Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Storyteller

"Why can't you just masturbate like the rest of us?"

We’ve just had an episode of Angel all about redemption; now it’s time for Buffy, and Andrew, to do the same. And who better to handle the required mix of comedy and serious themes than Jane Espenson?

It’s always risky to handle a character like Andrew who is, as we are forcefully reminded, a murderer,   and use him as a comic foil. It’s to Buffy’s credit that, looked at overall, they get the balance right. It’s clever to frame the episode around Andrew filming the Scoobies for a supposed documentary, to have all kinds of funny and court-wall breaking fun, but then to undercut that, as the episode does, that Andrew is simply playing the outside observer role to escape from the terrible thing he did when being active. He tells stories to his own advantage, and this is where Buffy forces him to face up to the truth.

The ending is edgy, of course, as Buffy seems about to kill him- again emphasising the hard edge she’s had of late, with the prospect of the biggest armageddon yet. And we end with the unanswered question of “What if the tears didn’t work?”

This is all cleverly mixed in with the urgent need to close that door in the cellar, of course, which is causing unsustainably enormous Hellmouth activity. This loose end is tied up, but Robin’s vengeful hatred for Spike continues. And it appears that Anya and Xander may be reconciling as they have some good sex- is this a one-off, or...?

Jane Espenson seldom disappoints. Is this her last episode? Is this the last light-hearted episode? It’s tome to ask those questions: not too long to go now.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Killer in Me

"Who you gonna call... God, that phrase is never gonna be usable again, is it?"

What an unexpected excellent episode. A heartbreaking but also lovely Willow A-plot, a cleverly set up Giles comedy subplot, and also some stuff about Spike's chip. It's cleverly constructed, full of great lines, warm, affecting, funny; all the things we know about Buffy. Yes, last episode was so-so, an inevitability for even the best series when you have a ridiculous 22 episodes per season. This is the opposite, an encapsulation of the things we so love about Buffy.

The silly Giles sub-plot, as ever presenting much-needed levity and balance, is clever, explaining why that cliffhanger several episodes ago was never resolved. It gives the remaining characters something to do by giving them a reason to suspect Giles of being the First. It leads to the classic line “You think I’m evil if I bring a bunch of girls on a camping trip and don’t touch them?” Of course, it also gets those bloody annoying Potentials out of the way.

We also get Spike having potentially fatal issues with his chip, culminating in some people we don’t know from the Initiative giving Buffy a choice between repairing the chip and getting rid of it. We don’t yet find out, but I suspect she’ll choose the latter.

Finally, we get Kennedy’s rather lovely and romantic pursuit of a Willow who, in spite of everything and all her power, is touchingly innocent. This is what starts their relationship going but it’s also clever to have Amy curse her in such a way that, guilt-ridden, her subconscious chooses her own punishment- to turn into Warren. It’s nice that Amy gets a nuanced motive- “She almost destroyed the world and everyone just keeps on loving her?”, but perfect that the whole thing is solved, like the magic fairy tale Kennedy keeps talking about, by love’s true kiss.

Can we have loads more like this, please?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Never Leave Me

"That.s the worst attempt at pig slaughtering I've ever seen..."

So the big bad gets a name: the First, a one off baddie from way back in Season Two, which I blogged many years ago when I was single and childless. Something tells me this time round that snow and Christmas miracles may be in short supply.

This is a big arc episode with a job to do in moving the arc plot forward- the Scoobies need to learn who they’re up against, Andrew needs to become a comic relief prisoner of theirs (love the interrogations) and Spike needs to be captured by those monks for his blood to be used to resurrect that ancient vampire thing. All of this is achieved with some witty dialogue, a top comedy scene where Willow totally owns Andrew, and a lot of deep and superb dialogue between Buffy and Spike, who now knows self-loathing.

The cliffhanger with Giles isn’t resolved; we’re left hanging a while longer. But Quentin Travers and the WTchers’ Council appear, they’re hiding stuff from Buffy, and they’re off to Sunnydale to face the First. They all wear extremely old-fashioned, tweedy clothes that were last popular, pheasant-shooting types aside, with my grandparents’ generation, the ones who fought in the war. As late as 2003 this is a stereotype Americans have of the British, arguably much less so now.

Meanwhile, we get to see the Principal being cool but also see him discovering the body of The unsuccessfully sacrificed Jonathan, whom he buries. We now know there’s more to him than it seems... but what?

A very functional episode on what it has to do, then. But Buffy does functional with aplomb.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Conversations with Dead People

“I mean, I was afraid to talk to you in high school. And now we’re, like, mortal enemies.”

Here we have it, then; a proper arc episode, which develops the mysterious Big Bad. Oddly, there’s no Xander, one of the main trio of characters (behind the scenes issues?) or Anya. But the focus on Buffy, Dawn and Willow all individually, their paths crossing only thematically, makes them all the more emotionally vulnerable for being alone.

Dawn and Willow both get visitations from the dead which seem designed to undermine themabd the team for the upcoming hi-jinks. Fortunately Willow realises she isn’t talking to Tara when the suggestion to never do magic again is extended to a suggestion of suicide, puncturing the illusion. Dawn has no such epiphany, enduring an episode of poltergeisty weirdness only to be told by “Joyce” that Buffy will turn against her. Oh, and Andrew and Jonathan return to Sunnyvale, with Andrew being encouraged by “Adam” to kill an unsuspecting Jonathan, who dies serene.

Buffy’s story is cleverer, as a recently resurrected vampire turns out to be an old acquaintance and psych major, which leads to reminiscing and psychoanalysis; I love the scene where Buffy uses a tomb as a psychiatrist’s couch. These are great character scenes, establishing both Buffy’s inevitable superiority complex and the guilt she feels about it. And, just to add extra dramatic spice, Spike is killing and siring people again. Some monsters are unexpectedly people, but those we think of as people can also turn out to be monsters.

A change of direction, then, getting the arc back on track. And a bloody good episode.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Villains

"If I were you I'd worry about the witch..."

At last, in the twentieth episode, we get the real season Big Bad. She’s immensely powerful, she’s truly terrifying, and she’s Willow.

After last episode’s emotional power- the “previously on” reminds us not only of Tara’s devastating death but Spike’s attempted rape of Buffy- this episode is one of numbed shock.

Of course, no one initially knows about Tara as a scarily cold and vengeful Willow turns to the dark arts and goes single-mindey after Warren, saving Buffy’s life almost as an afterthought and using both her and Xander as pawns.

We see Willow, a character we know and love, utterly changed to become cold, ruthless, single-minded; she’s been this powerful all the time but that’s been ok because she’s lovely. Now she terrifies us, and it’s the emotional coldness that is the most chilling. But the slow torture and killing of Warren is what really does it- her “Bored now” obviously evokes the evil (and sexy...) Willow from the other reality, but worse; she actually flays Warren alive before burning him to death. It couldn’t have happened to a worse person but, as Buffy sort of explains to Dawn and Xander, Revenge is not justice. And her parting words are “One down”. What will happen to Jonathan and Andrew...?

Oh, and Spike gets a brief contractual scene where he has to undergo some trials to remove his chip or something. But right now I and most viewers side with Xander in being quite badly disposed to this attempted rapist.

Obviously a powerful and superb episode, notably with very little humour, unusually for Buffy. Outstanding.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seeing Red

“Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes.”

Wow. This is a powerful episode, to put it mildly.

Things are not well with the Scoobies, to the point where the only people who can help Buffy trace the Three Nerds are Willow, Tara (finally, and ominously, Amber Benson is in the opening credits) and Dawn. Anya is off being quite rubbish at being a vengeance demon while Xander, Who needs an urgent cultural awakening in real ale, is drinking bad lager alone. Buffy and Xander have fallen out over Spike- although it’s nice to see them make up later, like true friends- and the awkwardness about what everyone saw last week is palpable.

All of which contrasts with the lovely, joyous, wonderful and loving scenes between Willow and Tara; sometimes it’s so lovely to watch scenes of nice people being happy that you forget that this is a Josss Whedon show, and Joss Whedon is evil. Dawn’s squeeing joy at their being back together speaks for us all. Love hasn’t gone very well in Sunnydale lately, but there’s hope.

It’s touching to see Dawn visit Spike, who is unlikely to be around much now; she misses him, but is quite rightly angry at what he did to Buffy with his moment of weakness. And it’s amising to see the Three Nerds again, complete with Jonathan wearing a fourth wall-busting rubber costume to get this week’s Charles Atlas MacGuffin so an increasingly disturbed Warren can again play at being the alpha male.

Then it happens. Spike comes to demonstrate with Buffy, demonstrate with her... and tries to rape her. The act isn’t trivialised or minimised; it’s allowed to linger in its full horror, with a traumatised Buffy and flashbacks. When I first saw this episode, more than a decade ago, I thought this scene was misjudged, and the character of Spike was tainted by this act. But this time it feels different, because this is what rape culture is like; men who know their victim, and rape from an aggrieved sense of enlightenment. This kind of rape happens all the time, by “nice guys”, and it’s good to make that point, however upsetting. It’s also good to see Spike’s confused feelings of both guilt and continued entitlement, sadly realistic, and inevitable after this that he rides off into the sunset.

Buffy finally confronts the nerds on a heist and beats them, capturing Jonathan and Andrew. But Warren is still loose, and the last few seconds of the episode are harrowing, even when you know what’s coming. Tara’s death is deliberately sudden, shocking, and out of nowhere, and Williw’s red eyes are terrifying.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Entropy

"You're lesbians, so the hating of men will come in handy!"

Anya's back, looking for revenge! And... actually we get a rather witty and thoughtful episode that mixes comedy with very good characterisation, hitting exactly the right tone in the way that only Buffy can.

Xander starts the episode in a terrible state, drinking bottles of awful, undrinkable American lager. Fortunately, Anya's return at least saves him from that awful (though perhaps deserved) fate, in spite of going terribly wrong.

Other stuff is happening, of course; Jonathan is doing some spell type thingy, while the rest of the gang (well, Warren) seem to have ominous plans for him. Spike is still threatening to tell everyone about him and Buffy. Buffy and Dawn are slowly reconnecting. But much of the episode, played for comedy and performed with superb comic timing by Emma Caulfield, consists of Anya trying to get each member of the cast in turn to curse Xander. Eventually she connects with spike, over a bottle of bourbon. Very well, in fact. To the point of doinky doinky. Unfortunately this happens right in front of one of many cameras installed by the three nerds, just as it's been hacked by the Scoobies- and everyone sees. Including Buffy and Xander, both heartbroken. And this time the anger between Anya and Xander is mutual. The whole fallout is simply brutal.

And then we get a final scene, perfectly scripted, where Willow and Tara, the sweetest couple ever, get back together. This is the perfect ending to an episode that really does demonstrate this programme's absolute mastery of tone. Magnificent telly.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Normal Again

"What, you think this isn't real just because of all the vampires, and demons, and ex-vengeance demons, and the sister that used to be a big ball of universe-destroying energy?"

Wow. This episode is right up there with the very best, with Hush and Once More with Feeling. It really is that good.

And the idea isn't even intrinsically brilliant. A demon that makes Buffy think she's in a mental institution and her vampire slaying life is just fantasy. It could have gone very, very wrong. Instead it's a real highlight of the series.

It all happens because Buffy gets a little too close to the Three Nerds, who panic and send after her a demon with a complicated name that is going to have her "tripping like a Ken Russell film festival". But her alternate reality is cleverly done; instead of playing up the horror of being stuck in a psychiatric institution we her her loving parents, Kristine Sutherland is back, and she gets the chance of a normal life instead of one from which she's recently become very, very detached.

It's fitting that we finally get an episode that's all about Buffy, although Xander somewhat sheepishly returns to slot back into his role convincingly enough, Anya is troublingly missing, and Willow continues to pine adorably over Tara. But we also get some superbly metatextual touches, as the doctor describes Buffy's delusion as "grand overblown conflicts against an assortment of monsters" and, in a nice touch, not only does Dawn not exist in the other world but the doctor refers to the "inconsistencies" caused by her being retconned into Buffy's reality. We even have it pointed out that, with all the gods and monsters that Buffy has faced and fought in the past, her current nemeses seem to be a trio of pathetic teenage boys.

It's all very real to Buffy, because she actually was briefly put into such an institution before, when she first encountered vampires. It's all very real how much she comes to question which reality is the true one and, by the time she is persuaded to lock Willow, Xander and Dawn in the cellar so the demon can eat them, the episode feels like a horror film with Buffy as the baddie. That's brilliantly done.

And yet the final scene is best of all, as the episode pulls back to suggest that, actually, maybe the institution was real...? Absolutely peerless telly.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Dead Things

"I love you."

"No you don't."

"You think I haven't tried not to?"

Wow. That was... dark.

We begin with Buffy and Spike having some sneaky, kinky and, it's heavily implied, very good sex where she is extremely rough with him... and then things get post-coital, for once Buffy doesn't leave immediately and Spike is moved to ask "Are we having a conversation?". It may be good sex, but the ambiguity over whether it's hate sex or even a "thing" makes it problematic.

There are no such nuances in the next scene, though, as Warren, Jonathan and Andrew plan to use magic to make a woman their sex slave: that isn't just a bit rapey, it's literally rape, and right from the go these are dark waters to be swimming in. So when Warren finds his ex Katrina and argues with her, only to use the magic and have her instantly say "I love you, Master"... that's seriously dark. So when we next see her dressed as a French maid, waiting on all three of them and expected to service all three of them, and she even drops to her knees in front of Warren... that's incredibly dark for a fairly mainstream TV show, and one of the most uncomfortable scenes I've ever seen on TV. I'm glad she comes immediately to, and she calls them out as rapists and sets out to report the crime to the police; not to have had that happen would have been appalling. But I can't imagine such a scene being written in such a blatant way today. 2003 seems so long ago. The intent is, of course, clearly to call out rape culture, but it's done with a certain insensitivity.

So, once that has happened and, worse, Katrina is killed, all three of them are beyond redemption. Narratively, they have to pay for what they've done, even if Warren is both the ringleader and shows clear psychopathic tendencies, referring to Katrina's body as "it".

Meanwhile, Buffy is filled with guilt. Everyone understands, except a neglected Dawn, that the reason they no longer see her is because she works at the burger bar on top of a busy slaying schedule. But only she knows that she also spends a lot of time having guilty good/bad sex with Spike, the forbidden fruit. She is female, we as a society have double standards, so Buffy feels sex shamed.

This only intensifies, of course, when she again neglects her friends for Spike, so our already guilt-ridden Slayer is well-primed for being made to believe that it was her who accidentally killed Katrina. And the suffering this added guilt causes her is heart-wrenching to see, especially when she confesses to Dawn and explains she will need to confess and go to prison, causing a horribly teenage reaction.

Fortunately Spike, sheer chance, clever Scoobies and a busy police station allow Buffy to work out what appened, and I think we can forgive how convenient this is as it's good sleight of hand. Besides, this episode is powerfully and brilliantly crafted.

Meanwhile we get an awkward meeting between Willow and Tara, and Tara reveals to Buffy that she really, truly, didn't come back wrong at all. But even without Katrina's death on her conscience a tearful Buffy is wracked with guilt, telling an understanding Tara that she lets Spike do these things to her because it's the only time anything feels real. And she realises she's "using him", that that's wrong, so we have even more guilt. If only society made men feel such scruples...

So yet, bit of a feminist subtext there. And a powerful, harrowing, amazing episode.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Gone

"There was a voice, before. It made my coffee dance."

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a serious and harrowing episode of Buffy must be followed by a silly and light-hearted one. Hence this little romp where Buffy has a lot of fun being invisible and eventually even cheers up to the point where she no longer has a death wish.

Not that the whole episode is silly, though: Willow may be a magnificent sleuth here, but this is where her cold turkey from the crude drug addiction metaphor of recent episodes really begins. Buffy gets a visit from a social worker at the worst possible time, and her custody of Dawn is under threat.. but, fortunately, due to hi-jinks the clock us reset on that one. Phew. 

The sex scene between invisible Buffy and Spike is fun (once again it seems Buffy is rather rough and dominant in bed: wonder if Riley is visiting dominatrixes now?), but what happens afterwards is new: Spike actually kicks Buffy out because she's just using him for sex. Wow.

And we end with the Scoobies finally realising that Andrew, Warren and, of all people, Jonathan seem to be this season's big bad. Enough to make you miss Glory...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Smashed

"How've you been?"

"Rat. You?"

"Dead."

"Oh."

Another light episode, then, but one where stuff happens well and truly; the simmering sexual tension between Buffy and Spike eventually erupts into some symbolically building-demolishing sex, while Willow is led even further astray into the selfish use of magic by a de-rodented Amy. Mind you, the scenes of them both doing naughty magic in the Bronze are notable because this is the first time the Bronze has made an appearance in aaaages!

(Oh, and I bet Willow likes the Donnas. And Verruca Salt.)

Amy's first scenes are amusing, though, as she digests the news that three years have passed and that, anyway, the whole school was swallowed by the Mayor. And our three baddie's provide further amusement with the freeze ray and all that. But their main role in the episode is to prove to a Boba Fett-threatening Spike that his chip is present and correct; it's just that Buffy no longer counts as human since her resurrection, which is an alarming thought. Or, if you're Spike, a kinky one.

Buffy, for the first time ever, isn't quite as good as Angel and, it occurs to me for the first time, be a little past it's peak, especially now Once More, with Feeling is over. Still bloody good, though.

Bet we get a really serious episode next. You can always tell...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Flooded

"So... You guys wanna team up and take over Sunnydale?"

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...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Intervention

"The ancient shamans were next called upon to do the hokey pokey and turn themselves around."

Buffy has has a tough time lately. So much, in fact, that she's thinking about packing it all in, as hinted at rather a lot lately. This wouldn't be good for the longevity of the show, so here we have an episode which mainly consists of Giles convincing her not to do it. And while we're at it we get a bit of Stone Age Slayer history, a bit of character development of Buffy herself, who feels she's losing her humanity as the Slayer, and a lot of stuff about the series theme of Buffy needing friends around her. There's also a bit of inevitable foreshadowing for the end of this season with the line "Death is your gift".

Anyway, Giles thinks the solution for Buffy's angst is to take her seep in to the desert for a magical and surreal lesson in prehistory. And while Buffy is gone much farce ensues as Spike is introduced to the Buffybot (remember the Buffybot?) by Warren, with whom he is soon having kinky sex. The Buffybot, not Warren. And, naturally, much hilarity with mistaken identity ensures, and it's funnier than it sounds. Jane Espenson is good at writing this sort of thing.

 In season arc news, Glory has finally worked out that the key is a person, but she thinks it's Spike. And he bravely refuses to talk under torture to protect Buffy's sister. That's love, or something. And Buffy, in spite of the Buffybot, is truly grateful. But the season is clearly drawing to a close...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I Was Made to Love You

“I go online sometimes, but everyone’s spelling is so depressing.”

I know it’s been a while, but we’ve just moved in to a new house and I’ve just had a massive exam for work, all in the last two weeks. The blog will return to normal as life returns to normal and the cardboard boxes slowly get emptied. In the meantime, here’s an episode of Buffy for your delight and edification.

Yes, I realise that the concept of Warren making a science fiction sex robot has some serious things to say about the objectification of women, but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a very silly idea, Yes, it is a comedy episode, and the witty lines are of a standard one would expect from Jane Espenson, but it’s hard to shake the suspicion that she deliberately set herself the challenging task of writing a quality episode from what she knew was a silly idea. This is not an easy task, and, brilliant writer though she is and excellently written though this script may be, the episode does not succeed in overcoming the intrinsic silliness.

The idea almost redeems itself, however, with a wonderfully metatextual joke as the scoobies just accept the existence of the robot with a knowing wink to the conventions of the genre within which they exist: Buffy usually deals with the tropes of horror, not sci-fi. The only character who does not react in this post-modern fashion is Warren himself, both because of his character and because he seems, at this point, to belong in sci-fi rather than horror.

Aside from all this we have character stuff. Early on there is a surprisingly mature conversation between Buffy and Xander which further deepens the trend in recent episodes to emphasise Xander’s sudden maturity, what with his job and that. His comments to Buffy seem surprisingly worldly-wise, but the recent development of the character  means this does not seem out of place. I also like the fact that uber-capitalist Anya has been making heaps of money with online trading. Oh, and there’s a rather interesting scene in which Giles, rather menacingly, threatens Spike with bad things if he does not leave Buffy alone. My girlfriend rather enjoyed Giles and Spike’s male on male encounter…

The episode begins with Joyce beginning to throw herself into life again after her recent brain issues. She’s beginning to throw herself back into dating and beginning to look more like her old self. Or so we thought. The ending of the episode is one of the most upsettingly shocking things I have ever seen on television, but I’ll let you make that decision for yourself.