“I’m so used to you being a grown-up, and then I find out that you’re a person.”
Well, well, well! It’s only a couple of episodes since we were introduced to Ethan Rayne and hints of Giles’ “Ripper” past, and it’s paying off already. This is a great episode, and a necessary one: things had reached the point where the character of Giles needed to acquire some hinterland if he was going to show any depths beyond his function as father figure to Buffy. I could have done without the tiresome line about British people allegedly having bad teeth, mind.
Oh, and we get zombies for the first time in Buffy, although the episode doesn’t really focus on them much. The script is far more interested in Giles, and the effect of all these revelations on those around with him. Notably, it first brings Jenny much closer to him- it’s clear that their relationship is about to get physical and Jenny is happy to share even the troubling things about Giles’ life- but then she’s possessed by Eghyon. This has to be traumatic, and understandably she feels she has to push Giles away, at least for a while. This establishes, of course, that Giles may be a dangerous person with whom to have a relationship. Foreshadowing, anyone?
His powerful bond with his more-or-less adoptive daughter, on the other hand, is made even stronger. Buffy’s caring and understanding reaction to her surrogate father is lovely to see, and the final scene is the sweetest thing ever.
Of course, this being Buffy, the whole thing’s a metaphor, and this time it’s about the fact that our parents were young once, and may have done stuff. We’re told that the young Giles, in an obvious parallel with Buffy, became frustrated at the life that had already been planned out for him (I’ve just started playing Green Day’s “She” on iTunes as I write this, one of the comfort records of my teenage years), and dropped out of Oxford in frustration. Not much different from Buffy so far, except that he was a little older and didn’t have a Watcher to look after him. But then he fell in with the wrong crowd and started playing around with magic to get high. It was fun for a while, until someone OD’d and died. Gosh, do you reckon this might be a metaphor for something? And then there’s the photo, with the leather jacket and leather jacket. Surely that can’t possibly be a photo of a pyjama-wearing Bay City Rollers fan?
There are other great character moments, too. Cordelia is getting really quite integrated into the Scooby gang, although she’s as oblivious as ever. I loved her “He seemed perfectly normal yesterday when I saw him talking to the police.” There’s also a wonderful moment in the library as Willow shouts at Xander and Cordelia for wasting time with silly arguments while their friends are in danger, only to revert to her normal, diffident self. This is part of a definite process; Willow is slowly growing in confidence before our eyes.
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