Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 5
Episode "Out of My Mind", Broadcast October 17, 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
OVERVIEW
Riley’s Super-soldier serum is killing him, and he may not live long enough to get to the surgery that would save him but make him a normal man again. Meanwhile, something strange is happening with Buffy’s sister.
SYNOPSIS
PROLOGUE
Patrolling gets crowded as Riley and Spike both horn in on Buffy’s vampire-killing action. Riley is getting a little over-eager.
ACT I
Buffy’s re-energized dedication to becoming the ultimate Slayer means harder work than ever, but it’s paying off in that for once her studies actually engage her. Meanwhile, Xander is using his hitherto-unseen powers of expert carpentry to help fix up Giles’ new magic shop. When Buffy arrives, they present her with a new Buffy Training Dojo, complete with practice dummy and pommel horse. And Riley’s still pretty darn wired.
Harmony, who is convinced that she has attained the status of Buffy’s arch-nemesis, hides out with Spike. This is good for Spike because although he can’t attack Buffy, she can do it for him with the right plan.
Mom serves Dawn some eggs and has a moment of clarity: “Who are you?” she asks, and the strain knocks her right to the floor. She’s rushed to the hospital, where Dawn chances to discover that Riley has an accelerated heartbeat.
ACT II
Riley’s heat is so accelerated he could have a heart attack and die at any moment, but he's convinced the Initiative Regimen has made him immune to all that. More to the point, he doesn’t want to be reduced by a possible Initiative operation to being a “normal,” non super-powered, boyfriend of the Slayer.
At home, Joyce has forgotten her confusion about Dawn. Dawn, meanwhile, comes up with the way for Buffy to ask for the help of the Initiative: talk into Riley’s phone, because it’s probably bugged.
It is, and soon Riley’s Initiative buddy Agent Graham shows up to kidnap Riley into medical care. Riley runs and goes into hiding, and Buffy takes charge of bringing him in.
Buffy hires Spike to search the tunnels, but Spike and harmony have a better idea, and kidnap the Initiative surgeon in town so he can remove the aggressiveness-punishing chip in Spike’s head.
ACT III
In a cave, Buffy catches up to Riley and convinces him to come in for the operation, vowing not to abandon him just because he can’t bench what she can.
The Initiative doctor is nervous about doing the operation at the medical school where Harmony and Spike have set him up, but they have faith in his survival instinct.
Meanwhile, Willow and Tara hunt for Riley at the old High School, where we learn that Willow can now use her magic to light a whole building.
ACT IV
The doctor finishes the operation and has Spike stitched up in time for Riley and Buffy to bust into lab so Riley can begin his operation. It turns out, however, that the doctor actually only pretended to remove the chip from Spike’s brain, leaving Spike to run for his life, still unable to fight Buffy.
Alive but normalizing, Riley runs into Graham, who suggests his time would be better spent back working for the government, not sitting on the sidelines as a Slayer’s boyfriend.
We fade out with a dream of Spike’s, in which he and the Slayer kiss. Spike wakes up in a cold (vampire) sweat, dreading the thought that he may be falling for the Slayer.
NOTES
Finally, the mystery of Dawn is coming home to roost. "Out of My Mind" is the episode in which Joyce Summers looks straight at the girl she thinks is her daughter and short-circuits her own brain when she asks, "Who are you?"
I've been really interested in this storyline because I can't recall a time in television when this sort of reality-shift has lasted more than one episode. On Star Trek, it usually gets recognized by the more gifted characters in about Act 3 and fixed by the end, so too in similar Buffy episodes, but Dawn's existence has gone off without a hitch since the season began. One of the best choices of the story, if I'm reading it right, is that Dawn seems to lack awareness that she doesn't belong, which should make her extrication all the more painful and dramatic.
I also want to mention that Michelle Trachtenberg is yet another excellent Buffy discovery; her brattiness and confusion are all dead-on and never cloying. She's nervous, vulnerable, shaky and awkward, and still a holy terror, and I believe everything the actress says and does. I also appreciate that she eats-- or at least roots around in the box of-- Sugar Bombs, breakfast of Calvins.
Best moment? Buffy has a monologue early on about how hard work should be more like a montage. “I’m starting to think this working hard is hard work,” she says, when she had hoped there would be inspirational music and flitting scenes of her reading ("with glasses, because in my montage I have glasses.") It's a wonderful self-referential moment, and so very true of both hard work and pop ideas of hard work.
Minot notes:
Harmony the super-villain moves back in with Spike, who still doesn't get the chip out, but at least now has someone to do his bidding, more or less. I'm tired of seeing Spike made a foil; I'd like to see him take a turn for the far worse. Instead, he seems to be falling for Buffy. Spike has the makings of an excellent and cruel villain, should the show ever decide to release him from the strange role as hateful ally he occupies now. This episode goes a long way towards that, though.
Willow’s become a powerful witch this season, and she's getting pretty scary. Recently episode she accidentally brought rain when she built a fire, but I don't think that will happen again.
As Tara and Willow explore the burnt-out school, I had to wonder, shouldn't someone have torn that place down by now?
Last episode I said Riley is doomed. Now I think he may just wander off.
QUOTES
Tara: “This place kind of creeps me out.”
Willow: “You should have been here when it was a school.”
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- No Place Like Home
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 5, Episode “No Place Like Home”
Broadcast October 24, 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
We open two months ago in a monastery, where a powerful force escapes the monks who guard it. We move to today, in Sunnydale, where a security guard chasing Buffy away from a warehouse hands picks a glowing orb off the ground and hands it to her, presuming the orb to be hers.
ACT I
Joyce Summers is still headachy and woozy, while Dawn and Buffy compete for her affection over fresh breakfast. The sisters head for Giles’ Magic Shop’s grand opening, where Dawn breaks things, insults Riley and infuriates her sister, all more or less by accident. Buffy’s wishing she were an only child, especially because Joyce is so close to Dawn. Dawn is the baby, Willow explains, which is why she’s closer right now to Buffy’s Mom.
Buffy, alarmed by Joyce’s headaches, heads for the hospital pharmacy to fill a prescription and talk to the doctor. She helps control a mad patient who she recognizes as the warehouse security guard. He tells her, “They’re coming for you... through your family.”
Meanwhile, at the warehouse, a monk calls for “the Beast” and conjures a blond girl in a red dress.
ACT II
Still no luck figuring out the origin of the orb Buffy found, but now Buffy knows there’s a supernatural connection to her mother’s headaches.
Meanwhile, the devilish blond girl tortures and interrogates the monk looking for “the key.” She kills a security guard, but the monk won’t talk.
At the magic shop, the gang all seem to be working for Giles while Anya suggests they use an old spell called “Pull the Curtain Back” to reveal the source of the spell affecting Joyce.
For no particular reason I can ascertain Buffy, not Willow, will cast this spell. Buffy goes into a deep trance as she sits in a magic circle.
Buffy rises and walks the house in a deep-concentration trance: she walks downstairs and talks to her mom, seeing no magic on her mother. But a family photograph flickers-- Dawn is fading in and out, and the same effect appears on every family photo. In Dawn’s room, the child’s shelves and desk flicker and trade places with the clutter of an unused room. And Dawn herself flickers in and out.
“You’re not my sister,” Buffy says.
ACT III
Buffy attacks Dawn (“Stay away from my mother!”) but Dawn seems genuinely confused (or is she?) Meanwhile, Giles calls to tell her that the sphere is a protective device to ward off evil.
Outside the house, Buffy runs into Spike, who trades barbs with her until his newfound love for her overtakes him enough that he sums it all up with, “And I never really liked you anyway, and you have stupid hair.”
Joyce comes home and Dawn is suddenly very creepy, while Buffy goes to the warehouse to get thrown across the room by the devil in a red dress.
ACT IV
The first day at Giles’ shop was a huge success, so Giles hires Anya, who is broke and knows the merchandise.
Meanwhile, blond devil has the strength of the Hulk and Buffy has little choice but to take the captive monk and run. The monk tells her to protect “the key” from the devil woman, or many more will die.
The orb is not the key. Dawn is the key. The monks took the good energy they protected and cast a spell, gave it human form, and sent it to Buffy’s life. Buffy must protect Dawn, which is why she was placed in Buffy’s household. Buffy resents the false memories that have been sent to her, but starts a new truce with Dawn, who is an innocent in all this and doesn’t know where she really came from.
NOTES
Well, here's a result I didn’t expect. Watching the Dawn plot play out across the early part of this season has been a joy because of all the different balls Joss Whedon was juggling. Buffy introduced sister Dawn as almost a concession to the gods of TV, adding exactly one late-season retro-active history change (a sister) but doing it the Buffy way. This meant that Dawn came on the show at the end of an episode, so we all knew we weren't supposed to simply accept her presence, and then Buffy herself slowly came to her awareness of the anomaly over several episodes. (To be more accurate, she never really came that far until this episode, when a spell she casts points Dawn out as otherworldly. Before that her annoyance with Dawn is, all told, pretty normal sister stuff.)
And in fact I've enjoyed Michelle Trachtenberg's performance as Dawn, the awkward sister of the Slayer who has a crush on Xander and an inability to say the appropriate thing. When Willow says, “I just have all this involuntary empathy for Dawn, because she’s, you know, a big spaz,” we all know whereof she speaks. Frankly, we're meant to think, Buffy needs to cut the kid some slack and quit being such a whiner.
Except Dawn, even more than the rest of this imaginary cast, isn't real, and for a moment we think Dawn may be a demon out to kill Joyce. (Awkwardly, Trachtenberg is directed to act Bad Seed creepy in the scene in which Joyce comes home.) But the truth is even stranger: Dawn is a created human, integrated by a spell into their lives. Her soul is a mystical key Buffy must protect, but the body and personality are sincere. She really does think she's Buffy's sister, Joyce's daughter, and in fact the whole world has changed enough to make it more or less the truth. Now Buffy is faced with the problem of protecting a sister she knows isn't hers, a sister experienced through memories that aren't even real.
Except-- except-- that they are real, after all, in as much as they're shared by other people in her life (and also inasmuch as this is dramatic performance, in which Buffy's face can change between high schools.) The world itself has changed to make these memories real. The effect for the show, for now, is that Dawn Summers is here to stay. Good thing, because I'm not sure we wanted to see Buffy kill Dawn, as much as she seems to want to justify the act.
Also in this scene, Giles' new vocation, Magic Shop Owner, goes off without a hitch, and it's nice to see the show take on a new set piece (complete with Buffycave in the back.)
Ah, isn't it time for Buffy to get back to college? Is it still Summer in Sunnydale, or has existence been altered perfectly except that the monks forgot to build semesters back into the equation.
QUOTES
Giles: “[This orb] appears to be paranormal in origin.”
Willow: “How can you tell?”
Giles: “Well, it’s so shiny.”
Xander: "'Please leave' has now been replaced by 'Have a nice day.'"
Anya: "But I already have their money."
Xander: “Yeah. It’s just a long cultural condition of raging insincerity. Embrace it.”
Buffy: “What are you doing here? Five words or less.”
Spike: “Out for a walk. Bitch.”
Season 5, Episode “No Place Like Home”
Broadcast October 24, 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
We open two months ago in a monastery, where a powerful force escapes the monks who guard it. We move to today, in Sunnydale, where a security guard chasing Buffy away from a warehouse hands picks a glowing orb off the ground and hands it to her, presuming the orb to be hers.
ACT I
Joyce Summers is still headachy and woozy, while Dawn and Buffy compete for her affection over fresh breakfast. The sisters head for Giles’ Magic Shop’s grand opening, where Dawn breaks things, insults Riley and infuriates her sister, all more or less by accident. Buffy’s wishing she were an only child, especially because Joyce is so close to Dawn. Dawn is the baby, Willow explains, which is why she’s closer right now to Buffy’s Mom.
Buffy, alarmed by Joyce’s headaches, heads for the hospital pharmacy to fill a prescription and talk to the doctor. She helps control a mad patient who she recognizes as the warehouse security guard. He tells her, “They’re coming for you... through your family.”
Meanwhile, at the warehouse, a monk calls for “the Beast” and conjures a blond girl in a red dress.
ACT II
Still no luck figuring out the origin of the orb Buffy found, but now Buffy knows there’s a supernatural connection to her mother’s headaches.
Meanwhile, the devilish blond girl tortures and interrogates the monk looking for “the key.” She kills a security guard, but the monk won’t talk.
At the magic shop, the gang all seem to be working for Giles while Anya suggests they use an old spell called “Pull the Curtain Back” to reveal the source of the spell affecting Joyce.
For no particular reason I can ascertain Buffy, not Willow, will cast this spell. Buffy goes into a deep trance as she sits in a magic circle.
Buffy rises and walks the house in a deep-concentration trance: she walks downstairs and talks to her mom, seeing no magic on her mother. But a family photograph flickers-- Dawn is fading in and out, and the same effect appears on every family photo. In Dawn’s room, the child’s shelves and desk flicker and trade places with the clutter of an unused room. And Dawn herself flickers in and out.
“You’re not my sister,” Buffy says.
ACT III
Buffy attacks Dawn (“Stay away from my mother!”) but Dawn seems genuinely confused (or is she?) Meanwhile, Giles calls to tell her that the sphere is a protective device to ward off evil.
Outside the house, Buffy runs into Spike, who trades barbs with her until his newfound love for her overtakes him enough that he sums it all up with, “And I never really liked you anyway, and you have stupid hair.”
Joyce comes home and Dawn is suddenly very creepy, while Buffy goes to the warehouse to get thrown across the room by the devil in a red dress.
ACT IV
The first day at Giles’ shop was a huge success, so Giles hires Anya, who is broke and knows the merchandise.
Meanwhile, blond devil has the strength of the Hulk and Buffy has little choice but to take the captive monk and run. The monk tells her to protect “the key” from the devil woman, or many more will die.
The orb is not the key. Dawn is the key. The monks took the good energy they protected and cast a spell, gave it human form, and sent it to Buffy’s life. Buffy must protect Dawn, which is why she was placed in Buffy’s household. Buffy resents the false memories that have been sent to her, but starts a new truce with Dawn, who is an innocent in all this and doesn’t know where she really came from.
NOTES
Well, here's a result I didn’t expect. Watching the Dawn plot play out across the early part of this season has been a joy because of all the different balls Joss Whedon was juggling. Buffy introduced sister Dawn as almost a concession to the gods of TV, adding exactly one late-season retro-active history change (a sister) but doing it the Buffy way. This meant that Dawn came on the show at the end of an episode, so we all knew we weren't supposed to simply accept her presence, and then Buffy herself slowly came to her awareness of the anomaly over several episodes. (To be more accurate, she never really came that far until this episode, when a spell she casts points Dawn out as otherworldly. Before that her annoyance with Dawn is, all told, pretty normal sister stuff.)
And in fact I've enjoyed Michelle Trachtenberg's performance as Dawn, the awkward sister of the Slayer who has a crush on Xander and an inability to say the appropriate thing. When Willow says, “I just have all this involuntary empathy for Dawn, because she’s, you know, a big spaz,” we all know whereof she speaks. Frankly, we're meant to think, Buffy needs to cut the kid some slack and quit being such a whiner.
Except Dawn, even more than the rest of this imaginary cast, isn't real, and for a moment we think Dawn may be a demon out to kill Joyce. (Awkwardly, Trachtenberg is directed to act Bad Seed creepy in the scene in which Joyce comes home.) But the truth is even stranger: Dawn is a created human, integrated by a spell into their lives. Her soul is a mystical key Buffy must protect, but the body and personality are sincere. She really does think she's Buffy's sister, Joyce's daughter, and in fact the whole world has changed enough to make it more or less the truth. Now Buffy is faced with the problem of protecting a sister she knows isn't hers, a sister experienced through memories that aren't even real.
Except-- except-- that they are real, after all, in as much as they're shared by other people in her life (and also inasmuch as this is dramatic performance, in which Buffy's face can change between high schools.) The world itself has changed to make these memories real. The effect for the show, for now, is that Dawn Summers is here to stay. Good thing, because I'm not sure we wanted to see Buffy kill Dawn, as much as she seems to want to justify the act.
Also in this scene, Giles' new vocation, Magic Shop Owner, goes off without a hitch, and it's nice to see the show take on a new set piece (complete with Buffycave in the back.)
Ah, isn't it time for Buffy to get back to college? Is it still Summer in Sunnydale, or has existence been altered perfectly except that the monks forgot to build semesters back into the equation.
QUOTES
Giles: “[This orb] appears to be paranormal in origin.”
Willow: “How can you tell?”
Giles: “Well, it’s so shiny.”
Xander: "'Please leave' has now been replaced by 'Have a nice day.'"
Anya: "But I already have their money."
Xander: “Yeah. It’s just a long cultural condition of raging insincerity. Embrace it.”
Buffy: “What are you doing here? Five words or less.”
Spike: “Out for a walk. Bitch.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Pangs
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 4
Episode: “Pangs”
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
Angel: David Boreanaz
Prologue
After Buffy dispatches a campus vampire as usual, we spot Angel-- who’s supposed to be in LA, spying on her in the bushes.
Act 1
UCSD Dean Guerrero introduces Professor Gerhard, who’s breaking ground on a new Cultural Center. Xander, an honorary ground-breaker, breaks right through to a tunnel below, which turns out to be a lost “Sunnydale Mission,” swallowed by an earthquake long ago.
Buffy senses someone watching her (it’s Angel.)
Despite Willow’s hatred of Thanksgiving and Buffy’s mom being out of town, Buffy decides to invite all her friends over to her Mom’s place, including Xander’s new love, Anya. (This irritates Willow.)
Xander turns up sick the next day, and Anya insists he spend the day in bed.
And at the University, a Chumash Indian, (long destroyed) manifests itself, seizes a Chumash ceremonial knife and immediately slices Professor Gerhard’s throat.
Act 2
Professor Gerhard turns up sans one ear, so Buffy and Willow suspect a witch, but they put Giles on the importance of the knife. Giles, meanwhile, is harboring Angel. Angel has come to Sunnydale because his mystic friend Doyle had a vision of Buffy in danger.
Meanwhile, Spike, essentially vampirically neutered by the Initiative so that he cannot feed, wanders like a lost soul until he finally goes back to Harmony, who tells him to “get out,” and threatens to stake the pitiful vampire.
Angel finds Willow, tells her he’s got to keep his presence a secret from Buffy, and is troubled to see Buffy flirting with New Guy Riley.
Buff goes to consult with priest Father Gabriel and finds the Chumash, Hus, skewering him. He’s out for justice, he says, and disappears in a cloud of ravens.
Act 3
Buffy’s conflicted about having to Slay the warrior of Chumash, who were a peaceful tribe slaughtered by the Europeans and herded into the disease-riddled mission. Yes, yes, very sad, Giles says, basically, but he still can’t get away with killing people. Xander, meanwhile, shows up at Thanksgiving complaining of various diseases he’s contracted from the ghosts of the Mission. “He’s a vengeance demon,” Xander says. “You don’t talk to vengeance demons, you kill them.” Giles agrees: “Hatred is a cycle; all he will do is kill.”
While the whimpering Spike turns to Buffy for help, the Chumash conjures a whole army of his former comrades.
Act 4
Buffy lets the neutered Spike come inside, but only if she can tie him up. Giles realizes that Xander is the only non-authority figure the Chumash has killed. The Gang decides that since they have an hour before dinner’s ready, Xander, Willow and Anya go check out the Dean. He's fine; but they run into Angel, who tells them the Chumash arsenal in the museum is missing. Meanwhile, the Chumash have decided Buffy is the head warrior of the conquerors and lay siege on Giles’ place with volley after volley of arrows.
The rest of the Slayer Gang arrive (on bicycles-- cavalry, see) and full war breaks out. The Gang fights admirably while Spike tries to avoid an arrow through the heart. Angel kills almost all the Indians but stays outside Buffy’s house and unseen by her; the Gang wins using Chumash weapons, the only weapons that can kill them.
Afterwards, the Gang reflects on its prowess over Thanksgiving Dinner, and Willow says it was “just like old times.” “Yeah, especially with Angel being here and all,” adds Xander, before he realizes he’s just given away the secret. (Angel, by now, is long gone.)
NOTES
Whereas Buffy’s Christmas Episode last season was a fairly traditional seasonal tale, this Thanksgiving episode is more along the lines of what one might expect from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. Which is to say, it’s a satire on Thanksgiving Episodes of other shows.
As with all humans on television, the characters' families are conveniently dispensed with so our family, the characters we see each week, can end up at a table together. It’s wonderful that, although Angel can’t join them, Spike can, even if he’s tied to his chair lest he try to bite someone.
I also enjoyed the fact that this episode makes a genuine effort at reconciling the family feast tradition with the newer PC concept that the beginning of colonial conquest should be regretted, not commemorated. Every character gets to comment on this, with Buffy falling in the middle as the conscience of the show, Willow taking the extreme left, Xander moderate left, and Giles and Spike (Englishmen, therefore subjects of a once-thriving empire) falling to the right. And as always, it’s handled with humor. (And violence; how wonderful that the episode slyly includes a debate about the treatment of American Indians and yet involves a siege from face-painted, arrow-shooting redskins.)
A few other thoughts, no particular order:
*I like Anya’s blithe pronouncement of Thanksgiving dinner as a “blood sacrifice:” “To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It’s a sacrifice of blood.” The former man-killing demon is integrating herself nicely into the group, but Willow’s grumbling about it. Hmmm.
* Why is Xander a groundbreaker? Because the plot says so, that’s why.
*Anya
* Giles and Angel now have something in common-- it’s not either of their jobs anymore to be looking after Buffy, and yet they both do it. It was interesting to see them in collusion.
* It’s Hilarious when Spike looks wistfully through a window on vampires killing, a wonderful visual play on the old chestnut of the poor vagrant, complete with a blanket around his head, who usually pines away at happy diners in holiday movies where a rich man learns to care, or something. Spike is the best part of the whole episode and has all the best lines, including a brilliantly cynical speech about the plight of the Indians. His take is that the Europeans had better learn to live with their own aggression because they wielded it very well. “You had better weapons and you annihilated them,” he says.
* This is more a question. Several times characters use the term “Indian,” and are corrected by others who seem to want them to say “Native American” (the gag is, no-one ever gets the term out). But I wonder is what’s behind this constant play is that we seem to have had yet another cultural shift, and the group involved, formerly known as Native Americans, now prefer the term “Indian” (or at the very least, resented a new term being foisted upon them. I have no idea what’s the correct term.
QUOTES
“It is a sham, but it’s a sham with yams.”
--Buffy, on why we continue our insensitive Thanksgiving ritual.
“I’m still trying to not call you lot “bloody colonials.”
-- Giles, struggling with his terms
“I’m saying that Spike had a little trip to the vet and now he doesn’t chase the other puppies anymore.”
-- Spike himself, trying to explain what the Initiative did to him (the made him unable to bite.)
“You won. You came in, you killed them, and you took their land. That’s what conquering nations do.”
-- Spike, laying it all out for us
“Hey. Sorry. Sorry about that, chief.”
-- Spike once more, changing his mind and apologizing to the Chumash in hopes they’ll not shoot an arrow through his heart, and incidentally quoting Maxwell Smart.
Season 4
Episode: “Pangs”
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
Angel: David Boreanaz
Prologue
After Buffy dispatches a campus vampire as usual, we spot Angel-- who’s supposed to be in LA, spying on her in the bushes.
Act 1
UCSD Dean Guerrero introduces Professor Gerhard, who’s breaking ground on a new Cultural Center. Xander, an honorary ground-breaker, breaks right through to a tunnel below, which turns out to be a lost “Sunnydale Mission,” swallowed by an earthquake long ago.
Buffy senses someone watching her (it’s Angel.)
Despite Willow’s hatred of Thanksgiving and Buffy’s mom being out of town, Buffy decides to invite all her friends over to her Mom’s place, including Xander’s new love, Anya. (This irritates Willow.)
Xander turns up sick the next day, and Anya insists he spend the day in bed.
And at the University, a Chumash Indian, (long destroyed) manifests itself, seizes a Chumash ceremonial knife and immediately slices Professor Gerhard’s throat.
Act 2
Professor Gerhard turns up sans one ear, so Buffy and Willow suspect a witch, but they put Giles on the importance of the knife. Giles, meanwhile, is harboring Angel. Angel has come to Sunnydale because his mystic friend Doyle had a vision of Buffy in danger.
Meanwhile, Spike, essentially vampirically neutered by the Initiative so that he cannot feed, wanders like a lost soul until he finally goes back to Harmony, who tells him to “get out,” and threatens to stake the pitiful vampire.
Angel finds Willow, tells her he’s got to keep his presence a secret from Buffy, and is troubled to see Buffy flirting with New Guy Riley.
Buff goes to consult with priest Father Gabriel and finds the Chumash, Hus, skewering him. He’s out for justice, he says, and disappears in a cloud of ravens.
Act 3
Buffy’s conflicted about having to Slay the warrior of Chumash, who were a peaceful tribe slaughtered by the Europeans and herded into the disease-riddled mission. Yes, yes, very sad, Giles says, basically, but he still can’t get away with killing people. Xander, meanwhile, shows up at Thanksgiving complaining of various diseases he’s contracted from the ghosts of the Mission. “He’s a vengeance demon,” Xander says. “You don’t talk to vengeance demons, you kill them.” Giles agrees: “Hatred is a cycle; all he will do is kill.”
While the whimpering Spike turns to Buffy for help, the Chumash conjures a whole army of his former comrades.
Act 4
Buffy lets the neutered Spike come inside, but only if she can tie him up. Giles realizes that Xander is the only non-authority figure the Chumash has killed. The Gang decides that since they have an hour before dinner’s ready, Xander, Willow and Anya go check out the Dean. He's fine; but they run into Angel, who tells them the Chumash arsenal in the museum is missing. Meanwhile, the Chumash have decided Buffy is the head warrior of the conquerors and lay siege on Giles’ place with volley after volley of arrows.
The rest of the Slayer Gang arrive (on bicycles-- cavalry, see) and full war breaks out. The Gang fights admirably while Spike tries to avoid an arrow through the heart. Angel kills almost all the Indians but stays outside Buffy’s house and unseen by her; the Gang wins using Chumash weapons, the only weapons that can kill them.
Afterwards, the Gang reflects on its prowess over Thanksgiving Dinner, and Willow says it was “just like old times.” “Yeah, especially with Angel being here and all,” adds Xander, before he realizes he’s just given away the secret. (Angel, by now, is long gone.)
NOTES
Whereas Buffy’s Christmas Episode last season was a fairly traditional seasonal tale, this Thanksgiving episode is more along the lines of what one might expect from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. Which is to say, it’s a satire on Thanksgiving Episodes of other shows.
As with all humans on television, the characters' families are conveniently dispensed with so our family, the characters we see each week, can end up at a table together. It’s wonderful that, although Angel can’t join them, Spike can, even if he’s tied to his chair lest he try to bite someone.
I also enjoyed the fact that this episode makes a genuine effort at reconciling the family feast tradition with the newer PC concept that the beginning of colonial conquest should be regretted, not commemorated. Every character gets to comment on this, with Buffy falling in the middle as the conscience of the show, Willow taking the extreme left, Xander moderate left, and Giles and Spike (Englishmen, therefore subjects of a once-thriving empire) falling to the right. And as always, it’s handled with humor. (And violence; how wonderful that the episode slyly includes a debate about the treatment of American Indians and yet involves a siege from face-painted, arrow-shooting redskins.)
A few other thoughts, no particular order:
*I like Anya’s blithe pronouncement of Thanksgiving dinner as a “blood sacrifice:” “To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It’s a sacrifice of blood.” The former man-killing demon is integrating herself nicely into the group, but Willow’s grumbling about it. Hmmm.
* Why is Xander a groundbreaker? Because the plot says so, that’s why.
*Anya
* Giles and Angel now have something in common-- it’s not either of their jobs anymore to be looking after Buffy, and yet they both do it. It was interesting to see them in collusion.
* It’s Hilarious when Spike looks wistfully through a window on vampires killing, a wonderful visual play on the old chestnut of the poor vagrant, complete with a blanket around his head, who usually pines away at happy diners in holiday movies where a rich man learns to care, or something. Spike is the best part of the whole episode and has all the best lines, including a brilliantly cynical speech about the plight of the Indians. His take is that the Europeans had better learn to live with their own aggression because they wielded it very well. “You had better weapons and you annihilated them,” he says.
* This is more a question. Several times characters use the term “Indian,” and are corrected by others who seem to want them to say “Native American” (the gag is, no-one ever gets the term out). But I wonder is what’s behind this constant play is that we seem to have had yet another cultural shift, and the group involved, formerly known as Native Americans, now prefer the term “Indian” (or at the very least, resented a new term being foisted upon them. I have no idea what’s the correct term.
QUOTES
“It is a sham, but it’s a sham with yams.”
--Buffy, on why we continue our insensitive Thanksgiving ritual.
“I’m still trying to not call you lot “bloody colonials.”
-- Giles, struggling with his terms
“I’m saying that Spike had a little trip to the vet and now he doesn’t chase the other puppies anymore.”
-- Spike himself, trying to explain what the Initiative did to him (the made him unable to bite.)
“You won. You came in, you killed them, and you took their land. That’s what conquering nations do.”
-- Spike, laying it all out for us
“Hey. Sorry. Sorry about that, chief.”
-- Spike once more, changing his mind and apologizing to the Chumash in hopes they’ll not shoot an arrow through his heart, and incidentally quoting Maxwell Smart.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- The Body
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Episode "The Body"
Broadcast February 27, 2001
"The Body" is one of the most mature examinations of everyday death I've ever seen on television, and certainly one of the most memorable episodes of Buffy. The episode recalls other moments in the series when Buffy has suddenly taken a left turn into M*A*S*H territory. The episode involves no plot other than the slow dissemination of and digestion of the news of the death of Kristine Sutherland's Joyce Summers.
The trick of the episode is that it moves in merciless, almost real time, and beginning with the first scene, in which Buffy discovers her mother's body on the sofa in the den. The camera doesn't shy away from showing us what Buffy sees: Joyce, pale and cold and vacantly staring. Buffy does everything we expect her to do; she calls EMS, can't quite remember how to do CPR, and moves as if somehow floating outside her own body.
This whole sequence, in which Buffy seems to be going through the motions of being conscious, is written with a keen sense of how people behave in traumatic situations. (The scene will be echoed repeatedly though the episode as different characters talk and seem to be slightly disconnected.) And over and over again we see Joyce, still very much dead. Although Buffy has shown bodies before, this episode could be disturbing for younger viewers-- it was disturbing for me, and I think it was one of the finest episodes of the series so far. What comes through most clearly in the sheer slowness of the episode is the lack of editing in life. Joyce is dead and we don't cut to commercial, we sit down and wander around the room and she's still dead, and will be forever.
Buffy's first memory when she finds Joyce is the sort of memory Thornton Wilder called the most painful: the least important. Buffy flashes to an utterly ordinary Thanksgiving dinner, the dialogue in which offers no double meanings or ominous portents, followed by another flash to the body. Buffy watches as arriving paramedics try to revive Joyce and fantasizes that Joyce survives, but soon the paramedics have another emergency call and leave Buffy to wait for the coroner. It's not until Giles arrives that Buffy heads out to tell Dawn at school.
Dawn has her own issues. We see Dawn's school life here for the first time as she and her best friend wander navigate what seem to be another series' worth of subplots (bully girl, hunky crush, art class)-- when Buffy arrives to tell her that their mother is dead. Dawn remains agitated and angry throughout the episode because she needs to see the body of her mother to be satisfied that what she has been told is true. She also can't verbalize this need, although she does ask if they're going to see her. Dawn finally does sneak into the morgue to see the body, which doesn't happen until after Buffy saves her from a random vampire. (It's almost daring that the show retains its Buffy-ness; there are still supernatural dangers all over the Hellmouth.)
Meanwhile, the rest of the Scooby Gang wander in the sort of daze most of us will recognize from such situations. I like that the individuals deal with the death with different but equal impotence. Xander is the angry one, double-parking despite the traffic police, punching walls, and cursing doctors. Anya is the child, not really knowing what to say, entirely new to death in a mortal world, only vaguely aware of what is appropriate to say. I liked her anger that no one will tell her what she's expected to do. Willow, meanwhile, sublimates her grief below an obsession with finding the right blouse to show her support for Buffy.
The coolest head is Tara, who keeps her stutter but tells Buffy she's navigated these waters before. Tara's mom died when the girl was 17, she tells Buffy. She even knows what's liable to trigger anger and says she knows Buffy's situation is different. She does a similar trick with Willow, offering to look for Willow's blouse long after Willow has lost all perspective. Tara tells Buffy that nothing she's likely to be feeling will make a lot of sense.
This is a fantastic episode, slow and painful, and very authentic. When I heard Joyce would be dying on Buffy I pictured typical action-show grief; chiefly a montage of Buffy on long drives. What we got, instead, was an episode that tries to drag us down into the few moments right at the beginning of grief. It's a fine picture, and a fine moment in television.
Episode "The Body"
Broadcast February 27, 2001
"The Body" is one of the most mature examinations of everyday death I've ever seen on television, and certainly one of the most memorable episodes of Buffy. The episode recalls other moments in the series when Buffy has suddenly taken a left turn into M*A*S*H territory. The episode involves no plot other than the slow dissemination of and digestion of the news of the death of Kristine Sutherland's Joyce Summers.
The trick of the episode is that it moves in merciless, almost real time, and beginning with the first scene, in which Buffy discovers her mother's body on the sofa in the den. The camera doesn't shy away from showing us what Buffy sees: Joyce, pale and cold and vacantly staring. Buffy does everything we expect her to do; she calls EMS, can't quite remember how to do CPR, and moves as if somehow floating outside her own body.
This whole sequence, in which Buffy seems to be going through the motions of being conscious, is written with a keen sense of how people behave in traumatic situations. (The scene will be echoed repeatedly though the episode as different characters talk and seem to be slightly disconnected.) And over and over again we see Joyce, still very much dead. Although Buffy has shown bodies before, this episode could be disturbing for younger viewers-- it was disturbing for me, and I think it was one of the finest episodes of the series so far. What comes through most clearly in the sheer slowness of the episode is the lack of editing in life. Joyce is dead and we don't cut to commercial, we sit down and wander around the room and she's still dead, and will be forever.
Buffy's first memory when she finds Joyce is the sort of memory Thornton Wilder called the most painful: the least important. Buffy flashes to an utterly ordinary Thanksgiving dinner, the dialogue in which offers no double meanings or ominous portents, followed by another flash to the body. Buffy watches as arriving paramedics try to revive Joyce and fantasizes that Joyce survives, but soon the paramedics have another emergency call and leave Buffy to wait for the coroner. It's not until Giles arrives that Buffy heads out to tell Dawn at school.
Dawn has her own issues. We see Dawn's school life here for the first time as she and her best friend wander navigate what seem to be another series' worth of subplots (bully girl, hunky crush, art class)-- when Buffy arrives to tell her that their mother is dead. Dawn remains agitated and angry throughout the episode because she needs to see the body of her mother to be satisfied that what she has been told is true. She also can't verbalize this need, although she does ask if they're going to see her. Dawn finally does sneak into the morgue to see the body, which doesn't happen until after Buffy saves her from a random vampire. (It's almost daring that the show retains its Buffy-ness; there are still supernatural dangers all over the Hellmouth.)
Meanwhile, the rest of the Scooby Gang wander in the sort of daze most of us will recognize from such situations. I like that the individuals deal with the death with different but equal impotence. Xander is the angry one, double-parking despite the traffic police, punching walls, and cursing doctors. Anya is the child, not really knowing what to say, entirely new to death in a mortal world, only vaguely aware of what is appropriate to say. I liked her anger that no one will tell her what she's expected to do. Willow, meanwhile, sublimates her grief below an obsession with finding the right blouse to show her support for Buffy.
The coolest head is Tara, who keeps her stutter but tells Buffy she's navigated these waters before. Tara's mom died when the girl was 17, she tells Buffy. She even knows what's liable to trigger anger and says she knows Buffy's situation is different. She does a similar trick with Willow, offering to look for Willow's blouse long after Willow has lost all perspective. Tara tells Buffy that nothing she's likely to be feeling will make a lot of sense.
This is a fantastic episode, slow and painful, and very authentic. When I heard Joyce would be dying on Buffy I pictured typical action-show grief; chiefly a montage of Buffy on long drives. What we got, instead, was an episode that tries to drag us down into the few moments right at the beginning of grief. It's a fine picture, and a fine moment in television.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Something Blue
Buffy, The Vampire Slayer
Season 4, Episode "Something Blue"
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
SYNOPSIS
Prologue
Willow, the witch whose werewolf boyfriend Oz just left, mopes around in his dorm room, while cute TA Riley makes picnic plans with Buffy. Buffy worries that true love cannot exist without danger, so maybe he’s too normal. (He’s not.)
Act 1
Spike the Vampire has been chained up at Giles’ place since Thanksgiving, trading information for sips of pig’s blood from the Slayer Gang. Spike has information about the strange commandoes who captured and defanged him, as it were. Buffy enjoys taunting Spike, but Willow and Giles decide to whip up a “truth spell,” which Willow promises to return to work on in the morning.
But Willow goes for a loop when she finds Oz’ room cleared out. She forgets to come over to Giles’ and instead depresses Buffy and Riley before going on a beer bender until Buffy takes her forcibly home.
Determined to take a big shortcut around the healing pain of breaking up, Willow casts a spell in her (remarkably cavernous) bathroom-- a spell to make “her will be done.”
Act 2
Giles comes over to ask why Willow never showed, and in an argument she curses him idly with “You don’t see anything.” Giles starts going blind, giving Spike the opportunity to lift Giles’ key and escape.
When Buffy rushes off to catch Spike, Willow is irritated and declares that she’ll find him immediately, which she does-- in the yard outside. “Spike’s more important than me,” Will says petulantly, “why doesn’t she just go marry him.” At which point, the squinting Giles finds Spike on bended knee, and the slayer and vampire celebrating their new engagement.
Act 3
Xander’s next; Willow runs down the list of weird loves he’s had and pronounces him a “demon magnet.” Meanwhile, Giles is not blind enough yet to be spared the vision of Buffy and Spike cooing and planning their registry. (Buffy asks Giles to give her away.) When his vision cuts out, Buffy and Giles search for a reversal spell. Buffy runs into Riley, telling him all about her nuptials.
Anya and Xander’s makeout session in Xander’s Mom’s basement is interrupted by one big demon after another. At Giles’ place, Xander figures out what’s going on, but back on campus, a new demon has come for Willow.
Act 4
D’Hoffryn, the demon who created Anya, has heard Willow’s psychic scream and whisks Willow off to his dimension to offer her the same demon gig he gave Anya. Anya figures this out and they try to pursue before being waylaid by demons; Willow learns of their danger and rushes back to reverse her “harmful spell.” (She says no to the demon’s offer.) And as we close, the Gang eats cookies and Buffy and Spike hate one another once more, meaning the Slayer has to go back and convince Riley she’s still single. That’s easy.
NOTES
My will be done? That’s what Willow asks for? Not to be over her grief, not to have Oz back, but "her will be done," which is like asking a genii asking for more wishes. Still, it was a powerful spell Willow cast, and one wonders if her non-grief-riddled spells might backfire less.
Willow is offered a life as a demon! She nearly gets to be the new Anya, in fact. It's nice to see Anya put to some use, as well, even though Anya's attempts at opening a portal backfire. (But it's good to get a reminder about Anya, who just last season was trying to get Willow to join her in black magic.)
Once again, Xander nearly saves the day by figuring everything out-- except that he doesn't really save anything; Willow pretty much just notices she's caused a lot of trouble and cuts it out.
Really, this was one of those episodes that are funny but not particularly momentous. The running gag involving Buffy and Spike preparing to marry is wonderful, of course. I think my favorite moment is when Amy the rat becomes human, then goes back again, at Willow's completely unaware whim.
Three minor notes:
* What is all this business about Buffy not knowing anything about driving? This is California, for crying out loud.
* I continue to be amazed at how the show is morphing Giles into a regular guy, far less the dweeb he was in the first season. He's become almost normal character.
*For those who keep track, now nearly the whole cast has new hair. Willow and Xander were re-done at the start of the season, and now Anya's cut hers to an off-shoulder bob, while Buffy's going with a crimpy-wavy thing that, all in all, suits her. I can't believe I noticed this.
QUOTES
“Just think of my lips as the fruit roll-ups of love... okay, that was just gross.”
-- Xander to Anya, who loves her some fruit roll-ups
“This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed.”
-- Spike,
Season 4, Episode "Something Blue"
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
SYNOPSIS
Prologue
Willow, the witch whose werewolf boyfriend Oz just left, mopes around in his dorm room, while cute TA Riley makes picnic plans with Buffy. Buffy worries that true love cannot exist without danger, so maybe he’s too normal. (He’s not.)
Act 1
Spike the Vampire has been chained up at Giles’ place since Thanksgiving, trading information for sips of pig’s blood from the Slayer Gang. Spike has information about the strange commandoes who captured and defanged him, as it were. Buffy enjoys taunting Spike, but Willow and Giles decide to whip up a “truth spell,” which Willow promises to return to work on in the morning.
But Willow goes for a loop when she finds Oz’ room cleared out. She forgets to come over to Giles’ and instead depresses Buffy and Riley before going on a beer bender until Buffy takes her forcibly home.
Determined to take a big shortcut around the healing pain of breaking up, Willow casts a spell in her (remarkably cavernous) bathroom-- a spell to make “her will be done.”
Act 2
Giles comes over to ask why Willow never showed, and in an argument she curses him idly with “You don’t see anything.” Giles starts going blind, giving Spike the opportunity to lift Giles’ key and escape.
When Buffy rushes off to catch Spike, Willow is irritated and declares that she’ll find him immediately, which she does-- in the yard outside. “Spike’s more important than me,” Will says petulantly, “why doesn’t she just go marry him.” At which point, the squinting Giles finds Spike on bended knee, and the slayer and vampire celebrating their new engagement.
Act 3
Xander’s next; Willow runs down the list of weird loves he’s had and pronounces him a “demon magnet.” Meanwhile, Giles is not blind enough yet to be spared the vision of Buffy and Spike cooing and planning their registry. (Buffy asks Giles to give her away.) When his vision cuts out, Buffy and Giles search for a reversal spell. Buffy runs into Riley, telling him all about her nuptials.
Anya and Xander’s makeout session in Xander’s Mom’s basement is interrupted by one big demon after another. At Giles’ place, Xander figures out what’s going on, but back on campus, a new demon has come for Willow.
Act 4
D’Hoffryn, the demon who created Anya, has heard Willow’s psychic scream and whisks Willow off to his dimension to offer her the same demon gig he gave Anya. Anya figures this out and they try to pursue before being waylaid by demons; Willow learns of their danger and rushes back to reverse her “harmful spell.” (She says no to the demon’s offer.) And as we close, the Gang eats cookies and Buffy and Spike hate one another once more, meaning the Slayer has to go back and convince Riley she’s still single. That’s easy.
NOTES
My will be done? That’s what Willow asks for? Not to be over her grief, not to have Oz back, but "her will be done," which is like asking a genii asking for more wishes. Still, it was a powerful spell Willow cast, and one wonders if her non-grief-riddled spells might backfire less.
Willow is offered a life as a demon! She nearly gets to be the new Anya, in fact. It's nice to see Anya put to some use, as well, even though Anya's attempts at opening a portal backfire. (But it's good to get a reminder about Anya, who just last season was trying to get Willow to join her in black magic.)
Once again, Xander nearly saves the day by figuring everything out-- except that he doesn't really save anything; Willow pretty much just notices she's caused a lot of trouble and cuts it out.
Really, this was one of those episodes that are funny but not particularly momentous. The running gag involving Buffy and Spike preparing to marry is wonderful, of course. I think my favorite moment is when Amy the rat becomes human, then goes back again, at Willow's completely unaware whim.
Three minor notes:
* What is all this business about Buffy not knowing anything about driving? This is California, for crying out loud.
* I continue to be amazed at how the show is morphing Giles into a regular guy, far less the dweeb he was in the first season. He's become almost normal character.
*For those who keep track, now nearly the whole cast has new hair. Willow and Xander were re-done at the start of the season, and now Anya's cut hers to an off-shoulder bob, while Buffy's going with a crimpy-wavy thing that, all in all, suits her. I can't believe I noticed this.
QUOTES
“Just think of my lips as the fruit roll-ups of love... okay, that was just gross.”
-- Xander to Anya, who loves her some fruit roll-ups
“This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed.”
-- Spike,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Shadow
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“Shadow”
Broadcast November 21, 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
Joyce Summers, Buffy’s Mom, undergoes a CAT scan while Buffy comforts Dawn in the hospital waiting room.
At the Magic Box, Giles’ shop, Giles’ new yellow pages ad competes for attention with the gang’s worries about Riley’s avoidance of them all. Plus, they’re getting nowhere finding info on Buffy’s latest demon nemesis.
Her name is Glori, described by Buffy as being “a lot like Cordelia,” the Buffy, not the Shakespeare, character. Glori tries on new pumps in her swell apartment and receives a long-lost incantation from a toadying demon minion.
ACT I
Riley lets himself into Buffy’s house and catches Spike sniffing Buffy’s clothes. Spike taunts Riley by saying Buffy’s losing faith in him-- after all, she didn’t tell him they’re at the hospital.
Riley comes to the hospital, where Buffy says she didn’t want to tell him until she knew more about Joyce’s possible cancer. The cancer looks bad. Joyce has “low-grade glioma,” a tumor in the left hemisphere, her doctor says. And it’s going to kill her.
While the gang researches the demon, Glori herself walks in, unrecognized by any of them, buys the magic items she needs for her recently-acquired incantation, and walks out.
ACT II
Joyce’s illness may kill her quickly-- she may soon lose vision, muscle control. They may be able o remove her tumor, however. Even if it’s not operable, she might recover, however. The doctor asks a numbed Buffy a series of questions about habits, exposure to carcinogens, etc. The brain surgeon is sent away by charming young Dr. Ben, who knows Buffy needs a break. He recommends she go out and get some rest while Joyce sleeps.
Buffy wants to find a magic spell to fix Joyce, an idea Riley finds unlikely. She runs off, leaving Dawn with Riley.
Anya discovers that Giles sold the items needed for Glori’s conjuration spell-- meaning they put the items in the demon’s hand, and Buffy is going to be mad.
Riley takes Dawn to the park, where she shares tales of her mother’s support when she moved to Sunnydale and had no friends. She brings Riley down by saying what a great and safe guy is, compared with exciting Angel, who made Buffy all emotional.
Willow and Giles don’t think Buffy’s likely to find a magical spell for Joyce’s brain cancer. The mystical and medical were not meant to mix, Giles says. More immediately, they reveal that Glori now has the gear for her spell, which will conjure a big cobra demon. Buffy expects it to come for Dawn, whom she knows the demonic forces are looking for.
Buffy interrupts Glori’s conjuration at the reptile house at the zoo, tussles with Glori and gets knocked cold. As planned, Glori steals a cobra and makes a giant cobra demon of it.
ACT III
Buffy runs while Glori orders the cobra demon to find “the key,” and tell her where it is. (We know the key has been transformed into Dawn.)
At the Magic Box, Xander explains to Riley that Buffy needs to fight something, which explains her running off alone. But why has Riley been such a loner? Riley wanders off.
Buffy knows Dawn will head for the Magic Box after school, so it’s important they keep the snake from her. Meantime, Buffy waits for news at the hospital.
Riley, meanwhile, goes drinking, deliberately picks up a vampire, and appears to let her bite him before staking her at the last minute.
The cobra demon manages to follow Dawn’s scent to the Magic Box, barges in, appears to memorize Dawn’s appearance, and turns and runs for Glori.
ACT IV
The chase is on for the cobra demon, which Buffy can’t allow to get back to Glori. Finally Buffy catches it in the park, jumps atop it, and beats it to death with her fists.
Dawn is safe for now, but back at the hospital, Joyce says she needs to talk to Dawn alone and tell her how sick she is. And Buffy can’t let out her sadness, even for Riley, because her family needs her strength.
NOTES
"Shadow" earnestly begins what may be the most adult subject matter Buffy has ever tackled, that of cancer and the deadly sickness of a parent. Over the next several episodes we get to see Buffy separated from her Scooby Gang not because of mood or destiny, but by simple familial obligation. All of Buffy's reactions, such as her dull response to the doctor's questions, seem dead on. I appreciated her need to just hear what the doctor had to say; she's tired of sitting.
But of course, this is still Buffy, so the show gets to tackle with the question of what to do with a possibly terminal cancer in a world where a magic spell Willow cast gave Angel an entire soul back. Buffy wants to know if there's a spell to cure cancer, and right away the gang is skeptical-- why? Ultimately, because to allow her to find a magic cure would complicate the world entirely too much. It would beg the question of why anyone dies of cancer or any other disease, and any ramifications of the mixture of magic and medicine would sling the show into the realm of science fiction rather than fantasy. So Buffy is bound to run up against a strong taboo that keeps the show from dealing with the question.
Meanwhile, Riley, whom I've said before is doomed, doomed, doomed, has started skating right off the edge of sanity even without the benefit of a brain tumor. Whereas in normal adult dramas the boyfriend feeling sorry for himself would simply go pick up some nameless bar girl, here Riley picks up a vampire. But there's more at work here than the betrayal of trysting with Buffy's enemies: Riley seems to have taken Spike's words to heart and wants to become a vampire himself. Maybe. He can't go through with it just now, staking the vampire girl rather than drinking from her, in turn, to become a vampire himself. Pity, though, because Riley first appeared last season as a completely normal, together guy, even after he was revealed to be a spy. Blessed with the super-soldier powers of Captain America, now we get to see what might happen to Cap if you took his serum away. Of course, Riley happens to be stuck with Buffy the super-hero for a girlfriend, and she seems to have little use for him lately except as a babysitter. So he's suicidal. But I'm trying to imagine Marc Blucas as a vampire and nothing good is coming.
We can fault Spike with putting many of these ideas in Riley's head, but what do we want, Spike is resolutely evil whether that gang let him wander around unimpeded or not. Now, Spike is also in love with Buffy, a development played entirely for comedy around Spike's pitiful crush. One does wonder why, as Spike asks, hasn't Buffy ever barred him from her family's house, but it can't be love. God, what a mistake that would be.
Incidentally, Glori the Demon has got to be one of the cleverest creations the show has ever seen, a petite blonde with a sort of goofy, giddy delivery who nevertheless intends to destroy the world if she can just find "The Key," which has been transformed into Dawn Summers. It will be a pity to see Glori go.
QUOTES
Spike: “It’s a predator thing, nothing wrong with it, know your enemy’s scent, whet the appetite for the hunt. (Sniff.) That’s the stuff-- Slayer musk, bitter and aggravating. Grrr.”
Xander: “Just once I’d like to run into a cult of bunny worshippers.”
Anya: “Great. Thank you very much for those nightmares.”
“Shadow”
Broadcast November 21, 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
Joyce Summers, Buffy’s Mom, undergoes a CAT scan while Buffy comforts Dawn in the hospital waiting room.
At the Magic Box, Giles’ shop, Giles’ new yellow pages ad competes for attention with the gang’s worries about Riley’s avoidance of them all. Plus, they’re getting nowhere finding info on Buffy’s latest demon nemesis.
Her name is Glori, described by Buffy as being “a lot like Cordelia,” the Buffy, not the Shakespeare, character. Glori tries on new pumps in her swell apartment and receives a long-lost incantation from a toadying demon minion.
ACT I
Riley lets himself into Buffy’s house and catches Spike sniffing Buffy’s clothes. Spike taunts Riley by saying Buffy’s losing faith in him-- after all, she didn’t tell him they’re at the hospital.
Riley comes to the hospital, where Buffy says she didn’t want to tell him until she knew more about Joyce’s possible cancer. The cancer looks bad. Joyce has “low-grade glioma,” a tumor in the left hemisphere, her doctor says. And it’s going to kill her.
While the gang researches the demon, Glori herself walks in, unrecognized by any of them, buys the magic items she needs for her recently-acquired incantation, and walks out.
ACT II
Joyce’s illness may kill her quickly-- she may soon lose vision, muscle control. They may be able o remove her tumor, however. Even if it’s not operable, she might recover, however. The doctor asks a numbed Buffy a series of questions about habits, exposure to carcinogens, etc. The brain surgeon is sent away by charming young Dr. Ben, who knows Buffy needs a break. He recommends she go out and get some rest while Joyce sleeps.
Buffy wants to find a magic spell to fix Joyce, an idea Riley finds unlikely. She runs off, leaving Dawn with Riley.
Anya discovers that Giles sold the items needed for Glori’s conjuration spell-- meaning they put the items in the demon’s hand, and Buffy is going to be mad.
Riley takes Dawn to the park, where she shares tales of her mother’s support when she moved to Sunnydale and had no friends. She brings Riley down by saying what a great and safe guy is, compared with exciting Angel, who made Buffy all emotional.
Willow and Giles don’t think Buffy’s likely to find a magical spell for Joyce’s brain cancer. The mystical and medical were not meant to mix, Giles says. More immediately, they reveal that Glori now has the gear for her spell, which will conjure a big cobra demon. Buffy expects it to come for Dawn, whom she knows the demonic forces are looking for.
Buffy interrupts Glori’s conjuration at the reptile house at the zoo, tussles with Glori and gets knocked cold. As planned, Glori steals a cobra and makes a giant cobra demon of it.
ACT III
Buffy runs while Glori orders the cobra demon to find “the key,” and tell her where it is. (We know the key has been transformed into Dawn.)
At the Magic Box, Xander explains to Riley that Buffy needs to fight something, which explains her running off alone. But why has Riley been such a loner? Riley wanders off.
Buffy knows Dawn will head for the Magic Box after school, so it’s important they keep the snake from her. Meantime, Buffy waits for news at the hospital.
Riley, meanwhile, goes drinking, deliberately picks up a vampire, and appears to let her bite him before staking her at the last minute.
The cobra demon manages to follow Dawn’s scent to the Magic Box, barges in, appears to memorize Dawn’s appearance, and turns and runs for Glori.
ACT IV
The chase is on for the cobra demon, which Buffy can’t allow to get back to Glori. Finally Buffy catches it in the park, jumps atop it, and beats it to death with her fists.
Dawn is safe for now, but back at the hospital, Joyce says she needs to talk to Dawn alone and tell her how sick she is. And Buffy can’t let out her sadness, even for Riley, because her family needs her strength.
NOTES
"Shadow" earnestly begins what may be the most adult subject matter Buffy has ever tackled, that of cancer and the deadly sickness of a parent. Over the next several episodes we get to see Buffy separated from her Scooby Gang not because of mood or destiny, but by simple familial obligation. All of Buffy's reactions, such as her dull response to the doctor's questions, seem dead on. I appreciated her need to just hear what the doctor had to say; she's tired of sitting.
But of course, this is still Buffy, so the show gets to tackle with the question of what to do with a possibly terminal cancer in a world where a magic spell Willow cast gave Angel an entire soul back. Buffy wants to know if there's a spell to cure cancer, and right away the gang is skeptical-- why? Ultimately, because to allow her to find a magic cure would complicate the world entirely too much. It would beg the question of why anyone dies of cancer or any other disease, and any ramifications of the mixture of magic and medicine would sling the show into the realm of science fiction rather than fantasy. So Buffy is bound to run up against a strong taboo that keeps the show from dealing with the question.
Meanwhile, Riley, whom I've said before is doomed, doomed, doomed, has started skating right off the edge of sanity even without the benefit of a brain tumor. Whereas in normal adult dramas the boyfriend feeling sorry for himself would simply go pick up some nameless bar girl, here Riley picks up a vampire. But there's more at work here than the betrayal of trysting with Buffy's enemies: Riley seems to have taken Spike's words to heart and wants to become a vampire himself. Maybe. He can't go through with it just now, staking the vampire girl rather than drinking from her, in turn, to become a vampire himself. Pity, though, because Riley first appeared last season as a completely normal, together guy, even after he was revealed to be a spy. Blessed with the super-soldier powers of Captain America, now we get to see what might happen to Cap if you took his serum away. Of course, Riley happens to be stuck with Buffy the super-hero for a girlfriend, and she seems to have little use for him lately except as a babysitter. So he's suicidal. But I'm trying to imagine Marc Blucas as a vampire and nothing good is coming.
We can fault Spike with putting many of these ideas in Riley's head, but what do we want, Spike is resolutely evil whether that gang let him wander around unimpeded or not. Now, Spike is also in love with Buffy, a development played entirely for comedy around Spike's pitiful crush. One does wonder why, as Spike asks, hasn't Buffy ever barred him from her family's house, but it can't be love. God, what a mistake that would be.
Incidentally, Glori the Demon has got to be one of the cleverest creations the show has ever seen, a petite blonde with a sort of goofy, giddy delivery who nevertheless intends to destroy the world if she can just find "The Key," which has been transformed into Dawn Summers. It will be a pity to see Glori go.
QUOTES
Spike: “It’s a predator thing, nothing wrong with it, know your enemy’s scent, whet the appetite for the hunt. (Sniff.) That’s the stuff-- Slayer musk, bitter and aggravating. Grrr.”
Xander: “Just once I’d like to run into a cult of bunny worshippers.”
Anya: “Great. Thank you very much for those nightmares.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Primeval
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 4, Episode “Primeval”
Broadcast Tuesday, May 16, 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
Riley has come to super-cyborg Adam because, it turns out, Professor Maggie Walsh implanted a behavior modification chip in Riley’s chest. Now Adam has learned to manipulate the chip such that Riley retains his consciousness but must obey his every order (sit, walk, talk, don’t talk, etc.) But sooner or later, he says, Riley will come around to Adam’s side.
ACT 1
As Adam tells it, “Mother” (Maggie Walsh) meant for Adam and Riley to rule together in a new empire of demons and humans, sort of a Romulus and Remus of the Hellmouth. Spike, meanwhile, wants Adam to come through and take the chip out of his head, but Adam won’t give yet: Spike was supposed to deliver the Slayer by feeding her fake computer date through Willow and then isolating her from her friends so she came alone. Unfortunately, Spike succeeded in isolating Buffy (he sewed viciousness between the Scooby Gang) but before Willow gave her the data. So there’s a flaw. But once they get her here, they hope she will exacerbate a war Adam intends to set off between the humans and the demons so there will be effective losses on both sides.
But Willow’s still working on the computer data, and Xander is moping around after he found out his friends think he’s a loser.
When Buffy comes looking for Adam at his underground cave, Adam has taken Riley to the control center of the cyborg’s plan: a Secret Lab underneath the Initiative. There, Riley gets a shock: Adam’s helpers in the labs are the re-animated corpses of Maggie Walsh and Initiative Agent Forrest. Walsh is a pure zombie, merely a worker. Forrest is more, conscious, even ironic.
ACT 2
Buffy runs into Spike and realizes knows more about her falling out with Willow than he should. Meanwhile, the disk Willow has been trying to crack suddenly decrypts itself, as if it were set to unravel after Willow struggled with it for a while.
The whole Scooby Gang meets up and Buffy reveals that they’ve been duped by Spike, who must be working for Adam. They sort of fumble past all the mean things they were “led to” say.
According to Willow’s information, Adam is going to build an army of evil cyborgs like himself. Buffy knows she’s being lured into the Initiative for the war that’s bound to break out when all the demons in the Initiative cells are undoubtedly loosed. Adam will have his pick of the corpses left. The Gang needs to warn the Initiative.
Adam’s power source is a uranium core near his spine. That’ll be hard to get. The best bet would be Sumerian paralysis spell, but a witch must cast the spell, and while Willow’s a witch, only Giles speaks Sumerian. Xander says, heck, too bad you can’t be a “combo Buffy.” The make some plans, unseen by us.
Having formulated their plan, the gang rappels down an elevator shaft into the Initiative, where an armed unit waits for and immediately captures them all.
ACT 3
Adam has decided Spike is a complete disappointment, having failed to deliver the Slayer alone. He orders Zombie Forrest to kill Spike, but the vampire manages to escape.
Buffy pleads with Colonel MacNamara, who refuses to believe that Adam has a secret laboratory underneath the Initiative.
Buffy is tired of being treated like an amateur by the military. “This is not your business, it’s mine... you’re all in way over your heads, messing with primeval forces you have no comprehension of. I’m the Slayer. You’re playing on my turf.” The Colonel’s not buying.
Just then Adam sets al the demons free, blowing the electricity in the whole station. The slaughter begins, and Buffy and the Gang escape their guard to look for a place to do their planned spell.
Spike makes his way through the carnage as demon and human armies destroy one another. Buffy and the Scooby Gang choose their target and head for Maggie Walsh’s 314 section, ducking, dodging and fighting their way through the firefight.
Buffy leaves Giles, Buffy and Xander to head for Adam’s central lab while the three set up their spell.
Almost immediately, Buffy finds the captured Riley and is grabbed by Forrest. Adam stops in to order Forrest and zombie Professor Walsh to “Kill her.” Zombie Walsh closes on Buffy with a whizzing bonecutter.
ACT 4
While Buffy fi9ghts Forrest and Walsh, Riley escapes Adam’s yoke by (and here’s something I never thought I’d see on television) slicing the controller chip off his own ribcage with a shard if broken glass.
That done, somehow blowing up Forrest with sparks and a pressurized oxygen tank is almost anticlimactic, although Forrest’s head flies off nicely.
But still-- there’s a showdown left.
Willow, Xander and Giles chant their spell, each sending their own unique facets to their “avatar,” Buffy.
When Buffy breaks Adam’s spiky arm, he responds by revealing that he can transform his right arm into a chain gun. But by now the gang’s spell has kicked in: the spirits of all three-- Xander’s fighting skill (not as great as Buffy’s, but substantial), Giles’ language and Willow’s magic-- take over Buffy’s body. Their power is magnified to the Nth degree, allowing Buffy to transform missiles into doves, to float in midair, to speed up her body such that she can avoid any blow. All this and Linda Blair eyes. As a female choir harmonizes, Combo Buffy (“You can never hope to grasp the source of our power,”) handily bats Adam, driving him back and then wrenching his nuclear battery out of his torso. And just like that, Adam dies.
Spike, meanwhile, avoids getting killed by saving the Scooby Gang from a demon that tries to bust in and kill them while they awaken from their casting trance.
We’re left with an epilogue, of sorts. Colonel MacNamara meets with a secret government organization to debrief as they watch the final stages of the human/demon battle. A government official says, “Once the prototype took control of the complex, our soldiers suffered a 40% casualty rate,” and would have lost more if not for “a deserter and some civilian insurrectionists... I trust the irony of that is not lost on any of us.” The plan of the Initiative-- to study demons for the military uses, is hereby abandoned. The demons cannot be controlled.
NOTES
With "Primeval", Season 4 comes to an end an episode early in a thoroughly satisfying way. (Next episode, the last of the season, is "Coda," a denouement of sorts.) What we have in this episode is a surprising cap on a shaky season. We've seen the Scooby Gang stretched in their own directions as the creators dealt with what to do with a bunch of high school friends now graduated. They end with a re-affirmation of the power of friendship, as good a theme as any with which to defeat a demonic cyborg.
And what a way to eliminate the main villain of the whole season in one fell swoop! "Primeval " is a complete reversal from last year’s season windup, with its funereal march towards the Mayor’s Ascension. When Buffy and her friends decide they must hang together rather than hang separately, Adam is dispatched fairly easily.
There are a lot of very cool moments in this script, by which I mean, literally, cool moments-- Adam’s arm-mounted chain gun, for instance, is just a bizarre element and fits with Adam as a curious mesh of sci-fi and magic. This comes in the same episode as the delightfully creepy worker-zombies, the scariest of which is Lindsay Crouse, somehow convinced to return as a lobotomized, shambling corpses animated via a bunch of tubes that pump fluid in and out of her pasty flesh.
I do wonder, though, is really what Maggie Walsh had planned? (Adam says it is, "Except she expected to be alive for it.") Her "veddy clever plan" was to use Adam to draw humans and demons into a big enough war that she'd have enough parts to make an army of cyborgs? That sounds like Adam's plan to me, but I've never been all that sure just how crazy Adam was.
Spike continues to amuse. Unlike Angel, Spike has no soul, so he's bent towards evil, we know that. But as viewers, we can't help being fond of the guy with all the best lines, and somehow we hope he'll escape death. While together, Adam and Spike are actually pretty funny-- I love Adam turning with irritation at Spike when the vampire says, “So, um, we’ll do this chip thing when I get back.” George Hertzberg, the actor inside all the Adam makeup, has a great challenge in drawing humor from his monotone character, and somehow he manages to register annoyance without breaking character.
Buffy's transformation is a shocking trick, and it's especially interesting that Buffy, who last episode reminded us "there's no ancient prophesy of the Slayer and her friends" here disappears completely under a combined possession by Xander, Willow and Giles. She gives her body to them, as she has always served mankind, and they use it remarkably well.
I love the carnage of the battle, too, the nice use of slow motion as vampires, soldiers and demons pitch one another through the air and blow one another up. Wisely, we see the rest of the battle play out in flashback, or its video equivalent, while the government winds up the story.
What strikes me as odd is the curious cheapness of the room in which the “government meeting” takes place at the end. This is one of those rooms I haven’t seen except in remarkably cheap porn; a bunch of actors sit at a table in a room in the middle of nothing-- nothing, no walls, no windows, just the black curtains of a soundstage. I understand that the point was to save the money it would take to build or hire a board room set, but the effect is jarring given the believability of the Initiative set, as men and vehicles explode across a vast space.
So we're left with no Initiative and no Adam, and the Scooby Gang repaired. Nice. Not as operatic as last season's finale, but satisfying and effective nonetheless, and almost refreshing.
QUOTES
Xander: “Does anyone else miss the Mayor; ‘I just wanta be a big snake?’”
Season 4, Episode “Primeval”
Broadcast Tuesday, May 16, 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
Riley has come to super-cyborg Adam because, it turns out, Professor Maggie Walsh implanted a behavior modification chip in Riley’s chest. Now Adam has learned to manipulate the chip such that Riley retains his consciousness but must obey his every order (sit, walk, talk, don’t talk, etc.) But sooner or later, he says, Riley will come around to Adam’s side.
ACT 1
As Adam tells it, “Mother” (Maggie Walsh) meant for Adam and Riley to rule together in a new empire of demons and humans, sort of a Romulus and Remus of the Hellmouth. Spike, meanwhile, wants Adam to come through and take the chip out of his head, but Adam won’t give yet: Spike was supposed to deliver the Slayer by feeding her fake computer date through Willow and then isolating her from her friends so she came alone. Unfortunately, Spike succeeded in isolating Buffy (he sewed viciousness between the Scooby Gang) but before Willow gave her the data. So there’s a flaw. But once they get her here, they hope she will exacerbate a war Adam intends to set off between the humans and the demons so there will be effective losses on both sides.
But Willow’s still working on the computer data, and Xander is moping around after he found out his friends think he’s a loser.
When Buffy comes looking for Adam at his underground cave, Adam has taken Riley to the control center of the cyborg’s plan: a Secret Lab underneath the Initiative. There, Riley gets a shock: Adam’s helpers in the labs are the re-animated corpses of Maggie Walsh and Initiative Agent Forrest. Walsh is a pure zombie, merely a worker. Forrest is more, conscious, even ironic.
ACT 2
Buffy runs into Spike and realizes knows more about her falling out with Willow than he should. Meanwhile, the disk Willow has been trying to crack suddenly decrypts itself, as if it were set to unravel after Willow struggled with it for a while.
The whole Scooby Gang meets up and Buffy reveals that they’ve been duped by Spike, who must be working for Adam. They sort of fumble past all the mean things they were “led to” say.
According to Willow’s information, Adam is going to build an army of evil cyborgs like himself. Buffy knows she’s being lured into the Initiative for the war that’s bound to break out when all the demons in the Initiative cells are undoubtedly loosed. Adam will have his pick of the corpses left. The Gang needs to warn the Initiative.
Adam’s power source is a uranium core near his spine. That’ll be hard to get. The best bet would be Sumerian paralysis spell, but a witch must cast the spell, and while Willow’s a witch, only Giles speaks Sumerian. Xander says, heck, too bad you can’t be a “combo Buffy.” The make some plans, unseen by us.
Having formulated their plan, the gang rappels down an elevator shaft into the Initiative, where an armed unit waits for and immediately captures them all.
ACT 3
Adam has decided Spike is a complete disappointment, having failed to deliver the Slayer alone. He orders Zombie Forrest to kill Spike, but the vampire manages to escape.
Buffy pleads with Colonel MacNamara, who refuses to believe that Adam has a secret laboratory underneath the Initiative.
Buffy is tired of being treated like an amateur by the military. “This is not your business, it’s mine... you’re all in way over your heads, messing with primeval forces you have no comprehension of. I’m the Slayer. You’re playing on my turf.” The Colonel’s not buying.
Just then Adam sets al the demons free, blowing the electricity in the whole station. The slaughter begins, and Buffy and the Gang escape their guard to look for a place to do their planned spell.
Spike makes his way through the carnage as demon and human armies destroy one another. Buffy and the Scooby Gang choose their target and head for Maggie Walsh’s 314 section, ducking, dodging and fighting their way through the firefight.
Buffy leaves Giles, Buffy and Xander to head for Adam’s central lab while the three set up their spell.
Almost immediately, Buffy finds the captured Riley and is grabbed by Forrest. Adam stops in to order Forrest and zombie Professor Walsh to “Kill her.” Zombie Walsh closes on Buffy with a whizzing bonecutter.
ACT 4
While Buffy fi9ghts Forrest and Walsh, Riley escapes Adam’s yoke by (and here’s something I never thought I’d see on television) slicing the controller chip off his own ribcage with a shard if broken glass.
That done, somehow blowing up Forrest with sparks and a pressurized oxygen tank is almost anticlimactic, although Forrest’s head flies off nicely.
But still-- there’s a showdown left.
Willow, Xander and Giles chant their spell, each sending their own unique facets to their “avatar,” Buffy.
When Buffy breaks Adam’s spiky arm, he responds by revealing that he can transform his right arm into a chain gun. But by now the gang’s spell has kicked in: the spirits of all three-- Xander’s fighting skill (not as great as Buffy’s, but substantial), Giles’ language and Willow’s magic-- take over Buffy’s body. Their power is magnified to the Nth degree, allowing Buffy to transform missiles into doves, to float in midair, to speed up her body such that she can avoid any blow. All this and Linda Blair eyes. As a female choir harmonizes, Combo Buffy (“You can never hope to grasp the source of our power,”) handily bats Adam, driving him back and then wrenching his nuclear battery out of his torso. And just like that, Adam dies.
Spike, meanwhile, avoids getting killed by saving the Scooby Gang from a demon that tries to bust in and kill them while they awaken from their casting trance.
We’re left with an epilogue, of sorts. Colonel MacNamara meets with a secret government organization to debrief as they watch the final stages of the human/demon battle. A government official says, “Once the prototype took control of the complex, our soldiers suffered a 40% casualty rate,” and would have lost more if not for “a deserter and some civilian insurrectionists... I trust the irony of that is not lost on any of us.” The plan of the Initiative-- to study demons for the military uses, is hereby abandoned. The demons cannot be controlled.
NOTES
With "Primeval", Season 4 comes to an end an episode early in a thoroughly satisfying way. (Next episode, the last of the season, is "Coda," a denouement of sorts.) What we have in this episode is a surprising cap on a shaky season. We've seen the Scooby Gang stretched in their own directions as the creators dealt with what to do with a bunch of high school friends now graduated. They end with a re-affirmation of the power of friendship, as good a theme as any with which to defeat a demonic cyborg.
And what a way to eliminate the main villain of the whole season in one fell swoop! "Primeval " is a complete reversal from last year’s season windup, with its funereal march towards the Mayor’s Ascension. When Buffy and her friends decide they must hang together rather than hang separately, Adam is dispatched fairly easily.
There are a lot of very cool moments in this script, by which I mean, literally, cool moments-- Adam’s arm-mounted chain gun, for instance, is just a bizarre element and fits with Adam as a curious mesh of sci-fi and magic. This comes in the same episode as the delightfully creepy worker-zombies, the scariest of which is Lindsay Crouse, somehow convinced to return as a lobotomized, shambling corpses animated via a bunch of tubes that pump fluid in and out of her pasty flesh.
I do wonder, though, is really what Maggie Walsh had planned? (Adam says it is, "Except she expected to be alive for it.") Her "veddy clever plan" was to use Adam to draw humans and demons into a big enough war that she'd have enough parts to make an army of cyborgs? That sounds like Adam's plan to me, but I've never been all that sure just how crazy Adam was.
Spike continues to amuse. Unlike Angel, Spike has no soul, so he's bent towards evil, we know that. But as viewers, we can't help being fond of the guy with all the best lines, and somehow we hope he'll escape death. While together, Adam and Spike are actually pretty funny-- I love Adam turning with irritation at Spike when the vampire says, “So, um, we’ll do this chip thing when I get back.” George Hertzberg, the actor inside all the Adam makeup, has a great challenge in drawing humor from his monotone character, and somehow he manages to register annoyance without breaking character.
Buffy's transformation is a shocking trick, and it's especially interesting that Buffy, who last episode reminded us "there's no ancient prophesy of the Slayer and her friends" here disappears completely under a combined possession by Xander, Willow and Giles. She gives her body to them, as she has always served mankind, and they use it remarkably well.
I love the carnage of the battle, too, the nice use of slow motion as vampires, soldiers and demons pitch one another through the air and blow one another up. Wisely, we see the rest of the battle play out in flashback, or its video equivalent, while the government winds up the story.
What strikes me as odd is the curious cheapness of the room in which the “government meeting” takes place at the end. This is one of those rooms I haven’t seen except in remarkably cheap porn; a bunch of actors sit at a table in a room in the middle of nothing-- nothing, no walls, no windows, just the black curtains of a soundstage. I understand that the point was to save the money it would take to build or hire a board room set, but the effect is jarring given the believability of the Initiative set, as men and vehicles explode across a vast space.
So we're left with no Initiative and no Adam, and the Scooby Gang repaired. Nice. Not as operatic as last season's finale, but satisfying and effective nonetheless, and almost refreshing.
QUOTES
Xander: “Does anyone else miss the Mayor; ‘I just wanta be a big snake?’”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- The Freshman
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 4
Premiere!
Episode: “ The Freshman” (October 5, 1999)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
Buffy the Vampire Slayer goes to college-- can she survive the experience?
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Oz: Seth Green
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Prof. Maggie Walsh: Lindsay Crouse
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
SYNOPSIS
Prologue:
We open in a very familiar place, with Buffy and Willow waiting for a new vampire to rise and passing the time by looking over their college course catalogs (they're going to be attending the heretofore nonexistent UC Sunnydale.) Buffy, it appears, has wasted an awful lot of time, and is left with a dearth of decent courses to pick from. On the positive side, Buffy and Willow are going to be taking psych together. They chatter excitedly about their upcoming freshman year (for instance, Buffy's going to have to resume using a secret identity, but she promises that all this college stuff cannot "take the edge off my slaying.") A vampire rises behind them, sees they are in fact on a vampire stake-out, and wanders away without the two ever noticing.
Act I
Buffy arrives at UCSD and feels immediately overwhelmed by the thousands of students who all seem to know where they're going, except. It doesn't get any better when Willow appears, doing far better. As a matter of fact, this place is Willow Heaven, especially the gargantuan library. All Buffy can do is remark that it would be neat if Giles could be librarian there.
The next gauntlet to run is the bookstore, where Buffy immediately drops two heavy books on the head of a cute guy. But whereas once upon a time she would've been able to wrap this guy around for her finger, this is college, where the guy, a Teaching Assistant, immediately ignores her and begins to pick up on Willow.
At her dorm, Buffy has a roommate, the short-haired, utterly normal Kathy, who appears to be really nice, but horrifies Buffy by hanging a huge Celine Dion poster on the wall. And she snores.
It gets worse. Buffy goes into a pop-culture class, hoping to register for it afterwards, and is horribly humiliated by the Professor, who chooses to make some sort of sadistic example of her.
Finally, she gets to Professor Walsh's psychology class, which Willow and cute TA are taking. Professor Walsh, who says she goes by either Maggie or "the evil bitch monster of death," will be tough, but at least doesn't scream.
That night, Buffy meets Eddy, a Nice Guy. He's taking the same psychology course that apparently everyone else is, and they vow to speak again. But the moment she's gone, he's killed by college vampires.
Act II
The UCSD vampires have a neat gimmick: once they kill a kid, they empty out his dorm room, take all this stuff, and leave and note about “not being able to take the pressure.” But Buffy knows that Eddy has not actually left, because when she searches his room, she finds his copy of Of Human Bondage, which Eddy referred to as his "security blanket."
Buffy goes back to Giles’ place for advice and finds a lovely young British woman, Olivia, wandering the house in one of Giles asserts, and Giles himself in a bathrobe. When Buffy tells Giles she could use some help, Giles hears her synopsis (student missing, could be vampires), and says that she needs to learn to rely on herself more.
That night, in one of the many gigantic expanses of poorly lit foliage on the campus of UCSD, Buffy meets and kills the vampirized Eddy. But she's walked right into a confrontation with the blond sorority vampire I’ll call “Yellow,” and the unbelievable happens: Yellow brutally and quickly kicks Buffy's ass.
Act III
While the vampires gloat, Buffy refuses to go to her friends, who seem to be having too much fun for her to interrupt them with vampire hunting. She goes home and finds that her mom has filled her room packing rates (temporarily, she is assured) and leaves once more.
At her dorm room, the vampires have removed all of her stuff and left one of those "I'm getting out of here" notes.
Finally, Buffy finds her way to her high school hangout, the Bronze where she runs into none other than Xander, her old high school friend. Xander, who was supposed to be on cross-country trip to America, ran out of money and is now home, broke and paying rent to his parents. Xander listens to her story and tells her that whatever she feels like, she should know that she is still his hero. He decides to help her find the UCSD vampires.
At the UCSD library, Buffy and Xander discover that these vampires have been killing freshmen for nearly 20 years, and are holed up in a conveniently abandoned fraternity house. They confirm this by spying on the vampires, and after Xander retreats to go get Buffy's weapons, Buffy falls through the skylight and straight into the vampires’ laps.
Act IV
Buffy is already getting soundly thrashed once again by the time Xander finds Oz and Willow. The three hurry to her rescue, but Buffy manages to do well even without her weapons, and by the time the gang arrives, she has dispatched the vampires. The only thing left is for Giles, also suddenly succumbing to a change of heart, to come running up with his own set of weapons. And so begins a new life for the Slayer Gang.
Not far away, a vampire wanders the trees suddenly he is shut down with a TASER stunned weapon. Out of the trees stepped what appear to be paramilitary vampire hunters.
NOTES
Really, all this episode does is transition Buffy into her new surroundings. Thus the story is very simple, because it has to accomplish only one thing: just as she did last season, Buffy must begin far from where she needs to be, and through personal strength, she must get there.
Of course just as the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampires Slayer established the show as a working allegory for the high school experience, the fourth season premiere of Buffy marches onto new but logical ground: this is the college experience, and luckily there's just as much opportunity for horrible allegory here as there was in high school.
I think almost anybody can relate to what Buffy goes through in this episode. She finished high school at the absolute top of her game: lauded by her classmates as a hero and protector, she now comes to the University and finds that not only is she no one, but she's in over her head. Sarah Michelle Keller is convincing as a girl who walks onto a campus teeming with college students like she's one of those doomed soldiers at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan.
And of course, since Buffy TVS acts out all of its anxieties, this means that at least one professor screams at her, one cute boy refers to her as "Willow's friend," and one fairly bush league vampire gives her a black eye.
I can already tell that Joss Whedon has as much of a feel for the inherent weirdness and even inanity of college as he did for high school. One of the funniest moments in the whole episode is when we see the vampires keeping a running tally on the posters they’ve stolen from the freshmen they kill. So far, Gustav Klimt's “The Kiss” is beating out Monet. "Freshman," the head vampire says. "They're so predictable." This is just wonderful.
Final note: Professor Walsh is played by none other than Lindsay Crouse, the fine, hypnotic actress who starred in David Mamet's House of Games. Obviously, she's going to play a big part, and Buffy could not have done better.
MEMORABLE QUOTES
Willow: Anyway, Professor Walsh, she's great, she’s supposed to be, like, world renowned.
Buffy: How you get to be renowned? I mean, like, do you have to be nowned the first?
Willow: Yes. First there's a painful nowning process.
“It's like this force, this penetrating force, and I can just feel my mind opening up, you know, and this place just thrusts into it and spurts knowledge into it. Sorry, that sentence ended up a different place from where it started.”
--Willow, on education
Xander: Buffy, this is all about fear. It's understandable, but you can't let it control you. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. Wait -- hold on. Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side. Wait, no. First you get the women. Then you get the money. Then you -- OK, can we forget that?
Buffy: Thanks for the dadaesque pep talk. I feel much more abstract now.
“Does Buffy have a history of emotional problems? Because on my request form, I was pretty specific about a stable nonsmoker.”
--Kathy the room-mate, whose introduction to the world of Buffy has just begun.
Season 4
Premiere!
Episode: “ The Freshman” (October 5, 1999)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
Buffy the Vampire Slayer goes to college-- can she survive the experience?
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Oz: Seth Green
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Prof. Maggie Walsh: Lindsay Crouse
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
SYNOPSIS
Prologue:
We open in a very familiar place, with Buffy and Willow waiting for a new vampire to rise and passing the time by looking over their college course catalogs (they're going to be attending the heretofore nonexistent UC Sunnydale.) Buffy, it appears, has wasted an awful lot of time, and is left with a dearth of decent courses to pick from. On the positive side, Buffy and Willow are going to be taking psych together. They chatter excitedly about their upcoming freshman year (for instance, Buffy's going to have to resume using a secret identity, but she promises that all this college stuff cannot "take the edge off my slaying.") A vampire rises behind them, sees they are in fact on a vampire stake-out, and wanders away without the two ever noticing.
Act I
Buffy arrives at UCSD and feels immediately overwhelmed by the thousands of students who all seem to know where they're going, except. It doesn't get any better when Willow appears, doing far better. As a matter of fact, this place is Willow Heaven, especially the gargantuan library. All Buffy can do is remark that it would be neat if Giles could be librarian there.
The next gauntlet to run is the bookstore, where Buffy immediately drops two heavy books on the head of a cute guy. But whereas once upon a time she would've been able to wrap this guy around for her finger, this is college, where the guy, a Teaching Assistant, immediately ignores her and begins to pick up on Willow.
At her dorm, Buffy has a roommate, the short-haired, utterly normal Kathy, who appears to be really nice, but horrifies Buffy by hanging a huge Celine Dion poster on the wall. And she snores.
It gets worse. Buffy goes into a pop-culture class, hoping to register for it afterwards, and is horribly humiliated by the Professor, who chooses to make some sort of sadistic example of her.
Finally, she gets to Professor Walsh's psychology class, which Willow and cute TA are taking. Professor Walsh, who says she goes by either Maggie or "the evil bitch monster of death," will be tough, but at least doesn't scream.
That night, Buffy meets Eddy, a Nice Guy. He's taking the same psychology course that apparently everyone else is, and they vow to speak again. But the moment she's gone, he's killed by college vampires.
Act II
The UCSD vampires have a neat gimmick: once they kill a kid, they empty out his dorm room, take all this stuff, and leave and note about “not being able to take the pressure.” But Buffy knows that Eddy has not actually left, because when she searches his room, she finds his copy of Of Human Bondage, which Eddy referred to as his "security blanket."
Buffy goes back to Giles’ place for advice and finds a lovely young British woman, Olivia, wandering the house in one of Giles asserts, and Giles himself in a bathrobe. When Buffy tells Giles she could use some help, Giles hears her synopsis (student missing, could be vampires), and says that she needs to learn to rely on herself more.
That night, in one of the many gigantic expanses of poorly lit foliage on the campus of UCSD, Buffy meets and kills the vampirized Eddy. But she's walked right into a confrontation with the blond sorority vampire I’ll call “Yellow,” and the unbelievable happens: Yellow brutally and quickly kicks Buffy's ass.
Act III
While the vampires gloat, Buffy refuses to go to her friends, who seem to be having too much fun for her to interrupt them with vampire hunting. She goes home and finds that her mom has filled her room packing rates (temporarily, she is assured) and leaves once more.
At her dorm room, the vampires have removed all of her stuff and left one of those "I'm getting out of here" notes.
Finally, Buffy finds her way to her high school hangout, the Bronze where she runs into none other than Xander, her old high school friend. Xander, who was supposed to be on cross-country trip to America, ran out of money and is now home, broke and paying rent to his parents. Xander listens to her story and tells her that whatever she feels like, she should know that she is still his hero. He decides to help her find the UCSD vampires.
At the UCSD library, Buffy and Xander discover that these vampires have been killing freshmen for nearly 20 years, and are holed up in a conveniently abandoned fraternity house. They confirm this by spying on the vampires, and after Xander retreats to go get Buffy's weapons, Buffy falls through the skylight and straight into the vampires’ laps.
Act IV
Buffy is already getting soundly thrashed once again by the time Xander finds Oz and Willow. The three hurry to her rescue, but Buffy manages to do well even without her weapons, and by the time the gang arrives, she has dispatched the vampires. The only thing left is for Giles, also suddenly succumbing to a change of heart, to come running up with his own set of weapons. And so begins a new life for the Slayer Gang.
Not far away, a vampire wanders the trees suddenly he is shut down with a TASER stunned weapon. Out of the trees stepped what appear to be paramilitary vampire hunters.
NOTES
Really, all this episode does is transition Buffy into her new surroundings. Thus the story is very simple, because it has to accomplish only one thing: just as she did last season, Buffy must begin far from where she needs to be, and through personal strength, she must get there.
Of course just as the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampires Slayer established the show as a working allegory for the high school experience, the fourth season premiere of Buffy marches onto new but logical ground: this is the college experience, and luckily there's just as much opportunity for horrible allegory here as there was in high school.
I think almost anybody can relate to what Buffy goes through in this episode. She finished high school at the absolute top of her game: lauded by her classmates as a hero and protector, she now comes to the University and finds that not only is she no one, but she's in over her head. Sarah Michelle Keller is convincing as a girl who walks onto a campus teeming with college students like she's one of those doomed soldiers at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan.
And of course, since Buffy TVS acts out all of its anxieties, this means that at least one professor screams at her, one cute boy refers to her as "Willow's friend," and one fairly bush league vampire gives her a black eye.
I can already tell that Joss Whedon has as much of a feel for the inherent weirdness and even inanity of college as he did for high school. One of the funniest moments in the whole episode is when we see the vampires keeping a running tally on the posters they’ve stolen from the freshmen they kill. So far, Gustav Klimt's “The Kiss” is beating out Monet. "Freshman," the head vampire says. "They're so predictable." This is just wonderful.
Final note: Professor Walsh is played by none other than Lindsay Crouse, the fine, hypnotic actress who starred in David Mamet's House of Games. Obviously, she's going to play a big part, and Buffy could not have done better.
MEMORABLE QUOTES
Willow: Anyway, Professor Walsh, she's great, she’s supposed to be, like, world renowned.
Buffy: How you get to be renowned? I mean, like, do you have to be nowned the first?
Willow: Yes. First there's a painful nowning process.
“It's like this force, this penetrating force, and I can just feel my mind opening up, you know, and this place just thrusts into it and spurts knowledge into it. Sorry, that sentence ended up a different place from where it started.”
--Willow, on education
Xander: Buffy, this is all about fear. It's understandable, but you can't let it control you. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. Wait -- hold on. Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side. Wait, no. First you get the women. Then you get the money. Then you -- OK, can we forget that?
Buffy: Thanks for the dadaesque pep talk. I feel much more abstract now.
“Does Buffy have a history of emotional problems? Because on my request form, I was pretty specific about a stable nonsmoker.”
--Kathy the room-mate, whose introduction to the world of Buffy has just begun.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- The Initiative
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
11/16
Season 4
“The Initiative”
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
Prof. Walsh: Lindsay Crouse
Prologue
Cute TA Riley and his frat brothers ponder the odd beauty that is Buffy (“I don’t know,” Riley says, “she’s... peculiar.”), while Spike the Vampire, recently returned to Sunnydale, wakes up from his Slayer-killing dreams to find he’s held prisoner in a vast, white compound of countless vampire cells.
Act 1
Willow is moping about Oz’ recent departure while the Gang try to figure out who the strange Storm Troopers Buffy met in the woods are. Buffy puts Giles and Xander in charge, since they’re human and she plans to take Willow to a cheer-up party.
In the commando compound, Spike thinks Buffy is as fault for his imprisonment and plots an escape.
Willow fights to keep Oz listed on his class rolls, and after Prof. Walsh gives her a dressing down, Buffy lashes out at the woman. “You’re right. A human being in pain has nothing to do with your job.” Prof. Walsh likes Buffy’s pluck.
Riley continues to feign lack of interest in Buffy with his frat brothers, but tips his hand when he punches out Parker for being a pig.
Act 2
A la Hannibal Lecter, Spike busts out of the compound, barely escaping the commandoes. Meanwhile, Riley comes to Willow for advice on how to win Buffy’s heart, as it were. Willow’s briefly overcomes her sardonic mood to reveal that Buffy likes, among other things, “she likes cheese.” Has a stuffed pig, likes Icecapades “with healthy irony,” and will be approachable at the frat party tonight.
Spike comes back to ditzy doormat vampire Harmony “for ever and ever, mon petite crème brulee.” They’re going to Europe, after he kills Buffy, of course.
At the party, Willow tries to help Riley find something to say from Buffy. Riley chokes, completely, and simpers away.
Xander runs into Harmony and the two have the most wonderfully sissified fight ever, ending in a draw, but Xander learns that Spike is back. Xander rushes to the party and manages to pull Buffy away from Riley’s second attempt at a conversation.
Riley licks his wounds with his frat brothers as they take a secret elevator downstairs to the commando compound. He’s actually a Special Agent Riley Finn, demon hunter of the secret project called The Initiative, , and his boss is none other than the white-coated Professor Walsh, who reveals that Spike is out.
Act 3
There’s an army of commandoes under Riley’s command as they hit the campus. Buffy’s also looking for Spike, and she has an awkward moment with Riley in which they try to get rid of one another while the hunt. Spike, looking for Buffy, busts into her dorm room and attacks Willow viciously, going for the throat.
Act 4
But, hilariously, somehow it’s not happening for Spike, he has the desire but can’t bite. (“This sort of thing’s never happened to me before.” “Maybe you were nervous.”) Willow’s concerned that maybe it’s her, but Spike says no, if he could, he’d feed happily on her. Meanwhile, the Commandoes track down Spike using an infrared device (he’s the only cold body around) and assault the dorm.
Amid men, rifles, and smoke, Spike is captured and then lost, Willow is almost “quarantined” but escapes, and Buffy shows up and gets into a mano-a-mano fight with Riley, who can’t make out her face but lets her get away.
Riley has to report his failure to Professor Walsh, but at least her anti-feeding serum is working on Spike. Walsh is concerned about this accomplice who appeared.
Unaware of one another’s secret identity, Riley and Buffy begin the long, awkward road to a relationship. (“Did Willow tell you I like cheese?” he asks. “You’re a little peculiar,” Buffy observes.)
NOTES
You have to admire the efficiency of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer with it’s ability to cram satire, comedy, and action reminiscent of vintage Marvel into about 46 running minutes. This was a fantastic episode.
Lindsay Crouse finally reveals why we’ve been has so much introduction to her character Prof. Walsh this season-- she’s the head of The Initiative, which looks like a secret government project to hunt and experiment on vampires. (Which makes we wonder if her story about “wild dogs” was just a cover when Veruca attacked her.) Crouse is a strangely mannered actress, so unlike anyone else on Buffy that it’s almost bizarre. And the Initiative is a huge addition to the Buffy Universe- - the implications are staggering. Is the university aware it’s the cover for this project? Why don’t’ they know about the Slayer? This thing seems to employ thousands. Why don’t the Watchers know about the Initiative, or do they?
This episode also manages to point Buffy towards a new, demon-hunting boyfriend. (Give it three episodes to happen.) We can just sit back and predict how this will play out, of course, but I’ll admit I didn’t expect Riley to be a secret agent. I thought he was that buff because he’s from California.
Giles and Xander look great on patrol, and it’s interesting to see them take orders from Buffy. Giles’ leather jacket is a great improvement on his old tweed. But what’s with Xander’s Bobby Brady haircut this episode?
Speaking of Bobby Brady, the best moment in the show has to be the slow-motion tussle between Xander and the unicorn-loving ditz vampire Harmony, who finally calls a truce after they pull one another’s hair.
Next best, narrowly, is the gag conversation between Spike and Willow when Prof’ Walsh’s experiments have rendered the vampire unable to “perform” vampirically. (“Let’s wait half an hour and try again!” Willow suggests, before recalling that instead she should hit Spike over the head.) You have to admire James Marster’s Spike character, so incredibly cool and yet, like Doctor Doom, seemingly doomed to fail, over, and over, and over.
Last thought: in the fight in the dorm room, what on earth prompts Buffy to fire a flare-gun? The flare bounces around the hall, and even she has to dodge it when it zings back at her. Since when does Buffy use any sort of gun?
QUOTES
“The Slayer! I knew it! I always worried what would happen when that Bitch got some funding.”
(Spike, in the Commando Compound. He’s wrong, but it’s and interesting thought.)
“I've seen honest faces. They usually come attached to liars.”
- - Willow, wondering why she should help Riley attract Buffy and not liking his first excuse.
11/16
Season 4
“The Initiative”
Cast:
Buffy: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Willow: Alyson Hannigan
Spike: James Marsters
Xander: Nicholas Brendan
Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Riley: Mark Blucas
Prof. Walsh: Lindsay Crouse
Prologue
Cute TA Riley and his frat brothers ponder the odd beauty that is Buffy (“I don’t know,” Riley says, “she’s... peculiar.”), while Spike the Vampire, recently returned to Sunnydale, wakes up from his Slayer-killing dreams to find he’s held prisoner in a vast, white compound of countless vampire cells.
Act 1
Willow is moping about Oz’ recent departure while the Gang try to figure out who the strange Storm Troopers Buffy met in the woods are. Buffy puts Giles and Xander in charge, since they’re human and she plans to take Willow to a cheer-up party.
In the commando compound, Spike thinks Buffy is as fault for his imprisonment and plots an escape.
Willow fights to keep Oz listed on his class rolls, and after Prof. Walsh gives her a dressing down, Buffy lashes out at the woman. “You’re right. A human being in pain has nothing to do with your job.” Prof. Walsh likes Buffy’s pluck.
Riley continues to feign lack of interest in Buffy with his frat brothers, but tips his hand when he punches out Parker for being a pig.
Act 2
A la Hannibal Lecter, Spike busts out of the compound, barely escaping the commandoes. Meanwhile, Riley comes to Willow for advice on how to win Buffy’s heart, as it were. Willow’s briefly overcomes her sardonic mood to reveal that Buffy likes, among other things, “she likes cheese.” Has a stuffed pig, likes Icecapades “with healthy irony,” and will be approachable at the frat party tonight.
Spike comes back to ditzy doormat vampire Harmony “for ever and ever, mon petite crème brulee.” They’re going to Europe, after he kills Buffy, of course.
At the party, Willow tries to help Riley find something to say from Buffy. Riley chokes, completely, and simpers away.
Xander runs into Harmony and the two have the most wonderfully sissified fight ever, ending in a draw, but Xander learns that Spike is back. Xander rushes to the party and manages to pull Buffy away from Riley’s second attempt at a conversation.
Riley licks his wounds with his frat brothers as they take a secret elevator downstairs to the commando compound. He’s actually a Special Agent Riley Finn, demon hunter of the secret project called The Initiative, , and his boss is none other than the white-coated Professor Walsh, who reveals that Spike is out.
Act 3
There’s an army of commandoes under Riley’s command as they hit the campus. Buffy’s also looking for Spike, and she has an awkward moment with Riley in which they try to get rid of one another while the hunt. Spike, looking for Buffy, busts into her dorm room and attacks Willow viciously, going for the throat.
Act 4
But, hilariously, somehow it’s not happening for Spike, he has the desire but can’t bite. (“This sort of thing’s never happened to me before.” “Maybe you were nervous.”) Willow’s concerned that maybe it’s her, but Spike says no, if he could, he’d feed happily on her. Meanwhile, the Commandoes track down Spike using an infrared device (he’s the only cold body around) and assault the dorm.
Amid men, rifles, and smoke, Spike is captured and then lost, Willow is almost “quarantined” but escapes, and Buffy shows up and gets into a mano-a-mano fight with Riley, who can’t make out her face but lets her get away.
Riley has to report his failure to Professor Walsh, but at least her anti-feeding serum is working on Spike. Walsh is concerned about this accomplice who appeared.
Unaware of one another’s secret identity, Riley and Buffy begin the long, awkward road to a relationship. (“Did Willow tell you I like cheese?” he asks. “You’re a little peculiar,” Buffy observes.)
NOTES
You have to admire the efficiency of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer with it’s ability to cram satire, comedy, and action reminiscent of vintage Marvel into about 46 running minutes. This was a fantastic episode.
Lindsay Crouse finally reveals why we’ve been has so much introduction to her character Prof. Walsh this season-- she’s the head of The Initiative, which looks like a secret government project to hunt and experiment on vampires. (Which makes we wonder if her story about “wild dogs” was just a cover when Veruca attacked her.) Crouse is a strangely mannered actress, so unlike anyone else on Buffy that it’s almost bizarre. And the Initiative is a huge addition to the Buffy Universe- - the implications are staggering. Is the university aware it’s the cover for this project? Why don’t’ they know about the Slayer? This thing seems to employ thousands. Why don’t the Watchers know about the Initiative, or do they?
This episode also manages to point Buffy towards a new, demon-hunting boyfriend. (Give it three episodes to happen.) We can just sit back and predict how this will play out, of course, but I’ll admit I didn’t expect Riley to be a secret agent. I thought he was that buff because he’s from California.
Giles and Xander look great on patrol, and it’s interesting to see them take orders from Buffy. Giles’ leather jacket is a great improvement on his old tweed. But what’s with Xander’s Bobby Brady haircut this episode?
Speaking of Bobby Brady, the best moment in the show has to be the slow-motion tussle between Xander and the unicorn-loving ditz vampire Harmony, who finally calls a truce after they pull one another’s hair.
Next best, narrowly, is the gag conversation between Spike and Willow when Prof’ Walsh’s experiments have rendered the vampire unable to “perform” vampirically. (“Let’s wait half an hour and try again!” Willow suggests, before recalling that instead she should hit Spike over the head.) You have to admire James Marster’s Spike character, so incredibly cool and yet, like Doctor Doom, seemingly doomed to fail, over, and over, and over.
Last thought: in the fight in the dorm room, what on earth prompts Buffy to fire a flare-gun? The flare bounces around the hall, and even she has to dodge it when it zings back at her. Since when does Buffy use any sort of gun?
QUOTES
“The Slayer! I knew it! I always worried what would happen when that Bitch got some funding.”
(Spike, in the Commando Compound. He’s wrong, but it’s and interesting thought.)
“I've seen honest faces. They usually come attached to liars.”
- - Willow, wondering why she should help Riley attract Buffy and not liking his first excuse.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- The Replacement
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 5, Episode "The Replacement"
Broadcast October 10, 2000
1100
Cast:
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendan as Alexander "Xander" Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Marc Blucas as Riley Finn
James Marsters as Spike
Emma Caulfield as Anya Emerson
Amber Benson as Tara
Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
Someone is taking over Xander’s life.... and he looks an awful lot like a better-adjusted Xander.
PROLOGUE
Xander, Anya, Buffy and Riley watch kung fu while Xander contemplates finding a new place to live-- far from his parents’ fighting. Meanwhile, a demonic sorcerer at a bubbling cauldron plots Buffy’s death.
ACT I
The gang checks out an apartment for Xander, but it’s way out of poor soon-to-be unemployed Xander’s league. Anya’s feeling pretty discontent.
After the demon of the week, a Toth, roughs Giles up looking for Buffy and wanders away, Buffy and the gang wonder where the Toth would be. Judged by the demon’s smell they look for him at the city dump.
The Toth attacks them and Xander pushes Buffy out of the way of a demon blast, taking the full brunt of a mystic staff-missile. The demon leaves and so does the gang, but unbeknownst to them, an exact replica of Xander has sprung up where Xander fell-- and the real Xander remains behind while the new one walks off with his friends.
ACT II
Xander I wakes up the following day at the city dump and heads home to discover Xander II living at his place. (Xander II dresses better.)
While Buffy and sister Dawn drive their mother batty, Spike plots the death of Buffy, as well, practicing his kicks on a blonde mannequin.
While Xander I skulks in the background, Xander II manages to get a promotion at the job site, then not only gets the apartment he applied for but gets the apartment manager to come onto him. (Xander II has a shiny coin that hypnotizes people.) Xander heads to Giles’ to get Buffy’s help, but finds Xander II.
ACT III
Xander I does the Charlie Brown Christmas "Snoopy dance" to convince Willow that he’s himself. He tells Willow the whole problem while Xander II tries to convince Buffy and Riley to find the doppelganger and kill it right away. Both parties assume it’s the Toth. “A demon has taken my life from me, and it’s living my life better than I do.”
“I never help; I get in trouble and Buffy saves me,” says Xander I. He’s upset that Xander II does everything better-- maybe he should just let Xander II have his life. “It’s not like I was doing anything so great with it.”
Xander II sweet-talks Anya at the new important, astutely dissecting her fears of sudden vulnerability. (Anya’s recent shoulder injury is a new experience for the formerly invulnerable demon.) Xander I busts in on the two kissing, but Anya sticks beside Xander II.
When Willow goes to Giles, the gang surmises that the demon spell was designed to split Buffy into two parts-- instead it’s done the trick on Xander, splitting him into a strong and weak half. Both are genuine Xander and neither can be killed, or both will die. They need to be rejoined.
Meanwhile, Xander I desperately pulls a gun on Xander II.
ACT IV
While Xanders I & II grapple, Buffy and Riley rush to the apartment. Riley consoles Buffy that he would not prefer a non-Slayer “weak Buffy.” Buffy puts a stop to the fight and reveals to the Xanders that they are both Xander. Turns out the shiny coin Xander II toys with isn’t hypnotic after all; it’s just a cool flattened nickel.
Later, the gang marvel at the identical Xanders. “Psychologically this is fascinating,” Riley says. “Doesn’t it make everyone wanta lock them in separate rooms and do experiments on them?” Anya has some experiments of her own she’d like to try, but Willow reverses the spell, leaving us with a whole Xander once more.
Xander tells Riley he envies how Riley has always been as confident as Xander II was. Riley says he's lucky, especially regarding Buffy. He soliloquizes about how “Buffy is the one” for him... “But she doesn’t love me.”
NOTES
Of course I'm bound to give a good review to "The Replacement" because I have a soft spot for Xander-oriented episodes of Buffy, but as usual, my enthusiasm is not misplaced. This is the second time a character's spawned a twin on the show (Willow acknowledges this, nicely) and it has a different twist this time. Xander thinks that he's been replaced by an evil version of himself, but in fact he's merely given flesh to all the parts of Xander that we rarely see: his bravery, intelligence, wit and confidence. It's telling that Xander interprets these attributes as not him, almost as telling as the fact that we, too, feel as though "Weak Xander" is "Xander Complete" on first blush.
I love the concept that if we could strip away our doubts we could become a far more powerful version of ourselves. If anything, the character Xander should retain some of the lessons learned here, but I wouldn't count on it too much-- he's learned a lot of lessons along the way, and his gradual improvement has been agonizingly slow. Note, though, that Xander's plight stems from an act of bravery in the first place, as Xander pushes Buffy out of the way of the Toth's blast. Incidentally, Xander II is played by Nicholas Brendan's identical twin, and he does a fine job, although the script wisely leaves the funny lines to Brendan, who is a master at comic delivery.
On more minor notes, Buffy's sister Dawn remains in this episode, very realistic as an irritating young teen in her sister's hair. I personally applaud the whole Dawn sub-plot because of it's very daring. Whedon and the powers that be knew what they were doing bringing this character on in the fifth season. As with every other choice in the series, Dawn is a commentary on late-season cast additions with a Buffy twist, in that slowly but surely the whole world is going to realize she shouldn't be here. It's a cool idea, and it's irked me to no end that critics, always eager to write cliches lest they waste time thinking, have merely sniffed at the addition without considering the whole point.
I enjoyed seeing Buffy analyze the fighting in the David Chiang movie the gang watches at the beginning. She whines at the stage fighting, telling Riley, "it would drive you crazy if we watched an army movie and they were saluting backwards and invading all willy-nilly."
But where on Earth does Riley's soliloquy at the end come from? I watched the junior super-soldier wax about how very lucky he is to have Buffy, although he knows she "doesn't love me." He's just thankful to have known her, he says. She's made him a better person. I heard this and my first thought was: this guy is so very, very doomed.
And that's my bet. Doomed.
QUOTES:
On demon exits:
Buffy: “He ran away, huh?”
Giles: “He rather more turned and swept away majestically, I suppose.”
Season 5, Episode "The Replacement"
Broadcast October 10, 2000
1100
Cast:
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendan as Alexander "Xander" Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Marc Blucas as Riley Finn
James Marsters as Spike
Emma Caulfield as Anya Emerson
Amber Benson as Tara
Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
Someone is taking over Xander’s life.... and he looks an awful lot like a better-adjusted Xander.
PROLOGUE
Xander, Anya, Buffy and Riley watch kung fu while Xander contemplates finding a new place to live-- far from his parents’ fighting. Meanwhile, a demonic sorcerer at a bubbling cauldron plots Buffy’s death.
ACT I
The gang checks out an apartment for Xander, but it’s way out of poor soon-to-be unemployed Xander’s league. Anya’s feeling pretty discontent.
After the demon of the week, a Toth, roughs Giles up looking for Buffy and wanders away, Buffy and the gang wonder where the Toth would be. Judged by the demon’s smell they look for him at the city dump.
The Toth attacks them and Xander pushes Buffy out of the way of a demon blast, taking the full brunt of a mystic staff-missile. The demon leaves and so does the gang, but unbeknownst to them, an exact replica of Xander has sprung up where Xander fell-- and the real Xander remains behind while the new one walks off with his friends.
ACT II
Xander I wakes up the following day at the city dump and heads home to discover Xander II living at his place. (Xander II dresses better.)
While Buffy and sister Dawn drive their mother batty, Spike plots the death of Buffy, as well, practicing his kicks on a blonde mannequin.
While Xander I skulks in the background, Xander II manages to get a promotion at the job site, then not only gets the apartment he applied for but gets the apartment manager to come onto him. (Xander II has a shiny coin that hypnotizes people.) Xander heads to Giles’ to get Buffy’s help, but finds Xander II.
ACT III
Xander I does the Charlie Brown Christmas "Snoopy dance" to convince Willow that he’s himself. He tells Willow the whole problem while Xander II tries to convince Buffy and Riley to find the doppelganger and kill it right away. Both parties assume it’s the Toth. “A demon has taken my life from me, and it’s living my life better than I do.”
“I never help; I get in trouble and Buffy saves me,” says Xander I. He’s upset that Xander II does everything better-- maybe he should just let Xander II have his life. “It’s not like I was doing anything so great with it.”
Xander II sweet-talks Anya at the new important, astutely dissecting her fears of sudden vulnerability. (Anya’s recent shoulder injury is a new experience for the formerly invulnerable demon.) Xander I busts in on the two kissing, but Anya sticks beside Xander II.
When Willow goes to Giles, the gang surmises that the demon spell was designed to split Buffy into two parts-- instead it’s done the trick on Xander, splitting him into a strong and weak half. Both are genuine Xander and neither can be killed, or both will die. They need to be rejoined.
Meanwhile, Xander I desperately pulls a gun on Xander II.
ACT IV
While Xanders I & II grapple, Buffy and Riley rush to the apartment. Riley consoles Buffy that he would not prefer a non-Slayer “weak Buffy.” Buffy puts a stop to the fight and reveals to the Xanders that they are both Xander. Turns out the shiny coin Xander II toys with isn’t hypnotic after all; it’s just a cool flattened nickel.
Later, the gang marvel at the identical Xanders. “Psychologically this is fascinating,” Riley says. “Doesn’t it make everyone wanta lock them in separate rooms and do experiments on them?” Anya has some experiments of her own she’d like to try, but Willow reverses the spell, leaving us with a whole Xander once more.
Xander tells Riley he envies how Riley has always been as confident as Xander II was. Riley says he's lucky, especially regarding Buffy. He soliloquizes about how “Buffy is the one” for him... “But she doesn’t love me.”
NOTES
Of course I'm bound to give a good review to "The Replacement" because I have a soft spot for Xander-oriented episodes of Buffy, but as usual, my enthusiasm is not misplaced. This is the second time a character's spawned a twin on the show (Willow acknowledges this, nicely) and it has a different twist this time. Xander thinks that he's been replaced by an evil version of himself, but in fact he's merely given flesh to all the parts of Xander that we rarely see: his bravery, intelligence, wit and confidence. It's telling that Xander interprets these attributes as not him, almost as telling as the fact that we, too, feel as though "Weak Xander" is "Xander Complete" on first blush.
I love the concept that if we could strip away our doubts we could become a far more powerful version of ourselves. If anything, the character Xander should retain some of the lessons learned here, but I wouldn't count on it too much-- he's learned a lot of lessons along the way, and his gradual improvement has been agonizingly slow. Note, though, that Xander's plight stems from an act of bravery in the first place, as Xander pushes Buffy out of the way of the Toth's blast. Incidentally, Xander II is played by Nicholas Brendan's identical twin, and he does a fine job, although the script wisely leaves the funny lines to Brendan, who is a master at comic delivery.
On more minor notes, Buffy's sister Dawn remains in this episode, very realistic as an irritating young teen in her sister's hair. I personally applaud the whole Dawn sub-plot because of it's very daring. Whedon and the powers that be knew what they were doing bringing this character on in the fifth season. As with every other choice in the series, Dawn is a commentary on late-season cast additions with a Buffy twist, in that slowly but surely the whole world is going to realize she shouldn't be here. It's a cool idea, and it's irked me to no end that critics, always eager to write cliches lest they waste time thinking, have merely sniffed at the addition without considering the whole point.
I enjoyed seeing Buffy analyze the fighting in the David Chiang movie the gang watches at the beginning. She whines at the stage fighting, telling Riley, "it would drive you crazy if we watched an army movie and they were saluting backwards and invading all willy-nilly."
But where on Earth does Riley's soliloquy at the end come from? I watched the junior super-soldier wax about how very lucky he is to have Buffy, although he knows she "doesn't love me." He's just thankful to have known her, he says. She's made him a better person. I heard this and my first thought was: this guy is so very, very doomed.
And that's my bet. Doomed.
QUOTES:
On demon exits:
Buffy: “He ran away, huh?”
Giles: “He rather more turned and swept away majestically, I suppose.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- The Real Me
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 5, Episode “The Real Me”
Broadcast October 3, 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
Giles leads Buffy in her meditation (real Yoda-Luke balancing stuff,) but sister Dawn makes such a racket that Buffy can’t concentrate.
ACT 1
“Nobody knows who I am,” complains Dawn to her diary, “not the real me,” by which she means “no one has an older sister who’s a Slayer.” Dawn is so weary of her perfect super-hero sister.
Neither sister is thrilled when Mrs. Summers tells Buffy to take Dawn with her when she and Giles go pick up material at the Magic Shop. Buffy's boyfriend Riley (he calls her "kid") irritates Dawn, but she gets along with Dawn and Willow, who seem to identify with her awkwardness.
When the whole gang gets to the magic shop, they find the latest owner dead, and Buffy makes Dawn wait outside while they investigate. Outside, an insane man approaches Dawn, raving about the voices in his head. Then he points at Dawn: “I know what you are. You don’t belong here.”
ACT 2
Tara comes out to keep Dawn company on the magic shop stoop while Buffy, Willow and Giles investigate the owner’s death. The vampires who killed him apparently stole a book on vampire slayers, but Giles is more impressed by the owner’s records, which reveal that the shop would be a great investment. “I’ll be the death rate keeps the rent down.”
The one clue they have is that the vampires stole a $13 unicorn statue. “What kind of vampire enjoys cheap, tasteless statuary?”
In a belowground crypt, Harmony the Vampire addresses her “minions,” loser vampires she has convinced or created to follow her. They will destroy the Slayer, the ditzy vampire announces.
That night, Xander arrives to baby-sit Dawn (she’s thrilled) with girlfriend Anya in tow (a definite minus.) Meanwhile, Tara feels like she may never chip her way into the Scooby Gang.
On patrol, Buffy tells Riley she thinks Dawn is to coddled when Buffy has to deal with all the difficult stuff. “She doesn’t get the sacrifices [you make,]” Riley says. “She’s a kid.” Dawn, meanwhile, thinks Buffy gets more love and respect.
When Harmony arrives to kill Buffy (her brilliant plan is to call Buffy out of the house and beat her.) But Buffy’s not home, so Harmony and Xander trade insults instead (she can’t come in without an invitation) until Dawn reacts to an insult by saying, “Oh yeah? Come inside and say that!”
ACT 3
Luckily the invitation was only for one, and Xander is able to kick Harmony back out.
Buffy is furious that her little sister has given a vampire an invitation, even by accident. (They’ll have to cast a spell to reverse the invitation.)
Harmony .licks her wounds and runs into Spike, who is amused that she has minions now. Inadvertently, Spike gives Harmony the idea of kidnapping someone close to Buffy and luring the Slayer into a trap. He advises her to “leave Slayer-slaying to the professionals.”
Buffy says they’re all turning Dawn into in idiot by coddling her: “I was just a kid when I met my first vampire... I can’t protect her twenty-four hours a day.” When Dawn runs from the house in shame, pursued by Anya, vampires knock Anya out and kidnap Dawn.
ACT 4
While Harmony’s gang lose faith in their boss’ capabilities, Buffy learns of her hideout by beating Spike. By the time Buffy is headed for her lair, the vampires have all turned on her.
“Touch me and my sister’s gonna kill you,” Dawn tells a vampire-- and it’s true. Buffy finishes off the whole Harmony gang and they make it home before their Mom gets back from a late work night at the Gallery. The sisters cover for one another.
Giles, who says he was so bored last year he watched “Passions” with Spike, has decided to buy the magic shop.
Dawn, meanwhile, promises that there’s more to her than “a dumb little sister.”
NOTES
"The Real Me" is the first full Buffy episode with "Dawn," who suddenly appeared at the end of the season 5 Premiere. Dawn is Buffy's suddenly present and retroactively effective little sister. Everyone knows her and everyone's known her for years. She's a pain in the neck, too, as far as Buffy is concerned, and the Slayer is getting sick of her little sister cramping her style and making fourteen-year-old mistakes.
What the Heck is going on here, you ask? Only the single most ambitious trick Joss Whedon has tried yet with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. When Whedon announced that he was adding a little sister to the cast for the fifth season, the caterwauling among fans and critics alike rose to a fever pitch. It was, to judge by commentator's estimates, an astonishing, cynical, misguided misstep serious enough to threaten the viability of the show, borne of the kind of late-season desperation that often leads shows to add children to the cast. Mind you, all of this was before the Premiere even aired. Little did we know that Whedon had something else up his sleeve: the coup de gras of post-modern TV, in which such a character is, in fact, awkwardly added to the story, but the very addition becomes part of the story. Dawn's addition is thus directly in line with every other self-aware move Buffy has ever made.
And besides all that, I like Dawn. She's refreshing, telling us that if she were a superhero, she'd wear a mask and have a secret identity to protect her loved ones. She's geeky and awkward, a chess player and an avid reader, a glutton for attention and a messy eater. We can totally believe she's made Buffy's life hell, as only siblings can do, for her full fourteen-year tenure on the earth.
And her relationship with Buffy is interesting, bringing attention for the moment away from college, which was last season's focus, to the Scooby Gang and Buffy's home life. Dawn secretly idolizes Buffy and adores her friends, especially Willow, with whom she shares a great deal, and Willow's even-more awkward girlfriend Tara. And she has a sweet crush on Xander, fantasizing that he "sees her as a woman." Dawn is bratty mainly because she wants people to take an interest in her, and she's charming when they do. Michelle Trachtenberg has created a character we can instantly recognize and enjoy.
Question: at fourteen, isn't Dawn old enough to baby-sit other kids, much less watch herself? Someone clue me in because, as a guy, I have no idea.
In other notes, when Tara comes out of the shop to tell Dawn, “At times like these, it's best non-scoobies like you and me stay out of their way,” I wondered, when exactly will Tara qualify? Does dating a Scooby instantly exclude you as a member? Up until now I thought the Scoobies were utterly informal, anyway, but Tara seems to be right that she's not quite "one of them." The real answer, of course, is Buffy self-referentialism, as the script reflects reality: the show revolves around Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles.
Meanwhile, toe-headed Harmony has returned as the ditziest vampire super-villain ever, a development Spike finds "adorable." I'm getting tired of Spike as the sassy, weak vampire he's become-- think how far he's fallen since he first appeared, boasting of having killed the last two Slayers and having his own minions videotape her moves so he could study them. ("The last Slayer I killed begged for her life.") Oh, Spike, how art the mighty fallen.
QUOTES
Giles and Buffy, on Giles' hot ride:
Giles: “I’m just not used to this automatic transmission. Just sitting here not contributing. No, no, no, it’s not working out.”
Buffy: “Giles, are you breaking up with your car?”
Giles: “Well, it did seduce me. All red and sporty.”
Buffy: “Little two-door tramp.”
Dawn Summers, on the Goddesses that are Tara and Willow:
Dawn: “Tara and Willow... do spells and stuff, which is so much cooler than slaying. I told Mom one time I wish they’d teach me some of the stuff they do together, then she got real quiet and made me go upstairs. I guess her generation isn’t cool with witchcraft.”
Dawn Summers, on the Glory that is Xander:
“He totally skipped college and got a job working construction... which is so deep, you know?”
Harmony the Wise:
Harmony: “So, Slayer. At last we meet.”
Buffy: “We’ve met, Harmony, you half-wit.”
Season 5, Episode “The Real Me”
Broadcast October 3, 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
Giles leads Buffy in her meditation (real Yoda-Luke balancing stuff,) but sister Dawn makes such a racket that Buffy can’t concentrate.
ACT 1
“Nobody knows who I am,” complains Dawn to her diary, “not the real me,” by which she means “no one has an older sister who’s a Slayer.” Dawn is so weary of her perfect super-hero sister.
Neither sister is thrilled when Mrs. Summers tells Buffy to take Dawn with her when she and Giles go pick up material at the Magic Shop. Buffy's boyfriend Riley (he calls her "kid") irritates Dawn, but she gets along with Dawn and Willow, who seem to identify with her awkwardness.
When the whole gang gets to the magic shop, they find the latest owner dead, and Buffy makes Dawn wait outside while they investigate. Outside, an insane man approaches Dawn, raving about the voices in his head. Then he points at Dawn: “I know what you are. You don’t belong here.”
ACT 2
Tara comes out to keep Dawn company on the magic shop stoop while Buffy, Willow and Giles investigate the owner’s death. The vampires who killed him apparently stole a book on vampire slayers, but Giles is more impressed by the owner’s records, which reveal that the shop would be a great investment. “I’ll be the death rate keeps the rent down.”
The one clue they have is that the vampires stole a $13 unicorn statue. “What kind of vampire enjoys cheap, tasteless statuary?”
In a belowground crypt, Harmony the Vampire addresses her “minions,” loser vampires she has convinced or created to follow her. They will destroy the Slayer, the ditzy vampire announces.
That night, Xander arrives to baby-sit Dawn (she’s thrilled) with girlfriend Anya in tow (a definite minus.) Meanwhile, Tara feels like she may never chip her way into the Scooby Gang.
On patrol, Buffy tells Riley she thinks Dawn is to coddled when Buffy has to deal with all the difficult stuff. “She doesn’t get the sacrifices [you make,]” Riley says. “She’s a kid.” Dawn, meanwhile, thinks Buffy gets more love and respect.
When Harmony arrives to kill Buffy (her brilliant plan is to call Buffy out of the house and beat her.) But Buffy’s not home, so Harmony and Xander trade insults instead (she can’t come in without an invitation) until Dawn reacts to an insult by saying, “Oh yeah? Come inside and say that!”
ACT 3
Luckily the invitation was only for one, and Xander is able to kick Harmony back out.
Buffy is furious that her little sister has given a vampire an invitation, even by accident. (They’ll have to cast a spell to reverse the invitation.)
Harmony .licks her wounds and runs into Spike, who is amused that she has minions now. Inadvertently, Spike gives Harmony the idea of kidnapping someone close to Buffy and luring the Slayer into a trap. He advises her to “leave Slayer-slaying to the professionals.”
Buffy says they’re all turning Dawn into in idiot by coddling her: “I was just a kid when I met my first vampire... I can’t protect her twenty-four hours a day.” When Dawn runs from the house in shame, pursued by Anya, vampires knock Anya out and kidnap Dawn.
ACT 4
While Harmony’s gang lose faith in their boss’ capabilities, Buffy learns of her hideout by beating Spike. By the time Buffy is headed for her lair, the vampires have all turned on her.
“Touch me and my sister’s gonna kill you,” Dawn tells a vampire-- and it’s true. Buffy finishes off the whole Harmony gang and they make it home before their Mom gets back from a late work night at the Gallery. The sisters cover for one another.
Giles, who says he was so bored last year he watched “Passions” with Spike, has decided to buy the magic shop.
Dawn, meanwhile, promises that there’s more to her than “a dumb little sister.”
NOTES
"The Real Me" is the first full Buffy episode with "Dawn," who suddenly appeared at the end of the season 5 Premiere. Dawn is Buffy's suddenly present and retroactively effective little sister. Everyone knows her and everyone's known her for years. She's a pain in the neck, too, as far as Buffy is concerned, and the Slayer is getting sick of her little sister cramping her style and making fourteen-year-old mistakes.
What the Heck is going on here, you ask? Only the single most ambitious trick Joss Whedon has tried yet with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. When Whedon announced that he was adding a little sister to the cast for the fifth season, the caterwauling among fans and critics alike rose to a fever pitch. It was, to judge by commentator's estimates, an astonishing, cynical, misguided misstep serious enough to threaten the viability of the show, borne of the kind of late-season desperation that often leads shows to add children to the cast. Mind you, all of this was before the Premiere even aired. Little did we know that Whedon had something else up his sleeve: the coup de gras of post-modern TV, in which such a character is, in fact, awkwardly added to the story, but the very addition becomes part of the story. Dawn's addition is thus directly in line with every other self-aware move Buffy has ever made.
And besides all that, I like Dawn. She's refreshing, telling us that if she were a superhero, she'd wear a mask and have a secret identity to protect her loved ones. She's geeky and awkward, a chess player and an avid reader, a glutton for attention and a messy eater. We can totally believe she's made Buffy's life hell, as only siblings can do, for her full fourteen-year tenure on the earth.
And her relationship with Buffy is interesting, bringing attention for the moment away from college, which was last season's focus, to the Scooby Gang and Buffy's home life. Dawn secretly idolizes Buffy and adores her friends, especially Willow, with whom she shares a great deal, and Willow's even-more awkward girlfriend Tara. And she has a sweet crush on Xander, fantasizing that he "sees her as a woman." Dawn is bratty mainly because she wants people to take an interest in her, and she's charming when they do. Michelle Trachtenberg has created a character we can instantly recognize and enjoy.
Question: at fourteen, isn't Dawn old enough to baby-sit other kids, much less watch herself? Someone clue me in because, as a guy, I have no idea.
In other notes, when Tara comes out of the shop to tell Dawn, “At times like these, it's best non-scoobies like you and me stay out of their way,” I wondered, when exactly will Tara qualify? Does dating a Scooby instantly exclude you as a member? Up until now I thought the Scoobies were utterly informal, anyway, but Tara seems to be right that she's not quite "one of them." The real answer, of course, is Buffy self-referentialism, as the script reflects reality: the show revolves around Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles.
Meanwhile, toe-headed Harmony has returned as the ditziest vampire super-villain ever, a development Spike finds "adorable." I'm getting tired of Spike as the sassy, weak vampire he's become-- think how far he's fallen since he first appeared, boasting of having killed the last two Slayers and having his own minions videotape her moves so he could study them. ("The last Slayer I killed begged for her life.") Oh, Spike, how art the mighty fallen.
QUOTES
Giles and Buffy, on Giles' hot ride:
Giles: “I’m just not used to this automatic transmission. Just sitting here not contributing. No, no, no, it’s not working out.”
Buffy: “Giles, are you breaking up with your car?”
Giles: “Well, it did seduce me. All red and sporty.”
Buffy: “Little two-door tramp.”
Dawn Summers, on the Goddesses that are Tara and Willow:
Dawn: “Tara and Willow... do spells and stuff, which is so much cooler than slaying. I told Mom one time I wish they’d teach me some of the stuff they do together, then she got real quiet and made me go upstairs. I guess her generation isn’t cool with witchcraft.”
Dawn Summers, on the Glory that is Xander:
“He totally skipped college and got a job working construction... which is so deep, you know?”
Harmony the Wise:
Harmony: “So, Slayer. At last we meet.”
Buffy: “We’ve met, Harmony, you half-wit.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- The Wish
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 3
Episode: “The Wish” (December 9, 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
Cordelia can trace her problems to one event: Buffy’s arrival. When a wish takes Buffy away, Sunnydale becomes a nightmare landscape drenched in darkness and the lusty rule of the Master, Xander and Willow. Can we get the old nightmare back, please?
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
We open with Buffy defeating a walking octopus-like demon in the park with the help of Xander and Willow. Afterwards, Buffy learns that Xander and Willow are still making no progress towards reconciling with Cordelia and Oz, their significant others. (Cordy and Oz caught Xander and Willow kissing last episode, shortly before Cordy was impaled on a spike and sent to the hospital.
At Cordelia’s place, the spurned beauty queen burns mementos and photographs while listening to Xander leave message after pathetic message on her machine.
Cordelia returns to school next day dressed to the nines, but her old gang of popular girls tease her and shut her out—as Xander Harris’s “cast-off,” she’s fallen far.
Willow, meanwhile, tries to reconcile with Oz again, and he tells her again to give him time. “I’m sorry this is hard for you,” he says. “But I told you what I need. So I can’t help thinking the reason you want to talk about this is to feel better about yourself. That’s not my problem.”
After crude insults from popular girls and boorish jocks, Cordelia manages to make a friend, a lovely newcomer who shares Cordy’s haute bourgeoisie fashion sense. The newcomer is tired of hanging out with idiots.
At the Bronze, Xander, Willow and Buffy hang out and try to look happy in front of Cordelia. Xander’s tired of sulking, and worse, it appears his friendship with Willow is ruined. With Willow determined to get Oz back, she feel she should have even less contact with Xander than before.
Buffy follows Cordelia out into the alley out of concern. Cordelia is clutching her wound, still in some pain, but she brushes off Buffy’s attempt at comfort, especially after getting knocked back into a pile of garbage when a vampire attacks Buffy. Cordy’s had it with these people.
Next scene, Cordy talks to her new friend. She never would have gone for Xander if Buffy, semi-popular, hadn’t made Xander seem somewhat cool. “I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale.” The newcomer, now revealed as the demon Ananka, says, “done.”
And so it is. Cordelia looks around, the newcomer gone, and people instantly begin kowtowing to her as Ms. Popular again. The popular clique is dazzled by her “very daring” dress; she casually blows off a nervous request for a date from the same jock who insulted her in the previous reality. This is a great reality, Cordelia realizes. The newcomer was a genie of sorts.
Except that class is cancelled tomorrow because of the “weekly memorial,” and at the end of the day, everyone rushes home with an hour to spare before city curfew. And the other girls are confused as to how Cody would wear “this come-bite-me” outfit, and they take her suggestion of going to the Bronze as a sick joke. And the parking lot is a barren field of blowing papers; no students drive here. “Get in before the sun sets,” advises the custodian.
Out into the night Cordelia wanders, to be set upon immediately by, of all people, Xander and Willow, looking pasty and vampiric. Xander wears a leather jacket, Willow a blood-red leather teddy thing that makes her look like a member of the Hellfire Club. Cordelia mentions Buffy, and Xander has heard of the name. Willow and Xander purr at one another before attacking Cordelia. But at the last minute, a van pulls up. It’s the White Hats, Xander curses, and the van opens to find Giles, Oz and a couple of others, pushing back the vampires, scooping up Cordelia, and driving away.
Willow and Xander repair to the Bronze, which is in this reality a sexy vampire rave joint, where the Master holds sway and tosses Willow a quivering ingenue. The Plant, the Master’s next big thing, begins operation in twenty-four hours. If Cordelia mentioned the slayer, she may call her, the Master suggests. Find her, and kill her.
Back at the library, Cordelia pleads with Giles, who does not know her, to call Buffy. “You’re her watcher!” Giles doesn’t know where Cordelia got this information, but he’s moved by her insistence that the world has changed because of a wish she made, and should be better than this. Giles goes to look up Cordelia’s medallion, but can’t save Cordelia: Xander and Willow break in and viciously kill her together before Giles’ eyes.
Later, while Giles pleads on the phone with the Cleveland Watcher that the slayer is very much needed at the Hellmouth, Willow gets a special treat from the master: playing with “the puppy,” an imprisoned good vampire- - Angel. She straddles Angel’s chest and tortures him with matches while Xander looks on.
Giles traces the medallion to Ananka, a demon devoted to spurned women. She grants wishes, which backs up Cordelia’s last words. On the way to his home, he passes a vampire van loading up wit victims. Giles rescues the mortals but is about to die himself when he is saved by a violent young woman with a nasty scar on her lip: the slayer he ordered. “Wanta tell me what I’m doing here?” Buffy asks.
Buffy rejects Giles’ theory that there’s a demon who can change the world back to what it’s supposed to be. For one thing, the books say to destroy the demon’s “heart of power,” which Giles cannot identify, and in any event, Buffy doesn’t believe there’s a better place to restore. She’s more interested in hunting the Master, and when Giles directs her to the Bronze, Buffy leaves.
Buffy finds the Bronze empty, except for Angel, who recognizes Buffy. “I was supposed to wait for you. You never came.” Buffy lets the vampire out of his cell in exchange for help hunting the Master, who’s now out at the factory beginning a new mass-vampire-production operation.
Buffy and Angel go into the factory as the first innocent victim is killed and Oz watches from a cage with the other prisoners. Buffy takes a crossbow shot at the Master and catches Xander in the shoulder, setting off a battle. Angel opens several cages, (“Uh-oh,” Willow coos, “Puppy got out.”) letting victims run free, as vampires close in on them. Xander slays Angel, and is in turn impaled by Buffy. Oz and another white hat force Willow back on a broken shaft and watch her turn to dust, while the Master and Buffy toss people aside as they make a beeline for one another.
Back at home, Giles summons Ananka, who is furious that a man would bring her. As they scuffle, Ananka asks, “what makes you think the other reality is better?” “It has to be,” Giles says. He tears away her medallion and prepares to crush it with a heavy bowl.
The Master overpowers Buffy easily, and snaps her neck.
Giles crushes the medallion, and as Buffy begins to fall, the world snaps back.
And Cordelia wishes Buffy had never come, and nothing happens. And she wishes a lot of other things, and nothing happens there, either. She wanders off, as Xander, Willow and Buffy talk on a bench behind her.
Notes
• As Buffy: The Vampire Slayer episodes go, this is one of the creepiest. Even the humor is pared back a little, traded for a few cynical witticisms that hurt a little more than they amuse.
• The alternate reality Cordelia triggers is a nightmare landscape of Sunnydale under siege, complete with new rules and new heroes, including the ill-matched White Hats, Giles’ band of vampire-slaying merry men (including werewolf Oz.) Were this a comic book, I’d expect a return at some time to this reality. (Days of Future Past was originally a one-shot X-Men alternate reality, but fans liked the grimness of it so much that the characters managed to go back several times.)
• The single most memorable moment is, of course, the final battle at the end, when EVERYONE gets iced in slow motion. Think Gallipoli.
• Interesting to see what incredibly evil villains Xander and Willow become in the alternate reality Cordy triggers, which suggests to me that her subconscious affected the molding of the reality itself. (And why not? It was born of her wish.) Willow is another Dru, a cooing, sadistic sex kitten, whereas Xander is a violent punk.
• I've often criticized Buffy for being a bit narcissistic, but this episode gave me a good slap for that disrespect: according to this, Buffy is the one thing that’s kept Sunnydale from becoming complete Hell. For her part, Buffy is an interestingly different character when she does appear. Apparently she has failed to find the kind of mentor she needs (the Watcher in Cleveland apparently never sees her,) and Buffy arrives in Sunnydale as a slouchy warrior so Clint Eastwood-like she should be chewing on a cigar. She’s got a nasty scar on her lip and a nastily cynical disposition; there’s little hope for this Buffy. She’s overconfident, too: she underesti9mates the situation in Sunnydale, rejecting Giles’ offer of backup and walking into a battle with the Master she cannot win.
• Kudos, though, to the subplot of the show: the slow, slow recovery of Oz and Cordelia after their betrayal by Willow and Xander. Like Lancelot and Guinevere, Xander and Willow have profited nothing by their affair, and have even ruined their own relationship. Oz has been such a likeable character all along that there’s a sickening feel to Willow’s pleading with him, and Cordelia’s suffering has only begun—she gave up a lot to be with Xander, and didn’t deserve to be treated this way. No-one is getting out of this aftermath easily or quickly.
* Last thought about the alternate reality: shouldn’t everyone carry massive crosses like Giles does?
Memorable Quotes
On catch-all remedies
“You’d be surprised how many things that’ll kill.”
(Buffy, suggesting they stake the demon Ananka, even though she’s not a vampire.)
On getting on with it
“I’m gonna grab hold of that crazy little thing called life and make it do its crazy heal-y thing.”
(Xander, tired of moping around. The good times nevertheless fail to roll.)
Season 3
Episode: “The Wish” (December 9, 1998)
Synopsis by Jason Henderson
Overview
Cordelia can trace her problems to one event: Buffy’s arrival. When a wish takes Buffy away, Sunnydale becomes a nightmare landscape drenched in darkness and the lusty rule of the Master, Xander and Willow. Can we get the old nightmare back, please?
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
We open with Buffy defeating a walking octopus-like demon in the park with the help of Xander and Willow. Afterwards, Buffy learns that Xander and Willow are still making no progress towards reconciling with Cordelia and Oz, their significant others. (Cordy and Oz caught Xander and Willow kissing last episode, shortly before Cordy was impaled on a spike and sent to the hospital.
At Cordelia’s place, the spurned beauty queen burns mementos and photographs while listening to Xander leave message after pathetic message on her machine.
Cordelia returns to school next day dressed to the nines, but her old gang of popular girls tease her and shut her out—as Xander Harris’s “cast-off,” she’s fallen far.
Willow, meanwhile, tries to reconcile with Oz again, and he tells her again to give him time. “I’m sorry this is hard for you,” he says. “But I told you what I need. So I can’t help thinking the reason you want to talk about this is to feel better about yourself. That’s not my problem.”
After crude insults from popular girls and boorish jocks, Cordelia manages to make a friend, a lovely newcomer who shares Cordy’s haute bourgeoisie fashion sense. The newcomer is tired of hanging out with idiots.
At the Bronze, Xander, Willow and Buffy hang out and try to look happy in front of Cordelia. Xander’s tired of sulking, and worse, it appears his friendship with Willow is ruined. With Willow determined to get Oz back, she feel she should have even less contact with Xander than before.
Buffy follows Cordelia out into the alley out of concern. Cordelia is clutching her wound, still in some pain, but she brushes off Buffy’s attempt at comfort, especially after getting knocked back into a pile of garbage when a vampire attacks Buffy. Cordy’s had it with these people.
Next scene, Cordy talks to her new friend. She never would have gone for Xander if Buffy, semi-popular, hadn’t made Xander seem somewhat cool. “I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale.” The newcomer, now revealed as the demon Ananka, says, “done.”
And so it is. Cordelia looks around, the newcomer gone, and people instantly begin kowtowing to her as Ms. Popular again. The popular clique is dazzled by her “very daring” dress; she casually blows off a nervous request for a date from the same jock who insulted her in the previous reality. This is a great reality, Cordelia realizes. The newcomer was a genie of sorts.
Except that class is cancelled tomorrow because of the “weekly memorial,” and at the end of the day, everyone rushes home with an hour to spare before city curfew. And the other girls are confused as to how Cody would wear “this come-bite-me” outfit, and they take her suggestion of going to the Bronze as a sick joke. And the parking lot is a barren field of blowing papers; no students drive here. “Get in before the sun sets,” advises the custodian.
Out into the night Cordelia wanders, to be set upon immediately by, of all people, Xander and Willow, looking pasty and vampiric. Xander wears a leather jacket, Willow a blood-red leather teddy thing that makes her look like a member of the Hellfire Club. Cordelia mentions Buffy, and Xander has heard of the name. Willow and Xander purr at one another before attacking Cordelia. But at the last minute, a van pulls up. It’s the White Hats, Xander curses, and the van opens to find Giles, Oz and a couple of others, pushing back the vampires, scooping up Cordelia, and driving away.
Willow and Xander repair to the Bronze, which is in this reality a sexy vampire rave joint, where the Master holds sway and tosses Willow a quivering ingenue. The Plant, the Master’s next big thing, begins operation in twenty-four hours. If Cordelia mentioned the slayer, she may call her, the Master suggests. Find her, and kill her.
Back at the library, Cordelia pleads with Giles, who does not know her, to call Buffy. “You’re her watcher!” Giles doesn’t know where Cordelia got this information, but he’s moved by her insistence that the world has changed because of a wish she made, and should be better than this. Giles goes to look up Cordelia’s medallion, but can’t save Cordelia: Xander and Willow break in and viciously kill her together before Giles’ eyes.
Later, while Giles pleads on the phone with the Cleveland Watcher that the slayer is very much needed at the Hellmouth, Willow gets a special treat from the master: playing with “the puppy,” an imprisoned good vampire- - Angel. She straddles Angel’s chest and tortures him with matches while Xander looks on.
Giles traces the medallion to Ananka, a demon devoted to spurned women. She grants wishes, which backs up Cordelia’s last words. On the way to his home, he passes a vampire van loading up wit victims. Giles rescues the mortals but is about to die himself when he is saved by a violent young woman with a nasty scar on her lip: the slayer he ordered. “Wanta tell me what I’m doing here?” Buffy asks.
Buffy rejects Giles’ theory that there’s a demon who can change the world back to what it’s supposed to be. For one thing, the books say to destroy the demon’s “heart of power,” which Giles cannot identify, and in any event, Buffy doesn’t believe there’s a better place to restore. She’s more interested in hunting the Master, and when Giles directs her to the Bronze, Buffy leaves.
Buffy finds the Bronze empty, except for Angel, who recognizes Buffy. “I was supposed to wait for you. You never came.” Buffy lets the vampire out of his cell in exchange for help hunting the Master, who’s now out at the factory beginning a new mass-vampire-production operation.
Buffy and Angel go into the factory as the first innocent victim is killed and Oz watches from a cage with the other prisoners. Buffy takes a crossbow shot at the Master and catches Xander in the shoulder, setting off a battle. Angel opens several cages, (“Uh-oh,” Willow coos, “Puppy got out.”) letting victims run free, as vampires close in on them. Xander slays Angel, and is in turn impaled by Buffy. Oz and another white hat force Willow back on a broken shaft and watch her turn to dust, while the Master and Buffy toss people aside as they make a beeline for one another.
Back at home, Giles summons Ananka, who is furious that a man would bring her. As they scuffle, Ananka asks, “what makes you think the other reality is better?” “It has to be,” Giles says. He tears away her medallion and prepares to crush it with a heavy bowl.
The Master overpowers Buffy easily, and snaps her neck.
Giles crushes the medallion, and as Buffy begins to fall, the world snaps back.
And Cordelia wishes Buffy had never come, and nothing happens. And she wishes a lot of other things, and nothing happens there, either. She wanders off, as Xander, Willow and Buffy talk on a bench behind her.
Notes
• As Buffy: The Vampire Slayer episodes go, this is one of the creepiest. Even the humor is pared back a little, traded for a few cynical witticisms that hurt a little more than they amuse.
• The alternate reality Cordelia triggers is a nightmare landscape of Sunnydale under siege, complete with new rules and new heroes, including the ill-matched White Hats, Giles’ band of vampire-slaying merry men (including werewolf Oz.) Were this a comic book, I’d expect a return at some time to this reality. (Days of Future Past was originally a one-shot X-Men alternate reality, but fans liked the grimness of it so much that the characters managed to go back several times.)
• The single most memorable moment is, of course, the final battle at the end, when EVERYONE gets iced in slow motion. Think Gallipoli.
• Interesting to see what incredibly evil villains Xander and Willow become in the alternate reality Cordy triggers, which suggests to me that her subconscious affected the molding of the reality itself. (And why not? It was born of her wish.) Willow is another Dru, a cooing, sadistic sex kitten, whereas Xander is a violent punk.
• I've often criticized Buffy for being a bit narcissistic, but this episode gave me a good slap for that disrespect: according to this, Buffy is the one thing that’s kept Sunnydale from becoming complete Hell. For her part, Buffy is an interestingly different character when she does appear. Apparently she has failed to find the kind of mentor she needs (the Watcher in Cleveland apparently never sees her,) and Buffy arrives in Sunnydale as a slouchy warrior so Clint Eastwood-like she should be chewing on a cigar. She’s got a nasty scar on her lip and a nastily cynical disposition; there’s little hope for this Buffy. She’s overconfident, too: she underesti9mates the situation in Sunnydale, rejecting Giles’ offer of backup and walking into a battle with the Master she cannot win.
• Kudos, though, to the subplot of the show: the slow, slow recovery of Oz and Cordelia after their betrayal by Willow and Xander. Like Lancelot and Guinevere, Xander and Willow have profited nothing by their affair, and have even ruined their own relationship. Oz has been such a likeable character all along that there’s a sickening feel to Willow’s pleading with him, and Cordelia’s suffering has only begun—she gave up a lot to be with Xander, and didn’t deserve to be treated this way. No-one is getting out of this aftermath easily or quickly.
* Last thought about the alternate reality: shouldn’t everyone carry massive crosses like Giles does?
Memorable Quotes
On catch-all remedies
“You’d be surprised how many things that’ll kill.”
(Buffy, suggesting they stake the demon Ananka, even though she’s not a vampire.)
On getting on with it
“I’m gonna grab hold of that crazy little thing called life and make it do its crazy heal-y thing.”
(Xander, tired of moping around. The good times nevertheless fail to roll.)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Into the Woods
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“Into the Woods”
Broadcast December 19, 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
The gang waits restlessly at the hospital for Buffy’s mom, Joyce to emerge from her cancer-related brain surgery.
ACT 1
Joyce’s surgery was a success-- the doctor says he was able to remove the tumor completely, although they’ll have to observe Joyce’s progress for awhile at the hospital.
While Anya and Xander baby-sit Dawn, Riley and Buffy celebrate with a romantic night at home. But after Buffy falls asleep, Riley sneaks out of the house.
A spying Spike (the vampire is now fixated on Buffy) curiously follows Riley as the former super-agent heads in silence to a warehouse district.
The next day, while the Special Ops group that has replaced the Initiative plans to ask Riley to join them in an operation in Belize, Spike comes to Buffy in the middle of the night. He guides her out to the warehouse where Riley is hanging out with a sort of vampire orgy house. In an upper floor they find Riley, sitting calmly as a female vampire feeds on his army.
ACT II
“We only came here because we care about you, friend,” Spike snidely says to Riley as Buffy storms out. Riley drags himself back to his apartment to find a couple of Special Ops guys in his apartment asking him to join them for the Central American job. He doesn’t give them an answer yet.
Giles tells Buffy has hasn’t seen the sort of risky behavior she saw at the vampire den “since his Ripper days.” He explains that People hire vampires to feed off them and get off on the rush; it’s sleazy, addictive, even a little dangerous, but consenting and ultimately not all that worth troubling over when there are greater evils around. Buffy doesn’t reveal Riley is into the scene but does insist that thy go torch the den. She does, but it’s empty.
Riley, furious with Spike, visits the vampire’s crypt and impales him with a stake.
ACT III
But it’s a plastic stake, and Riley says next time it’ll be real if he doesn’t get out of his and Buffy’s life. Spike, in turn, says Riley isn’t likely to be the long-term love for Buffy, who wants a more corrupt man-- whereas despite current developments, Riley ultimately is good. Spike admits he isn’t likely to win Buffy either, and they drink together.
Riley goes to see Buffy, and she’s not much interested in talking. He explains that his dalliances with vampires started after her incident with Dracula. But it’s not her fault; he soon moved from ill-conceived jealousy to addiction for being needed in a passionate way. He thinks Buffy has never needed him, and his evidence is that Buffy didn’t turn to him when Joyce was sick.
Buffy sees that the real issue is that Riley hates the fact that Buffy is stronger than he is. She isn’t going to change the way she relates to him. Riley drops another bombshell: he’s rejoining the military and headed for Belize later tonight unless she gives him a reason to stay.
Buffy storms out to the streets, where she’s surrounded by vampires of the feeding den, who are still mad that she burned down their place.
ACT IV
Buffy tells the vampire horde to get lost, but when they give her attitude, she actually kills all of them. Xander observes this and demands that she open up to him. “You’re acting like a crazy person. He also has figured out that Riley is the problem, largely because Riley can’t handle being merely a convenience anymore.
Xander tells Buffy, “You’ve been treating Riley like the rebound guy, when he’s the one who comes once in a lifetime.” He tells her to either let Riley go in a clean break if she doesn’t love him, or fight to keep him if he matters.
Buffy realizes Riley is worth fighting for and runs to meet him, but she’s too late to stop him from getting into the military helicopter, and as Riley is carried away on his mission, he doesn’t hear her calling.
Back at his place, Xander tells Anya he’s in love with her-- just because he wanted to make it clear.
NOTES
It's a shame that this is the exit of Riley, considering he's only become an interesting character once the creators decided they'd be writing him off. Someday the histories of Buffy will tell it more or less this way: Once upon a time, there was the new boyfriend Riley, attractive in a corn-fed, hunky sort of way, a confident government agent superhero and psychology teaching assistant. Soon enough Riley was the super-powered beau, and the fans were less than enthused. Slowly this lack of enthusiasm worked its magic on the reality of the show, and Buffy cooled towards Riley about the same time he lost his super-powers. Gradually he became more and more pathetic and uninteresting-- until he suddenly developed a taste for vampire kisses.
Now this is interesting; I love how delightfully sleazy Riley’s nocturnal escapes are. It's such a shameful, torrid practice born of all sorts of mixed emotions that it creates some interesting drama. Giles and Anya know about the vampire brothels, and both regard it as not really worth dealing with in a world of much greater evils. I doubt Buffy would care either, if not for her random rage. These are about the least evil that vampires can get-- they only bite people who pay them.
But Buffy is right to feel betrayed, and right when she says Riley is making a common mistake of men who frequent brothels, believing the hookers care. And one can't expect her to react any differently than she does, with revulsion and a sense of betrayal. But Riley explains himself exactly as best he can-- he did what he did out of rage, loneliness, and jealousy. And he's exactly right when he tells Buffy he doesn't really matter to her, just as Xander is when he tells her Riley has always been less a partner than a convenience.
What I appreciate here is that the show has always treated Buffy's ego consistently. Buffy is like most TV heroes; she's basically a self-centered person lucky enough to exist in a world that really does revolve around her. She's a hero, but she's so impressed with the awesome responsibility of being a slayer that she can be an insufferable martyr. In the cases where she has deviated from her own selfishness, it's an act of heroism, such as when she declined to crush Tara's hope of acceptance. She's really not a very nice woman, except to the people she needs at the time, but she's our hero, and that's good enough.
In fact, despite Buffy's apparent sudden conversion and race for the helicopter pad, I doubt her newfound appreciation would have lasted. But off he goes, and I was almost surprised that the episode didn't end with the radioed news that Riley was shot down over Belize, but you just wait.
In other news, it was nice to see Riley and Spike being lovable losers together, drinking and sullenly insulting one another. Spike has some nerve, doubting Riley's darkness even after the super-agent has driven a plastic stake through his heart. Why exactly didn't Riley kill Spike?
I also found the closing scenes with Xander quite satisfying and believable-- Buffy challenges Xander by accusing him of using Anya because the girl is there, and Xander goes straight home to tell the ex-demon that he really has fallen for her. It's a good thing to do and the best thing to come out of his argument with Buffy; besides, Anya has become a truly interesting character.
QUOTES
Spike: “Hey, let’s be reasonable about this.”
Riley: “You may have noticed, I left reasonable about three exits back.”
“Into the Woods”
Broadcast December 19, 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
The gang waits restlessly at the hospital for Buffy’s mom, Joyce to emerge from her cancer-related brain surgery.
ACT 1
Joyce’s surgery was a success-- the doctor says he was able to remove the tumor completely, although they’ll have to observe Joyce’s progress for awhile at the hospital.
While Anya and Xander baby-sit Dawn, Riley and Buffy celebrate with a romantic night at home. But after Buffy falls asleep, Riley sneaks out of the house.
A spying Spike (the vampire is now fixated on Buffy) curiously follows Riley as the former super-agent heads in silence to a warehouse district.
The next day, while the Special Ops group that has replaced the Initiative plans to ask Riley to join them in an operation in Belize, Spike comes to Buffy in the middle of the night. He guides her out to the warehouse where Riley is hanging out with a sort of vampire orgy house. In an upper floor they find Riley, sitting calmly as a female vampire feeds on his army.
ACT II
“We only came here because we care about you, friend,” Spike snidely says to Riley as Buffy storms out. Riley drags himself back to his apartment to find a couple of Special Ops guys in his apartment asking him to join them for the Central American job. He doesn’t give them an answer yet.
Giles tells Buffy has hasn’t seen the sort of risky behavior she saw at the vampire den “since his Ripper days.” He explains that People hire vampires to feed off them and get off on the rush; it’s sleazy, addictive, even a little dangerous, but consenting and ultimately not all that worth troubling over when there are greater evils around. Buffy doesn’t reveal Riley is into the scene but does insist that thy go torch the den. She does, but it’s empty.
Riley, furious with Spike, visits the vampire’s crypt and impales him with a stake.
ACT III
But it’s a plastic stake, and Riley says next time it’ll be real if he doesn’t get out of his and Buffy’s life. Spike, in turn, says Riley isn’t likely to be the long-term love for Buffy, who wants a more corrupt man-- whereas despite current developments, Riley ultimately is good. Spike admits he isn’t likely to win Buffy either, and they drink together.
Riley goes to see Buffy, and she’s not much interested in talking. He explains that his dalliances with vampires started after her incident with Dracula. But it’s not her fault; he soon moved from ill-conceived jealousy to addiction for being needed in a passionate way. He thinks Buffy has never needed him, and his evidence is that Buffy didn’t turn to him when Joyce was sick.
Buffy sees that the real issue is that Riley hates the fact that Buffy is stronger than he is. She isn’t going to change the way she relates to him. Riley drops another bombshell: he’s rejoining the military and headed for Belize later tonight unless she gives him a reason to stay.
Buffy storms out to the streets, where she’s surrounded by vampires of the feeding den, who are still mad that she burned down their place.
ACT IV
Buffy tells the vampire horde to get lost, but when they give her attitude, she actually kills all of them. Xander observes this and demands that she open up to him. “You’re acting like a crazy person. He also has figured out that Riley is the problem, largely because Riley can’t handle being merely a convenience anymore.
Xander tells Buffy, “You’ve been treating Riley like the rebound guy, when he’s the one who comes once in a lifetime.” He tells her to either let Riley go in a clean break if she doesn’t love him, or fight to keep him if he matters.
Buffy realizes Riley is worth fighting for and runs to meet him, but she’s too late to stop him from getting into the military helicopter, and as Riley is carried away on his mission, he doesn’t hear her calling.
Back at his place, Xander tells Anya he’s in love with her-- just because he wanted to make it clear.
NOTES
It's a shame that this is the exit of Riley, considering he's only become an interesting character once the creators decided they'd be writing him off. Someday the histories of Buffy will tell it more or less this way: Once upon a time, there was the new boyfriend Riley, attractive in a corn-fed, hunky sort of way, a confident government agent superhero and psychology teaching assistant. Soon enough Riley was the super-powered beau, and the fans were less than enthused. Slowly this lack of enthusiasm worked its magic on the reality of the show, and Buffy cooled towards Riley about the same time he lost his super-powers. Gradually he became more and more pathetic and uninteresting-- until he suddenly developed a taste for vampire kisses.
Now this is interesting; I love how delightfully sleazy Riley’s nocturnal escapes are. It's such a shameful, torrid practice born of all sorts of mixed emotions that it creates some interesting drama. Giles and Anya know about the vampire brothels, and both regard it as not really worth dealing with in a world of much greater evils. I doubt Buffy would care either, if not for her random rage. These are about the least evil that vampires can get-- they only bite people who pay them.
But Buffy is right to feel betrayed, and right when she says Riley is making a common mistake of men who frequent brothels, believing the hookers care. And one can't expect her to react any differently than she does, with revulsion and a sense of betrayal. But Riley explains himself exactly as best he can-- he did what he did out of rage, loneliness, and jealousy. And he's exactly right when he tells Buffy he doesn't really matter to her, just as Xander is when he tells her Riley has always been less a partner than a convenience.
What I appreciate here is that the show has always treated Buffy's ego consistently. Buffy is like most TV heroes; she's basically a self-centered person lucky enough to exist in a world that really does revolve around her. She's a hero, but she's so impressed with the awesome responsibility of being a slayer that she can be an insufferable martyr. In the cases where she has deviated from her own selfishness, it's an act of heroism, such as when she declined to crush Tara's hope of acceptance. She's really not a very nice woman, except to the people she needs at the time, but she's our hero, and that's good enough.
In fact, despite Buffy's apparent sudden conversion and race for the helicopter pad, I doubt her newfound appreciation would have lasted. But off he goes, and I was almost surprised that the episode didn't end with the radioed news that Riley was shot down over Belize, but you just wait.
In other news, it was nice to see Riley and Spike being lovable losers together, drinking and sullenly insulting one another. Spike has some nerve, doubting Riley's darkness even after the super-agent has driven a plastic stake through his heart. Why exactly didn't Riley kill Spike?
I also found the closing scenes with Xander quite satisfying and believable-- Buffy challenges Xander by accusing him of using Anya because the girl is there, and Xander goes straight home to tell the ex-demon that he really has fallen for her. It's a good thing to do and the best thing to come out of his argument with Buffy; besides, Anya has become a truly interesting character.
QUOTES
Spike: “Hey, let’s be reasonable about this.”
Riley: “You may have noticed, I left reasonable about three exits back.”
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