Reliable.
Willow: Oh, thanks. Old Reliable; there's a sexy nickname.
Buffy: I didn't mean it as...
Willow: No, it's fine. That's me. Old Reliable.
Xander: She just means, like the geyser. You're like a geyser of fun that goes off at regular intervals.
Willow: That's Old Faithful.
Xander: Isn't that the dog that the guy had to shoot...
Willow: (growling) That's Old YELLER.
Buffy: Xander, I beg you not to help me.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Consequences
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 3
Episode: “Consequences” (February 16 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
Buffy and Faith are feeling the heat after Faith accidentally staked the mayor's human aide. Can Angel and the gang keep Faith from sliding into the dark side?
Credits:
Screenplay: Marti Noxon
Direction: Michael Gershman
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cordelia: Charisma Carpenter
Angel: David Boreanaz
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Mr. Trick: K. Todd Freeman
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Wesley Price: Alexis Denisof
Synopsis
We open in Buffy's nightmare, where she's haunted by Faith's accidental killing last episode of Deputy Mayor Alan Fish by Faith. It seems Fish's body has been found, and the Mayor is vowing to bring the perps to justice.
New Watcher Price wants the Slayers to investigate Fish's murder, but Giles thinks it would be a waste of Slayer time. Price exhibits a weakness for Cordelia, who's looking mighty tan. "First word 'jail,' second word 'bait,'" Faith advises. Buffy, plagued by guilt, doesn't want to conduct a fake investigation, but Faith reminds Buffy that she's "part of this... all the way."
Willow's feeling shut out and jealous of Buffy's time, and Buffy's being distant. Angel surmises pretty quickly that Fish's murder was the work of the Slayers, and the Mayor comes to the same conclusion. ("Well. The Slayer up for Murder One.")
The Slayers break into Fish's office to figure out why he might have been in the alley when they killed him—but the Mayor's already emptied all of Fish's files. They see Mr. Trick and the Mayor together.
Buffy wants to tell, but Faith argues, in the end, that the Slayers are "better" than that. "Nobody's going to care about some random bystander that got caught in the crossfire." But the police are closing in, and when Faith and Buffy are interviewed separately, they can't get their story straight.
Buffy comes to see Willow, and finally tells the slayers' secret. Willow pushes Buffy to go to Giles, but when she arrives, Faith beat her there—and ratted Buffy out for the murder!
But when Faith is gone, Giles reveals he isn't buying what Faith has to sell. However, such tragic accidents have happened before- - and usually the watcher council will handle it. But Giles is worried because Faith is being so dodgy, and may run. New Watcher Price overhears this conversation, however.
Xander wants to talk to Faith. "We have a connection," he says. When the gang figures out what went down between Xander and Faith, Willow is visibly crushed, and we next see her dissolving in tears in the girl's room.
Xander, the trooper, goes to see Faith and offer his friendship, but she's not responsive. "I see, I want, I take, I forget," she says, as she begins to seduce, and then to choke, Xander. It's Angel that saves Xander this time.
Angel gives Faith a talking to while she's chained up at his place. "I know what it's like to take life... the power in it, the exhilaration. You and me, Faith- - we're a lot alike." But his intervention is itself interrupted by Price and a gang of watchers, who beat Angel and seize Faith—leading almost immediately to Faith's escape.
Soon Price is apologizing profusely for screwing up (terrorizing Faith and then letting her back on the streets.) Buffy finds Faith at the docks, and strikes her when Faith pushes the wrong buttons. ("We don't need the law. We are the law.") Mr. Trick attacks Buffy and Faith, and Mr. Trick actually dies. Later, even while Giles suggests Faith "stands a chance" for redemption, Faith is volunteering to replace Mr. Trick at the Mayor's office.
Notes
Wow. I'm not sure where Faith is going to go from here, but if we're headed for Faith as a super-villain, the powers that be did it the right way: introduce her as a good guy and then slowly drive her to the dark side. I've always thought it sort of a shame that Faith is played as such a "bad girl," unstable essentially because she's a hedonist. But in this episode she has gone unstable, and her hedonism takes a nasty turn. She seems just about to kill Xander in bed, and one wonders if she would have stopped choking the poor guy before he was dead if Angel hadn't knocked her upside the head with a baseball bat.
I love a world where the characters are so powerful that you get their attention by hitting them with bats.
The funny thing is that if Faith does become a super-villain, we'll have seen the progress from the exact opposite side of how it usually goes. How many times have we seen a villain appear in a show or comic, and the hero tells a story along the lines of "once we were brothers/lovers/comrades at arms, but they went bad." We don't usually see the story unfold, because frankly it's pretty hard to watch.
More frustration: Angel's intervention with Faith is a noble idea and would have been fun to watch; with any luck he'll get a second session.
Of course, Willow-watchers will love or hate this episode, because the poor witch girl goes through Hell when she learns that Faith slept with Xander, who of course she'll always love. And Xander just doesn't get it, which is authentically male.
Voila. Buffy: the Vampire Slayer continues to impress.
Memorable Quotes
On talking things out:
"I've been letting things fester and I don't like it. I want to be fester-free."
(Willow, when Buffy finally comes to her with the truth about why the Slayers have been dodging her.)
On bedding a slayer
"It was nice. It was great. It was kind of a blur."
(Xander, resisting Faith's advances but reminiscing, sort of.)
On BDSM etiquette
Angel: "And you forgot the safety word, is that it?"
Faith: "Safety words are for wusses."
(After Angel found Faith introducing Xander, rather against his will, to the world of erotic asphyxiation.)
Season 3
Episode: “Consequences” (February 16 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
Buffy and Faith are feeling the heat after Faith accidentally staked the mayor's human aide. Can Angel and the gang keep Faith from sliding into the dark side?
Credits:
Screenplay: Marti Noxon
Direction: Michael Gershman
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cordelia: Charisma Carpenter
Angel: David Boreanaz
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Mr. Trick: K. Todd Freeman
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Wesley Price: Alexis Denisof
Synopsis
We open in Buffy's nightmare, where she's haunted by Faith's accidental killing last episode of Deputy Mayor Alan Fish by Faith. It seems Fish's body has been found, and the Mayor is vowing to bring the perps to justice.
New Watcher Price wants the Slayers to investigate Fish's murder, but Giles thinks it would be a waste of Slayer time. Price exhibits a weakness for Cordelia, who's looking mighty tan. "First word 'jail,' second word 'bait,'" Faith advises. Buffy, plagued by guilt, doesn't want to conduct a fake investigation, but Faith reminds Buffy that she's "part of this... all the way."
Willow's feeling shut out and jealous of Buffy's time, and Buffy's being distant. Angel surmises pretty quickly that Fish's murder was the work of the Slayers, and the Mayor comes to the same conclusion. ("Well. The Slayer up for Murder One.")
The Slayers break into Fish's office to figure out why he might have been in the alley when they killed him—but the Mayor's already emptied all of Fish's files. They see Mr. Trick and the Mayor together.
Buffy wants to tell, but Faith argues, in the end, that the Slayers are "better" than that. "Nobody's going to care about some random bystander that got caught in the crossfire." But the police are closing in, and when Faith and Buffy are interviewed separately, they can't get their story straight.
Buffy comes to see Willow, and finally tells the slayers' secret. Willow pushes Buffy to go to Giles, but when she arrives, Faith beat her there—and ratted Buffy out for the murder!
But when Faith is gone, Giles reveals he isn't buying what Faith has to sell. However, such tragic accidents have happened before- - and usually the watcher council will handle it. But Giles is worried because Faith is being so dodgy, and may run. New Watcher Price overhears this conversation, however.
Xander wants to talk to Faith. "We have a connection," he says. When the gang figures out what went down between Xander and Faith, Willow is visibly crushed, and we next see her dissolving in tears in the girl's room.
Xander, the trooper, goes to see Faith and offer his friendship, but she's not responsive. "I see, I want, I take, I forget," she says, as she begins to seduce, and then to choke, Xander. It's Angel that saves Xander this time.
Angel gives Faith a talking to while she's chained up at his place. "I know what it's like to take life... the power in it, the exhilaration. You and me, Faith- - we're a lot alike." But his intervention is itself interrupted by Price and a gang of watchers, who beat Angel and seize Faith—leading almost immediately to Faith's escape.
Soon Price is apologizing profusely for screwing up (terrorizing Faith and then letting her back on the streets.) Buffy finds Faith at the docks, and strikes her when Faith pushes the wrong buttons. ("We don't need the law. We are the law.") Mr. Trick attacks Buffy and Faith, and Mr. Trick actually dies. Later, even while Giles suggests Faith "stands a chance" for redemption, Faith is volunteering to replace Mr. Trick at the Mayor's office.
Notes
Wow. I'm not sure where Faith is going to go from here, but if we're headed for Faith as a super-villain, the powers that be did it the right way: introduce her as a good guy and then slowly drive her to the dark side. I've always thought it sort of a shame that Faith is played as such a "bad girl," unstable essentially because she's a hedonist. But in this episode she has gone unstable, and her hedonism takes a nasty turn. She seems just about to kill Xander in bed, and one wonders if she would have stopped choking the poor guy before he was dead if Angel hadn't knocked her upside the head with a baseball bat.
I love a world where the characters are so powerful that you get their attention by hitting them with bats.
The funny thing is that if Faith does become a super-villain, we'll have seen the progress from the exact opposite side of how it usually goes. How many times have we seen a villain appear in a show or comic, and the hero tells a story along the lines of "once we were brothers/lovers/comrades at arms, but they went bad." We don't usually see the story unfold, because frankly it's pretty hard to watch.
More frustration: Angel's intervention with Faith is a noble idea and would have been fun to watch; with any luck he'll get a second session.
Of course, Willow-watchers will love or hate this episode, because the poor witch girl goes through Hell when she learns that Faith slept with Xander, who of course she'll always love. And Xander just doesn't get it, which is authentically male.
Voila. Buffy: the Vampire Slayer continues to impress.
Memorable Quotes
On talking things out:
"I've been letting things fester and I don't like it. I want to be fester-free."
(Willow, when Buffy finally comes to her with the truth about why the Slayers have been dodging her.)
On bedding a slayer
"It was nice. It was great. It was kind of a blur."
(Xander, resisting Faith's advances but reminiscing, sort of.)
On BDSM etiquette
Angel: "And you forgot the safety word, is that it?"
Faith: "Safety words are for wusses."
(After Angel found Faith introducing Xander, rather against his will, to the world of erotic asphyxiation.)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Coda
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 4, Episode “Coda”
Broadcast May 23, 2000
CAST
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Marc Blucas
Spike: James Marsters
Anya: Emma Caulfield
Tara: Amber Benson
Adam: George Hertzberg
SYNOPSIS
PROLOGUE
The setup: in the aftermath of the Initiative’s debacle, Buffy’s ex-agent boyfriend Riley heads off to Washington to debrief and negotiate his discharge. The original, nuclear Scooby Gang-- Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles-- gathers at Buffy’s mom’s place to watch a marathon of videos provided by Xander. Xander puts in the first video and they all promptly fall asleep.
ACT 1
Willow’s dream. Willow paints runes on Tara’s back as Tara wonders if her friends will learn her secret. Willow goes to “drama class” and finds herself in an absurd High School play directed by Giles. “Go out there, lie like dogs, and have a wonderful time.” Tara warns: “Everybody’s starting to wonder about you-- the real you. If they find out, they’ll punish you.” Buffy saves her from a demon backstage and tells her to remove her “costume,” and when she does, she’s the pasty, white-stockinged Season 1 Willow. Stalking the background is a strange, bestial figure she can’t make out. It attacks her as she gives a book report, and no one lifts a finger.
Oh, and there’s a guy laying out slices of cheese.
ACT 2
Xander’s dream.
He thinks he wakes up, and goes upstairs to use the bathroom, only to be hit on by Joyce, Buffy’s mom. “I’m a conquistador,” he says, but on reflection he comforts: “I’m a comfortador, also.” He heads into the bathroom before his rendezvous with Joyce and begins a series of scenery changes: the Initiative, then his own basement, where something tries to open the door upstairs. “That's not the way out.”
At a playground, Spike wants to be a Watcher. Xander was "into that" for a while, but he has other stuff going on. Buffy in the sandbox is in danger, but not yet. She calls Xander “brother.”
Xander drives his ice cream truck with Anya. They don’t know where they’re going. He follows Tara and Willow into the back of the truck to join them in a menage-a-trois, but he loses them when he emerges once more in his basement. There’s a pounding at the top of the stairs, and the man with the cheese slices has no help for him.
Xander finds Giles in the high school, and Giles says he has some idea what’s going on. But he slips into French, and Xander can’t understand what he says. “This isn’t the time for your idiot games,” Giles taunts.
Suddenly Xander is in Apocalypse Now, with Principal Snyder as Colonel Kurtz. “Your time is running out,” Snyder says. “Are you a soldier?” “I’m a comfortador.” Kurtz says he’s a whipping boy, raised by mongrels to be sacrificed.
The man at the top of the stairs is his father, who accuses Xander of being ashamed of his family. His father rips his heart out.
ACT 3
Giles’ dream.
Training Buffy is like raising a child. He takes her, pig-tailed, to the carnival, where she plays vampire-killing games. When Buffy gets cotton candy all over her face, forming a mask of mud, realization strikes: I know you. I know you.
“I have a great deal to do,” Giles says as he finds Spike in a photo shoot. “What am I supposed to do with all this?”
The cheese man has slices on his head.
Giles rushes into the Bronze, where Willow and Xander wait with books. Xander’s wounded. Anya is on stage telling jokes, while Willow tells him, “this is your fault. Something’s after us-- some primal, animal fore.” “That used to be us,” Giles says.
Giles breaks into a David Bowie-esque song. The spell they cast to stop Adam must have awakened some primal force that’s coming after them. He tells Willow and Xander to look up a “warrior beast” legend. He has to warn Buffy, but wait--
He’s backstage in a theatre. An early human stalks him, dreadlocked and female and wearing bones and face paint. “You underestimate me,” Giles says, “You never had a watcher.” But she’s already scalping him.
ACT 4
Buffy’s Dream
Anya: “Buffy, you have to wake up right away.”
She’s sleeping on the dream bed Faith lay on when she was in a coma. Tara is her guide through this journey. Her friends need her to fin them before dawn.
“You think you know what’s to come-- what you are. You haven’t even begun.”
She looks for the gang at the high school, where her mom is happily trapped in a wall. But rather than free her mom she follows Xander upstairs, where she finds Riley and Adam (as a human) at a table where they draw up a plan for world domination.
But Adam is talking for someone else when he says, “Aggression is a natural human tendency. Though you and me come by it another way.” His name? “Before Adam? Not a man among us can remember.”
Buffy has no weapons, only gray mud. She paints her face and meets Tara in the desert where, if I’m not mistaken, Captain Kirk fought a Gorn.
Tara speaks for the First Slayer, an aboriginal woman who has no language. No name. She lives for destruction and the hunt.
“There’s trees in the desert since you moved out, and I don’t sleep on a bed of bones.” Buffy says. The first slayer says Buffy’s supposed to be alone as the cheese man wanders by. Buffy’s tired of this dream. She fights the First, but the dream no longer has power. She wakes up.
They all wake up. “Somehow our joining with Buffy and involving the essence of the Slayer’s power was an affront to the source of that power,” Giles says.
All Buffy can think about is Tara’s quiet taunt: “You think you know what’s to come-- what you are. You haven’t even begun.”
NOTES
This episode, "Coda," marks the actual Season 4 finale of Buffy, but as its name indicates, it's really a strange little denouement after the raucous battle with super-cyborg Adam last episode. According to this story, the spell the gang cast with Buffy last episode called on the ancient powers of the Slayer, from first to last, a detail that escaped me.
Here we learn that Buffy was right when she told her friends, "there's no prophecy about a Slayer and her friends." The powers at the heart of the Slayer continuum, as it were, don't like her getting other beings involved. But Buffy's never really been one to follow al the rules, anyway-- she dumped her watcher, for instance-- and calling on her social resources has made her s strong Slayer, one assumes a stronger one than many.
Creator Joss Whedon wrote and directed this episode, and he's the only one who could hint so much at the larger story of the Slayers. Here, he suggests that there has always been a Slayer, and that the Slayer might be something akin to the Angels and Devils of the dawn of time. Further, he hints that Buffy's power may run deeper than we suspected.
The story plays out in four dreams the First Slayer invades. In each dream, the dreamer's images are personal and comment on his or her own situation, while being manipulated by the invader.
Willow’s dream, for instance, swirls around Willow's desire for identity, and also her fear of being exposed. As what? Homosexual? “We should only be Greeks,” Anya observes, perhaps a reference to ancient acceptance of homosexuality. As a Witch? Neither of these seems like the best choice, since most of Willow's friends are already in on those secrets. But Tara says she'll be punished if they learn the truth. And Willow suspects Tara has secrets, too-- which we know to be true, but now's not the time to reveal them. The music in these scenes is Popol Vuh-like and brooding, as Whedon employs every strange light and editing trick he can think of to keep us off-balance.
Xander’s dream is the funniest, especially in its brilliant riff on Apocalypse Now. Armin Zimmerman returns to do a wonderful impression of Principal Snyder as Marlon Brando, and the camera work here is just wonderful, tracking Coppola shot for shot. But we also get a reminder of the sadness on Xander's life, and his horrible fear of being the failure he thinks he is.
Giles’ dream moves the story forward, because Giles almost immediately starts to deal in symbols. He knows he’s in a dream. “What am I supposed to do with all this?” he asks, exasperated. This is also the dream where the dreamers reach out to one another, aware that they're trapped in a dream. They struggle to talk sense to one another, as Giles drags analysis out of himself in song form.
Buffy's dream is almost anti-climactic, because by this time Buffy is in on the fact that she's dreaming (perhaps she's heard Giles, and now she's looking for the gang.) She does away with the threat by refusing to listen to it. In the end, the only thing she learns is that there's more to her power than she thought. We’re left with a general question of why all this is happening, considering it’s so easy to get over. Perhaps it will lead to some new spiritual side of Buffy. More likely, though, this is all just a reverberation after the death of Adam.
Final note: nice to see George Hertzberg return as himself!
QUOTES
Xander: “I’ll probably be pushing up daisies in the sense of being under the ground underneath them and fertilizing the soil with my decomposition.”
Riley: “This could be trouble. We’d better make a fort.”
Adam: “I’ll get some pillows.”
Season 4, Episode “Coda”
Broadcast May 23, 2000
CAST
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Marc Blucas
Spike: James Marsters
Anya: Emma Caulfield
Tara: Amber Benson
Adam: George Hertzberg
SYNOPSIS
PROLOGUE
The setup: in the aftermath of the Initiative’s debacle, Buffy’s ex-agent boyfriend Riley heads off to Washington to debrief and negotiate his discharge. The original, nuclear Scooby Gang-- Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles-- gathers at Buffy’s mom’s place to watch a marathon of videos provided by Xander. Xander puts in the first video and they all promptly fall asleep.
ACT 1
Willow’s dream. Willow paints runes on Tara’s back as Tara wonders if her friends will learn her secret. Willow goes to “drama class” and finds herself in an absurd High School play directed by Giles. “Go out there, lie like dogs, and have a wonderful time.” Tara warns: “Everybody’s starting to wonder about you-- the real you. If they find out, they’ll punish you.” Buffy saves her from a demon backstage and tells her to remove her “costume,” and when she does, she’s the pasty, white-stockinged Season 1 Willow. Stalking the background is a strange, bestial figure she can’t make out. It attacks her as she gives a book report, and no one lifts a finger.
Oh, and there’s a guy laying out slices of cheese.
ACT 2
Xander’s dream.
He thinks he wakes up, and goes upstairs to use the bathroom, only to be hit on by Joyce, Buffy’s mom. “I’m a conquistador,” he says, but on reflection he comforts: “I’m a comfortador, also.” He heads into the bathroom before his rendezvous with Joyce and begins a series of scenery changes: the Initiative, then his own basement, where something tries to open the door upstairs. “That's not the way out.”
At a playground, Spike wants to be a Watcher. Xander was "into that" for a while, but he has other stuff going on. Buffy in the sandbox is in danger, but not yet. She calls Xander “brother.”
Xander drives his ice cream truck with Anya. They don’t know where they’re going. He follows Tara and Willow into the back of the truck to join them in a menage-a-trois, but he loses them when he emerges once more in his basement. There’s a pounding at the top of the stairs, and the man with the cheese slices has no help for him.
Xander finds Giles in the high school, and Giles says he has some idea what’s going on. But he slips into French, and Xander can’t understand what he says. “This isn’t the time for your idiot games,” Giles taunts.
Suddenly Xander is in Apocalypse Now, with Principal Snyder as Colonel Kurtz. “Your time is running out,” Snyder says. “Are you a soldier?” “I’m a comfortador.” Kurtz says he’s a whipping boy, raised by mongrels to be sacrificed.
The man at the top of the stairs is his father, who accuses Xander of being ashamed of his family. His father rips his heart out.
ACT 3
Giles’ dream.
Training Buffy is like raising a child. He takes her, pig-tailed, to the carnival, where she plays vampire-killing games. When Buffy gets cotton candy all over her face, forming a mask of mud, realization strikes: I know you. I know you.
“I have a great deal to do,” Giles says as he finds Spike in a photo shoot. “What am I supposed to do with all this?”
The cheese man has slices on his head.
Giles rushes into the Bronze, where Willow and Xander wait with books. Xander’s wounded. Anya is on stage telling jokes, while Willow tells him, “this is your fault. Something’s after us-- some primal, animal fore.” “That used to be us,” Giles says.
Giles breaks into a David Bowie-esque song. The spell they cast to stop Adam must have awakened some primal force that’s coming after them. He tells Willow and Xander to look up a “warrior beast” legend. He has to warn Buffy, but wait--
He’s backstage in a theatre. An early human stalks him, dreadlocked and female and wearing bones and face paint. “You underestimate me,” Giles says, “You never had a watcher.” But she’s already scalping him.
ACT 4
Buffy’s Dream
Anya: “Buffy, you have to wake up right away.”
She’s sleeping on the dream bed Faith lay on when she was in a coma. Tara is her guide through this journey. Her friends need her to fin them before dawn.
“You think you know what’s to come-- what you are. You haven’t even begun.”
She looks for the gang at the high school, where her mom is happily trapped in a wall. But rather than free her mom she follows Xander upstairs, where she finds Riley and Adam (as a human) at a table where they draw up a plan for world domination.
But Adam is talking for someone else when he says, “Aggression is a natural human tendency. Though you and me come by it another way.” His name? “Before Adam? Not a man among us can remember.”
Buffy has no weapons, only gray mud. She paints her face and meets Tara in the desert where, if I’m not mistaken, Captain Kirk fought a Gorn.
Tara speaks for the First Slayer, an aboriginal woman who has no language. No name. She lives for destruction and the hunt.
“There’s trees in the desert since you moved out, and I don’t sleep on a bed of bones.” Buffy says. The first slayer says Buffy’s supposed to be alone as the cheese man wanders by. Buffy’s tired of this dream. She fights the First, but the dream no longer has power. She wakes up.
They all wake up. “Somehow our joining with Buffy and involving the essence of the Slayer’s power was an affront to the source of that power,” Giles says.
All Buffy can think about is Tara’s quiet taunt: “You think you know what’s to come-- what you are. You haven’t even begun.”
NOTES
This episode, "Coda," marks the actual Season 4 finale of Buffy, but as its name indicates, it's really a strange little denouement after the raucous battle with super-cyborg Adam last episode. According to this story, the spell the gang cast with Buffy last episode called on the ancient powers of the Slayer, from first to last, a detail that escaped me.
Here we learn that Buffy was right when she told her friends, "there's no prophecy about a Slayer and her friends." The powers at the heart of the Slayer continuum, as it were, don't like her getting other beings involved. But Buffy's never really been one to follow al the rules, anyway-- she dumped her watcher, for instance-- and calling on her social resources has made her s strong Slayer, one assumes a stronger one than many.
Creator Joss Whedon wrote and directed this episode, and he's the only one who could hint so much at the larger story of the Slayers. Here, he suggests that there has always been a Slayer, and that the Slayer might be something akin to the Angels and Devils of the dawn of time. Further, he hints that Buffy's power may run deeper than we suspected.
The story plays out in four dreams the First Slayer invades. In each dream, the dreamer's images are personal and comment on his or her own situation, while being manipulated by the invader.
Willow’s dream, for instance, swirls around Willow's desire for identity, and also her fear of being exposed. As what? Homosexual? “We should only be Greeks,” Anya observes, perhaps a reference to ancient acceptance of homosexuality. As a Witch? Neither of these seems like the best choice, since most of Willow's friends are already in on those secrets. But Tara says she'll be punished if they learn the truth. And Willow suspects Tara has secrets, too-- which we know to be true, but now's not the time to reveal them. The music in these scenes is Popol Vuh-like and brooding, as Whedon employs every strange light and editing trick he can think of to keep us off-balance.
Xander’s dream is the funniest, especially in its brilliant riff on Apocalypse Now. Armin Zimmerman returns to do a wonderful impression of Principal Snyder as Marlon Brando, and the camera work here is just wonderful, tracking Coppola shot for shot. But we also get a reminder of the sadness on Xander's life, and his horrible fear of being the failure he thinks he is.
Giles’ dream moves the story forward, because Giles almost immediately starts to deal in symbols. He knows he’s in a dream. “What am I supposed to do with all this?” he asks, exasperated. This is also the dream where the dreamers reach out to one another, aware that they're trapped in a dream. They struggle to talk sense to one another, as Giles drags analysis out of himself in song form.
Buffy's dream is almost anti-climactic, because by this time Buffy is in on the fact that she's dreaming (perhaps she's heard Giles, and now she's looking for the gang.) She does away with the threat by refusing to listen to it. In the end, the only thing she learns is that there's more to her power than she thought. We’re left with a general question of why all this is happening, considering it’s so easy to get over. Perhaps it will lead to some new spiritual side of Buffy. More likely, though, this is all just a reverberation after the death of Adam.
Final note: nice to see George Hertzberg return as himself!
QUOTES
Xander: “I’ll probably be pushing up daisies in the sense of being under the ground underneath them and fertilizing the soil with my decomposition.”
Riley: “This could be trouble. We’d better make a fort.”
Adam: “I’ll get some pillows.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Amends
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 3
Episode: “Amends (A Buffy Christmas)” (December 15 , 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
The victims of Angel’s vampiric past return to haunt him—will Angel kill Buffy to relieve his pain? Or will he destroy himself?
Credits:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cordelia: Charisma Carpenter
Angel: David Boreanaz
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Oz: Seth Green
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Synopsis
Dublin, 1838
Angel corners “Daniel,” apparently a friend of his who cheated him at cards, and kills him. Angel awakens from this nightmare in present-day Sunnydale to go out into the hot December streets, where a heat wave is promising a toasty Yule. He meets a shopping Buffy, and while they talk, Angel sees the figure of Daniel over Buffy’s shoulder.
At Sunnydale High, Buffy, Xander and Willow wonder if Angel is losing it. They exchange Christmas plans—Buffy will be with Mom, Jewish Willow will be wishing she were with ex-boyfriend Oz, and Xander will be camping out on his front lawn. Cordelia makes an appearance to reveal Xander does that to escape a houseful of raving alcoholics, and announces she’s off to Aspen to enjoy actual snow. Willow and Xander are still reeling in self-pity and guilt over their mutual wrong against Oz and Cordy, when Oz appears.
Oz and Willow speak alone and Oz goes out on a limb: he wisely isn’t sure that whatever’s between Willow and Xander will ever be over. But he misses Willow, and he’s willing to give their relationship another shot. Willow asks, really rather sweetly, “Do you want us to… hug now?”
Buffy and Mom go tree shopping and buy an ugly little one that makes the rest of the gang mad. No, no. They talk about inviting Slayer #2 Faith over for Christmas. (Faith lives in a hotel.) But not Giles, Mom says. Buffy finds a section of the tree farm where all the trees have died. Below the dead earth, druidic types moan, and at the mansion Angel reawakens from another nightmare.
Buffy comes to Faith’s charming flea trap and invites her to Christmas, but of course Faith has too much pride to say yes and feigns plans.
Giles is visited by Angel, the recently revived demon beast who killed his girlfriend. Angel needs help. Giles holds a crossbow on Angel while Angel complains of nightmares. He wants to know why he’s back on earth and not still suffering in the demon dimension. Giles suggests maybe peace of mind and complacency do not befit Angel, and when Angel sees the ghost of Jenny Calendar (Giles’ lover), he runs.
Another dream. This time in 18th century England, Angel cuts off a vampire’s head and receives the Quickening. No, no. Angel, with hair and a moustache that make him look like the Comte de Saint-Germaine, assaults and kills a poor servant at a Christmas party. Oh, and he’s gonna kill her little son, too. Buffy’s apparition appears and Angel awakens.
Next the ghost of Jenny Calendar comes to Angel. She taunts him with her murder. “I am sorry for what I've done… what else can I say to you?”
Buffy’s worried because she walked into Angel’s dream, and Giles agrees to help figure out why Angel has returned. Xander joins in the search for a solution, and soon Willow does, too.
Angel’s being tortured with tales of his own torturing—Angel was a true sadist even before becoming a monster. The demon represented by Jenny Calendar suggests that she has no intention of hurting him, but cruelty is Angel’s only talent: it’s his destiny.
At the library, while Giles toils, Buffy and Angel share a sexy interlude dream that ends in Angel biting Buffy. Jenny Calendar taunts him again—all he need do is take Buffy, and his true self will be unleashed. “This is why we brought you back,” the demon Jenny says. “Take her, and then you’ll be ready to kill her.”
Giles, meanwhile, has dug up a reference to “The First Power,” a demonic entity serviced by the Bringers, cult of original evil, who are good at conjuring dreams and apparitions. Buffy and Xander go to their bartender informant, who says the Bringers are underground somewhere, and their presence has scared off a lot of minor underworlders.
Oz brings videos to Willow’s place and is beset by Willow in a red cocktail dress and Barry White on the stereo. Oz is touched by the suggestion that Willow wants to regain his trust at the not-inconsiderable expense of her virginity. (“And you got the… Barry working for you.”) But Oz earns his place in smarmy fanfic by declining until the time is truly right. (Let’s hear it: sigh.)
At the Summers home, Faith shows up for Christmas! And so does Angel, in Buffy’s room, acting hopped up and frightening. Angel runs and Buffy leaves Faith to run to Giles. “He’s slipping,” she says. “If he truly becomes a danger,” Giles concludes, “you may have to kill him… again.”
Jenny pressures Angel to kill Buffy. He was born for it, she says. Angel vows to kill himself and walks out to await the sun.
Buffy works out that the dead spot at the tree farm marks the hiding place of the Bringers and goes there, to face the First Power itself. The First Power insists that it is truly, deeply evil in an unbelievably primordial evil way. Really, really evil. But the power tells Buffy Angel’s going to die at dawn, and Buffy runs.
She finds Angel waiting for sunrise (at the same hill people keep threatening to throw themselves off of on 90210, I think.) Buffy pleads with Angel, but Angel says he’s weak and unable to fight the evil in his soul. Buffy says he has the power “to do real good, to make amends… but if you die now then all you ever were was a monster.” Let me be strong, he says. Strong is fighting, Buffy counters.
And then, a miracle. It snows, preventing the sunshine for at least a day. Buffy and Angel walk the streets, early on a white Christmas, as each member of the cast encounters the falling snow.
Notes
This was a splendid Christmas piece that fit the Buffy universe perfectly—after all, this is a universe where it fits that God himself might give Angel a “reprieve” by sending a cold front. The miracle allows Angel to walk in daytime, in fact, while California gets a white Christmas.
The whole snow scene at the end is a treasure granted after a series of selfless acts. Xander and Giles reach beyond their hatred to help Angel, Oz shows compassion not once, but twice, and Willow prepares to make her own sacrifice. Buffy reaches out to Faith, Faith reaches out for companionship, and Angel decides he would rather die than be corrupted.
The agony of Angel is an interesting character study. We learn here that Angel possessed a knack for sadism borne of himself, not his vampirism, and it’s that darkness that the First Power wants to unleash. There’s also a hint that Angel is a counterpart to Buffy, put on this earth to destroy her. Buffy may be right that destroying himself is a cheap way out, but Angel has to wonder if the goodness and guilt that he feels is in fact going to last. It’s nice that rather than wrapping the story up, the end merely puts the solution off until Christmas is over, like one of those tales of battlefield truces during the First World War.
A few minor points:
*Angel goes to visit Giles to ask for help. I’m trying to imagine Angel calling first. “I thought maybe I could come over…” It’s stunning that Giles agrees to help, later, and only shows what a deeply good man Rupert Giles is.
*Buffy suggests to Willow that one of Oz’s problems with Willow and Xander is that “Xander has a piece of you that Oz just can’t touch.” Tough issue, because it’s true. Like Angel jumping to the notion of killing himself, Willow tries to make up for the gulf between Oz and Xander by sacrificing her virginity. Oz, like Buffy, recognizes the essential good intentions of the sacrifice, but knows that there are better ways of dealing with the problem. More moves like this, and Oz will end up taking whatever firmly entrenched part of Willow’s heart Xander has.
*As a Texan, I loved the throughline involving the hot Christmas. Buffy’s mom lights a fire and turns on an air conditioner—we Americans feel, at heart, that Christmas should be as cold as the Potomac.
*I wonder if the First Power decides its okay to allow Angel to kill himself because he’ll be re-incarnated…
*Faith just pours on the toughness, doesn’t she? I like the touch of the string of lights she hangs in her flea-bitten motel room, defiantly summoning the Christmas spirit. We know she’s going to accept Buffy’s invitation in the end, but true to form she declines at first. Lonely girl. Incidentally, Xander, who we last see isolated and camped out on his front lawn with a snow-driven pizza, is available.
*Any theories on why Mom doesn’t want to invite Mr. Giles over for Christmas?
Memorable Quotes
On bad people:
“For they are the harbingers of death and nothing shall grow above or below them… (sighs) they’re rebels and they’ll never ever be any good.”
- - Giles, reading yet another droning text on evil
On getting back together:
“It’s good. Its perfect, in an awkward, uncomfortable sort of way.”
- - Willow, wondering how to ease back into her relationship wit Oz
On pettiness:
“It must be that whole Angel killed his girlfriend and tortured him thing. Yeah, Giles is pretty petty when it comes to stuff like that.”
- - Xander, pointing out that Giles’ hatred of Angel is not merely “twitchy,” as Buffy callously labels it.
On equal time:
“Hello, still Jewish. Hanukah Spirit, I believe that was?”
- - Willow, showing some Holiday Chutzpah
Season 3
Episode: “Amends (A Buffy Christmas)” (December 15 , 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
The victims of Angel’s vampiric past return to haunt him—will Angel kill Buffy to relieve his pain? Or will he destroy himself?
Credits:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cordelia: Charisma Carpenter
Angel: David Boreanaz
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Oz: Seth Green
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Synopsis
Dublin, 1838
Angel corners “Daniel,” apparently a friend of his who cheated him at cards, and kills him. Angel awakens from this nightmare in present-day Sunnydale to go out into the hot December streets, where a heat wave is promising a toasty Yule. He meets a shopping Buffy, and while they talk, Angel sees the figure of Daniel over Buffy’s shoulder.
At Sunnydale High, Buffy, Xander and Willow wonder if Angel is losing it. They exchange Christmas plans—Buffy will be with Mom, Jewish Willow will be wishing she were with ex-boyfriend Oz, and Xander will be camping out on his front lawn. Cordelia makes an appearance to reveal Xander does that to escape a houseful of raving alcoholics, and announces she’s off to Aspen to enjoy actual snow. Willow and Xander are still reeling in self-pity and guilt over their mutual wrong against Oz and Cordy, when Oz appears.
Oz and Willow speak alone and Oz goes out on a limb: he wisely isn’t sure that whatever’s between Willow and Xander will ever be over. But he misses Willow, and he’s willing to give their relationship another shot. Willow asks, really rather sweetly, “Do you want us to… hug now?”
Buffy and Mom go tree shopping and buy an ugly little one that makes the rest of the gang mad. No, no. They talk about inviting Slayer #2 Faith over for Christmas. (Faith lives in a hotel.) But not Giles, Mom says. Buffy finds a section of the tree farm where all the trees have died. Below the dead earth, druidic types moan, and at the mansion Angel reawakens from another nightmare.
Buffy comes to Faith’s charming flea trap and invites her to Christmas, but of course Faith has too much pride to say yes and feigns plans.
Giles is visited by Angel, the recently revived demon beast who killed his girlfriend. Angel needs help. Giles holds a crossbow on Angel while Angel complains of nightmares. He wants to know why he’s back on earth and not still suffering in the demon dimension. Giles suggests maybe peace of mind and complacency do not befit Angel, and when Angel sees the ghost of Jenny Calendar (Giles’ lover), he runs.
Another dream. This time in 18th century England, Angel cuts off a vampire’s head and receives the Quickening. No, no. Angel, with hair and a moustache that make him look like the Comte de Saint-Germaine, assaults and kills a poor servant at a Christmas party. Oh, and he’s gonna kill her little son, too. Buffy’s apparition appears and Angel awakens.
Next the ghost of Jenny Calendar comes to Angel. She taunts him with her murder. “I am sorry for what I've done… what else can I say to you?”
Buffy’s worried because she walked into Angel’s dream, and Giles agrees to help figure out why Angel has returned. Xander joins in the search for a solution, and soon Willow does, too.
Angel’s being tortured with tales of his own torturing—Angel was a true sadist even before becoming a monster. The demon represented by Jenny Calendar suggests that she has no intention of hurting him, but cruelty is Angel’s only talent: it’s his destiny.
At the library, while Giles toils, Buffy and Angel share a sexy interlude dream that ends in Angel biting Buffy. Jenny Calendar taunts him again—all he need do is take Buffy, and his true self will be unleashed. “This is why we brought you back,” the demon Jenny says. “Take her, and then you’ll be ready to kill her.”
Giles, meanwhile, has dug up a reference to “The First Power,” a demonic entity serviced by the Bringers, cult of original evil, who are good at conjuring dreams and apparitions. Buffy and Xander go to their bartender informant, who says the Bringers are underground somewhere, and their presence has scared off a lot of minor underworlders.
Oz brings videos to Willow’s place and is beset by Willow in a red cocktail dress and Barry White on the stereo. Oz is touched by the suggestion that Willow wants to regain his trust at the not-inconsiderable expense of her virginity. (“And you got the… Barry working for you.”) But Oz earns his place in smarmy fanfic by declining until the time is truly right. (Let’s hear it: sigh.)
At the Summers home, Faith shows up for Christmas! And so does Angel, in Buffy’s room, acting hopped up and frightening. Angel runs and Buffy leaves Faith to run to Giles. “He’s slipping,” she says. “If he truly becomes a danger,” Giles concludes, “you may have to kill him… again.”
Jenny pressures Angel to kill Buffy. He was born for it, she says. Angel vows to kill himself and walks out to await the sun.
Buffy works out that the dead spot at the tree farm marks the hiding place of the Bringers and goes there, to face the First Power itself. The First Power insists that it is truly, deeply evil in an unbelievably primordial evil way. Really, really evil. But the power tells Buffy Angel’s going to die at dawn, and Buffy runs.
She finds Angel waiting for sunrise (at the same hill people keep threatening to throw themselves off of on 90210, I think.) Buffy pleads with Angel, but Angel says he’s weak and unable to fight the evil in his soul. Buffy says he has the power “to do real good, to make amends… but if you die now then all you ever were was a monster.” Let me be strong, he says. Strong is fighting, Buffy counters.
And then, a miracle. It snows, preventing the sunshine for at least a day. Buffy and Angel walk the streets, early on a white Christmas, as each member of the cast encounters the falling snow.
Notes
This was a splendid Christmas piece that fit the Buffy universe perfectly—after all, this is a universe where it fits that God himself might give Angel a “reprieve” by sending a cold front. The miracle allows Angel to walk in daytime, in fact, while California gets a white Christmas.
The whole snow scene at the end is a treasure granted after a series of selfless acts. Xander and Giles reach beyond their hatred to help Angel, Oz shows compassion not once, but twice, and Willow prepares to make her own sacrifice. Buffy reaches out to Faith, Faith reaches out for companionship, and Angel decides he would rather die than be corrupted.
The agony of Angel is an interesting character study. We learn here that Angel possessed a knack for sadism borne of himself, not his vampirism, and it’s that darkness that the First Power wants to unleash. There’s also a hint that Angel is a counterpart to Buffy, put on this earth to destroy her. Buffy may be right that destroying himself is a cheap way out, but Angel has to wonder if the goodness and guilt that he feels is in fact going to last. It’s nice that rather than wrapping the story up, the end merely puts the solution off until Christmas is over, like one of those tales of battlefield truces during the First World War.
A few minor points:
*Angel goes to visit Giles to ask for help. I’m trying to imagine Angel calling first. “I thought maybe I could come over…” It’s stunning that Giles agrees to help, later, and only shows what a deeply good man Rupert Giles is.
*Buffy suggests to Willow that one of Oz’s problems with Willow and Xander is that “Xander has a piece of you that Oz just can’t touch.” Tough issue, because it’s true. Like Angel jumping to the notion of killing himself, Willow tries to make up for the gulf between Oz and Xander by sacrificing her virginity. Oz, like Buffy, recognizes the essential good intentions of the sacrifice, but knows that there are better ways of dealing with the problem. More moves like this, and Oz will end up taking whatever firmly entrenched part of Willow’s heart Xander has.
*As a Texan, I loved the throughline involving the hot Christmas. Buffy’s mom lights a fire and turns on an air conditioner—we Americans feel, at heart, that Christmas should be as cold as the Potomac.
*I wonder if the First Power decides its okay to allow Angel to kill himself because he’ll be re-incarnated…
*Faith just pours on the toughness, doesn’t she? I like the touch of the string of lights she hangs in her flea-bitten motel room, defiantly summoning the Christmas spirit. We know she’s going to accept Buffy’s invitation in the end, but true to form she declines at first. Lonely girl. Incidentally, Xander, who we last see isolated and camped out on his front lawn with a snow-driven pizza, is available.
*Any theories on why Mom doesn’t want to invite Mr. Giles over for Christmas?
Memorable Quotes
On bad people:
“For they are the harbingers of death and nothing shall grow above or below them… (sighs) they’re rebels and they’ll never ever be any good.”
- - Giles, reading yet another droning text on evil
On getting back together:
“It’s good. Its perfect, in an awkward, uncomfortable sort of way.”
- - Willow, wondering how to ease back into her relationship wit Oz
On pettiness:
“It must be that whole Angel killed his girlfriend and tortured him thing. Yeah, Giles is pretty petty when it comes to stuff like that.”
- - Xander, pointing out that Giles’ hatred of Angel is not merely “twitchy,” as Buffy callously labels it.
On equal time:
“Hello, still Jewish. Hanukah Spirit, I believe that was?”
- - Willow, showing some Holiday Chutzpah
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
RIP Paul Naschy, Wolf of Spain
Paul Naschy died yesterday, and I will miss him.
Naschy-- born Jacinto Molina in Madrid, was a weightlifter and trained architect who suddenly in the late 60s began directing and starring in horror films-- usually about the melancholy, aristocratic werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. Personally I consider these movies the pinnacle of 60s and 70s euro-horror, without irony, often dreamy and lusty. In the US we see these movies in washed-out, often heavily oxygen-damaged prints, and the dubbing is absurd, and all of this contributes to the sense of other-worldliness Naschy's work projected.
None of this is high art, and yet movies like Werewolf Versus Vampire Woman are full of vigor and occasionally marked by amazing images.
I admired Paul Naschy for his body of work and his tenacity. He did what the heck he wanted. Viva El Hombre Lobo.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Polidori's Vampyre and Byron's Augustus Darvell
Over the past few days I was on vacation and read John Polidori's The Vampyre alongside Lord Byron's Augustus Darvell (AKA "A Fragment"), which are both reprinted in a recent Oxford collection. This turned out to be a fascinating little assignment for any vampire fan.
The importance of Polidori's Vampyre has been documented well enough; the story, first published in 1819, was an outgrowth of the 1816 Villa Diodati party at which Byron, inspired by the German horror anthology Fantasmagoriana, challenged his guests to each write a scary story.
Technically only two complete tales resulted from the challenge: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, and Polidori's 1819 Vampyre. Polidori's story was the first modern vampire tale, taking the folkloric concept of the ghoulish, decrepit peasant wraith and transforming the vampire into a satire of upper-class devilishness. The villain, Lord Ruthven, is a thinly veiled parody of Lord Byron, Polidori's former employer and friend. But when Vampyre first appeared, it was credited to Byron, a fact that appalled both Byron and the actual author.
Polidori felt robbed of his due credit and Byron-- the single most famous author in England at the time-- felt besmirched, not by the portrait of him in the story, but by any writing he didn't perform. Further, Byron hinted at plagiarism: apparently Byron had told a story at the party that had come out very similarly to Polidori's Vampyre. This idea-- that Polidori had in fact stolen the story-- moved Polidori to write in a note in his 1819 novel Ernestus Berchtold that in fact Vampyre was suggested by a kernel of an idea from Byron:
The tale which lately appeared, and to which his lordship's name was wrongfully attached, was founded upon the ground- work upon which this fragment was to have been continued. Two friends were to travel from England into Greece; while there, one of them should die, but before his death, should obtain from his friend an oath of secrecy with regard to his decease. Some short time after, the remaining traveller, returning to his native country, should be startled at perceiving his former companion moving about in society, and should be horrified at finding that he made love to his former friend's sister. Upon this foundation I built the Vampyre, at the request of a lady, who denied the possibility of such ground- work forming the outline of a tale which should bear the slightest appearance of probability. In the course of three mornings I produced that tale, and left it with her.
Byron, meanwhile, insisted that his publisher release The Fragment that appeared at the end of Mazeppa. That story, though unfinished, hews closely to Byron's kernel.
Here is what I can report on reading them both together:
They are very different stories. Though Polidori clearly took Byron's idea as inspiration, the Polidori story is essentially a satire of Byron overall, and has a wry, cynical, almost modern voice.
[Aubrey] hinted to his guardians, that it was time for him to perform the tour, which for many generations has been thought necessary to enable the young to take some rapid steps in the career of vice towards putting themselves upon an equality with the aged, and not allowing them to appear as if fallen from the skies, whenever scandalous intrigues are mentioned as the subjects of pleasantry or of praise, according to the degree of skill shewn in carrying them on.
His description of Ruthven/Byron is withering: Ruthven is handsome, rakish, and demonically cruel, giving drink to drunks and money to gamblers, but hastening the destitution of the desperate and despoiling the pure. He is capable of great kindness, and nurses Aubrey back to health, before turning cruel again. And it turns out he's a literal vampire. The dramatic moment of the character's death in Greece-- shot by bandits in an action scene-- is only used to set up the vampire's return.
Byron's tale is not a complete story, but in general it is clearly a poetic work of heavy symbolism and high language. The central focus is still two men, one a Byronic character-- rich, dangerous-- but where Polidori's version is only begrudgingly sympathetic, Byron's is rather self-impressed:
I heard much both of his past and present life; and, although in these accounts there were many and irreconcilable contradictions, I could still gather from the whole that he was a being of no common order, and one who, whatever pains he might take to avoid remark, would still be remarkable.
The death of the remarkable Augutus is more like a piece of folklore-- he makes the trip to Greece specifically in order to die and begin a year-long rebirth, and he presses the narrator to complete this revival by throwing a ring into a river.
So: Byron's is a lovely enough-- but abandoned-- story; prose never held his interest. Polidori's story is funny if melodramatic, and very modern, especially in that it gave us the modern, Byronic vampire. One thing's for sure: without Polidori and Byron we would have no Byronic (wan, sad, sexy) vampire at all, no Dracula, no Carmilla.
Would love to hear anyone's comments!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Halloween Treat Links: The Best and Worst Movies for Halloween at Slate
For some time, I've been enjoying Mark Jordan Legan's ongoing video mini-magazine at Slate, The Worst Cinematic Crap That's Ever Been Made." This has been a treasure trove of cinematic mishaps-- K. Gordon Murray's dubbed Mexican children's movies, lost lesser Asian monster movies, the very best of the worst (or at least, what we call the worst, which is not to say unwatchable; I'll take Samson Versus the Vampire Women over Pay it Forward any day.)
This week, Legan gives us two tours, with a twist: a tour of the best little-known horror movies, or at least a handful of them, and then a tour of the worst.
Here's Legan's All-Time Scariest Movies:
For the record, the movies Legan talks about are (with their Amazon Links):
The Haunting
Pulse
The Vanishing - Criterion Collection
Black Sabbath
Trilogy of Terror
and The Nanny, for which I don't have an Amazon link.
Meanwhile, here's his entry on the Worst:
Those movies?
Black Roses, about a Satanic rock band, which I also don't have a link for
Gallery of Horrors
, a terrible grade-z anthologyTroll/Troll 2
, "one of the greatest cinematic train wrecks ever"Invasion of the Blood Farmers
Enjoy-- and thanks Mark!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Halloween Treat Links: The Terror (1963)
Can someone please explain The Terror to me?I have watched The Terror about a hundred times, and I tell you, I have never once been able to follow the story. Maybe too much happens, maybe not enough. But it looks great.
I hear you talking: you're saying, "What's to understand? Jack Nicholson is a young soldier, and he meets a ghost while he walks on the beach, and he goes to a creepy castle and the ghost is a bird and there's a floodgate and the old baron" and then the words just start sounding like wah wah wah.
And yet it's gorgeous. Creepy castles. Endless walks around said castle. Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. It's like a meditation-- how much does something that looks like a movie have to make sense to actually be a movie? In a way, The Terror is a horror slide show. And a great one. Grab some popcorn.
Watch The Terror online at Youtube.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Halloween Treat Links: House of Usher
Usher
Man!
Today's Halloween film is Roger Corman's HOUSE OF USHER -- God, what a delightful film. Isn't it funny to think of the timing-- CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN in '57, HORROR of DRACULA in '58, then USHER in '60?
Vincent Price is dangerous and lithe, an insane white-haired man of handsome looks and deep voice, convinced of the imminent failure of his body, soul and beloved, despised and crumbling house. "We are like figures of fine glass," he says pitiably, "the slightest touch and we may shatter."
And it's better-- better than Curse of Frankenstein, more mature of mood than any Hammer. And just sumptuous. HOUSE OF USHER is gorgeous in every frame, bursting with ominous reds and blues in every scene.
I mean, I've seen it before, but what a thrill to see it again.
Here's a book plug: These films deserve analysis. There are many books on gothic horror, but I have a place to start: I first loved Gothic horror as a child but never began to truly appreciate it until a few years ago on reading Bruce Wright's survey of the genre, Nightwalkers. Since then I have longed to spend spare moments sinking into the "deep and dank tarn" of color and nightmare that is the Gothic period of film.
Man!
Today's Halloween film is Roger Corman's HOUSE OF USHER -- God, what a delightful film. Isn't it funny to think of the timing-- CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN in '57, HORROR of DRACULA in '58, then USHER in '60?
Vincent Price is dangerous and lithe, an insane white-haired man of handsome looks and deep voice, convinced of the imminent failure of his body, soul and beloved, despised and crumbling house. "We are like figures of fine glass," he says pitiably, "the slightest touch and we may shatter."
And it's better-- better than Curse of Frankenstein, more mature of mood than any Hammer. And just sumptuous. HOUSE OF USHER is gorgeous in every frame, bursting with ominous reds and blues in every scene.
I mean, I've seen it before, but what a thrill to see it again.
Here's a book plug: These films deserve analysis. There are many books on gothic horror, but I have a place to start: I first loved Gothic horror as a child but never began to truly appreciate it until a few years ago on reading Bruce Wright's survey of the genre, Nightwalkers. Since then I have longed to spend spare moments sinking into the "deep and dank tarn" of color and nightmare that is the Gothic period of film.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Halloween Treat Links: Watch Black Sunday Free Online!
Black Sunday -- creepy, mysterious, melodramatic-- is a vampire movie so grand that it once determined where I wanted to live.
It's true. Back when I got out of law school, my wife and I drove across the country to Austin, Texas, to spend the Summer and study for the Bar Exam. It so happened that for years I had been reading about Black Sunday, from Mario Bava. "Not the Blimp Movie," I had to tell people, because there was a movie called Black Sunday about terrorists with a blimp, or something, and I knew this because I was always looking for this movie, at every video store, in every city, from New York to DC to-- well, to Austin. No one had Bava's Black Sunday.
So in Austin I wandered-- the first evening we were there-- into Vulcan Video. "Do you have Black Sunday?" I asked, adding, "Not the blimp movie."
The guy at the counter said: Do you want the American or the European cut?
We stayed in Austin for ten years.
That whole story? Antiquated, because now you can watch it free, online.
Here's the trailer:
You can watch it online at Hulu.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Halloween Treat Links: A 1970 Tour of the Haunted Mansion
Halloween's finest dark ride is open all year around, and launched first back in 1969: Disney's Haunted Mansion, here visited by Kurt Russel and, yes, the Osmonds, on an episode of Wonderful World of Disney.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal Activity is an independent horror film so good that, as these things go, soon critics will be beating one over the head in a race to see who doesn't like it. That always happens. A small film comes along, becomes all the rage, and there's always a segment of the population that will sneer.
Bah. This is a scary film. It's a small, intimate, often hand-held movie with no more than four characters and one set. Sound familiar? Go ahead: comparisons to The Blair Witch Project are inevitable. That was a scary little film that used the conceit of characters with handicams to tell a story on digital video, and here is another one.
But it is scary. The story, of a young couple who have started videorecording their lives because the girl is hearing strange noises at night, starts out light and gradually gets more tense and dark. I've never seen such effective use of the date and time stamp on a video image, nor such perfect use of understated special effects. I don't want to spoil anything. Go see it and then spend your next evening listening for footsteps in the hallway.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Mummy and Creature
I put up a children's story called Mummy and Creature, about Mummy, Creature, and their cat and dog.
Check it out!
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Story of Mummy and Creature
Mummy and Creature ~a story of two monsters~
| |
Mummy and Creature got tired of their lives as they had been living them, and because they had been friends for a long time, they decided they would live together. |  |
Because they lived in a rather small town not far from a large city, the two of them were able to find a nice house with two stories and enough room for both of them. |  |
Mummy had a cat named Swanson. Creature had a Collie dog named Gil. |  |
They had their disagreements. |  |
Mummy needed to keep the house very dry, which also suited Swanson. This was a problem for Creature, who loved baths and often fogged up the house with extremely hot water. |  |
Mummy only liked to watch educational programming, while Creature preferred to keep the TV tuned to anything with a lot of explosions. |  |
Sometimes the stress of dealing with a houseful of monsters and dogs and cats got the better of them. |  |
Sometimes when there wasn't much to do, Creature would clown around. Mummy never really cared for Creature's humor. |  |
In the evenings, they would relax on the balcony and review the events of the day. |  |
There was always a lot to talk about. |  |
Mummy and Creature and Swanson and Gil remained in the house for a long, long time. |  |
"Whiteout"-- a killer mystery with a fantastic lead (graphic novel review)
NOTE: In light of the release of the movie WHITEOUT, I wanted to share my review of the graphic novel, which I love and was inspired by when I started creating Sword of Dracula's Van Helsing Family, especially Ronnie.
Whiteout (1999)
$10.99 from Oni Press
Credits:
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Steve Lieber
The cold, US Marshal Carrie Stetko knows, does things to you. It makes your blood pump slower, slurs your speech, numbs your hands. On Antarctica, the bottom of the world, the cold can drop to 89 degrees below zero. Outside, your lungs can freeze. Outside at night, in a storm called a Whiteout, men die a foot from safety because they can’t see the door.
This is the world of Whiteout, a masterful detective novel in graphic novel format by Greg Rucka. The frozen wasteland is the milieu Rucka masterfully uses to frame his story of murder and cover-up. His heroine is Carrie Stetko, a Marshal in virtual exile after a problem she had four years earlier. The cold has changed Carrie as it changes everybody; she’s become cold and cynical in a place of Naval grunts, scientists, and sulking roughnecks, where the ratio of men to women is roughly 200 to one in the heavy season, 400 to one in the winter.
Whiteout works like the best-selling Kay Scarpetta novels Patricia Cornwell writes. The trick is to make the reader feel privileged to learn things few men get to see, and have the outsider become the victor, after many grueling tests. Writer Rucka plunges us into a world he knows inside and out, giving us details of how men talk and work in exotic places, and gives us a character both at home and alien to the landscape. Carrie Stetko is working hard to escape her past and find peace, a peace that is shattered, as these things go, by a murder on the ice.
The man whose face has been blown off lies in the snow in a place where a team of geologists was supposed to have a camp. Around him, deep holes have been drilled into the ground. The other geologists are nowhere to be found, and Carrie must search four bases on a 1600-mile continent to identify both killer and victim. Suddenly she finds that someone out there doesn’t want her to learn the truth, and anyone witness she locates seems to get killed before she can talk to them.
Enter Lily Sharpe, British Intelligence agent. Lily is keeping an eye on Carrie, and may know more than she lets on. Of course the two become allies, and soon it’s the both of them being beaten, frozen, threatened and grievously injured. Rucka lays it all out at a fast, authentic-feeling clip that keeps you guessing, and the Steve Lieber’s art is so cold and ominous you can almost se your breath freeze. The team is willing to put their characters through hell, and in Carrie’s case, it’s a Hell that may heal.
Take a note: this is how mysteries are supposed to work: a dangerous setting. An inscrutable murder. A sympathetic, wounded character. It’s a recipe for the best the genre can offer, and Rucka has made a fine, fine shot at the target.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Awesome Vampire Flashbacks: Samson Versus the Vampire Women
This is wonderful-- a ten-minute montage of the best gags from the MST3K version of Samson Versus the Vampire Women.
For the uninitiated:
For the uninitiated:
- Samson was the American name for El Santo, the Mexican Superhero/Wrestler of comics, books and movies
- Samson Versus the Vampire Women is a movie I have in both English and Spanish-- I still have a fondness for the awful American dubs of these movies, which were all produced by American shlockmeister K. Gordon Murray. These Murray dubs used to show up a lot on basic cable midnight movie shows. Hey, I feel a debt towards Murray-- without him I never would have discovered foreign horror in the first place.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Alex Van Helsing #1 Final Rounds
This is what it looks like when you near the end: Harper and I are now at the point of rapidly shooting edits back and forth to one another as we close on the September deadline to have all edits on Alex Van Helsing #1 completed. What you're looking at is a snapshot of pages 107-148. Note the vast seas of red ink and comments. Now we're down to fairly minor edits. I love this process!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Awesome Vampire Flashbacks: Samson Versus the Vampire Women
This is wonderful-- a ten-minute montage of the best gags from the MST3K version of Samson Versus the Vampire Women.
For the uninitiated:
For the uninitiated:
- Samson was the American name for El Santo, the Mexican Superhero/Wrestler of comics, books and movies
- Samson Versus the Vampire Women is a movie I have in both English and Spanish-- I still have a fondness for the awful American dubs of these movies, which were all produced by American shlockmeister K. Gordon Murray. These Murray dubs used to show up a lot on basic cable midnight movie shows. Hey, I feel a debt towards Murray-- without him I never would have discovered foreign horror in the first place.
Midnight Movie: Terror in the Wax Museum
This movie scared the bejesus out of me when I saw it on TV as a kid. All I remember now is the nightmare sequence. Brrr!
From the Deep Vault: Phantom of the Opry
When I was about twelve, the first Creature Feature of the old hosted, pun-ridden style was this: basic cable's Phantom of the Opry, filmed at the Grand Old Opry House in Nashville. Saturday mornings, Sir Cecil Creape played a lot of imported ba...dness, especially poorly dubbed Italian and Mexican horror. You may not remember this, but if you do, give it a watch.
Friday, August 14, 2009
New from Jason: The Incredible Hulk: Broken Worlds
Just out, Marvel has now released the Hulk: Broken Worlds miniseries in a trade paperback, featuring my short story of the Hulk in one my all-time favorite storylines, the Days of Future Past first seen in classic X-Men comics, where all the mutants and mutant-like heroes have been thrown in concentration camps. This was very exciting for me because I haven't written a Marvel comic in a while-- in fact not at all, except in a single issue of Strange Magic, about Sofia Strange, a series and character Greg Scott and I created for Marvel and then saw published in the ill-fated Epic Anthology.
Welcome to Alex Van Helsing!
This is the first posting at the Alex Van Helsing blog, which I'm setting up as a place for fans and information about the new YA series from HarperCollins, Alex Van Helsing!
The FIRST posting. Meaning I've never posted here before. Heck, the blog didn't exist until just now.So I'm going to post some general information and I can come and post more later-- because no one knows this blog is here yet.
I have other blogs, and it may even happen that I post the same thing at Facebook and elsewhere and here. If this happens and you read the same thing twice-- sorry?
So. What IS Alex Van Helsing?
Alex Van Helsing is the story of Alex, a 14-year-old boy who finds himself thrust into a world of superspies and world vampire organizations. This is not the world of romantic vampires-- our vampires are the bad guys.
Alex doesn't know vampires even exist, see. He's always heard that vampires are just legends, the stuff people make movies about and tease him about his name about.
But in Lake Geneva, Alex meets up with the Polidorium, an enormous, UN-backed secret organization that uses high-tech weaponry to track vampire terrorists the world over.
Hey, wait a minute, you might, and I stress might, be saying. This sounds a lot like a comic book, Sword of Dracula. Ah. Right you are. Alex Van Helsing, the novel series, takes place in the same world as the comic Sword of Dracula, although you don't need to have read any of the comics to get Alex. (In fact, AlexVH takes place many years before the comic series Sword of Dracula and the graphic novel still coming, DRACULA WAR.
More to come. I won't spoil plot here, not much. Not yet. Heck, we have til next summer. I'll post about once a week. Feel free to ask questions
The FIRST posting. Meaning I've never posted here before. Heck, the blog didn't exist until just now.So I'm going to post some general information and I can come and post more later-- because no one knows this blog is here yet.
I have other blogs, and it may even happen that I post the same thing at Facebook and elsewhere and here. If this happens and you read the same thing twice-- sorry?
So. What IS Alex Van Helsing?
Alex Van Helsing is the story of Alex, a 14-year-old boy who finds himself thrust into a world of superspies and world vampire organizations. This is not the world of romantic vampires-- our vampires are the bad guys.
Alex doesn't know vampires even exist, see. He's always heard that vampires are just legends, the stuff people make movies about and tease him about his name about.
But in Lake Geneva, Alex meets up with the Polidorium, an enormous, UN-backed secret organization that uses high-tech weaponry to track vampire terrorists the world over.
Hey, wait a minute, you might, and I stress might, be saying. This sounds a lot like a comic book, Sword of Dracula. Ah. Right you are. Alex Van Helsing, the novel series, takes place in the same world as the comic Sword of Dracula, although you don't need to have read any of the comics to get Alex. (In fact, AlexVH takes place many years before the comic series Sword of Dracula and the graphic novel still coming, DRACULA WAR.
More to come. I won't spoil plot here, not much. Not yet. Heck, we have til next summer. I'll post about once a week. Feel free to ask questions
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Rifftrax Plan 9 and Twilight
Gentlemen, I have discovered Rifftrax. What is Rifftrax?
Well, if you're a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000-- it's essentially the same thing without the robots. If you're a BIG fan of MST3K, this is like manna.
Between writing sessions I just watched Rifftrax "Plan 9 from Outer Space"-- a few scenes free below-- and then added every one of these to my Netflix queue.
Incidentally, here are some of the best bits from Rifftrax Twilight:
Well, if you're a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000-- it's essentially the same thing without the robots. If you're a BIG fan of MST3K, this is like manna.
Between writing sessions I just watched Rifftrax "Plan 9 from Outer Space"-- a few scenes free below-- and then added every one of these to my Netflix queue.
Incidentally, here are some of the best bits from Rifftrax Twilight:
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