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: Doublemeat Palace

"You're better than this!"

Yes, I know: it's been far too long. But from now on, aside from a mini-break between seasons, there'll be no non-current TV in this blog that isn't Buffyverse. Promise. I'm going to finish this marathon and enjoy myself in the process.

Anyway, this is an intrinsically depressing episode about the awfulness of fast food and the sheer soul-destroying and profound bleakness of working in such a restaurant, with its crushingly monotonous processes, made much worse by the fact that, as Dawn insightfully points out, Buffy is the Slayer and will therefore be doing such soul-crushing work for the rest of her short, violent life. So let's get Jane Espenson to write it and leaven all this with wit and humour, although I suspect I may see a moderately subtle vegetarian subtext here. But it's a nice little one-off tale, with a nice twist, and shows us the depressing economic reality of being the Slayer.

Oh, and this is the first episode of Buffy I ever saw, at uni, courtesy of my housemate. It kept my attention, although I took a while to become hooked.

Sub-plots include Willow's cold turkey from magic, this season's rather strained metaphor for drugs, with Amy as her bad influence friend whom she finally rejects- yay Willow- and Anya's and Xander's festering doubts about their upcoming nuptials. Anya's old demon mate is fantastic; I don't usually single out guest stars but Kali Rocha is brilliant.

This isn't, perhaps, a particularly great episode to return to, and there's a certain hint of mid-season treading of water. But even a mediocre episode of Buffy is superior to most other telly. It's good to be back.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wrecked

"It was like a meat party in my mouth!"

This episode is quite a shock. It's not as though Willow's journey to rock bottom hasn't been gradual, but to see her reduced to such uncharacteristic junkie behaviour is a huge shock. I mean, this is Willow.

I still think the metaphor of magic for drugs is a little awkward, but it's very well executed (I love the trippy direction of the "hit", and the obvious metaphor of her giving her body for drugs is suitably creepy) and a fairly straightforward dramatisation of someone reaching rock bottom and coming to terms with her addiction. No more magic for Willow, then. Ever.

Buffy, meanwhile, is dealing with her own addiction to meaningless sex with Spike; he's "just convenient". She begins the episode waking up in a destroyed house and full of a self-disgust that will remain for as long as she continues to use him for sex. And, while Buffy is distracted, and putting her energies into hiding this from her friends, the Scooby gang are divided, dysfunctional and much less effective. They have never looked more vulnerable.

And then there's Tara, newly single Anderson stuttering again without the lift that being with Willow gives her, especially upon seeing Willow with Amy, for all she knows a potential new girlfriend. 

Willow finally hits rock bottom, complete with evil black eyeballs, putting Dawn in terrible danger and needing to be rescued by Buffy, who instantly knows what Willow has done. Buffy giving Willow the cold shoulder here, and Dawn then slapping her, is a powerful and devastating moment. And I should take this opportunity to praise the performance of Alyson Hannigan, the awesomeness of which I too often take for granted. She, far more so than Sarah Michelle Gellar, is the star of the show here and always.

At the end we see the real psychological cause of Willow's problems; she still sees herself as the nerd she was and desperately needs to be "Super Willow". Poor girl. She has no idea how awesome she is.

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: Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered

“Blackmail is such an ugly word.”

“I didn’t mention blackmail.”

“Yeah, but I’m about to blackmail you, so I thought I’d bring it up.”

This is essentially a farce, well-performed by the cast and well-crafted by the increasingly impressive Marti Noxon; clearly a second comedy episode in a row to leaven the heavy stuff surrounding it on either side. And yes, it has a nice subtext about the violent possessiveness of men towards women and its extreme consequences. But there’s a problem. Xander is one of the central characters of the show, someone whom it’s essential that we like. And yet I’m trying to find a way of not seeing him as being essentially guilty of something awkwardly close to attempted rape here. I can’t. That’s a big problem.

The thing is, the spell which Xander gets Amy to cast seems to be a mind control spell, and a cruel one; he wants Cordelia to love him so he can reject her and break her heart. That’s nasty. Yes, I know there’s no implication of actual sex here, but we’re still talking the supernatural equivalent of rohypnol. We’re not talking something which is effectively just pheromones (that, I think, is what more-or-less lets Owen off the hook in the first episode of Torchwood, although even that is problematic). I’m glad to see Giles making it clear how disgusted he is, but even he doesn’t really get the point, and Xander gets off far too lightly. Buffy actually seems grateful that he didn’t take sexual advantage of her- surely that sort of thing should be taken for granted. Worse, Cordelia actually takes him back after dumping him (and makes the huge sacrifice of giving up her place in the social hierarchy) because she realises the spell was meant for her, and somehow finds this romantic as opposed to incredibly creepy and controlling.

All this is a huge problem for the series. What Xander has done is not ok, and Whedon & co simply can’t expect us to suddenly like him again.

Cordelia, on the other hand, I like a lot. She’s still as cluelessly tactless as ever (dumping Xander, in public, on Valentine’s Day!) but I just melted when I say that she was still wearing her gift from Xander, and her angry sheep accusing Harmony and co of being sheep is the best thing ever. Xander had better be very, very nice to her, or else. Her being so lovely deep down just makes him look even worse.

Oh, and I like Oz, too, because he punched Xander for making Willow cry. And Willow, of course, for the axe, and for that look on her face while telling everyone that “My boyfriend’s in the band”. And Joyce, for the sheer pricelessness. There are other couples on this Valentine’s Day, too; Angel is still gradually prising Drusilla away from Spike, while Giles is still unable to forgive Jenny.

It’s good to see Amy again, off course, this time as a witch in her own right. And I suppose that Buffy being turned into a rat allows Sarah Michelle Gellar to have a bit of a rest. The comedy farce element is well directed (I particularly love that slow-mo shot of Xander walking through a school corridor as all the girls perv at him) and performed, but there’ll always be a problem with the premised of this episode for me. Right now, I don’t like Xander much at all. The character is aged goods. He’d better bleeding well redeem himself.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Witch

“Why would someone want to harm Cordelia?”

“Maybe because… they met her?”

So, we have the first episode to take place with the status quo (the proto-Scooby Gang) established, even though there’s an interesting moment early on where Buffy questions whether Willow and Xander should be involved in something so dangerous. It seems the status quo is still a bit provisional.

It’s interesting to speculate how long it’ll be before I stop commenting on how the show is gradually establishing its little tropes and memes and just come to accept them. I predict that’ll happen by Angel, or thereabouts. Of course, by definition I won’t remember to point that out at the time, which will be annoying, probably.

This is the first of many non-vampire episodes, establishing that the Hellmouth has an equal opportunities approach to supernatural skulduggery. In this case we get witchcraft, complete with cauldron and bubbling green liquid.

Anyway… yes, as I was saying in my review to Welcome to the Hellmouth, the American High School and all of its tropes and traditions are a completely alien culture to me, and this episode is stuffed full of this sort of thing. We have references to a “Homecoming King and Queen”, whatever they are, and something called Driver’s Ed. Interesting. I never knew that. Do kids in America all learn to drive at school, or is it just a California thing?

Oh, and there’s cheerleading. Most people who didn’t grow up with it (i.e. foreigners like myself) basically have the same automatic reaction that Giles does: it looks awfully like a cult to the outsider’s eyes! Also, isn’t it, er, a bit sexist? We have boys doing manly sporty stuff while the girls are on the sidelines being decorative and supporting the boys. I'm not sure about that, and I say that as someone with a y chromosome.

Still, all that is more to do with my unfamiliarity with American educational institutions than anything that’s actually in the show, which is basically a meditation on parental abuse. The twist- Amy’s mother swapping bodies with her put-upon daughter- is the ultimate metaphor for parents’ failure to understand that their offspring are not just extensions of themselves but individuals in their own right. And her harsh words to Amy are pretty much the ultimate in parental verbal abuse.

There’s a real contrast of Amy’s mother with Joyce, too. While Amy’s authoritarian mother insists on her daughter repeating her own high achievements in youth as a cheerleader, Buffy’s mum is endearingly realistic, however much she may sometimes be inattentive or distracted by her own life, and crucially she comes to realise in the final scene, quite explicitly, that her daughter is a different person and basically inscrutable, as all other people are. Joyce would never, ever, want to be sixteen again: like all sane adults, she remembers all to well just how horrible it is to be a teenager.

Another said to this, of course, is that Joyce is staring to develop as a character, as opposed to a mere instrument of the plot. I think we also get our first sign of Giles as father figure here; he takes a very caring attitude to Buffy while she’s vulnerable.

There’s also some interesting love triangle stuff; Xander wants to ask Buffy out, and asks Willow for advice as she’s “one of the guys”, not realising that she has feelings for him. This is a perfect contrast with the “drunken” Buffy saying that she loves Xander because he’s “one of the girls”. It’ll be interesting to watch this dynamic, but already the characters are developing their relationships very nicely.

Another good episode, by Dana Reston, although notably lacking in the wit of the previous two Whedon-scripted episodes. Three episodes in and the show has a really, really promising set-up.