"Creatures of the night shy away from Halloween. They tend to find it all too crass."
So here we arrive at the now-traditional Halloween episode. On the one level, predictably enough, it's a comedy episode to contrast with the heaviness of Buffy having her heart broken by that bastard Parker. But there's something else going on, a sort of taking stock. This is an episode that analyses all the regular characters and where they are at this exact moment, using their greatest fears to underline a point about each of them. The fact that the show stops to do this sort of thing is, of course, a blatant sign that things are going to change.
Oh, and at last we get a haunted house episode. Cool. Is it just me, though, or does this haunted house, supposedly just set up by students for a party, look a little too good to be realistic?
Buffy's still depressed, obviously, and there are some equally obvious parallels with her reaction to being rejected by Angel back in Season Two. That time she pushed people away, including her friends; this time she begins to do the same. Yet again she has trouble trusting people, and retreats into herself. She's very detached right until the end, and looking for excuses to avoid social activity, but she doesn't have any. Everyone, even Giles(!) has embraced the Halloween spirit, and the bad things, annoyingly, are refusing to come out to play.
Still, she isn't really reacting as badly as she did last time, and her friends are more aware of what they need to do. She gets some good advice, too, both from the rather nice Riley, who has "rebound" written all over him, and from Joyce, who is wonderful. It's so nice to see these two together these days, and the connection that they have without any secrets to act as a barrier. It's great that they can have these chats about the divorce, and men, and the importance of friendship. Of course, I love Joyce's line about her last boyfriend turning out to be a homicidal robot!
Buffy's fear as induced by the haunted house is a little unclear, but I think it's the fear of her friends getting hurt. Willow's is a little more obvious: a spell, more powerful than any she's ever casted before, going out of control. She's at a crossroads; she's done the run-of-the mill hedge magic, and is rather nervous about what the next step, into actual conjuration, might involve, and whether she can handle it. Still, as she says, "I'll know when I've reached my limits". Definitely no dramatic irony there.
It's rather touching that Oz is so worried for her. Being a werewolf, his own fear is being out of control, and he'd hate to see that happen to Willow. Of course, in the haunted house, losing control is exactly what happens to him, and he struggles to control his inner wolf. It's interesting, I think, that there's such a contrast between the laconic, inexpressive Oz and the raw animal fury of the wolf. It's almost as though he's repressing a powerful id very, very tightly. Again, definitely no dramatic irony there.
Finally, Xander is invisible and inaudible to his friends, an obvious reflection on his worries that not being at college has driven a wedge between him and his friends, as Anya rather helpfully points out. Still, he's a lucky man. Anya might not be the epitome of tact but she must really, really love him. This is the woman who ran away from danger at the end of last season, but here she runs unthinkingly into danger, unable to bear the thought that he might be hurt. While dressed as a bunny, naturally. Bless.
The ending is well funny, though. I let out a huge belly-laugh at Buffy summoning the demon and Anthony Stewart Head's perfect delivery of "… ...is not one of them, and will in fact immediately bring forth the fear demon itself." And Willow's right; the ickle demon is cute. And also, as hinted in the title, a nice metaphor. Our fears often are just blown out of their real proportion.
Oh, and who were those commando types again? Never mind. They were just Halloween costumes, right?
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