Never has a flooded basement been more redolent with obvious metaphor; Buffy has returned to the Hell of life and adult responsibilities from a stress-free afterlife, and all the pressures of adulthood- especially her overwhelming money troubles- are drowning her. Meanwhile, our three baddies for the season, introduced here, are intended as a contrast.
I have a bone to pick with the use of Jonathan, Andrew and Warren; they are geeks, and this is clearly intended to symbolise that they are unable to put away childish things. I'm a bit offended by that. I'm a geek (I mean, I do this blog), and I have responsible job, a mortgage and a wife. Oh, and any day now I'm due to become a father, something which is rather tending to dominate my every waking moment. I'm a fully functioning adult who happens to like geeky things. I'm a bit offended by the implied insult here and so, I would imagine, are many of the viewers. Buffy fans, after all, tend to be geeks.
Anyway...
There are a lot of things to note here. I note that Buffy is partly broke because her mother's medical bills are up her inheritance, for example. Thank Bevan we have the NHS in this country. We also have an interesting argument between Xander and Anya about whether they should announce their engagement, and he clearly has cold feet, nervous about the adult responsibilities it symbolises. Once again the theme rears its head.
Most dramatically Giles is back, and giving Willow a real bollocking for what she's done, which takes her aback somewhat. Worse, she implicitly threatens him for doing this before realising what she's done. We're getting plenty of hints that Willow is heading to a very dark place this season.
It's lovely to see Giles with Buffy, though; there's no doubt that he's her real dad, blood relative or not. Still, Buffy is not quite able to confide in him as she can with Spike. And she's still very emotionally dulled, although that could just be Sarah Michelle Gellar's acting.
We get quite a cliffhanger, though; Angel wants to see Buffy in an intra-network crossover...
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