Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 4, Episode “Superstar”
Broadcast April 4, 2000
CAST
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Marc Blucas
Spike: James Marsters
Jonathan: Danny Strong
SYNOPSIS
PROLOGUE
Buffy and the Scooby Gang make their way to a nest of vampires that’s too large for them to handle alone. Hastily they return to the large mansion of Action Man Jonathan Levinson, who swings around behind his desk like Howard Hughes. “I take it you need my help.”
ACT 1
Jonathan, clad in black leather, amazes everyone by leading the gang to victory at the vampire nest, and then emerges to eager photographers. Next he taunts unfanged vampire Spike, while Buffy hangs back like a dim girlfriend.
Willow gives girlfriend Tara the rundown on the evening while the two work on a collage of cute Jonathan photos, while Buffy and boyfriend Riley still suffer from closeness issues after Faith’s recent betrayal sleeping with Riley while inhabiting Buffy’s body.
Buffy consults with Jonathan, who alternates signing copies of his latest book (“Oh, Jonathan!-- An Autobiography”) with advising her to forgive Riley. Next, Jonathan dons his camo to consult with the Initiative about the hostile cyborg Adam, offering hitherto unreached insights into the creature’s makeup.
ACT 2
At the Initiative, Jonathan consults Riley on his relationship with Buffy while preparing to shoot apples off the heads of three Initiative agents. At the Bronze, Buffy and Riley finally reconcile while the whole gang sways as Jonathan joins the orchestra for his rendition of “Serenade in Blue,” after which he drives Anya into a sex-craze with his stunning trombone playing, “off the new album.”
The concert breaks up when Karen, a girl whose book Jonathan signed, runs in. A hideous creature with a strange triangle mark on its forehead has attacked her. Jonathan listens to her story and tells the gang its no big deal. He’ll handle it on his own.
Nearby, in the headquarters of evil messiah/cyborg Adam, a vampire derides Jonathan the Great “These are lies,” Adam observes, “None of this is real. It’s intriguing, but it's wrong.” Somehow the world has been changed, but “these majiks are unstable, corrosive, and will inevitable lead to chaos.” But heck, Adam likes chaos, and he’s interested to see how it all works out.
While Jonathan broods by his mansion fireplace, baring the mark o the beast for us while he prepares to join his twin model friends in bed, Buffy tells Willow and Tara that she thinks Jonathan is holding something back.
Later, the same beast attacks Tara.
ACT 3
Tara holds off the beast with magic and escapes into a closet. Next morning, Tara recuperates in Willow’s room, and Buffy quickly establishes that it was the same creature Jonathan dismissed as harmless.
Buffy visits Xander’s basement apartment, where she surveys Xander’s Jonathan comic books and Jonathan card collection and asks Anya about how it could be that Jonathan is the best at everything. “I mean, he fights better than I do, and I’m the Slayer.” She quizzes Anya about alternate realities.
Buffy tells the gang that she’s convinced Jonathan has them all under his spell. They don’t believe her, until Riley comes to her defense. (“She sees things we don’t.”) Buffy shows the gang a picture from the Jonathan swimsuit calendar-- on his shoulder is the mark of the beast.
Jonathan walks in on this meeting and gives them all an “explanation:” he has a history with the creature, but when he faces it, his mind becomes confused. He has his mark tattooed on him to prevent underestimating it again. “Well, that does explain everything,” Riley says.
Buffy urges Riley to go hunting the monster with her, and he nervously agrees.
They approach Spike for information and Buffy’s real personality begins to surface, as she successfully plies information from Spike after Jonathan backs off.
The Scooby Gang study the possible spells Jonathan might have cast, until Willow finds the triangle rune Jonathan and the beast bare. The spell turns the caster into a paragon to be worshipped by all, but it also creates a monster that embodies the worst of all nightmares. If the creature dies, Jonathan and the world will revert.
Just then, Buffy and Jonathan find the monster in a cave next to a bottomless pit.
ACT 4
Xander doesn’t want the world to change back-- he’s happy with his place as friend of Jonathan.
Meanwhile, in the fight wit the monster, Buffy’s abilities are manifesting themselves more completely and Jonathan is losing his cool. By the time Buffy is back to her former fighting glory, Jonathan has one cool act left-- to toss the monster down the pit.
The world reverts to its former status. The world is slowly forgetting the effects, but Jonathan and Buffy have time for apologies. Jonathan gives Buffy some last advice on her relationship with Riley. But he’s already forgotten the cool things he said.
NOTES
What a trip this episode was, from the revamped opening credits to reflect the coolness that is Jonathan, to the jazzy guitar and orchestra a la Monty Norman’s James Bond theme that plays whenever Jonathan swings into action. There's a risk any show takes when they dare to play the "alternate world" card, but I tend to enjoy them more often than not. Buffy has done it before, of course, notably in the episode with the alternate Buffy who never came to the Hellmouth. This episode is more like something out of Star Trek, in which more sensitive characters become aware of the oddness of their own reality and have to convince the rest of what surely must be a strange instinct. Actually, it's always amused me that genre is the one place where existentialists can turn out to be empirically right.
The details are beautifully rendered. This is Jonathan's imagined world, so naturally we see Jonathan posters everywhere, as he peers down like Big Brother. Jonathan himself is a walking action figure, appearing in the same episode in black leather "Angel" outfit, a thousand-dollar suit, army camo, and a Bogart-style dinner jacket before a full orchestra. Jonathan makes Buckaroo Banzai look underemployed: he’s a medical doctor, a best-selling author, a socialite millionaire playboy, a military consultant genius, a vampire hunter, a pro basketball player, a victorious World Cup Women’s Soccer coach, and the star of The Matrix. He invented the internet.
But because this world is really built around Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Buffy has to be dampened by the effects of Jonathan's spell, and this is as prime a weakness as the monster the spell unleashes. (One wonders if she ever cast a spell, so faithfully does the universe revolve around her. Oh, wait, Joss Whedon cast that spell.)
From the very beginning, with the raid on the vampire nest, Buffy has her doubts-- she feels sure she should be able to think and fight better. This never was a neutral world; it's a Buffy world with a Jonathan filter.
I feel compelled to note, though, that I remained a bit disturbed by the concept overall: it's no surprise that Jonathan or any other loser would cast such a spell, but it troubles me that so much humor comes from what seems to be the self-evident ridiculousness of the worship of the character Jonathan Levinson. Surely no one would worship a short, Jewish nerd with a high voice when we have tall, sexy, strapping Aryans like Buffy and Riley to be our heroes. And they are, week in and week out. “Did anyone else feel way too tall?" Riley asks, understanding that he was lost in a nightmare. "I felt way too tall." Because, of course, taller is better. Hmm.
But that's nit-picking. This was a brilliant episode.
QUOTES
Riley: “These spells. These really work? You can really turn or your enemies inside out, or ‘learn to excrete gold coins?’”
Anya: “That one’s not so much fun.”
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Hush
Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
December 14, 1999
Episode: “Hush”
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
Professor Walsh: Lindsay Crouse
SYNOPSIS
Act 1
While Willow tries to fit in at a pretentious Wicca meeting (they’re horrified by the idea of casting spells but think a bake sale would be empowering,) Giles asks Xander to “take Spike” for a few days while his woman friend Olivia comes to town. (Xander, unlike Giles, will tie Spike up.) Meanwhile, Buffy and Agent Riley of the Initiative each want to come clean about their crime-fighting ways, but alas, cannot.
Giles researches a group of spirits called the Gentlemen until the lovely Olivia arrives. In the night, the Gentlemen cast a whispering spell that travels through the town and removes everyone’s voice.
Act 2
Next morning, everyone is magically mute. Not deaf-- they can hear doors slamming, books opening-- just mute. The Initiative elevator nearly toasts Riley and his Initiative Pal when they can’t speak to the computer. (Professor Walsh recommends they use the staircase next time; at least she has the benefit of a voice modulator on her computer.)
Sunnydale turns to Doomsday Land, with all public services closed and people wandering the streets like silent ghosts.
Across town from one another, Giles and Professor Walsh do their research while Buffy and Riley hit the town to keep chaos from descending. Riley and Buffy meet on the street and embrace in silence.
Then, the Gentlemen come gliding across the town, smiling and wraithlike in caretaker suits as they float on their heels, guided by dog-like ghouls in straitjackets. Silently they enter a dormitory, killing a college student who can’t scream as they slice him open with a scalpel.
Act 3
The Gentlemen are collecting hearts in the bell tower where they hang out. Meanwhile, Giles gives the Slayer Gang an overhead-projection lecture on the Gentlemen, fairy tale ghosts who steal the voices of the living so no one can scream as they collect seven hearts from their victims. Legends tell of a Princess who got her voice back and screamed once, killing them all.
Buffy patrols, once again running into Riley when they both track the Gentlemen to the Church Tower. Meanwhile, Tara, a painfully shy girl from the Wicca group, goes hunting for Willow, and ends up pursued by the Gentlemen. Willow is the only in the dorm one brave enough to emerge from her room while Tara frantically beats on the door. At the Church Tower, Riley and Buffy come face to face with one another in their respective crossbow-wielding roles.
Act 4
While Buffy and Riley do their action hero thing, Xander nearly beats Spike to death when he mistakenly believes Spike has attacked Anya. Sweet. At the dormitory Willow and X use their combined telekinesis (!) to block the Gentlemen’s path with a coke machine. And at the church tower, Buffy and Riley finally stumble across the Box of Voices, which must be crushed to release the captured sounds. Buffy becomes the Screaming Princess, her shriek popping the heads of the Gentlemen like green pimples, if pimples were bald and wore lots of eye shadow.
Turns out Tara recognized Willow as a powerful witch like Tara’s mother was. Willow doubts her own powers, but the two have a sweet moment when Tara protests that Willow is special.
Riley comes over to Buffy’s dorm to talk things out, but as it happens, they can’t think of a thing to say, and we end the episode with silence.
NOTES
Wow. Buffy, The Vampire Slayer has always been a show that leaned heavily on nearly unmatched dialogue, but in this episode, the series reaches MASH heights by pulling out a truly different episode. Definitely an episode you have to watch, "Hush" relies on sound effects and the utter silence of the characters for tension without abandoning the usual humor. It's an ambitious attempt and succeeds nicely, as the characters try to use hand gestures, message boards, voice modulators, and overhead projectors to take the place of everyday vocal communication. Buffy is great TV, if there is such a thing.
The only thing I thought lacking, in fact, would be a hearing-impaired community (doesn't every college have one) who would, of course, blithely go about their business, suddenly better equipped than the rest of the town. Sunnydale shuts down when no one can speak; a deaf person would probably find that hilarious.
Willow is getting more powerful by the episode, and here we learn that in fact she's not your usual witch-- in fact, most of the Wiccans in the Buffy world are like those of your average college, just regular folks with a hip hobby. Willow is special, and it takes the tongue-tied Tara to tell her. I wonder where this relationship with Tara is going. Will this be a new best friend, someone to finally free Amy the rat, or are we looking at the beginning of a Neve Campbell-esque LUG scenario?
And of course, finally Riley and Buffy have discovered that neither is who he or she seems. It's a nice touch that, having discovered this and gotten their voices back, they still sit in silence, unable to begin the talk. (Good move, too, any conversation would be anti-climactic.)
Xander continues to grow in bravery and mass; he's reaching Shwarzeneggarian proportions and soon will be the resident muscle of the team. He and once-dweebish Giles are in a race to become sex symbols on the show, and soon we will have no resident nerds. (Meaning the powers that be will have to introduce some new ones.) So it goes.
Great episode.
QUOTES
Anya: “You don’t care what I think; you don’t ask about my day.”
Xander: “You really did turn into a real girl, didn’t you?”
December 14, 1999
Episode: “Hush”
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
Professor Walsh: Lindsay Crouse
SYNOPSIS
Act 1
While Willow tries to fit in at a pretentious Wicca meeting (they’re horrified by the idea of casting spells but think a bake sale would be empowering,) Giles asks Xander to “take Spike” for a few days while his woman friend Olivia comes to town. (Xander, unlike Giles, will tie Spike up.) Meanwhile, Buffy and Agent Riley of the Initiative each want to come clean about their crime-fighting ways, but alas, cannot.
Giles researches a group of spirits called the Gentlemen until the lovely Olivia arrives. In the night, the Gentlemen cast a whispering spell that travels through the town and removes everyone’s voice.
Act 2
Next morning, everyone is magically mute. Not deaf-- they can hear doors slamming, books opening-- just mute. The Initiative elevator nearly toasts Riley and his Initiative Pal when they can’t speak to the computer. (Professor Walsh recommends they use the staircase next time; at least she has the benefit of a voice modulator on her computer.)
Sunnydale turns to Doomsday Land, with all public services closed and people wandering the streets like silent ghosts.
Across town from one another, Giles and Professor Walsh do their research while Buffy and Riley hit the town to keep chaos from descending. Riley and Buffy meet on the street and embrace in silence.
Then, the Gentlemen come gliding across the town, smiling and wraithlike in caretaker suits as they float on their heels, guided by dog-like ghouls in straitjackets. Silently they enter a dormitory, killing a college student who can’t scream as they slice him open with a scalpel.
Act 3
The Gentlemen are collecting hearts in the bell tower where they hang out. Meanwhile, Giles gives the Slayer Gang an overhead-projection lecture on the Gentlemen, fairy tale ghosts who steal the voices of the living so no one can scream as they collect seven hearts from their victims. Legends tell of a Princess who got her voice back and screamed once, killing them all.
Buffy patrols, once again running into Riley when they both track the Gentlemen to the Church Tower. Meanwhile, Tara, a painfully shy girl from the Wicca group, goes hunting for Willow, and ends up pursued by the Gentlemen. Willow is the only in the dorm one brave enough to emerge from her room while Tara frantically beats on the door. At the Church Tower, Riley and Buffy come face to face with one another in their respective crossbow-wielding roles.
Act 4
While Buffy and Riley do their action hero thing, Xander nearly beats Spike to death when he mistakenly believes Spike has attacked Anya. Sweet. At the dormitory Willow and X use their combined telekinesis (!) to block the Gentlemen’s path with a coke machine. And at the church tower, Buffy and Riley finally stumble across the Box of Voices, which must be crushed to release the captured sounds. Buffy becomes the Screaming Princess, her shriek popping the heads of the Gentlemen like green pimples, if pimples were bald and wore lots of eye shadow.
Turns out Tara recognized Willow as a powerful witch like Tara’s mother was. Willow doubts her own powers, but the two have a sweet moment when Tara protests that Willow is special.
Riley comes over to Buffy’s dorm to talk things out, but as it happens, they can’t think of a thing to say, and we end the episode with silence.
NOTES
Wow. Buffy, The Vampire Slayer has always been a show that leaned heavily on nearly unmatched dialogue, but in this episode, the series reaches MASH heights by pulling out a truly different episode. Definitely an episode you have to watch, "Hush" relies on sound effects and the utter silence of the characters for tension without abandoning the usual humor. It's an ambitious attempt and succeeds nicely, as the characters try to use hand gestures, message boards, voice modulators, and overhead projectors to take the place of everyday vocal communication. Buffy is great TV, if there is such a thing.
The only thing I thought lacking, in fact, would be a hearing-impaired community (doesn't every college have one) who would, of course, blithely go about their business, suddenly better equipped than the rest of the town. Sunnydale shuts down when no one can speak; a deaf person would probably find that hilarious.
Willow is getting more powerful by the episode, and here we learn that in fact she's not your usual witch-- in fact, most of the Wiccans in the Buffy world are like those of your average college, just regular folks with a hip hobby. Willow is special, and it takes the tongue-tied Tara to tell her. I wonder where this relationship with Tara is going. Will this be a new best friend, someone to finally free Amy the rat, or are we looking at the beginning of a Neve Campbell-esque LUG scenario?
And of course, finally Riley and Buffy have discovered that neither is who he or she seems. It's a nice touch that, having discovered this and gotten their voices back, they still sit in silence, unable to begin the talk. (Good move, too, any conversation would be anti-climactic.)
Xander continues to grow in bravery and mass; he's reaching Shwarzeneggarian proportions and soon will be the resident muscle of the team. He and once-dweebish Giles are in a race to become sex symbols on the show, and soon we will have no resident nerds. (Meaning the powers that be will have to introduce some new ones.) So it goes.
Great episode.
QUOTES
Anya: “You don’t care what I think; you don’t ask about my day.”
Xander: “You really did turn into a real girl, didn’t you?”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- I was Made to Love You
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"I was Made to Love You"
Broadcast February 20, 2001
"I was Made to Love You" masquerades as a comic relief episode until it punches us in the stomach with no less than two unhappy endings. In brief, Buffy's recent obsession with her own loneliness after being dumped by Riley leads her to ask Doctor Ben out on a date. But she sees her own plight reflected in that of April, a beautiful, monomaniacal robot built to be the lover of-- and then dumped by-- mad college scientist Warren. April goes ballistic when she learns that Warren doesn't love her anymore and finally powers down, never understanding what her purpose was if not to love her boyfriend. Buffy manages to scrape a lesson out of that somewhere, and probably forgets all about it because she comes home and finds her in-remission mom, Joyce, dead on the couch. Just like that.
I Robot, Part Deux
So, there are several wonderful notes struck in this episode, which reminded me of the early Buffy, with its wacky, over-the-top literalization of social dilemmas. Here, April represents the ultimate jilted girlfriend, unable to comprehend what she did wrong or what she's supposed to do now. The conceit of the show is that April is so sophisticated an android that she genuinely aches to be back in the good graces of her creator, and the result is a story that starts out funny and turns sad. I haven't seen a robot story this sad since the Twilight Zone episode "The Lonely," which in fact was also about a perfectly-designed robot companion who must face her own abandonment. (At least in "The Lonely," the guy felt awful about it; we get the sense that Warren's dilemma with April is far less emotional and moral than logistical.)
And then April dies. We don't even know what happened to the robot body. Did Buffy hide it? Fold it up and stuff it into Giles' trunk? There are plenty of opportunities for a female Data in the Scooby Gang, I'm thinking. But if one were to reprogram April-- and who could do this besides maybe Willow-- what directives would replace April's, which start with "be a good girlfriend" and end with "laugh at Warren's jokes?" This robot has some sophisticated programming-- note that she has a whole subroutine dedicated to recognizing Warren as a "snappy dresser." (She has about four subroutines dedicated to "fetishes.") Were you Willow, how would you reprogram her? "Help Buffy and her friends?" "Be a good person?" A good one for Warren to have added if it didn't sap too many precious resources from "Neckrubs" would have been "The Relative Density of Human Flesh and Bone" and maybe "Crimes and Misdemeanors." Heck, it's sort of odd to me that Warren never told April his last name.
Buffy's loneliness
So really the whole April mess is meant to reflect Buffy's loneliness and wish for a good boyfriend to make her "whole," and the end result of the story is she decides she chooses to "be with Buffy" for a while. I hate to be the one to bring it up, but personally I think Buffy's correct to suggest she might fare better in relationships if she were a little less self-involved. Didn't she more or less dump Riley, actually? Wasn't she already getting rid of him before he left? But she really can't not be self-involved, given that the world revolves around her. Still, admitting you have a problem is the first step to healing. ("I'm Buffy, and I'm the Lead.") My recommendation? Therapy, not dating. Especially after the end of this episode.
Giles and Spike
But the finest moment of the episode comes at around the middle, when Spike comes to the magic shop and is shunned by the whole Scooby Gang. (Buffy has declared him persona non grata, and he did tie her up in a mad attempt to get her to love him, the moron.) He tries to be friendly, but it's Giles who changes the rules. Giles finally talks to Spike as not a friend but as a demonic force that must be spoken to clearly, as one would a child. "We are not your way to Buffy," Giles says. "There is no way to Buffy." And he looks as though he just might kill Spike, and yet, does not, because so far this demon has been more or less an ally. But as of this moment, Giles makes it clear that Spike is no longer welcome to fancy himself different from what he is: an outsider with his own magical-- presumably evil-- destiny.
Joyce's Death
Which brings us to the real clincher, a roughly six-second beat at the end of the episode that carries the biggest wallop of the whole season. Buffy comes home to find Joyce, who has just been doing well enough to go out on her first date, lying unconscious if not dead on the sofa. (By all incoming reports, including the previews of next episode, she's dead.) It's a completely unexpected development, whether it should have been or not, and it's one none of us really want to think about very much. We'll look fondly at Kristine Sutherland the loss of her character next week.
"I was Made to Love You"
Broadcast February 20, 2001
"I was Made to Love You" masquerades as a comic relief episode until it punches us in the stomach with no less than two unhappy endings. In brief, Buffy's recent obsession with her own loneliness after being dumped by Riley leads her to ask Doctor Ben out on a date. But she sees her own plight reflected in that of April, a beautiful, monomaniacal robot built to be the lover of-- and then dumped by-- mad college scientist Warren. April goes ballistic when she learns that Warren doesn't love her anymore and finally powers down, never understanding what her purpose was if not to love her boyfriend. Buffy manages to scrape a lesson out of that somewhere, and probably forgets all about it because she comes home and finds her in-remission mom, Joyce, dead on the couch. Just like that.
I Robot, Part Deux
So, there are several wonderful notes struck in this episode, which reminded me of the early Buffy, with its wacky, over-the-top literalization of social dilemmas. Here, April represents the ultimate jilted girlfriend, unable to comprehend what she did wrong or what she's supposed to do now. The conceit of the show is that April is so sophisticated an android that she genuinely aches to be back in the good graces of her creator, and the result is a story that starts out funny and turns sad. I haven't seen a robot story this sad since the Twilight Zone episode "The Lonely," which in fact was also about a perfectly-designed robot companion who must face her own abandonment. (At least in "The Lonely," the guy felt awful about it; we get the sense that Warren's dilemma with April is far less emotional and moral than logistical.)
And then April dies. We don't even know what happened to the robot body. Did Buffy hide it? Fold it up and stuff it into Giles' trunk? There are plenty of opportunities for a female Data in the Scooby Gang, I'm thinking. But if one were to reprogram April-- and who could do this besides maybe Willow-- what directives would replace April's, which start with "be a good girlfriend" and end with "laugh at Warren's jokes?" This robot has some sophisticated programming-- note that she has a whole subroutine dedicated to recognizing Warren as a "snappy dresser." (She has about four subroutines dedicated to "fetishes.") Were you Willow, how would you reprogram her? "Help Buffy and her friends?" "Be a good person?" A good one for Warren to have added if it didn't sap too many precious resources from "Neckrubs" would have been "The Relative Density of Human Flesh and Bone" and maybe "Crimes and Misdemeanors." Heck, it's sort of odd to me that Warren never told April his last name.
Buffy's loneliness
So really the whole April mess is meant to reflect Buffy's loneliness and wish for a good boyfriend to make her "whole," and the end result of the story is she decides she chooses to "be with Buffy" for a while. I hate to be the one to bring it up, but personally I think Buffy's correct to suggest she might fare better in relationships if she were a little less self-involved. Didn't she more or less dump Riley, actually? Wasn't she already getting rid of him before he left? But she really can't not be self-involved, given that the world revolves around her. Still, admitting you have a problem is the first step to healing. ("I'm Buffy, and I'm the Lead.") My recommendation? Therapy, not dating. Especially after the end of this episode.
Giles and Spike
But the finest moment of the episode comes at around the middle, when Spike comes to the magic shop and is shunned by the whole Scooby Gang. (Buffy has declared him persona non grata, and he did tie her up in a mad attempt to get her to love him, the moron.) He tries to be friendly, but it's Giles who changes the rules. Giles finally talks to Spike as not a friend but as a demonic force that must be spoken to clearly, as one would a child. "We are not your way to Buffy," Giles says. "There is no way to Buffy." And he looks as though he just might kill Spike, and yet, does not, because so far this demon has been more or less an ally. But as of this moment, Giles makes it clear that Spike is no longer welcome to fancy himself different from what he is: an outsider with his own magical-- presumably evil-- destiny.
Joyce's Death
Which brings us to the real clincher, a roughly six-second beat at the end of the episode that carries the biggest wallop of the whole season. Buffy comes home to find Joyce, who has just been doing well enough to go out on her first date, lying unconscious if not dead on the sofa. (By all incoming reports, including the previews of next episode, she's dead.) It's a completely unexpected development, whether it should have been or not, and it's one none of us really want to think about very much. We'll look fondly at Kristine Sutherland the loss of her character next week.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Family
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 5, Episode "Family"
Broadcast November 7, 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
Tara tells Willow a bedtime story and in return, Willow reassures Tara that she’s an essential part of the Scooby Gang. Meanwhile, Buffy and Giles have learned that Dawn is actually a living embodiment of an energy source called “The Key.” The monks who sent Dawn to Buffy, also sending a full range of artificial memories to everyone, did so for a reason, and Buffy vows not to reveal the secret to Dawn. “I have to take care of her,” Buffy says-- especially since the mysterious blond demon hunting for Dawn the Key is still out there.
Act I
Just a few days after the gang moved Buffy into her dorm room, Buffy has them move her back out. She’s moving back in with her Mom. While they move, Tara’s feeling awkward and Willow wants everyone’s assurance that they’ll be at Tara’s birthday party the following night at the Bronze.
Anya’s having a wonderful time working for Giles: “I have a place in the world now... I’m a working gal.” Xander and Buffy, meanwhile, beat their brains trying to figure out what to get Tara for her birthday, revealing they know little about her.
Across town, Spike is fantasizing about Buffy while making love to Harmony (his fantasy involves not sex but violence, but there you are).
At the magic shop, a creepy blond guy (blond guys should not grow beards) comes in and irritates Giles, Anya, Xander and Buffy until Tara and Willow show. Tara looks frightened as we learn the stranger is Tara’s brother.
Act II
His name is Donny, and Tara’s visibly unnerved and eager to know how the family found her. But she has a hug for her dad and cousin, who come in next. Tara stays nervous even after they leave, but she promises to see them that evening.
Later, Buffy is over-protective of Dawn enough to practically ground her, and Riley thinks she’s over-reacting. He also suspects there are things Buffy’s not telling him.
Speaking of deep secrets, Tara’s dad is disgusted that Tara, so close to her vitally important twentieth birthday, has hidden from them. She “has evil inside” her, just as her mother did. She should come home. Dad wants her away from all this witchcraft stuff and at home where the upcoming transformation to her “true face” occurs.
The blond demon girl dispatches a bone-eating demon to find and kill Buffy.
Willow wants to cast a demon-finding spell (one Tara sabotaged once before), but Tara sends her away. Later, while the Scooby Gang meets, Tara sneaks up on them and casts a curse (of unknown purpose) on them.
Act III
Riley goes out drinking at “Willie’s” and immediately finds company in a brunette named Sandy. Sandy wants to go somewhere else, but Riley knows a vampire when he sees one.
Harmony has come back from shopping (killing the clerk and taking the goods) and reports that the blond demon has been siccing demons on Buffy. Spike
Tara’s cousin Beth calls Tara a “selfish bitch” for not wanting to come home with her family. “Your friends are going to know the truth about you.” When Beth guesses that Tara put a curse on the gang “so they wouldn't see the demon part” of her, Tara begs Beth not to tell her dad.
Unfortunately, the spell makes it impossible for the gang to see any demons, which becomes a major problem when several arrive at the magic shop door.
Act IV
Tara is out of control, Beth says. If her father doesn’t force Tara to come home, he’s at least going to reveal her demon-ness to Tara’s friends. Tara should tell them first.
At the magic shop, demons wander, invisible, until all Hell breaks loose when they attack Buffy. Spike arrives, ostensibly to watch Buffy die, while the gang fights an invisible army. But Spike joins their fight.
Tara arrives in time to break the spell, allowing Buffy to prevail. But Tara and her father reveal that the women in Tara’s family, including Tara, are demons. Buffy’s not very forgiving and Tara is almost dragged away by her father, but finally the Slayer stands up for their demon friend. The whole gang, in fact, appears in their leather jackets and proclaim themselves Arthur Fonzerelli. No, actually they proclaim themselves Tara's family, a moving statement.
But then, a shock: Spike tests a theory and attacks Tara, causing himself pain. This can only mean Tara was never a demon in any event. “It’s just a family legend to keep the ladies in line.” She's just a human, adept at magic.
The birthday bash for Tara is a hit, and Willow and Tara dance into the night, about two feet off the ground.
NOTES
"Family" will for me stand as the episode when Buffy actually grew up, although the episode doesn't focus on her at all. The reason, to me, is the mature choice she makes at the end when she defends Tara from her father. This is Buffy, remember, as self-centered and megalomaniacal a protagonist as episodic television has ever seen. The world revolves around Buffy, she takes her life and work very seriously, and she gets very angry whenever other characters make her life any more difficult. When sister Dawn made a dangerous mistake last episode, Buffy was ruthless. Because it rarely happens, we forget how easily Buffy is riled into rage if things don't go her way and she feels betrayed. But now, some things have changed: Buffy has more responsibility than she did before, because she now knows Dawn is depending on her. And whatever over-protectiveness that might bring out, it's softened her edge. So when Tara, not even a close friend, makes a dangerous mistake, Buffy (as expected) genuinely looks like she's ready to feed Tara to the wolves. But then she snaps out of it, and tells Tara's dad that he'll have to come through her to take his daughter home.
This is a nice enough development that it doesn't really matter that the revelation that Tara isn't a demon after all is somewhat anticlimactic. I'm glad, anyway, because we already have Anya the demon. It was good to learn some more about Tara's pre-Buffy life, and interesting to find Tara is the only human character since Xander who doesn't come from an upper-middle-class background. The powers that be use Tara's witchcraft to stand for her lesbianism here, as her stodgy father reacts with revulsion about the lifestyle she's living. He says he'd hoped it was a phase. (If it is a phase, of course, he's a little early: one expects she'll at least be a Witch until Graduation.)
Tara's relationship with Willow, meanwhile, continues to be the sweetest romance on TV, gay or straight-- and stands as certainly the most well-handled and mature gay romance we've seen yet in a TV show.
I was a little turned off by the painfully realistic discussion between Xander and Buffy about Tara, who they do not know very well and frankly haven't invested the time to know any better. But I was more troubled by the reaction Giles, Xander, Anya, Buffy and Dawn have to Tara's brother when he comes in the store. Admittedly he's kind of a jerk, but even before he says anything insensitive, the whole gang stares at him, chastising him silently for being the outsider he is. Here's a rule of thumb to take with you through life: if your friends seem like nice people, but they're mean to strangers, they're not nice people.
Oh, minor note: more Buffy/Riley stress. I still think boyfriend is doomed, doomed, walking-dead-doomed.
And that's all the predicting I'll do.
QUOTES
Giles: “People help each other out, Anya. It’s one of our strange customs.”
Giles: “I’ve narrowed it down some.”
Buffy: (looking at Giles’ mountain of open books.) “Your definition of narrow is impressively wide.”
Season 5, Episode "Family"
Broadcast November 7, 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
Tara tells Willow a bedtime story and in return, Willow reassures Tara that she’s an essential part of the Scooby Gang. Meanwhile, Buffy and Giles have learned that Dawn is actually a living embodiment of an energy source called “The Key.” The monks who sent Dawn to Buffy, also sending a full range of artificial memories to everyone, did so for a reason, and Buffy vows not to reveal the secret to Dawn. “I have to take care of her,” Buffy says-- especially since the mysterious blond demon hunting for Dawn the Key is still out there.
Act I
Just a few days after the gang moved Buffy into her dorm room, Buffy has them move her back out. She’s moving back in with her Mom. While they move, Tara’s feeling awkward and Willow wants everyone’s assurance that they’ll be at Tara’s birthday party the following night at the Bronze.
Anya’s having a wonderful time working for Giles: “I have a place in the world now... I’m a working gal.” Xander and Buffy, meanwhile, beat their brains trying to figure out what to get Tara for her birthday, revealing they know little about her.
Across town, Spike is fantasizing about Buffy while making love to Harmony (his fantasy involves not sex but violence, but there you are).
At the magic shop, a creepy blond guy (blond guys should not grow beards) comes in and irritates Giles, Anya, Xander and Buffy until Tara and Willow show. Tara looks frightened as we learn the stranger is Tara’s brother.
Act II
His name is Donny, and Tara’s visibly unnerved and eager to know how the family found her. But she has a hug for her dad and cousin, who come in next. Tara stays nervous even after they leave, but she promises to see them that evening.
Later, Buffy is over-protective of Dawn enough to practically ground her, and Riley thinks she’s over-reacting. He also suspects there are things Buffy’s not telling him.
Speaking of deep secrets, Tara’s dad is disgusted that Tara, so close to her vitally important twentieth birthday, has hidden from them. She “has evil inside” her, just as her mother did. She should come home. Dad wants her away from all this witchcraft stuff and at home where the upcoming transformation to her “true face” occurs.
The blond demon girl dispatches a bone-eating demon to find and kill Buffy.
Willow wants to cast a demon-finding spell (one Tara sabotaged once before), but Tara sends her away. Later, while the Scooby Gang meets, Tara sneaks up on them and casts a curse (of unknown purpose) on them.
Act III
Riley goes out drinking at “Willie’s” and immediately finds company in a brunette named Sandy. Sandy wants to go somewhere else, but Riley knows a vampire when he sees one.
Harmony has come back from shopping (killing the clerk and taking the goods) and reports that the blond demon has been siccing demons on Buffy. Spike
Tara’s cousin Beth calls Tara a “selfish bitch” for not wanting to come home with her family. “Your friends are going to know the truth about you.” When Beth guesses that Tara put a curse on the gang “so they wouldn't see the demon part” of her, Tara begs Beth not to tell her dad.
Unfortunately, the spell makes it impossible for the gang to see any demons, which becomes a major problem when several arrive at the magic shop door.
Act IV
Tara is out of control, Beth says. If her father doesn’t force Tara to come home, he’s at least going to reveal her demon-ness to Tara’s friends. Tara should tell them first.
At the magic shop, demons wander, invisible, until all Hell breaks loose when they attack Buffy. Spike arrives, ostensibly to watch Buffy die, while the gang fights an invisible army. But Spike joins their fight.
Tara arrives in time to break the spell, allowing Buffy to prevail. But Tara and her father reveal that the women in Tara’s family, including Tara, are demons. Buffy’s not very forgiving and Tara is almost dragged away by her father, but finally the Slayer stands up for their demon friend. The whole gang, in fact, appears in their leather jackets and proclaim themselves Arthur Fonzerelli. No, actually they proclaim themselves Tara's family, a moving statement.
But then, a shock: Spike tests a theory and attacks Tara, causing himself pain. This can only mean Tara was never a demon in any event. “It’s just a family legend to keep the ladies in line.” She's just a human, adept at magic.
The birthday bash for Tara is a hit, and Willow and Tara dance into the night, about two feet off the ground.
NOTES
"Family" will for me stand as the episode when Buffy actually grew up, although the episode doesn't focus on her at all. The reason, to me, is the mature choice she makes at the end when she defends Tara from her father. This is Buffy, remember, as self-centered and megalomaniacal a protagonist as episodic television has ever seen. The world revolves around Buffy, she takes her life and work very seriously, and she gets very angry whenever other characters make her life any more difficult. When sister Dawn made a dangerous mistake last episode, Buffy was ruthless. Because it rarely happens, we forget how easily Buffy is riled into rage if things don't go her way and she feels betrayed. But now, some things have changed: Buffy has more responsibility than she did before, because she now knows Dawn is depending on her. And whatever over-protectiveness that might bring out, it's softened her edge. So when Tara, not even a close friend, makes a dangerous mistake, Buffy (as expected) genuinely looks like she's ready to feed Tara to the wolves. But then she snaps out of it, and tells Tara's dad that he'll have to come through her to take his daughter home.
This is a nice enough development that it doesn't really matter that the revelation that Tara isn't a demon after all is somewhat anticlimactic. I'm glad, anyway, because we already have Anya the demon. It was good to learn some more about Tara's pre-Buffy life, and interesting to find Tara is the only human character since Xander who doesn't come from an upper-middle-class background. The powers that be use Tara's witchcraft to stand for her lesbianism here, as her stodgy father reacts with revulsion about the lifestyle she's living. He says he'd hoped it was a phase. (If it is a phase, of course, he's a little early: one expects she'll at least be a Witch until Graduation.)
Tara's relationship with Willow, meanwhile, continues to be the sweetest romance on TV, gay or straight-- and stands as certainly the most well-handled and mature gay romance we've seen yet in a TV show.
I was a little turned off by the painfully realistic discussion between Xander and Buffy about Tara, who they do not know very well and frankly haven't invested the time to know any better. But I was more troubled by the reaction Giles, Xander, Anya, Buffy and Dawn have to Tara's brother when he comes in the store. Admittedly he's kind of a jerk, but even before he says anything insensitive, the whole gang stares at him, chastising him silently for being the outsider he is. Here's a rule of thumb to take with you through life: if your friends seem like nice people, but they're mean to strangers, they're not nice people.
Oh, minor note: more Buffy/Riley stress. I still think boyfriend is doomed, doomed, walking-dead-doomed.
And that's all the predicting I'll do.
QUOTES
Giles: “People help each other out, Anya. It’s one of our strange customs.”
Giles: “I’ve narrowed it down some.”
Buffy: (looking at Giles’ mountain of open books.) “Your definition of narrow is impressively wide.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Fear Itself
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“Fear Itself”
Prologue
Buffy's feeling blue after her rejection of Parker, who used and dropped her, and she's waxing philosophical at Halloween and likening herself to the pumpkins she and the Slayer Gang are eviscerate make Jack-o-Lanterns. The Gang invite Xander to join them at a scare-house/party hosted by the Alpha Delt fraternity the following Saturday.
Act 1
At lunch next day, Willow’s talking about her eagerness and fear at moving to the next level in her witch training, which will involve conjuring. Oz is concerned that Willow will “touch something deep and dark” that she won’t like, but he’ll support her decisions. Depressed Buffy hopes she can avoid fun by going to see Giles, but he’s all dressed up for Halloween and tells her to forget patrolling, since the spirits of darkness “shy away from Halloween - - they think it’s all too crass.”
Anya comes to see Xander - - she’s not over him, and the boy actually responds warmly to the former demon and invites her to come to the frat party. “Are we dating?” “There are definitely datelike qualities here.”
Buffy mopes into Prof. Walsh’s lecture hall to pick up the assignments she’s been missing. The cute TA urges her to get back to work and get over whatever it is that’s bothering her.
At the frat house, Xander and Oz help set up the stereo for the party in the attic. One of the frat brothers has chalked a demon circle from a book into the floor, and when Oz cuts himself, he bleeds into the circle. No one sees the wave of energy that emanates from it and turns a plastic spider into a real one.
Act 2
Buffy goes home so her Mom can re-fit her old Red Riding Hood outfit, causing Buffy to wonder if there’s something about her that drives men away. (She recalls that her father ran out, too.) Willow is Joan of Arc, Xander is James Bond in a rented tux, and Oz is God (as proven by a “Hi – My Name is” sticker on his casual clothes.) The Tom Clancy-esque vampire hunters wander by, to be revealed more fully in some other episode.
And at the frat party, the props are becoming real, and by the time the Gang reaches the house, panic has descended upstairs. Downstairs, all is silent except for the Halloween sound effects loop, and the Gang begins to wander, trying to find their way upstairs. The house has set up a detour of sorts through a hall where they encounter bloodstains, spiders, and animated rubber spiders. As a demon voice calls “Release me!” they begin to worry. By now Anya, who had to go out and rent a costume and found a pink bunny outfit, has arrived to find the door has disappeared and windows closing themselves up. Anya runs for Giles. The house, the Halloween party, is coming alive.
Act 3
The Gang is trapped in a maze as the house re-arranges itself and Buffy determines to find the upstairs. They start fighting and Willow and Oz go off alone, while Xander simply becomes invisible to Buffy.
Anya appears at Giles’s place (“We have to save Xander!) and the ex-Watcher suggests the disappearing windows might be the temporal flux associated with a demon conjuration.
Oz begins to turn into a werewolf, as he’s wont to do, and he runs. Now the four are completely separated.
Willow manages to make a guidance-beacon spell, but it backfires, attacking her in a horde of little light-bees, while Buffy ends up in a crypt-like basement where the dead tell her how alone she is.
Act 4
“We’re going to have to create a door,” Giles announces as he and Anya check out the doorless frat house. “You can do that?” “I can,” he says, whipping out a chainsaw and sawing into the house.
By the time Buffy escapes from the dead she finds herself in the upstairs with the rest of the frightened Gang, and she realizes the house has been separating them with illusions. “It wanted to scare us,” Oz said. They read the book from which the demon circle was copied—it’s a summoning spell for Gachnar, a demon who feeds on people’s fear.
Giles busts through the door. “Everyone!” calls Xander. “It’s Giles. With a chainsaw!” Anya the bunny demon is there, too.
Thinking it will shut down the summoning spell, Buffy destroys the Mark of Gachnar on the floor, but this instead brings Gachnar straightway. Everyone holds their breath as the demon finally appears. Gachnar is a hideous, snarly horned creature like something out of Hellraiser. Except he appears to be four inches tall. (This was obviously not the best dimension for him to choose.) Buffy squishes him with her shoe, and that’s the end of that.
NOTES
Finally, with this episode, Buffy returns to the sort of witty goofiness of the show at its best. Recently I was talking to a friend, a fellow Buffy fan and writer, who said she hates season premieres, because they always feel like awkward transitions back into what makes you like a show. As much as I enjoy Buffy, this show suffers from that problem in particular, taking several episodes at the beginning of each season to find a pleasant, familiar groove. (This is not to say that those early episodes of any given season are good; to the contrary they're very good. I just like to get past them.) I guess it's pleasing that this season, Buffy hits its stride with the Halloween episode.
I've always enjoyed the idea than the Buffy universe, howling is a true holiday because demons and ghosts consider it beneath them. That sets up in the challenge for the writers, who must figure out some excuse to have particularly howling and themed goings on (on a show whose themes are already pretty Halloween-ish).
So what they do is give us a rough on one most reliable horror movie cliches around: the accidental summoning. In Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, this was accomplished by having some kids simply read out of a book of magic (Hey! Let's read this wacky magic indentation!) Here, it's both stupid and incredible incredibly bad luck: of frat guy randomly copies a summoning circle out of a demonic book in another language, and Oz manages to cut himself and bleed on it. And there you have it: excuse for all sorts of Halloween decorations to run amok.
It’s nice to see the Slayer gang hanging out together, now the Xander is back in town and apparently completely forgiven by Oz for his dalliance with Willow. What is Xander anyway? I mean, Willow is a witch, Oz is a werewolf, even Anya is a demon: what is Xander, other than an apparent babe magnet? (I'm well aware that this is rhetorical question that was explored at great length in “The Zeppo.”)
Buffy spends the first half moping around, but she flirted with her TA and got to stomp a small demon; I'm sure she’ll get over this Parker thing.
Joyce appears again this episode, fixing Buffy's costume for her. Joyce shares Buffy’s pain and says she’s been a little lonely herself; I was just thrilled that this is the kind of show where continuity makes for laughs and Joyce bothers to mention that her last boyfriend was “a homicidal robot,” and he really was. (He was also Tex Ritter’s actor son John.)
The best moment in the episode is when the demon spell begins to work on the gang and they turn against one another. Willow wants to cast a guidance spell, summoning a small like demon to show them the way out. She's deeply offended when Buffy tells her not to. “I’m not your sidekick,” Willow says, storming out. The funny thing here is that in the Buffy story, Willow is the sidekick. But the writers of Buffy are aware that we as people do not necessarily believe ourselves to be supporting characters and somebody else's story. Willow is the heroine of her own story, after all, in which Buffy is at most a supporting character.
Beyond that, the moment also illustrates that Willow is growing into a different character in college, one who may be coming out of Buffy’s shadow. Buff’s always been a little self-centered, so it probably takes Willow lashing out “under the influence” for Buffy to notice.
Lastly, I love Anya’s alien-ness; she hits just the right note in being clueless but eager to live the world of humans. (For those of you who’ve forgotten, Anya’s a demon who terrorized men but who got stuck in her a teenage body last season. She’s like Mork, only from Hell.)
MEMORABLE LINES
Willow: “Don’t do it? What kind of encouragement is that?”
Buffy: “This is an encouragement talk? I thought it was ‘share my pain.’”
(I have this problem, too.)
T.A.: “Halloween isn’t a night for responsibility. It’s when the ghosts and goblins come out.”
Buffy: “That’s actually a misnomer.”
(Actually it’s merely inaccurate, but whatever.)
Xander, checking out Anya’s bunny outfit: “That’s your scary costume?”
Anya: “Bunnies frighten me.”
“Fear Itself”
Prologue
Buffy's feeling blue after her rejection of Parker, who used and dropped her, and she's waxing philosophical at Halloween and likening herself to the pumpkins she and the Slayer Gang are eviscerate make Jack-o-Lanterns. The Gang invite Xander to join them at a scare-house/party hosted by the Alpha Delt fraternity the following Saturday.
Act 1
At lunch next day, Willow’s talking about her eagerness and fear at moving to the next level in her witch training, which will involve conjuring. Oz is concerned that Willow will “touch something deep and dark” that she won’t like, but he’ll support her decisions. Depressed Buffy hopes she can avoid fun by going to see Giles, but he’s all dressed up for Halloween and tells her to forget patrolling, since the spirits of darkness “shy away from Halloween - - they think it’s all too crass.”
Anya comes to see Xander - - she’s not over him, and the boy actually responds warmly to the former demon and invites her to come to the frat party. “Are we dating?” “There are definitely datelike qualities here.”
Buffy mopes into Prof. Walsh’s lecture hall to pick up the assignments she’s been missing. The cute TA urges her to get back to work and get over whatever it is that’s bothering her.
At the frat house, Xander and Oz help set up the stereo for the party in the attic. One of the frat brothers has chalked a demon circle from a book into the floor, and when Oz cuts himself, he bleeds into the circle. No one sees the wave of energy that emanates from it and turns a plastic spider into a real one.
Act 2
Buffy goes home so her Mom can re-fit her old Red Riding Hood outfit, causing Buffy to wonder if there’s something about her that drives men away. (She recalls that her father ran out, too.) Willow is Joan of Arc, Xander is James Bond in a rented tux, and Oz is God (as proven by a “Hi – My Name is” sticker on his casual clothes.) The Tom Clancy-esque vampire hunters wander by, to be revealed more fully in some other episode.
And at the frat party, the props are becoming real, and by the time the Gang reaches the house, panic has descended upstairs. Downstairs, all is silent except for the Halloween sound effects loop, and the Gang begins to wander, trying to find their way upstairs. The house has set up a detour of sorts through a hall where they encounter bloodstains, spiders, and animated rubber spiders. As a demon voice calls “Release me!” they begin to worry. By now Anya, who had to go out and rent a costume and found a pink bunny outfit, has arrived to find the door has disappeared and windows closing themselves up. Anya runs for Giles. The house, the Halloween party, is coming alive.
Act 3
The Gang is trapped in a maze as the house re-arranges itself and Buffy determines to find the upstairs. They start fighting and Willow and Oz go off alone, while Xander simply becomes invisible to Buffy.
Anya appears at Giles’s place (“We have to save Xander!) and the ex-Watcher suggests the disappearing windows might be the temporal flux associated with a demon conjuration.
Oz begins to turn into a werewolf, as he’s wont to do, and he runs. Now the four are completely separated.
Willow manages to make a guidance-beacon spell, but it backfires, attacking her in a horde of little light-bees, while Buffy ends up in a crypt-like basement where the dead tell her how alone she is.
Act 4
“We’re going to have to create a door,” Giles announces as he and Anya check out the doorless frat house. “You can do that?” “I can,” he says, whipping out a chainsaw and sawing into the house.
By the time Buffy escapes from the dead she finds herself in the upstairs with the rest of the frightened Gang, and she realizes the house has been separating them with illusions. “It wanted to scare us,” Oz said. They read the book from which the demon circle was copied—it’s a summoning spell for Gachnar, a demon who feeds on people’s fear.
Giles busts through the door. “Everyone!” calls Xander. “It’s Giles. With a chainsaw!” Anya the bunny demon is there, too.
Thinking it will shut down the summoning spell, Buffy destroys the Mark of Gachnar on the floor, but this instead brings Gachnar straightway. Everyone holds their breath as the demon finally appears. Gachnar is a hideous, snarly horned creature like something out of Hellraiser. Except he appears to be four inches tall. (This was obviously not the best dimension for him to choose.) Buffy squishes him with her shoe, and that’s the end of that.
NOTES
Finally, with this episode, Buffy returns to the sort of witty goofiness of the show at its best. Recently I was talking to a friend, a fellow Buffy fan and writer, who said she hates season premieres, because they always feel like awkward transitions back into what makes you like a show. As much as I enjoy Buffy, this show suffers from that problem in particular, taking several episodes at the beginning of each season to find a pleasant, familiar groove. (This is not to say that those early episodes of any given season are good; to the contrary they're very good. I just like to get past them.) I guess it's pleasing that this season, Buffy hits its stride with the Halloween episode.
I've always enjoyed the idea than the Buffy universe, howling is a true holiday because demons and ghosts consider it beneath them. That sets up in the challenge for the writers, who must figure out some excuse to have particularly howling and themed goings on (on a show whose themes are already pretty Halloween-ish).
So what they do is give us a rough on one most reliable horror movie cliches around: the accidental summoning. In Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, this was accomplished by having some kids simply read out of a book of magic (Hey! Let's read this wacky magic indentation!) Here, it's both stupid and incredible incredibly bad luck: of frat guy randomly copies a summoning circle out of a demonic book in another language, and Oz manages to cut himself and bleed on it. And there you have it: excuse for all sorts of Halloween decorations to run amok.
It’s nice to see the Slayer gang hanging out together, now the Xander is back in town and apparently completely forgiven by Oz for his dalliance with Willow. What is Xander anyway? I mean, Willow is a witch, Oz is a werewolf, even Anya is a demon: what is Xander, other than an apparent babe magnet? (I'm well aware that this is rhetorical question that was explored at great length in “The Zeppo.”)
Buffy spends the first half moping around, but she flirted with her TA and got to stomp a small demon; I'm sure she’ll get over this Parker thing.
Joyce appears again this episode, fixing Buffy's costume for her. Joyce shares Buffy’s pain and says she’s been a little lonely herself; I was just thrilled that this is the kind of show where continuity makes for laughs and Joyce bothers to mention that her last boyfriend was “a homicidal robot,” and he really was. (He was also Tex Ritter’s actor son John.)
The best moment in the episode is when the demon spell begins to work on the gang and they turn against one another. Willow wants to cast a guidance spell, summoning a small like demon to show them the way out. She's deeply offended when Buffy tells her not to. “I’m not your sidekick,” Willow says, storming out. The funny thing here is that in the Buffy story, Willow is the sidekick. But the writers of Buffy are aware that we as people do not necessarily believe ourselves to be supporting characters and somebody else's story. Willow is the heroine of her own story, after all, in which Buffy is at most a supporting character.
Beyond that, the moment also illustrates that Willow is growing into a different character in college, one who may be coming out of Buffy’s shadow. Buff’s always been a little self-centered, so it probably takes Willow lashing out “under the influence” for Buffy to notice.
Lastly, I love Anya’s alien-ness; she hits just the right note in being clueless but eager to live the world of humans. (For those of you who’ve forgotten, Anya’s a demon who terrorized men but who got stuck in her a teenage body last season. She’s like Mork, only from Hell.)
MEMORABLE LINES
Willow: “Don’t do it? What kind of encouragement is that?”
Buffy: “This is an encouragement talk? I thought it was ‘share my pain.’”
(I have this problem, too.)
T.A.: “Halloween isn’t a night for responsibility. It’s when the ghosts and goblins come out.”
Buffy: “That’s actually a misnomer.”
(Actually it’s merely inaccurate, but whatever.)
Xander, checking out Anya’s bunny outfit: “That’s your scary costume?”
Anya: “Bunnies frighten me.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Fool for Love
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.”
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.”
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!
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